Seas of Venus

by David Drake

  The battle center was the best place from which to direct a battle . . . but the men down in the battle centers were clerks. The commanding officers were on the bridges of their vessels, emotionally as well as physically part of the actions they were directing.

  It made no sense—except in human terms.

  But then, neither did war.

  The Holy Trinity's mottled hull swelled from large to immense behind the rainbow jeweling of sunlit spray. Part of the blurred coloration was deliberate camouflage, shades of gray—gray-green, gray-brown and gray-blue applied to hide the great dreadnought in an environment of smoke and steam . . . but the environment had similar notions of color. The natural stains of rust, salt, and lichen spread over even a relatively new vessel like Holy Trinity and provided the finishing touch that outdid human art.

  They were getting very close. Sal heeled his pumpkinseed over in a curve that would intersect the dreadnought's armored side at a flat angle instead of a straight-on, bug-against-the-windshield impact, then throttled back the thruster.

  For a moment, the skimmer continued to slap forward over the ripples; the major difference to be felt was the absence of drive-line vibration. Then they dropped off plane and Johnnie slammed forward into his cross-belts, hard enough to raise bruises.

  Sal let the reflected bow wave rock the skimmer to near stasis, then added a little throttle to edge them forward at a crawl. He was chuckling.

  "How d'ye like that?" he asked Johnnie. "Are you going to specialize in ass-slappers yourself?"

  "Ah, no," Johnnie said, answering the second question because he was going to have to think about the first one for a while before he was sure. "I'm supposed to be serving as aide to my uncle, so I guess that means battleships. Ah, my uncle's Commander Cooke."

  Sal raised an eyebrow. "Commander Dan Cooke?" he asked. "I've heard of him. No wonder you're good."

  Johnnie beamed with pride and pleasure.

  Sal had brought the skimmer to a tall, six-foot-wide slot at the waterline, some hundred and fifty feet astern of the cutwater. For a moment, Johnnie thought the hole was either battle damage or some general maintenance project, as yet uncompleted.

  "Starboard skimmer launch tube," Sal explained with satisfaction. "Come to think, you don't have ass-slappers in the Blackhorse, do you?"

  "Ah," said Johnnie. "I don't think we use them, no."

  "Gunboats look all right," his guide said scornfully, "but what they really are is bigger targets. This baby—" he patted the breech of the rocket gun "—can chew up torpedoboats and spit out the pieces. And besides, they can't hit us."

  Try me on a hydrofoil's stabilized twin-mount, Johnnie thought, but it would've been rude to speak aloud. Rocket guns coupled a serious warhead with the low recoil impulse which was all a skimmer could accept, but neither their accuracy nor their rate of fire were in any way comparable to the armament of a hydrofoil gunboat. The ass-slappers made a bad second to hydrofoils for fleet protection—

  But they were better than nothing, and nothing was the alternative which economy would force on the Angels.

  Sal rotated the skimmer on her axis again.

  Johnnie was looking up at the side of the Holy Trinity, expecting to see a derrick swing into view to winch them aboard. "What are we—" he started to say.

  Sal accelerated the boat into the tight, unlighted confines of the tube meant for launching ass-slappers in the opposite direction.

  The skimmer bumped violently to a halt on inclined rollers. Its wake sloshed and gurgled in the tube, spanking the light hull another inch or so inward.

  Sal cut the thruster. "Anybody home?" he called. He switched on the four-inch searchlight attached to the gun mount and aimed it upward.

  They were in a cave of girders and gray plating. A dozen other skimmers—eleven other skimmers—hung from a curving overhead track, like cartridges in a belt of ammunition.

  "Anybody?" Sal repeated, flicking the searchlight around the large cavity in a pattern of shadows. His echoing voice was the only answer.

  The skimmer magazine was in a bulge outside the battleship's armor plating. A sliding plate, now open, could be dogged across the launch tube's opening when the vessel was at speed, though neither protection nor the watertight integrity of the main hull were affected if it stayed open.

