Distant Thunders

CHAPTER 2

Adar, High Chief of Baalkpan, Chairman (by acclamation) and High Sky Priest of the Grand Alliance, paced restlessly in the large conference chamber. He felt uncomfortable in his new role, and truthfully, he would have done almost anything to avoid it. Almost. The problem was, uncomfortable as he felt, there were very few people he personally trusted with the responsibility at this critical and confusing time. Those he did trust already had crucial and possibly even more important roles to play.

Keje could have done it, even though he’d probably never spent six consecutive months on dry land in his life. He was a hero and he’d nearly sacrificed his Home and his life to defend the “land folk” of Baalkpan. Keje had actually been the first acclaimed as High Chief, but he’d flatly refused. He had a Home. Battered and wounded beyond imagination, Salissa Home was still his responsibility and he was her High Chief.

Adar understood that. Being Sky Priest of Salissa was all he’d ever aspired to himself. Over the last year however, old Naga, High Sky Priest of Baalkpan, had grown increasingly disassociated and Adar had assumed more and more of his duties. Land folk needed a Sky Priest to help chart their course through perilous times, just as sea folk looked to their priests in perilous seas. With Naga’s death, and that of the great Nakja-Mur, Adar had been Baalkpan’s second choice and he found himself practically drafted to fill the void caused by the loss of both leaders. He really hadn’t had a choice. He’d become a prominent, well-known figure to all the diverse elements of the Alliance and he was one of the few people everyone seemed to trust. Ultimately, he’d concluded, the one thing he couldn’t do to avoid the job was let someone less committed than him or Keje take it.

He honestly believed Matt could have won the necessary support, even though he wasn’t “of the People,” but there would have been some dissent. They needed unity now above all things, and Matt was far more useful at the point of the spear. They’d never even discussed it, but Adar knew Matt would have agreed. He probably would have been astonished and horrified even to be considered. That left only Adar with the popularity, strength of will, and determination not only to continue the fight, but to carry it to the enemy once more.

He still wore the priestly robes of his former office, but his responsibilities had expanded dramatically. Though all Homes on land or sea were considered equal by tradition, Baalkpan had taken the lead in the war and its leader had gained at least the perception of being a little more equal than other members of the Alliance. Adar agreed with the arrangement in principle; somebody had to be in charge, but he wasn’t convinced he was up to the task. Becoming a High Chief was difficult enough, but leading the entire Alliance was something else again. Chairman was the loftiest title he would accept.

He knew he was a better choice than some, since his dedication to “the cause” was unwavering. He spent most of his time convincing less enthusiastic allies that the war wasn’t over and all they’d won at Baalkpan was a single battle. Final victory would be achieved only when the Grik were utterly eradicated. That was an argument he could put his heart and soul into, one he’d advocated ever since they’d discovered the true nature of their enemy. He wasn’t as confident he was the best choice to implement the policy, however. He allowed himself a small grin. Of course, that was what he had Captain Reddy for.

The conference would soon begin and the chamber was filled to overflowing. It wasn’t as large as Nakja-Mur’s Great Hall had been, but it would be months before that edifice was completely rebuilt. At least the great Galla tree the hall once encompassed had survived the fire. When the first new leaves began to unfold on its charred branches, the People took it as an omen of healing and heavenly favor. It had given them even greater confidence in their choice of Adar to lead them. Adar only wished he were as confident as they. He was beginning to understand the profound difference between strongly advocating a course of action, and ordering that action carried out.

He continued to pace while the expectant chatter grew ever louder. Nakja-Mur would have lounged on a cushion, outwardly calm. Even when inwardly terrified-as Adar had known he often was-he’d always managed an air of confidence, if not always in himself, then in the people he’d chosen to advise him. Adar had many of the same advisors, those who’d survived, and he’d even acquired a curious new one since the return of the evacuated seagoing Homes: a human holy woman, a nun who’d been with the Amer-i-caans Captain Reddy rescued from the amazing diving ship. Matt called its crew “sub-maa-riners,” and apparently, their wondrous vessel still lay on the beach of Talaud Island.

The nun, Sister Audry, was an… interesting creature. She spoke the Amer-i-caans’ tongue with a different sound and Adar had learned she sprang from yet another human clan, the Dutch. He understood she was attractive too, by human standards, yet she had no mate and cited an oath to her God to take none. Adar couldn’t imagine why any God-and he was beginning to suspect his Maker of All Things and the human God were one and the same-would require such an oath. Nevertheless, an oath was an oath, whether demanded or freely given. He didn’t understand it-yet-but he did respect it. With the scarcity of human females in the vicinity, however, he would have thought she’d face resentment. Not so. All the Amer-i-caans appeared to respect her abstinence as a matter of course, and many sought her out just to talk. Adar did too. On the few occasions they’d had leisure to visit, he’d been charmed by her conviction, personality, and philosophy-even as he’d been troubled by the implications of much of what she’d said.

