POW: Prisoners of History
Jan. 7th, 2016 04:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalReturning to the Rolas Darktail from my earlier work Prisoners of War, to write a proper opening for a story I've posted snippets of before.
***
Rolas Darktail (Flight Sgt.. MCAC, ret.), burrowed down in his old military greatcoat, a hot tea in his paw, watching as the future was prepared in the launch pit below him.
There was a cold, wet wind blowing in from the waters of the Dunklemeer, and the skies remained gray and cloudy. But the weather officer had promised a break in the clouds within the hour, so the launch crew at this remote site on the western Gerwart coast had spent the morning preparing the tall, conical shaped rocket sitting in the pit for launch. It was a complicated process of running the rocket out its assembly shed, attaching the fueling lines to feed liquid hydrogen into the rocket's fuel tanks, plus checking and rechecking the complex gyroscopic guidance system that would keep the rocket on a safe launch path. Hopefully. This time.
“Mother Goddess bless me,” Reggie said, stamping his footpads on the cold concrete roof of the bunker they were standing on, to get a decent view of the proceedings. “I'm starting to think the 'warties have the right idea, wearing foot protectors all the time.” Col. Reginald Sharptail had been Rolas' old Air Corps commander some forty years previously, when they had been much younger and steam powered airships had been the height of technology, not fixed wing aircraft with alcohol fueled piston engines, or the newer pulse jets. Most especially not the incredibly powerful rockets like were being tested nowadays. His tan fur was shot through with gray now, much as Rolas' own dark brown pelt, and Rolas suspected his old commander's bones were feeling the ache from cold wind as his were.
“You'll feel better once we're inside the bunker,” Rolas reassured him. “I just wanted you to see what what Dr. Brownpad and his team have to do when we get one of these ships ready for launch. It isn't a simple procedure.”
“I know it isn't,” Reggie reassured him. “No one is faulting you or Brownpad for the delays. I just came here to get a personal viewpoint before I report back to the Mother Country Minister of Science. She's going to want to know exactly what's going on.”
“I've sent detailed reports...” Rolas started to say, before Reggie raised a hand to interrupt him.
“Not the same thing and you know it. The Minister is starting to get annoyed about you not reporting back personally you know.”
“It's a two day flight from here back to the capitol,” Rolas said. “I'm too old to jump back and forth like that to reassure bureaucrats, even if they are a Minister.”
Reggie frowned slightly, but rather than answer he reached into the pocket of his padded coat and pulled out a small steel flask. He unscrewed it and tipped back the sharp smelling brandy into his mouth.
“Bit early, don't you think?” Rolas chided.
“It's cold,” Reggie said flatly, slipping the flask back into his coat. “And anyway, it wouldn't kill you to try and be a bit more respectful to the Minister. Her department is the one financing this little project of yours.”
“Her department and the Gerwart Technology Bureau,” Rolas corrected. “This is a joint undertaking remember. My job is to keep the Gerwarts happy. Keeping the MC happy is yours.”
“Seventy-five percent of this project is funded by the MC,” Reggie noted.
“And the Gerwarts are the ones that came up with the rocket technology in the first place,” Rolas countered. “Reggie, what's on your mind, really?” His old friend and commander looked harried today, and Rolas suspected it wasn't just because of the horribly long flight from the MC capitol to this remote testing center.
“The minister is interested in Brownpad's artificial moon proposal,” Reggie admitted, after a pause. “Very interested.”
“We're a long way off from that,” Rolas told him. “Our highest launch barely went higher than sixty miles. We're hoping to break that today but there's no guarantee.”
“Nevertheless...” Reggie began to say, only to be interrupted when a technician climbed up atop the bunker.
“Flugcolonel, Herr Darktail. Dr. Brownpad would like you to come inside. We are almost ready to launch,” the technician said in heavily accented Mother Tongue.
The followed the tech back down, ducking their heads as they passed through the thick, armored door of the bunker. Inside it was as warm as Rolas had promised, the interior crowded with white coated techs and the bulky electronic monitoring equipment. He and Reggie found a spot along the wall, near a narrow slit that gave a view of the rocket, its four guidance fins painted bright orange for better tracking, steam venting from one side as the liquid hydrogen boiled off.
