Never Sound Retreat

by William R. Forstchen

  That was the true genius of what he was creating, the dragging of a primitive fallen race into the modern age, though compared to the war he had known on the world of his birth, what he was creating here was but one step removed from barbarity. If not for the human slaves, the task would be hopeless, for no rider of the Horde would ever deem to lower himself to the task of labor. Only those of the lowest caste could be compelled to be the guards in the factories or to run the locomotives or work in the engine room of the ships. It would take a generation at least to transform that thinking. The Tugars never understood that, the Merki were just beginning to grasp it even as they went down to defeat. This would have to be different.

  It would be war itself, the very reason for their own existence, that would serve as the catalyst of change. He could promise them that once the Republic was defeated, things could be as they once were, that again they could go with bow and lance on the everlasting ride about the world, harvesting the human slaves who waited to feed them. But he knew the lie of that.

  The Yankees had brought an infection to this world, the disease of knowledge, bow and horse giving way to rifle and locomotive, and once the change was started it would never stop. When this war was done he would indulge them in their ritual of the eastward ride for a while, but the rail lines would follow them, linking back to the factories. Only those humans who were trained to labor would then be kept alive, all others would be put to the sword. For the secret of technology had been unlocked, and nothing could ever change it back again. Even if the Republic was completely shattered, its cities leveled, all its populace put to the sword, still the infection was there and would spread. Some humans would manage to escape, fleeing into the great northern forests, there to labor in secret. If he should ever let down his guard and allow his people to revert, twenty years hence, when they returned, it would be to face a disaster.

  He knew with a grim certainty that this was a racialwar for control of this world, and the only alternative to total victory was annihilation.

  "I still think we should wait," Jurak said, while pensively gazing at the twilight sky.

  "Why?"

  "It won't be until next season that the rail line up to Nippon and on into the forest where their rail line is located is completed. Even then, there's the difference in gauges—we'll have to convert their line as we advance. Well have a logistical nightmare trying to keep our northern army supplied without that rail link. If we wait till spring, we could have another dozen monitors, a hundred landing ships, fifty or more airships, at least another ten umens converted and trained with rifles and modern artillery. Supplies to the north with a completed rail line would be ensured as well."

  "And what of the humans in that time, Jurak? They adapt faster than we do. Their own railhead running down along the western shore is still vulnerable, but it won't be by next spring. They have no airships at the moment, but we can be assured that if we wait till spring, we will see dozens, with wings like ours. Remember it is an old maxim of the master Hunaga, 'If surprise is lost retreat or strike, to do neither is death.' We cannot retreat; therefore, we must strike. As it is, I fear this four-month delay; it gives us but a month, two at most, before the winter storms."

  "So it begins then."

  "It has to. I expect you to be at the front in the north in five days' time. Remember, you are to draw them in. I do not want a breakthrough, for if you do achieve one, they will fall back on their own rail line and retreat faster than you can advance.

  "Bakkth, send airships over their base tomorrow to make sure they have no new airships ready to probe our secrets. Make sure no one flies near our point of attack, we must not let them know of our interest there."

  He gazed appraisingly at his companion. Jurak's and Bakkth's personalities were ideally suited for this campaign. Unlike the umen commanders and clan Qarths, they could grasp the fact that victory could be achieved by more than a simple headlong rush.

  "Draw them in. I will do the rest."

  "So, you liked my umbrella idea."

  Jack tried to conceal his shock at Ferguson's drawn and pale appearance as he stood up from his drafting table. Jack could see that his friend had lost weight, his cheeks were sunken, his eyes looked like two coals of darkness sinking into Chuck's skull-like visage. His skin had that almost translucent ghostly white glow typical of those in the advanced stages of consumption. Wrestling down his fear of the tuberculosis that was slowly draining the life from the Republic's master inventor, Jack came across the room, grasped Chuck's hand, and then, to his own surprise, gave him an affectionate embrace.

  "You saved my bloody ass with the idea." Jack laughed, patting his friend on the shoulder, then motioning for him to sit down.

