Hostage Rescue (Princess Rescue Inc Book 2)

by Hechtl, Chris

  'Now wait, just wait a moment …”

  “Can't you tie in our homes at least?” one of the family elders demanded.

  “Your crypt is in the way. Besides, why should you benefit while depriving your neighbors?” Cecily asked. They just glared at her. “The writ has been filed. The matter will be handled by the court and the city planning department.” She turned to the team and waved a hand and then made a circling motion going up. She whistled and did the motion again when she got their attention. “Wrap it up, boys; we're done here,” she said. “Cap the lines and put the street back the way you found it,” she ordered as she walked away as the mayor began to argue with the family elders.

  ~~~^~~~

  The scouts and the Flying Legion finished working the coastline, checking on other fishing villages and ports to make sure there were no more pirate attacks. Once they did, the rest of the unit returned home.

  Eugene made a point of reading the final report and commending the leadership for their job. Along the way, he had heard independent reports that the legion had been used to shore up some of the defenses and public works while also showing the flag. It was a good reminder to the dominus in the area to keep them in line.

  They had also drawn rough maps to update the existing ones. They had used some of their training to do so. He hoped they were more accurate.

  They had also managed to get the names of the villages, their elders, and a general census and report on each village. That would help in the future.

  Hopefully next year, they would be able to mount the legion on LAVs. They would still have to keep a close eye on logistics, but he'd like to see at least one unit mounted with vehicles. After that they could look into nodal deployments, either from the domains of the local dominus or from military bases.

  There was a report in from the gateway guard as well, still all quiet. That was ominous in other ways. He also had no report in from Nate. They should have turned back by now. He made a note to look into it.

  ~~~^~~~

  Max felt a bit of relief as his voice returned. Sue and Cecily sternly kept him from bellowing. He could at least talk to some degree though.

  That was good because he'd only thought things were winding down. With winter holding off by a finger's edge, his people were scrambling to hit any and all projects they could, trying to weather in buildings or get one thing or another covered or completed before the snows piled on.

  ~~~^~~~

  Eugene was around when they received an important radio call. He listened to Nate report on the expedition and nodded when they said they were RTB.

  "Good work," he said taking the radio. "Get your lazy buts back here; we've got more work to do. And I'm curious to see all this stuff you've been talking about."

  "Eugene, that you?" Nate asked.

  "The one and only, though Deidra keeps trying to make copies," he said. He felt a punch on his arm and turned to grin at his wife. "Ah, speaking of the devilishly gorgeous woman," he said with a slight bow to her. "Here she is."

  Her lips puckered in a half smile as he sat down. She sat in his lap and took the microphone. "You did get plenty of samples and images?" she asked.

  "And some video. We did get video, right?" Nate asked, voice turning away.

  "You know, I don't … kidding! Okay, kidding. Yes, yes, we did," Mary replied.

  "Good," Deidra said with a nod.

  "We'll see you back here safe and sound. When are you due back?" Eugene asked.

  "Well, since we're knowing where we're going it should go faster. Still three weeks or so," Nate warned.

  "Hurry up. Don't dawdle; the weather is beginning to shift. You don't want to travel those roads when the snows hit."

  "Roger that. Keep a light on for us. Expedition One out," Nate replied.

  “Still nothing from Duluth and Zara?” Deidra asked, clearly worried about the lack of a reply from sister.

  "Weather can affect the transmission. They could be having a blizzard there for all we know. And you missed a few of her calls on this end," Eugene reminded her.

  "True," Deidra said guiltily. "She could be busy," she murmured.

  "Or snowed in. If they are having power problems, they might be conserving power. It's been what, a week?"

  She shook her head. "Try nearly three."

  He blinked and then frowned. That was far too long for a single blizzard … unless the equipment had been damaged. He didn't want to worry his wife though. "Ah. Well, give it another week and see what happens. Worse comes to worse I'll take the plane …"

  He laughed when she punched him in the right bicep hard. "What? What'd I say?” he asked, rubbing his arm.

  "You'll do no such thing! Death contraption," she muttered, stamping his foot.

  He snorted as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her gently.

  ~~~^~~~

  The following morning they had an early snowstorm. It was just a brief dusting but enough to make the point. It was all gone by the heat of the sunny afternoon.

  "See?" Eugene asked, picking up some of the snow that had managed to survive in the shadow of a window. He let it dribble out of his hand, giving up the temptation to make a snowball and toss it at her.

  But only for the moment. There would be other opportunities later. And he was looking forward to her shriek when he dribbled some down the back of her neck or placed a cold hand there or elsewhere.

  Deidra reluctantly nodded, conceding the point. "Yes but still …"

  "If it is as bad there as it is here, she'll be busy. Once she gets a chance, she'll call," he said firmly. “Don't jog her elbow.”

