Gerta inhaled the scent of ozone and scorched metal, fists on hips, pivoting to take in the bustling scene. The other three gunpits were already in place, spread out in a semicircle along the outer edge of the near-island. Each pit was open only along the narrow slit through which the guns would fire—and they would show their muzzles only slightly, and that only when run out for a shoot. Tunnels ran between the pits, and between the pits and their ammunition bunkers, underground barracks and mess halls, fuel stores, generator rooms; but they were all carefully kinked and equipped with blast doors taken from junked battleships to contain internal damage.
“About bloody time is right,” Kurt Wallers said. He was carrying colonel’s tabs, with dual artillery and engineering branch-of-service slashes. “We were complete idiots to wait this long. If we’d had this installation in place when we attacked the Sierrans, that ratfuck in Barclon would never have happened. The Santies couldn’t have put so much as a harbor barge down the Gut without getting it pounded into scrap.”
Gerta shrugged. “My sentiments exactly, Kurt—if that’s any consolation.”
The other Chosen officer hesitated. Gerta slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Spit it out—we did go through the Test of Life together, after all. You’ve done a good job here, too, you’re three months ahead of schedule.”
“Well, then . . . your father is the chief of the General Staff. What the fuck was he thinking of?”
Gerta sighed. “He’s chief of the General Staff, not the Chosen Council. They’ve got a bad case of victory disease, and it’s been getting worse since we overran the Empire. That was too easy, and they’ve been dispersing effort on pet projects and hobbyhorses ever since. Sitting back in Copernik, looking at large-scale maps, it looks like we’re conquering the world. The Empire, the Union, now the Sierra.”
“We are conquering the world. The problem is holding the world. We beat the Imperials because we could concentrate our force. Now—” He made a spreading gesture with his hands.
“Tell me, Kurt. I told the general often enough. He lobbied the Council often enough, but their pet projects got in the way. They had this scheduled for the beginning of the war with Santander . . . about five to eight years from now.”
“Well, better late than never,” Kurt said. “This’ll be a significant nail holding down what we’ve conquered. It makes their naval bases at Dubuk and Charsson useless as far as the Gut’s concerned. They’ve been harassing the shit out of us, I can tell you. And landing supplies to the animals in the hills virtually at will, since Barclon. That’s getting as bad as it was right after the conquest, or worse; they’re smarter now.”
Gerta nodded. “When can you start test firing?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that for another couple of weeks, even on the first pair. The concrete has to set hard before we put that much stress on the mountings.”
“How’re the secondary works coming?”
“About a third done.” She followed as he walked inland. “The usual close-in works, machine guns, bunkered field-guns, mortars, minefields, wire, steel spike obstacles. We’ve got half the Schlenke Emmas in their pits, too, so pretty soon we can drop high-angle fire on anything that gets too close for the big guns to deal with.”
“You’re getting a lot of work out of these animals,” she said, eyeing the swarming construction site.
“You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of engineering work in the New Territories, and—”
An aide trotted up. “Sir. Message over the wireless.”
Kurt took it and read, tilting the yellow flimsy to catch the lights. “Attack on Bassin du Sud,” he said. “Considerable damage sustained in beating it off.”
Gerta grunted in surprise. That was communique language for they whipped our arse.
“Fuck it. Damn, damn, if they damage the Southern Squadron badly, there goes our route around the eastern lobe to Marsai.”
Kurt nodded. “Still, it won’t be too bad even so; they can ship straight south from Corona by rail and then through the Gut, now that we’ve got this.”