  "And you said you'd never use it."

  "Well, when it was that or burn to death, there really wasn't much choice. Death by fire is one hell of a good argument for jumping."

  "Too bad about Stefan."

  Jack nodded. In the small circle of men who wore the sky-blue uniform of the Air Corps of the Republic it was an unwritten rule never to get attached to anyone. One of the boys, whose ship never returned during the rescue effort for Hans, had calculated that from the time a pilot got his wings until he turned up missing or dead was a little less than six months—and that was during the period of semi-peace leading up to the start of the war. He had tried not to like Stefan, but the boyish enthusiasm, and his uncanny ability to nail Bantag airships, had won Jack over. And now he was dead.

  Before coming to visit Chuck he had gone to see the boy's mother and given the usual lie that her son had died instantly. There was no sense in tormenting her with the truth, that her youngest child had fallen from twelve thousand feet wrapped in flames. She had given her other two boys and a husband in the last war and now all she had as comfort, and which she proudly displayed with tears in her eyes, was the personal letter from Andrew, offering his condolences.

  "How's Feyodor?"

  "He'll fly again."

  "Bad?"

  Jack nodded. "Hands, arms. Pretty shaken up as well. Swears he'll never go up again, but he will, it's in his blood."

  Chuck nodded. Feyodor's brother had served as Chuck's assistant in the last war, and now headed the ordnance department back at Port Lincoln. It was the burns, as well, that drew his sympathy. His own wife had been horrifically scarred by fire.

  Even as they chatted the door behind Chuck opened and Olivia Varinna Ferguson came in, carrying a steaming pot of tea and two mugs. She smiled at Jack and in spite of the scars Jack could still see her beauty radiating through.

  As she poured Chuck's tea she chatted with Jack, pointing out the front page ofGates's Illustrated Weeklyon Chuck's desk, which showed the last fight ofFlying Cloud.It was embellished, of course, with four enemy ships going down in flames, along with a small sidebar portrait of Stefan manning his position as fire blazed up around him.

  Jack looked around the room. The walls were covered with drawings of Chuck's creations, some of them from Chuck's own hand, others fromGates—airships, ironclads, breechloading artillery, field ambulances with coiled spring suspension, locomotives, telegraphs, and drilling rigs for oil. The office was bright, the north wall made of glass to provide Chuck with natural light for his drawings. Behind his office were the beginnings of the college which Congress had voted to fund, half a dozen clapboard buildings housing classrooms, drafting rooms, and research labs. Many of the young men were gone now, up with the army, serving in the engineering, ordnance, and technical units, but Jack could see one class at least was in session, Theodore, his copilot's brother, teaching a small group made up primarily of women.

  Another coughing spasm hit, and Olivia motioned for the pilot to leave the room. Standing up, Jack walked out onto the porch of the clapboard building and gazed across the reservoir, which provided power and water for the factories below. The surface of the lake was mirror-smooth, except for the ripples caused by a flock of brightly colored geese drifting lazily alo
ng the shore. The geese kicked up, honking, as a blast of fire erupted to the west, beyond the dam, as a fresh batch of iron was poured. Jack looked to the west and the valley of the Vina River, leading down to the old town of Suzdal. Both banks of the dark stream were lined with factories, rail track, and hundreds of new homes for the workers who came from across the Republic to work in the new industries. So much of this had sprung from Chuck's mind, Jack realized. Their very survival dependent on this lonely Leonardo.

  "Jack, please don't take too much of his time, he needs to sleep," Chuck's wife whispered, joining him on the porch.

  "How is he? Truthfully."

  She lowered her head.

  "Not good," she whispered, "not good. Sometimes he's too exhausted even to cough. He has to sleep sitting up now. He needs rest Jack, months, maybe a year away from all this." She motioned back to the office and from there down toward the factories.

  "He slips out of here, goes down to the factories to check on the work, the buildings filled with blast furnaces, steam, dust, and smoke. It's killing him. He has to go away."

