Paladin of Shadows 2 - Kildar

by John Ringo

  "Not in the cellars," Mike admitted. "The first two levels are okay. The lower one isn't lit and looks a little shaky in places. If you go exploring out of boredom, take a buddy and tell somebody."

  "Will do," the guy said. "Doubt I'll be bored, though, I'm your engineer and general electronics mate. Don Meller."

  "In that case, you're going to be busy as all get out," Mike said. "We have to build everything, ranges, barracks, warehouses, storerooms, ammo bunkers."

  "Don's the electric expert," the other heavyset trainer said. "I'm the rest of it guy. Charles Prael."

  "Roads, bridges," Mike said, smiling. "You're going to be busy. And the rest of you guys are mostly shooters, I'd guess.'

  "Shooters, MPs, a couple of shooters with mortar experience," Adams said. "One intel and commo specialist."

  "Here," one of the trainers said, his hand shooting up. He was a short, stocky guy with blond hair from a bad dye job. His natural shade looked to be brown. "Sergeant Vanner reporting for duty, Kildar!"

  "You're going to be spending some time with the women," Mike said, smiling faintly. "I'm figuring they're going to be doing the fixed commo. Teaching them will be . . . interesting. Don't ever spend significant time alone with one of them. Not unless you want a shotgun wedding."

  "Got it," the guy said, nodding.

  "I don't suppose you speak and read Russian?" Mike asked.

  "You'd suppose wrong," the guy answered in Russian. "And Arabic and Farsi and French and German. Oh, and Spanish. And Latin. And a little Greek. Archaic. Smattering of ancient Egyptian, some Chinese . . . two dialects Fusian and Mandarin . . . enough Thai to get laid . . ."

  "Most of the team is polylingual," Colonel Nielson said in Russian. "It indicates that they can learn other languages easily. It was one of the criteria I used. Most of them are single other languages, however," he added, smiling.

  "It might help with Keldara," Mike said. "It's not exactly Georgian although you can get along in it."

  "I noticed that the drivers were using a very strong dialect," the intel guy said. "Very odd one, too. Lots of loan words from Russian with some words that sounded suspiciously like Greek. I'm going to have fun sorting it out."

  "Vanner started as a translator," Adams said, shrugging. "Then intercept. Spent some time with No Such Agency. Marine. Go figure."

  "Well, until the militia training starts in earnest, I'm going to expect everybody to pitch in," Mike said. "With setting up ranges, if nothing else. Who's a real shooter expert?"

  "Here." The trainer was medium height and build with brown hair and a very sharp face.

  "Praz Ebowsky," Adams said. "Sniper instructor, Army rifle team, President's One Hundred rifle, took second . . . how many years? At Perry."

  "Three," Praz said, frowning. "Damned Marine I swear could will his rounds to the target beat me out each time."

  "Got a guy named Lasko you're going to love to meet," Mike said. "But your first job is to walk over the area I've figured will be the main firing range and stake it out. Can do?"

  "Can do," Praz said, nodding. "Been there, done that. KD, pop-ups, what?" KD referred to Known Distance whereas pop-ups were automatic targets that "popped up" when the shooter was ready to fire then fell down if hit.

  "Both," Mike said. "I want them to be able to shoot for target and engage for combat. Can do?"

  "Can do," Praz agreed. "I'm not sure about pits for the KD, but I can do work-arounds. And I can do pop-ups as long as we've got the targets."

  "We'll probably have to go with manual initially," Mike said. "We don't have the juice for electric until . . . Don works his magic."

  "I dunno about magic," Meller said. "But it's amazing what you can do with a bulldozer . . ."

  "Pain in the butt," Praz said. "But I can do it."

  "Tonight we party," Mike said, lifting his beer. "Tomorrow, bright and early, we PT. The rest of the day you guys get a look around while Adams, Nielson and I figure out what you're going to be doing. Now, let us drink!"

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "I'm a fucking engineer," Meller said, bending over and ralphing by the side of the road. "I ride bulldozers. I run AutoCAD programs. I quit running when I got out of SF!"

  "Easy run," Vanner said, trotting by. "Easy."

