The other generals nodded, apparently satisfied. Some resented Jash’s meteoric rise in the ranks but all acknowledged his ability. “Where is First General Esshk?” one asked. “And the Chooser?” he added as an afterthought.
“I have no idea where the Chooser is,” Ign said dismissively, “but Esshk is in the north again, at Lake Galk, inspecting the new wonder weapons General of the Sky Ando labors to complete.”
“They’ll have to be told.”
“Yes,” Ign answered. “I actually suspect the Chooser is in Old Sofesshk now, and knows more than we already. First General Esshk is quite far, however, and it’ll take time for word to reach him, even with the pennants. The mountains require a much greater number of signal stations and each relay still tends to compound errors. . . .” He paused, considering. “I’ll risk my airship,” he said decisively. One of Esshk’s black zeppelins was maintained ten miles back in a great, camouflaged pit that had once been a cavern, its roof blasted away. Exposing it was chancy, but now was better than later. He looked back at the aide. “I’ll prepare a report and ensure the airship’s crew has the latest news you brought us.” He raised his gaze to the officers around him. “As for you, begin the redeployments we discussed at once. Have a care for enemy flying machines, however. They mustn’t suspect we’ve guessed their plan. I want them to come to me here with everything they have!”
Lake Galk
“Most impressive, General of the Sky Ando. Most impressive indeed,” First General Esshk almost gushed, looking out at the lake and the fat, drifting pall of smoke standing over the sinking carcass of an unfinished ironclad greatship of battle. A wispy, dissipating tendril of white smoke still connected the settling wreck to another greatship on the horizon to the north. Esshk’s entourage included the local regent and numerous influential Hij of the relatively thinly populated province surrounding Lake Galk. At least it had been thinly populated before the war. Now the formerly pastoral mountain shores around the long, deep lake, resembling a ragged crack in the earth filled with water, teemed with Uul laborers, new industry, and shipyards. The forests on the nearby mountains were rapidly being denuded for their timber. “An expensive demonstration,” Esshk chided gently, “but effective.”
“Thank you, Lord,” Ando replied, less effusive. Like Muriname before him, he hated and feared the Grik. Who wouldn’t? With their tightly packed teeth, tearing claws, and reptilian shape, they horrified him. And their feathery fur added to his sense that he was surrounded by vicious, flightless, birds of prey. The fact that Esshk and the senior officials accompanying him were dressed in ornate, if macabre, finery only underscored their barbarity. But Esshk was Ando’s lord now, and he’d sworn to serve him. He’d do it despite his inner fear, but couldn’t pretend to like it.
Esshk didn’t care. If he noted Ando’s lack of zeal, he more than made up for it himself at present, and Ando was relieved. A happy Esshk had been a rarity during their association, and was less likely to allow Ando and his few comrades to be eaten. Movement caught Ando’s eye and he glanced to the south, spying one of the big Grik airships approaching in the distance. Its shape and dingy black coloration disturbed Ando on a primal level, reminding him of a painting of Namazu he’d seen as a child. But this giant catfish wasn’t a mythical beast, and it could fly.
He looked back at Esshk. “And not that costly. The old-style all-gun ironclad battleships are doomed. Though powerful and well protected, they’re excruciatingly slow. Only longer-range weapons can keep them relevant. Yet even if we had time to strengthen and rifle their guns, we’d never improve them enough to counter the still-greater range advantage of the enemy guns on their new iron steamers. Certainly not in time to influence the current situation.” He waved out at a shipyard across the lake to the west. “Though only one conversion is yet complete, we have more than sufficient unfinished hulls to make a formidable fleet of flying bomb carriers. And the fact they’re unfinished actually makes conversion simpler. You’ll have half a dozen of them in just a few months, and that should more than meet your most pressing need: to drive the enemy from your shores. When you can focus on rebuilding your offensive capability, we’ll start an entirely new class; smaller, faster, more difficult to see or hit, that can perform the same task as their lumbering predecessors. Obviously, since they are smaller and require less labor and materials, we can make more of them.”
