Youth World

Chapter 15 – First Preparations

As soon as I woke up the following day and ate my breakfast, I had an audience with the metallurgists, where they began to demonstrate how they made a gun barrel. First, they rolled a thick barrel out of a short strip of steel wound around a mandrel. This step wasn't very easy, and what was needed to make it took a long time for them to gather, but eventually they figured it out.

Afterwards, the mandrel was removed, and the barrel would be passed between rollers, made of wood with steel around it. There were also tapered grooves on these rollers to lengthen the barrel, and the edges were welded as the barrel passed through the rolls. Due to the size of many of the metallurgists' contraptions, their portion of the camp was by far the largest, and the wall had to be extended to make room for new contraptions and machines.

The last step of this process was to use a cutter mounted on a square section rod. One of the metallurgists accurately twisted into a spiral, mounted in two fixed square-section holes. As the cutter slowly advanced through the barrel, it twisted at a 1:22 twist rate. Then, they repeatedly cut the barrel, and inserted a wooden dowel with blades in its slots. This dowel was gradually packed out with slips of paper until the correct depth was obtained. Finally, a slug of molten lead was cast into the barrel, and the metallurgists withdrew it and used it with a paste of emery and a combination of plant and animal oils to finish the process.

Using the paper that the papermakers had made yesterday, I drew a blueprint for the rifle that I had made at home, the Cascadian Rifle. Of course, I would help the metallurgists and other craftsmen out with the more intricate parts, but they should be able to figure it out themselves with such precise and accurate blueprints. Each one of these would require around thirty manhours for these unexperienced craftsmen to make, and I would only realistically expect for a few hundred to be made throughout the bȧrėly three weeks we had left before the migration. Even with that limited number of firearms, we could eliminate armies ten times our size with relative ease.

After spending the whole morning doing that, I went to the lunch line and grabbed some grub for myself. Afterwards, I returned to the metallurgists and began helping them out with the construction of the Cascadian Rifle's parts. I originally wanted to make rifled muskets instead, but I reasoned that since both weapons have similar number of parts and the rifled muskets would have to be upgraded or discarded in a few years, it would just be more worth our while to go with the superior and more modern design. The only part of the Cascadian Rifle we couldn't produce would be smokeless powder for the 6.5mm Carcano cartridge, and that's only because we don't have any industry. In its place, we would instead use an 8mm black powder cartridge with brass casing.

After eating dinner and making a speech about our current situation, as usual, I drew some blueprints for future inventions and fell asleep. That was a boring day, even though it was an eventful one.

The following morning, I did pretty much the same thing again. Albeit this time I had to spend quite a while on administrative business, which went something along the lines on how to deal with neighboring tribes trying to hunt in lands that we claimed. These people were quickly dispatched by our hunters' longbows, and soon they learned to never challenge us again. After making a few more muskets, yet another day had concluded.

On the tenth day after the apocalypse, something interesting was finally about to happen. About fifty rifles had been made, and a few hundred rounds of ammunition were complete as well. I selected fifty of the people with the most shooting experience and organized them into the Cascadian Rifle Company. No cannons were complete yet, so there couldn't be a Cascadian Artillery Company as of now, but there were also some rocketeers that were being trained by Lukan, the head of the rocketry club back in our high school.

The troops were equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, such as leather boots, ammunition pouches, green dyed Victorian-styled military uniforms, wooden pith helmets, bayonets, a short stabbing spear for close quarters combat, and a belt made of leather. These were quite costly in terms of resources and manpower, but it was well worth it. As of now, they were standing in front of the archery course, lounging around. I couldn't let that happen.

"Attention!"

The riflemen stood facing me with their legs straight and right against each other, while holding their rifles with their right hands. Their left hands were pressed right up against their thɨġhs.

"Squad, slope, arms!"

The riflemen slung their rifles behind their left shoulder in unison. I wasn't expecting for them to know what that meant.

"Squad, order, arms!"

The riflemen unslung their rifles and returned them to the right side of the body, the buŧŧ plates touching the ground.

"Squad, slope, arms! Squad, port, arms!"

I walked around, inspecting all the troops. After correcting some postures and making sure that everything was good, I returned to where I was standing before.

"Slope, arms!"

The riflemen slung their rifles around their left shoulders once again. Their discipline was excellent. Unparalleled, in fact.

"Squad, general salute, present arms!"

