Matt

"There it is," Graham said.

Matt looked at the enormous aircraft. It was some distance offshore, several small platforms floating around it.

"Impressive. Even after what I've seen. Tell me more."

"You're cleared for everything, so here goes. The C340 is three hundred sixteen feet long, with a wing span of three hundred sixty five feet and three inches. At seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit. Sir Walter will be disappointed if you don't get the significance."

"I get the dimensions," Matt replied. "How did you decide on the temperature... never mind."

"You got it?"

"Presumably some location relevant to the aircraft. Perhaps the location of its construction."

"The average temperature at sea level on the coast at Florence," Grahan said. "The aircraft final assembly is done there. The temperture year-round is in the mid-seventies. Sir Walter has a rather mischievous sense of humor."

"He designed it?"

"He oversees military aviation. He's a pilot, with a military aviation background."

"Yeah, he told me he served in the U.S. Air Force. He certainly is enthusiastic about aviation."

"He is that. He designed most of our aircraft, more as a matter of giving directives and specifications. He supplies the vision, Atlantis has the engineering talent and the money to make them happen. Especially the money.

Matt had heard, some directly from the Lords and rumors of more, of the vast wealth of the continent. Thus far he saw no reason to doubt them.

"Will," Graham said to the driver, "take us a little further up, so we can see the front."

The vehicle, which resembled a golf cart the size of a small automobile, moved along the beach, which curved slightly so that they were soon viewing the aircraft head-on.

It resembled the C-130 aircraft Matt had seen often but even without one next to it for comparison its enormous size was evident. Eight six-bladed propellers flanked the hull, with what looked like small jet engines between them at three points on the wings.

"Those are what are usually called JATOs," Graham said. "Actually they're a bit more sophisticated, permanently installed rocket engines fueled from internal tanks. They're useful not only for taking off and climbing to cruising altitude but can, in an emergency, be used to provide power if an engine becomes inoprative."

"Impressive. It looks like that shouldn't be a problem, with eight engines. How many does it need to stay up, once in flight?"

"Actually sixteen engines," said Graham. "Or twenty. Each prop is powered by two gas turbines, and four more provide electric and hydraulic power. Theoretically, unloaded, it can take off with only four props operating. So there's a considerable safety margin."

"Design overkill," Matt said.

"Right. Actually Sir Walter is fond of saying that there's no such thing as overkill."

"Sounds about right. How many of these things do you have?"

"Only twelve complete. The airframe manufacturing is shared with the C-320 and the B-4 and B-6. Production is split pretty evenly, with the cargo versions getting a few more. Bombers are rather a special-purpose weapon, something that would probably most likely never be used in any real world situation. At least for the traditional function."

"Carpet bombing?"

"Right. Theoretically there could be an application for it, but of course the bombers can carry missiles for stand-off applications. But there was some talk of using one or two of them to do a demonstration, during the Socattus affair."

"Carpet bomb what, about half of western Europe? Or just a country or two?"

Graham laughed.

"There were some humorous discussions regarding that," he said. "The threat was never serious enough to actually consider targets, or whether to actually bomb anything. Just demonstrated that we were capable of penetrating with such aircraft, and let them consider what our smaller attack aircraft and cruise missiles could do.

"In the end we settled for shooting a small nuke at a ship anchored two thousand miles away. We demonstrated that we had nukes and could deliver them with precision. They weren't ready for that."

"I remember," Matt said. "That was before the Insurrection began."

"We planned it that way. We knew approximately when the Freeholds would strike, so we pushed our schedule up to force a confrontation. The U.S. decided to invade and occupy Atlantis before we got much bigger. And NATO followed like the obedient dogs they are. We had contacts inside the government and informed them that it would not be tolerated. We had enough tac nukes to destroy any invasion force, and the ability to deliver them. That one demonstration was enough.

"And we let them know what was coming, not enough for them to take any countermeasures - the League was impossible to penetrate - but they were convinced they were about to have bigger problems than not being able to take Atlantis."

"It certainly unnerved them," said Matt. "And the NATO members even more so. They were having plenty of internal problems."

Graham grinned.

"We saw to that too." he said. "We were already recruiting the Irish company, quietly but the government knew what was going on. And didn't like it."

"I can see that. A small population like that, you took a hundred thousand young men. Of the best."

The watercraft around the big aircraft were beginning to return to shore, and as they watched the engines began to emit exhaust smoke, the ones nearest the wingtips first and soon followed by the others. One of the enormous propellers, the one nearest them, began slowly to spin. It took a minute or more to reach a stable speed. The one nearest the end of the other wing followed, and the inner pairs spun up. The loading ramp was raised to the closed position.

"You're about to see something few outside of Atlantis see," Graham said. "We've used these in a couple of places, as you probably know. And those are rather remote locations."

Matt knew they had been used in the east Africa situation. With so little sources of relief available due to the civil war in the U.S. and the breakdown of western Europe it had fallen to Atlantis to rescue the coastal regions from the multiple simultaneous disasters caused by drought, tropical storms and earthquakes.

Several of the huge aircraft had been used in a month-long airlift to provide food and medical aid. Atlantis assumed the position of a major power, or rather was revealed as one.

"That was impressive," Matt said. "The regime was quite interested. We monitor their media, and there was quite a bit of chatter."

"That was the first time they were used for external operations," Graham said. "So they got a close look. There were a lot of agents in there, Europe, Russia, China, and of course your friends."

"I'd think they have more important things to think about," said Matt, "but they seem to believe they'll be done with this war eventually. They will, but not the way they think."

All eight props were spinning now. The last of the watercraft had returned to shore. The speed increased and the big aircraft began to move.

"They'll taxi a bit and turn," Graham said. "They'll come back past us on the takeoff. Turn us a bit, Will.'

The sound of the engines was equal to that of a large airliner now, as the aircraft moved away.

Will drove closer to the beach, turning slightly. Matt watched as the aircraft moved away, now a quarter mile or so before it turned.

"I always enjoy this," Graham said, "no matter how many times I see it."

The C-200 had turned and was approaching. Alex and Graham got out and walked down as far as the sand was firm.

"Watch this," said Graham as it neared.

Six streams of smoke poured from the rocket pods and the speed increased noticeably. As it passed their position the nose lifted and the enormous aircraft was clear of the water and rising. Alex saw the wing floats retract as soon as it was a thousand feet or so.

"Sir Walter is thorough," Alex remarked.

"The wing floats? Yeah, he insists. Fortunately Atlantis is able to flaunt its wealth. It's real, not numbers in computers that can be maniuplated. It's real, and in various forms, as you will see."