by Hall, Gerald
That could include several nations including France, Germany, Spain, Italy and even what is left of Russia. They all suffered in one way or another from the war. Even Spain lost a powerful ally with a kindred political philosophy with the armistice and the death of Adolf Hitler. The Spanish also have had a long historical rivalry with us as well.”
“We have quite a few potential adversaries to consider. As much as our politicians are racing with each other to dismantle and defund as much of our wartime military as possible, we must remember that there are still threats out here. They simply are waiting for the proper opportunity to make their move.” Captain Stewart grimly noted.
“We still have to pay the price, often with blood. It’s terrible what happened to the First Sea Lord. At least, he died as a hero fighting for the Crown.” Commander Collins interjected.
“There are far too many heroes dying in this place; first, Patton and now Mountbatten. They have also been joined by millions of other men and women over the past half of the century. This needs to stop.” Captain Stewart sadly replied.
“But who can stop it?” Collins asked.
“I honestly don’t know. But I would highly recommend that we stay out of it, Sir.” Commander Penderton firmly insisted.
Chapter Forty-Four:
The Cavill Family Residence
Derby, Western Australia
February 7, 1958
Judith Cavill and her siblings sat down for dinner at their father’s old home where they all still lived. The house had been remodeled and expanded substantially to allow each of the siblings to have what was essentially their own apartment under the same roof. But one of the elements that remained the same was the hidden room where their father had kept his secrets from the future that he had escaped from. One of the changes included the addition of a large dining area that had seats for more than a dozen people at a time. That allowed Judith and the others to be able to host a variety of guests for meetings whenever necessary. Before they ate, Judith said Grace. Then everyone began to fill their plates as though they had been starving.
“Laura certainly fixes a great chicken dinner. I’m glad that we hired her to be our chief chef. We spend so much time at work that we just don’t have the opportunity to prepare our own meals anymore.” Beatrice commented between bites.
Judith sipped from a glass of white wine as she prepared to eat another bite of her own food. Beatrice and Sarah also had glasses of wine while James chose instead to drink something non-alcoholic since he planned on going out to fly the next day.
“Some people are going to think that we are a bit peculiar still living here in our Father’s old house, you know.” James told his siblings as he ate.
“Maybe so, but the rent is still cheap.” Beatrice replied, causing her siblings to all loudly laugh in response.
“What are we going to do when we find someone special and decide to get married?” James then asked.
“I guess that the newlywed will just have to buy their own house in that case. But we can still have our regular dinner meetings to discuss matters that the rest of the world does not need to know about. Plus, it will give you a place of refuge in case that your spouse is not happy with you for one reason or another.” Judith replied to another round of laughter.
“Well, I guess that we ought to get on to serious matters.” Judith told her siblings a few minutes later after everyone had finished eating and had retired to the living room.
“So what do we want to discuss first, Judith?” James asked.
“Let’s start with our assistance with the rescue of the Prince and the potential benefits to our operations.”
“The blokes in England had better be very, very grateful for the assistance that we gave them. I was very worried that we would reveal too much of our capabilities during this operation.” James replied.
“I think that you could say that. We have already received an official letter from the United Kingdom and Queen Elizabeth herself thanking us for our assistance in the rescue of Prince Charles. I have a feeling that certain obstacles in the selection of military and civilian products produced or co-produced by Cavill Industries and its affiliates are going to be eliminated soon.
I believe that we were able to filter the information that we received from our drones and especially our satellite sensors sufficiently. We certainly did not show the British the full ability of what we could detect. We also ascribed to our drones more of our sensor findings than what they actually obtained.” Sarah explained.
“So, now what is the bad news? We know that there is always some degree of difficulty that we need to address.” Beatrice pointedly asked.
“As you all know, our most advanced sensors have been placed on our satellites. We can much more easily prevent anyone from acquiring and reverse engineering our more advanced technology if it is several hundred to several thousand miles up in space. However, we have too few satellites to give us adequate coverage of the places that we need to see quickly. The cameras and other sensors are also too limited to detect small targets easily from orbit. But the use of our drones in a reconnaissance role was most useful in making up for this for now. Of course, that depends on an adversary having a limited air defense capability. Otherwise, our piston-engined drones are simply too slow to be survivable.” Judith explained.
“But for now, we have received requests from over twenty militaries concerning our drones. We will need to see about if and where we will allow the dissemination of that technology. Additionally, several other militaries have expressed interest in the Hummingbird and the CH-3 helicopter also.”
“That’s good. Of course, we are going to have to arrange for most of the sales to be co-production agreements. But we need the market penetration very badly. Germany is beginning to push its own rotary-wing designs very heavily.