There was no more devoted servant of the heavens than he, but he was fully aware there were… gaps… in the dogma of the Sky Priests. He’d once theorized the Amer-i-caans didn’t believe that differently than he did. He’d been wrong, but as Matt would say, the devil was in the details. He’d finally concluded that they simply sailed a different path to the same destination. He was learning from Sister Audry that it was a much different path… and yet…

He shook away those thoughts and tried to concentrate on the business at hand. This was a staff meeting, planned days before the strangers from the east arrived. They had much to discuss before Commodore Jenks and his officers entered for their first official audience. Adar had actually already met them. Instead of waiting for the strangers to come to him, as was traditional among the People when visitors called, he’d greeted them on the dock with the full courtesy and fanfare Matt told him they’d expect. Adar was nervous at first in the presence of those he had no doubt were descendants of the “ones who came before,” since so much Lemurian liturgy was founded on that ancient visit. But he’d been struck by how different they’d been from what he’d expected. Jenks, in particular, had been formal and polite, but also… condescending. Adar quickly shed his initial awe when he realized these representatives of the Empire of the New Britain Isles were mere men, after all: other humans like those he’d come to know. Certainly not holy messengers. They no longer made him nervous, except for whatever… worldly significance their presence might imply. That added yet another dimension to his religious ponderings.

Adar was anxious to speak to their leader again, but this meeting was for high-level staff only. Even those residents of Baalkpan who’d begun returning after the battle were not allowed. They’d run before; they might again-this time carrying sensitive information. There were foreigners present, but only ones who’d proven themselves steadfast allies.

Saan-Kakja, High Chief of the Fil-pin Lands, was perched rigidly on an ornately embroidered cushion, attended by several of her closest advisors. She and her personal guard had arrived at the height of the land battle for Baalkpan and had helped turn the tide. Since then, more of her troops, artisans, laborers, and beasts of burden-not to mention precious materials-continued to arrive in an uninterrupted stream. Saan-Kakja herself was a spirited, darling creature. She was quite young for her office, but Adar had discovered she had a will of iron. She’d once been led astray by self-serving advisors and seemed determined that it never happen again. She had the most mesmerizing eyes Adar had ever seen: warm and inquisitive like yellow-gold stars, but woe was he they fell upon when they were touched with fire. Adar thanked the Heavens continuously for the alliance Captain Reddy had forged between them.

Safir Maraan, Queen Protector of B’mbaado, was striking as always, her jet-black fur and polished silver breastplate complementing her penetrating eyes. She was older than Saan-Kakja, more experienced, and far more self-assured, but she too was an “orphan queen,” and despite the utterly different societies they’d sprung from, she and Saan-Kakja had become fast friends.

Her betrothed, Chack-Sab-At, accompanied Safir. Once a simple, pacifistic wing runner on Salissa Home, the amber-eyed, brindled Chack was now a scarred and hardened veteran. Somehow, he’d managed to retain a measure of his irrepressible humor, but it had been tempered by a sharp, worldly wit. He’d seen so much of war already that his innocent youngling’s soul was gone forever. He was now a respected warrior, bosun’s mate for sunken Walker, and a captain of Marines.

General Muln-Rolak, onetime High Protector of Aryaal, also attended Safir. He was old and scarred from many battles-almost to the point of disfigurement. Many of the scars dated from a time when he’d battled Safir’s own father. He stood with her now as a trusted friend and colleague. Their lands had once been bitter enemies, but in this war, they fought together as inseparable allies and their relationship had become almost one of father and daughter. Together, at least until Saan-Kakja’s regiments were up to strength, they commanded the second-largest army in the Alliance. It was composed of warriors and refugees from both their enemy-occupied homelands on Java.

People of lesser rank stood for the steadfast Sularan regiments who’d remained to fight after the bulk of their own people, across the Makaassar Strait on Sa-leebs, fled in the face of the Grik horde.

Then there were the Amer-i-caans, of course.

Beside Captain Reddy, as always, stood Nurse Lieutenant Sandra Tucker, petite, sandy haired, and much shorter than the towering (by Lemurian standards) man she so clearly loved. Despite her size, she was a dynamo, and through her skill at administration and trauma surgery, a truly astonishing number of People literally owed her their lives. Adar had appointed her Minister of Medicine. With the other surviving nurses who’d come through the Squall-Karen Theimer (Letts), Pam Cross, and Kathy McCoy-she’d created, from scratch, a highly efficient and professional Hospital Corps.

Commander Alan Letts (Karen’s new husband) was still chief of staff, and due to his administrative abilities-he’d been Walker ’s supply officer-Adar had named him Minister of Industry. He’d undergone a transformation from his old Asiatic Fleet days, and Karen was probably responsible for changing the easygoing, arguably lazy, fair-skinned kid from a place called Idaho into one of the most industrious and indispensible logisticians in the Alliance.

Bradford, who emphatically claimed not to be an Amer-i-caan, was Minister of Science, and served as plenipotentiary at large.

Commander Perry Brister, Mahan ’s former engineering officer, was Minister of Defensive and Industrial Works. Lieutenant Commander Bernard Sandison, Walker ’s torpedo officer, was Minister of Ordnance. The big Marine, Pete Alden, was General of the Army and Marines, and Tamatsu Shinya was his second in command. Lieutenant Steve Riggs was Minister of Communications and Electrical Contrivances, and Brevet Major Ben Mallory was minister for their still nonexistent Air Corps. Ben, like Bernie, was still recovering from serious wounds they’d suffered in the battle.