The soldiers held their gun in a vertical position from their eye level to their knees, with their left hand in the middle and the right hand on the stock.

"Slope, arms!"

The riflemen returned to the position that they were at before.

"Squad, general salute, present arms!"

The troops didn't forget that position. I only did that twice to drill it into their heads, but I guess that wasn't required.

"Men! You have all performed excellently in the discipline drills. Now, it is time for firing drills. You will each have three shots to hit the man-sized target from three hundred yards out."

Before I had ȧssembled everybody here, I used white paint to draw the silhouette of a five-foot ten tall man, which would be about the average height of the enemy's elite units according to Julius' observation. Julius himself was not in the Cascadian Rifle Company as he wasn't a good marksman.

I stood by and ordered each infantryman to fire one round at a time. After an hour, out of the one hundred fifty shots fired by the fifty soldiers, about half hit the target, which was an acceptable margin. However, one of the rifles malfunctions, so I sent it back to the metallurgists for repair.

"Excellent work today, men! We will perform this drill yet again tomorrow, this time with even more troops. In due time, once you all have mastered these techniques, you'll train yourselves and the newcomers. For now, I will name Justin Seng as commander of this company with Gavin Ridder as vice commander. Now, it is time for lunch. You're all dismissed!"

After eating lunch with my soldiers, I spent some more time helping the metallurgists and gunsmiths correct their errors with their creations. Then, I ȧssembled the rocketeer corps near the lake, and we decided to use the large island located in the middle of the lake as target practice. We used some of the fishing canoes as a platform to train the few sailing club kids that hadn't yet left for the Duwamish River shipbuilding center.

In the front of every canoe, a few feet away from the bow, a wooden semicircular launching platform which was basically a really long stick with half of it cut off and the inside carved out was propped up by a bipod in the front was placed at a 45-degree angle. On top of this platform, a Congreve rocket was placed, and it was aimed directly at a tree on the island.

We rowed out towards the middle of the lake until we were about half a mile away from the island. This island was about twice the size of our camp, so it was pretty big. One of the rocketeers lit the fuse using a torch and he carefully retreated towards the rear of the canoe.

PFEWWWW!

A rather loud sound emerged from this launch, which sounded like a mini gunshot combined with a soda rocket. It flew for a few seconds until it hit a rock on the large island, luckily not setting anything on fire.

Well, that was another day well spent. Today, we ate a mix of beef and grilled salmon for dinner. Quite scrumptious indeed.

I spent a few more hours working on the intricate parts of the Cascadian Rifle, and then I slunk into my shelter to get myself some well-deserved sleep. Just as I rolled to my left, I touched something… fleshy? Wait… what could that possibly be?

"Hey, Alexander," an alluring voice softly spoke, "It must be so, so tiring to become the leader. Care if I help… relieve you a little?"

"Who are you?"

"You don't remember? I'm Erika."

"Hu-"

Before I could say anything, Erika grabbed my cheeks and leaned in for a kiss, her bountiful ċhėst pressed against mine. Since she was sitting on top of me, trying to seduce me to the best of her ability, there wasn't much I could do. I was completely shocked, and all reason had left my mind. That kiss lasted for minutes, my mind blanking out and unable to resist this clearly nonconsensual act.

After I finally regained enough to fight back, I shoved her off me and threw her out of the shelter. Since she was around my height though a bit lighter, that wasn't the easiest task to do.

"What do you think you're doing! This is a clear violation of the law."

"B-But I thought you'd like it!"

"Like it my ȧss! Get out of here before I prosecute you! Shoo!"

The promiscuous young woman ran away from my shelter, crying and sobbing. My neighbors got out of their shelters to see what was going on. A contingent of guards patrolling the area were clapping in approval.

"Good job, Alexander. You truly are a great leader."

"I really appreciate the compliment. Though, in what aspect?"

"You didn't get seduced by the school's hottest girl. That alone says something. You didn't use your position of power for personal pŀėȧsurė, and that's something that we can all get behind. You've just earned even more respect from the rest of us."

"I am truly humbled to hear that. I would like to say more, but it's nearly midnight. I'll get some sleep now."

I rolled around for what seemed to be hours, trying to figure out her true intentions. If I'm being honest, she wasn't the brightest mind out there, so they were probably carnally motivated.. I tried to bleach that from my mind, since there were bigger matters to attend to.