  Forty feet overhead was a large, grated hatch in the forecastle deck, the opening through which the ass-slappers were meant to be recovered by derrick. There was also a man-sized hatch into the main hull. The latter looked like a vault door and was probably much sturdier.

  The little boat was sliding slowly back down the launch rollers. Sal added a bit of throttle and ordered, "Grab that—"

  The searchlight indicated an empty yoke on the overhead track. The skimmers already in place were hanging from similar units.

  "—and bring it down to the attachment lugs. There oughta be somebody on duty down here, but they've drafted everybody and his brother from the watches to get the St. Michael refitted in time."

  Sal grinned. "We'll get a better price from Admiral Bergstrom if we bring five dreadnoughts 'n four, right?"

  "I think . . . ," said Johnnie. He stood on his seat, then jumped to grab the yoke. Its telescoping mid-section deployed under his weight, allowing him to ride it down.

  "I think we'll kick the Warcocks 'n' Blanche's ass just fine with four," he went on, because he did think that. "But sure, more's better."

  Together they locked the skimmer into its yoke; then Johnnie watched as his guide operated the winch controls to hoist the little vessel up with its sisters.

  "Now," Sal said, "let's look at the best damned ship in the world!"

  There was a large handwheel in the center of the personnel hatch, but a switch—covered with a waterproof cage which Sal opened—undogged and opened the massive portal electrically.

  The hatch was tapered, like the breechblock of a heavy gun. It swung into the skimmer dock, so that a shell impact would drive it closed rather than open. The hatch, and the forward armor belt of which it was a part, were twelve inches thick.

  "In battle," Sal explained, "all the watertight doors are controlled from the bridge. If the bridge goes out, control passes to the battle center. I guess that's a bitch if you're trying to get from one end of the ship to the other in an emergency—but it beats losing watertight integrity because somebody didn't know the next compartment was flooded."

  "Everything's a trade-off," Johnnie said; agreeing, but balancing in his mind an expanding pattern of decisions. Dreadnoughts and skimmers, against fewer dreadnoughts, a carrier, and hydrofoils.

  Above that, the Blackhorse on retainer to Wenceslas Dome: using the permanent arrangement to expand in power and prestige faster than rival companies . . . but facing now utter defeat and humiliation, because of the jealousy and fear of rivals who were no longer peers.

  Above that, Commander Cooke and the Senator juggling war in the service of what they said was peace, would be peace, if. . . .

  All in a pattern that took Johnnie's breath away in a gasp, though he knew that he saw only the base of it and that the superstructure rose beyond the imaginings of even his father and uncle.

  "Yeah, well," Sal said as the hatch closed behind them. He grinned because he misunderstood Johnnie's sudden shock. "It's not as though it matters to me whether they got the door back here dogged shut."

  There were lights on in the passageway behind the armor belt. Sal led the way briskly, commenting that, "There's nothing much at main-deck level, just bunks, chain-lockers and the galleys. I'll take you down t' the battle center 'n' magazines, then give you a look at the bridge."

  They had turned into a much wider passage, one which could hold hundreds of men rushing for their action stations in a crisis. On one side was a barracks-style bunk room whose three double doors were open onto the passageway. On the other side of the passage was what Johnnie presumed was an identical facility, but it was closed up.

  "We've got just a skelet
on watch with the drafts working on St. Michael," Sal explained, "and they're trying to keep the power use down so that we'll have max fuel available if the balloon goes up real sudden."

  Johnnie tried to match the other ensign's knowing grin. Sal had been in action before. All the training in the world couldn't make Johnnie a veteran. . . .

  "Anyhow, they're just running the air-conditioning to the one sleeping area—and where there's people on duty, of course, the engine room, the bridge and the battle center."

  The accommodations were spartan. Cruises of more than a week or two were exceptional for vessels of the mercenary fleets. There was no need to provide luxury aboard warships when the crews would be back at base (or on leave in a dome) within a few days.

  On the other hand, space wasn't at a premium on a battleship. Automation permitted 350 men to accomplish tasks that would have required a crew of thousands in the days of the early dreadnoughts on Earth, but the hull still had to have enough volume to balance the enormous thickness of armor covering the ship's vitals.

