As Slade once more collected the pistols from his students, he complimented them on their progress.  Indeed, the one he had once dubbed “Stumbler” while still having trouble with his footwork in swordsmanship was proving to be a crack shot, better than everyone present but himself.  He had a keen eye and a very steady hand.

At the first session, he had decided that having fired the revolver for one round he should train Shella in its use.  She wasn’t very confident with it, and did not handle the kick well at all, but she was getting better.

“Why do I need to learn this?” she had asked.

“Because we don’t know when you might need to rely on something besides magic to save us, and I’m pretty sure before this is all over you can own one of these and be at least reasonably good with it.”

He wasn’t sure she believed that, but she had been raised in a world where wives did as husbands directed, and although he wasn’t entirely comfortable with that and certainly did not want to abuse it, in this case it was, to his mind, a good thing.  She would learn to shoot.  She would never be a fighter, or a gunslinger, but it would give her one more option at need.

Dropping the guns off at engineering, he headed toward the cafeteria between Shella on one side and the combat and tactics professor on the other.

“So, what do you think of our soldiers?”

There was a moment of silence before the professor said, “Who are you asking?”

“Well, both of you, really.  But I can start with you.”

The bird sort of nodded and seemed to collect its thoughts before answering.  “Well, I’d hate to rely on them against a brigade armed with machine guns,” he said, “but they are improving nicely, and it is with a bit of pride and a bit of embarrassment that I say they might soon be the best soldiers on the planet.”

Slade knew what he meant.  That they were as good as they were was a credit to the training they were receiving; that they were among the best was something of a slur on the militaries of the world.  Of course, they were perhaps the first avian combatants to be able to practice with the new weapons, and those revolvers were superior to just about anything else available to them that could be carried on the field.  He knew that a repeating rifle was in development, but although it would be more accurate and more powerful, it would be a while before it would be as fast or as portable.  All weapons had trade-offs, and these were very good on several points.

“I also don’t quite see how guns and swords save us against flying ships.”

Slade nodded.  “Well, they don’t, really, and we’re going to need to finish those anti-aircraft guns and train people to use them--when I say we, I mean your people, not you and me.  If the invaders decide to bomb us from the air, we have very little hope of defending ourselves.  But if they want to capture our manufacturing facilities or our housing or other ground-based resources intact, they’re going to have to use ground troops, and if we can fight them man-to-man we might defeat them--especially if they’re not used to that kind of fighting.  They’ve been listing ground locations.  We don’t know whether it’s so they can destroy them or capture them--”

“Or,” Shella interrupted, “contact them for trade.”

“Yeah, I guess.  But if they want to capture them, that will mean a ground war, and we can prepare for that.  Breakfast, anyone?  I’m hungry,” he said as he headed toward the line.”

“Bring me back one of those muffin things and a cup of that hot drink I like,” Shella called after him in English.  “I’ll find us some seats.”

There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #476:  Versers Deduce.  Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter.  It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.

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