Adar recognized that he’d bestowed lofty-sounding titles upon them, despite the fact they each had other jobs. It was also clear that, except for “Aahd-mah-raal” Keje-Fris-Ar being Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, and a few other People in charge of agriculture, labor, etc., most of the titles belonged to destroyermen. It didn’t matter. After the battle, they were so popular they could all have become kings, but they’d insisted he take the lead. No one would object. Besides, they knew best what they were doing. That being said, everyone except Matt, Sandra, and Pete were new to their “jobs,” including Adar, and though he’d never had any difficulty with public speaking before, he decided to let them go first, to set the tone.

He began to call on Matt, but briefly wondered what to call him. “Supreme Commander of All Combined Allied Forces” seemed much too stiff and unwieldy for everyday use. Matt had refused the rank of aahd-mah-raal for reasons of his own, but even though there were other aahd-mah-raals now, and many captains, there was no question who was in charge. Adar supposed it didn’t matter. There was only one Captain Matthew Reddy. That was how Adar addressed him now, summoning him to speak: “Cap-i-taan Reddy, if you please. Before we begin this discussion in earnest, what was your impression of our visitors?”

Matt appeared thoughtful for a moment. “My initial impression,” he began, “was much like Chief Gray’s. I thought they were a pack of arrogant jerks. In fact, the more we talked with them-with Jenks, anyway-the stronger that impression became. If I’d had time to think about it, I’m not sure I’d have let them send off a ship.”

“What would you have had us do?” Bradford retorted, sensing a reprimand for his compromise. “Hold them hostage? We were not in much of a position to do that. Or were you thinking of holding the girl against her will?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Courtney. Of course not. But the girl doesn’t want to go with them; she wants us to take her home. We might have used that as leverage to keep all their ships here. As it stands, they’ll know about us, and where we are, long before we’re ready to send an expedition to meet them.”

“Do you consider them a threat?” Adar asked.

“Sure. Why not?” Matt sighed. “Mr. Chairman, I consider everyone not in this room a threat, because only these people, and those they represent, have proven they’re not. Do I think these ‘new’ Brits’ll swoop down like the Grik and attack as soon as they know where we are? No. Jenks acted like they had other problems besides us, although neither Rebecca nor O’Casey seems to know what they are. Something that’s sprouted up since the two of them have been gone? Maybe.” Matt shrugged. “And I don’t think they’re a threat like the Grik, either. They certainly don’t eat people, and I don’t think they’re much interested in our real estate. They may see us as a rival, though, which we might be soon enough.” He looked down at Sandra. “To be honest, based on the technology we’ve seen, in the months it’ll take them to get back to wherever they came from and return here with a sizable force-if that’s their intent-we’ll have enough of the new weapons we’ve planned that we’d paste them good. The thing is, they’re a threat in the sense that they’re a distraction. Just the possibility that they’ll send a fleet is enough to pin some of our resources here and in the Philippines when we should be chasing the Grik before they catch their breath.”

“No one wants to destroy the Grik more than I, but is haste truly so important?” Adar asked.

“Yes, Mr. Chairman. It’s essential.”

“But you won’t be ready to pursue them for months. These weapons you speak of, this ‘technology,’ won’t be ready for some time.”

“True, but we can, must, mount some operations fairly quickly. And when the new stuff’s online, I’d rather use it against the Grik.”

Adar nodded. “It seems, then, that we have several imperatives: First, keep the pressure on the Grik; keep them off balance, as you’ve said. Perhaps we might accelerate the departure of our new Expeditionary Force. Second, we must treat with this Jenks and keep him satisfied that we truly are preparing an expedition to return his lost princess. Try to befriend him and avoid alienating him. Finally, once we do return the girl to her people, we must do everything we can to make friends with them, not only for the benefit of our war effort, but-and I notice you did not mention this-to alleviate the ‘dame famine’ that afflicts your human destroyermen.” The lack of female companionship for Matt’s men after an entire year had created what Silva had coined a “dame famine.” In the pre-war Asiatic Fleet, it would have been considered extraordinary for the men to “do without” for a couple of weeks.

Matt shifted uncomfortably. “What you say is true, Mr. Chairman. All of it. To accomplish everything you described would be ideal. Lifting the dame famine would sure be a help, too, but I didn’t want to mention it, to seem selfish…”

“Nonsense. To… abstain as long as most of your people have is unnatural, and cannot be good for them. Rest assured, that imperative is as essential as any other, as far as I am concerned.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”

“Now, let us continue with how to accomplish the goals laid before us. Aahd-mah-raal Keje; what of the Navy?”

Keje rose with some difficulty. His leg was stiffening up. He should have been using a cane or something, but he’d refused. “The Navy, Mr. Chairman, doesn’t exist, for all practical purposes. Donaghey is fit for sea, as are some of the prizes, but it will be weeks before Tolson can sail. The shipyards survived major damage in the fighting-I believe the enemy meant to take them intact-so the new construction is proceeding almost uninterrupted. We have abundant hardwood laid up from when we cleared the killing fields around the city. It has remained covered and is drying well. Perhaps we will complete this ‘kiln’ thing Mr. Brister has begun. The yards are already working around the clock”-he grinned quizzically at Matt as if wondering if he’d used the phrase appropriately-“and the keels for six more modern warships have already been laid.” His grin became eager. “This technique of ‘mass production,’ where all the parts for each ship are made to a particular plan and any one of them will fit each ship, is truly a wonder. It speeds production amazingly.”

