Against the Tide

Chapter Twelve

“Good lord, I thought training was hard,” Tao said as Van Krief walked in the room. The ensign was just shrugging out of his undress uniform.

“I suppose I should have knocked,” Van Krief said, grinning.

“What? You have time to knock?” Tao said.

“I haven’t seen you in a week,” Van Krief said, stripping off her own tunic. “What have they got you doing?”

“Edmund set me loose on the marines,” Tao admitted. “We’ve been practicing boarding and repelling techniques. Herzer was right, they’re woefully undertrained. They march pretty, but they don’t have a frigging clue what to do with their pigstickers. What about you?”

“Pretty much the same, but training trainers.” Van Krief chuckled. “You should have seen their faces when I used the term ‘lesson plan.’ ‘Wass thet?’ ”

Tao belly laughed and nodded his head. “Training schedule? What’s a training schedule? Plan our training? You’re joking, right? They’ve got a manual of instruction, I’ll give them that. I finally convinced the company commanders to use Gunny’s technique.”

“Oooh, they must think you’re a right bastard,” Van Krief said, pulling on a fresh uniform.

“Training’s sergeant’s work,” Tao said, grinning evilly. “So each Friday we have a test. We tell them what the test will be. And we set aside sergeant’s time for them to train their troops.”

“Has it worked?” Van Krief asked.

“Getting there,” Tao admitted, finally dressed. “Last week was the first time we’d tried it. Only one squad took me seriously. They got released to go down to town; the rest of them kept testing and training and training and testing until nearly midnight. Better than a GI party, I tell ya. This week I notice they’re spending a lot more time training and less time sitting on their ass in the barracks. We’ll see on Friday.”

“Why are you getting all spiffy?” Van Krief asked.

“Oh, gotta look spiffy,” Tao said, blousing his boots and tugging them into position. “Part of the Blood Lord tradition. Bastards in combat and the best dressed troops around if they’re not actively training. I just got done proving to the whole NCO group of the marines that even together they couldn’t take me down. Now I’m going to look better than all of them for the rest of the day. Give ’em something to think about.”

“You are vicious,” Van Krief grinned.

“So, you getting anywhere with Herzer, yet?” Tao asked. “Speaking of vicious.”

“Bite your tongue,” the ensign growled. “He’s my boss. No-go time.”

“Well, maybe somebody will get smart and separate you enough that you can get a leg over.” Tao grinned, ducking out the door as a boot hit it.

“Don’t I just wish,” Van Krief said as she belted her tunic. “Don’t I just wish.”

“It is wishful thinking to believe we can win a decisive battle on present terms, Admiral,” General Babak said. The operations officer was looking particularly pale this morning. “The correlation of forces…”

“Correlation of forces is often a term for either cowardice or lack of imagination,” Edmund replied, bluntly. “I’ll agree that we’re holding the shitty end of the stick at present. But the way to fix that is to turn the stick around.”

“We’re outmanned,” General Piet pointed out. “They took relatively few casualties in the battle and we’re short on personnel. Among other things, even though we’ve gotten dragons sufficient to fill out the fleet, many of the dragon-riders are unwilling to perform sea duty.”

“Then they can be grounded until there are more dragons,” Edmund said. “And we’ll find recruits to fly the dragons. Yes, training them is going to be a bear. That’s G-3’s job to figure out.”

“We don’t have the trainers,” Babak snapped. “Or the facilities. We’re going full out working up the dragons with trained Naval riders and one carrier!”

“General, in a few weeks time, minimum, New Destiny is going to punch their fleet again,” Edmund replied, mildly. “What would you have us do? Sit on our asses in harbor and let the dragons that we have cover us? There are other harbors, other seaside towns. And the point to all of this is to stop their invasion force. We cannot do that from the harbor.” He looked around at them and shook his head.

“You gentlemen are starting to learn why being a general is not all it’s cracked up to be. The enemy is called the enemy for a reason. They don’t stand up to be shot. They are working just as hard to make sure we cannot fight as we are working to figure out a way to fight. Or supposed to be working. General Babak, has your department been working on battle plans?”

“There are, at most, three carriers against six,” Babak said, pointedly. “And they have those damned anti-dragon frigates. We’ve been looking at any number of scenarios. None of them bear any hope of success.”

Edmund closed his eyes and shook his head, solemnly.

“General, let me ask you something. Have you ever read any military histories?”