  “All right,” she sighed with a nod as she gave in as gracefully as she could. When his back was turned, she picked up a pinch of snow and stuffed it down the back of his shirt and then danced away merrily as he cursed and tried to get it out. Her laughter was infectious though.

  Chapter 31

  Reports came in of more thunderstorms and even a tornado hitting in the late evening and at night. The city of Sung took a hard hit. Eugene worked to send a unit of the legion as well as a fast response team south to help with the SAR and recovery efforts.

  They also received news that a hurricane had reportedly hit the coast of the Grand Duchy of Calliope. The hurricane had followed the land east and hooked up and then went out to sea near where the landing site was. The landing site fortress had apparently reported the weather, but no one had understood it at the time.

  There was some concern from Deidra's spies that the duchess might try to seize the gateway despite the forces there. The single spy master in the duchy had a HAM radio; he reported in every hafta . He didn't have the connections to confirm if the duchess had been behind the assassination attempt on Eugene.

  Imperium investigators did capture and run off spies from the other kingdoms though. Seven were in the dungeons. Eugene had convinced Deidra to keep them alive as possible trade for their own spies should they be caught. Interestingly, the spies had been interested in Max and the engineering over trying to worm their way into the castle.

  One had been assigned to find a way to bribe or kidnap Max. That had outraged Deidra. She had ordered more guards placed around him, his home, and wife and children. Max had flat-out refused to give up his home in the capital to live under virtual arrest in the castle.

  A third plot to kill the queen had been overheard in a pub, but the conspirators were driven off when the pub owner loudly called for the guard and sheriff. A mob had formed to chase them, but the conspirators were lost in the night. Witnesses insisted they were not locals.

  Eugene was more worried about an attempt to kill or kidnap Max than his own personal safety. He was a bit amused that Max was so wrapped up in his stepper motor success that he was barely paying attention to the outside world.

  The engineer had finally cracked the problem and improved upon his crude encoder and potentiometer design. Cecily had gone in his place to the dedication of an electronic plant opening
ceremony. They would be producing relays, switches, and power receptacles. She'd even checked their quality control at his insistence.

  Thefts were reported of parts but only a few of the thefts were traced. The trails eventually went cold. It was speculated that either the other kingdoms were involved or competitors or the black market.

  Reports of a late forest fire north of Rojer city came in just as snow was reported in Emory. The only hope to stop it was a snowstorm. Eugene followed along as they tried to get people ahead of the fire to evacuate the area.

  The road crews and seasonal miners trickled in as the weather turned stiff and cold. The road crews got their pay out and then hit the bars and brothels or returned to their homes and families. Max had plans to outfit them with more advanced construction equipment over the winter. They would have to train on the equipment as it became available.

  Max also had high hopes for a prototype motorcycle. Cecily flat-out refused to allow him to test drive it. The job fell to Jer who got a bit too enthused after the first tests. He laid into the throttle too hard and crashed after a stunning run down the street. The tech smith broke his arm. Fortunately, he had been wearing a helmet and padded suit.

  Cecily didn't let Max live that one down. Nor did Deidra when she found out Eugene had offered to take the test ride.

  “Men!” Deidra said testily. “They are always doing something to get themselves hurt or worse,” she growled in exasperation.

  Cecily snorted. “I talked to Charlie. She said it's a way guys try to impress the ladies. Something about Redneck and 'hey ya'll watch this?’” she shook her head.

  “Stupid.”

  “Yes. And if they expect us to be all tender and take care of them … grr!” the smith growled.

  The queen smiled in grim agreement.

  ~~~^~~~

  When the snows held off, Eugene took one of the trucks up to tour the dam project. Max's engineers and workmen had managed to get the generators installed. They had also tested them and tied them in to the grid. Concrete had been made and poured. They still had a bit of testing to do and the concrete would take more time to fully cure and settle, but it looked promising.

  He just hoped it held up to the spring melt. Not to mention the expansion of the water in the pond when it froze.

  What also surprised him was the fish ladder. He turned to look at it and then at Max.

  Max shrugged. “Yeah, I do an echo check. Actually, Nate put me up to it. He's right,” the engineer stated with a nod to the ladder. "We need to check to make sure we don't kill fish or damage the environment. A lot of people back on Earth don't understand that. It's important. The last thing we need is to destroy an ecosystem. A simple change, adding a fish ladder or moving the set up over to another gorge might make the world of difference to not only the environment, but also the people who might depend on those fish."

  "I'm not complaining. Far from it. I approve. Damn fine job."

  Max gave him a sour look. “You think of that joke all by yourself?”

  “What?” Eugene asked, puzzled then laughed as he caught on.

