I had intended to spend today in blissful, quiet isolation. Having been buried under a mountain of war-related paperwork for weeks, I figured I had earned at least one afternoon to indulge in a long soak in a half-bath and catch up on some Netflix.
Destiny, however, had other plans. A report regarding the results of our recent operation arrived first thing this morning, forcing me to sigh, haul myself into my formal attire, and trudge toward the conference hall. Even before I reached the doors of the Continental Congress’s cabinet room, the air was thick with the unmistakable hum of an uproar. It seemed the news had traveled fast.
Creak—
“Good morning, everyone,” I announced as I stepped inside.
As expected, every eye in the room snapped toward me. Oitotan, Eleanor, Mansfeld, Gideon—the entire leadership looked as if they were seeing a ghost.
“It… it truly worked,” Mansfeld stammered, his eyes wide.
“How did the enemy fail to notice?” Gideon added, leaning forward over the map. “How did we drop hundreds of mines right under their noses without a single one being detonated or a single ship being spotted?”
They were reacting, of course, to the realization that we had successfully blockaded the entirety of Havana in a single night. Even I had to admit it was a staggering achievement, one I felt like patting myself on the back for. On paper, it was an impossible feat: approaching a hostile, fortified harbor under the cover of darkness to scatter hundreds of volatile explosives without being detected or blown to bits.
When you describe it that way, it sounds like a masterpiece of high-stakes espionage. In reality, we had relied on a much simpler method.
We had just let them see us.
***
A few nights ago. Havana Harbor.
“We… we should stop here and get out! Quickly!” one sailor whispered, his voice trembling.
“Hush! What do you mean ‘stop’? We still have fifteen mines left on board—”
“Hey! You there!”
The two sailors froze. A voice barked from the darkness of a nearby pier. “What are you doing over there?”
“M-me? Who, me?” the first sailor stammered.
“Yes, you! You’re on that strange-looking boat, tossing things overboard. What the hell is that?” Pedro, a Portuguese merchant, tilted his head as he squinted at the unusual vessel. The ship was trailing a strange wisp of smoke—was someone grilling fish on deck?—and the crew spoke with an odd, hesitant cadence. He didn’t recognize them. Newcomers?
Just as Pedro prepared to press for an answer, another strangely shaped vessel materialized from the gloom behind the first.
“Haven’t you heard the orders?” a man standing on the second deck barked. He spoke with a sharp, imperious authority, using the informal panmal to address Pedro as an inferior. Instinctively, Pedro bowed his head, assuming he was in the presence of a high-ranking official.
“W-what orders, My Lord?”
“Forget it,” the man sighed, waving a dismissive hand. “Go back to your business. We’ll handle this ourselves.”
“But… those oak barrels… what are they?”
“Hmm? Have you never seen a barrel before?” The man gestured to the weighted barrel in his hand and offered a thin, predatory grin. “I’m joking. They’re buoys. High Command ordered us to set up an obstacle course to keep enemy ships from infiltrating the harbor.”
The man let out a weary snort. “You know how it is with the big wigs. They give the orders and don’t care about the poor bastards who have to do the work.”
“Hah, tell me about it,” Pedro replied, his suspicion vanishing instantly. “Well, good luck with that, My Lord. I’m off to get some sleep!”
Pedro carefully steered his boat away, making sure to avoid the “buoys” as he headed for his bunk. And with that, the Spanish Empire’s last chance to realize they were being mined into their own harbor vanished into the night.
***
“I told our men to act like Spanish cargo ships,” I explained to the stunned cabinet. “I told them to tell anyone who asked that they were laying buoys to block ‘enemy’ vessels. Sometimes, the answer to a complex problem is ridiculously simple.”
In a harbor where hundreds of ships are constantly moving, individual identification is nearly impossible. Furthermore, our sailors are the descendants of the Spanish who originally came to destroy the Roanoke colony; they are Spanish by blood and tongue. By using only our Spanish-descended crews, we ensured that the enemy wouldn’t even suspect they were speaking to ‘spies.’ Honestly, given how dark it was and the fact that I speak Spanish fluently, I probably could have done it myself.
As for transporting hundreds of mines? That was a matter of logistics. We anchored a massive steam-powered freighter far outside Havana’s reach and used several fast cutters to ferry the mines into the harbor.
“In any case,” I continued, “the immediate threat of a Spanish invasion has been neutralized. You all did well. We achieved this together.”
Wait, why is the reaction so lukewarm? I had expected a bit more fanfare after saving the Covenant through a masterstroke of strategy.
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
“Magnificent, Lord Nemo,” Oitotan said, his applause slow and deliberate. “I see you have learned much from my teachings.”
On second thought, I’ll take lukewarm over Oitotan’s arrogance any day.
Still, the victory was undeniable. We had dealt a crippling blow to the invasion force. The logistics network of the Spanish Americas, which had been meticulously built around Havana, was in tatters, and their planned landing operation against the Covenant had collapsed. It wouldn’t make them quit the war, but it had inflicted severe damage—all without shedding a single drop of our own blood.
From the perspective of someone living in this era, the naval mine was a terrifyingly revolutionary weapon. It made me wonder if our other assets—our improved cannons or our tractors—might produce similar “special effects.”
Gideon interrupted my musing with a cautious hand. “O Nameless One… what does this mean for the Spanish movements in the short term? Are they all trapped on the island of Cuba?”
I had hoped for that. If tens of thousands of Spanish troops had been concentrated in Havana, we would have hit the jackpot.
