Fateful Lightning

by William R. Forstchen

  Half a dozen boys with sponge staffs ran up to the launcher as the range setter cranked it back down to the horizontal. The boys ran the swabs through the open pipes to kill any lingering sparks.

  The loaders now came up, pushed the rockets into the tubes from the rear, and pulled out the wooden plugs which closed off the back ends of the rockets.

  “Arm!”

  Now came the toughest part, and Chuck stepped back to watch the battery lieutenant and the corporal assisting him. The lieutenant, carrying a long thin case, over six feet in length, came out of the trench and placed it behind the rocket launcher. Opening it, the two removed the copper fuse line, a dozen quick fuses emerging from it at six-inch intervals. Coming up behind the launcher, they laid the fuse line into a lead-lined tray set behind the launch pipes, clamping one end into the musket nipple, the other end to a support bracket. Going down the line, the lieutenant now inserted a fuse into the back end of each rocket. Watching him, Chuck realized that this was the slow part and that another person would have to be assigned to speed the operation up.

  Reaching the end of the copper tube, the lieutenant stood back up.

  “Fused and ready.”

  “Range fifteen hundred yards!”

  The sergeant standing at the elevation control cranked the weapon back up, and Chuck looked down at his watch.

  “Three minutes ten seconds,” he said, trying to sound disappointed but secretly excited. The weapon was not designed to replace the close-in rapid-fire support of artillery, but rather to serve as area bombardment. He wasn’t sure if they’d even have enough rockets for a second volley, but it was best to plan for these things now.

  He nodded to the Rus boy holding the red flag, and the banner was held aloft, the men at the far end of the field scurrying back to their shelter.

  The crew went back into their trench while Chuck hooked the trigger line back up and, paying it out, climbed in after them. He would have preferred a second full volley test, but a dozen rounds used up nearly three hundred pounds of powder, and besides, the next dozen rounds to be fired were all that were left on the entire planet.

  He drew back on the lanyard, looked over at Olivia, who smiled encouragement, and gave it a sharp yank.

  Again there was the second delay and the first rocket snapped off, the others crackling to life at half-second intervals. The fifth went veering off at nearly a right angle to the battery, arcing up toward the woods that surrounded the clearing. The next-to-Iast round, however, detonated inside the launch tube. Shrapnel sprayed out both ends, the tube burst open, the firing tube next to it tumbled up into the air, and the rocket ignited out of it, coming straight back down half a dozen yards behind the trench and spraying shrapnel in every direction.

  His ears ringing from the explosion, Chuck looked over at the rest of the crew, whose eyes were wide with fear and astonishment. Feeble grins broke out at the close call.

  “Your crazy inventions are going to kill you,” Olivia announced, her voice slightly shaky as she solicitously brushed a sprinkling of dirt off his uniform. The smoke clearing, Chuck climbed out of the trench and walked up to the launcher. It was a total wreck, the firing tubes perforated by the .75 caliber iron balls used as shrapnel, the frame twisted, a dozen tubes littering the field, the remaining two dozen bent at nearly every angle but straight ahead.

  Far downrange, the remaining nine rockets had already impacted, and as Chuck raised his field glasses to check, the crew on the opposite side of the clearing jumped up and down excitedly, not yet aware that the test had ended in the total destruction of the battery.

  He felt a curious mix of emotions. The actual firing had delivered almost ninety percent of the rockets into a target a couple of acres in area, an effect that would be devastating. It had also sent half a dozen rockets off at random directions and totally destroyed the one multiple launcher in existence. He knew that this new weapon should be employed only in this manner. Firing a single rocket at a time by individual crews was simply too dangerous, and the effect was far too random. It had to be done all at once by massed batteries for the shock effect. The test, however, validated all the complaints that Mina had laid against the system, and it could also be charged that Ferguson had stolen hundreds of workers and wasted a month of their time to build a factory for a weapon that really didn’t even work right.

  He had hoped that it would go flawlessly, so that he could break the secrecy, take it down for Andrew to examine, and then go on without all this subterfuge. That was obviously impossible, he thought as he looked at the wreckage.

  He looked over at Olivia.

  “Goddammit, I know this thing will work, but we just don’t have the time to fool around and wait.”

  He had been in isolation at the factory for more than a week, and it was Olivia who had brought him the news of the fall of Kev and the pullback into the steppes between Rus and Roum. With a hard enough push the Merki could very well be before Hispania in two weeks.

  He looked back at the battery crew, who stood around sheepishly, as if they had somehow been responsible for the disaster, and back out at the men downrange, who were still running around excitedly, marking out impact points and examining pieces of the rockets to see how they had burst. Through his field glasses he could even see the tears in the canvas target.

  He lowered his glasses and looked back at Theodor, the factory foreman, whose twin brother was serving as engineer aboard Petracci’s airship.

  “Round-the-clock production starts immediately,” he said quietly.

  “But it still isn’t working right,” one of the men replied, pointing at the still-smoking wreckage.

