There were gasps in the pilothouse. Courtney Bradford tried at times, but he really didn’t know how to whisper. Invariably, his various dissertations were overheard and spread throughout the ship. It didn’t really matter. Matt wanted his crew as well-informed as possible. “Scuttlebutt” often distorted things and made them worse. In this case, uninformed speculation would’ve probably sugarcoated the truth.
“It’s known that the ‘un-Holy’ Dominion engages in blood sacrifice at the drop of a hat,” Courtney continued, “as part of their ‘native’-inspired perversion of the already rather . . . insistent . . . early-eighteenth-century version of the Catholic faith they brought to this world, but using people to feed those monsters . . . !”
“Makes perfect sense from their evil perspective,” Jenks spit, his words slightly slurred. “Feed them the infirm, the sick, the wounded . . . perhaps the laborers they brought with them. Regardless, only able bellies are filled, and the priests probably manufacture ‘divine’ justifications!” He looked at Matt. “Do you think they’ll be kinder to conquered peoples?”
“Relax, Harvey,” Matt said. “We’ll stop them somehow. We would have already, if not for their pets.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, we have to assume they know that too. We can’t count on their being idiots. What’ll they do now that we’ve learned about their ‘secret weapon,’ but they know about Walker?”
CHAPTER 13
Kaufman Field Baalkpan
“Ten-Hut!” cried a shrill, Lemurian voice. The sound didn’t echo in the hangar made of canvas and the oversize Baalkpan bamboo, but at least the building was tight enough to make it loud.
“Oh, ah, ‘as you were,’ by all means,” replied Adar’s voice in his carefully cultivated English.
“Thanks, Your Excellency,” Colonel Ben Mallory replied, and his voice did echo—from within the wheel-well he’d somehow managed to cram an unlikely percentage of himself into. “Just a minute . . . and I oughta . . . Eeee! There! Now, if I can just get me outta here!” A pair of wrenches dropped to the hard-packed, concretelike crushed limestone floor, and Ben grunted and squirmed until he extricated himself. “Ahh,” he said, wincing, as he stepped forward and straightened from his crouch. “Gimme a rag, Soupy,” he demanded, his eyes clenched shut over hydraulic fluid and burning sweat. He held his greasy hands out, blindly.
Lieutenant (jg) Suaak-Pas-Ra, acting exec of the 3rd Pursuit Squadron, was similarly buried in the cockpit of the P-40E, with only his legs and tail visible. “Can’t, sur,” came the muffled reply, but somebody hit Ben in the chest with a clean cloth, and he wiped his face. He blinked.
“Wow,” he said when he could see. “What brings the whole back row of the chessboard to my modest little abode?” Not only was Adar standing in the wide opening of the hangar, but quite a few others including Steve Riggs, Perry Brister, “Ronson” Rodriguez, and Bernie Sandison were with him. Those he understood. He was surprised to see Isak Rueben and several “high-up” Lemurians he recognized, but didn’t really know, however. He didn’t understand why Pam Cross and Sister Audry were there at all. Wait, Pam’s a nurse. She’s probably here to check the new arrivals, and make sure the men they sent out to me are really fit to be here.
Adar walked slowly around the big, muscular-looking plane that seemed to crouch menacingly in the still, sultry shade of the big building. As always, he wore what all the humans referred to as his “Sky Priest suit,” despite his lofty status, but the star-spangled, purple hood was thrown back, revealing his gray fur and bright, silver eyes. He’d been there when Santa Catalina limped into Baalkpan Bay, and he’d watched the heavy crates removed from the dry-docked ship. He’d even been out to the infant airfield while it was still under construction and the fighters were being uncrated and positioned for assembly. But this was the first time he’d ever seen one of the “hot ships” in one piece. Even though he had no real grasp of what it was capable of, beyond what he’d been told, he could tell just by looking at it; by the sleek, animalistic, hungry lines, that it certainly appeared capable of more than he’d ever truly believed.
“It is magnificent!” he gushed. “Oh, it is!” He took a breath. “And how many have you managed to save, to assemble?”
“We have twenty, Mr. Chairman, that’ll fly once we finish getting everything hooked up,” Ben said as though he’d failed his task. “Plus one more we can fly with the landing gear fixed.” He shrugged. “I mean to use that one as a trainer, if Bernie doesn’t swipe it and stick those Jap floats salvaged out of Amagi’s hangar on it. Nuttiest thing I ever heard! A P-40 seaplane!” There were chuckles, and he looked wistfully at the fighter. “We might even cobble one more together, but no promises. It’s not so much a matter of spare parts; we’re actually pretty good there. As I said, we have engines, radiators, gauges, tires . . . you name it. But some of the airframes were damaged in fundamental ways we didn’t expect just by looking at them. The crates must’ve taken a real beating, particularly those in the holds, and the crate bracings themselves actually torqued things around.” He smirked. “The good news is, we’ll have plenty of replacement tail assemblies, windscreens, control surfaces, and,” he grunted, “rudder pedals. We’re also using two pretty corroded fuselage assemblies for simulated flight trainers. Got ’em rigged in the trees to respond to stick controls!”
He looked at Riggs, then Ronson. “That was one little thing I was going to see if your guys could do: juice the instruments so we can do some night-flying training—without using one of our batteries . . . or busting a plane!”
Ronson grinned. “Sure thing, Ben.” He looked at Riggs. “It’ll be good training for the EM flight engineers, and you can use batteries! Homegrown ones! I don’t know when we’ll have anything like Bakelite, but we’re doing good stuff with glass and ceramic, and we finally have batteries that don’t weigh a ton.”
Bernie looked at Ronson. “Just so long as you don’t give us any more of those wood and brass ‘box bombs’!”
