A Band of Brothers

by William R. Forstchen

  Up on the front, they could see what the Bantag were, the terror of their onslaught, and though he would never admit it, the joy of the charge, the exaltation of the kill. Fifty thousand of them labored thus, to keep the armies equipped and in the field, and when their boys turned seventeen they disappeared into the ranks to fight a war hundreds of miles away.

  A swirling eddy of wind came down from the northwest, carrying with it a few flakes of snow. The smoke from the factories coiled, shifted, floating low across the open plain and up the slopes of the riverbank, cloaking the factories from view.

  “We’d better hurry. I don’t want to fly if the wind starts to pick up,” Jack announced.

  Passing down a snow-covered street past a long row of clapboard-sided houses where the men and women who worked in Ferguson’s labs lived, they reached a field on the bluffs above the mill lake. A row of huge hangars, each over forty feet high and a hundred feet long, lined the south side of the field. As they passed the first hangar Vincent opened a door and looked inside. A blast of hot air greeted him. An airship that had been nothing but a wicker frame two weeks before was now three-quarters covered with canvas. The building was kept warm by three massive wood-burning stoves that heated water-filled iron pipes ringing the walls. The glue used to fix the canvas was highly volatile, so the openings to the stove fireboxes were on the outside of the building where two boys slowly shuffled back and forth, opening each box, throwing in wood, closing it, and moving to the next one.

  The glue brushed onto the canvas was curing in the hot air, and the stench of it made Vincent’s eyes water.

  “She’ll be ready in another week.”

  Vincent nodded approvingly as they continued to the third hangar. As they approached, a crew started to nurse a ship out of its hangar, half a hundred men struggling with the lines to steady the ship against the light breeze. As the tail cleared the hangar some of the crew let it go, the ship windmilling around to rest its nose into the breeze.

  “Here’s the beautiful part. Watch how quickly we can get it ready,” Jack announced as some of the ground crew raced to either side of the ship, scrambling up rope ladders dangling from the sides. Within a couple of minutes, the bilevel wings were unfolded from the side of the ship and locked into place. Guylines running from the wings back to the sausage-shaped body of the ship were locked in place and tightened.

  “The engines are mounted between the wings for support,” Jack continued. “Once the wings are unfolded we can fuel up and be ready to fly in ten minutes.”

  “Wish we could just keep it assembled, though,” Vincent replied.

  Jack shook his head. “We tried to figure that out. The building would have to be over a hundred feet wide at the base and forty feet high, with no internal support beams. If we used some iron we could do it, but that’s a lot of metal needed elsewhere. With the wings folded back the ship just barely fits—twenty feet wide, eighty- three feet long. Anyhow, at thirty miles an hour it has enough lift from the wings and hydrogen to carry a crew of four, fuel for twelve hundred miles, and a thousand pounds of munitions mixed between aerial bombs and shells for the guns.”

  Vincent nodded approvingly. It still wasn’t the biggest one Chuck had dreamed up, a monster of a ship two hundred feet long and capable of carrying five thousand pounds of bombs, but that was coming.

  “And the small one.”

  “The Hornet?” Jack said with a grin, and he pointed to where a ground crew was moving a diminutive airship out of another hangar. Vincent walked up to the smaller airship, which needed only half a dozen ground crew.

  The gas bag was less than a dozen feet across and thirty feet long, the wings to either side adding maybe thirty more feet to the machine’s width. The curious arrangement was that the engine was mounted aft at the tail and high so that its propeller was unobstructed by the bulk of the airframe.

  The pilot’s cab was forward, a wicker basket arrangement closed in with glass.

  “Feyodor, take the Eagle—I’m flying the Hornet today.”

  Feyodor started to grumble that it was his turn, but a look from Vincent sent him on his way.

  The ground crews were already warming the engines up and after several minutes the propellers on both aero- steamers started to windmill over. Jack, strapping on his air umbrella so that he looked like a hunched-over clown, needed help up the narrow ladder. When he swung into the seat the ship sagged down, coming to rest on its wheels.

