don’t you?” Shinya didn’t respond, but Sandra knew she was right. “You’ve done a good job. You’ve set the wheels in motion and established a sound regimen here.” She gestured back at the parade ground. “These ’Cats, these Lemurians, don’t really much need us anymore, you know. Sure, we showed them the way, but as far as the basics are concerned, there’s not much left to teach them. They’re building and flying airplanes, operating steamships, building muskets, and sending Morse! Now that the various industries are starting to hit their stride, they’re even improving on designs we’ve given them.” She took a breath. “They’re also fighting their own battles now.” Her voice softened. “Colonel… Tamatsu… most of these troops will soon be going west, to First Fleet and General Alden. He’ll take good care of them-and they don’t need you anymore. Training will continue here just as well without you. You’ve said yourself that things around here pretty much run themselves. Captain Reddy-Matt- does need you, and so will the troops you need to lead east to his assistance!”
Shinya suddenly brightened. “Perhaps you’re right,” he allowed. “You are right! It would seem I’ve been wrong about everything today!” He shook his head. “It’s this constant training,” he said. “Each day is the same for me, while far away, my friends continue the struggle. I’ve been away too long, and it’s almost ruined me!” His expression became concerned. “It might have ruined these fine troops if I’d continued to delay their deployment.” He looked at Sandra. “Thank you. Forgive me, but… how did a nurse ever become so wise in the ways of war… and men?”
“You mean how does a girl know these things?” Lelaa asked before Sandra could answer. “That’s easy. All girls know. ’Cat girls or Hu-maan. Males are all the same.” She glared at Irvin Laumer. “We girls fight because we have to. Males too, maybe, but girls get sick, wounded, have younglings; they go home and forget the war until they maybe have to fight again. You take males out of the war and it eats them from the inside out, like a nugli woodworm, as long as others still fight! Back before the Grik came, before we had this war, I knew males were silly. Now I know they’re all a buncha’ dopes!” She laughed, and Sandra-and even Laumer-joined her.
Lawrence sniffed. “I a ’ale, and no ‘nuglis’ eat Lawrence!”
“Nonsense!” Irvin. Yotill chuckling. “Look at you! You’re in uniform now!”
It was true. Lawrence had been “with” the Alliance for quite a while, primarily as Princess Rebecca’s friend and protector. He’d even gained respect and notoriety despite his resemblance to the Grik “Ancient Enemy.” It was becoming increasingly recognized that not all “Grik-like” creatures on the world-far more widespread than previously known- were Grik, and many races that resembled them had wildly different societies. Lawrence’s own people, from an island they called Tagran, had some rather bizarre cultural practices concerning their young-by human or Lemurian standards-and the matriarchal system they practiced was rather extreme as well. In fact, the recent tidal wave caused by the catastrophic explosion of the volcanic Talaud island had so devastated Tagran that the matriarch had banished all but a handful of the island’s population so a few might survive the starving times to come. Of the hundreds set adrift to find another home or die, only seventy-odd survived the later waves that overwhelmed the southern Fil-pin Lands. They’d been rescued with Sandra, Silva, and the others by the remnants of Task Force Laumer and the battered S-19.
High Chief Saan-Kakja gifted the “ex”-Tagranesi with the virtually uninhabited Fil-pin island of Samaar to possess as a Fil-pin territory-as Fil-pin subjects. There’d be no independent matriarchy of such a despotic sort as to condemn so many of its own people neighboring her Home! This was a complete departure from any previous Lemurian customs, except for a few now-extinct cultures that had inhabited Jaava. Before, all “daughter” colonies, like their seagoing Home counterparts, were independent. The Tagranesi-“Sa’aarans” now-could have the land if they could conquer it, but Saan-Kakja was their sovereign. Sandra wondered if Saan-Kakja, with the Imperial example, was taking a step toward empire herself, but she rather doubted it. More likely, she merely intended to keep a closer eye on this daughter colony than others in the past, simply due to the nature of its inhabitants. That was understandable.
