Plot hole wake of the ra.., p.1
Plot Hole (Wake of The Ravager Book 2), page 1
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Contents
Chapter 1: How Many Man-Hours in a Woman?
Chapter 2: On the Job
Chapter 3: Cruel and Unusual
Chapter 4: Ambitions
Chapter 5: Keep It Simple, Stupid
Chapter 6: Surviving First Contact
Chapter 7: Number Seven Will Surprise You!
Chapter 8: Stalemate
Chapter 9: Strategy vs. Tactics
Chapter 10: Becoming the Villain
Chapter 11: Copy Calvin’s Concerns
Chapter 12: Operation Cross-Dresser
Chapter 13: The Crying Game
Chapter 14: Confidence
Chapter 15: Parade
Chapter 16: History Lesson
Chapter 17: Venture Capitalism
Chapter 18: Wink Wink Nudge Nudge
Chapter 19: Sand in My Crack
Chapter 20: Dark Dealings
Chapter 21: Thank You, Gracious Hosts
Chapter 22: The Tan Problem
Chapter 23: Always Bring a Rubber
Chapter 24: No Accounting for Taste
Chapter 25: Big Balls
Chapter 26: May Not Cause Vampirism
Chapter 27: Cobalts
Chapter 28: Home Surgery for Dummies
Chapter 29: Rapid Shot
Chapter 30: Light Duty Scheming
Chapter 31: House Visit
Chapter 32: Jinnei, Junior Pirate Queen
Chapter 33: The Slow Way vs. The Fast Way
Chapter 34: Sand Pirate Chic
Chapter 35: Breaking Ground
Chapter 36: Spitting in a Hole
Chapter 37: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
Chapter 38: True Lies
Chapter 39: Dance, Puppets!
Chapter 40: Emptying Fort Cobalt
Chapter 41: A Quiet Morning
Chapter 42: Shifting
Chapter 43: Sparring Above Your Weight
Chapter 44: Calvin and Company
Chapter 45: Schrödinger’s Balls
Chapter 46: Fun Party
Chapter 47: Sight, Sound, and Fury
Chapter 48: Every Hole Is a Goal
Chapter 49: Darkness
Chapter 50: Fractal Mimic
Chapter 51: Catch a Break
Chapter 52: Pee-conomics
Chapter 53: The Most Attractive Lure
Chapter 54: Miss Behavior
Chapter 55: Abyssal Alchemy
Chapter 56: Muscle Wizard
Chapter 57: Risk Free*
Chapter 58: Escape Plans
Chapter 59: Welcome Party
Chapter 60: Quality of Life
Chapter 61: Learner’s Permit
Chapter 62: Brain Leech Hunting
Chapter 63: A 4th Dimensional Beating
Chapter 64: Epic Victory Speech
Chapter 65: Decision Paralysis
Chapter 66: Ominous Tidings
Chapter 67: Conflict Resolution
Chapter 68: Grinding
Chapter 69: Princess Meat Shields
Chapter 70: Setting the Stage
Chapter 1: How Many Man-Hours in a Woman?
“Alright, time to meet my new command,” Calvin said, straightening his jacket before heading out to take a look at the unit that had been assigned to him.
“Look, Calvin. You’re what, fourteen?” Grant asked.
“Sixteen,” Calvin said, scowling. “Damn near seventeen.”
“Age is going to be the biggest defining factor of your career. You are way, way too young to be a captain. You’re going to get zero respect, and that’s a fact. How you handle that is going to determine whether or not you’re cut out for this.”
Calvin stopped and faced the black-haired general. “Explain.”
“If you get mad at someone for slacking, you’re throwing a tantrum,” he said, poking Calvin’s chest. “If I get mad at someone for slacking, I’m enforcing discipline. Because I’m a grizzled veteran, and you’re a teen.”
“That…sucks,” Calvin said, seeing where he was coming from. Calvin’s voice did get a little shrill when he screamed. Hopefully that would work itself out as he aged.
“Until you’ve got respect, don’t show a glimmer of anger. The best thing you can do for yourself is be all business, all the time. Any childishness you display will be an excuse to say, ‘I knew he was just a brat.’”
“Right. Any other tips?”
“As the commanding officer, you’re the example that all your soldiers will be unconsciously held to. Work harder, they’ll work harder; bathe, and they’ll bathe.”
“Bathe?”
“God help you if you don’t,” Grant said.
“Okay, don’t act like a kid, don’t get angry, and don’t drop the soap,” Calvin said, heading toward the door to the courtyard.
Grant caught his shoulder again. “And for Vashniel’s sake, don’t let anyone see you cry. That happens, you’re fucking done.”
“I imagine the only time I’m allowed to cry is a single regulation-sized tear of pride as I overlook a beautiful sunrise vista of my troops overrunning the enemy position?”
“Now you’re getting it,” Grant said, clapping him on the shoulder.
Calvin shook his head as he entered the courtyard, seeing his company in formation, all two hundred of them standing at attention in the afternoon sun. As he walked along the side, he saw them sneaking glances at him from the corner of their eye.
Calvin skipped the wooden staircase and jumped straight onto the platform overlooking them.
