Princess Rescue Inc (59 page)

There
was mixed good news in the intelligence the refugees gave them. Grimly
Lieutenant Galloway had a list made of witnesses and descriptions of raiders
who committed acts of violence. Statements were documented and they even video
recorded some of the most heinous. When Maximus asked why Galloway turned on
him. “For the war crime trials, I plan on cutting off their dicks and shoving
them down their throats, each and every last one of them. And nailing their
gonads to their foreheads as a warning to others,” he snarled.

Maximus's
eyes went wide. He blinked in shock and surprise.

“We're
aware these things happen captain,” Ryans said, turning to the captain. He had
been looking over a map, trying to see where the raiders would go next. He'd
love to send in a team to meet them but knew the intel was old and out of date.
“We have a... particular rage for this sort of thing. Those that commit these
crimes are subhuman and should be severely punished,” he said. “Some of us have
mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives. We would not wish this on them or
another man's, now or ever. I hope you can understand that,” he said.

Maximus
looked at him and then to Galloway and Perry. Both nodded grimly. Finally he
turned to Pendragon. The general harrumphed and then nodded slowly.

“Then
let it be so,” the captain said.

Doc
and Max instituted a water plant, filtering the water from the river. They
would need the clean water to keep the population healthy.... including their
own population. Like most medieval societies, the population got most of it's
clean potable drinking water from beer. They hadn't made the connection that
boiling the water cleaned it. Max set the record straight, and even found
investors interested in a pumping station. It wasn't a priority project, but
having fresh, clean, running water to homes was something of interest to the
people.

Sue
ruthlessly culled back garbage dumping, having them overhaul the trash and
sewage system to protect the populous from disease and vermin. Men were hired
to pick up the trash once a week and then bring the cart loads to the local
dump. She uprooted people camping along the river and relocated them away from
their water supply to protect it from contamination.

She
had the guards teach them to dig latrine trenches and instituted mandatory
cleaning and checkups. There were mandatory inspections as well. Her healers
went through the refugee camps treating the sick and injured, to gain much
needed confidence and hands on experience.

<==={}------------>

“Are
we even making a dent?” Charlie asked at their next gaijin only meeting the following
morning. “What are we even doing, do we know? And will this help, or make
things worse in the grand scheme of things?” she asked running a frustrated
hand through her hair. Dividing her time between Wanda, Sue, and her own
projects was driving her to distraction.

“Feed
a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him to fish,” Ryans explained.

Perry
nodded, turning to Charlie. “Right, feed him and his family for a day. Got it.
Good point. We can do this for them, or teach them to do it for themselves. We
ran into that problem in Africa. God I hated Somalia. Give the people a hand
out, they eat well for a day but then come back with more people, all with
their hands out,” he grimaced. “After a while they think it's their right for
others to care for them, that they
can't
take care of themselves,” he
said. He looked to Doc who nodded but didn't say anything.

“And
of course there are those who bite the hands that feed them. Somalia for
instance,” Ryans said with a grimace.

Charlie
sighed. “Still a pain in the ass,” she growled. They chuckled at this.

“Since
when is doing the right thing the right way not?” Perry snorted. “Never is.
Short cuts in stuff like this usually end up blowing up in your face rather
nastily,” he said and then shrugged.

“How
are we with the military situation?” Sue asked running a hand through her hair
then shaking it out. She reached back and began to braid her chestnut hair.

 “Well,
we could handle the entire raider army with just our men and gear, but that
would leave us a bit short on ammo once we got the survivors to cut and run,”
Perry joked. She gave him a long look, arched eyebrow. He shrugged it off with
a small smile. “Just saying.” He gave Charlie and Ryans a look. “We've
intercepted raider teams that come this way, so far so good. The locals are
mobilizing, but training is slow and ongoing,” he sighed.

“We
need more weapons, or at least practice weapons in the hands of the men so they
can get familiar with them. Right now we've got one musket for every twenty men
in the advanced course, four Winchesters and a whopping twenty Springfield
rifles,” Galloway said and then grimaced along with Ryans. Getting that many
flintlock muskets out was good but not great. Their team had about two thousand
people in it now. That meant a hundred muskets all totaled.

