Down to the Sea

by William R. Forstchen

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then, we have to come at it from another angle,” Andrew said, raising his voice enough so that the others could hear.

  The arguing group fell silent.

  “Another angle. Figure out their weakness as of this moment and attack it, at the very least to buy time so that we can then apply a long-term plan.”

  “Their weakness is political,” Webster interjected. “I can figure that much from the report of this young commander.”

  Richard sensed a distrust on Webster’s part. Was it because of O’Donald? he wondered. Surely that would leak out sooner or later. Had Andrew already shared that bit of information with the only member of his cabinet who was an old survivor of the 35th Maine?

  “Our flyers versus theirs perhaps?” Theodor asked.

  Richard gave a nod of approval. “I think we have the speed on them. The machine I flew had the range—it was made for that—but it was slow. It was built to span the long distances between their islands.”

  “How you flew it for a day and a half is beyond me,” Webster said, and again Richard wondered if there was a question about the truthfulness of his report.

  “I was desperate, sir,” Richard replied evenly. “That can drive a man to do most anything.”

  “Basing decisions related to flyers and tactical application on a vague report regarding just one of their machines is more than a bit reckless,” Petronius interjected. “I would think that if this whole thing is even true to start with, they’d have given this young lieutenant here a worthless machine.”

  Andrew let the flicker of a smile light his features and held out his hand before Richard could respond.

  “Two things we must do,” Andrew said, fixing everyone with his gaze. “Long-term first. If we can buy a year, two years, what can you do?” he asked. “I need to know that now, today. You can give me the details later. I know you people have been cooking up a lot of wild ideas. That’s what you are paid to do.”

  He looked over at Ferguson, who smiled conspiratorially. “I want a concise proposal on long-term development plans by this afternoon. I think I can get the support you’ve been screaming about, and which I have honestly wanted to get for you all along.

  “This afternoon I will meet with several senators to let them in on this. We have to put together, at once, a proposal for a naval buildup unlike anything we’ve ever done before, then ram it through Congress before they have time to think about it, while they are still afraid. Give them time to think, and then the arguing will start and months will drag out, which we obviously can’t afford.”

  “And suppose the whole thing is for naught,” Webster asked. “Six months from now, when we’ve spent millions, then what?”

  “Bill, do you honestly believe that?”

  Webster hesitated. “It’s a lot to gamble based on the report of one man.”

  “I’d rather bet on it now than wake up one morning to hear that the Kazan fleet is steaming into Constantine, or worse, coming up the Mississippi to blow us apart. Until proven otherwise I have to assume it is correct.”

  Richard stood silent, stomach knotted, wishing he was, at this moment, anywhere else.

  Webster finally grumbled in agreement and fell silent. Richard looked over at Petronius, who stood with arms folded, saying nothing.

  “To match their ships of the line?” Varinnia announced. “Three years at least. There isn’t a slip here big enough to support such a project. We’d need to increase the size of this facility four fold at least. We could shift frigate production over to the smaller yards at Roum and Cartha.”

  “That will help get votes,” Webster replied, and Andrew nodded in agreement.

  “The number of ships?” Andrew asked.

  “We should do it the same way we make guns, artillery,” Varinnia replied. “I’ve always said the way we put ships together is all wrong. It is not an assembly-line process like we have for other things. Make standard design for several classes of ships, then get the factories rolling.”

  She pointed at the half-completed cruisers lining the piers.

  “We put these together like craftsmen, turning out only enough pieces to fit each ship. It all goes too slowly. We must have total standardization, train more workers, then start churning them out one after another.”

  “But it won’t be that easy,” Petronius replied. “Consider the question of scale. Armor plating is difficult to cast, and for what you are thinking about, by the gods, we don’t know much of anything. How thick is the armor, how deep do their armor-piercing shells penetrate, how do they delay the fuses so they burst inside the target rather than on top of it? We’ve talked about steam turbines, even built small-scale models, but one big enough to move a frigate?” He threw up his hands in frustration.

  “You have a few months to work that out,” Andrew announced. “Just to gear up will take time. The sheer labor needed to expand this shipyard will take months before the first keel is even laid down. Put everyone you have on the problems and come up with the designs.”

  “They’re amphibious,” Richard said as the conversation paused for a moment. “I doubt if they are simply going to hit Constantine and be done. They’ll land an army. They could put thirty thousand or more ashore anywhere along the two thousand miles of our coast and in six months make it half a million. I was told, during that battle they had already placed tens of thousands of troops ashore and built landing strips for aerosteamers, all within a couple of days.” All fell silent as they digested the enormous implications of what he’d said.

  “The first question is, when and where will they strike, if they are indeed coming,” Petronius interjected, breaking the silence. “Deal with that first.”

  “Constantine,” several of the group said at the same time, followed by nods of agreement.

  “How do they even know where Constantine is?” Webster asked.

  “As I said in my report,” Richard replied, “they sent spies here years ago. They must have charts drawn up, showing our bases.”

  “They know where Constantine is, and that is the first place they will head for,” Andrew stated.