  Vincent stepped back. Jack waving for the crew to release their grips on the side of the ship. Ahead of him Feyodor was powering up the Eagle. The four engines revved up, propellers turning to a blur. The ship lumbered forward across the field, which had been laboriously cleared of snow by hundreds of workers the night before. The ship slowly gained speed, caught a light breeze, and soared up. The nose dipped, Feyodor dropping down slightly to gain airspeed, then pulled back, the ship gaining altitude as it crossed out over the mill pond.

  Seconds later Jack followed, his Hornet taking less than a third the distance of the Eagle to get airborne. Pushing the nose up high, he clawed into the sky. The Eagle, now more than a hundred feet up, pivoted over the frozen pond and started back toward the field. Vincent studied it closely. The turn radius was tighter, wing dipping down low, the purr of the engines coming back on the morning breeze. The ship leveled out and came straight on.

  “Must be making over fifty miles an hour,” Vincent announced excitedly.

  “Chuck figured sixty,” Varinna replied proudly. As the four-engine aerosteamer approached the edge of the field, white bags detached and soared down, two of the six striking a bull’s-eye of coal dust scattered in the center of the field. And at nearly the same instant Vincent saw Jack diving, engine howling. The Hornet swept across the tail of the Eagle, leveling out for a second, and then broke off in a tight circle. The Eagle continued to lumber on across the field and then moved upward in a shallow climb. Jack, however, swung his ship back around and nosed over, as if aiming straight at the bulls-eye. Puffs of smoke erupted from under the nose, and for a second Vincent thought that somehow the ship had caught fire. Then he saw clouds of snow kicking up around the bull’s-eye, and then finally there was the stuttering staccato of a gatling firing.

  “Steam line from the engine feeds it,” Varinna announced proudly. “Lose most of your power, but you can get off a good five-second burst. It’s deadly.”

  Grinning, Vincent waved his cane in salute as Jack winged back over and cruised low over the field.

  “How many can we have in another month?”

  “Five of the Eagles, twenty Hornets.”

  “Damn all. We need fifty, a hundred.”

  “We’re working as fast as we can, Vincent. We’re out of silk. The looms are turning out the new tight-weave canvas as fast as we can put it on the ships, but we need more looms and trained riggers, and that takes time. Another two looms are supposed to be in operation in another six weeks, and that will just about double production. But it’s training the riggers, mechanics, framers, and engine makers that takes more time. We’ve got one ship that will never fly—it’s a model for them to learn their skills. We can’t just have this new system running overnight.

  “Then there’s all the other things needed—ground crews, vats for mixing the hydrogen gas, tons of raw zinc and sulfuric acid, temporary hangars that can be set up where needed. We’re talking over five thousand men and women that need to be trained.

  “Though I know he’d shoot me if he knew I was saying this, I think Jack should be grounded.”

  “Why? He’s our best pilot.”

  “Exactly why. You know the life expectancy of pilots. Jack should be kicked up to General of the Air Corps. We’re going to need that rank to run this program. It’s not simply a few machines anymore—we’re talking about a whole new branch of service.”

  Vincent slashed at the snow with his cane. We need the machines now, he thought, not three, six months from now. A hundred machines and a hundre
d ironclads and there wouldn’t be a siege of Roum. Again it was time, dammit, always time, and it seemed to be on Ha’ark’s side now.

  “General, sir.”

  Vincent looked up. An orderly had approached silently in the snow. Though his attention was focused on his general, Vincent could see a curious eye flickering up toward the airships, which had been built in secret over the last three months.

  “Yes?”

  “From headquarters telegraph office, sir.”

  Vincent swallowed hard, suddenly afraid. He took the telegram and opened it, Varinna coming up to read by his side.

  “Telegraph lines are reported cut above Roum. They must have raiders farther out ahead of the army. We’re in the dark now.”