Calvin turned and gasped. “It’s perfect,” he whispered, his eyes stinging.
Two hundred extremely young recruits were interspersed with about a dozen grim-faced Veterans to keep them in line. Their uniforms were messy; some of them hadn’t combed their hair or buttoned their vests up. A few were missing weapons, while one idiot was wearing his helmet in formation.
Calvin was pretty sure one of them was naked.
Salty tears began rolling down Calvin’s cheeks as a cackle built in his chest.
“Hah. Ha. Ha. Hahahahahahahaha! Glorious!” Calvin bellowed with laughter, his eyes clouded by tears. So many lives at my beck and call.
Whispers began circulating through the company, and Calvin made a couple of them out, even through his own manic laughter.
“...that The Wasp?”
“Motherfucker’s crazy.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Calvin spotted Grant slap his hand over his face.
Calvin’s mad chuckles slowly came to a stop, and he wiped tears out of his eyes just as the skinny lieutenant approached. What was his name again? Lieutenant Vukya, that’s right.
“Captain, this is the newly formed 1st Mujenan Volunteers,” Vukya said, motioning to them with a wince.
As volunteers, they weren’t affiliated with any nobles. Instead, the crown had provided them with the minimal training and equipment in their haste to rebuild the ranks after the devastating attack that tore through the city walls.
Nominally, their loyalty was to the crown, but Calvin was their commander, and with enough time, he could make them his own.
Newly formed is right, but if Grant is to be believed, having them closer to my age should make it a little easier to get respect.
A little.
“Good afternoon!” Calvin said, scanning the crowd. He spotted Baroke poking out, standing head and shoulders taller than the other archers. Ella was standing among the heavies, shoulder to shoulder with the most brutish young men Mujenan could put forward.
Kala was up on top of the wall overlooking the formation, pausing to watch between princessly duties. Calvin caught her wave.
A half-dozen silly proclamations ran through Calvin’s mind and were dismissed in a fraction of a second, and he began chanting Grant’s advice to keep himself focused.
Business, business, business…
“My name is Calvin Gadsint. I will be your commanding officer for the foreseeable future. You all volunteered because you felt the need to do something for your city and your country. I’m sure most of you spent your first Break on Baking, or Cobbling, or Smithing, planning a long and boring career, making enough to get by, marrying that pudgy girl with the wide hips next door—you know the one. All the while, never expecting the war to break into your life and take from you. But it did.
“There isn’t a person here who hasn’t lost something to these limp-wristed Ilethan,” Calvin said, scanning the faces. The emotions he was receiving from the assembly were changing from confusion and ridicule to sullen anger.
“I imagine a few of you are interested in waging some kind of personal vendetta,” Calvin said, scanning the crowd and picking out the gazes most filled with anger.
“But let me tell you now that we’ve got no room for that shit. You are each now a cog in the machine that will crush Iletha flat like some kind of…Iletha-flattening machine.”
Smooth, Elliot snarked in his head.
“You do your part, Ilethan die. Every brick you lay, every uniform you patch, every pound of wheat you haul down the road—that’s an arrow in the eye of
“This isn’t going to be a Sunday picnic, either. We’re going out there to establish a foothold. We’re the foot steady on the ground, so the other foot can kick those pasty rags right in their ball-less crotches.”
The young men burst into chuckles, and Calvin waited for it to slow.
“Do your job, stay alert, and we’ll be responsible for so much pain and misery in those duplicitous belles that they’ll be pissing their pants at the mention of our coming.”
Calvin turned to Vukya and lowered his voice. “You got the destination?”
The lieutenant nodded, a tiny length of curly hair bobbing on his forehead.
“I could stand here all day, but time’s valuable, and I’m sure you’re all anxious to make shit happen. Lieutenant Vukya, take them out.”
Vukya began barking orders rapid-fire, as sergeants split men off into groups, getting wagons ready to go while others began loading their gear into them.
“Kinda brief,” Grant said, scratching his chin as he approached. “But not bad.”
“Thanks,” Calvin said, rubbing his hands together as he watched his minions prepare to depart. “It doesn’t come naturally.”
“You better make them think it does,” Grant said. “Like it or not, every commander of men develops a mythos. They become larger than life. That can work for you or against you.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Calvin said as he watched the young men within a year of his own age scrambling to obey the commands of their sergeants.
“You get used to it. Now, while they’re busy, let me give you the rundown on what actually wins wars.”
***
Food and hygiene. If you think it’s easy to feed a hundred men, think again. If you make men march in wet shoes for two weeks, and get surprised that their feet are rotting off, you deserve to lose. Moving food, calculating rations, clean clothes, clean bodies, good medicine. All of this is what wins a war.
Calvin tapped his pen against the corner of the paper, making an ink splotch.
So, by forfeiting any kind of salary, I was able to bribe eight whores, with Perthea’s help. They joined the camp followers, ostensibly as seamstresses and cooks.
The whores have an average of…
14 Will. That means two castings of Calvinian Summoning per woman, per day. The summon lasts two hours, the Knick-Knack weighs thirty-five pounds, meaning thirty-eight summons per cast. So, all told, that’s…
Two times eight times two times thirty-eight. My investment in those women bought me…
Calvin scratched out some multiplication.
