Distant Thunders d-4

by Taylor Anderson

  “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.”

&
nbsp; “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, i
t’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…”