Ancient Chinakru, leader of the Sa’aarans, and governor of the new colony, wasn’t offended. Saan-Kakja had become a surrogate matriarch in the eyes of his people to an almost-worshipful degree. He’d immedi- ately proclaimed all his people subject to her military service and command. Saan-Kakja knew the Sa’aarans couldn’t fight a war and build a colony at the same time, but agreed to accept four, including Lawrence, as a token force. They had no military training, but like Lawrence, they were innately, possibly instinctively skilled at fieldcraft. They’d become army scouts, and their “uniform,” like Lawrence’s, was a modified version of that worn by the Fil-pin regiments, altered to fit their different shapes. The leather armor was dyed in a camouflage pattern, and gray kilts had been tightly twisted and redyed in green. The result was near invisibility for the otherwise brown-and-orange- striped Sa’aarans when they melted into the woods. The three other Sa’araan warriors were preparing to leave for Baalkpan, in fact, to participate in an “expedition of discovery” led by Abel Cook and an old Lemurian hunter called “Moe.” Cook was a protege of Courtney Bradford’s, and the mission was a long-delayed effort to find-and hopefully peacefully contact-some feral Grik-like creatures known to roam the dense jungles of north Borno.
“I in uni’orn,” Lawrence agreed. (He could understand Lemurian or “American” quite well, but there were some sounds he simply couldn’t form.) “I go where I sent, I kill who I told, ’ut no nuglis eat I when I here, where ’riends are!”
“Well said!” complimented aa. “There’s plenty of war to go around, for all of us. There’s no point in longing for it when it is far away.”
“True,” Sandra agreed, “but even I’m a little anxious to get underway-the better to keep the war as far from here as possible.”
“I know why you’re anxious,” Lelaa proclaimed, “and it has nothing to do with war! Tell me, now there are human females, ‘women,’ coming here from the east, are you going to finally mate… ‘marry’ with Captain Reddy and stop torturing each other, yourselves, and everyone around you?”
Sandra blushed visibly, even through her tan. “That, Captain Lelaa, is privileged, ‘secret’ information. While I may allow that you have a ‘need to know,’ for various reasons”-she straightened and stuck out her chin-“this gossipy, tale-bearing pack of pubescent males surrounding us, does not.”
Irvin chuckled, and even Shinya smiled. Lawrence glowered as best he could. Of them all, he truly was a- rapidly and visibly maturing-“teenager,” and he took the jest a little more personally than the others.
“As we speak, USS Maaka-Kakja is being loaded and provisioned for her voyage,” Lelaa said. “Her sea trials were necessarily brief”-she blinked embarrassment at Laumer-“but the very… awkwardness of those trials should have revealed any major flaws.” It was Irvin’s turn to blush. No decision had yet been taken as to what to do with the old S-boat he’d raised from the dead. She might be broken up for her priceless steel and other components; her diesels, electric motors; the list was endless. He was against it and hoped she might eventually be returned to duty as a submarine-despite the added hazards lurking in this world’s seas. For the time being, she’d be stabilized and towed to Baalkpan before any decision was made, and that released Irvin Laumer to serve as Lelaa’s exec, or “salig-maastir” since he did understand the fundamentals of maneuvering a ship-albeit a much smaller one-under power. Lelaa would continue to teach him the consummate seamanship she’d learned from a lifetime on the waves, while he taught her how to operate a ship without sails. Saan-Kakja admired them both and thought they’d make a good team.
Lelaa’s reference to their handling of the massive vessel was not exaggeration, however, and while Irvin blushed and Lelaa blinked, both readily admitted they had a lot to learn. Neither had a clue about flight ops, for example. A few instructors from the Army and Navy Air Corps Academy in Baalkpan had been arriving periodically to teach Fil-pin cadets to fly the “Nancys” being built in Maa-ni-la, and each improvement made in the standardized model was forwarded immediately with detailed explanations. Ultimately, a few improvements cooked up in Maa- ni-la started going back to Baalkpan. Some of the most important training information was constantly being updated as well, and Captain Jis-Tikar, or “Tikker,” COFO (Commander of Flight Operations) aboard Big Sal, and ultimately First Fleet, forwarded every new, real-world combat technique his fliers learned-sometimes the hard way. Although Tikker’s and Mallory’s tables of organization had been established, there was no COFO for Second Fleet yet, and if they couldn’t swipe one of the Baalkpan instructors, Lelaa and Irvin didn’t know where they’d get one.
“In any event,” Lelaa continued, “ Maaka-Kakja must sail within the week. She’ll be accompanied by Pu-cot and Pecos, the two new, ‘fast fleet oilers.’ ”
“What of warships and transports?” Shinya asked.
“They should e unnecessary. Maaka-Kakja carries fifty of the new fifty-pounder smoothbores for serious pounding at close range, and she has four of Amag ’s five-point-five-inch secondaries, tied into one of the functional fire control computers that were located above the waterline when Amagi sank.”
Shinya nodded. “You’re right. She should have little to fear. But what of the troops? How many can we take
