Sweat beaded up on the little man’s forehead as he committed himself. “If it will help us stay alive, then I want you to participate in the defense.”
The diplomat is able to pull his head out of his . . . shell, thought Melville as he nodded to the consul, and make a decision.
“But under no circumstance should your forces become decisively engaged. Your priority is to prepare your ship for evacuation,” he concluded, with a note that almost sounded like decisiveness.
Ah, but he is, in the end, still a diplomat. If the pig flies, don’t blame him if it’s only a little ways, and if the landing is rough.
“Aye, sir. Will do,” said Melville standing up. “Now, sir, if you’ll permit me, I must attend to your orders.”
“Indeed, Captain, indeed.”
“Oh, sir,” said Melville, as though it were a minor afterthought, “I recommend that your Marine guard should stay here to secure our noncombat personnel.” As though this sad little man would have it any other way. His handful of marines wouldn’t make that much difference anyway. “But I wonder if we could tap into the consulate’s emergency supplies. It will greatly increase our chance of success.”
“Oh, yes, indeed, Captain.” Carpetwright was obviously relieved that this wild-eyed, young man didn’t try to take his personal marine guard. Great military minds must think alike, he thought, preening and rebuilding his wounded ego slightly. Here is a man who thinks like me, someone I might be able to trust. “You have my permission to make any military decisions in that area. Just, again, my marines stay with me, and do not become decisively engaged.”
“Yes sir, I agree completely.” And in truth, he did. He had no intention of fighting to the death here, on land. But he did intend to hurt the enemy as much as he could, and the consulate’s “emergency supplies” might make all the difference.
Women all, hear the call,
The pitiless call of War!
Look your last on your dearest ones,
Brothers and husbands, fathers, sons:
Swift they go to the ravenous guns,
The gluttonous guns of War.
* * *
“Aye, sir. Here they is,” said the consulate’s little marine armorer, Corporal Petrico. “Each one made by hand from raw steel, with tendur luvin’ care, acrost several decades, an’ then carefully tested an’ retested. M-1911A1, .45 caliber, semi-ottermactic, recoil-okerpated, magalzine-fed, gummernt modul pistuls. The finest pockin’ low-ta-mid tech hand weapon efer inventud.”
“Aye. Ahhh, aye, indeed,” said Gunny Von Rito, holding one reverently in his hand. “Essentially using nineteenth century, Victorian era metallurgy and technology, it was developed in the early, early days of the twentieth century and first used in combat in 1916 against Pancho Villa. And yet over a century later it was still the dominant handgun of its time. Hell, until them la-tee-da blasters and phasers were developed, centuries later on high-tech worlds, there really was no better weapon for one man to hold in his hand. You’ll seldom see any weapon with that kind of staying power, throughout the annals of history.”
The bullet-headed, scarred old NCO was in a state of near religious veneration as he continued. “Can you imagine what kind of technology base it would take to develop blasters or phasers! And when you’re done, you still will never have the psychological impact, the noise, concussion, flash, and smell of a .45. With just a minimal tech base this baby gives you maximum lethality. And, most importantly, when properly built, this is one of the most reliable, dependable guns ever built. In the mud and the blood and the beer, this baby will never let you down. All skill is in vain if the angels piss in the flintlock of your musket.”
“Aye, Gunny,” said Petrico, as they both paid homage at the altar of the .45 auto. ” ‘At’s God’s Gun.”
“Aye, that’s God’s own gun,” the Gunny replied. “The perfect gun. There’s some that’d disagree, but I’m not one.”
“Now,” said Petrico, with reverence as he held the gun in his hand, “six hundert years later, it’s da standart three-space weapin fer da hole pockin’ Westerness forces any time they gets a chance ta develerp a perduction base. When wurd come out fer da marines ta develop small arms at each embassy an’ consulate, waddaya suppose we turns ta? Saint Browning’s pockin’ masterpiece, thas wat. This baby wouldn’ last fife minutes in two-space, but da plans, printed on paper, dey travels jis fine. Firs’ we made da tools ta make ’em, an’ then we begun ta work, buildin’ ’em, one-by-one. Lots o’ spare time the Marines have on consulate an’ embassy duty. Wot better way ta spend it. I’m not even shur them pockin’, mawdikker diplermats knows or cares about ’em. But we knows, we pockin’ knows, ay gunny?”
The ceremonial guards of Westerness’ embassies and consulates didn’t waste a lot of time on spit and polish. Some fancy ceremonial guards spent all their time polishing their fancy ornamental armor. The marines did look good on duty, and everything that could be polished was well polished, but they hated being thought of as the kind of people who wore stupid ceremonial armor. They saw it as a kind of “gilt” by association. Thus they had a fair amount of spare time, but they believed in investing it. Physical fitness and combat training was important, and whatever time was left over, across the years, was spent handcrafting firearms. Mostly they built .45 autos, but they also built a few of Saint Browning’s other masterpiece, the M-1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, invented in the same general time frame. The technophobia of the Westerness Empire was able to stretch just enough to embrace these two, magnificent, almost Victorian era weapons, both of which were used in World War I.
“You know, Gunny, Corporal,” said Melville, nodding to each of the old warriors respectfully as he held his own .45 up beside his ear and heard the satisfying “thok” of the reset as he put it through a function check, “The idea isn’t new. Even in the twenty-first century, on Old Earth, there were craftsmen in Pakistan and other parts of Asia who could handmake a replica of almost any gun you brought to them. Give them a working model, and in weeks they could have an exact copy, made entirely by hand. The only thing that would stop them is if you needed something with fancy metallurgy, or with tight tolerances.”
“Aye,” replied Von Rito. “No fancy metals or tight tolerances here. Just a fistful of death and destruction. With the twenty-two .45s and the two BARs the boys can release to us, plus all the ammo they’ve ginned up, we’ll make the Guldur mighty sorry they ever landed on this world.”
“Aye, indeed, Gunny,” said Melville grimly. “They might conquer this world, but if they do I intend for it to be a hollow victory. If I have my way, this arm of the invading force will have nothing left to attack any other worlds. And they’ll think long and hard before they ever attack the Westerness Navy again.”
* * *
Training their troops with the .45 wasn’t something to be taken lightly. All of them had familiarized with the weapon in basic training, but this was the first Westerness force to use them in true combat, and the first force to tap into a consulate’s “emergency stores.” There was a responsibility to make sure the troops did a good job, and that meant intense training.
The BARs weren’t a problem. Gunny Von Rito and Corporal Kobbsven were both instructor qualified with that weapon. Some might think that their two best marksmen, Westminster and Valandil, would be the best men to assign to the BAR. But proper use of a heavy automatic rifle is as different from a normal rifle as a submachine gun is from a pistol. The BAR required specific training and skills, which these two NCOs possessed in spades. The effective use of the massive BAR in crowd-clearing, close-range operations also required a big man, a strong man, and Von Rito and Kobbsven both met the standard there.
The real problem was making sure the .45s would be used to the maximum possible effect. They had several thousand rounds of ammunition for each weapon. For the BARs that meant the .30-06 ammo had to be held back, used conservatively. Firing at a cyclic rate of around 550 rounds per minute, the automatic rifles would burn a few thousand rounds, or fifty twenty-round box magazines, in a matter of minutes. There was no need to waste the BAR ammo for anything other than a quick test-fire, since they had experienced, highly trained gunners. But it took a long time to burn a thousand rounds of .45 ammo from a pistol. They could afford to fire a thousand rounds per man in training and still have a thousand rounds for combat. And so they did.