Chapter 6

Anslee reported that the only flying machines near us were those three that were making threatening gestures in our direction. I had not had an opportunity to practice fighting with the Gatling Gun, so I was going to have to improvise. I pointed the nose of my ship just ahead of the enemy ship in the middle of the three attackers and ordered the machine gun to fire. The moment the first bullets roared from the Gatling Gun, I began to raise the nose of my ship. My idea was to paint a line of bullets down the length of the enemy, making sure that the pilot was in the line of fire.

Apparently, I did something right because the enemy flying machine seemed to explode very shortly after I began firing. I don't think my burst of bullets lasted more than about three seconds, but that was enough to spit out around 100-150 slugs. These bullets were very close to .50 caliber and capable of doing tremendous damage under these circumstances.

I was just pulling up for another pass at the enemy when the three backup flying machines showed up that Anslee had called in. These were high speed military ships similar to mine, except a bit larger. They turned on the other two ships that had threatened us and blew them out of the air with little effort. Civilian ships, no matter how much they were modified and upgraded, just could not compete with military craft.

I told the NCOs that I knew where the attackers had been based, and I wanted to make an effort to wipe them out with a strafing run. They argued that I should not take such foolish chances: surely they could find the base and do the necessary job. I said, "Sergeant, I am sure that you can understand just how pissed off I am at these brigands. I will make a deal with you—I'll make the first pass to point out where the base is and your men can take it from there."

The sergeant knew that he was not going to win the argument, so he settled for what he could get. I pointed my machine gun toward the secret base and flew over it relatively slowly while I poured out approximately 10 seconds of steady fire. These were enough bullets to make a mess of the foliage and the camouflage near the center of the base so that the other pilots would have no trouble finding where to shoot.

They seemed to have a lot of fun shooting up the place, and we finally left when a large fire broke out. Only stores of ammunition and fuel would make such a fire, so we were satisfied with the job. The Army escorted us back to the Manor before returning to their base. Anslee and I decided that we had made a point about someone else using Estate property without permission.

There was time before supper for me to give my story to Sir Jorst, but I left out the part about me becoming a bodyguard for the King. It was not that I doubted Sir Jorst, but I could not be sure about all of the workers in the Manor. I thought that there was no question that discretion was called for in this case, and I would give him the full story as soon as the opportunity arose.

The opportunity did come up the next day when Sir Jorst asked me to go with him to inspect a remote section of the Estate. I readily agreed, but I did insist that we take my new flying machine, just in case we ran into the same kind of situation as yesterday. We had hardly gotten airborne when he said, "Hank, I think it is time that we got on a first-name basis. From now on, please just call me Jorst. I want to get to know you better since you will soon be taking over the running of the Estate. I am getting to the point that managing the Estate and the other things I need to do are just more than I can keep up with. We'll arrange an official transfer of responsibility at some more convenient time, but I want to start now to introduce you to all of the facets of the Estate, some of which are not known to the public."

"Yes, Sir, I will be happy to call you Jorst as I will be happy for you to know me by my first name. I am pleased that you think that I am ready to manage the Estate, but I must tell you everything of what happened yesterday. It may cause you to rethink some of your plans."

"If you are talking about your meeting with the King and his appointment of you as his unofficial bodyguard, He has already discussed the matter with me, and we have reached complete agreement on that. By the way, I must applaud you discretion in making sure that only a limited number of trusted people know of that undertaking. Actually, most of this trip is so that we can discuss that and related matters."

"Ah, very well Jorst. I had hoped that you already knew about the situation and were in agreement. I know that you and the King are very close on making important decisions, so I am not at all surprised."

"Yes, the King and I have a kind of secret code that we often use when we want to keep something confidential. I received a message from him early this morning containing the key phrase signifying that you had agreed to take the post. I was expecting that kind of answer from you because I was the one who had recommended that you be asked to take it on. Your actions since you left yesterday morning have done nothing but increase my confidence in you. Good luck, Son, and I expect great things from you."

Naturally, I was pleased to hear this from Jorst, and we continued to talk about various things as we continued our flight. Most of these things were concentrated on what I needed to know to manage the Estate, but others were simply family business that every son needed to know about what his father was involved in.

For example, this "inspection tour" of the far end of the Estate had nothing to do with agriculture, but was centered on a small secret research establishment that Jorst managed for the King. For example, this was where the development work had been done on the automatic Gatling Gun that was now standard for military use.

Currently, an important part of the development work being done here is to come up with a double-action version of the LeMat pistol that I favored. If such a device could be developed, and they had high hopes that it could, they hoped to issue one to every trooper in the King's Army. I asked, "What will keep a rival from acquiring one of the pistols after it is issued and copying it for his own troops?"

"That is the tough nut that we have not yet been able to crack. We are hoping that you can give us some ideas. Actually, the double-action version of the LeMat pistol is already available. It is the question that you raised that has kept it from being issued. It will not be generally issued until that problem is solved."

"Well, Jorst, one thing does occur to me immediately. Can you put an adjunct into the pistol that will keep it from firing unless the user is wearing one of the circlets such as I am using to control this flying machine? If the circlet were keyed to some special brain characteristic of the user, perhaps only the rightful owner could allow the gun to fire."

"Magnificent, Hank! We never thought of that. I am sure that could be engineered into the weapon at a reasonable cost, and there is a good chance that your solution is the one that we will use. We might even be able to booby trap the weapon so that it would explode if an unauthorized person tried to use it. I will relay your suggestion to the leader of the project as soon as we land!"

On that happy note, we continued our journey to the development laboratory. It was time for lunch when we arrived, so my tour of the facility was delayed until we had eaten. I had to be careful because that excellent local wine was served with the meal.

During the tour following the lunch, I noted that there were several other pistol designs under study. One such design fascinated me because it used a box magazine instead of a cylinder to hold the unused bullets. I was impressed at how fast an empty magazine could be swapped for a full one, and I asked if that could be adapted to the LeMat. They showed me an early version of the pistol in question, and it had been adapted from the basic LeMat design. I immediately saw the problems involved and dropped my suggestion.

Nevertheless, I could see the advantages of reloading the pistol from the box magazine relative to the cylinder, and asked if I could be on the list of evaluators as soon as the pistol had advanced that far. I was told to expect a call if and when the pistol advanced that far in its development.