  “We don’t have any more time,” Chuck replied. “You heard the order. Now let’s get to it.”

  The men looked at him with surprise, some of them excited that he was forging ahead, more than a few of them, however, looking at Chuck as if he had taken leave of his senses.

  Theodor, whom he had transferred from the aerosteamer factory to manage this new project, came to join him as the others turned away and started the long hike back to the factory a couple of miles away.

  “Some powder must have leaked through the wadding between the propulsion and the explosive charge.”

  Chuck nodded absently.

  “A full tin shield, soldered in place and separating the chambers, would prevent that.”

  “It’d mean each piece would have to be hand- soldered, and we’d have to make a stamp press to turn out the shields. We already talked about that and figured it’d take too much time,” Chuck replied, his voice weary.

  Theodor nodded.

  “You know, if we start mass production it’s going to eat up everything we’ve hidden away within ten days. After that it’ll be fifteen tons of powder and over seventy-five thousand shrapnel balls a week. We can’t hide that for long—they’re crying for ammunition like mad down in Hispania.”

  Chuck sighed. He had hoped to come clean on his little subterfuge, it was impossible now. John would shut him down without a second’s hesitation.

  “With luck it’ll take ’em a week to find out, maybe even two, and several more days to track it all down. By then we’ll have what I want.”

  “You can’t win this war all by yourself,” Theodor replied.

  Chuck smiled, taking off his glasses to wipe them on his dirty linen shirt.

  “I was right about the railroads, the aerosteamers, the Whitworth rifle, even the damned Sharps, and you saw what happened when they found out about that project. They’re not going to stop this one.”

  “We all are on the same side,” Theodor replied softly.

  Chuck laughed softly.

  “There was a fellow named Ripley back in the war I fought in back on earth. In charge of ordnance, the same as John now is. Our entire army could have had breechloaders by the fall of 1862, we could have had rocket batteries, even automatic guns, if it hadn’t been for that narrow-minded pencil pusher. Sometimes I swear they had the same m
other.”

  “I don’t know about this Ripley, but somehow I think you’ve just insulted General Mina.”

  Chuck smiled sadly.

  “No insult was really intended. I can see John’s side of it. We’re short of everything, especially time. It's just that he doesn’t have the imagination to see what our projects can do.”

  “Projects?” Theodor said cautiously. “I thought even you were going to give up on the other one.”

  “Hell, the thing’s made. We just have to work a couple of kinks out of it.”

  Theodor looked back at the ruined rocket launcher.

  “It makes this look like a damn success.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Chuck snapped.

  “Worry? Me worry? I just don’t want to see my commander led away in chains for stealing five hundred workers, thirty tons of powder, and Kesus knows what else that you haven’t confessed to me yet.”

  “Get a team of horses up here to haul the wagon back to the factory,” Chuck said, and without waiting for a reply he turned and walked away.

  “Chuck?”

  Startled, he looked up to see that Olivia was still waiting for him, and was suddenly embarrassed to realize that he had, at least for the moment, completely forgotten about her.

  “You’re upset,” she said, coming up to stand in front of him.

  It took him a moment to shift from Rus back to her Latin.

  “Sorry.”

  “Let’s walk. It’s a beautiful evening.”

  She fell in alongside of him, slipping her hand around his arm, guiding him away from the path back to the rocket factory.

  The tiny meadow in the middle of the forest was now nearly thigh-high with spring grass and wildflowers, a fact which he suddenly became aware of when she paused for a moment to scoop up an orchid-like bloom, its color an iridescent violet. Laughing, she slipped it into her hair.

  The evening air was pleasant after the scorching heat of day, the cumulus clouds of afternoon now breaking apart into high twisted strands, glowing pink from the light of the setting sun. The birds of the forest were settling in for the night, their last songs of the day echoing through the woods. Hundreds of tiny hummingbird-size swallows, their wings a brilliant orange, fluttered and darted over the meadow, sweeping up the insects that were coming out in the evening coolness. Occasionally one of the birds would dart before the couple and hover for a second, as if sizing them up, and then dart away. Olivia watched them and smiled.

  “I never saw such birds before in Roum. It’s beautiful here in the forest.”

  “They’re certainly not from earth,” Chuck replied, watching their darting flight, which reminded him of barn swallows. It was such a curious place. The trees were almost like those of home, as were many of the flowers, but then other things had found their place here from other worlds—birds, the hated field adder, antelope, the freshwater whales, and of course the hordes. He had heard about Darwin, for debates about his writings were already stormy back at his old college, and he wondered what the man would say about this planet.

  They reached the edge of the clearing, and Chuck started to turn as if to head them back along the forest edge to the factory complex.

  With a soft laugh, she held his arm and led him into the forest, the high pines above them blocking out the open sky, the early twilight of the field replaced in an instant by a soft gathering darkness.

  He felt his heart start to race as she led him farther into the woods.

  “The train for Hispania leaves the aerosteamer yard in an hour,” Chuck said nervously. “I have to catch it and be back in Hispania tonight, and you do as well.”