  “Do we order Bullfinch to pull out?” Webster asked. “No,” came the sharp reply from Andrew. “Do that and the Greeks might very well leave the Republic, and then we have a civil war on our hands. We have to fight to hold it.”

  Andrew looked over at Richard. “Go on, I want to hear what you are thinking. Should we try to hold Constantine? Or should I say, can we hold Constantine?”

  Richard took a deep breath. “We fight there with what we have right now, and we lose, sir. Their main ships could shell the fortifications and the naval depot to rubble. They land, encircle the town, and it is over.”

  “We can’t concede to them, in the opening move, a base on our coast,” Petronius replied sharply.

  “I fear, sir, that they will take it regardless.”

  Richard could sense Andrew’s tension, and he wondered if he was sounding too defeatist.

  “The other place they will land is on the Bantag coast,” Varinnia announced. “It’s obvious.”

  Andrew nodded sadly in agreement.

  “So we have two battles, on two fronts.”

  “Consider the prospect that they might strike on three fronts,” Webster interjected. “They could very well venture up the Mississippi, knowing that it will blockade us, in a way, actually cut us off from our states along the coast. There’s only one rail line down there, so far, to Constantine. They know we are reliant on the river as well.”

  “There is one other factor,” Richard said slowly. “For the moment, we are the desperate ones. For them this, as much as anything, is a political maneuver.”

  Andrew looked over at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that, sir. There is a game within a game and we are but pawns. It is the struggle between Hazin and the emperor for power. If we could drive a wedge there, it might buy time. Second, there is contempt for us. The Hord
es quickly learned desperation. You threatened their ride, their source of food, of survival. Whether we live or die at this moment matters to the Kazan not at all.”

  He fell silent, wondering if he had said too much, but the group around him were gazing at him intently.

  “Go on,” Andrew said.

  “The farsighted might perceive that twenty, fifty years from now there could be a conflict to the death over which race will survive on this world.”

  “I always held some hope that it would be different,” Andrew replied, an infinite sadness in his voice.

  “Those bastards?” Webster snapped. “The world is too small for both of us. You can dream about it, Mr. President, but those here who lived under the yoke of the Hordes know different.”

  As he spoke, Varinnia’s assistant nodded in agreement. “Later, Mr. Webster, later,” Andrew sighed. “Continue, Commander.”

  “In the long term, this will be a political war as well. I know that doesn’t bear on the issue at hand, but I had to mention it. I suspect that Hazin is urging the emperor to attack in order to divert him. You see, if they didn’t fight us, they’d fight among themselves. Perhaps their nobility would turn on this cult of Hazin’s and destroy it.”

  “If only we could trigger that.”

  “I don’t know how,” Richard replied. “I wish I did.”

  “There’s one final question for this morning,” Andrew said. “Assuming we face their fleet within the next four to six weeks before the storm season strikes. What do we do?”

  “Based on what he said,” Webster replied, “surrender the ships or pull out.”

  Andrew looked over at Webster with a flash of anger in his eyes. “We can’t withdraw, nor will we ever surrender.”

  “We fight, and they get blown apart and thousands of good men die for a hollow gesture based on political considerations.”

  Richard stepped back from the two as an argument ensued. Long ago, while still a slave, he had learned that when rulers fight, the lowly should be nowhere in sight.

  As he moved to the edge of the group, his attention focused on the half-completed ship.

  “I always feared these were not enough.”

  Varinnia was by his side, Adam behind her. He nodded, sensing it was best to say nothing.

  “Beautiful ships, but the problem with the sea is, so much rides on so little. A dozen ships can decide the fate of a nation. On land, with massed armies, you can fight a battle, lose it, perhaps even lose near on to an entire army as we did several times, but with the right backing industrially, by the time your opponent advances you can have a new army in place and quickly adapt your tactics to what you’ve learned from the last fight.

  “At sea it comes down to a few thousand men, a few ships. Lose that fleet, and before you have time to build a new one they are standing off your harbors, destroying the crucial yards needed to rebuild. One battle at sea, maybe two, and the issue is basically decided. Maybe in a way that is better. I’ve always dreaded the mass slaughter created by the weaponry I helped to build.”

  “Admiral Bullfinch calls it the power of a fleet in existence,” Richard replied. “Says that he used to talk about it with his roommate when he was at the old Naval Academy back on earth.”

  “So these ships will die if they go to face the Kazan.”

  “They’ll be sunk the moment they come into range of their guns.”

  She looked at Keane and Webster, who were still arguing, then turned back to Richard. “Tell me, is there a way that they can fight without having to come within range?”

  As she spoke, Richard could see Adam standing behind her, ready to burst with excitement. “I think Lieutenant Rosovich has the answer to that,” he replied.

  ELEVEN

  “What is it, Sean?”

  Ashamed that she had caught him thus, he slipped out of the bed and retreated to the small veranda attached to their bedroom in the palace of Hazin.

  Slipping on a light robe, Karinia came out to join him. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, “I woke up, and it sounded like you were crying.”