Letts nodded. “I’m glad you approve and I’m glad it’s working. We’ll use the same technique for just about everything, eventually. As soon as we’ve settled on the various plans”-he winced-“and overcome the… reluctance of some of our craftsmen.” He looked at Matt and explained. “We’ve always been amazed by Lemurian ingenuity, and their structural design techniques are beyond anything any wooden human navy ever launched, but they aren’t used to blueprints. They just make ’em the way they’ve always made them. The quality of their craftsmanship is beyond debate, but master shipwrights dominate the shipbuilding industry and they’re jealous of their status. They don’t much approve of just anybody being able to look at drawings and knock something up.”

“Understandable, I suppose,” said Matt, “but they’re going to have to get used to it.” He nodded at Saan-Kakja. “The finalized plans for our first steam frigates have already been sent to Manila, but you’ll probably run into some of the same problems.”

Saan-Kakja bowed and replied in her almost little-girl voice, “The plans were accompanied by my personal command that they be followed to the letter. I have allowed some innovation within the design parameters, as you suggested, but there will be little variation.”

“Fine,” said Matt. “Don’t want to stifle new ideas, but we need a lot of good ships more than we need a few perfect ones.” He turned to Keje and his expression softened. “What about Big Sal?”

Keje frowned. “She is refloated,” he grumbled. “A simple matter of pumping her out. However, the damage to her upper works was… extreme. Your… bizarre… idea might not only be the best means of returning her to the fight, but the single realistic one as well.” He sighed. “I mourn my Home and yearn for her to be as she was, but I might as well yearn for the Grik to leave us alone of their own accord. I fear, with her conversion, our way of life will be altered forever. Will other Homes be changed as well? Will they even be Homes anymore, or forever become dedicated weapons of war? What of the wing clans? There is already resistance. How will I sort that out? I also confess that I find it exceedingly strange to rebuild her as a… conveyance for weapons that do not yet exist.”

“They’ll exist,” Ben Mallory assured him. “It’s going to take time, but there’s no question we can do it. Also, knowing the way you ’Cats like gizmos, I bet there’ll be less resistance than you expect.”

“You’ve settled on a design, then?” Matt asked.

Adar watched as the conference increasingly shifted from his grasp. He didn’t mind. In fact, it was as he’d hoped. Captain Reddy had been somewhat withdrawn since the loss of his ship, but the man was made for command. The situation required that someone step up and take it, and he was the best one for the job. Adar had set the policies, the goals they’d work toward; it was up to his Supreme Commander and the rest of his staff to decide how to implement those policies.

“Sir,” Mallory replied, “we’ve come at this from every angle and run into problems with just about every design.” He grinned. “I’d love to have P-40s, but that’s just not going to happen. Right now, I’m leaning toward a variation of the old Navy-Curtiss, or NC, flying boats.”

“Flying boats?” Matt asked, eyebrows raised. “I thought we’d decided to raze Big Sal to a steam-powered flattop. Use her as an aircraft carrier.”

“She’ll still need to be flat to carry and maybe even launch the planes-like the old Langley -but we’ll fit her with cranes to lift the planes out of the water. See, the problem is wheels. That, and it would be nice if the aircrews could set the planes down if they’re damaged. If they don’t float, we’re going to lose a lot of guys. Sure not going to fish many out of the drink.”

“I see what you mean, but why not floats and wheels?”

Mallory scratched a scar under his bearded chin. “Well, believe it or not, Skipper, there’s no rubber. I know, it would be all over the place around here back home, but Courtney says even then it wasn’t indigenous. Whether anything like it exists somewhere else, who knows.” He paused and glanced at the blank faces around him. Of course, Lemurian faces were always blank, but none of them spoke up. “Anyway, there’s nothing like it here. Given enough time, we’ll probably come up with a synthetic, but our refining capability just isn’t that far along yet, and frankly, I don’t know how.” He looked at Bradford, who shook his head.

“ ’Fraid not. As Mr. Mallory has suggested, I know there has been some success making a synthetic rubber from petroleum, but I haven’t the faintest idea how it’s done.”

“So in the short term,” Mallory continued, “we’d be better off using rigid wheels and some sort of shock-absorbing arrangement. I still think floats are the way to go, though. At least for now.” He shook his head. “Believe me, Skipper, I wish that wasn’t so. Floatplanes add a lot of problems. They’ll likely be bigger, heavier and slower. Payload will be less and they’ll have greater power-to-weight requirements. More complicated, too. Basically, like I said, NC flying boats… Nancys.”

Matt grimaced. “I was proud when I heard we flew those things across the Atlantic-little before my time-and Walker was even one of the picket ships before she joined the Asiatic Fleet. But if I recall, only one of ’em made it all the way.”

“We’ll make ’em better. We have stronger, lighter materials to work with. Hell, most of a British Hurricane is made of wood, and they’re pretty good fighters. The toughest thing in the air might be those British medium bombers-what are they… or were they? Hell, I can’t remember.”

