by John Ringo
“We can do the landing, sir,” Jerry said doggedly. “The wyverns can land on a dime.”
“This will be a moving dime, Warrant,” the skipper growled. “Up and down, side to side, forward and back. I’ll limit the movement to the extent that I can, but I can’t stop it.”
“We’ll figure it out, sir,” Jerry replied.
“Know anything about logistics, Lieutenant?” the skipper asked. “You’ve fed those wyverns. How much feed per day?”
“Depends upon the type, sir,” Herzer answered. “From what I was told, two hundred kilos per day of the mess, less if it’s good quality protein and fats.”
“Access to the latter will be restricted at sea,” the captain said. “You’ve helped feed them?”
“Sir,” Herzer said, nodding his head.
“Think about doing that on a rolling ship in the middle of a gale,” the captain said with a smile.
“Sir, have food bowls set into the stalls, sir,” Herzer replied. “Have slots to feed the mess through the slots. Better yet, have some sort of a moving trolley that automatically feeds them; that prevents humans accidentally sliding into the stalls. Have the edge of the food bowls sufficiently high that the mess is unlikely to slop over. Feed in increments rather than lots at one time. More time intensive but if there’s an automated feeder that’s not a problem. Sir.”
The captain raised one eyebrow. “Is that an official recommendation, Lieutenant?”
“But…” Evan said then shut up as the captain raised a hand.
“Sir, no, sir, it’s just an idea,” Herzer barked, standing at the position of parade rest. “I was specifically asked, sir.”
The skipper leaned back in a chair and actually appeared to look at Herzer for the first time.
“Who trained you, Lieutenant Herrick?” the captain asked.
“Gunnery Sergeant Miles A. Rutherford was my advanced combat trainer, sir,” Herzer replied. “He developed the Blood Lord training system. Along with Duke Edmund.”
“Gunnery sergeant?” the skipper asked. “That’s a Marine rank.”
“If you have an issue with the use of that rank, sir, I respectfully suggest that you take it up with the Gunny, sir,” Herzer said sardonically.
“Think you’re salty, Lieutenant?” the skipper asked, tilting his head to the side.
“No, sir, never been to sea, sir,” Herzer replied. “But…”
“Yes?” Chang said, with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ve been wounded with arrows, axe, spear and sword, had my hand cut off by a powered blade, fought my way through a cloud of nannites to try to dig my dagger into a man protected by a force field. I’ve been smashed off my horse, trampled and seen my best friends die on every side of me. I’ve flown dragons, fought cavalry battles and clashed shield to shield with ten times my number of Changed, all slavering for my blood. For two damned years I’ve been fighting this war on the front lines, sir. If you’re trying to intimidate me, Colonel, you’re going to find it a hard row to hoe.”
The skipper stared at him for just a moment, then nodded his head.
“We’re trying to figure out how to land and recover dragons on this ship and how to keep them alive, healthy in extreme conditions. We’re also trying to figure out how to make them more of an offensive weapon. Warrant Officer Riadou has apparently fought with them before, but if the enemy isn’t disheartened by their appearance there’s not much that they can do except flap their wings and hiss. They’re not even very good at using those impressive talons of theirs. Air to air, dragon y dragon, they might just be formidable. But we need to figure out how to make them a formidable force against ground and sea enemies. Now, they make decent scouts but I don’t want a ship that’s relegated to a scouting mission. I want an offensive weapon. Understand?”
“Sir,” Herzer said with a nod of his head.
“Is there some way that you can help with that?”
“Not at this time, sir,” Herzer admitted. “I wasn’t planning on contributing, as noted. I’m here to be Duke Edmund’s eyes and ears. But… sir?”
“Yes?”
“There’s nobody that I know of who is better at wringing an offensive edge from a weapon than Duke Edmund.”
“Perhaps he’ll have some ideas, then.” The skipper shrugged. “By the way, you came up with the same plan that Evan has for feeding the wyverns. Mr. Riadou has some issues with it.”