“Obviously,” Esshk agreed, noticing the airship now himself. It was aiming for a mooring mast near the once-scenic lodge where he was staying barely a mile away.
“In fact,” Ando continued, “the greatest cost of this demonstration was the trained pilot. The only drawback to this system is the time it takes to train skilled operators who can only perform a single mission.”
“Perhaps,” Esshk agreed, “but there’s no shortage of trainees. Those you use now were doing little but helping guard Old Sofesshk. The need for that is past,” he added cryptically and with evident satisfaction. “And once you’ve sufficiently trained the trainers, the program will become self-sustaining and you can develop other weapons.”
Ando bowed. “Of course, Lord.” He gestured aside. “Would you care to examine one of the flying bombs more closely, while the ship that launches them approaches? Sadly, the ship’s no faster than others of her kind, even with fewer guns. We’ll have time for refreshments before it arrives.”
“Excellent,” Esshk said, clearly enjoying himself. It’d been so long since he had good news! He and his entourage walked in the direction Ando indicated and stopped to stare. Lying on its side in the soft green grass by the lake shore was an ungainly cylinder about three feet in diameter and twenty feet long, with three fins at the back. Attached to the other end was a second, pointed cylinder of the same diameter but only half the length. It had two broad, stubby wings near the center, with an opening fronted by a small wind screen above them. Three stabilizers, two horizontal and one vertical, were just forward of the joint with the longer section.
“Now that I’ve seen your flying machines up close,” Esshk said, referring to the five Muriname-designed AJ1M1c fighters Ando had left, “I understand better what I’m looking at. But please explain the similarities and differences.”
“Of course,” Ando replied. “The launch section is merely an enlarged version of the highest-reaching antiair rockets you’ve used . . . to some effect . . . against the enemy bombers. The engine is identical in concept, merely a solid mass of gunpowder dissolved in alcohol and poured into a heavily reinforced form and dried.” He arched his eyebrows. “The form becomes the engine casing and, as you can imagine, accelerating a uniform drying process using external heat and a forced draft is one of the most complicated and dangerous aspects of the process. When complete, however, the solid gunpowder fuel burns as vigorously as granulated powder, but more slowly, so instead of exploding, it jets the gas and flame through a narrow opening, creating thrust. Imagine the recoil of the great guns, only much prolonged”—Ando smiled—“and the ‘gun’ is considerably lighter.”
“Yes, yes,” Esshk said impatiently. “As you say, the principle is the same as the rockets I’m familiar with. Do not condescend to me,” he warned.
“Never,” Ando assured, though he realized he’d been doing just that. Careful, he admonished himself. The Grik are barbaric monsters, but those such as Esshk aren’t stupid. “I merely thought a brief explanation might be helpful to others here,” he lied. “In any event, the size of the engine was what required the greatest care to develop. Even to my surprise, increased size doesn’t necessarily mean a linear, proportionate increase in pressure. Pressure can rise alarmingly, exponentially.”
Esshk nodded, though Ando doubted he understood that. They’d blown up a lot of engines before they got it right, and quality control remained so poor, particularly when it came to ensuring there were no voids or bubbles in the gunpowder, Ando suspected there was still a 25 to 30 percent chance any given we
apon would explode when launched. He’d warned Esshk of that, and he’d seemed unconcerned. He was unconcerned about casualties, and Ando suspected he would be one himself if the nearing battleship launcher blew up.
The Grik zeppelin had finally secured itself to the mooring mast against a gustier wind than they felt down low, and figures were snaking down lines dropped from the forward gondola. They must’ve brought dispatches of some importance to hurry so, Ando mused.
“Very well, good. But tell me about the bomb,” Esshk insisted. “It looks different from those we once dropped from airships.”
“It had to be, to mate up to the launch section and withstand the thrust. Those earlier models only had to fall and glide.”
“But once launched, they’ll perform the same? Their controllers can aim themselves at their targets?”
