Chapter 31

That meant I had a little exploring to do, and I headed back for the newly discovered range and armory first. I walked past their doors and continued down the hall. It was probably new too and I noticed that it was finished more like my home's basements.

About a hundred feet down the hall from the firing range's door I saw another handprint. When I opened it I couldn't believe what I found. It was so far from anything I would have imagined that I stumbled on the way in, nearly falling, even though the floor was perfectly smooth.

I didn't know what to examine first.

There were two helicopters. They were obvious military types but I was not familiar with them. The four tracked vehicles that resembled Bradleys were recognizable, even though they seemed half again as wide as a Bradley.

The two tanks seemed almost mundane since they were Abrams M1 A1s or damned near it. The two tracked cannons stumped me. I think I'd seen pictures of something nearly like them before but I didn't have any idea what they were called or what they were capable of. I left at once and headed back to find Jaycee.

I met her, Geron, and about twenty men near the door to the range.

"Jaycee, I know you haven't had time to get going yet, but you need to come with me for a while. I've found something else," I said.

"Can you give me time to get them started?" she asked.

"I should, but I can't wait. I have to know what I've stumbled onto," I said.

She had Geron take them men into the range and told him to try explaining what he'd already done. She and I both knew it wouldn't go very far but dammit, I had to show her what I'd found.

When we entered the new area I'd found Jaycee wasn't as shocked as I'd been, but she nearly was.

"My God," she said, "Those look like Comanches."

"What in the hell are Comanches?"

"They were supposed to be the next generation of armed reconnaissance helicopters. They were canceled, but not because they weren't up to the job. They cost too much for W and he needed the money to give rich people tax breaks," she said.

"I guess we could use them now and then, but if they're only for Reconnaissance they probably won't be much help," I said.

"They do killing too. They were also meant to serve as attack helicopters for light divisions. A lot of their capabilities won't be needed here since they can be armed for air to air combat too and they're stealthy. Probably the 20mm cannon will be our primary use, though the 56 Hydras it can carry could come in handy," she said, smiling.

"Oh, in other words they can probably slaughter a few hundred pikemen and cavalry without much bother," I said, thinking of the damage a few mortar rounds had done to mounted men.

"Just the fact that it can fly will probably scare the shit out of anyone around here," she said.

"Well what about this other stuff?" I asked, waving toward the tracked vehicles.

"Looks like somebody though the Bradleys needed more troop capacity. The two Abrams look fairly normal but the artillery was something that was also canceled for lack of funds," she said.

"Huh."

"They scrapped it for more tax breaks, or for something anyway. These weren't going to be cheap," she said.

"So they're not just tanks with bigger guns?"

"No, they're artillery. That's a 155mm tube and anything that receives its blessing is going to be hurt, especially now-a-days. They're impressive as hell but I don't see any need to break them out to deal with a few foot soldiers or mounted knights," she said.

"Can you operate one of them if they do drag some cannons of their own up?" I asked.

"If I need to I think I can touch off a few rounds. The damned things are mostly automated anyway. You basically tell them where you want the round to impact and what type of round you want to use and then click a button. The main drawback for us is that their range is five to forty-five kilometers. Even if we killed something with them, no one would know we did it," she said.

As the new information settled I looked around and was able to spot other things that weren't so foreign to me. There were dozens of Hum-Vs, most with some type of weapon mounted on them. We also had trucks, bulldozers, and other earth moving equipment.

I asked her about another tracked vehicle that we had four of and that appeared to have no weapon at all.

"Those are Wolverines. That's a 24 meter bridge on top of it. They can deploy and recover the bridge, and they can come in very handy," she said.

"Look at this," she said, as she walked around the widened Bradleys.

"Isn't it just a wider version, to carry more troops?" I asked.

"Mostly, but they all mount an M121, a one hundred and twenty millimeter mortar. They will be a lot more useful than the Crusaders will. I think minimum range is two hundred meters or so. That's something we can use up close and personal," she said.

"Well I don't know shit about most of it and this is now your domain," I said.

"Fine, I doubt we'll need any of this, but if we do have to crank up one of those birds you'll have to go along to help. They aren't single seat machines," she said.

"I don't know how to fly a helicopter," I said.

"I know, but you're going to have to learn how to fire some of the weapons. I'll be busy doing the flying if it comes down to it," she said.

"Damn," I said, "A king's work is never done."

She just laughed at me and told me I wasn't a king yet.