  "Fuck I hate this shit," Prael said, pulling up to bend over by Meller, breathing hard. "Fucking SEALs."

  "Don't mind us," Sandy said as the three females trotted by. "Just headed home to wash up and put on our makeup. Told you you shouldn't have had all that beer!" she added as they headed up the path to the caravanserai.

  "Fuck," Meller said, walking painfully up the path.

  He had to admit, though, that he'd only been the first to fall out. Half the trainers were straggled along the side as he climbed up the switchbacks. Most of them, including Prael and, to his disgust, the three women, made it in before him.

  "Very nice," Mike said as the group straggled in. He was hardly sweating. "I think we're going to have to break this down into groups. Vanner, you weren't supposed to hang with the big dogs. You're an intel puke."

  "Love to run, sir!" Vanner shouted enthusiastically to groans from the fallouts.

  "Praz, Praz, Praz," Mike said, sadly, shaking his head at the marksman. "You did so well up until the hill!"

  "I sit in my hole and shoot people," Praz said, gasping. "I move very slowly. Running only makes you die tired."

  Mike glanced at the back of the sweatshirt of one of the shooters who had fallen out on the hill.

  "Killjoy?" he asked.

  "Sorry, sir," the trainer said, gasping. "No excuse, sir. Quit running when I got out of Recon. I'll get in shape."

  "You don't look very tired," Mike said to the Brit. His sweatshirt said "Scotty."

  "Girlie run," the man said, shrugging. "Bit of a warm-up but when are we going to do some real running?"

  "We'd been running in Tbilisi," Adams said. "But nothing like this." He'd broken a solid sweat but wasn't dead on his feet like most of them. Given that he had most of them by a decade, he'd done well.

  "Ah, weeell," Mike intoned. "We will get the shooters into shape. And even Vanner. Tomorrow, engineers and Praz run with the ladies. That's not a dig, you've got a point. You guys don't run that much in your jobs and won't have to with the troops. I expect Praz to do some ruckmarching, though."

  "On it," Praz said, nodding. "Where are the rucks?"

  "Currently in the cellar," Mike said. "We'll do issue tomorrow. Fall out for shit, shower and shave. See you later."

  * * *

  "Okay, Colonel," Mike said when he, Adams and the colonel met at nine. They were in his office drinking coffee as he slid a file folder over to the officer. "This is lists of all the potential recruits, what I've ordered for TOE, general sketches of where I think ranges and barracks can go in and what Genadi, my farm manager, thinks are times people will be the most free to train and build. At that point, I'm stuck. I can write a SEAL training schedule. I can do SEAL training in my sleep. I don't know how to set up a base for nothing or how to set up the force structure. I'm not even sure what I don't know."

  "Lots," the colonel said. "But you'll be learning, too. I take it you're going to be operational with this group?"

  "Probably," Mike said. "But I want the leadership types to be trained up to full tactical ability to lead their teams. When we do multiteam exercises is when I'll come in. I've mentally broken the teams down by the Families. The good part to that is there's automatic cohesion, the bad part is if a team takes heavy casualties, it will hit the Family hard. It might make more sense to split them up."

  "Split them," the colonel said, automatically. "The other problem is that if a team is operational when there's something to be done around the farm, that Family will be hardest hit for workers. Okay, let's look at this." He picked up the paper and then extracted a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket. "You're sure about the hundred and twenty?"

  "Close enough," Mike said
. "They haven't been physicalled."

  "We've two SF medics," Adams said. "We'll get 'em all checked."

  "Assume the hundred and twenty," Nielson said, looking at the paper. "Six teams, one team leader from each team. Twenty people including the team leader. Team leader and an RTO. The RTO is going to need something that carries in this mountains, maybe satellite if you can afford it . . ."

  "Can," Mike said.

  "Two medium machine-gun teams," the colonel continued. "Gunner, AG and ammo bearer. Two snipers, two five-man teams. It works out."

  "Okay," Mike said, looking at the TOE list. "If we put twelve medium machine guns in the teams, we're short at the houses. I'll either need to order more or get heavies. What about the mortars?"