“We're
expecting another shipment of fifty muskets and ten rifles by the end of the
week. Plus we've got some force multipliers in the works and the first cannon
is cooling now,” Max informed them. Several people smiled tiredly in approval
over that news. “I think we've got the production bugs ironed out, or at least
the worst ones. I'm going to have to overhaul quality control but I think we
can produce ten flint locks and five Springfield’s a day starting tomorrow.”

“That's
definitely good news!”

“Ten?”
Perry asked.

“It's
a start,” Max said. “I know, I wanted more. You want more. Ten's the best I've
got now. I'm dividing resources between the two weapons you know,” he growled.

“I
get it,” Perry replied with a sigh.

“If
we can pick up the pace we will. I'm not sure. I think we can double that
number but it's all subject to the pipeline. I don't want to press too hard,
have a hiccup, and then have idle people forming a bottleneck.”

“I
getcha Max,” Perry said a hand on the machinist's shoulders. “Tell your people
thanks,” he said.

Max
nodded. “The cannon is another project. We've got a small smooth bore with a
carriage and a special ammo wagon. I'd would've liked to have rifled the barrel
but I'm not sure how to do it right. We don't have the proper jig,” Max
reported.

“Can't
wait to test fire that thing,” Perry murmured, only slightly nervous about the
whole thing. It could blow up after all; blow up like the first four muskets
they had made. They had better use a damn long fuse and a protective berm for
that test firing. And do it far away from the animals. Hopefully they could
test fire it by the end of the week.

“Ask
me for anything but time,” Ryans grumbled. Perry and Galloway nodded
grudgingly. Charlie snorted. They knew they could cream the enemy now, but the
more time they had the more gear and training they could get in. The rate of
fire of their musketeers was low, two shots a minute. The riflemen could go
through a ten round clip in thirty-seconds. Which caused a major headache and
bottleneck with the ammunition, right now they had only one clip per man.

“Did
you get that chemistry thing sorted out?” Perry asked turning to Charlie.

“Yeah,
and look, at no time did the fingers leave the hand,” she said. She held up her
ten digits. Sue growled. “Oh,” Charlie smiled. “I made some nitrocellulose for
the miners and smokeless gunpowder for the Winchesters and Springfields.
Fulminate of mercury for percussion caps too,” she said smugly and then
shrugged.

Doc's
eyes were wide in shock. “Are you insane?” she breathed. “Do you have any
idea...?” Charlie nodded cutting her off.

Charlie
chuckled. “Had to be done Doc.”

“Why
ever for?” Doc said throwing her hands up.

Charlie
smiled. “Well, the mercury is for ignition caps, the nitrocellulose is for
explosives and gun-cotton.”

“Ah,”
Sue froze for a moment. “You're that far along?” she asked after a moment of
thought.

Charlie
nodded and looked to Ryans. He frowned.  “Well, we can make cast iron
grenades; in fact we're doing that now but not in quantity just yet. But until
I get the better specs of a rifling bench out of here,” Ryans tapped the
storage case, “we're at the level of smooth bore musket for most of the army.
We've got a handful of Winchester repeater rifles for the cavalry and
Springfields for the snipers. The moving parts are a pain though,” he grimaced.
“We've got copper jacketed brass rounds for the Winchesters as well, both black
powder and now the smokeless gunpowder.”

Sue
nodded suddenly. “Are you sure it's a good idea to give these people guns?” she
asked, suddenly intent.

Ryans
shrugged. “It's either give it to them or watch them fall under the raiders. We
could leave.” He waved to the window. “But where can we go and be safe? We've
got eight or nine months to wait this out Doc, I for one would rather do it
with stone walls around me,” he said firmly. Doc slowly nodded. “Think about
this as well, do you really want us to try to set up the catcher's mitt for the
wormhole right on that bluff where the raiders pass by?” he demanded. She
shivered and shook her head. “Besides, we're keeping the formula for gunpowder
and gun cotton as a trump card,” he said and then smiled.

