Down to the Sea

by William R. Forstchen

  He looked at Abe, his gaze cool and penetrating.

  “You don’t like that word, cattle. None of your race does.”

  “It is a reminder of a time that is gone.”

  “Gone to you who were born after it, but alive in the memory of many of my people, and still dreamed of by those cubs. If I whistled to them now, ordered them to drop their game and slay you, they would do it.”

  “You are their Qar Qarth. Of course they would obey.”

  “No, Keane, they would do it because they wanted to. And beyond that, they would devour you upon this very spot and do so with glee, do it while you are still alive and screaming, as they have heard their fathers describe it done.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Abe replied, voice edged with anger. “So that I can hate you? I was trained as a soldier of the Republic. I know of every battle, of all that happened before. I know that at Hispania and at Roum our men executed prisoners, tortured and mutilated some. Atrocities are committed in the heat and madness of battle.”

  “But you never felt them,” Jurak said sharply. “You don’t know war. I do. I guess that’s always been the way of it. The generation that fought a war looks at its young, not imagining they too could do the barbarities required.

  “Those cubs, look at them carefully, Keane. The next time you see them, they will be coming to kill you.”

  “Is this what you truly want?” Abe asked.

  “No, damn you,” Jurak snarled with a deep throaty growl. “I know where this will end, as do you.”

  “Then stop it.”

  “How?”

  “Just stop it.”

  Jurak laughed. “Perhaps your father will be a victim of the very sense of justice he is famous for. If you had slain us all twenty years back, this would not now be happening.”

  “But we didn’t. Shouldn’t that sway your thinking now?”

  “Blood. It is about blood and race. I wish it was different.” His voice trailed off, but the look in his eyes told Abe that there was nothing more to be said.

  “Then this is where we part, Qar Qarth Jurak.”

  He nodded. Reaching down to the side of his saddle, he pulled out a scimitar that was still in its scabbard and handed it over to Abe.

  “A present in parting, Abraham Keane. It was forged for a cub and thus should fit your hand well.”

  Abe took the present and unsheathed it. The fine wavery lines from the forging of the blade shimmered in the morning sunlight. He held it aloft, feeling its balance, then slowly resheathed it, nodding his thanks, unable to speak. “Strange as it sounds, I hope it protects you well.”

  “I have no such gift to offer in reply.”

  “Nor was one expected, young man. It’s a present to your father as well in a way, to protect that which he cares for. Call it a small repayment of the debt I owe to a human who was your father’s closest friend.”

  Abe smiled sadly and then, on impulse, extended his right hand.

  Jurak hesitated, then finally extended his own hand, taking Abe’s in his. “I hope we don’t meet again, Abraham Keane, for you know what that would mean.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Ride with the wind. I will let no one pursue you. That should give you fifteen leagues or more. Avoid the Gilwana Pass. That’s the grazing grounds of the Black Speckled Clan. They more than most have no love for you. Nearly all their warriors died in the Chin Rebellion.”

  “And what shall I tell my father?”

  Jurak smiled and shook his head. “Nothing. His message was clear enough.”

  “Farewell, Qar Qarth Jurak.”

  ““Then farewell, Keane.”

  The Qar Qarth picked up his reins and spurred his mount, which leapt forward with a start.

  Abe held his own reins in tight, his mount shying as Jurak’s stallion surged forward. So it’s war, Abe thought coldly. Strange, I half want to see it, to understand it as my father did. And yet he found it difficult to hold back tears as he watched Jurak ride back to the Bantag encampment.

  The train, pulling a single car, glided to a stop at the station, out of which descended a woman, followed by several of her assistants.

  “Varinnia, how are you today?” Andrew asked, coming forward to take her hand.

  Richard immediately recognized her. Varinnia Ferguson had often lectured at the academy to senior year cadets on applied engineering. She was, of course, yet another legend of the war, and that legend stilled any comments when she had first come into a classroom. Her face had been horribly burned, she was barely able to write with one wilted hand, but the flames, if they had touched her mind, had done so in a different way, making her seem as if she would burst into fire from sheer energy and passion for her subject. By the end of her first lecture all had forgotten how she looked, and there wasn’t a cadet who wouldn’t thrash anyone who dared to make a crude joke about her appearance.

  She had another side as well, for as the wife of Chuck Ferguson, she had worked not only as an engineer and inventor but also as a political revolutionary, bringing about the amendment for women to vote and, at the same time, creating a tradition in the young Republic for women to go into medicine and engineering.

  At her approach, Richard instinctively came to attention. She nodded to William Webster, secretary of the treasury, then turned to look appraisingly at Cromwell.

  “Young Lieutenant Cromwell, I understand you are the reason for all this excitement.”

  “Commander Cromwell as of this morning,” Andrew interjected with a smile.

  Stunned, Richard turned to the President.

  “Sir. I hardly think—”

  “No self-deprecating comments, Commander. Admiral Bullfinch was an admiral at the age of twenty-two. Age doesn’t matter in this country. It’s wisdom, guts, and more than a little luck that counts.”

  Cromwell was silent.