Among the latest aircraft coming out of Germany is the enlarged version of the Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 with four rotors and the ability to carry up to twelve passengers or 2000 kilograms of payload. It is powered by the latest German gas turbine development with a 2500 shaft-horsepower turboshaft engine. This makes it a competitor for our CH-3 helicopter.
Another German helicopter design being produced by Germany was an evolved version of the Flettner Fl 265 with its intermeshed dual rotors (synchropter). Small two-seat variants powered by 500 shaft-horsepower German turbo-shaft engines were used by the German Army for recon, casualty evacuation, artillery spotting and light close support of troops. The armament being developed for the FL 325 will give it a viable anti-armor capability. Our CH-5 is slightly larger than this aircraft, but can perform essentially all of the same roles.
The Americans are also producing more helicopters for a variety of roles. Several companies are producing these aircraft, but most are based on Igor Sikorsky’s basic design with a single main rotor and a small counter-torque rotor. They are not as fast or as efficient as our own designs, but they are inexpensive, easy to operate and maintain.” Sarah provided far more details as well.
“But there is something else as well. Ark Royal’s attackers have obviously perceived an unexpected weakness. At sea, a large aircraft and its complement of combat aircraft are very powerful. But a single blow can take all of that away. Anchored at port, the aircraft she carries are practically useless because they require that she is underway to launch them with a useful payload. That is why they targeted her. In the future, others may do the same to conventional aircraft carriers.” Judith told her siblings.
“Are you saying that aircraft carriers are going to be soon going the way of the old dreadnoughts, Judith?” Beatrice asked.
“No. They are going to be very relevant in naval warfare for a long time to come. But they do have limitations and vulnerabilities even without the advanced technology of our father’s time. Large aircraft carriers carrying conventional jet-powered aircraft are probably even more expensive to operate than the old battleships were. That is going to significantly limit the numbe
r of nations that will be able to operate them before long. So we need to work on ways to enable smaller ships to have much of the capability of the large aircraft carriers, but without being nearly as expensive or vulnerable.” Judith responded.
“I’m sure that our engineers can come up with a solution for this. If necessary, we will give them a hint or two on how to get there.” James insisted.
“On another subject, you know that without the nuclear arms race that dominated so much of the previous timeline during the ‘Cold War’ after the end of the Second World War and was resumed by so many unstable totalitarian states at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a lot of national spending has been made available for other programs.”
“Do we have any idea where that money is being spent now?” Sarah asked.
“That depends very much of the country. The Americans have drastically reduced their overall Federal spending and devoted much of the surplus to retire significant portions of the wartime debt. They reduced the size of their military to a point that only slightly larger overall than before the war. That military has been restructured some because of the ascendency of air power to the expense of the US Navy’s capital ships. The US Army is slightly larger and much more modern than before.
Russia and Germany have both focused largely on reconstruction of their civilian infrastructure and a modest rebuilding of the military forces. It does appear that both nations’ military forces are not nearly as large as they were at the beginning of the European war fortunately. One area of concern is that both nations might be hiding some of their military spending based on our assessments of the size of their economies and available resources.” Judith explained. She had spent considerable time and effort looking into the economic, industrial and military situations for all of the countries who were either potential customers of Cavill Industries or rivals over the course of the past several years.
“I guess that everyone else in Europe is doing much the same thing, to one degree or another. Of course, most of them have to focus far more upon rebuilding their cities after the destruction inflicted upon them during the war.” Beatrice commented as she drank from a cup of cocoa.
“That is true. But the war ended over a decade ago. Most of Europe’s cities have been rebuilt, even in Germany. They are beginning to turn the focus of their efforts elsewhere, especially the Germans.” Sarah voiced what everyone else in that room already knew.
“Some of that focus has gone back towards rocketry, hasn’t it?” Beatrice asked.
“Yes, it has. While Doctor von Braun did come to work for us along with several members of his team from Peenemünde came to work for us, there were still a fairly substantial number of German rocket scientists and engineers that remained in Germany. We have seen a number of news reports about these personnel already beginning to design new rockets. They have been very scrupulous in maintaining that their rockets are meant only for peaceful purposes like launching satellites into orbit. The Germans do not want to violate the stipulations of the armistice that forbid them from developing ballistic missiles for military purposes.
But even if the Germans are only designing rockets for civilian use, their expertise in rocketry could allow them to potentially catch up to us in rocket technology.”
“That really shouldn’t be that great of a concern because it would simply provide us with the excuse to introduce more advanced rocket technology from Father’s database, Judith.”
That sort of technological competition could become very expensive for us though. There is also the other matter of the United States. Doctor Robert Goddard may be dead, but he left behind a wealth of ideas for rockets of his own. The Americans have what everyone else lacks, the vast financial wealth that can literally allow them to throw significant amounts of money into rocket development. They could easily outspend us, even with the wealth that Father left us with. If they choose to do that, they could potentially catch up with us all too quickly.”
