prey-flounders along impotently behind us, extending their lines of supply while ours contract, we can build the cannon-armed armored ships I have proposed. We can make the flying machines, the artillery, and train your… our troops, our Uul, in tactics that will succeed.” Kurokawa shrugged imperceptibly, going for broke. “And yes, those tactics must be defensive at first.” He held up a fourth finger. “Finally, when we have built these weapons, trained… our troops, swelled their ranks with an entirely fresh generation that has not known defeat, we wait until the prey is overextended and has stretched his lines of supply to the breaking point…”
“Then attack?” asked the Celestial Mother, suddenly thoughtful.
“Then attack,” confirmed Kurokawa. “The enemy does not breed or reach maturity as quickly as you. Break their Army and Navy and they will have no defense. You can then roll them up with ease and conquer every land from here to the Eastern Sea.”
The Celestial Mother scratched her jowls. “Interesting,” she hissed thoughtfully.
Esshk was staring at Kurokawa. They’d discussed all this before, but it was supposed to be he who presented their argument to the Giver of Life. “Indeed,” he said, equally thoughtful.
Alan Letts stood from his place at the long table in the now almost fully restored Great Hall. The formal reception was intended to commemorate that, as well as the other grand undertakings that would soon commence. In spite of a general mood of joviality and goodwill, there was also a bittersweet understanding that they stood, once again, at a crossroads. The tightly knit members of the Grand Alliance that had hurled back the Grik would scatter again. Some would resume operations against the enemy at long last, while others like Shinya and Saan- Kakja would depart for the Fil-pin Lands, to oversee the development of an even greater arsenal of freedom than Baalkpan could ever be. Laumer’s little squadron would accompany Saan-Kakja on his way to perform the perhaps impossible task Matt had set him. Regardless of their missions, the possibility always existed that they would never all be gathered like this again. They’d lost too many friends in this terrible war to take such things for granted. Letts tapped his mug with a knife to gain everyone’s attention, and raised it high.
“Ladies and gentlemen, may I propose a toast?”
Matt smiled as he released Sandra’s hand under the table and stood with everyone else. He was proud of Letts. Like all of them, he’d come a long way. He’d earned his post as chief of staff and had developed the confidence that went with it. The main reason for that rose to stand beside him. Nurse Lieutenant Karen Theimer Letts, now Sandra’s medical chief of staff, had once been rendered almost catatonic by their situation. Her recovery had inspired Letts to apply himself, and they made a good team. Karen’s pregnancy was also beginning to show, and that had gained her an almost reverent consideration by the same rough men who might once have resented the depletion of the “dame” supply in the middle of the famine her marriage to Letts had made even more extreme.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Letts repeated, “I give you Saan-Kakja, U-Amaki ay Maa-ni-la!”
The diminutive High Chief of Manila and patriarch of all the Filpin Lands regarded those at the table and the rest of the assembly in the hall. She was even more striking than usual with her fiery, golden eyes and polished, chased-golden breastplate. Her yellow and black clan colors decorated her cape and kilt, and a short, ornately hilted dirk hung from an elaborate belt in a golden sheath. The martial ensemble clashed with her tiny stature and evident youth.
“They’re all so young,” Sandra whispered in Matt’s ear, and he squeezed her hand. It was true. He reflected that the veterans of every war probably thought much the same of all the recruits who joined them in battle-even while they themselves seemed young to the veterans of earlier wars. Rarely were the leaders quite so young, however. It suddenly struck him that most of the positions of high authority in the Alliance were held by young, comparatively inexperienced… amateurs. Saan-Kakja was by any definition, human or Lemurian, little more than a child. The strikingly competent and just as exotic Safir Maraan wasn’t much older. Neither was Chack, who’d probably command a Marine battalion before long. Tassana-Ay-Arracca, whose father had perished with Nerracca, had risen to High Chief of Aracca Home after her grandfather fell in battle. The commander of the growing Sularan Brigade couldn’t be much over twenty. General Muln-Rolak was practically ancient, but he wasn’t technically a head of state-although Matt suspected that would change when they retook Aryaal. That meant, as representatives of the Alliance, Keje and Adar were the “geezers,” since they were in their early forties.