“Wellingtons,” Bradford supplied, rolling his eyes at the young pilot.

“Right. They may be slow, but they can take punishment. They use the same kind of diagonal bracing the ’Cats use on their big ships. We can do that too. Even the engines shouldn’t be too hard. We off-loaded all the machine tools from Walker and Mahan before the battle and we’ve been building new machines hand over fist. Maybe we can even get the lathes and stuff off Amagi. Then there’s the submarine, with all her tools and steel-if we can salvage it. We’ll make the engines of iron, but flute the cylinders to save weight. Water cooled, if we can cast the crankcases as well as I think we can…”

“Very well,” said Matt, almost laughing. “I see you’ve given this some thought. Have you considered, however, that if the planes have floats and fly off a Navy ship, they can’t possibly be part of the Air Corps? All the crews you train to fly them will have to be naval aviators!”

“Hey! Wait a minute!” Mallory shouted good-naturedly, but he was laughed down. They needed the humor but after a moment, Matt sobered.

“Madam Minister of Medicine?” he asked stiffly. Sandra looked up at him with a small smile for the title, but realized Matt had already begun to retreat into his funk.

“Better,” she said. “We still have a lot of wounded, but I think the vast majority have turned the corner. A lot have already returned to duty”-she glared at Ben and Bernie-“although some shouldn’t have. The Lemurian’s polta paste continues to work miracles.” She referred to an antiseptic, analgesic, viscous paste made from the still somewhat mysteriously prepared by-products of seep fermentation. Seep was a less refined version of the substance made from polta fruit and was a popular spirit and strong intoxicant. The analgesic properties were fairly straightforward, but Sandra still didn’t know why it fought most infections so well. Neither did the Lemurians. They’d had no concept of germ theory when the destroyermen arrived, but they’d had the paste since before recorded history and knew it worked. Before the Squall that transported them here, Sandra had heard of experiments with a type of mold being used to fight infection. She wondered if the same principle was at work here. She didn’t know and couldn’t even begin to guess without a microscope, but the stuff was a lifesaver that beat sulfonamide all hollow.

“How’s Mr. Garrett? And did Silva report to you like I told him?” Matt asked.

“Mr. Garrett’s wounds are healing nicely; he just had so many. It’s a miracle he survived. Same with Silva, but even though Mr. Garrett’s unhappy just sitting around, he does behave. Silva, as you know, is less reasonable. He swooped in for a moment and let Pam Cross patch him up again, but she was going off duty and he took off with her. Frankly, I think she and Risa can make him take it easy better than I ever could.” She sniffed, and while others laughed, she noticed a ghost of a smile reappear on Matt’s face.

Silva’s antics were as legendary as they were infamous. He’d carried on what sometimes appeared a genuine affair with Chack’s own sister, Risa-Sab-At. Risa had been captain of Salissa ’s forewing guard, but now they’d amalgamated all the various guards into fewer unified commands. She was now captain of what would become Salissa ’s entire Marine contingent-after they’d undergone the more rigorous training required of Marines. In many ways, Risa was clearly Silva’s soul mate, just as reckless and fearless and with the same warped sense of humor. The Lemurians hadn’t cared about the rumors surrounding them, rumors Silva and Risa did their best to encourage-only initially-to get Chack’s goat. Now, either they seemed determined to get everyone’s goat-or the rumors weren’t really rumors.

The addition of Nurse Pam Cross from Brooklyn to the menage added a measure of disgust, as well as a grudging respect for the gunner’s mate among the human destroyermen. They’d come to accept that Silva might have taken up with a “local gal,” whether anything physical was involved or not. They just assumed, naturally (or unnaturally), that there was. For him to then snatch one of the only available dames did breed resentment, but it was more of a wistful “how does he do it” sort. Lurid speculation regarding how the threesome might… interact… was probably actually good for morale in a roundabout way, and none of them-Silva, Risa, or Pam-would confirm or deny anything.

Three soul mates, Matt chuckled to himself, two of whom had to come to another world to find each other. Well, there was nothing he could do about it. He’d once ordered Silva to quit carrying on with Risa, thereby breaking one of his own fundamental rules: Never give an order you know won’t be obeyed. But in almost every other way, Silva had really straightened up. “Silva’s been helping you with ordnance development?” Matt asked Bernard Sandison.

Bernie grimaced. “Yes, sir. When it suits him. He’s hurting, I know, so I haven’t pushed him yet, but some of his best work has been on ‘toys’ for himself.”

“Do his ‘toys’ have practical applications?”

“Oh, yeah, but they’re not exactly priority items. The man’s a diabolical genius when it comes to figuring out new and better ways to kill things, and he does love to try them out. It’s just… his priorities are generally more… tactical than strategic.”

Matt allowed a genuine laugh then, at Bernie’s tact. “You mean he concentrates on ‘up close and personal.’ Well, we need that too. Give him his head, but try to run him off for a while. He needs to heal up.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“Speaking of that, what have you come up with?”