“Wyverns are pack animals, sir,” the rider said. “I’m afraid that if they spend much time battened down and completely separated they’re going to be pretty unhappy. Depressed. A depressed dragon is a noneating dragon.”
“We’ll cross that problem when we come to it,” Chang said. “And that’s your problem unless there’s something specific that I have to approve.”
“Yes, sir,” the rider said.
“I want you to be thinking along offensive lines,” the skipper continued. “I want you to figure out ways that your dragons can sink ships. Capture them for that matter.”
“Well, we can drop rocks,” Jerry said. “But we have to toss them over the side and hope we both miss the wyvern’s wing and hit the enemy. It’s not very efficient.”
“You and Evan talk it over,” the skipper said. “I’ve spent enough time on this problem. Take Herzer with you. Figure something out.”
“Will do, sir,” the warrant officer replied. He straightened up and saluted, fist to chest. “By your leave, sir.”
“In the Navy we salute to the brim of the cap,” Chang said, tossing him a salute in return. “And not indoors. Gads, classes on basic military courtesy for riders. Add that to the list.”
“Is he in the Army or the Navy?” Herzer asked. “Sir.”
“He’s damned well under my command on this ship, Lieutenant,” the skipper replied tightly. “He can damned well follow Navy protocols.”
Herzer nodded in reply and pushed open the door.
* * *
Joel had been assigned a bunk in the transient quarters and the next day hurriedly assigned uniforms and filled out a myriad of forms. The only one that gave him any trouble was the last will and testament. He had no one, at least no one he was in contact with, to leave his belongings to. On the other hand, “Joel Annibale” didn’t exist, anyway. Finally, he left the form blank and when he turned it in the clerk in charge pointed to the empty line.
“You gotta leave it to someone or something,” the clerk said.
“I don’t have anyone,” Joel said, his face hard.
“Most of us don’t,” the clerk replied. She was a young woman and she shook her head, sighing. “You can leave it to the Navy fund. This is my family, now. I guess it’s yours, too.”
Joel filled in the line and signed the form with a strange feeling. He knew he probably wasn’t going to be with the Navy long, but for the time he had a home.
He was sent down to the docks with his ill-fitting uniforms, bulging seabag and new boots that slipped on his feet. He was assigned to a boat and got the first look at his new ship.
The damned thing was huge, a clipper ship if he recalled the design right. But the masts were all screwed up because of the big platform on the back.
There was a working party loading on the starboard side and before the new hands were even assigned quarters they were put to work hauling up the supplies. There were hogsheads of salt beef and pork, steel barrels of ration biscuit, bag after bag marked “Soya” and innumerable other items. Winches had been secured to the crosstrees and the material came over in large cargo nets. Then it had to be hand carried below and stuffed away in the holds. On his first trip down he was surprised to see that the material was only supplementary to what was already on-board; the ship was stuffed tighter than a tick.
As soon as the lighters had pulled away from the ship he was accosted by a female petty officer.
“I’m PO Su Singhisen,” the petty officer said. “You’re Seaman Annibale, right?”
“Right,” Joel said. “Joel Anni
bale.” The PO was a medium-height blonde with her hair pulled back in a tight bun.
“You looked like you knew what you were doing, there,” she said, waving at him to follow her below.
“I’ve worked ships before,” Joel said. “None this big, but it’s pretty much the same.”
“And they made you a steward?” Singhisen laughed.
“They did?” Joel replied. “Nobody told me what my duty station was going to be.”
“Grand,” the PO chuckled. “The navy finally finds somebody with experience on ships and they make them an officers’ steward.”
“Sounds like any bureaucracy to me,” Joel chuckled.
“What did you do before the Fall?” Singhisen asked as she led him below. The companionway was short and while the PO didn’t have to stoop, Joel did.
“I mostly sailed in the Asur Islands,” Joel replied. “After the Fall I took up fishing for a living.”