  He lowered his head, covering his eyes with his hands. “Nothing,” he whispered. “A bad dream, that’s all.”

  “Tell me about it.” She sat down beside him, hands lightly touching his shoulders, rubbing them.

  “My mother. I dreamed she was still alive, back in Roum. She asked me why I had done what I have.”

  “Done what?”

  “Stayed here,” and he uncovered his face.

  Ever so gently she touched the tears on his cheeks as if they were some strange curiosity she had never experienced before. She touched a teardrop on her fingertip to her lips.

  “And my father, yelling drunkenly. Funny, that’s one of the few memories I have of him from when I was a boy. Him drunk.”

  “Did he hit your mother?”

  “No. He was never like that. A good-natured mick, they called him. He’d laugh too loudly, always with some of his friends from the army when he came to Roum. He’d give me some present, then have the servants shoo me off to bed. In the morning he’d be gone and my mother would cry for days afterward. He was with her in the dream, asking me the same thing.”

  “You regret staying?”

  He looked over at her and forced a smile. “For you? No, of course not.”

  He let his fingers lightly trace the line of her jaw. His hand cupped her cheek for a second, then fell away. He stood up, leaning over the railing. Below was the main courtyard of the temple. In this, the hour before dawn, initiates of the first order, Kazan and human, were dimly visible, lying on the flagstone pavement with arms spread wide. At dusk they had drunk of the holy waters, and even now they drifted in their visions. Occasionally one would moan softly.

  Guards paced back and forth between the rows. Several of the bodies were completely still, blood splattered around them, their heads neatly laid to one side. Even as he watched, one of them, caught in a horrible vision, began to stand up, crying out. He was dead within seconds, body collapsing, spraying blood. He had failed, falling victim to the inner terror. He had not learned stillness in the face of fear.

  “Ghastly in its power,” Sean whispered.

  “The first thing you learn,” Karinia replied. “Weakness is the destroyer.”

  He stepped back from the spectacle below, looking over at her. “My tears were weakness.”

  She smiled. “No. Just love.” She moved into his arms. “I vaguely remember my mother,” she whispered. “My father, any of our fathers, none of us know. He is simply selected, then is gone.”

  “Were you selected for me?” Sean asked.

  She slipped from his embrace, returning to the bed, beckoning for him to follow, which he did.

  As he lay down beside her, she lightly traced a fingertip across his chest. “Yes, I was selected.”

  He pulled back slightly and sat up.

  “Don’t be angry. Consider it an honor, my love. It was Hazin who told me to go to you. I obeyed, but after I met you the obedience became pleasure.”

  He shook his head. “It makes it seem false.”

  “Why? Because that is not how it is done in your old world?”

  He nodded.

  “Hazin wanted you for the Order. There is nothing wrong in that. If not for that, you would be dead now.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “What, then?”

  “Arranged like that.”

  “Don’t they do that where you come from? The Chin still arrange marriages, don’t they?”

  “How do you know that?”

  She smiled. “I just know. Consider it an honor conferred by Hazin. You are not of us, yet he wishes your blood to be joined with us. I should have been destined for someone pure, of ten generations or more, but he chose you. That indicates his regard.”

  Sean looked over at her, not sure how to react. She seemed a dream of perfection, yet beneath the softness of her light olive skin, she had a strength that at
times, in moments of passion, seemed capable of overwhelming him.

  She was not the first woman he had been with. There had been Svetlana, one of the girls at the Roaring Mouse, and even Lavinia back in Roum, who, at age eighteen, he had at times thought of in terms far more than passion. He had made her vague promises about finishing the academy and his first tour of duty, at which point the military freed him and would allow him to marry. He wondered where Lavinia was now, if she mourned him, if she still cared or had already forgotten him with someone else.

  The way I’ve forgotten her, he thought. He looked over at Karinia. She was different, and he wondered if in some way she was not even quite human.

  Yet that was indeed what had convinced him to stay. It was not the visions given to him by Hazin, the cunning and oh so persuasive arguments of the inevitability of history on this world, or even the quest to find a Portal and thereby reach the power of the stars. No, it was the raw, primal power of this race the Kazan were breeding. They were the inevitable culmination of man, and once unleashed, nothing, and especially the Republic, with all its turmoil and teeming, foolish voices, could stand against them.

  “My mother, in the dream, she said something.”

  “What?”

  “That I was a traitor.”

  Karinia laughed softly. “To whom? Yourself, your country?”

  He nodded.

  “Rather, it is your Republic that would betray you. We understand a thousand centuries of history, Sean. This world is the old world of the Kazan, of their barbarian cousins who once rode the northern continent. From here they leapt to the stars, subjugated a hundred worlds, and then came the Great Falling, the casting down and twenty thousand years of darkness.

  “The Portals are the key to everything. All were dead here, annihilated, and then the Portals somehow opened, the gate between worlds. A few came from one world, and then another. Their descendants multiplied, but understood nothing of before.

  “Our race. Our race somehow was on more than one world as well.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  “Didn’t he tell you that?”

  He shook his head.