“Well…” the general said, inhaling. “No. But the point isÑ”

“The point, General, is that military history is replete with examples of inferior forces defeating, or at least stopping, superior forces.” Edmund steepled his fingers and rested them on his chin, his eyes closed. “General, you and your plans people come over to my quarters this evening. We’re going to have a little chat.” He opened his eyes again and shrugged. “If I have to learn you all one by one I will. General Hanour, your estimate on the point at which New Destiny will be ready to sail again.”

“Well, technically, they could sail at any moment,” the intelligence officer said. “But we estimate they won’t do so for at least another two weeks. That is when all their ships will be done with storm repairs.”

“Mr. Ennesby, when will the carriers be completed with their refit?”

The shipyard engineer had not previously been invited to staff meetings. But since the staff did not have a representative from Buships, to Edmund’s secret delight, he’d pressed Ennesby into service.

“Six days at present rate,” Ennesby said, looking at his notes. “But there’s another day to load the stores that had to be removed.”

“And the dreadnoughts?”

“More like nine days,” Ennesby said with a shrug. “More work to do and there’s a shortage of materials and trained personnel to work with what we’ve got. But since we’re not refitting their holds, just surface work, they can crew and load while we’re doing the final work.”

“Those ships don’t even have crews,” the G-1 almost wailed. “Or captains. Or petty officers.”

“Find them,” Edmund said. “Strip the merchant ships if necessary. I don’t care if you use a press-gang. Find them. We’re going to sail shorthanded. That’s a given. We’re still going to come out of the battle with at least a draw, probably a win. I know that because I don’t lose battles. Ever. And get it through your heads that you’re not going to lose them either.”

As the staff filed out Edmund continued looking at his briefing papers, only looking up when General Babak cleared his throat.

“Yes, General?” Edmund said, mildly.

“Admiral, I don’t think I can do this job,” Babak said, bluntly. “I didn’t want it in the first place. I’m a sailor. I can command a ship, but you were right, I don’t know the first damned thing about running a war. I want to demote to captain. The Corvallis’ XO is green as they come and there’s nobody else around that knows ships as well as I do.”

Edmund leaned back and rubbed his head with his hand, sighing.

“Request denied,” he said and raised his hand to forestall the immediate response. “Can you command a ship? Sure. You’re a good sailor. Okay. But I’ve met your deputy. And he’s no more trained for this than you are. I don’t put that on your shoulders, I put it on Bob Houser’s and to an extent Sheida’s. You guys should have been being trained in the theory at least before now. But the bottom line is that there’s nobody to replace you where you are. And you have at least gotten a grasp of what your job is. If I replaced you, your replacement would have to be told what operations are. You think you’re the lone ranger? I want a field command again. Not this… ‘North Atlantis Command’ nightmare. I want a regiment, maybe a battalion. I want to interact with soldiers and deal with their problems and train them up. And then use them in battle. It’s what I really love, not this…” He gestured at the paperwork in front of him. “Not this crap. But we go where we have to go and do what we have to do because that is what being in the military is about. And I said, ‘if I have to learn you one by one’ and I meant it. One of the things is, there used to be a term called ‘thinking outside the box.’ You know what I mean?”

“No,” Babak said, sitting down.

“Okay, in brief, what’s your current plan for a battle?”

“We locate the enemy fleet, move in range, launch dragons and hope we can keep their dragons off of ours.”

“Have you been looking at Vickie Toweeoo’s Silverdrake plan?”

“Quite a bit,” Babak said. “The problem is, if we put Silverdrake on the carriers, we lose space for Powells and our total bomb-load will drop by a huge fraction.”

“Why are you basing them on the carriers?” Edmund asked.

Babak shrugged and smiled.

“Dragon. Carrier,” he said, gesturing with one hand and then the other then putting both together. “Dragon-carrier. That’s what they’re for.”

“Uh, huh,” Edmund grunted. “Been talking to Vickie?”

“No, sir,” Babak admitted. “I didn’t know you knew her.”

“We’ve met,” Edmund replied. “What do you know about Silverdrake?”

“They’re smaller than Powells, lighter, faster, more maneuverable and don’t have much endurance,” the G-3 replied.

“More maneuverable,” Edmund pointed out. “How fast do you think the shipyards, hell, not even the shipyards, the ships’ crews, could put some sort of landing platform on the back of the ballista frigates?”

“You’re thinking of sending them out on the frigates?”