  “And Andrew?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Vincent watched as Jack circled once again, strafing the bull’s-eye target. The siege of Roum had begun. They were cut off, and he would be damned if he simply sat here and did nothing.

  Chapter Six

  “My Qar Qarth, the cattle city of Roum.”

  Leaning forward and resting his arms on the pommel of his saddle, Ha’ark gave a grunt of approval. Nearly four moons of campaigning through the autumn rains and bitter winter … at last the goal was within reach.

  Dismounting, he pulled his telescope from its carrying case. One of his guards came forward so that Ha’ark could rest the tube on his shoulder. The city was still half a dozen leagues distant, but in the cold winter air it seemed far closer, as if he could reach out and grasp it in the palm of his hand.

  He had half expected to see it burning, as the damnable cattle had been burning every dwelling, barn, anything that could offer shelter in their retreat. Though his warriors were of the Horde, they were used to far warmer climes, and the cold had indeed been taking its toll. He had started this northern wing of his campaign with forty-one umens, nearly the same number that the Merki had thrown against the cattle. But unlike the Merki, more than half his warriors were armed with modern rifles, and he had more than two hundred pieces of artillery, nearly as many mortars, and fifty of the precious land ironclads.

  The problem was that close to half his force was strung out along the five hundred miles of track all the way back to the rail junction seized at the start of the campaign, needed there to move supplies along, and to drive the hundreds of thousands of Chin and Nippon slaves brought north by land and across the Great Sea. They were needed as well to herd along the hundreds of thousands of horses and four-legged cattle, over a thousand a day to feed his army, along with the thousands of two-legged cattle who died each day and went into the boiling pot as well. But the two-legged cattle had been worked to death first and offered little sustenance.

  He had hoped that the cattle would abandon Roum, take his offer, and fall back to their precious Rus. That would have eased the supply problem, for the Cartha would then be able to ship food across this smaller sea and he would no longer be dependent on the single rail line laid atop the frozen ground.

  “Still no sign of troops moving back up their rail line toward Rus?”

  The head of his reconnaissance force lowered his head and shook it.

  “None, my Qar Qarth. Just before cutting their rail line and telegraph we observed two trains loaded with crates coming into the city. The three trains going the other way were carrying wounded, old cattle, and their young.”

  “They’re going to hold the city,” Jurak ventured. “Damn all, let’s just wall them in and let them starve. The rest of the army can move on into Rus.”

  “My Qarth, there was this as well.”

  The reconnaissance officer stepped up to Ha’ark, unfolded a sheet of paper, and handed it to him.

  “Your orders were to bring these sheets to you. This was found in the hands of a dead soldier earlier today.”

  Ha’ark unfolded the bloodstained sheet. It was one of their newspapers. He had learned a little of their scribblings. Many of the captives back in the factories were of Rus, and their writing had become the standard, since the strange picture-writing of the Chin was simply too difficult for technical use. Strange how we have to adapt so much from them, he thought. The idea was troubling.

  He scanned the sheet and the bold print at the top. A grin slowly creased his features as the realization finally formed. His gaze went to his staff. The game had to be played.

  “Yes, I saw this as well,” he announced. “The spirits of my ancestors spoke to me in my dreams. This paper confirms it.”

  “What is it?” Jurak asked.

  “Keane is dead.”

  Wild triumphal shouts erupted from the group, and Ha’ark looked from one to the other, nodding solemnly as if he had been the instrument of this destruction.

  “Then let us drive on into Rus,” Jurak replied. “With Keane dead their army will be demoralized and will not strike our rear.”

  The prospect was indeed tempting. Turning to look back at the city, he weighed his options, then finally shook his head.

  “No, can’t you see it?” Ha’ark snapped. “Keane is dead—that is the first blow. The army is all that stands between us and final victory. If we smash it here, take this city, Rus will collapse and beg to surrender. If Keane were alive, the defense might be more spirited, but they will cave in now.”

  Ha’ark raised his glasses again, studying the ground. The rolling steppe around him sloped gently downward toward the city, which was laid out on a series of low hills on either side of the river.