“How’d you get here?” she asked. She opened a door on an incredibly cramped room with four tiers of bunks spread across it in six rows. “Home sweet home.”
“Grand,” Joel replied as she led him down the narrow aisle between the bunks.
“You’re the newbie,” she said, pointing to the top bunk. “So you get the worst spot.”
Joel had already seen that the seabags were set at the base of the bunks. He climbed up and lashed his in place.
“What next?”
“Galley and then I get somebody to show you the route to officers’ country. Then we put you to work.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Herzer followed the two far back into the bowels of the ship. The corridors were impossible to figure out, or so it seemed; most of the time he didn’t know if he was facing the rear of the ship or the front. But finally they entered a high, wide corridor that was unmistakable.
“This is where the dragons walk?” he asked.
“We call it Broadway,” Evan replied with a nod. “There’s a ramp for them to walk down. The hatch is a major structural weakness, but we think we’ve shored around it sufficiently.”
“Jerry, how much weight can one of the wyverns carry, over the weight of the rider?” Herzer asked.
“About two hundred kilos depending on the weight of the rider,” Jerry replied.
“So why was I told to fly one alone?” Herzer mused. “I could have doubled up with, oh, Vickie. Or you, for that matter.”
“We’d brought a spare,” Jerry replied with a shrug. “Why overload them?”
“Hmmm…” Herzer followed them down to the stalls and checked out the arrangements. Sure enough, there was a method to slip food through to the permanently installed food troughs as well as spigots for water at each of the pens, feeding into a separate watering trough. The stalls had points to hook up chains in case the wyverns got out of hand as well as ways to close the stall down and press the wyvern up against the back if one got completely out of control.
“I think this will work,” Jerry said, reluctantly. “Actually, it’s better set up than our rookeries. I’ll take some of these ideas back. Where’s the mixing area for the mess?”
“Down the corridor,” Evan said. “You’ll love it. The material is brought up on lifts in premeasured quantities and then you just pour it in the mixer. That’s powered as well, if we have take-off time. If not there’s a four-man capstan for mixing and running the feeding chutes.”
“I hope you remembered the ketchup,” Herzer said jokingly. The mechanical feeding contrivance looked like a recipe for feeding body parts to the wyvern to him, but as an officer he hoped he’d be spared the job of using it.
“We’ve got two tons of ketchup powder,” Evan said earnestly. “That should cover a hundred days even at the standard use of one kilo of ketchup per day per wyvern, which was what we were given as the measure. How do they like fish?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” Jerry said. “We’re from inland. Why?”
“I was wondering if it becomes necessary if they would be willing to substitute dried fish or fish sauce for meat or ketchup?”
“We’ll find out,” Jerry said with a laugh. “I’m sure we will find out.”
“Evan, we met a ‘Chief Brooks’ earlier,” Herzer said, rubbing his chin. “Who is he?”
“Brooks is the command master chief, the senior chief on board,” Evan said. “Why?”
“Know where I’d find him?” Herzer asked.
“Just go up on deck and ask, somebody will know where he is.”
“Jerry, I’ve got the funny feeling that I’m going to be ordered to get a, pardon the pun, crash course in dragon flying,” Herzer said. “But I assume one of you will be bringing in Chauncey?”
“Absolutely,” Jerry said with a frown. “I’m not even sure about…”
“Trust me on this,” Herzer said. “I’ve learned to read part of the way into that opaque mind of my boss. We’ll have to figure out how to get me trained on a ship.”
“We’ll try,” Jerry sighed.
“Okay, I’m going to go find Chief Brooks,” Herzer said. “Later.”
“Later,” Jerry replied as he walked away.
“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” Evan said. “Chief Brooks doesn’t like his time wasted. If he’s not happy with a lieutenant it doesn’t keep him from, with great respect, of course, eating the lieutenant a new asshole.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to be the chief that tried to eat Herzer a new asshole,” Jerry said musingly. “Now, human being quarters?”