  Jack nodded, unable to say what was in his heart, that Chuck was his friend, but the republic was on the edge of a disaster, another war far more brutal than the previous two. Victory was dependent on Chuck's outthinking Ha'ark. He was taking the same risks as Andrew, Hans, right down to the lowest private on the firing line. But Chuck . . . Chuck would never be replaced.

  "Hey, Jack, get back in here."

  Jack looked at her, unable to say anything.

  "It's Dr. Weiss's orders. He's supposed to rest during the afternoon." "The hell with Weiss, there's work to be done," Chuck announced.

  Shaking her head, she walked off the porch and back to the simple whitewashed house next to the office.

  Jack went back into the office and settled down in the chair by Chuck's desk.

  "So how are you really feeling?"

  Chuck sighed and looked over at the grandfather clock ticking in the corner of the room.

  "They say somebody with what I've got can last ten, even twenty years if they take it easy and move to a cool dry climate."

  He chuckled sadly. "Rus is blazing hot in the summer, cold and damp in the winter. Great place for someone with consumption."

  "But you can at least rest some more."

  Chuck shook his head and laughed, then pointed at Gates's illustration.

  "He got the wings on their ships, but I take it that it's all wrong."

  Jack examined the engraving and nodded.

  "The wings were larger and not at the center of gravity but somewhat forward. The small tail wings were farther aft. The ship was sleeker, and the ones that brought me down had a curious arrangement underneath."

  "What was that?"

  "Wheels, one under each wing and one astern."

  Chuck nodded.

  "I was thinking about that myself. From the report that you telegraphed in I was working up some estimates. The gas cells just don't seem to add up to provide enough lift. The wings are lifting surfaces, we know that, they make it more maneuverable as well in turns. I think they've put on engines damn near as good as ours; in fact I'd be willing to bet they stripped an engine off one of our downed machines and copied it. Anyhow, I think they actually have to get the thing moving forward at twenty miles an hour or more on the ground till the wings provide enough lift, then it takes off and flies."

  As he talked Chuck pulled out a sheaf of drafting paper and unrolled it across his desk, using his cup of tea to hold down one side.

  "By doing that they cut down on the bulk of the actual airship, there's less drag. It means they can't hover unless flying into a significant head wind, but it also means they can go a hell of a lot faster. You also mentioned that you saw what looked like flaps on the end of the wings."

  Jack, reaching into his haversack, pulled out his own drawings and pointed them out.

  "You said you saw the flaps moving, then the ship banked over and turned?"

  "Yup. They don't turn in a flat circle; they bank over and turn." As he spoke Jack held up his hands, tilted them, and moved them through a turn.

  Warming to his subject, Chuck picked up a pencil and jotted a quick sketch into the corner of his own drawings.

  "That allows tighter turns. They don't just use a rudder to turn. Damn, I never thought of that. It'd be easy enough to put those flaps on our wings and run cables back to a control stick. I've been thinking about that engine on the wing arrangement as well. It cuts down drag with fuel tanks inside the wings.

  "The length of the wings is rather long, how about if we tried this?" And yet again his pencil scribbled out a change in design, Jack leaning over the table, watching.

  "Cut the wings in half and put one on top of the other?"

  "Strange-looking I know, but with support struts going between the two wings it will make them stiffer, a biwing design. I even thought of another change." He pointed to the bow of the ship.

  "Pilot up front and forward?" Jack asked.

  "With the old design, the gondola car underneath, you had a 360-degree view, but it was underneath. If we put you up forward in the bow, you'd have a 360-degree view forward, up, and down. You'd also have a forward view down as you did before. We'd put a second person in what I'd call a turret directly under the wings. He'd be a gunner and could also drop bombs. We'd put a third person, a gunner, topside and aft on the tail. You'd all be hooked together by speaker hoses, and I even thought of a small access tunnel that your bomb dropper could use to get up to the forward cab. With this arrangement there isn't a blind spot on the entire ship."

  "How long before we get them?"

