Lainyr nodded his understanding, and Thirsk shrugged.
“In addition to the artillery, Lieutenant Zhwaigair’s been adapting the new rockets into harbor defense weapons. We won’t have a real way to measure their effectiveness until we get a chance to fire them at the heretics, but they’re designed to attack at a very steep angle—as steep as any angle-gun could provide—and they’ll carry heavy ‘warheads,’ to use Brother Lynkyn’s terminology. Their trajectory means they’ll be targeted on the ironclads’ decks, which have to be more weakly protected than their side armor, and they’ll hit like very heavy shells. Almost like shot, really; the Lieutenant’s designed an entirely new ‘warhead.’ It’s so heavy it reduces range considerably, but it’s based on the ‘armor piercng’ shells we found in Dreadnought’s shot lockers.”
“All right. I can see that.”
“Again, I can’t promise the Lieutenant’s rockets will constitute an effective defense,” Thirsk said with the air of a man being painstakingly honest. “I can only say that they have the chance to be one … and that if they are, we can manufacture more of them far more rapidly than we can cast new cannon. And if we can get the new sea-bombs produced and placed to protect the approaches, then cover the sea-bombs in turn with direct fire from the St. Kylmahns and the rockets, we’ll have a far more effective defense than Rhaigair had. In fact, if the heretics realize what the sea-bombs are and that we have them, they’ll probably feel constrained to operate much more cautiously. As I say, the evidence suggests they don’t have a great many of those armored steamers of theirs. They aren’t going to lightly risk losing one—or more—of them. And I can definitely say that even if the defenses I’ve described are less effective than I believe they’ll be, they’ll constitute the best defense humanly possible.”
Lainyr’s eyes flickered ever so slightly at the adverb “humanly,” and Thirsk kicked himself mentally for having used it. He wasn’t about to make it worse by trying to unsay it, however.
“In the meantime,” he continued, “even if they do base their steamers on Trove, they seem to still be short of light cruisers of their own. Given the amount of damage Sea Dragon’s report indicates they took from Admiral Raisahndo, they’re probably going to be short on full-sized galleons for at least the next couple of months and possibly longer. And that means we should still be able to get the majority of our freight traffic through to its destination for the immediate future.”
Lainyr’s expression eased just a bit, and he nodded.
“That sounds more hopeful, my son!”
“I’m glad, Your Eminence,” Thirsk replied.
Of course, it’s also what they call “whistling in the dark,” he reflected. But that probably wouldn’t be the best thing to tell you at the moment.
“As I said, Your Eminence, there’s no point trying to pretend we aren’t in serious trouble at the moment, and I can’t promise to work miracles. The Navy’s crewed by mere mortals, when all’s said and done. But this I can promise you—the Royal Dohlaran Navy is prepared to die where it stands in defense of its Kingdom and the Jihad. If the heretics succeed in attacking our home ports, it will be over the sunken ships—and the floating bodies—of my Navy.”
.VII.
The Temple,
City of Zion,
The Temple Lands.
“I am getting so frigging sick and tired of ‘courageous defenses’ that don’t accomplish squat,” Zhaspahr Clyntahn said harshly. The Grand Inquisitor glared around the sumptuously furnished council chamber and slapped one beefy hand on the table. “And the fact that that gutless wonder Thirsk plans to just sit there behind his guns and his ‘sea-bombs’ instead of doing something proactive sticks in my craw sideways.” The hand slapped again, harder. “By his own admission, he’s prepared to surrender control of the entire Gulf of Dohlar—and the Gulf of Tanshar—without firing a single shot! The man’s a traitor to the Jihad!”
“With all due respect, Zhaspahr, I disagree,” Allayn Maigwair said flatly. Clyntahn’s eyes flamed, but the Captain General met them squarely. “It says a tremendous amount for Dohlaran—yes, and Earl Thirsk’s—loyalty to Mother Church that they’re still fighting at all. The heretics’ Army of Thesmar is across their border into Reskar now. The Dohlaran Army is fighting on its own territory, destroying its own roads and canals, burning its own farms and villages and towns, to slow the heretics down, Zhaspahr! You’re the one whose spies warned us Cayleb and Stohnar may be planning to drive south instead of north this summer. Well, without the fight Dohlar’s putting up, that would be one hell of a lot easier for them! You’ve seen the sorts of casualty rates they’re suffering while they do it, too, and half the entire Dohlaran Navy just went down fighting. I don’t have complete casualty numbers for that yet, but I already know they’re going to be high—very high. I do have confirmation from my liaison officers in Stene that all but one of their screw-galleys and at least nine of their galleons went down bodily or blew the hell up, Zhaspahr. That’s a third of their entire fleet sunk, not captured or surrendered, and your own Inquisition reports also indicate they sank at least one heretic galleon and that the heretics themselves burned two or three more ships after the battle because they were too badly damaged to be repaired! That means they put up one hell of a fight even after their entire forward operating base was blown out from under them by ironclads that sailed right through the fire of a couple of hundred heavy cannon without apparently losing a single man. And after all that, Thirsk is still proposing ways to defend Dohlar’s harbors as effectively as possible! You want to compare that to what Desnair did after the Kyplyngyr Forest and Geyra?!”
Clyntahn’s hands curled into white-knuckled fists on the tabletop, and Rhobair Duchairn held his breath. Clyntahn’s hatred for Lywys Gardynyr had grown only more intense since the death of the earl’s family, and the Treasurer suspected fear was at least part of the reason it had.
It would appear that even Zhaspahr can grasp that a man whose entire family died because of him isn’t likely to be one of his greater fans. I doubt that bothers him as much as the fact that the loss of Thirsk’s entire family took away the only real lever we had to use against him, though.
“You can say whatever you want, Allayn,” Clyntahn half snarled. “I don’t trust the son-of-a-bitch. I never trusted the son-of-a-bitch, from the moment he screwed up off Armageddon Reef. I want him removed from command. In fact, I want him right here in Zion to explain his … dubious decisions in person!”
“Zhaspahr, removing the most effective single naval commander we’ve got—the most effective naval commander we’ve ever had—isn’t likely to encourage the rest of his navy to go on fightingt!” Maigwair shot back.
“I don’t give a—” Clyntahn began furiously, but an unexpected voice intervened.
“Zhaspahr,” Zhasyn Trynair said, “Allayn’s right.”
The Grand Inquisitor’s mouth snapped shut and he turned on Trynair with fiery eyes, but the Church’s Chancellor continued with unaccustomed resolution.
“I’m not speaking about Thirsk’s personal reliability,” he continued. “I haven’t seen any evidence that he isn’t reliable, but the Inquisition may very well have information I don’t that fully justifies your distrust of him. But my own sources in Dohlar tell me there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty—fear and uncertainty that could flash over into panic entirely too easily—and that Fern, Thirsk, and Salthar are doing everything humanly possible to defend the Kingdom. And, more to the point, perhaps, King Rahnyld’s subjects know they’re doing it. They regard Thirsk as the architect of the Kingdom’s only chance of survival, and if we remove him at this moment, when things are so … unsettled, we really could see a repetition of what’s happening in Desnair.”