1216 Knick-Knack-hours per day, plus the chores done by the women themselves. With that, we can aim for a fort approximately…
Calvin blinked and set down his pen when he realized he was missing some numbers. Namely, the conversion rate between man-hours and Knick-Knack-hours, and the total amount of man-hours it took to build a fortress big enough to host an army of ten thousand.
Lot more math than I thought going in.
That’s life for you.
Calvin took his notebook and stepped out of his tent, in search of numbers. They had just arrived at the chokepoint after three boring days of travel, and Calvin's tent was the first one down. The rest of the company was busily getting themselves set up.
“Sir?” Lieutenant Vukya said, hopping up from polishing one of Calvin’s shoes.
Calvin stood on his tiptoes to look at the distant mountain, then back to the lieutenant.
“We have engineers, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Trained ones, literate ones?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring them to me; I need to start planning the fort. Then I want you to stop the men who are setting up. Break them up into teams of five for latrine-digging, logging, and setting up camp, but don’t let them start yet. Tell me when they’re assembled and ready to start.”
“But they’re already started. Why do we need to…” He trailed off as Calvin looked at him.
“I need numbers.”
“But if we don’t get tents up in time…”
“Assure them the camp will be ready before nightfall. I know what I’m doing.”
“Yes, sir,” Vukya said. The slender officer saluted before hustling off.
Calvin walked through the camp, painfully aware of how little he knew about the common footsoldier’s troubles.
He got outside the bustle of two hundred men and forty women, and glanced around. He saw where the mountain naturally sloped close to the road, maybe an eighth of a mile into the jungle. Off to the other side was a sheer cliff that led out to the ocean.
Can’t have ten thousand men shitting in holes, Calvin thought as he eyed the cliff. Wouldn’t be too hard to dig a shaft that sends sewage into the ocean. He glanced up at the snow-capped mountain, miles distant.
Need water, too, and a lot of meat. I wonder if I’ll have enough spare Knick-Knacks to build an aqueduct. Gotta make sure it’s protected, though. Can’t have people shitting in it and poisoning everyone.
“Wasp, sir!” a young man about two years older than Calvin said, dragging him out of his thoughts about poop.
“What did you call me?”
The man flinched. “That’s what they call you in Mujenan. The Wasp that saved the city?” He had a snarl of teeth, and stains on his uniform from messy eating. Slender, though.
“Huh.” Calvin glanced down at the man’s uniform. Green sash. Green sash means engineer, Calvin thought, having been given a handy guide by Andra. He needed to study it more.
“What’s your name?”
“Gulad, sir.” Gulad held out a hand, and Calvin shook it, not really sure what was happening as the man began to spill his guts.
“The story about how you single-handedly defeated the Ilethan royals, their troops, and hundreds of those metal monsters, all while guiding the citizens to safety with your wasps… Well, I couldn’t not join up. I had a Break that night and knew it was my chance, so I volunteered immediately. Most of the rest of us are the same.”
Calvin blinked. The truth had been stretched nearly to the breaking point. While he did some of those things, he certainly didn’t do them single-handedly, and not at the same time. Is this what Grant was talking about with a ‘mythos’?
“I was originally a mason, had the Carpentry and Bricklaying Skills, so they trained me in Engineering. Now I’ve got Logistics, Architecture, and Squad Leadership. I’m gonna be the best damn engineer they’ve ever seen.”
“Good, because I need a castle,” Calvin said.
“What?” Now it was Gulad’s turn to blink.
“Give me the estimate of how many man-hours it would take to build a thirty-foot-tall, five-foot-wide wall from the cliff to the mountain, along with a castle and barracks that could comfortably house fifteen thousand soldiers.”
Calvin glanced off to the cliff. “And we’re gonna need shit-pipes.”
“Umm, sir, that’s… We don’t have enough men to do something like that, not even close. It takes thousands of people years to build something like that. We’ve got two hundred.”
“And even less time to do it in,” Calvin said, eyeing him. “I’ve got a plan, but I need to know exactly what the required amount of work is. Can you get that for me?”
“Sir!” Gulad saluted and ran off to get Calvin his numbers.
A moment later, Vukya arrived, motioning to the camp, where forty squads of five men were assembled, waiting for instruction.
“They’re ready to go,” Vukya said.
“Excellent.” Calvin walked up to the camp and mounted a guar so that everyone could see him.
“We’re going to have a little race. Can you get camp set up faster than my Knick-Knacks?”
Calvinian Summoning…
7/12 Bent remaining.
Calvin summoned five groups of Knick-Knacks, coming just shy of the original two hundred recruits.
“Each team will be competing against a similar number of my summons, doing as much work as you can over the next two hours. The three teams that get their jobs done fastest get tomorrow off!”
Calvin mentally instructed the Knick-Knacks as the soldiers cheered, and the metal creatures broke off into units of five, matching themselves up with the human soldiers.
Calvin leaned down to Vukya and spoke quietly. “Have the sergeants record the time difference between their recruits and the summons.”