“I don’t know,” Edmund replied. “But it’s one possible answer. They don’t eat as much as the Powells but they’re going to cut into the frigates’ stores some. On the other hand, we’re going to be sending out supplemental resupply ships with the fleet this time. Okay, the Powells take off and they attack the fleet. How?”

“Each division will be assigned a carrier to attack,” Babak said. “We’ll probably have them go in high to avoid the ballista ships.”

“Why attack the carriers?” Edmund asked.

“They’re the main threat from the fleet,” Babak pointed out.

“Which are hard to destroy in the face of the anti-dragon frigates,” Edmund said, calmly. “You see what I’m driving at. Check your assumptions. Does taking out the carriers first work better than taking out the frigates? Do we carry enough bomb-load to fight a prolonged battle? Why have all the dragons scattered over the fleet? Why not concentrate the whole force on individual ships? Is there some way for the mer, delphinos or selkie to attack? Is there some optimum formation for our ships whereby they can give cover to the carriers, and each other? Circles? Squares? Staggered lines? What happens if they punch their invasion fleet at the same time as their main fleet? These are questions that your staff should be asking each other and you should be asking them. And then you get the answers, or the best guesses you can come up with.”

“Think outside the box,” Babak said, nodding.

“Think outside the box,” Edmund said with a smile. “Speed above all else, surprise above all else, utter ruthlessness.”

“Sounds like a quote,” Babak said, half questioning.

“It is, from one of the greatest generals of all time,” Edmund replied. “Major outside the box thinker. And an utter bastard.” He grinned. “Just like me.”

“Now that is a bastard weapon,” Shar Chang said.

The device on the workbench consisted of five narrow metal tubes attached to a large metal cylinder. There were a series of linkages set off to one side.

Chang picked up the device and hefted it, swearing.

“Damn, it must weigh eighty kilos.”

“Seventy-three point four,” Evan said, nervously. “Loaded and ready to fire. In its current state it’s closer to seventy.”

“And it works?”

“It should,” Evan replied. “It’s in the weight range of the Silverdrake with a small rider. There’s no effective way we can determine to aim it, however, so they’ll have to close to point-blank range.”

“And the best place to cripple a dragon is in the primary muscles,” Vickie Toweeoo pointed out. She wore new major’s pips and her leather uniform now sported a Jolly Roger patch. “Which means a frontal approach. Technically the best shot would be to fly directly at the dragon and roll for firing. But I don’t think we’re going to be doing that much.”

“One of these in the leg or the rear end is not going to make their dragons very happy,” Shar pointed out. “It would be safer to close from the rear.”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we, sir?” Vickie replied with a grin. “What I’m wondering about is training. Most of the Silverdrake riders have volunteered for sea duty. I’m not surprised, we’re a bit more… weird than Powell lovers.”

“You’ve been riding Powells the whole war,” Shar pointed out.

“That’s because it was all we were using,” Vickie said and grinned again. “But I’m a Silverdrake rider at heart. Powells are too slow and clumsy.”

Having had some heart-stopping rides on the “slow and clumsy” wyverns, Shar was pleased that he’d never have to ride a Silverdrake.

“This is where you were hiding,” Edmund said, striding into the workshop. “EvanÑsaw the air-guns for the ballista frigates. Marvelous.”

“Simple application of air-pressure engineering,” the engineer said, grinning. “And they have at least the same loft as a ballista.”

“Any chance of making some infantry-sized ones?” Edmund asked.

“Not infantry,” the engineer sighed. “We found out what Mother’s upper limit on pressure is. And while she’ll let you go past it momentarily, such as during firing, you’d have to way overextend it to make a decent infantry-sized air-pack. Actually, she allows more energy in a longbow or a ballista than she does in a system like this. This is about as small as it’s going to get.”

“And that ain’t infantry.” Edmund sighed, looking at the -contraption. “We’ve got sixty Silverdrake. How fast can you turn these out?”

“All the parts are available,” Evan said, his eyes going glassy. “I’d say about ten a day, more if I can get some more hands.”

“Vickie, how fast to get the riders trained?”

“We don’t even know if it’s going to work, sir,” Vickie replied.

“Oh, it works,” Evan said in a distracted tone. “We test fired it already.”

“The point is that there’s a lot that can go wrong,” Vickie said, pointing to the firing linkages. “And we’re talking about a saltwater environment. What happens when one breaks? Does someone on the carrier know how to fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Edmund replied. “But you’re not going to be on the carriers anyway.” He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to her. “This is the list of ships that are going to be refitted, by their crews in the next two days, to handle the Silverdrake.”