On the human side, Matt knew how young everyone was. The Bosun was around sixty and was the oldest human in the Alliance, but at the august age of thirty-two, Matt was the oldest officer, just after Spanky. If the newly minted Ensign Reynolds was eighteen yet, he’d eat his hat. Of all the Allied commanders, Matt had the most combat experience by far-all of about fifteen months-and here he was, Supreme Commander of all Allied forces. Again, he wondered what Tommy Hart would have thought of that.
Conventional wisdom would imply they were all too young for their jobs. The thought was a little intimidating, but Matt wondered if it was true. The old guys back home, commanding their rectangular dreadnoughts, hadn’t been doing so hot. It was their stupidity and shortsightedness, to a large degree, that had made Pearl Harbor such a disaster-and even possible in the first place. Matt didn’t want to think about the hoary old men in Congress who’d virtually invited the attack by allowing the Navy to wither to a point that it couldn’t credibly enforce their threats and policies. Maybe conventional wisdom wasn’t always wisdom at all.
He decided, experience aside, it was probably a blessing they were all so young. Particularly the Lemurians. There’d been numerous times when he’d had trouble dealing with older, more entrenched ’Cats. Saan-Kakja’s own sky priest, Meksnaak, was a prime example.
Nakja-Mur had been exceptional in many ways, but even he’d been a little difficult until his own Home was at stake. Matt knew it had been difficult for the old ’Cat. It was hard for the young ones, watching their whole world change with the exigencies of war, but they could at least comprehend change and feel confident they could absorb it, accommodate it, use it. It occurred to him then that if all the Lemurian leaders had been a bunch of stick-in- the-mud, geezer bureaucrats-like those back home-they’d all be dead by now.
“It’s a good thing they’re so young,” he whispered back to Sandra. “I think it’s made things a lot easier. And besides, it could be a very long war.” He saw her nod, and believed she understood more than he’d said.
“Please do sit,” Saan-Kakja said when the cheers and stamping feet subsided. Obediently, the crowd returned to their stools or cushions. The request was more than a courtesy. With everyone standing, no one could see her. “Tomorrow I must leave you,” she resumed, “and return to my own land. Colonel Shinya and I must oversee a replication, even an enlargement of what you have accomplished here; this ‘in-dustree. ’” She smiled. “Some may not like it. Maa-ni-la has been a refuge for many of the runaways, as you call them, from various lands, and there will be dissent among those who prefer the old ways.” Her eyes flashed and her chin rose slightly. “Their obstructionism will not be tolerated. Fear not.”
There was more cheering, and Matt realized he needed to talk to her again about her own security. They’d already learned that even Lemurians were capable of appalling treachery.
“Even when I depart, do not think Maa-ni-la has left you. Half my personal guard will go with me, to become officers and form training cadres in the new, changing ways of war, but many more of my people have arrived here since the Great Battle and I shall leave you over five thousands.” She looked directly at Matt. “Lead them as you will. My troops are your troops, and I have no doubt you will cherish them as your own.”
Touched, Matt bowed his head, acknowledging the compliment. And the responsibility.
“Soon I will return with even more troops, ships, and many new weapons. I look forward to ‘raa-di-o’ reports from your upcoming expedition, when we will know the enemy’s stance. Regardless, I am confident that if we seize this time that has been granted us by your valor and the Heavens above, when we bring our full, combined might against the scourge, we will stamp it out forever!”
Further cheers filled the hall, and, unnoticed at the far end of the table, Billingsly leaned toward Jenks. It was the first time he’d been ashore for an official function and he’d been haughty and uncommunicative throughout. “And still you do not consider them a threat to the Empire?” he hissed. “The force they are planning will be almost as large, and considerably more advanced than that of the vile Dominion that even now menaces our people back home.”
Jenks looked at him and blinked. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Billingsly. Of course I consider them a threat, but not at present. Look about you! These… creatures”-he’d almost said “people,” and what would Billingsly think then?-“are clearly preparing to renew their war with an enemy of potentially greater menace even than the Dominion. These Grik are possibly even more savage, if not as depraved.”
“They have a Roman priestess among them,” Billingsly reminded him darkly.
Jenks frowned. “I have heard that too, though I haven’t seen her. From what I understand, there is a
