Princess Rescue Inc (67 page)

Uuôden
sighed as he exited the tent and nodded to lord Wedst. Wedst took his cousin in
by the arm and gently guided him away to his healer. “Dominus Fargut, find an
able commander and send him out with a cohort of men to retake the wall,”
Uuôden rumbled, looking at the lord as he came out behind him.

“Can
I take command personally?” Fargut asked. The general immediately sighed and
shook his head.

“The
King has ordered that you and the others remain in safety here in the camp,”
the general said regretfully. Fargut's eyes glittered. He'd heard the rumor but
now he was angry at it. “I believe he wishes you near for your counsel,” Uuôden
rumbled, trying to be diplomatic about the confinement. Art’ur didn't know what
he was doing by ordering the Dominus's to heel like a hundur. They all now
chafed and quietly raged over such treatment.

“I
shall order it,” Fargut ground out, jaw set. He bowed slightly but didn't
salute as he marched stiffly off. Uuôden sighed, watching him go and then
turned as another messenger approached.

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

Ginger
Lewis made a brazen daylight run over the battlefield. She was there to assess
the situation and take images, since the images she'd been taking from a
distance and great height hadn't really helped the brass. It was a risk, one
she knew all too well could cost her her life, but she also knew it was a
necessary one. They needed accurate numbers and a better map of the terrain and
of the enemy camp.

Besides,
she thought with a grin as she banked... it would be fun to buzz the bastards
and scare the ever living piss out of them. If she was lucky a couple of the
branack
beasts would collapse on someone.

She
made one high east to west run and then circled around for another pass. This
time she lined up on the duchy. She'd make sure she got as many images and
video of that as she could.

Duke
Emroy had taken the damage to the enemy to heart, and had not surrendered but
was obviously low on supplies she thought, taking in the sight of the damaged
but defiant castle below her. People were looking up at her in surprise. She
flipped the window open and tossed a weighted scroll. It fluttered in the
turbulent air around her aircraft before finding its way down to the ground.
Awed people looked up at her, shading their eyes to watch but a clever lad went
over and found the note and picked it up. She waggled her wings when they
started to read it and cheered.

She
made another pass, studying things. They were doing okay, holding out at least.
However the Duluth army had set up machine gun crossbows, modeled after the
ancient Chinese version on earth. They had a group of them set up just out of
catapult range in front of each of the gates to prevent a sally. Cohorts of men
and war beasts were behind the crossbows ready to take advantage of any
opening.

She
grinned at the enemy forces below her. Right in the center of the main camp she
spotted one of her targets, a massive tent decked out with pennants and stuff.
It screamed rich. There were others around it but this one had the most number
of guards. That had to be the big boss. She grinned as she spotted someone
coming out wearing a crown just as she flashed over. “Yeah, I think we have a
winner,” she murmured to herself.

When
the intel pukes back at the capital were certain it was King Art’ur's tent
Perry sent Lewis in the ultra-light in a hair raising night mission to drop a
satchel bomb onto it. It went off in a raging inferno but the King had not been
there when it did. He was sighted later the next day injured but alive. He was
however shaken and quite incensed over the airborne intruder. The ultra-light
began to take fire when it flew overhead the next morning to assess the damage;
Lewis had to fly out of bow range to stay in the air.

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

Art’ur's
reaction to the attack was brutal; he'd had the leader of his perimeter guard
executed and half the fools who had been on duty that night. He at first
thought it had been another raid. He cradled his arm, angry that he'd been
burned trying to put the flames out. He'd lost four guards and a slave in the
fire. It enraged him that the enemy could brazenly walk into his camp, amongst
his men and do something like this. Were they all blind fools? He thought,
savagely pacing.

But
then there had been the reports of strange sounds in the night sky had many
wondering. He'd heard the thing over his tent the day before but when he'd come
out it'd been gone. His men had pointed but he'd only seen a speck, nothing
more. Certainly not a large carriage in the air!