  The hills, linked together by an inner city wall, offered clear fields of fire in every direction. The city was far bigger than he had expected, almost as big as the sprawling ramshackle cities of the Chin before his Horde had settled in to stay. In some sections the city extended half a league or more out from the inner wall on either side of the river. A rough line of earthen forts, connected by trenches, ringed this outer part of the city. Though it was hard to judge at this distance, he could see that this outer line would keep his own position beyond mortar range of the port. The port was the key to everything— it had to be held, kept open for the precious shiploads of ammunition and food.

  “It’s a tough position,” Jurak offered. “They’ve destroyed everything outside the perimeter and it's open ground. A few low hills for artillery positions, but not much else.”

  Ha’ark nodded, saying nothing.

  “Shouldn’t we bypass it? Just leave them and drive on to Suzdal. I understand we could cross the open steppe to Rus in three weeks.”

  Ha’ark shook his head.

  “That would be the same mistake the Merki made. Tamuka had that damn open steppe at his back, no food supply other than his horses. If we bypass this city it will be a dagger at our back. They know that.”

  “Then turn south, raid down the east shore of the sea, wipe out the Roum there.”

  Again Ha’ark shook his head.

  “I need every gun here. We’ll send a few umens to raid, but no rifles, no artillery. That is needed here, and besides, once they got more than a few days’ ride south of the track, how would they stayed supplied with ammunition?”

  He stood silent for a moment, inwardly cursing, wondering for a brief instant if his grand desire of forcing the Bantag to equip and fight like a modem army had been correct. Before they had been independent. Arrows could be retrieved after a fight, a sword resharpened. He felt trapped by the damned rail line. It had become his obsessive concern as much as he knew it was the concern of the Yankees.

  He could clearly see now that this indeed had been Keane’s plan all along, once he had escaped the trap set at the rail junction. Put him at the end of an overextended supply line while the cattle fell back to the city and could be supplied by sea. But Keane was dead, their inventor Ferguson dead, Hans Schuder trapped farther down the coast. No, victory was waiting here.

  “Order the army up, and continue the forced march. I want guns moved into position by tomorrow. We assault, break into the outer city, and there we can find sh
elter as well. Once it is won here the rest of this damned Republic will fall into our hands like rotten fruit dropping from a tree.”

  Leaning against the sandbag wall ringing the dome of the Senate Chamber, Pat focused the telescope on the group of mounted Bantags silhouetted on the ridgeline of the Apennine Hills northeast of the city. Even though they were twelve miles away he was able to pick out details, the way more than a hundred mounted warriors were deployed in a covering circle, the battle standard held aloft, and most gatling, Andrew’s own blue-and- gold flag, which was carried as a trophy.

  It was Ha’ark. Damn all, if only they were closer, even eight thousand yards away, he’d order a long-range shot from the fifty-pound Parrott set in bastion number ten up at the northeast corner of their defenses.

  He stepped away from the tripod and motioned for Marcus to take a look.

  “So you think that’s him?” Marcus asked.

  “Certain of it.”

  “And his army?”

  Pat looked down at the latest sketch map provided by scouting units which had slipped back into the city during the night.

  “Two umens moving to head down the east coast. Two umens moving up toward Hispania. Estimate twenty umens in column following the rail line and now twenty-five miles away. All of them armed with modem equipment. Advance elements will be here by nightfall. Looks like they’re already surveying the ground for where the siege lines will be laid out.”

  Pat pointed out small groups of mounted warriors swinging out wide about the city. Puffs of smoke marked where mounted infantry skirmished with them, small vicious fights flaring up around the ruins of still-smoking villas and small villages that dotted the landscape up to the hills east of the city.

  Even with the naked eye he could see a column of mounted Bantag riding along the crest of the hills, heading toward the first of the three aqueducts. By nightfall they would have cut the aqueducts. Every cistern and bath in the city had been ordered filled for fire fighting.