  "They'll stay at the houses," Nielson said. "The women will run them."

  "That's going to go over great," Mike said, grimacing. "How about women and older men?"

  "Works," Nielson said, shrugging. "You got one-twenties. The women are going to have to be strong to service them."

  "They're farm girls," Mike said, shrugging. "They're lookers, but I've seen them toss around some pretty heavy loads. I think they can hang."

  "This will be fun," Nielson said, looking at the sketchy map of the area. "No better maps?"

  "Not currently, sorry," Mike said.

  "I'll get Meller and Prael to do a survey map of the area," the colonel said, humming. "That will keep them out of mischief. Don't know what to do with the rest for the time being, but we'll find something, we will. Idle hands are the devil's doing and I do so love training. . . ."

  * * *

  "That's the river I think would make the best one for hydro," Mike said, bringing the Expedition to a stop short of the foaming white-water. The river, still rich with snowmelt, was running at the top of its banks. It dropped through a steep gorge to the flats, running over large rocks as it reached the bottom and then through a deeply cut channel through the fields. Behind them, they could hear a low, deep song as the Keldara worked at picking the numerous stones from the fields. The stones had been brought down by this and other rivers ages ago, and dropped by sheets of ice along with the rich dirt of the valley. With the freeze in winter, the rocks were pushed up through the soil and had to be picked out to prevent damage to the plows. The soil was black and deep, but it had the price of the rocks. "I'm told it won't start to go down until April."

  "Oh, there are things we can do now," Meller said, getting out of the SUV and looking at the slope. There were ridges to either side and they were very steep, but the one to the south was slightly lower and covered in trees. He pulled himself up the incline, using the trees and sideways shoved feet, and started up the hill.

  Interested in what he was looking for or at, Mike followed. The engineer kept climbing, though, following the course of the stream. He climbed for about an hour and then stopped where two streams ran together.

  "Okay," the engineer said, looking from side to side and then climbing to the top of the ridge, "how much demo do we have?"

  "Lots," Mike said. "And I can get more. How much do you need?"

  "A lot," Meller admitted. He slid down to the stream and then shook his head. "Should have brought a rope." Despite the speed of the current and the water being freezing ice-melt he waded in, working his way across carefully, holding onto large rocks that jutted out, until he reached the north side of the gorge. That side was lower and he climbed to the top of that ridge, looking to the far side.

  "Meet you down at the bottom," he called to Mike.

  When they got to the bottom, Meller wandered off to the north. Mike watched him for a moment and then got back in the Expedition, driving down to where there was a barely fordable point and crossing the stream. When he got back by the edge of the valley he found the engineer considering another gorge. This one was, if anything, steeper than the first, a very narrow, tree-choked V, with a small stream flowing out of it.

  "Do you know if that stream is really important to the Keldara?" Meller asked, distantly, as Mike walked over.

  "No," Mike admitted.

  "How about this field?" Meller continued, looking around and then squatting down and looking around closer to ground level. "What do we have in the way of earth-moving equipment?" he asked, getting down in a leopard crawl position and spinning in place, looking outward.

  "Not much, yet," Mike said as the engineer leopard crawled backwards to the treeline and looked from side to side. "We can get it. Backhoe?"

  "Steam shovel," the engineer said, pushing up and looking at the ground. "Definitely steam shovel." He stood up and brushed off his hands. "I'm going to need a bulldozer, a big Cat or equivalent, or one hell of a lot of strong backs. Something to mix concrete. Cement and sand. Sand we can get here. You know if there's any good clay around?"

  "No," Mike admitted. "And I don't know if this field is important.'

  "It's okay," Meller said, wandering over to the ravine. "I can route it along the base of the hill with some rocks."

  "What in the hell are you talking about?" Mike asked, puzzled.

  "That gorge isn't as good for a hydro dam as this one," Meller replied, looking at him as if he was a moron. "We'll build one over here."

  "There's only a trickle of water," Mike pointed out. "And that's intermittent."

  "There won't be when we route the main stream over here," Meller said. "That's why I was asking about demo."