“Yes. And since they’ll be going much faster, they’ll have better control and range.”
“How far?” Esshk demanded greedily.
“Fifteen miles, perhaps more. Much depends on the initial launch angle, but you’ll note there’s another small engine behind the pilot. It’s ignited by a final burst of flame from the launch section when it’s consumed, also causing the two to separate. This occurs at about three miles, again depending on the launch angle,” Ando cautioned. “But by then the piloted bomb has reached a truly astonishing velocity.” He chuckled slightly in spite of himself. “Our one surviving test pilot who flew without a warhead was so enthusiastic about the experience that he wanted to do it again. Needless to say, his request was denied and he’s become our primary instructor.”
“The bomb,” Esshk repeated, focusing on what was most important to him.
Ando pointed at the long nose forward of the tiny cockpit. “Five hundred pounds of superfine gunpowder, detonated by a contact fuse. An iron casing would’ve been best, but we had to use wood to save weight. There’s little inherent armor-piercing capability, but as you’ve seen”—he waved at the dissipating smoke cloud drifting away from where the nearly eight-hundred-foot-long target had finally gone to the bottom of the lake—“the charge, combined with the velocity of the impact, perhaps even the forward-facing force of the initial detonation, is sufficient to destroy heavily timbered, even lightly armored targets. The . . . directed force is a concept I’m not fully familiar with and it came to me through a half-remembered conversation with Commander Riku, an old comrade of mine.”
“A bomb that can sink the enemy from the horizon!” Esshk breathed, almost giddy with calculation. “I wish we could deploy them on land!”
“An agreeable ambition,” Ando allowed, “but impossible as long as the enemy controls the air. The launching apparatus is too large and vulnerable to move except by ship.” He nodded at the approaching greatship. It was close enough now for them to see that while its sloping casemate was still armored down the sides, the frontal armor and structure backing it had been removed and replaced with what looked like folding shutters sufficient to protect only from the weather. And the rear of the casemate had been similarly opened to vent the back blast.
Esshk turned to gaze benevolently at Ando, a disconcerting expression the Japanese flyer had never seen. “You’ve done very well,” he said. “With these ships we can turn the tide back against the enemy. Tell me, though: I know I gave you leave to name your weapon. What did you choose?”
“Yanone. It means ‘arrowhead,’” Ando replied, frowning. Two figures from the airship were literally galloping toward them now, rapidly closing the distance.
If Esshk noticed, he made no sign. “Appropriate. Most appropriate,” he agreed, then paused. “Why do you make that . . . down mouth moving, so much like Kurokawa always wore?”
“Because even Yanone can’t win the war alone. In fact, the ships carrying them must never be sent alone to battle and must always be protected because they can’t protect themselves.”
“But what protection do they need if they can destroy the enemy so far away?”
“They must be defended from the sky, for one. The enemy had few bombs that could destroy armored ships from the air, but that may have changed. And the Yanone carriers have openings in their armor. Secondly, torpedoes remain a threat, both from their swift destroyers—which will be very difficult for Yanone to hit while underway—and their torpedo boats, which will be next to impossible to destroy. All Yanone carriers must have a defensive screen.” He frowned even more deeply. “Finally, you must recognize that Yanone have limitations. While their long-range capability will be formidable, particularly against enemy aircraft carriers and other big ships, you should keep them near their maximum range, not only for the safety of the ships firing them, but because the Yanone themselves will be more effective. Regrettably, their pilots can’t control them while the launch engine burns. Their controls must, in fact, be locked during that phase. Any attempt at radical maneuvers near the nose at that point will almost surely send them out of control and destroy them. I therefore strongly urge you never to use them against targets less than five miles away.”
The two running Grik arrived, gasping, and flung themselves to the ground, the grass in front of their muzzles blowing back and forth with their gusting breath. The rest of the entourage had clearly noticed them now, but took their cue from Esshk, who still ignored them, grunting thoughtfully. “There are always disadvantages, it seems. Why must I always be given weapons more powerful than anything the enemy has, only to be told I can only use them under the most perfect conditions?”