They'd
seen some sort of strange thing flying about for several haftas. He had the
reports, he hadn't believed them. Now in the clear morning air the perimeter
guard spotted the thing from the sound and called in a warning. He looked up as
the thrumming broke through his red hot rage. He came out of his newly acquired
tent at a run, just in time to see the gray carriage with strange shapes on it
fly by at less than a century fotter in height. Men around him were pointing at
the thing and talking about it. He was immediately enraged and ordered it shot
down. Unfortunately many of the bolts and arrows launched at it fell amongst
his men.

He
spotted someone, what looked like a woman inside the metal beast. The thing
turned and climbed sharply when it came under fire. It left the way it had
come. His eyes tracked it, narrowing as he deduced it was following the King's
highway to the capital.

“Yipes!”
Lewis murmured, getting out of the way of the cloud of arrows and crossbow
bolts. “Someone's not happy to see me!”

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

The
Terran trucks made daily runs for supplies, shipping supplies to the mines and
then bringing back tons of metals from the mines and hundreds of pounds of food
from nearby villages. The drivers were all Terrans, they took a different path
to each destination mine each time, varying the route but trying not to hit the
same mine twice in a week.

Refugees
fleeing the raiders, and additional young volunteers eager to see the world and
awed by the gaijin vehicles and technology rushed to the capital to enlist in
the army. They began to fill the surrounding countryside with tents. Nearby
lords sent additional levies of men and material for the army once their
planting was complete. Only a few pieces of the army remained undone before
they were ready to march. If their luck held they would have the final pieces
before the summer solstice, their agreed day to march.

Ryans
scanned the horizon, glad that Sue had made certain of proper hygiene practices
and had overhauled many things the refugees and the armies were using to live
by. But they still had a long way to go. They were still waiting on the last
shipments of ammunition and the much anticipated war beasts.

“War
is so wasteful. Whoever said war is glorious was a moron,” Ryans muttered.
Perry eyed him, unsure where this was leading. He shrugged the questioning gaze
off. “I'm serious. Look at this. Food, material, men and women, all being used
to go out to kill them. A lot of it will spoil in the summer heat and be
wasted. If they'd just put more effort into their own problem then they
wouldn't have spread it here.”

Perry
cocked his head. “War is the final act of diplomacy.”

Ryans
nodded. Deidra came up behind him and listened. “Yeah, yeah, war is the mother
of all invention, war is the final act of diplomacy... it still sucks. Besides,
to be a final act of diplomacy you have to have had some to start with!” he
said waving his hands angrily. He shook his head. “This was their first act.
All because of... ah hell, it just sucks. Stupid, just... stupid.”

Perry
nodded soberly. “Yeah, it does. Misery loves company I guess.”

Ryans
snorted. “Good one. I'm not sure that's ever been applied to a war but it sure
fits.”

Perry
nodded. “How are we doing on the logistics?”

Ryans
smiled. “Better than I thought. “Max and Scooter said they've got another
hundred muskets ready, and about twenty more Winchester rifles and ten more
Springfields complete with scopes. We've got about a dozen more Winchesters in
the pipeline already, that's a real bottleneck. Getting the parts together in
the right size is a pain; we keep running into jams there. Same for the
Springfield,” he grimaced.

“He
said we've got about ten thousand rounds of paper cartridges, a thousand rounds
of brass, plus a couple hundred bushels of clay and cast iron grenades,” Ryans
reported. He shrugged. “We've got cottage industries sprouting up all over,
mostly to use the molds to make musket balls out of lead and pewter. Max even
got our first cannon and as you know it tested okay. He's made another bigger
one, this one has rifling. They're testing it this afternoon.”

“This
I gotta see,” Perry smiled.

“Yeah
well, from a safe distance LT,” Ryans cautioned. Perry eyed him. “Cannons,
especially early ones had a bad habit of blowing up and killing those near
them.”