  "That's the problem." Chuck sighed. "Three weeks, maybe a month for the smaller test model, three months or more for ships with the range ofFlying Cloud.My suggestion is that we scrap those currently under production and take the material to refit for this new design."

  "That leaves us with no ships at all."

  Chuck nodded. "MoreFlying Cloudmodels would be nothing but sitting ducks, even with the wings I was putting on. I want to take one of the smaller two-engine models, refit it, use it as a test. Then start turning out two-engine models like the Bantag's, and then some of these."

  He pulled out another sheet of paper and unrolled it. Jack could feel a rush of desire, as if Chuck had unrolled a copy of one of the racy lithographs that someone had been mysteriously producing in the last couple of months and which had become so popular with the soldiers.

  "Four engines, 120-foot wingspan but with only half the gas ofFlying Cloud.I figure it can do nearly sixty miles an hour, maybe seventy. It should be able to carry half a ton of bombs six hundred miles."

  "How many can you make?"

  "I want sixty of the smaller ones as escorts," Chuck replied, "and twenty of these big ones by next spring."

  Amazed, Jack shook his head.

  "I know, seems impossible, but I think this war will be decided by airships. I don't want them fed in piecemeal. I convinced Colonel Keane on that score. Build them and unleash them all at once, have one all-out pitched battle and destroy their airship facilities on the ground. We struck a deal with the Cartha, paying a pretty penny, but with them as the middlemen we're buying every stitch of silk to be had."

  "The Cartha?"

  "Yeah, I know, the bastards are playing both sides."

  Jack could understand the pressure they were under, the ruins of the Merki tribes hovering on their western border, the Bantag on the east. The Cartha were even supplying the Bantag with metal. Pat was calling for taking them out, or at least blockading their ports, but with the fleet stretched to its limits, literally disassembling ships from the Inland Sea fleet and shipping them by rail to the Great Sea, Bullfinch had argued that now was not the time to start a war on yet another front.

  "But what about now? We're blind."

  Chuck nodded. "I know but do you see any alternative? Send up the ships we're currently making, and they'd get slaughtered."


  Jack realized that he should feel a sense of relief. What Chuck had told him was that he could anticipate living till next spring. As a pilot without an airship, he was out of the war. He could stay on in Suzdal, help his friend with the design work, do some test flying, and most definitely have his pick of every lovely lady in the city. And yet, the knowledge that Keane would be fighting blind a thousand miles to the east filled him with dread.

  "What else do you have?"

  Chuck smiled and pulled a sketchbook out of his desk and started to thumb through it.

  "Wonderful how war can unleash the creative talent," he said coldly. "Improved engine design, both for your airships and for our navy. I rather like this beauty I've got here."

  Jack looked at the curious sketch.

  "What the hell is it?"

  "I just took the design for an old Mississippi river-boat. Cut off all the gingerbread works, the way we did back on Earth during the war. There'll be a small armored top and that's it."

  "All that just to carry one gun?"

  "Ah, here's the beauty of it. It's a ship for landing troops straight on to a beach while under fire. That entire hold can carry two hundred men. The bow simple drops down and out they go, the steampowered Gatling gun I've been working on providing cover from the armored turret."

  Jack was reminded of a copy he had once seen of a sketchbook belonging to Leonardo da Vinci. Hastily drawn pictures filled the pages, some just rough outlines, others expanded out with greater detail. Jack took Chuck's sketchbook from his friend and leafed through it. He paused for a moment to study an artillery piece, mounted on a strange-looking carriage so that it was pointed nearly vertical; beside it stood a man who was hunched over, looking into the middle of what appeared to be a long pipe with telescopes mounted on either side.

  "Range finder," Chuck announced proudly. "Simple idea. Mount two telescopes ten feet apart, have a mirror in the middle to split the image. The gunner turns a dial which ever so slowly shifts the mirrors, and when the two images merge the dial will show him how many yards it is to the target. Simple geometry of knowing a base, and the angles of the mirror gives you the height. You then cut the fuse and fire. Any airship that wanders into range is dead."