Dr. Brownpad, a charismatic, energetic, red pelted Gerwart native in his early thirties, seemingly far too youthful for the number of degrees Rolas knew he'd earned, broke away from a consultation with a technician to greet them as they entered. “Flugcolonel Sharptail, I hope Herr Darktail has impressed you with our rocket this morning,” he said, shaking their paws vigorously.
“It all looks like something out a film serial,” Reggie agreed, his tone affable. “Rolas told me earlier you were trying something new with the engine bells on the rocket, that right?”
“Ah, yes!” Dr. Brownpad said, his usual almost perfect MC accent slipping slightly back into Gerwart in his excitement. “It is a concept we are calling 'regenerative cooling.' More thrust makes more heat when the rocket fires, so it needs to be cooled. But cooling liquid would add weight to the rocket, ja? But we already have a cooling fluid in the rocket now that we use the liquid hydrogen for fuel, instead of the kerosene from our first rockets. So we run fuel lines along the outside of the motor nozzle, which cools the nozzle, before running it back into combustion chamber. But it also heats the fuel, which makes for a more energetic reaction when ze fuel ignites. So today we hope to go much higher and faster than before!”
“Sounds promising,” Reggie agreed. “But, ah, doesn't running a fuel line along the outside of the nozzle mean it might explode?”
“Fuel is supposed to explode,” the scientist said. “But we have checked and rechecked the lines for leakage, and there is none. Everything should go perfect today!”
“We should let you go back to your work then,” Rolas said, marking the time on the clock in the front of the room. Brownpad nodded and went back to talk to his technician again, about some matter with the circuit between the gyroscopes and the control fins.
“Ah, youth,” Reggie noted, shaking his head.
“He's been the driving force behind this whole project,” Rolas noted. “A genuine genius to start with, and a remarkable ability to explain complex concepts to lay folk. Everyone would still be fiddling with little kerosene motors in labs if it weren't for him.”
“Mmm,” Reggie said noncommittally. After a few minutes of watching the technicians prepare for the launch, he finally said, “I admire your ability to work with the 'warties, Rollie. Personally I can't stand them. Not after everything we went through during the war.” His old commander referred to the brief period when the Mother Counry and Gerwart went to war over fuel resources, before the MC had triumphed and cut the head off the old Gerwart leadership. Their part in the proceedings had been a reconnaissance mission in their old airship, which had ended with them being shot down and taken as prisoners of war. It had been an experience that Rolas tried not to dwell on, though in a sideways manner it had ended with both of them finding their future wives.
“The war was forty years ago, Reg. Most of the fellows here, the good doctor included, weren't even alive when it happened. I'm not going to blame them for it.”
Reggie harumphed, bushy tail swishing in irritation. “You're a better Foxen than I then. I do my duty and work with them, but I don't expect to ever like them.”
Not wishing to rehash an old argument in front of the Gerwart scientists and technicians, Rolas diverted Reggie by inquiring about his grandcubs, a subject that led to more cheerful discussions and a mutual sharing of image prints of young cublings. After about ten minutes Dr. Brownpad called out the final check, and Reggie and Rolas' attention were drawn back to the rocket visible through the observation slit.
“Drei! Zwei! Eins!” Brownpad called out, then shouted, “Raketenstart!”
A bright orange flame erupted from underneath the rocket, sending massive plumes of steam blasting out from the fire chutes, as the fire from the engines boiled off the arm deep water at the bottom of the launching pit, set there to absorb the massive sonic vibrations of the powerful engine. The rocket seemed to hover over the pit for a long moment, before accelerating rapidly out of view. Rolas and Reggie quickly stepped outside to follow the rocket's path with field glasses, as it rose in the sky, the sound of its massive engine pounding their chests even this distance.
“Looks like a good launch,” Rolas said, still watching through his glasses, the rocket almost invisible except for the bright flame of its rocket engine. “Do you realize we're watching the future, Reg? Someday our grandcubs, or theirs, will be living and working in space, far above the Holy Mother's world.”