Sandison shifted on the cushion his wounds made him use. Matt knew the young, dark-haired torpedo officer was highly motivated to please; he still blamed himself for not recognizing the-perfectly good-Mk 10 torpedo among the condemned fish they’d scrounged in Surabaya so long ago. That extra torpedo might have made a lot of difference if they’d known they had it and used it at a different time.

“Right now we’re rebuilding to some degree. One of the shops took a hit from Amagi and it’s a real mess. None of the machinery was badly damaged, thank God, but we’re still getting a roof back over it. That said, we’ve begun to refine some of the projects we were already working on. I think I can give you guncotton, or gun… whatever they use for cotton around here, pretty soon. That’ll give us a high explosive capability for the four-inch guns. We’ve already started making exploding shells with a black powder bursting charge, like the ones they used in the last war. Not as good, but…” He paused when he saw the captain’s grim expression. The only four-inch guns they had were on Walker -underwater. They’d salvage the guns, certainly, and maybe the one on the submarine, but they wouldn’t know if they could salvage the ship until she was dry. “Anyway,” he continued softly, “I wouldn’t recommend using it for a propellant charge until we’ve had a lot more practice with the stuff. Better stick with ordinary gunpowder for now. Same goes for small arms. We just about shot ourselves dry, I’m afraid, and black powder won’t work worth a hoot in the automatic weapons. At least not the BARs, thirties and fifties. They gum up too fast.

“That brings up another problem: brass. I’ve got brass pickers combing everywhere looking for spent shell casings. We’re okay on the four-inch guns, and the shells for those are big enough to turn more on a lathe, but we’ll have to extrude small-arms brass and… I really just don’t know how. We can reload what we’ve got; make it work pretty well, in fact. Before we lost power, we made molds and swages for thirty-, forty-five-, and fifty-cal with grease grooves. We can make bullets out of solid copper, tin, or lead with a gas check of some kind, so they’ll work with the fast-twist rifling. Lubed copper bullets work fine in the Springfields and Krags with a slow rate of fire. You can use ’em in the Thompsons and the 1911s too, but they get really filthy. And like I said, when the brass is gone, it’s gone-unless we can figure out how to make more.”

“I knew about all that stuff,” Matt said, “and we’ll see what we can do about power. Mr. Riggs, I’ll get to you directly. But what about other stuff, Bernie? The ‘new’ weapons you mentioned?”

“Yes, sir. Personally, I’d love to have torpedoes, but that’s going to take a while longer. We’ve still got the propulsion body of the condemned torp with the crumpled warhead and we’re reverse-engineering that, but the precision required…” He sighed. “We’re just not there yet.”

“What can you give me?”

“Exploding four-inch shells and bombs, sir. Lots and lots of bombs. Pretty powerful ones too, eventually-if the guncotton works like I expect.” He glanced at Mallory. “I know the bigger ones might not do us a lot of good until we have something to drop them from, but when we do-”

“Don’t build them before I find out how much weight the planes’ll carry!” interrupted Ben.

“Don’t worry.” Bernie grinned. “We’re working on little ones first, like mortar bombs. In fact, that’s what they are.” He nodded at Alden. “Pete-the General-and Campeti came up with the idea. Real mortars-the ‘drop and pop’ kind. Way safer, lighter, deadlier, and with a lot longer range than the ones we’ve been using. No reason you couldn’t drop ’em from an airplane, though.”

“Very good,” Matt complimented him, “but that still leaves us, in the short term, with a dwindling number of small arms when what I want is more.”

“Yes, sir. I’m afraid our best short-term option is still a musket of some kind, like you said. That’s one of the things Silva’s been fiddling with, although his idea of a musket-”

Matt interrupted. “But I’ve also said I’m not sure muskets really give us much advantage.”

Pete Alden spoke up. “Skipper, I think they will. You’re worried about arrows reloading faster and being about as accurate. Normally, that would be true. You’re also thinking they’re not much advantage over what we’ve got, but what about the enemy? They don’t use longbows. I don’t think they can. They’re just not built for them, so they’re stuck with crossbows, which take about as long to load as a musket and they’re not as deadly. Besides, they’ll be an improvement in another respect: right now, all our spearmen have to carry a longbow as well. Once they have muskets, with socket bayonets, they can shoot and stick with the same weapon. There might also be a psychological effect on the enemy. Maybe they’ll flip and go into one of Bradford’s ‘Grik rout’ fits after a single volley. I’m not counting on it, but they will be better than what we’ve got. As to the accuracy issue, as lame as our industry is right now, that’s going to improve. We can already make the barrels much better than they did in the seventeen hundreds, and eventually, smoothbores can be rifled…”

Matt was nodding. “I see what you mean, Mr. Alden. Very well. You’re the infantryman and I’ll defer to your judgment. I guess we have to be prepared to backtrack a bit before we can leap ahead. At least see what you can do about preparing for simple breechloaders, if you can.” He took a breath and looked at Bernie, decision made. “For now, if muskets are what we can do, that’s what we’ll do.” He paused for a moment and glanced uncomfortably around the chamber. “What about

… that other thing we talked about?”

Sandra gave him a stormy look, but remained silent. She’d clearly already stated her opinion.

