“Did you see the copy of the president’s speech last night?” Flight Lieutenant Adam Rosovich asked, looking over at the chief engineer from Republic Aerosteamer Company.
Theodor nodded. “Hard to see how anyone could argue against it. Hell, he laid it out clearly enough. These Kazan are insane, and they are coming this way. We have to fight.”
A sharp, steady breeze whipped the two as they walked across the plank deck as the armored cruiser Shiloh came up to full speed. This was its first test run. Men scrambled around the two. An engineer came up to Theodor and pointed to the single smokestack, which had been shifted from center line to the starboard side.
“That thing is leaking like a sieve. The fittings below deck are a mess, sir,” he shouted.
Theodor smiled and simply nodded. “We can fix it later. The purpose now is to see if this damned idea really works. Then we turn around and head back to Suzdal.”
The engineer shook his head wearily and walked away, shouting oaths at several crew members who had stopped to gawk at the spectacle that was about to take place.
Adam approached his airship, a brand-new single engine Falcon. The engine was already ticking over, propeller a slow-moving blur. The crew chief, in the cockpit, scrambled out as Adam approached, and saluted.
“Everything ready, sir. Engine temperature at two hundred and forty, I’ve revved her up to twelve hundred, all controls checked. Just remember, sir, she’s got no ammunition on board and only ten gallons of fuel, so she’ll settle in real light.”
Adam smiled, nodding his thanks. His chief, an old Roum aristocrat who had joined the air corps because he was fascinated with aviation, was obviously delighted that his young pilot had been selected for this first experimental flight.
“Just bring her in nice and steady now, sir,” Quintus continued, a bit nervous. “Remember that you’re trailing that ugly-looking hook. Just let it catch.”
“Quintus, leave the boy alone. He’s already practiced this on land half a dozen times,” Theodor shouted, his own tension ready to explode.
The two fell into an argument, Quintus though a sergeant, still maintained a certain bearing of nobility and refused to be disciplined by anyone, even the chief designer for the Republic’s entire air fleet.
Adam ignored the two, gave his machine a quick walk around, and then climbed up into the cab positioned just forward of the propeller.
The Falcon, the latest model to come out of the Republic’s design shop, had a curious twin boom fuselage that swept to either side of the prop, with rudder and elevators aft. Its bi-wings were sleek, canted back at a ten degree angle, missing the tangle of support wires, which had been replaced by single vertical support booms out near each wing tip.
Adam pulled down his goggles, slipped his feet up against the rudder pedals, and looked down at Quintus, who broke off from the argument in mid-sentence and gave a thumbs-up. Adam swung the rudder back and forth, then checked the elevator control by pulling the stick back and then forward. and finally the ailerons.
He revved up the throttle, watching the temperature gauge, which dropped slightly then held steady. The new revolutions per minute gauge ticked up over a thousand. It felt like the machine was about to surge forward with a jolt. The only thing holding it in place were the wheel clocks and tie-downs.
He edged the engine back down and gave a thumbs-up in reply.
The launch crew, urged on by Quintus, scrambled around the plane, freed the wheels, and released the tie-down straps. With two men holding each wingtip, Adam gingerly edged the throttle back up, slowly letting the plane roll forward.
He caught a glimpse of Theodor holding both hands over his head, clenching them together in a victory salute, and then he focused his attention forward.
Shiloh was up to full speed at fifteen knots. Over the last week a crew of half a thousand men had hurriedly covered over the entire topdeck with wooden planking, while shifting the exhaust stack to one side, then built a small wooden bridge forward of the stack. It was, without a doubt, the strangest ship Adam had ever seen, designed for one purpose only, to carry and launch aerosteamers, not just two as were now carried on the armored cruisers for scouting purposes, but twenty Falcons and two-engined Goliaths.
The President had cut through all the years of debate with a direct order: convert the three armored cruisers to aerosteamer carriers and have them ready to fight within a fortnight. His argument was straightforward and simple. If the report about the Kazan battle cruisers was true, the armored cruisers of the Republic were obsolete and to continue building them was a waste. Besides, the change over to a plank decking on the hulls was far simpler than the two months of fitting out that would be required to install the guns and other equipment for the three cruisers.
Admiral Petronius, who was slated to command the new flotilla of cruisers, had resigned in protest, but his resignation was refused by the president, who ordered him to take command regardless of his personal feelings. Adam looked up at the bridge and saw Petronius’s baleful gaze, and he wondered if the admiral was praying to his pagan gods for him to crash on takeoff.
Just forward of the small wooden control tower the launch crew stopped and at Quintus’s command stepped back. Adam looked down at Quintus, who was gazing at the ship commander’s bridge. He wasn’t really sure what to do next and decided it was best to salute. The admiral returned the salute.
Adam settled back in his seat and slammed the throttle forward. The engine seemed to hesitate for a second, RPMs suddenly began to climb and the Falcon ever so slowly began to roll forward. With only a hundred and fifty feet of deck, the takeoff distance seemed impossibly short.
There had been talk of putting steam catapults forward, but there simply wasn’t enough time to rig them up. The engineering crew would have to work on the conversion after the ship had sailed. Adam wondered if all the mad haste was going to cost him his life in the next ten seconds.
The Falcon continued to build speed. The edge of the launch deck was only feet ahead as he pulled back on the elevator…and nothing happened.
Once over the edge, the rumbling of the wheels on the rough wooden deck stopped. In the strange silence, the aerosteamer began to fall. Instantly he reversed controls, pushing the stick forward. He had forty feet to drop, the cruiser had been moving at fifteen knots, the wind had been light but steady at just under five knots. All he needed was another fifteen knots to hit minimum flight speed.
He waited to the very last second as the Falcon drove toward the water. He pulled back and it leveled out, wings holding him aloft; so close that the wheels actually skimmed the water. Heart pounding, he lifted up half a dozen feet and let her build up speed.
He flew on straight for half a mile, letting his speed build up to sixty knots, then eased back on the stick. Putting in a touch of airelon, he brought the Falcon slowly upward in a banking turn. Looking over his left shoulder, he could see the cruiser and the antlike figures scrambling on the deck.
He laughed with childlike delight. If ever he’d felt totally alive, this was the moment. Being the first to try this mad scheme, to be soaring alone into the heavens, the world drifting away beneath his wings.
Climbing through a one hundred eighty degree turn, he leveled out, setting altitude at three hundred feet. In less than a minute the Shiloh was off his port wing a half mile away.
Ungainly and strange as it looked, to him the carrier was a beautiful sight. Such a vessel had been discussed in advanced design school, but never had anyone attempted to make one. Admiral Bullfinch and so many others on the Design Board had firmly blocked it, claiming it was a total waste of effort. Aerosteamers were scout planes, and all that was needed was one or two float planes on a cruiser.