Perry
nodded warily. “Good to know. Safety tip, don't stand next to the artillery.”
He remembered that incident with the Springfield with a pang of regret. The kid
who'd lost his eye had recovered but would never have any depth perception and
had a fixed aversion to firearms. He was now in the logistics department. Which
was funny, the kid didn't know how to read, write, or do math. Hopefully he'd
get enough on the job training to be more than just a cargo handler.

Ryans
snorted. “It's because they're cast like bells. If we could machine them it'd
be better.”

Perry
nodded. “And the food?” They had just had their first second spring harvest,
really mostly vegetables. The real harvests would come in the summer and late
summer and then two smaller ones in mid and late fall. Normally there were two
harvests each season. The first spring harvest was food to resupply the people.
The second spring harvest and the two summer harvests were both enough to live
on and a surplus for the winter. The last two fall harvests with the summer
harvests were to let them survive the winter.

Native
animals naturally gave birth when the snow melted. Many of the draft animals
took until fall to be weaned however, growing slowly. Some of the animals took
native years to grow, taking their parents out of the breeding until they were
weaned.

Terran
animals were carefully bred just before winter began so that they'd give birth
in the early to mid spring. Some were bred again and would give birth in the
fall. These animals were usually immediately slaughtered.

Ryans
frowned. “That's a bit harder to go over. We can't do much about long term
storage. They've been working on it, but it's still not in leagues of what we
can do. Right now we're stuck with what they have, sun dried, smoked, salted,
or jarred. I'd like to use the pewter to make ration tins, but we don't have
enough to make a dent,” he sighed in frustration. There were too many steps
involved in canning. To many and too little time before the army marched.

“So,
no MREs? I don't know if I should be happy or appalled,” Perry said smiling.

Ryans
frowned. “Both, right now we're stuck with pemmican for field rats, along with
potato chips and bread. Gregory has his hands full with the mess section. He's
doing what he can there. I don't envy him in the slightest.”

“Me,
neither,” Perry chuckled.

“I
think he's got Max working on a couple of things. We've got a cooper working on
barrels as fast as they can, they're better than wooden crates and leather
sacks but the wood is of course in limited supply,” he said scowling. “Max
worked out a hay baler a month or so ago, so part of the fodder problem is
solved.”

“Sue's
set up medics with basic first aid kits and basic triage lessons. Her advanced
healers will serve as secondary triage stations further back from the front to
feed the surgeons in the MASH unit.”

“And
the ether will help,” Perry said.

“Damn
well better. At least it's some form of anesthetic. Better than what they were
doing, shoving a stick in a guy's mouth and sawing a body part off,” Ryans said
darkly. Deidra gulped behind him.

“And
the King?” Perry asked quietly as Deidra began to withdraw. She froze. Ryans
sighed glancing at her back. “Doc said he's had two smaller heart attacks while
he slept. He's sleeping a lot more now; his body just can't handle it. She's
down to less than a week's worth of blood thinners and clot busters. Once she's
out she'll be down to aspirin,” he reported quietly.

“Fat
chance with that,” Perry sighed. “Well, aspirin is a blood thinner, just not as
effective. It will be touch and go. If she could do a bypass and rotor rooter
then he'd be a lot better off. Hell, even functional,” Perry snorted in memory.
His father had done better after such treatment but his age had made the
recovery time long and his lack of patience had tested his mother's patience to
the utter limit. “To bad she couldn't do some lipo when she's at it. taking
some the fat out would improve his chances too. Less bulk for that weakened
heart to have to handle.”

Ryans
shook his head. “I seriously doubt she'd do it. Surgery under these conditions?
We almost lost Galloway and he's a lot younger,” he said. Perry shrugged but he
nodded darkly at the mention of Galloway. Ryans frowned and then continued.
“Then again, I'll run it by her. Jessie has the radio up on the tower. We've
got a primitive AM set up, transmitter here, simple diode receivers out and
about. It won’t help with getting intel here much, but it'll help
communications,”