“I hope they get the chance, Rolas. I really do.” Reg muttered softly, so quiet Rolas wondered if he'd even been meant to hear it. “But I doubt it.”
***
Rolas Darktail (Flight Sgt.. MCAC, ret.), burrowed down in his old military greatcoat, a hot tea in his paw, watching as the future was prepared in the launch pit below him.
There was a cold, wet wind blowing in from the waters of the Dunklemeer, and the skies remained gray and cloudy. But the weather officer had promised a break in the clouds within the hour, so the launch crew at this remote site on the western Gerwart coast had spent the morning preparing the tall, conical shaped rocket sitting in the pit for launch. It was a complicated process of running the rocket out its assembly shed, attaching the fueling lines to feed liquid hydrogen into the rocket's fuel tanks, plus checking and rechecking the complex gyroscopic guidance system that would keep the rocket on a safe launch path. Hopefully. This time.
“Mother Goddess bless me,” Reggie said, stamping his footpads on the cold concrete roof of the bunker they were standing on, to get a decent view of the proceedings. “I'm starting to think the 'warties have the right idea, wearing foot protectors all the time.” Col. Reginald Sharptail had been Rolas' old Air Corps commander some forty years previously, when they had been much younger and steam powered airships had been the height of technology, not fixed wing aircraft with alcohol fueled piston engines, or the newer pulse jets. Most especially not the incredibly powerful rockets like were being tested nowadays. His tan fur was shot through with gray now, much as Rolas' own dark brown pelt, and Rolas suspected his old commander's bones were feeling the ache from cold wind as his were.
“You'll feel better once we're inside the bunker,” Rolas reassured him. “I just wanted you to see what what Dr. Brownpad and his team have to do when we get one of these ships ready for launch. It isn't a simple procedure.”
“I know it isn't,” Reggie reassured him. “No one is faulting you or Brownpad for the delays. I just came here to get a personal viewpoint before I report back to the Mother Country Minister of Science. She's going to want to know exactly what's going on.”
“I've sent detailed reports...” Rolas started to say, before Reggie raised a hand to interrupt him.
“Not the same thing and you know it. The Minister is starting to get annoyed about you not reporting back personally you know.”
“It's a two day flight from here back to the capitol,” Rolas said. “I'm too old to jump back and forth like that to reassure bureaucrats, even if they are a Minister.”
Reggie frowned slightly, but rather than answer he reached into the pocket of his padded coat and pulled out a small steel flask. He unscrewed it and tipped back the sharp smelling brandy into his mouth.
“Bit early, don't you think?” Rolas chided.
“It's cold,” Reggie said flatly, slipping the flask back into his coat. “And anyway, it wouldn't kill you to try and be a bit more respectful to the Minister. Her department is the one financing this little project of yours.”
“Her department and the Gerwart Technology Bureau,” Rolas corrected. “This is a joint undertaking remember. My job is to keep the Gerwarts happy. Keeping the MC happy is yours.”
“Seventy-five percent of this project is funded by the MC,” Reggie noted.
“And the Gerwarts are the ones that came up with the rocket technology in the first place,” Rolas countered. “Reggie, what's on your mind, really?” His old friend and commander looked harried today, and Rolas suspected it wasn't just because of the horribly long flight from the MC capitol to this remote testing center.
“The minister is interested in Brownpad's artificial moon proposal,” Reggie admitted, after a pause. “Very interested.”
“We're a long way off from that,” Rolas told him. “Our highest launch barely went higher than sixty miles. We're hoping to break that today but there's no guarantee.”
“Nevertheless...” Reggie began to say, only to be interrupted when a technician climbed up atop the bunker.
“Flugcolonel, Herr Darktail. Dr. Brownpad would like you to come inside. We are almost ready to launch,” the technician said in heavily accented Mother Tongue.
The followed the tech back down, ducking their heads as they passed through the thick, armored door of the bunker. Inside it was as warm as Rolas had promised, the interior crowded with white coated techs and the bulky electronic monitoring equipment. He and Reggie found a spot along the wall, near a narrow slit that gave a view of the rocket, its four guidance fins painted bright orange for better tracking, steam venting from one side as the liquid hydrogen boiled off.