  * * *

  Meller showed Mike and Genadi what he was contemplating on the rough map of the area supplied by the Georgian military. It had apparently first been done by the Soviets, and it was both poorly surveyed and horribly out of date. But it showed both gorges, even if the elevations were wrong.

  "We'll build the dam in the north gorge," Meller said. "I need to survey it really carefully, but I'm virtually certain it's going to make a better dam. Much more rise to it with less expanse."

  They were considering the map while parked by the north gorge. The day had brightened up and while it was still cool, the thaw was definitely in place. That was evident by the mud that coated the Expedition as much as anything else.

  "You can get higher water for a shorter dam?" Mike guessed.

  "Got it in one, Kildar," the former SFer said with a grin. "Shorter it is, less likely to fail all things considered. Also, it's not overrun with snow-melt so we can get started as soon as the ground thaws a little more. We'll build the dam, then blast a channel from the previous river over to the new gorge. We'll have to do that in stages so it doesn't get a hard flood, but we can work that out later. Drop some of the rubble into the current gorge, build a smaller dam up there, with a relief overflow, and you have the river running into the new gorge and the old one is just a trickle except in winter when it will overflow into the old gorge. The river will come out of the new gorge, go down a channel we'll cut, and join the old river. The flow of the land works that way, anyway. Might not even need to cut the channel."

  "That looks like one hell of a lot of work," Mike said, shaking his head. "I hadn't realized how much work it was going to be."

  "Ah, it won't be all that much," Meller said. "This spot also has a couple of places where there are what looks like old logging roads. We can improve those and run trucks up them to dump onto the dam area for material. We'll need a bunch of rock, various sizes, dirt in quantity and most important, some good impermeable clay."

  "There is clay where the Kildar wants to put in the rifle range," Genadi said. "Lots of very tough clay. That is why it is pasture and not fields."

  "I'll have to check the permeability," Meller mused. "All clay is not golden."

  "What about electric?" Mike asked.

  "Simple enough," Meller said. "Set up a controllable culvert weir with a turbine. There are turbines like that you can get from GE or Siemens. Automatic diverter system, a condenser coil, some transformers and you've got power to the whole community. Enough, for sure, for the Keldara and the caravanserai. If you build up the turbines, you mi
ght have enough for Alerrso."

  "What do you need?" Mike asked. "That we don't have."

  "Hmmm . . ." Meller hummed, rubbing his chin. "I don't need anything until I get to the electric part. But the shovel and a dump truck would speed things up a lot. And a good concrete mixer. I'm going to need various numbers of people at different times. Oh, and lots of sand and lots of gravel, good gravel, rock and cement."

  "There is a gravel pit," Genadi said, pointing up the southeast valley. "Up in here. From the Soviet days. We don't have gravelling machinery. We can break it with hammers like we usually do, but . . ."

  "We'll get gravelling machinery," Mike said. "And a small bulldozer for up there. Bigger than a Bobcat, but small."

  "Those rocks they've been picking," Meller said. "Are they granite?"

  "Mostly feldspar," Genadi said. "Why?"

  "Never mind," Meller replied. "I was thinking we could gravel them, but not if they're feldspar."

  "You're losing me," Mike said.

  "Granite is what most of the mountains are made of," Meller answered. "It's really hard. There's other rock in there, since these are folded mountains, but most of it is granite. Feldspar is softer."

  "There is some granite," Genadi said.

  "Not worth sorting out," Meller replied. "Not if we have a gravel pit already. We should get that as soon as possible. Lots of uses for gravel. Some of these roads could really use gravelling."

  "For that we can even use the draft teams," Genadi pointed out. "We haven't had the heart to put them down, yet."

  "Don't," Mike said. "Don't breed for them, anymore, not much. But don't put them down. If I recall correctly, most of them are mine anyway. I'll pick up the tab for keeping them."

  "They are expensive to feed in winter," Genadi said, nervously.

  "They'll only last another, what? Ten years maximum?" Mike asked. "We'll get by. And there will be occasional uses for them, like this. Oh, the oxen you can stall and feed up and we'll slaughter. But not the horses. And not any of the oxen that people really think of as pets."