We left it for now and she went back to the range to start training our new snipers. I went back upstairs and as I walked into Fawne's makeshift office I saw Meka, holding Tutsie.

"Daddy, we look you. Tutsie me want swim," she said.

"Sounds like a plan to me. I'm tired of the women bossing me around anyway."

We went back to my house, changed and then went out to our lake where we had a nice afternoon of swimming. Cécile and Adèle joined us after awhile and Delphine came out a little later. After the three of them arrived I spent most of my time petting and fondling and just watched Meka swimming.

Later we had our supper in the castle and it was delicious. It was also coming up to sundown and when the thunder reminded me what was about to happen, I had Fawne lead us to my new quarters. She'd already mentioned that she'd made sure they were cleaned and ready for us. Meka didn't have a room here yet so she was going to sleep with us.

I know I should have taken time to compliment Fawne on her work getting Pierre's former accommodations ready for us, but I didn't have time to take. I could see that Fawne realized this herself this time. One trip at They's expense always left you able to realize when another was at hand.

Meka declined the night wear of all my other bedtime guest. She kept her tiny thong on while the others were naked like me. I was thankful again that I never seemed to get a real boner in her presence.

Fawn furnished a titty to keep my hand warm again but it was Meka that snuggled up to my back. No matter, Fawne knew where to park my dick by now and it was soon warming and growing between her thighs. Tutsie was the one whose normal sleeping space was disturbed so he made himself comfortable on top of me. And then, with one last loud crash of thunder we were asleep.

Later I got a short visit from Big Boy but all he wanted was permission to speak to Jaycee directly. He intended to explain some of the features he and his people had added to the equipment they'd furnished us. It didn't bother me in the least and I told him to go ahead.

I woke first again the next morning and managed to get out of bed without waking anyone but Tutsie. He hopped off the bed behind me and followed me into what I thought was probably my new bathroom. It was.

What's the difference between a castle and a palace. I don't know and actually don't know if there is a difference. I did realize that my new bathroom was palatial. The shower would have been fine for me and a dozen of so of my closest friends, and while I had an old style claw-footed single occupancy tub, I also had a whirlpool type fit for even more friends than the shower.

Of course the commodes were Meka specials and I noticed right away that all the fittings were gold with ivory trim. What the hell, even if they'd used real ivory there were a lot more elephants in this time period. I didn't even use my new urinal since I just peed on the shower's floor while I was rinsing off.

We even had a space for Tutsie in here. It was toward the back of the extra large bath and was a twelve by twelve square of indoor lawn. I checked and it was real grass growing in real dirt. I didn't even want to know how that was possible. Tutsie wasn't too impressed, he just walked out, took a leak, and the scratched around on it some.

When I got back to the bedroom the girls were climbing out of bed. Meka moved toward Tutsie but when she got close he turned around and led her into the bathroom. No doubt he was going to show her his new spot.

Jaycee gave me such a look when I saw her and I had to ask.

"What?"

"You could have warned me?" she said.

"No I couldn't, I only found out about it after we were asleep," I said.

"No harm I guess, it just isn't exactly normal to get that much training in your sleep. I'll admit that I was scared at first," she said.

"Did you learn anything?"

"Other than the fact that we have a few satellites up and full GPS capability you mean? Not much else except that we have six drone helicopters, very small ones that we can send up for constant surveillance of the nearest few hundred square miles.

"Oh yeh, the fueling, or lack of it I guess. All our equipment fuels itself somehow, no matter where it is, rearms itself too. Now there's an innovation the real army should be looking into. Abrams tanks that have new rounds appear as the others are used up," she said.

"Damn, it sounds like they mean for us to stay a while," I said.

"Whether they intend for us to or not, I want to. It'll take me weeks to learn to use all that stuff," she said.

"Well, it isn't like we'll miss out on anything at home," I said.

I could tell that my last statement caused Fawne, Cécile, Adèle, and Delphine some concern, so I explained to them that it would be the next morning when we got back home. I could tell that they didn't want to think about that long. Come to think of it, I didn't either.

Jaycee noticed the new bathroom doors then. Mine first but then she spied one on the other side of the room and correctly deduced that it was for the women. They all headed that way, even Meka. Tutsie showed his extreme intelligence again by staying with me. I was about to head out to face the world when the squealing started.

Normally I wouldn't just barge into the ladies bathroom but I made an exception. I needn't have. The noise was from their excitement. They loved their new bathroom but that wasn't what had them giddy. They had new closets too, enormous closets and someone had been shopping for them while they slept.