“Unfortunately,” I replied, “it seems the Spanish land forces hadn’t fully converged on Havana yet. Based on the troop numbers required for such an expedition, they’re likely still on the mainland of Nueva España for logistical reasons.”
“In Mexico City, perhaps?” Oitotan suggested.
“Likely,” Mansfeld agreed. “That is the only base capable of sustaining a force of that magnitude.”
We returned to the map, shifting our focus from the success at Havana to the enemy’s next logical move.
“I suspect they won’t be able to mount a serious offensive until the blockade at Havana is cleared,” Oitotan mused.
“I agree with Chairman Oitotan,” Eleanor added. “What is your assessment, Lord Nemo?”
“My thoughts are the same,” I replied.
We all agreed that we had bought ourselves at least several months of breathing room. We focused our efforts on distributing our volunteers among our various fortresses and strengthening our coastal vigilance.
We assumed that the Spanish war machine, once jammed, would stay broken for a while. We were wrong.
***
KRA-KOOM!
A colossal explosion tore through the air, the sound so intense it felt like a physical blow to the eardrums. The Count-Duke of Olivares, standing with his generals on a hill overlooking the harbor, winced and pressed his hands to his ears.
“I was careless for a moment,” he muttered.
Down in the harbor, where a small rowboat had been a second ago, only shattered splinters of wood remained. Olivares realized with a cold chill that he could have easily shared that boat’s fate if he hadn’t identified the “barrels” as bombs and taken a detour.
“My apologies, My Lord,” the harbor master panted, having sprinted up the hill. “We never imagined they would stoop to such cowardly tactics…”
“Nonsense,” Olivares interrupted, a bitter smile touching his lips. “In war, there is no use in insulting one’s opponent. There are only the clever and the foolish. This time… yes, we were the foolish ones. The enemy was cleverer.”
Despite his calm words, the Count-Duke’s face was a mask of cold fury. His generals stood paralyzed, waiting for his next command.
“We still possess the strength to crush them beneath our boots,” Olivares declared, his voice dropping an octave. “Has our army been touched?”
“No, My Lord.”
“Then we still have the power to destroy them. Our forces are stationed safely in Mexico City, untouched by this… ‘accident.'” Olivares turned to Admiral Oquendo. “Admiral, it seems Havana is no longer viable as our primary staging ground. We must abandon it.”
Oquendo’s eyes widened. “Abandon it?”
“We must move our base to Santiago de Cuba, farther from the enemy and far safer. What say you?”
Oquendo nodded slowly. “I agree. And though it goes without saying, we must postpone any large-scale landing operations or naval confrontations for the time being.”
Olivares gritted his teeth. While they were slowly and cautiously extracting their transport ships from Havana, it would take months to relocate the sheer volume of supplies gathered there—to say nothing of the effort required to clear the mines.
“Very well,” Olivares said, unfurling a map on a nearby crate. “There is only one way to strike the enemy immediately.”
He pointed to Mexico City. “His Highness, the Infante Ferdinand, is there. He commands fifty thousand of the elite troops we brought from the mainland, plus fifteen thousand colonial troops. That is sixty-five thousand men in total.”
Sixty-five thousand men. It is more than enough.
“Send the orders to His Highness,” Olivares commanded.
***
“Havana… blockaded in its entirety?”
“Regrettably, yes, Your Highness,” the messenger replied, bowing low. “The Count-Duke is currently withdrawing to the southern coast of Cuba. However—”
“Then the plan changes?” Prince Ferdinand interrupted, his eyes narrowing. “We shift from a sea landing to the secondary option?”
“Yes, Sire.”
The Spanish war machine did not grind to a halt simply because one gear had slipped. Ferdinand found the realization heartening. The possibility of Havana being harassed had been accounted for; they had faced similar setbacks during their attempts to land in England. Compared to the disaster of 1588, this was a manageable complication. Their cargo and ships were mostly intact; they were merely delayed.
However, the Prince’s expression remained grim. “Then it means I must march north myself.”
From Mexico City to the enemy’s borders was a grueling march of hundreds of kilometers across a continent as vast as Europe. Even with the occasional assistance of transport ships along the coast, it was a monumental task. Previous reconnaissance had indicated that while the Covenant had established a dense network of fortresses, the land itself offered little in the way of plunder.
They would be low on supplies while facing a long, arduous campaign. Ferdinand sighed and mounted his horse, looking back at his assembled troops.
“We march immediately. We will not waste another second.”
“Your Highness? Does that mean—”
“Mobilize the troops. Inform the Viceroy of Nueva España. We are finally departing for enemy territory.”
The young Ferdinand was only in his twenties, yet he had already made a name for himself in the Seventeen Years’ War by defeating the Swedish and English and crushing the Dutch. He was the King’s favorite, and his military prestige was soaring. While French intrigue had originally aimed to ruin him, Louis XIII’s sudden focus on domestic affairs had left Ferdinand’s political standing ironclad.
As a general who had never known the sting of defeat, the Infante Ferdinand led sixty-five thousand men on a march toward the Continental Covenant.
***
“This is impossible. They couldn’t possibly be moving that fast…”
“It is the truth, General Mansfeld,” the scout reported, his breath hitching. “The Spanish are moving northeast along the coast without pause. If that host crosses the Mississippi, civilian casualties will be unavoidable.”
A heavy, suffocating tension descended upon the Covenant’s borders.
***