  Here on the Holy Trinity, sleeping crewmen had only a simple bed and a locker for a modicum of their personal effects—but the bunks were individual, and they were clamped to the deck at comfortable distances apart. Sleeping quarters in the domes themselves were far more cramped for any but the richest and most powerful.

  Sal began clattering down a companionway. "No elevators?" Johnnie asked as his own boots doubled the racket on the slatted metal treads.

  "We'll go up by the bridge lift," Sal said. "Most of 'em are shut down, like I said . . ."

  He looked back over his shoulder with his wicked smile. "Besides, I can't think anyplace I'd less like t' be than trapped in an elevator cage because the power went off when the ship was getting the daylights pounded outa her."

  They'd reached the lower-deck level, but Sal kept going down. He waved at the huge, dim shapes beyond the companionway. "Generator rooms for the forward starboard railguns," he said.

  The companionway ended on the platform deck. The air was dank and seemed not to have stirred for ages. Instead of a single long passageway, the corridor was broken by watertight doors every twenty feet. For the moment, they were open, but a single switch on the bridge or battle center could close them all.

  "Next stop, A Turret magazine," Sal said cheerfully. "How do you like her so far?"

  So far she seems dingy and brutal and no more romantic than a slidewalk installation, Johnnie thought.

  "She's really impressive," he said aloud.

  The armored wall of the barbette enclosing the magazine was sixteen inches thick. The mechanism opened smoothly, but it seemed an ungodly long time before the drive unit withdrew the hatch far enough that the hinges could swing the plug out of the way.

  "How long does it take to open it by hand if the power's off?" Johnnie asked.

  "Hey, this is a battleship, not a ass-slapper," Sal laughed. "Things take time, right?"

  The powder room was circular, with spokes of sealed, side-facing pentagonal bins in double racks built inward from the walls. The two ensigns had entered one of the wedge-shaped aisles between racks. Above them was a track-mounted handling apparatus, empty at the moment.

  The air had a faint, not unpleasant odor. The room could have been a linen store.

  "There's a four-man crew in each powder room during action," Sal explained as he unlatched one of the bins. "If everything's going right, they just sit on their hands . . . but with the shock of the main guns firing, stuff jumps around like you wouldn't believe."

  Johnnie grinned tightly. "And that's if the other guys' shells aren't landing on you, I suppose?" he said.

  Within the bin—filling it to the degree a cylinder could fill a pentagonal case—was a powder charge sheathed in transparent plastic.

  "The inner casing's combustible," Sal noted. "But then, if something penetrates to the magazine, you got pretty big problems already."

  "It's huge," Johnnie said, looking at the garbage can of propellant.

  "And that's a half charge," Sal said complacently. "A full charge takes two bins—over twelve hundredweight. And if you think that's something, the shells—"

  He pointed at the steel floor, indicating the bilge-level shell room beneath them.

  "—weigh thirty-six hundredweight apiece. How'd you like to be where they land?"

  The center of the powder room was a ten-foot diameter armored shaft. Waist-high hatches, big enough for men but intended for the powder charges, were positioned at the center of each aisle where they could be fed by the automatic handling apparatus—or, in an emergency, by the sweating human crew struggling with charges on a gurney.

  A ladder led up from the powder magazine in a tube beside the hoist shaft. Sal strode to it and began to climb. "Come on," he directed. "This leads to the gun house."

  "Isn't this hole dangerous in case the powder explodes?" Johnnie asked.

  Sal laughed. "It's the blow-off vent," he explained. "The idea is, maybe it'll channel the blast up instead of blowing the sides out."

  Johnnie blinked. "Will it work?" he asked. "The vent?"

  "I'm just as glad I'll be a mile or so away if it comes to a test," Sal said. He laughed again, but his words were serious enough.

  The vent plating was relatively light—two-inch, thick enough to redirect the powder flash which even the heaviest armor couldn't contain. Sal opened the hatch into the turret's gun house while the vent continued up its own angled path to the deck through the barbette wall.

