As I saw it, the next war, or at least the early phases of it, would be fought in space. Some new strap-ons were in order.
Up until now, traveling in space in a tank involved using a hydrogen-oxygen rocket capable of giving you a thrust of forty Gs. It was fed through a pair of Hassan-Smith transporters from a fuel dump somewhere nearby. The transmitters were expensive, which means that you couldn’t have very many of them. Also, the rockets were very bright and very noticable.
The captured Mitchegai ship had taught us a few things about ion drives, and New Kashubia had a major surplus of cesium available, a metal that was easily ionized, and very massive.
The new engines required less than three percent of the fuel of the old ones, and a single transmitter could keep thirty-five of them fed.
The old tanks had only speed-of-light communications available. An expensive microtransceiver that sent tiny memory chips had been invented, and I resolved that every one of my tanks would have one. I had a production line of our own built to insure this, and damn the bureaucrats in New Kashubia. Now, every single fighting unit could communicate with headquarters.
Our main weapon, the rail gun, had proved to be completely ineffective against the Mitchegai. Our secondary weapon, the X-ray laser, had worked, but only when used in mass firings. We now had the Disappearing Gun, a gift from the Tellefontu, and I planned to have ninety percent of my people equipped with it. Eight percent would have X-ray lasers, and the rest, rail guns. You never can tell.
And there was a wide variety of rockets, drones, mines, and antipersonnel weapons that we had in stock that might prove useful.
Everything military now was deep below the ground. Using the Hassan-Smith transporters, we could get to any point in Human Space in a hurry, but they’d have a hell of a time getting to us.
When the Mitchegai came, I hoped that we would be ready.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,
FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.
BUT CONCERNING EVENTS OF UP TO
2000 YEARS EARLIER
A Cunning Scheme
The next morning, Duke Dennon mentioned that he had been able to purchase six more armored, but defective, space suits, and bemoaned the fact that there were so few of them on the market.
“Well then, why don’t you make your own?” Kren asked.
“Make a space suit? Do you realize the level of technology that requires?”
“A space suit, yes. But all you need is a suit of armor! It doesn’t have to be airtight. It doesn’t have to provide the wearer with air to breathe. It doesn’t have to be heated to bear the cold of dark space, or cooled to take the heat of the naked sun. All it has to do is to keep your soldiers from being cut by your enemy’s weapons! Look, you already have a perfect pattern for what you need. You have some old space suits. Take one of them apart, give the three dozen or so pieces to some of your excellent engineers . . .”
“There are six dozen major pieces in a space suit, not counting the fasteners, Kren.”
“Whatever! That means that they will have to make up six dozen sets of stamping dies, at a few thousand Ke each, unless they decide that they can do it themselves. Then, you buy a few stamping presses, and have your soldiers operate them. You’ll have enough armor for your whole army in a dozen weeks or so.”
“Do you really think that this is possible?”
“You’ve got the money, you’ve got the workers, and you have a product sample! What more do you need?”
“Would you handle this for me?”
“If you want to give me your money, I’ll take it. But I’ll just turn the whole project over to your chief engineer, who is currently working for me. You’ve already got the talent. Use it!”
“Somehow, I’d feel better if you handled this.”
“As you wish, Your Grace. We’ll set up your armor factory in your huge basement here, since I’ve emptied much of the machinery out of it. My price will be cost plus one third, to be paid to me personally in money, cash or check.”
“That would be adequate,” the duke said.
Kren left to catch his train, shaking his head. How such an excellent leader could have so little confidence in his own troops was beyond imagination. But since he insisted, Kren would take his money.
* * *
Kren filled Dol in on the two new projects.
“For the armor, just give the project to Kren’s chief engineer, and let her run with it. See to it that the bookkeeping on this project is kept separate from everything else.”
“Easily done, sir.”
“For the tunnel, well, we’ll just call it the ‘Exploratory Tunnel,’ and tell the few workers involved that it’s company confidential. Nothing super secret, but we’re just examining soil conditions for future grass-growing tunnels. Also, there just might be some valuable minerals out there, and if we find any, we don’t want anybody else to know about it. Even the workers operating the small tunneler shouldn’t know what they are really doing, or even where they are. Don’t give them any maps. Just give them short charts of angles and distances, enough to keep them busy for a week or so. And get the old charts back as you give them the new ones. Also, I’ll want separate bookkeeping on this project as well, with nothing concerning the exploratory tunnel to ever be put on any computer. Just one book for expenses, something that can be destroyed easily. No side notes may be written. All of your sketches must be destroyed immediately. You and I and Duke Dennon will know what is really going on here. Nobody else!”
“I understand, since I don’t want to be bombed from space, either! But, sir, is this project really worth the risk?”
“I think that it is, both financially, and because Duke Dennon is very important to our entire endeavor.”
“Very well. You are the boss. I’ll get right on it, sir.”
* * *
Kren’s scientists got the ancient DNA lab set up, and to the wonderment of all, they managed to get most of the equipment working. Only two small pieces of gear had to be built anew from ancient plans. The first project he gave them was himself.
“I don’t know why I am such an outstanding athlete, but I want to find out. I am positive that it has something to do with this body, and not my brain. Take some tissue samples, and see what you can learn,” Kren said to them.
* * *
For the six weeks prior to the Planetary Collegiate Championships, Kren won nothing at all, not even a copper third place medal. For the championships, where the amount of money bet would be vastly greater than at any ordinary meet, he made arrangements with his bookie to win sequentially at fencing, accuracy, and distance, and bet half of his considerable personal fortune and most of his corporation’s ready cash on the outcome.
He won all three events, setting new planetary records in javelin distance and accuracy. More importantly, he walked away with enough money to keep his corporation well funded for the next five years.
Kren promptly authorized the purchase of the machinery required to make their own monochromatic lighting panels, cutting their marginal costs by three quarters on this expensive item.
* * *
Saying that a victory celebration was in order, Kren invited three dozen of the university’s best female athletes to a week-long party. Kren’s prestige being what it was, every one of them was happy to attend.
The party started with a chartered MagFloat train consisting of an engine and three club cars to take them and a few carefully selected party snacks on the two-hour trip to Kren’s Research Center. They were all laughing hilariously when the train pulled up, not to the passenger station, but to the loading docks, where there was an entrance to the Research Center.
On the loading docks, over a gross of workers were injecting children with knockout drugs, putting them into boxes, and loading the boxes into railroad box cars for shipment to Bronki’s stores. It was an efficient process, and Kren proudly showed his slightly tipsy guests through the operation, quoting statistics about the huge numbers of youngsters that he had shipped out to date.
They then went through a series of huge, noisy, metal-lined tunnels where conveyor belts whizzed by full of dirt that was on its way to hopper cars that would be dumped into an ocean trench. From there, they went through a door that Kren unlocked with both his credit card and a mechanical key, and then up a freight elevator to what Kren privately called his “Breeding Room.”