“You want us to land on ordinary frigates?” Vickie asked, glancing at the list. “Six of these are supply ships!”

“And when they convoy back to the base they’ll have top cover,” Edmund said, raising a hand. “Deal with it, Vickie. There’s no room on the carriers. We don’t have any more carriers for the Silverdrake. We need the Silverdrake. Ergo they have to go on other ships.”

“I just got these guys trained to land on carriers, sir,” the major protested. “What about LSOs?”

“The way you talk about Silverdrake I was thinking they’d land on the crosstrees,” Shar said with a grin.

“Thanks a lot, sir.”

“As the duke says, ‘figure it out,’ ” Shar replied, smiling. “I’d get with the captains, who are probably going to be highly pissed off, today. Then, when the ships are converted, get out there and start figuring it out. In the meantime, Evan will be turning out his little toys. As they become available you can start training with the new weapons. Speaking of which, Evan, they’re going to need ammunition.”

“Done,” Evan replied, reaching behind the device and picking up a short metal bolt with a cone-shaped end and a wickedly sharp barbed point. “We’ve got a machine shop that’s figured out how to turn these out in quantity. Each of the guns only has five rounds, so by the time the guns are ready, we’ll have all the bolts we need.”

“Those ships have stays at the rear,” Vickie said, suddenly. “They’re in the way for landing.”

Edmund grinned. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”

“If I thought it was easy I wouldn’t be here!”

A hundred and fifty arms were hauling on ropes, swaying a mast upwards as Edmund walked by the training area. It was raining and the ropes were slippery and tending to stretch. Not to mention that the carefully secured butt end of the mast was over a hole in the ground that was probably rapidly filling with water. He watched as the mast slowly ascended to about forty-five degrees and then at a bellowed command stopped.

“Handsomely!” Chief Brooks bellowed, wiping water out of his eyes as the admiral strolled over through the rain.

“Great day for it, Chief,” Edmund said.

“Good training, sir,” the chief snarled.

“That is what I’d call it,” the admiral replied, smiling, as one of the new seaman recruits, a female, slid in the mud and sprawled at the feet of her classmates. She leaped immediately back up and took the rope in hand, shaking off the fall.

“How’s it going?”

“Did you have any idea what a complete bastard Herzer was when you set him on us?” the chief asked. “BELAY. Check the guide ropes! There’s some stretch to port!”

“Yes,” Edmund replied. The mast was now up to about sixty degrees and looked to be headed holeward. The butt had been secured by tackles that were in turn connected to a variety of short posts in the ground. The top of the mast had lines on it as well, the heaviest pointing to notional “aft.” This, too, was heavily secured and tackled. Most of the recruits were on that line and it was they who had been doing the work of hauling it upright. But there were four lines leading off to either side, secured and tackled, and the majority of the remainder of the recruits were on those lines, clearly working on keeping it from tipping from side to side. The last, small, group, was manning the ropes that secured the butt.

“I told him it was going to rain like bejeebers today, Admiral,” the chief said, clearly unhappy.

“Gotta work in the rain, Chief,” Edmund replied but there was query in his voice. “There’s things called storms.”

“The ropes aren’t tarred, sir,” the chief explained. “That means they’re more liable to stretch in the wet. And that’s creating one hell of a safety hazard. If this thing goes over, we’re going to lose people.”

Edmund paused for a moment and then shrugged. “Should have tarred the ropes, Chief. Prior planning…”

“Prevents Piss Poor Performance.” Brooks chuckled, watching the slowly ascending mast carefully. “Did you teach that to Herzer or the other way around?”

“I taught it to the person who taught Herzer,” Edmund replied with a chuckle.

“And who taught it to you?” the chief said. “BELAY! Port beam, handsomely, handsomely. Belay. All together now!”

“I read it in a book,” Edmund admitted. “And then learned the lesson in real life.”

Brooks looked over at him and nodded, then looked back at the work in progress.

“BELAY! Okay, butt end, handsomely!”

The butt of the mast slowly but steadily, handsomely in navalese, crept towards the edge of the hole and then slipped, crashing to the bottom and shaking the ground all around.

“Not how you want to do it with a ship!” Brooks bellowed. “Or you’d have a bloody great hole in the bottom! Buttmen! Get those ropes off the butt and then man the forestay. Let’s start leveling it up!” He turned back to the admiral and nodded. “This is the ticklish bit, sir, if you don’t mind.”

“Have fun,” Edmund replied.

“Oh, yeah, sir, good training.”