  “I’m staying,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “I got a pass to come up here—I had to go to Roum and see my father and Marcus to get it. Do you know how much trouble I went through to see you? And now you want to send me back.”

  She laughed, shaking her head as if in mock anger, her long black hair swishing about her waist, the scent of lavender washing over Chuck.

  “But where will you stay? The barracks are jammed to overflowing as is.”

  “In your cabin.”

  Chuck was unable to reply and took a step backward.

  She looked up at him, her smile barely visible.

  She reached up to her shoulder, unclasped the single strap of her tunic, and let it slip down to her waist.

  “Oh my God,” Chuck whispered.

  Still smiling, she pulled the dress down over her hips and let it slip to the ground. Wordlessly she looked up at him.

  “Olivia, I’ve got to catch a train,” he whispered.

  Stepping forward, she took his hand and placed it over her breast. Unable to stop himself, he cupped the breast, feeling as if his heart were about to burst. This was a moment he had dreamed of for years, but had never known. No Maine girl would have allowed this, at least the Maine girls he knew, until the preacher had done a powerful bit of praying over them and made things very permanent.

  “Kiss them,” she whispered even as she placed her hands around his neck and lovingly pulled him down. He let his lips brush against her nipple, and then in a rising panic he stood straight up again, his glasses smeared from pressing against her.

  “I’ve got to catch that train,” he gasped.

  She laughed softly and wrapped him in an embrace.

  “You’re trembling.”

  “Of course I’m trembling,” he gasped.

  “I love you, Chuck. I’ve wanted you since we first met.”

  “I love you too,” he whispered, thrilled to finally be saying it without fear of being laughed at.

  “Then it’s all right. We both know there might not be much time left before they come. Let’s have what we can of each other until then.”

  That was a certain ticket to hell. He had heard way too many sermons on that subject not to know that she was talking Ten Commandments-type violations. But the logic she was presenting, reinforced by the feel of her naked body against his, was too much to stand against.

  “But the train…” he said feebly.

  She looked up at him, still smiling.

  “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

  Embarrassed beyond words, he could only nod his head.

  “Then don’t worry.” She laughed softly. “If you’re a virgin, we can do this and still have plenty of time to catch your silly train.”

  “We’ve got orders!”

  Vincent Hawthorne turned from chewing out a regimental commander and looked at the courier galloping across the drill field, waving his hat like a madman. The courier reined up hard and leaped off his mount, offering the piece of paper to Vincent.

  Vincent looked at the young Rus telegrapher coldly.

  “Soldier, the orders are directed to me, and not to be shouted to the entire army,” Vincent snapped. The boy’s excitement was instantly replaced by fear. “If you ever dare to do this again, I’ll have you emptying slop buckets for the sick ward till the day you die.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned away, unfolding the orders, ignoring his staff, who were anxious for the details but now too intimidated to join him.

  He smiled finally and looked back at his men.

  “From Colonel Keane,” Vincent said quietly. “Sixth and Seventh Corps as of today are officially attached to the Army of the Republics. In four days we are to march to Hispania and take our position in the line.” He turned and walked away.

  The word of the orders spread like fire across the fields, the men cheering in their naivety, eager to be released from the incessant dawn-to-desk drilling. Vincent ignored them, looking back toward the city, noticing that Marcus was coming out of the main gate to join him, the soldiers to either side of the road stopping their celebration and coming to attention to salute.

  Marcus reined up beside Vincent and dismounted to join him.

  “I just got the word as well,” Marcus said.

  “We’re still four thousand
muskets short, only a third of the men are armed with the newer Springfields, and we’re only at three-quarter strength for artillery,” Vincent replied coldly. “These boys will get chewed to hell in a stand-up fight.”

  “They’re good men,” Marcus said quietly, looking across the field. “The division of our troops fighting with your Fourth Corps did splendidly, as have the men of Fifth Corps holding the southern border against the Merki raiders. These will too, after all you trained them.”

  Vincent nodded a curt thanks for the compliment.

  “I heard you want one of the two corps for your own command,” Vincent said, coming straight to the point of what had been bothering him since he had received word of the decision the previous evening.

  “I want to be where the final battle will be fought,” Marcus replied.

  “You have ten thousand men to the south preventing the two umens of the Merki from raiding, you have the militia here in Roum, Brindusia, Capri, Metapontium. I think that is responsibility enough.”

  “One of my lieutenants can take care of that. We both know that the main battle will be fought at Hispania. If that falls, everything else falls as well.”

  “I know the style of fighting better than you,” Vincent replied, his voice cold. “I was responsible for training these two corps.”

  “And now you want to lead both of them in battle.”

  “Precisely.”

  “You might know the drill,” Marcus replied soothingly, “but remember I was proconsul of these men before they ever heard of you, or for that matter the Merki. That counts for a lot. I’ve been out here on the drill field with them, when I was not in the south, or meeting with Andrew. I can handle Seventh Corps when the time comes.”