"Eric Flint - Grantville Gazette - Vol 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

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 - Chapter 2




Collateral Damage
By Mike Spehar



"A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be
slowly born."
тАФ Antoine de Saint Exupery


"Just perfect," Jesse muttered in disgust.
"What was that, Herr Oberst?"
Jesse jammed his hands into the pockets of his flying jacket and looked at his copilot, Lieutenant Emil
Castner, who was leaning against the wing, studying his map. The lieutenant had moved there to get
away from the crowd of mechanics swarming around the nose of their aircraft. Jesse had likewise moved
away, after earning a glare from Chief Matowski for repeatedly butting in on his work.
"Nothing, Emil," Jesse said. "Nothing at all."
The young German nodded uncertainly and turned back to his map. Approving of his copilot taking the
chance to get better prepared for the flight, Jesse rubbed his neck and moved slightly toward the
mechanics, then thought better of it. He always hated it when a supposedly ready aircraft broke down
before takeoff. Standing around, waiting for the wrenchbenders to work their magic, never failed to
grate on his nerves and this time was no exception. He strolled away and, for about the tenth time, patted
the left sleeve pocket of his flight suit, where, in another world and another time, he had carried his
cigarettes.
Damn, he thought. You'd think I'd have gotten past that habit. What's it beenтАФtwo years, since I've last
had a smoke?
Sometimes, such as when he was flying or waiting to fly, he could almost forget the circumstances that
had brought him here. The cataclysmic Ring of Fire that had mysteriously transported the West Virginia
town of Grantville into seventeenth-century Germany had created a psychological crisis for all of the
Americans caught in the event. Their subsequent battles against the threats of hunger, disease, and
hostile neighbors, had quickly pulled the Americans together, though it had been a hard struggle. And
still was.
The USE and their allies were still engaged in a desperate struggle against formidable enemies. Only the
fall before, through the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu, the countries of Spain, England, and
Denmark had joined the French in the so-called "Ostend Alliance," with the intent of capturing the
Baltic, crushing the independent Netherlands, and, eventually, eliminating the growing power of the
USE. Luckily, the Alliance's initial attacks had been thwarted at Luebeck and Wismar, in no small
measure through the impact of American technology, hastily adapted for war. Now, in the early spring