“Very well, sir” — Dr. Calhoun straightened himself up — “since you have asked for it, I will tell you what I think should be done in this situation — what, in fact, is the only thing that can be done.
“You are aware of the tremendous power of the forces I have made available.” Ardmore noticed Wilkie’s mouth tighten at this allocation of credit, but neither of them interrupted. “In your resume, you underestimated them, if anything. We have a dozen fast scout cars housed here in the Citadel. By refitting them with power units of the Calhoun type they can be made faster than anything the enemy can put into the air. We will mount on them the heaviest projectors and attack. With overwhelmingly superior weapons it is only a matter of time until we will have the PanAsiatic empire beaten to its knees!”
Ardmore wondered how any man could be so blind. He did not himself wish to argue against Calhoun; he said, “Thank you, Colonel. I’ll ask you to submit that plan written up in more detail. In the meantime does anyone wish to amplify or criticize the colonel’s suggestion?” He waited hopefully, then added, “Come now, no plan is perfect. You must have some details to add, at least.”
Graham took the, plunge. “How often do you expect to come down to eat?”
Calhoun cut in before Ardmore could call on him. “Well, I’m damned! I must say that I consider this no time for facetiousness.”
“Wait a minute,” protested Graham, “I didn’t mean to be funny. I’m quite serious. That’s my department. Those scout cars are not equipped to keep the air very long, and it seems to me that it will take quite a long time to reconquer the United States with a dozen scout cars, even if we located enough men to keep them in the air all the time. That means you have to come back to base to eat.”
“Yes, and that means the base will have to be held against attack,”
Scheer put in suddenly.
“The base can be defended with other projectors.” Calhoun’s tone was scornful. “Major, I really must ask that the discussion be confined to sensible issues.”
Ardmore rubbed his chin and said nothing.
Randall Brooks, who had been listening thoughtfully, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and began to sketch. “I think Scheer has something, Dr. Calhoun. If you will look here for a moment here, at this point, is your base. The PanAsians can encircle the base with ships at a distance greater than the range of the base projectors.
The greater speed of your scout cars will be unimportant, for the enemy can well afford to use as many ships as necessary to insure our craft not getting past the blockade. It’s sure that the scout cars will have the projectors with which to fight, but they can’t fight a hundred ships at once, and the enemies’ weapons are powerful, too — we mustn’t forget that.”
“You’re right they’re powerful!” added Wilkie. “We can’t afford to have a known base. With their bombardment rockets they could stand back a thousand miles and blow this whole mountain out of the ground, if they knew we were under it.”
Calhoun stood up. “I’m not going to remain here and listen to misgivings of pusillanimous fools. My plan assumed that men would execute it.” He walked stiffly out of the room.
Ardmore ignored his departure and went hurriedly on, “The objections made to Colonel Calhoun’s scheme seem to me to apply to every plan for open, direct combat at this time. I have considered several and rejected them for approximately those reasons, at least for reasons of logistics
— that is to say, the problem of military supply. However, I may not have thought of some perfectly feasible solution. Does anyone have a direct warfare method to suggest, a method which will not risk personnel?”
No one answered. “Very well, bring it up later if you think of one. It seems to me that we must necessarily work by misdirection. If we can’t fight the enemy directly at this time, we must fool ’em until we can.”