“That’s not necessarily the case,” Ando denied. “Use them as they’re intended; destroy the enemy from a distance and all will be well.”
Esshk considered that a moment longer, then sighed, finally glaring down at the prostrated messengers. “Oh, what is it?” he demanded. “I’ve viewed a fascinating weapon in the company of fine companions, there’s food”—he dipped his snout to the host regent—“and a female in estrus at the lodge.” The female in question was actually from the regent’s own small harem of “mates,” semielevated offspring of Hij that could actually talk. Keeping such was rare in the older, more congested parts of the empire, though less uncommon in secluded or pastoral regencies and on the frontiers. “I should’ve known I couldn’t enjoy a single pleasant day without some befuddled underling demanding my attention to a matter easily addressed by the lowliest Uul!” Esshk concluded snappishly.
Both messengers were senior firsts, so whatever they had to report would probably be both coherent and important. A sense of dread quickened Ando’s pulse, even as he noted the black and red slash marks painted on their gray leather armor and wondered again what the significance was. He increasingly saw the device on Grik close to Esshk.
One of the messengers tentatively raised his snout but kept his gaze averted. “Old Sofesshk—and the Palace of Vanished Gods—have been bombed,” he blurted, then quickly added, “and possibly heavily assaulted by enemy warriors. That has been confirmed by messengers sent across the river from the palace.”
“What?” demanded Esshk, glancing quickly at the regent beside him. “How can this be? Prey warriors loose in Old Sofesshk!” he scoffed. “Ridiculous!”
“Yes, Lord, but true,” the other messenger ventured. “It’s not known precisely how they did it, but Second General Ign believes they fell upon the city. From the sky!”
Esshk whirled to face Ando. “Is this possible?” he demanded.
Shaken and considering the implications, Ando nodded. “I . . . Yes, Lord, I believe it is, using parachutes. But I didn’t know the enemy had them on this world. We didn’t on Zanzibar.”
“And you didn’t share knowledge of this parachute device with me?” Esshk growled menacingly.
“They’re primarily used to escape damaged flying machines, my lord,” Ando stated, his voice stiffening with defiance. “All our operations were conducted over water and no sane . . . being could wish to escape a quick,
clean death in his plane, only to endure a worse one in the terrible sea! I honestly never gave parachutes any thought, and I’m surprised the enemy did.”
“The enemy has operated more and more over land of late,” Esshk snarled, looking back at the messengers. “When?” he demanded.
“Last night, Lord. We came as quickly as we could, risking flight to outrace the pennants.”
“Perhaps it was just a raid,” Ando suggested. “I can’t imagine they have enough parachutes for a large force.”
The first messenger spoke again. “But there have been no further reports from the city, even by pennant. That strongly implies the garrison, at least, has been overwhelmed.” All this seemed to come out in one breath, and the messenger hastily took another. “Second General Ign suspects the enemy force may be formidable enough to hold great Sofesshk, if not the palace itself, in their claws.”
“Lord First General,” the regent began, but Esshk held up a hand, claws extended.
“Silence!” he snapped. “There’s nothing you can say that I’m not already thinking. If Old Sofesshk has fallen, we must reclaim it at once! Our sacred Giver of Life is in peril!” Esshk had no real concern for the welfare of the increasingly headstrong and rebellious Celestial Mother, and had finally decided to do away with her after she’d made sufficient hatchlings—his hatchlings—to continue her line. And since she so rarely appeared in public, it might be years before he even had to acknowledge her passing. But for now, his authority as Regent Champion, to rule all the Gharrichk’k in her stead, was given legitimacy solely by his guardianship of the young Celestial Mother. He’d easily squelched the fact she’d tried to throw him off, but it was impossible to hide that she was threatened. He briefly toyed with the thought of killing the messengers and everyone present, even Ando, but that would accomplish nothing. His whole army in the south might be aware of the situation by now.
Pass of Fire Page 30