  “Besides, you need the rank to do some of the things expected of you. Plus, it’s a statement on my part as well.”

  “A statement, sir?”

  “That he believes you,” Varinnia said. “When word of this becomes public, your promotion will make a statement.” She looked back at Andrew. “I assume Gates will be pulled in to do the proper articles on him, and on everything else.”

  “I’ve already talked to him. That’s why you don’t see any newspaper scribblers following us down here this morning. He agreed to hold off on the story.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Either that or I shut down his papers for a few days and he loses thousands. There’s a fine line between censorship and a nation’s security. I convinced Gates it was the latter rather than the former.”

  She nodded approvingly. “Let’s get to work.”

  She led the way from the station, which was empty on this Sunday morning, down to the naval dockyard on the Neiper, fifteen miles south of the city.

  As the procession headed out, Cromwell noticed that Adam Rosovich was one of her assistants, and he fell in beside his old acquaintance from the academy. After offering a smiling salute, Adam extended his hand.

  “On the train ride down here Ferguson told us a bit about what happened to you,” Adam whispered. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is it true that the Gettysburg was lost with all hands?” Richard nodded.

  “Damn, I had a couple of friends on her. Poor O’Donald, he was a good man.”

  “Yes,” Richard sighed, “a good man.”

  “You look like hell, Richard, like you took the worst end of a brawl at the Roaring Mouse.”

  Richard smiled. “If only it had been that easy. So how is it with your plush and comfortable job at the ordnance design office?”

  Adam sighed. “Boring. I wanted to fly, but I’ve been up exactly once, to test.” He fell silent and gave him a conspiratorial smile. “But that’s supposed to be a secret. Anyhow, even then I just rode in the backseat. There’s a lot of good ideas floating around. I’ve been trying to p
ush that pet project we talked about at the academy.”

  “The aerosteamer carrier?”

  “Exactly, but you should hear the old admirals howl. I thought Admiral Petronius was going to have my head when I presented a paper on it a couple of weeks back. ‘It goes against all doctrine,’ he roared. ‘We need more guns, not buzzing gnats,’ were his exact words.”

  Richard nodded. He’d seen the exact same type of ship Adam was dreaming about riding at anchor in the harbor of Kazan.

  “I keep trying to tell them that with the new weapon we’re developing, aerosteamer carriers will become crucial. We’ll no longer just use them for scouting. But they’ll have none of it. I think Dr. Ferguson agrees, but the rest of the board moves like a snail in a snowstorm.”

  The group slowed as they approached the main gate of the shipyard, and the two fell silent.

  Nothing stirred in the early morning except for a few surprised sentries guarding the entry gate, through which hundreds of workers flowed during the regular work week. One of two guards accompanying Andrew went over to the sentries and quietly but forcefully began to impress upon them that the president had never been here. A nervous lieutenant, coming out of the guardhouse inside the gate was turned back and taken inside.

  Andrew walked through the gate, Varinnia on one side, Webster on the other. Richard and Adam followed. Just inside the gate Richard recognized the stooped-shouldered form of Theodor Theodovich, head engineer of the Republic Aerosteamer Company, chief contractor for all airships built for the Republic. Beside him stood a tall gray-haired naval officer, still slender in spite of his obvious sixty years or more of age.

  “Admiral Petronius,” Adam whispered.

  The two offered their salutes, which Petronius answered without comment.

  When Richard looked over at Theodor, he smiled.

  “Old Jack Petracci told me you were a damn good pilot,” he said, extending his hand.

  Richard, who normally fought at all times to contain any display of emotion, could not help but be impressed and gladly took the hand.

  “Later today I want to sit down with you and go over every detail you can remember of their flying machines. I read the notes you jotted down. They show good technical judgment, Cromwell.”

  “I just wish I could have brought the plane all the way in.”

  “You’re lucky you made it as far as you did and spotted that ship. That was damn near good enough.”

  “You once flew with General Petracci, didn’t you?”

  Theodor grinned. “Scared the hell out of me. After the war I swore I’d never go up with him again, and I’ve kept that promise.”

  Richard looked at him admiringly. He and Petracci were the only two flyers from the Great War who were still alive.

  Clearing the gate, the small entourage maneuvered through the railyard, weaving around flatcars loaded with steel plates, keels, beams, masts, and all the thousand other ship parts cast in the foundries north of the city. All was silent, and a cool fog was drifting in from the river, heavy with the less than pleasant smells that drifted down from the teeming city to the north.

  The naval yard had been constructed after the war, a massive project that had taken five years and required the movement of millions of tons of earth and rock to construct a dry dock, slips and ways, piers and workyards.

  Tied off at the main piers were the almost complete cruisers Shiloh, Perryville, and Wilderness. The decks were still flush, since turrets, superstructures and masts had yet to be added. All three of the ships had been launched only within the last month and then tied off for final completion.

  Along the next dock were five frigates in various stages of completion. Nothing new was in development, because the eight ships represented all of the budget allocations Andrew had run through at the start of his second term. Some of the southern members of Congress were arguing that all further ship building should take place at Constantine. It seemed a natural choice, being directly on the sea. Continuing the work at Suzdal was seen as a maneuver to keep money inside Rus and away from the shipbuilders of the southern states, who had far more experience. The only argument against it was the threat from cyclones.