Dr. Brownpad, a charismatic, energetic, red pelted Gerwart native in his early thirties, seemingly far too youthful for the number of degrees Rolas knew he'd earned, broke away from a consultation with a technician to greet them as they entered. “Flugcolonel Sharptail, I hope Herr Darktail has impressed you with our rocket this morning,” he said, shaking their paws vigorously.
“It all looks like something out a film serial,” Reggie agreed, his tone affable. “Rolas told me earlier you were trying something new with the engine bells on the rocket, that right?”
“Ah, yes!” Dr. Brownpad said, his usual almost perfect MC accent slipping slightly back into Gerwart in his excitement. “It is a concept we are calling 'regenerative cooling.' More thrust makes more heat when the rocket fires, so it needs to be cooled. But cooling liquid would add weight to the rocket, ja? But we already have a cooling fluid in the rocket now that we use the liquid hydrogen for fuel, instead of the kerosene from our first rockets. So we run fuel lines along the outside of the motor nozzle, which cools the nozzle, before running it back into combustion chamber. But it also heats the fuel, which makes for a more energetic reaction when ze fuel ignites. So today we hope to go much higher and faster than before!”
“Sounds promising,” Reggie agreed. “But, ah, doesn't running a fuel line along the outside of the nozzle mean it might explode?”
“Fuel is supposed to explode,” the scientist said. “But we have checked and rechecked the lines for leakage, and there is none. Everything should go perfect today!”
“We should let you go back to your work then,” Rolas said, marking the time on the clock in the front of the room. Brownpad nodded and went back to talk to his technician again, about some matter with the circuit between the gyroscopes and the control fins.
“Ah, youth,” Reggie noted, shaking his head.
“He's been the driving force behind this whole project,” Rolas noted. “A genuine genius to start with, and a remarkable ability to explain complex concepts to lay folk. Everyone would still be fiddling with little kerosene motors in labs if it weren't for him.”
“Mmm,” Reggie said noncommittally. After a few minutes of watching the technicians prepare for the launch, he finally said, “I admire your ability to work with the 'warties, Rollie. Personally I can't stand them. Not after everything we went through during the war.” His old commander referred to the brief period when the Mother Counry and Gerwart went to war over fuel resources, before the MC had triumphed and cut the head off the old Gerwart leadership. Their part in the proceedings had been a reconnaissance mission in their old airship, which had ended with them being shot down and taken as prisoners of war. It had been an experience that Rolas tried not to dwell on, though in a sideways manner it had ended with both of them finding their future wives.
“The war was forty years ago, Reg. Most of the fellows here, the good doctor included, weren't even alive when it happened. I'm not going to blame them for it.”
Reggie harumphed, bushy tail swishing in irritation. “You're a better Foxen than I then. I do my duty and work with them, but I don't expect to ever like them.”
Not wishing to rehash an old argument in front of the Gerwart scientists and technicians, Rolas diverted Reggie by inquiring about his grandcubs, a subject that led to more cheerful discussions and a mutual sharing of image prints of young cublings. After about ten minutes Dr. Brownpad called out the final check, and Reggie and Rolas' attention were drawn back to the rocket visible through the observation slit.
“Drei! Zwei! Eins!” Brownpad called out, then shouted, “Raketenstart!”
A bright orange flame erupted from underneath the rocket, sending massive plumes of steam blasting out from the fire chutes, as the fire from the engines boiled off the arm deep water at the bottom of the launching pit, set there to absorb the massive sonic vibrations of the powerful engine. The rocket seemed to hover over the pit for a long moment, before accelerating rapidly out of view. Rolas and Reggie quickly stepped outside to follow the rocket's path with field glasses, as it rose in the sky, the sound of its massive engine pounding their chests even this distance.
“Looks like a good launch,” Rolas said, still watching through his glasses, the rocket almost invisible except for the bright flame of its rocket engine. “Do you realize we're watching the future, Reg? Someday our grandcubs, or theirs, will be living and working in space, far above the Holy Mother's world.”
“I hope they get the chance, Rolas. I really do.” Reg muttered softly, so quiet Rolas wondered if he'd even been meant to hear it. “But I doubt it.”
