NOVEL SIMPLE 261 What do Little Boys Dream Of?
Soda, 'Fizzle Juice' in his native tongue, tasted much different than any flavor he remembered. It retained the hallmarks of the beverage, a smoother texture than water interrupted by the fizzing of carbonation followed by the urge to burp, but it wasn't the same. Maybe it had to do with the method of carbonation, maybe the syrup was made differently, or maybe there was more than just syrup and fizzle water. Whatever the case, it just wasn't the same. It was better.
"Cayzi?"
"Yes sir?"
"You okay?"
Cayzi turned to face his mentor, cup still in his hands. He had been given a more generous portion of soda on Diana's behalf, which he was incredibly grateful for and not eager to waste in one go. Little sips would do.
"I'm fine."
"You look a little dazed." Kayes walked up and ruffled his hair. "It's pretty big."
"Mhm." Cayzi took another sip. "Can it really fly?"
Cayzi wasn't too familiar with the airplanes that operated back home, but he understood some of the basic principles behind their function. A propeller pulled the plane forward, and the wings used the rushing air to push it up or keep it level. A metal brick the size of a building, a really large building, did not possess the aerodynamic qualities necessary for flight. To Cayzi, this meant the only way it could fly was because it worked like the ships used to sail across the void, but he couldn't see any sails.
"I can't imagine they would spend that many resources on something that doesn't work." The two of them continued to stare at the Pegasus in awed silence. The enormity of the ship made them feel small, which combined with the enigma of it's function had the effect of impending danger when it wasn't present. Kayes in particular felt a need to be tread lightly and speak quietly, afraid that a hostile or sudden action might have this beast turn on him somehow.
". . . it's like a battleship."
"Battleship?"
"The massive ships with really big cannons used in the old wars on Holifania." Cayzi handed his soda to his mentor and pulled a book out of his satchel, flipping through some of the pages to find what he was looking for. Cayzi imagined the Bishop knew what he was talking about after the short explanation, but the visual aid would probably be welcome. Visual aids were always welcome, after all.
"Oh, yeah, those things. I remember you got a bit depressed for a week after learning they had been scrapped ages ago." Portions of the Theocracy's mighty battle fleet had been maintained for some time after the introduction to the wider galaxy, the HFS Scripture being given a special level of care given it's contribution to the martyrdom of Montaug. However, despite the best efforts of the administration, millennia of corrosion could eat away at even the thickest of belt armor, and the mighty constructs eventually collapsed on themselves. "I wonder how they stack up in comparison."
"These ones don't fly though . . ."
"It matters that much to you?"
"I mean . . . it would make them cooler." Cayzi shrunk slightly, embarrassed by this admission somehow.
"That's, hm. I guess it would." Kayes entertained the prospect of asking Donovan to make the boy's dream a reality, but he decided against it. Some degree of professionalism was expected of him. "Do you want to ask Donovan about doing something similar?"
"About . . . making a battleship fly?" Cayzi scrunched up his lips, doubting the sanity of his mentor. "Wouldn't that just be a waste of his time?"
"Probably, but I doubt he would mind too much at the moment. You might even get to see some of their ships in the process."
"You mean . . . they might have already made a flying battleship?" Kayes nodded. "Can I really ask him?"
"It wouldn't hurt."
Cayzi returned his book to the satchel while contemplating the proposition, failing to notice his cup was a little bit lighter upon its return. Donovan had never been hostile to him before, but didn't strike Cayzi as the type of person to put up with trivial matters. That being said, what harm would come from asking? Surely he wouldn't blow up over something so small, not with company around.
"Let's go." Cayzi suppressed his doubts. He tried his best to be honest and truthful in keeping with Holifel's writings, however he wasn't above using status as a child to get out of a sticky situation. For once he was leading his mentor towards an objective, and not the other way around.
"Would you like to get Trebar to ask for you?" Cayzi paused briefly, then continued.
"I can ask him myself." As much as the boy respected and looked up to Trebar, he desired some degree of independence. There was only so much he could do on his own as Kayes' disciple, so this was a rare opportunity. "I want to ask him myself."
Cayzi's march continued, rounding the corner of the Pegasus after what felt like minutes of walking. Now that the party was in sight, Cayzi felt he might be in over his head. Donovan and Diana stood at the center of a relatively large crowd of people, most of whom were dignitaries or diplomats from his own nation, but the complement from the Bulsarzian Empire was also present. If one were to consider the statuses of those attempting to start or participate in a conversation with either of the Terrans, he sat squarely at the bottom.
As if to mimic his elders imbibing their liquid courage before a bar confrontation, Cayzi downed his soda. Slamming the cup down on a nearby table (it was barely more than gentle) he stormed over to Donovan (navigated through the crowd a little less timidly than normal). Once there, he aggressively grabbed Donovan's attention (politely waited for him to finish a conversation before gently tapping his arm, ensuring that no one else wanted a turn).
"Hm?" Donovan clearly hadn't expected the person trying to get his attention to be so short, bringing him a short bout of confusion before he tilted his attention downwards. "Oh, sorry. Cayzi, right?"
"Yes sir." Cayzi stifled the urge to salute. There was just something about Donovan's demeanor that made Cayzi think it was the right thing to do.
"Alright then Cayzi, what is it?" Donovan seemed to be analyzing him, looking at his clothing and equipment (if a single satchel could be called such) as though to find a threat.
"I, um, Bishop Kayes said that . . ." Cayzi had been working to open his satchel again, counting on his text references to carry the conversation in his stead. Here, he found himself running into two problems. The first was that Donovan couldn't read it. It wasn't a big problem as there were pictures, meaning Cayzi could explain verbally, but anything more specific would leave him at a loss. The second problem originated from the people in their direct vicinity. Those hailing from the Theocracy were fine, but discussing this portion of Holifanian history in the presence of outsiders was punishable by death. "Can we go somewhere more private?"