Bernie’s eyebrows knitted. “You mean… the gas?” Matt nodded and Sandison frowned, glancing at Tamatsu Shinya. He sighed. “Making the stuff isn’t that big a deal. Mustard or chlorine is dangerous, but not hard. The problem is dispersal-and dispersing it far enough away from us, but close enough to the enemy. Wind would always be a factor.” He hesitated. “Some may not be all that concerned about ethical issues, as far as the Grik-”

“ I am concerned about the ethics of such weapons,” Shinya interrupted sharply.

Matt looked at him and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Believe it or not, Colonel Shinya, so am I. So is everyone here. Maybe not for the sake of the Grik, really; I wish God would stomp them all like bugs, but gas is just wrong. Using the stuff would take us and our friends to a level almost as bad as the Grik-a level I don’t want to be on and I don’t want our Lemurian allies to ever see.” He took a breath before continuing, now directing his words primarily at Adar, who’d shown an interest in the “wonder weapon.” “Gas kills everything. Indiscriminately… horribly. It’ll kill animals, Grik, ’Cat prisoners-and any of Shinya’s people who might be working for the Grik under duress. I will not gas ’Cats or men-even Japs who aren’t working for the enemy against their will.”

Matt rubbed his eyebrows. “I know it may be hard for you to understand, Mr. Chairman, but I grew up around guys who somehow survived gas attacks in the Great War and… well, ‘survived’ isn’t the best way to put it; ‘lingered in misery’ is probably better, and they only got a little of the stuff. Honest to God, much as I hate them, it would turn my stomach to gas even the Grik. I’d rather burn them alive. We’re going to have to think about this a lot more.”

The chamber grew quiet for a moment and Adar was genuinely taken aback by the intensity of Matt’s evident revulsion toward what seemed, by description, such an effective and efficient weapon.

“Moral issues aside,” Matt continued soberly, “even if we made gas and solved all the problems with delivering it, how do we protect our troops? Unfortunately, we do have to think about it and we do have to solve that problem, at least. Does anyone honestly think this Kurokawa wouldn’t give gas to the Grik if he thought it would benefit him? He’s helped them in every other way. Like Ben said, we don’t have any rubber, and even if we did, how do you make a gas mask for a Lemurian?” Matt shook his head. “There’s no Geneva Convention on this world, governing this war, but we have to decide right now that if we ever make gas, it won’t be used willy-nilly. Won’t be used at all unless we’re in a jam so tight we don’t have any choice.” He shrugged and Sandra grasped his hand. He looked at Adar. “That’s how I feel, and that’s the deal.”

Adar said nothing. He had no choice but to agree, but he was perplexed. Clearly, Captain Reddy was extremely sensitive about the subject; all the humans seemed to be. Gas must be a terrible weapon indeed if one was willing to sacrifice the lives of one’s own troops to avoid using it.

“We don’t even know if Kurokawa and any other Japs are left,” said Captain Ellis, speaking for the first time. He’d been Matt’s exec on Walker before the Squall and had commanded Mahan on her suicidal dash. He was currently without a ship, but he was one of Matt’s best friends, and Matt was always interested in what he had to say. “We know the Grik ‘rescued’ a lot of survivors off Amagi,” he continued, “but they might have eaten them, for all we know.”

“Perhaps they did,” Shinya grudgingly admitted, saddened by the possibility, but glad they’d changed the subject. “Our prisoner thinks otherwise however.” He referred to Commander Sato Okada, the lone survivor the Allies had taken into custody. Matt still hadn’t talked to the new Jap directly; he’d been too busy. It was probably time he did, but he honestly wasn’t sure how to approach the interview. Shinya had spoken with the prisoner at length and the man was a font of information about Captain Hisashi Kurokawa and the Grik-he hated them passionately and yearned for their destruction-yet unlike Shinya, Okada hadn’t put the “old war” behind him. He’d been willing to cooperate with the Americans against the Grik, and if he’d been able to arrange such cooperation before Amagi was destroyed, he would have. That didn’t mean he was willing to ally himself with the enemies of his emperor. Wounded by Kurokawa in the battle, he’d hidden from the Grik “rescuers” and allowed himself to be taken by the Americans and their allies for the sole purpose of supplying information about their common enemies: the Grik-and Kurokawa. Beyond that, as a Japanese officer and a prisoner of war, he had no other reason to live.

Shinya continued. “Okada says this Regent-Consort Tsalka, and their General Esshk are different from other Grik. They may have taken the lesson of their defeat to heart. He believes if they themselves are not killed for their failure, they will try to preserve as many Japanese as they can to help prepare for… well, what we are preparing for: our next meeting.” He looked at Matt somewhat accusingly. “As Captain Reddy knows, there was a minority faction aboard Amagi already… frustrated with Kurokawa’s command in general, and his association with the Grik in particular.”

Matt nodded at Shinya, accepting blame for not telling him he knew some of Amagi ’s crew were unwilling to aid the Grik. But it hadn’t made any difference in the end, as he’d known it wouldn’t. With Amagi coming for them, they couldn’t pick and choose those aboard her they might kill. Shinya knew that, and he also knew that, by not telling him, the captain had been sparing Shinya’s own conscience. Nevertheless, his point was sound and heartfelt.

Matt cleared his throat and turned to Riggs. “Now, Mr. Riggs, all these grandiose schemes depend on power. What have you got for us?”