  “What’s the deepest draft we can get in here?” Varinnia asked, looking back at one of her assistants.

  “Thirty-three feet in the main channel and from slip number one. The others are all at twenty-five feet.”

  She led the group over to where Shiloh was tied off. She was one of the Gettysburg class, three hundred and fifty feet in length and drawing nearly five thousand tons.

  “Compare that to what you saw, Cromwell,” she said, pointing at the ship.

  “It wouldn’t last ten minutes in a fight with their ships of the line.”

  Andrew and several others of the group shifted uncomfortably.

  “Why?”

  “Their largest ship had breechloading guns that I estimated were ten inches, perhaps even twelve. I spotted six turrets on several of them, two forward, two aft, and two amidships.”

  “The amidships guns, how do they bear?” she asked.

  “They’re positioned so that they can fire directly forward or aft. Therefore, it would have four guns for a bow or stern chase, and five guns for a broadside. I think I spotted a number of secondary guns of lighter caliber as well.

  “In the night fight, I think I saw a couple of ships that had three guns forward and one or two aft. It looked like several different designs, but all of them were heavy, twelve thousand tons, maybe as high as eighteen or twenty.”

  “Did you see these guns fire?” Petronius asked.

  “Only in a night action. The one we spotted.”

  “We?” Petronius asked. “Who was your spotter?”

  Richard hesitated for the briefest instant, noticing that the president was watching him carefully.

  “It was Lieutenant Sean O’Donald, sir.”

  “And what happened to him in this action of yours?”

  “He didn’t come back,” Richard said slowly, hoping that Petronius would interpret his words in the way he wanted. The admiral simply nodded.

  “Range on these guns?”

  “That’s the interesting thing,” Richard replied. “Like our fourteen incher, I believe their guns must have a range of ten thousand yards or more. The question is hitting at that range. It looked as if most of the action was taking place at a mile or less.”

  “Could that be because it was a night battle?” Theodor asked.

  Richard shook his head.

  “No, sir. I heard later that the battle had started in late afternoon. The ship that…” He hesitated, looking at Andrew, who shook his head. “The ship carrying the rival to the throne was hit early in the action, at a range of nearly a league, which all considered to be remarkable luck.”

  “That information could be valuable to us,” Varinnia interrupted. “Very valuable, but it will take time.”

  “Fire control?” Theodor asked.

  “We’ve talked for years about it,” Varinnia replied. “My husband’s notes include talk about a man on the old world, the one named Babbage. When firing at long range, gunnery is a question of numerous variables too complex to solve in the necessary time. We have the theory of using optical triangulation instruments to figure out the range. Calculating from there, though, is the problem. We could have a hundred of our finest engineers and mathematicians on board a ship, give them the estimated range, and by the time they got done calculating gun elevation and powder load, both ships would be back in port and their crews on leave.”

  She shook her head, but Richard could sense her excitement as she contemplated the problem.

  “If we could find a way to calculate, in advance, the elevation, angle, and load of the gun, fire it, then have a new calculation within thirty seconds for the next firing, factoring in the observed hit of the previous shell, we could defeat anything afloat.”

  Varinnia and Theodor launched into a heated discussion for several minu
tes, which Richard tried to follow. The two argued about shell flight time, relative change of distance and angle, and something called differential engines, until Andrew final interrupted with a polite clearing of his throat.

  She looked over at him and smiled. Richard could sense a genuine affection between the two.

  “Mister, or I should say, Commander Cromwell, tell us the number of ships in the emperor’s fleet,” Petronius asked, having stood to one side during the technical debate.

  “I can’t say for sure. That shifts as alliances between families change. When I flew over the harbor, I counted eight great ships of the line, each of them easily three times the size of our Gettysburg class. Twenty or more ships of the second line, about half the size of the capital ships but still bigger than our largest vessels. I would estimate they had eight-inch guns. Finally forty, perhaps fifty smaller ships, like the one that defeated the Gettysburg, somewhat smaller than our cruisers, around the size of our frigates.”

  “Speed?”

  “The great ships I can’t say for certain. I saw several of their frigates maneuvering out of the harbor while I was being taken off the ship, and I would say they could reach eighteen knots, perhaps twenty.”

  The group around Varinnia broke into feverish whispers. She turned to join them, occasionally looking back at him as if they were doctors conferring just outside the hearing distance of a patient who was desperately ill. Again he caught only snatches of phrases—steam turbines, cruise range, fuel storage to gross weight ratios.

  He waited patiently, sensing a certain desperation on their part.

  Andrew came over to join him, taking off his stovepipe hat, which one of his guards quietly took from his hand.

  “An honest appraisal, Commander Cromwell,” Andrew asked softly, drawing Richard aside.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can we match them?”

  Richard reluctantly shook his head. “Maybe in three years, or five. If we could capture one of their ships and tear it apart, then start making them.”

  “In that time they’ll overrun us.”