Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(56)

“What’s this for?” asked Bartolomeo Ja, the team leader; the commander of the army.

Dabeet looked at his team, who were still securing the links that held the whole structure together.

“Does it have a purpose?” Monkey asked Dabeet.

“If the enemy assaults us in an open room, this gives us cover. Behind this, you can move unobserved, but whenever you want you can come to dozens of different protected places from which to shoot.”

“So, purely defensive,” said Ja.

Dabeet didn’t like the dismissive way he said that. Of course, it was purely defensive, rooted to the wall. But Dabeet didn’t like being disdained.

“It’s perfect for an open-room offense,” he said.

Ja turned to face him. After Urska Kaluza’s scornful responses, Dabeet appreciated the fact that Ja seemed ready to listen.

Dabeet turned to his squad and said, “Can we detach it from the wall and have it hold its integrity?”

“Who knows?” said Ignazio. “Let’s find out.”

Dabeet’s first impulse was to stick with Ja and show him all the clever things they were doing. But no. Ja needed to hear it from people he knew and liked. “Zhang?” said Dabeet. “While we detach it, why don’t you show Barto how it works.”

“I know how the boxes work,” said Ja.

“Not the boxes,” said Zhang He. “The whole structure.”

In about a minute, they were slowly propelling the jumbled structure across the battleroom. “How much mass?” asked Ja. “Can I propel myself backward?”

“It’ll speed up the wall,” said Zhang He. “You know, equal and opposite reaction.”

“It’ll flex the wall, too,” said Ragnar. “Let’s see how much flexion the connections can take.”

Ja pushed off from the mobile wall, straight back toward the gate. He bounced off at an angle, getting past the edge of the structure. Then he coasted a side wall to get a view of the whole thing from the other side.

“Can’t see a single person,” he called out.

“If we let it hit the enemy’s wall,” said Dabeet, “it might stick and completely block their gate.”

“The teachers wouldn’t allow that,” called Ja. “But come on, people, get to the enemy wall and prepare to catch this thing and push it back.”

It was a ragged attempt, and there was a lot more testing of flexion. One corner of the wall detached. But Dabeet’s people quickly put it back together and now they went back across the battleroom in the other direction, with the back of the wall now leading. It didn’t matter. It was just as effective as a barrier to sight and weaponry.

“How long did it take you to put this together?” asked Ja, after he assigned his toons to spread out and find good protected vantage points for shooting at an imaginary enemy.

“With just the six of us,” said Dabeet, “almost four minutes.”

“Too long,” said Ja. “In an empty room they’d slide the walls and be on you before you had it half built.”

“But when there are only a couple of three-by-threes, those provide cover. They can protect us while we build.”

“Or you can build it faster,” suggested Ja.

“We’re already pretty damn fast,” said Monkey.

“What if you had a dozen builders?” asked Ja.

“They’d just get in our way,” said Ignazio. “They haven’t practiced.”

“What if they practiced?” asked Ja.

“Then they’d get better,” said Dabeet. “I don’t know if it would cut the time in half. But we can get it under three, I bet.”

“Maybe enough,” said Ja. “What about a smaller wall?”

“It’ll hide fewer people,” said Dabeet.

“Look how many places aren’t getting used with the whole army on this wall,” said Ja. “Break it in half, let’s see how many can use it.”

They reached the home wall before Dabeet’s squad had it broken into two parts. Now the structure made no sense, visually—but the whole army was able to swarm through it and find protected vantage points.

“So now,” Ja asked Dabeet, “with half the wall, half the time?”

“Less than half,” said Dabeet, “because we’ll never anchor this to the floor when we start it.”

“Midair assembly?” asked Ignazio skeptically.

“Let’s try it in battle,” said Ja. “Next time we have a clear battleroom.”

“You want us to train more soldiers, then?” asked Zhang He.

“No,” said Ja. “Build half a wall and float it, just the six of you.”

“While some soldiers lay down protective fire?” asked Dabeet.

“We’ll see how it goes,” said Ja. “We have to respond to what the enemy does, and that may force us to use a different tactic. But if possible, yes, protective fire, we won’t let them stop you.”

For the first time, Dabeet began to attend battles. He still hovered near the home gate, observing, because his skills, though vastly better, were still not good enough for him to take part in a battle that counted on the stats. But he knew he had to be able to function in the midst of fighting and flying, not letting anything distract him.