“So what should we do?” Sarah asked.
“Since our father’s wish was to preserve the human race by stopping or at least significantly delaying the development of nuclear weapons and by accelerating the development of space flight so that we could make humanity a spacefaring species, we let the Americans and the Germans continue with their rocket development unimpeded. We should keep a close eye on all of nations attempting to develop large rockets though. We don’t want to be caught by surprise by a potentially belligerent nation developing large military ballistic missiles that can be armed with nuclear weapons at some point in the future, do we?”
“Of course, not. But what if it happens anyway?”
“Then we will have to accelerate both our space flight program and our development of defensive interceptor missiles. We know from the database that there were several nations, including America and Israel that developed successful ballistic missile interceptors in the previous timeline. They were simply overwhelmed during the final war that doomed humanity.” Judith responded.
“If we are fortunate, any offensive ballistic missiles, especially if they are nuclear-armed, will be greatly outnumbered by defensive interceptors. Perhaps, we should consider finding a covert way to intercept missiles from orbit so that our defenses cannot be countered in the event of a nuclear war?” Sarah asked.
“That is possible. From my discussions with Father before his death, he speculated that part of the reason why there had been several incidents of sabotage directed towards various space programs. He thought that perhaps someone was trying to prevent further manned space exploration. But I think that possibly someone was trying to prevent space-based anti-missile defenses to also be placed into orbit. If that was true, then the final war was being planned for a long time prior to the nuclear missiles initially being launched.”
“You may be right. If so, that is all the more reason why we must firmly establish a comprehensive space program with reliable, redundant space launch vehicles that we can count on to continue using no matter what happens. It is also a powerful justification for continuing Father’s wish to create human settlements on the Moon and Mars to ensure humanity’s survival, no matter what. Those systems will also enable us to help protect humanity here on Earth at the same time.”
“Still, we will need all of the help that we can get without compromising our security or our goals though. We have gotten some assistance from the Australian government already. But some of our government officials do seem to be terribly fond on attaching strings to their offers of assistance, I’m afraid.”
“That is why we have barristers on retainer to ensure that the government cannot cheat us or blackmail us out of our property and rights, of course. On another subject, both America and England have expressed a lot of interest in purchasing licenses and access to the designs for our nuclear power reactors. Certainly, the Americans have the money to do so. It will be somewhat more difficult for England to afford it though.” Beatrice explained.
“I’m sure that we could offer English some financial assistance towards purchasing the necessary licenses and technology, especially if they were to be more willing to purchase some of our aircraft and guided missile designs. Of course, those designs would mostly be produced under licensed co-production agreements in the United Kingdom as an additional incentive.” Judith noted.
“We are going to have to talk to some of the more receptive British politicians then. Of course, that will be primarily from the Tory side of the aisle, since they are a lot more interested in maintaining the capabilities of the British military.”
“We can’t leave the Labour types out of the political equation though. The balance of power between the two parties is still razor close. They are going to want to spend money on more domestic programs. So we have to sweeten the pot for them at the same time.” Sarah interjected.
“The nuclear power project could be that because of the promise of affordable electric power for the masses. The only real problem with that is that
it would totally undercut the power of the coal miner unions. They will not like this at all.” Beatrice countered.
“We do have a possible solution. We already know that the Fischer-Tropsch process for creating synthetic petroleum products is contemporary technology. In fact, we have been producing synthetic fuel from domestic coal for over a decade and a half here. We just need to have one of our subsidiaries built a couple of coal liquefaction plants in the United Kingdom to create a demand for British coal to produce liquid fuel for automobiles, ships and aircraft. That would reduce the British demand for crude oil from the Middle East. At the same time, our nuclear power plants would satisfy their growing demand for electricity.
That should be quite appealing even to certain Labour party leaders, especially if they are more visionary than most of them that we and Father have known.” Judith detailed.
Judith’s siblings thought for a few moments before they all nodded in agreement.
“It would be a good thing for us to help the British to improve their economy and their military. They certainly need all of the help that they can get. But we have to consider the one country that can challenge us in our quest to lead humanity into space. That is America. They have the financial resources and the technical potential to literally outspend us in this arena.
We obviously have the advantage in terms of technology. We have also built the facilities and infrastructure to develop and launch space rockets. Finally, we already have proven rocket and satellite designs that we have launched in space.”
“Our superior technology that we have incorporated in virtually all of our products is also well-known throughout the West. The guided missiles already being used by the Australian and British militaries are valued, not only for their superior range and accuracy, but also for their reliability. We have even put the most advanced technology into them that we dare utilize. Our most recent customers such as Chile are even more pleased by what they have purchased fortunately.”