Matt interrupted. “But I’ve also said I’m not sure muskets really give us much advantage.”
Pete Alden spoke up. “Skipper, I think they will. You’re worried about arrows reloading faster and being about as accurate. Normally, that would be true. You’re also thinking they’re not much advantage over what we’ve got, but what about the enemy? They don’t use longbows. I don’t think they can. They’re just not built for them, so they’re stuck with crossbows, which take about as long to load as a musket and they’re not as deadly. Besides, they’ll be an improvement in another respect: right now, all our spearmen have to carry a longbow as well. Once they have muskets, with socket bayonets, they can shoot and stick with the same weapon. There might also be a psychological effect on the enemy. Maybe they’ll flip and go into one of Bradford’s ‘Grik rout’ fits after a single volley. I’m not counting on it, but they will be better than what we’ve got. As to the accuracy issue, as lame as our industry is right now, that’s going to improve. We can already make the barrels much better than they did in the seventeen hundreds, and eventually, smoothbores can be rifled…”
Matt was nodding. “I see what you mean, Mr. Alden. Very well. You’re the infantryman and I’ll defer to your judgment. I guess we have to be prepared to backtrack a bit before we can leap ahead. At least see what you can do about preparing for simple breechloaders, if you can.” He took a breath and looked at Bernie, decision made. “For now, if muskets are what we can do, that’s what we’ll do.” He paused for a moment and glanced uncomfortably around the chamber. “What about
… that other thing we talked about?”
Sandra gave him a stormy look, but remained silent. She’d clearly already stated her opinion.
Bernie’s eyebrows knitted. “You mean… the gas?” Matt nodded and Sandison frowned, glancing at Tamatsu Shinya. He sighed. “Making the stuff isn’t that big a deal. Mustard or chlorine is dangerous, but not hard. The problem is dispersal-and dispersing it far enough away from us, but close enough to the enemy. Wind would always be a factor.” He hesitated. “Some may not be all that concerned about ethical issues, as far as the Grik-”
“ I am concerned about the ethics of such weapons,” Shinya interrupted sharply.
Matt looked at him and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “Believe it or not, Colonel Shinya, so am I. So is everyone here. Maybe not for the sake of the Grik, really; I wish God would stomp them all like bugs, but gas is just wrong. Using the stuff would take us and our friends to a level almost as bad as the Grik-a level I don’t want to be on and I don’t want our Lemurian allies to ever see.” He took a breath before continuing, now directing his words primarily at Adar, who’d shown an interest in the “wonder weapon.” “Gas kills everything. Indiscriminately… horribly. It’ll kill animals, Grik, ’Cat prisoners-and any of Shinya’s people who might be working for the Grik under duress. I will not gas ’Cats or men-even Japs who aren’t working for the enemy against their will.”
Matt rubbed his eyebrows. “I know it may be hard for you to understand, Mr. Chairman, but I grew up around guys who somehow survived gas attacks in the Great War and… well, ‘survived’ isn’t the best way to put it; ‘lingered in misery’ is probably better, and they only got a little of the stuff. Honest to God, much as I hate them, it would turn my stomach to gas even the Grik. I’d rather burn them alive. We’re going to have to think about this a lot more.”
The chamber grew quiet for a moment and Adar was genuinely taken aback by the intensity of Matt’s evident revulsion toward what seemed, by description, such an effective and efficient weapon.
“Moral issues aside,” Matt continued soberly, “even if we made gas and solved all the problems with delivering it, how do we protect our troops? Unfortunately, we do have to think about it and we do have to solve that problem, at least. Does anyone honestly think this Kurokawa wouldn’t give gas to the Grik if he thought it would benefit him? He’s helped them in every other way. Like Ben said, we don’t have any rubber, and even if we did, how do you make a gas mask for a Lemurian?” Matt shook his head. “There’s no Geneva Convention on this world, governing this war, but we have to decide right now that if we ever make gas, it won’t be used willy-nilly. Won’t be used at all unless we’re in a jam so tight we don’t have any choice.” He shrugged and Sandra grasped his hand. He looked at Adar. “That’s how I feel, and that’s the deal.”
Adar said nothing. He had no choice but to agree, but he was perplexed. Clearly, Captain Reddy was extremely sensitive about the subject; all the humans seemed to be. Gas must be a terrible weapon indeed if one was willing to sacrifice the lives of one’s own troops to avoid using it.