* * *
“I think I can live here for a while,” Daneh said, looking around the cabin after the others had left.
“It’s more comfortable than I expected,” Edmund admitted. “I was figuring we’d be in bunks.”
“You’re a duke now.” Daneh smiled. “And a general. People want to pamper you.”
“Like I need pampering,” Talbot said. He reached down and opened up the box again, then dug into the bottom, pulling out a small gemlike device.
“A datacube?” Daneh said. “I can’t believe she’s expending so much power on this! I’ve had people die because I didn’t have power.”
“Daneh, if we get this wrong far more people are going to die than will ever go under your knife in a very bad lifetime,” Edmund said. “And it’s not just a datacube.”
“What’s it for, then?” she asked.
“Communications among other things,” Edmund temporized. “And… in the event of a direct energy strike by Paul or any of his faction, they’ll draw power from Sheida’s protections. That’s how important this is to her. But we’re not to use it unless we really have to.”
“This is more than just an invasion,” Daneh said. “I mean, about more.”
“There are so many balls being juggled I’m not even sure which are in the air,” Edmund admitted. “But just concentrate on your mission and we’ll be fine.”
“I hate it when you get all inscrutable,” Daneh said, sighing. “Speaking of which, I have an interest in Herzer’s well-being. Why did you really bring him along?”
“When Jerry and his friends were racing wyvern, Herzer was fighting orcs in enhanced reality,” Edmund said, frowning. “With the pain protocols turned up. He’s a hard, cold, thinking bastard of a fighter. Harry tried to get those flyboys to pay attention to the mission, which is to force the enemy to admit defeat. He didn’t manage it. I’m hoping that Herzer has better luck.”
“And?”
“And…” Edmund smiled. “After the job he did in Harzburg he needed a nice vacation to the Southern Isles. A pleasant cruise, a beautiful roommate, who knows what might happen?”
“Edmund, are you matchmaking?” Daneh said, aghast.
“For Herzer? Always.”
“Your own daughter?!”
“Why not? They’re young, they’re compatible…”
“And Rachel treats him like a brother,” Daneh said, throwing up her hands. “Herzer is a stallion stud, Rachel, as far as I know, i
s still a virgin. And apparently uninterested in changing that fact. It’s not going to work.”
“It’s worth a shot.” Talbot shrugged. “Frankly, Rachel needs him more than vice versa. She just doesn’t realize it.”
“She’s making a fine life for herself,” Daneh answered. But even she knew it sounded defensive.
“Certainly,” Edmund replied with a nod. “If she wants to live it alone.”
“That’s up to her,” Daneh said. “I tried it.”
“How was it?” Edmund asked. “It was hell from my end.”
“Not that good,” she admitted with a smile. “Speaking of which, how long until we need to make an appearance?”
“Long enough.”
* * *
Joel’s duties were simple enough, if rather time consuming. He had the middle watch, from midnight until eight in the morning. He was to support the cooks that fed the watch and run coffee to the deck officers or any officers who were in the wardroom. He was only the steward for the XO on down; the captain had a separate steward who stayed on his schedule. It meant though, in effect, that he had the run of the officers’ quarters and wardroom and if there was a leak among the officers, he had a good chance of picking it up. In addition he had battle stations with the sickbay as a stretcher-bearer, was part of the capstan crew for raising anchor and had a position lowering the whaleboats in air-operations. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be getting much rest.
After getting him familiarized in his duties PO Singhisen released him to go try to get some sleep; he had to be back on duty at midnight.
In the cramped quarters he tried to drown out the noise of a card game at the end of the compartment, not to mention the quiet conversations of other off-duty seamen around him. Finally, he rummaged in his seabag and pulled out the penny dreadful he’d picked up, opening it to the dog-eared page and finding a grammatical error in the first sentence. Jeeze, this guy was bad. But at least it passed the time.
* * *