Charlie
sighed, “yeah, lucky me.” She shook her head. “I suck at keeping secrets.” Doc
snorted in agreement, earning a mock glower.

“But
some things can be spun off. We've already found buyers for your bleach, yeast,
and ether formulas. Adonis Alchemy is taking on the ether and bleach,” Ryans
said. “A bakery is taking on the yeast formula.”

“Adonis?”
Wanda asked with a grin. He shrugged it off.

“Apparently
they do perfumes and love potions. Don't ask, I don't care. They get a three
year exclusive formula deal, we get all that stuff at cost plus some other
supplies,” Ryans replied.

“Kinda
cheap there boss,” Wanda said.

“Do
you want them to have bleach or not? Ether for oh, say surgery?” he demanded.
“I for one do not envy any poor sap here that has a tooth ache. Or needs
surgery. What passed for surgery before Doc got involved,” he said nodding to
Sue. Sue nodded grimly as Wanda and Charlie shuddered involuntarily. “Charlie
has the licks out for the bleach. We're getting the basic formula out to as
many people as quickly as possible. It's not anywhere near what we need for
mass production, but every little bit helps.”

“Kitchen
sink chemistry,” Wanda said looking thoughtful. A lot of chemistry had been
learned over the centuries through trial and error in the kitchen. “Now I
understand why you wanted the simplest formula.”

Ryans
nodded. “Exactly. Quality control will be an issue, but the first batches show
promise. But...”

“Back
to what I was saying,” Perry interrupted. He needed to get them back on track,
he had a busy day. “The main army is camped around Duke Emroy's castle at the
entrance. They're laying siege to it now. I think they didn't come with a good
enough logistics tail; they're stripping the surrounding countryside of
anything edible. They've got loggers cutting wood in the woods too. Mostly for
firewood,” he said. He wrinkled his nose. They were using fire to drive the
basilisks away. It was risky and wasteful but it let them get in and get the
wood they needed, albeit slightly charred. Charlie nodded. “Not just that,
siege engines too,” he said after a moment. He tapped at his laptop then showed
them a distant image of a French ballista under construction. “They've got
several now. They are making one every week.”

Charlie
grimaced and then cocked her head as if in thought. “Be a wicked thing to see.
I saw one on TV on a pumpkin chunkin show but never in real life. Physics in
action!”

Sue
snorted. “It's impressive I'll admit, but not something you want to see if
you’re on the receiving end,” she grumbled.

Perry
nodded. “I've got a couple of teams ready. We call them the Silent Knights.”

Ryans
smiled at that. “Cute, I get it.” He of course knew about them but the other
civilians hadn't. He hadn't known they'd settled on Silent Knights for a name
though.

Perry
smiled too. “Anyway, we're going to do a few raids of our own. Hit their
logistics and burn as many of these siege engines as we can. That should take
some of the pressure off Duke Emroy till we can relieve him,” he said. Ryans
nodded.

“When
are they going?” Sue asked.

“Well,
that's why I came to see you. I wanted to borrow a couple of doctors. Trauma
Doc and a nurse actually,” Perry said looking at her.

She
looked confused then began to shake her head. “Oh hell no...” She grimaced,
face working. “You're not going to get my people killed on some fool’s errand
just after I went through all the heartache of training them!” she snarled.

He
sighed. “Look Doc, they won’t be at the front, I want them far enough back so
they can be protected,” he explained patiently. She was still shaking her head,
however.

She
opened her mouth but Ryans beats her to it. “He's right,” he said. She turned a
fulminating look on him. He returned her look with a cool but patient one. “Doc
triage. We need a trauma team to stabilize any wounded until they can get them
back here to you. It'd be a damn shame to lose someone that could have been
saved by someone with the right skills on hand. Besides, they can teach some
basic first aid to the team too,” he explained patiently. Doc frowned and then
looked away thinking furiously.