“We don’t even know if Kurokawa and any other Japs are left,” said Captain Ellis, speaking for the first time. He’d been Matt’s exec on Walker before the Squall and had commanded Mahan on her suicidal dash. He was currently without a ship, but he was one of Matt’s best friends, and Matt was always interested in what he had to say. “We know the Grik ‘rescued’ a lot of survivors off Amagi,” he continued, “but they might have eaten them, for all we know.”
“Perhaps they did,” Shinya grudgingly admitted, saddened by the possibility, but glad they’d changed the subject. “Our prisoner thinks otherwise however.” He referred to Commander Sato Okada, the lone survivor the Allies had taken into custody. Matt still hadn’t talked to the new Jap directly; he’d been too busy. It was probably time he did, but he honestly wasn’t sure how to approach the interview. Shinya had spoken with the prisoner at length and the man was a font of information about Captain Hisashi Kurokawa and the Grik-he hated them passionately and yearned for their destruction-yet unlike Shinya, Okada hadn’t put the “old war” behind him. He’d been willing to cooperate with the Americans against the Grik, and if he’d been able to arrange such cooperation before Amagi was destroyed, he would have. That didn’t mean he was willing to ally himself with the enemies of his emperor. Wounded by Kurokawa in the battle, he’d hidden from the Grik “rescuers” and allowed himself to be taken by the Americans and their allies for the sole purpose of supplying information about their common enemies: the Grik-and Kurokawa. Beyond that, as a Japanese officer and a prisoner of war, he had no other reason to live.
Shinya continued. “Okada says this Regent-Consort Tsalka, and their General Esshk are different from other Grik. They may have taken the lesson of their defeat to heart. He believes if they themselves are not killed for their failure, they will try to preserve as many Japanese as they can to help prepare for… well, what we are preparing for: our next meeting.” He looked at Matt somewhat accusingly. “As Captain Reddy knows, there was a minority faction aboard Amagi already… frustrated with Kurokawa’s command in general, and his association with the Grik in particular.”
Matt nodded at Shinya, accepting blame for not telling him he knew some of Amagi ’s crew were unwilling to aid the Grik. But it hadn’t made any difference in the end, as he’d known it wouldn’t. With Amagi coming for them, they couldn’t pick and choose those aboard her they might kill. Shinya knew that, and he also knew that, by not telling him, the captain had been sparing Shinya’s own conscience. Nevertheless, his point was sound and heartfelt.
Matt cleared his throat and turned to Riggs. “Now, Mr. Riggs, all these grandiose schemes depend on power. What have you got for us?”
“Simple reciprocating steam engines, Skipper, just like we’re planning for the ships, but dedicated to powering generators. Nothing very difficult about building the generators; we still have plenty of copper and there’s more coming in. People here already knew how to make wire, even if it wasn’t for carrying current. It was mostly for structural reinforcement or ornamentation. We’re standardizing most things on one-twenty DC, just like the ship. Nearly everything we have runs off that. We’re also going to have to at least wash out Walker ’s generators when we get them up so we should make new ones as much like hers as we can. We have all the specs, and it’s always nice to have spares! The ship’s generators are little guys, though, twenty-five kilowatts, about the size of a car engine and transmission. We might need bigger stuff eventually. We’ll need some steel, too.”
Matt grimaced. “Plenty of steel in the bay,” he said, referring to Amagi. As soon as Humfra-Dar and Aracca had returned, they’d moored beside the sunken battle cruiser and begun stripping her exposed upper works. Amagi rested in about sixty feet of water, and the eventual plan was to flood down four of the mammoth Homes to build a cofferdam around her. Then they could retrieve the entire ship, piece by piece. Matt didn’t even want to contemplate the stresses involved in holding back sixty feet of water, but the Lemurians assured him their ships could take it. Commander Brad “Spanky” McFarlane, Walker ’s engineering officer, and now chief naval engineer for the Alliance, was convinced they could do it. A lot depended on where Amagi ’s bow had come to rest after breaking away, however. They were fairly certain it was “inside the box,” but there was probably other heavy wreckage scattered on the bottom. If one of the Lemurian Homes flooded down on top of any of it, it might cause serious damage.
“Okay,” resumed Matt, “but that brings up another issue. Acetylene. We removed all the oxygen and acetylene bottles from Walker and Mahan before the… last battle, but with all the repairs we’d made, we’re just about dry. We need more, lots more, to break Amagi, not to mention repairing Walker… if she can be