  ~~~^~~~

  The additional power in the grid had allowed Max to open the largest cement and concrete plant to date. It was set up on the northern outskirts of the capital. The entire facility was industrialized with an eye to mechanized vehicles. "It's the only way to move the stuff," Max insisted. "Hell if we're going to try to move a cement mixer with a full load with a draft animal. It'd give even a Titan a hernia!"

  Max had grudgingly set up a couple of steam generators as backup power, but he had insisted on using DC motors and gear trains wherever possible. The gears were still low-grade material; they occasionally burned through a gear or an entire transmission when a hopper or other piece of equipment was overloaded.

  Max was not amused when he had to go out to do a teardown. He made that clear to the plant managers. “The next time I come out here to do this I'm going to start charging you double,” he growled. He hit the plate that was riveted to the hopper. “We have these for a reason! See?!” he pointed to the max weight. “Don't go over that!”

  He had to leave his people to finish the rebuild since he was wanted at a couple of mills. A small stamping mill had been started. It could swap out the dies to stamp all sorts of soft metal parts. A lumber mill nearby was also opening up. Both mill owners had benefited from Eugene's seminars as well as startup loans, expert guidance, and leased tools from the government. Each of the mills were electrically powered with AC lines and DC converter and plugs. Each also had a biodiesel generator as a backup, one of the first built.

  Deidra and Eugene were there for the opening ceremony for each of the mills. They were a last-minute arrival, getting there at the same time Max did. Their arrival, however, had been intentional; they hadn't wanted anyone to know they were coming for security reasons. There were intense cheers from the crowd.

  ~~~^~~~

  Sue had her own problems to deal with. An outbreak in Troy had been reported. They were having a minor epidemic; quarantine was helping to limit but not completely stop the spread of the virus.

  Troy city was one of the few cities that had yet to implement many of her medical advances and it showed. Deidra flat-out refused to let her travel to the city. That forced Sue to listen over the radio to reports and try to make a diagnosis and then find a treatment plan based on that.

  The complicating factor was that the vaccines had not reached Troy. She also had to fight with the medicus in the city on how to get them to treat the plague. She finally convinced them to stop the bloodletting and listen to her.

  The patients initially had symptoms of a cold or flu. They had a runny nose, fever, diarrhea, and cough. After a time, red splotches appeared on their skin. Some had seizures, blindness, and death.

  By the third day of the report she had narrowed it down to a form of measles.

  Repeatedly driving the point home about proper sanitation and hygiene helped the medicus to limit some of the spread to their own people. From there they managed to isolate those who had a fever and were therefore the most infectious.

  The biggest change she made was one of the simplest, encouraging people to wash their hands with soap. All medicus had to do so—wash their hands thoroughly before and after touching a patient. The lye soap was caustic and abrasive to their skin, but it reduced the risk of transmission and cross-contamination.

  They wore simple masks to help cut back on airborne transmission. She managed to convince them that the black stork-like masks they wore during major plagues were not needed. They were the medieval version of a biohazard suit, but they mainly just got in the way.

  Max and his tech smiths had set up new relay towers on high points along the road to the border with Duluth as well as borders of duchies. Railways had been started east, west, and south along the king's road, but they ran into logistics problems with keeping up a supply of gravel, iron rails, and wood. Max had been highly amused by the ancient use of survey equipment to mark out the railways. He had hoped to improve their speed with modern machinery but found that the old ways worked fine. The construction crews hadn't been able to keep up anyway. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it I guess,” he said with a shrug.

  ~~~^~~~

  The last delivery of copper allowed the wire mill to turn out several tons of copper wire spools. The DC motor plant went into high gear doing production runs for various products. Max tried to keep the motors as universal as possible. Some were basic though, like the motors in fans for furnaces and also cooling.

  They had begun to move beyond outfitting public buildings as electricity became available in the city. Of course the rich were the first to be able to afford the luxury. Their homes were the first to be refitted. Some even got outlandish with carvings on some of the housings.

  Max still insisted that hospitals, schools, the university, police, fire, and others were updated as well. He knew full well that not only would his children depend on it but also him
, his wife, and others sometime in the future.

  The bicycle factory shut down for a week to retool. Max had convinced the owners to shift production to an exercise generator variant over shutting down completely for the winter and laying everyone off when sales slumped.

  The exercise bike had a small alternator hooked up to the drive train. The person pedaling powered the alternator which could power things. Or they could hook it up to a battery to recharge it. It was a novelty item for some people, getting exercise and electricity at the same time.

  A variant was more of a treadmill arrangement for pets or people who preferred to walk. It was too soon to tell if sales would support the reduced work production rate and allow them to keep the factory open all winter.