"Hm. . ." Donovan looked back towards Diana, who was currently occupied in a conversation with Zhoie and Trebar. "Yeah, we can go somewhere else."
"Thank you!"
"Don't worry about it. How does the cargo bay of the Pegasus sound?" Cayzi stared at Donovan dumbly. Was it really alright for him to go inside? "We can stay by the entrance if you want. I recall Diana saying something about it being scary."
"That's fine!" Cayzi beamed a smile and gave a thumbs up, anything to indicate he was happy with boarding the Pegasus.
"Let's go then."
- - - - -
"-and so I was wondering if you ever built battleships that could fly."
Donovan stared blankly at the book on his lap, mind racing as he contemplated a variety of matters. For one, he recognized that this book presented a codified and structured language with a written alphabet, one simple enough to be learned by children. Arc was about to have a field day decoding and translating it, though that would probably involve Donovan or Diana's assistance as a Rosetta Stone of sorts. Should the alphabet represent a direct or semi-direct phonetic translations of words, as was the case in most Indo-European writing systems, Arc would probably be able to communicate with the Holifanians verbally. Should the Holifanians have ready access to radios, which seemed to be a guarantee given the pictures he was shown, Arc would be able to do so over distance, allowing it to direct operations on the ground.
The other thing Donovan found himself thinking about was how to answer Cayzi's question, and that all depended on what he actually wanted to know. Nobody ever strapped a set of jet engines to the USS Missouri and sent her screaming down a runway in the hopes of gaining so much as a picosecond of air time - meaning that the most literal interpretation of the question was a definite no, however that didn't apply to more generous interpretations. If Cayzi wanted to know if they had ever made something like a battleship fly, then the answer was probably yes.
Setting aside the orbiting gunship concept for the moment, the latest iterations of which mounted 152mm howitzers, Donovan vaguely remembered reading about some fighters that had been equipped with recoilless rifles. He assumed the idea was to engage bombers, blimps, and hardened ground targets from a safe(er) distance, but they were far too cumbersome - rockets and missiles being their replacement. Large caliber cannons would create too much recoil for a reasonably constructed airframe to handle, so Donovan's response would have to be 'destroyers' instead of 'battleships', but the general concept still stood.
If Donovan wanted to get extremely loose with the definition of 'flying', assuming Cayzi just wanted to know if they had ever made a warship in space, then the answer was a definite yes. They didn't look like naval vessels given the difference in environment, but they were definitely along the lines of what Cayzi was looking for.
"Stay put for a second." Donovan did not believe he could adequately describe these vehicles without a visual aid, at least not to Cayzi. His imagination of what a warship looked like was probably restricted to the same period the vessels in that book came from. "If you wanted to know if we ever made an actual battleship fly, a floating warship with large caliber guns that is, then no. It would be a waste to even try."
In the brief silence between breaths, Cayzi seemed to accept the rejection of the concept. A wry smile formed as he shrunk back down to his usual shy and unassuming stature.
"That doesn't mean we haven't put large caliber guns in the air though. On battlefields with air superiority, some nations would deploy huge aircraft that could orbit a location and provide direct fire support from above." Donovan panned a few pictures of American battlefield support planes across the screen displayed at various angles and firing different weapons. "The largest was a six inch cannon, which I gather was more like a mortar given the barrel length and charge level, mounted closer to the bottom and at a steeper downwards angle so the burst of air pressure wouldn't tear the wing off."
Cayzi lit up like a Christmas tree, straightening up and leaning into Donovan to get a look. The tablet was new to him, as were colored photographs and the format of the plane. Donovan even displayed the zoom feature in order to make the important images clearer.
"As for the vessels we built in space, well," Donovan retreated with the tablet and browsed a few photos, discreetly typing in a request for Arc to make a scale model displaying a few of the old naval dreadnoughts against the Bunker, the dreadnought that had been part of the fleet responsible for 'dropping him off'. "They don't look the same, but they perform a similar function."
With a ginger touch, Cayzi accepted the tablet. Despite his lack of familiarity with the technology, he displayed an ability to learn very quickly, mimicking Donovan's actions while swiping and pinching to rotate around and zoom in. Looking over his shoulder, Donovan surmised his interest was spread evenly between the massive space ship and the series of battlewagons displayed to either side. Those old boats, despite their status as ancient, were probably a tad more technologically advanced than the ones he had shown Donovan, and they certainly had a different turret configuration, primarily sporting triple turrets instead of doubles.
"Where . . . where are the guns on the big one?"
"They are inside."
"Inside? Do they ever pop out?"
"No. These guns are so big and powerful that they would break a turret, so they needed to be mounted inside. Do you see those bumps?" Donovan zoomed in. "Those are where the big guns are, the holes are the ends of the barrels."
"How do they aim then? Don't they need to track their targets?"
"They move a little bit inside of the hull, rotating around the muzzle instead of the breech, but for the most part they are meant to fight from so far away that they only need a few degrees of freedom. Some of the older ones rotated the ship instead."
"Wow . . ." Cayzi tried zooming in further on the barrels, stumped only by the limitations Arc had set on the model. "Are these holes on the front and back even bigger guns?"
"No, those are the engines. It's how they move." Cayzi's eyes grew wider. "I think they are a bit obsolete now that we have access to split, but they'll probably have a niche use in the future. I'm sure you noticed the Pegasus doesn't have those openings, right?"
"Yeah." Cayzi shifted his attention what little he could see from the opening. "Are there propellers or something in there?"
". . . sort of."
"Is it a secret? I understand if you aren't allowed to tell me."
"Let's say its a secret then."
