Chapter 10

Wonder of wonders, King Haran was receptive to my arguments about issuing guns like my wives and I used to all of the troops. His question was who was going to manufacture these guns, and where would they be made? That I didn't have an answer for, but the king did. He said, "You know what the guns are supposed to do better than anyone else, so you strike Me as being the one to supervise their manufacture.

"Remember, you don't have to design the manufacturing machinery yourself, you only have to make sure that the finished product is what you ordered. There are members of my staff who are specialists in finding the best people for difficult jobs. They can do your recruiting for you, and you only have to approve who they find.

"As to where the manufacturing is done, why not do it on your new estate? You say that you do not plan to live there, but will remain in Jorst's mansion. Therefore, you can turn the existing mansion into the living and working quarters for your supervisory staff, and additional buildings can be built as needed for the workers. I certainly don't know how many people you will need to start out, and I am certain that you don't know, either. Therefore, we can let the whole thing grow as more parts are needed.

"The manufacturing building or buildings can be stock items that you can buy as they are needed. Now, go away and make yourself useful somewhere else. I have an empire to run." He grinned at me as I was ushered out the door. I had no more business at the palace, so I went home.

On the way home, I gave a lot of thought as to how to implement the king's suggestions. The biggest problem from my point of view was getting everything organized. Then it dawned on me: give the job to my wives. If anybody could carry out the planning stage of "Douglas Weapons, Inc." it had to be somebody who could plan a fancy wedding and have everything come out satisfactorily in the end. Who better to do that than Anslee, who had planned and orchestrated two weddings already? And who better to assist her than Sinola? I immediately relaxed as if a great weight had fallen from my shoulders!

At home, I greeted my wives as usual and then told them the "orders" of King Haran. I was met with dead silence when I said that I wanted them to manage the organization and startup of Douglas Weapons, Inc. I was taken aback when I got no response from the women. "Darlings, what is the problem? I thought that you would jump at the chance to show off your great organizational skills."

Anslee answered, "But, Hank, that is not a job for a woman. Traditionally, only men have done that sort of thing."

"But, Anslee, consider this: that is a stupid tradition, and one that should be broken as soon as possible! Here is your chance to show what women can do when they have the backing of their husband and the king. What stronger support do you need to buck tradition that that of the king?"

"Well, now that you put it that way, I guess that we can give it a try. What do you think, Sinola?"

"I will be very happy to help with the project, but I think you, as senior wife, should be the leader of the project. With that understanding, I think that this is a great opportunity to demonstrate that women can function as well as men when it comes to business matters."

"Wonderful! I'll leave it to you two to get things started. Call on me if there is anything that you need from me, but do try to keep the number of duels to a minimum." That brought the laugh that I was hoping for, and the women immediately began discussing what they should do to get the business off the ground.

Meanwhile, I was going back to the R&D center with another idea that had come to me on my way home. The women were going to need a safe way to move quickly from place to place as they worked on our new business, so I wanted them to take over using our current flier. My idea was to cut down on the number of gunners required for the necessary protection that the women would need.

Specifically, I wanted to slave both machine guns to radar control so that Anslee could concentrate on flying and Sinola could concentrate on handling both guns. If we could come up with a suitable and reliable way for the radar controls to separate friends from foes, then one person should be able to handle the defense of the aircraft.

As an extension of that idea, I wanted another flier assigned to me equipped with the same kind of armament. That way, I could easily defend myself when I had to make trips alone about the country. Events had already shown me that I needed such protection. Of course, knowing nothing about radar or computers, I was sure that the problem could be solved in a few days as soon as the computer software was written.

I took off for the R&D center and made the short flight without meeting any problems. Once I was on the ground, though, I received a lengthy tirade on my outlandish ideas. I just sat through that oration, one I was used to hearing, and waited until I could get my own words in. As soon as I started talking, I knew that I had their interest peaked on my ideas, and we began to discuss what would actually be needed to get the results I wanted.

After all, I was the ultimate boss, as decreed by the king, so I could have them doing ridiculous and silly things if I were so inclined, and they knew it. Thus, they would undertake any projects I ordered, even if they were doomed to failure. Fortunately, I had only called for inventions that could be resolved in a reasonable time, and they were quite willing to follow my lead after they had a chance to blow off a little steam. We understood each other quite well and got along quite well, so there was no real problem. Actually, I was glad to hear their objections to my ideas because that helped me to get them straight and headed for a real resolution.

I left the R&D center and headed to my military camp. I wanted to discuss my idea for the new fighter with the actual men who would be doing the flying and fighting. I wanted to be sure that my ideas were valid for general use, and it would not hurt to get a little personal interest stirred up among the troops who would be using them.

The reception was uniformly enthusiastic, and that made me feel a lot better. Once the bugs were worked out with my prototype, these would be the men who would fly the machines in combat, and they had to believe in their new weapons. I planned to petition the king to modify all of the fighters in the air force to this new design if it worked out as well as I expected.

Contrary to the protestations of the R&D people, I received a message about a month later that the first iteration of my fighter design was ready for trial. The women had gone somewhere in the flier which was now permanently assigned to them, so I had to use my borrowed flier to travel to the R&D facility. This was a military ship, so I was able to make the trip in only a few minutes at maximum speed. You can bet that I used every ounce of speed that I could coax out of the little flier to get to the R&D center as quickly as possible.

I did not say anything ahead of time, but, as I expected, the R&D people had gone all out in working on my new ship. They had not only completed the changes that I had asked for, but they had added some items that tickled my fancy no end. There were two radar-aimed and computer-controlled machine guns, one working forward and the other working aft with a swing radius of 240° for each. A third machine gun was mounted rigidly pointing forward; it had to be aimed by pointing the flier at the target. All three guns were equipped with an IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) device so that it would be very difficult to shoot at a friendly flier.

Also available were six rockets with builtin guidance systems that could lock onto an enemy when fired and not need to be guided by the pilot after that. It was what the R&D people called a "fire and forget system." The rocket had an explosive warhead that would explode as soon as it was within range of the target. Contact with the target was not necessary to set off the warhead. This was a combination of an explosive and fragmentation charge that should prove fatal to any flier unlucky enough to be caught in the blast. Of course, the rockets could be used against a ground-based target if that was appropriate.