“Simple reciprocating steam engines, Skipper, just like we’re planning for the ships, but dedicated to powering generators. Nothing very difficult about building the generators; we still have plenty of copper and there’s more coming in. People here already knew how to make wire, even if it wasn’t for carrying current. It was mostly for structural reinforcement or ornamentation. We’re standardizing most things on one-twenty DC, just like the ship. Nearly everything we have runs off that. We’re also going to have to at least wash out Walker ’s generators when we get them up so we should make new ones as much like hers as we can. We have all the specs, and it’s always nice to have spares! The ship’s generators are little guys, though, twenty-five kilowatts, about the size of a car engine and transmission. We might need bigger stuff eventually. We’ll need some steel, too.”

Matt grimaced. “Plenty of steel in the bay,” he said, referring to Amagi. As soon as Humfra-Dar and Aracca had returned, they’d moored beside the sunken battle cruiser and begun stripping her exposed upper works. Amagi rested in about sixty feet of water, and the eventual plan was to flood down four of the mammoth Homes to build a cofferdam around her. Then they could retrieve the entire ship, piece by piece. Matt didn’t even want to contemplate the stresses involved in holding back sixty feet of water, but the Lemurians assured him their ships could take it. Commander Brad “Spanky” McFarlane, Walker ’s engineering officer, and now chief naval engineer for the Alliance, was convinced they could do it. A lot depended on where Amagi ’s bow had come to rest after breaking away, however. They were fairly certain it was “inside the box,” but there was probably other heavy wreckage scattered on the bottom. If one of the Lemurian Homes flooded down on top of any of it, it might cause serious damage.

“Okay,” resumed Matt, “but that brings up another issue. Acetylene. We removed all the oxygen and acetylene bottles from Walker and Mahan before the… last battle, but with all the repairs we’d made, we’re just about dry. We need more, lots more, to break Amagi, not to mention repairing Walker… if she can be salvaged.”

“Never fear, Captain,” proclaimed Bradford cheerfully. “I may know little about synthetic rubber, but acetylene has been around for a hundred years! Quite simple, really.”

Matt inwardly groaned. What was “quite simple” to Bradford in theory was rarely as easy in practice as he made it sound. “How do we make it?” he asked guardedly.

“Well, acetylene gas is the natural result of combining water with calcium carbide! It can be safely stored in acetone.”

“Okay, where do we get the calcium carbide and acetone?”

“Calcium carbide is made by baking limestone with other easily obtainable ores at extremely high temperatures-I understand an electrical arc furnace is best.”

“An electrical arc furnace?” Matt repeated. He looked at Riggs. “ Big generators.”

“Indeed,” agreed Bradford. “But the result will be abundant calcium carbide, which we can use for other projects as well-desulfurization of iron, for example, once we get around to making our own. Acetone can be made by distilling wood. We have quite a lot of that, but it is a wasteful process. During the last war, it was made with corn to produce vast quantities. Perhaps we can find some local flora with similar properties. We still need ethyl alcohol anyway, to improve the quality of our gasoline, since tetraethyl lead is certainly out of the question for the foreseeable future!”

“Why do we need ‘vast quantities’?” Riggs asked, and Bradford looked at him with astonished eyes.

“Why, if we are ever to make genuine cordite propellants, we must have acetone!”

Matt sighed. “Okay. Letts? Get with Mr. Bradford and Labor and decide what you’re going to need.” He looked back at Riggs. “That leaves communications, and if we’re going to have to cross the whole damn Pacific, or Eastern Sea, to take the young princess home, we’ll need sonar, or some other acoustic mountain fish discourager.”

They’d found active sonar was the best way to deter the gigantic ship-destroying monsters, or mountain fish, that dwelt exclusively in deep water.

“I don’t have anything to tell you on the sonar yet, Skipper, but communications is looking up. We still have all of Walker ’s radio equipment, and, as you know, I’d already built a decent transmitter here after the Japs bombed our other one. We just didn’t have the power to run it. We’ve begun mass production of even better crystal receivers too. Right now, I’m drawing up plans for a simple, powerful, portable spark-gap transmitter based on a surplus Army Air Corps set I picked up when I was a kid. It was a BC-15A, made in 1918 for airplanes, believe it or not. No tubes or anything really complicated. The only problem with it was that it was pretty… broadband… as in, all-band. My folks used to get mad as hell when I’d play with it when they were trying to listen to the radio.”

Matt laughed. “That’s not going to be a problem here. Even if the Japs still have a receiver, we’ll be transmitting everything in code. Good work. I guess that still just leaves us with power-power to make the things that make power, I mean.”

“Yes, sir. No fast-moving water or anything so, at first, I guess we keep using the method the Mice cooked up. The ‘brontosaurus merry-go-round. ’ ”

“Right.” Matt glanced at the precious watch on his wrist, then looked at Adar-almost apologetically, it seemed-as if he regretted taking over the meeting. “I guess that’s it then. Mr. Chairman, do you have anything to add before our guests are shown in?”

“Nothing for now. I do so enjoy having a plan. Let us speak with these Brits, as you call them, and discover whether anything we learn from them conflicts with our own priorities. I may have something to offer then.”