  "This," said Sal, rapping his knuckles on the barbette armor, "is a thirty-two-inch section, just like the turret face. Because it's above the main belt, you see, so it may have to take a direct hit by itself."

  "Right . . . ," murmured Johnnie as he stared at the huge machines around him. He wasn't really hearing the words.

  A computer program could perfectly duplicate scenes of war as plotted in a dreadnought's battle center. A man who never left the keeps could become as expert in strategy and fleet tactics as the most experienced admirals of the mercenary companies. But that led to an impression of the instruments of war as being items of electronic delicacy—

  And they weren't. Or they weren't entirely, at any rate. Here, in a gloom relieved only by the glowstrips that provided emergency lighting, were the triple loading cages—each of which lifted a shell weighing over two tons from the central hoist and carried it up a track into the turret above.

  The loading cages rotated with the turret so that the guns could be fed in any position. A rack-and-pinion drive, powered by a massive hydraulic motor, encircled the top of the barbette. This was the apparatus that trained the guns by swinging the whole turret with the precision of a computer-controlled lathe.

  Friction wasn't a factor: the turret bearings were superconducting magnets. But the sheer weight of the rotating mass must be over a thousand tons. It was inconceivable until you saw it—

  And even then it was inconceivable.

  "Pretty impressive, right?" Sal noted as he began clambering up the ladder into the turret.

  "That's not the word," Johnnie said as he followed.

  He wasn't sure quite what the word was, though. A dreadnought in action would be a foretaste of Hell.

  The door at the back of the turret was open. Johnnie blinked and sneezed at the light flooding in. Powder fouling and burned lubricants gave the air a sickly tinge; all the surfaces were slimed with similar residues.

  The breeches of the 18-inch guns were closed. Their size made them look like geological occurrences, not the works of man. Johnnie tried to imagine the guns recoiling on their carriages; the breeches opening in a blast of smoke and the liquid nitrogen injected to cool and quench sparks in the powder chambers; hydraulic rammers sliding fresh thirty-six-hundredweight shells from the loading cages and into the guns as the twelve-hundredweight powder charges rose on the track behind the shells. . . .

  A vision of Hell.

  "Really something!" Sal noted cheerfully. "The
guns can be fought from here—" he pointed to the four seats, each with a control console of its own "—if something goes wrong with the links from the bridge and battle center."

  Or something goes wrong with the bridge and battle center. . . .

  Johnnie walked to the door. The armor, even on the back of the turret, was so thick that it gave him the impression of going through a tunnel. "I'm about ready for some sunlight," he said.

  It struck Johnnie that he'd never seen direct sunlight until the day before . . . but the carefully balanced illumination of the domes had nothing in common with the crude functionality of this huge weapon's artificial lighting. The heat and glare on deck were welcome.

  The deck had a non-skid surface, but at the moment it was under a glass-slick coating of blue and green algae. Sal spat over the side and muttered, "They need to hose this off with herbicide, but everybody's so damn busy with the St. Michael and loading stores that it'll maybe have t' wait till we're under way."

  At the land perimeter of the base, a sort of battle had broken out between the guard force's flamethrowers and what were probably roots, though they moved as swiftly as serpents. Human weaponry created enormous evolutionary pressures on the continental life forms, ensuring that whatever lived or grew in the immediate vicinity of fleet bases was tougher and more vicious than similar forms elsewhere in the planetary hellbroth.

  A tall barbette raised B Turret so that its guns could fire dead ahead, over A Turret. Just abaft and starboard of the barbette was one of the ship's four railgun batteries. Johnnie looked with interest as they walked past it.

  From the outside, the installation was a fully-rotating dome whose only feature was a pair of armored slots which could open from +90O to -5O. That spread was wide enough to permit the railguns to engage anything from a missile dropping out of orbit to a hydrofoil a pistolshot out.

  The tubes themselves were too fragile to survive on the deck of a ship under fire, so the weapons were designed to accelerate their glass pellets up a helical track. That way, their overall length could be kept within an armored dome of manageable size.