Ronson cringed and cut his eyes back at Riggs. “So? I forgot there was zinc in brass! I’m an electrician’s mate, not a metallurgist! Nobody got hurt!”
Ben laughed. “That’d be swell, so long as I don’t have to use any of my batteries for the job!”
“So,” Pam Cross suddenly asked in her heavy Brooklyn accent, “when’re ya gonna fly one?”
“Well, it’s been taking a while to get all the bugs ironed out,” Ben defended, a little self-consciously. “I got almost two hundred ’Cats workin’ on these crates and trying to learn how to fly ’em—without letting anybody fly one! Only guys with flight experience are even allowed into the training program, but”—he took a breath—“nobody but me, Lieutenant Mackey, and those five other poor fellas that came in the other day on the ‘Buzzard’ have any experience at all in P-40s, and honestly, a couple of them have no business flying anything for a long time. The guys are wrecks, and not just physically. Karen says they shouldn’t ever fly again! Those damn Japs . . .” He stopped. “Doesn’t matter, anyway, I have to let the guys here have an equal shot, after all the work they’ve done.”
“What about the ground crews?” Sister Audry asked. “Some enlisted men have also arrived from Maa-ni-la, yes?”
Pete was just as surprised to hear her speak as he’d been when Pam had.
“Yeah, they’re doing okay, I guess. Sergeant Dixon, the one who showed up with Mackey, is a lot better now, and he’s pretty much become the senior crew chief around here. He makes the new guys take it easy. Dixon’s a gem. I don’t know if we could’ve done it without him. All the planes came with instructions and I’d seen them put together before, but he’d actually done it.”
“Where is he now?” Adar asked.
“Couple hangars over, doing the same as me and Soupy and these other guys.” He patted the Curtiss green wing behind him. “About a thousand little ‘final touches.’ All the planes are together that are going to be, and thanks to the Corps of Engineer-’Cats Brister loaned me, we’ve
got roofs over every one. But we’ve still got to finish checking out the hydraulic systems, which we were just doing here, and make sure all the connections are tight on the Prestone tanks, fill ’em up—and do the same for the oil tanks and Prestone and oil radiators, recheck the batteries, gauges, triple-check the connections on all three fuel tanks.” He wiped his brow with his rag and grinned at Pam Cross. Gosh, she really is pretty, looking at me like that! he thought. Too bad she’s so stuck on that maniac Silva . . . or is she? He blinked and looked at the others. “After that, we’ll finally put the props on and do a preliminary run-up on the engines—we just got fuel a couple days ago.” He stopped and looked at Isak Rueben. He knew the scruffy little guy was nuts; all the “Mice” were. He’d never forget watching them chain-smoke cigarettes, covered with oil from head to foot....
“That reminds me. We have a problem with condensation in the fuel tanks. Too much humidity and heat, I guess.”
Isak realized Ben was talking to him. “Uh, just hafta keep them tanks empty—er maybe plumb, brimmin’ full, is all. Nothin’ else for it. Drain off the damn water before you fill ’em . . . sir.”
“Then you gonna fly?” Pam pressed.
“No. After we run up the engines, we’ll double-check everything again, retighten any bolts we missed, or might’ve wiggled loose, and then we’ll slow-time the engines. . . .”
“And fly?”
Ben grinned again. “Yes, ma’am. Then I’m going to fly each one of these beautiful crates myself!”
“Ha!” Pam yapped excitedly.
Sister Audry looked at the girl and smiled. Pam was an adventurous girl, a “free spirit,” and she’d been concerned about her these last weeks since Dennis Silva didn’t return. She’d been morose, uncommunicative. She was glad she’d suggested they come out to the field that day. Besides, she’d wanted to check on “the boys” who’d been through so much.
“By the Heavens,” Adar murmured. “So many things yet to do! These P-40s are as complicated as any ship! And a single person will control them?”
“Yes, sir,” Ben replied. “That’s why we have to be very careful—and even then, no matter what we do, there’re going to be crack-ups.” He grimaced. “We’re going to lose some planes, just in training, like we’ve lost some Nan . . . PB-1s. We’re going to lose guys too.”
Adar gazed at the plane. “It is magnificent,” he said at last, “but I remain . . . uncertain that it—and the others—will be worth the time, effort, and blood that went into retrieving them and finally getting them into the air.” He looked at Ben. “I know you disagree and I yearn to be amazed, to be wrong, but consider this: had all that has gone into these craft been applied to other things, more ‘Naan-sees,’ better, different planes we can build ourselves . . .” He blinked concern. “You yourself have said we cannot build others like these for some years, perhaps many. I fear the greatest weapon that ever was is of no use when it is spent.”
Ben stiffened. “Would you have said the same about Walker?”
Adar looked at him sharply. “Of course not, but there’s a difference. Walker has already saved our people many times. These craft of yours have as yet only cost us lives. Also, though we may be years away from building ships like Walker, we are not many years away. We need weapons now, and in the foreseeable future, that will carry us to victory against the Grik and our other enemies as well. Honestly, I fear . . . growing to rely on such complicated, potentially . . . transient advantages as these lovely aar-craaft, only to find them gone, used up, when we need them most.”
Sister Audry frowned. “My dear Adar,” she said, “I was not here during the terrible battle in the nearby bay, but I believe Colonel Mallory was.”
Adar recoiled as if he’d been slapped. The old, battered PBY that Ben flew literally to pieces had probably done more, strategically, to save them than Walker had. Without it, they would’ve never known about Amagi and the Grand Swarm until it was much too late.
Ben’s jaw was hard when he spoke through tight lips. “Soupy, which ship is farthest along?”
Soupy’s eyes were wide. “‘M’ ship, a’course.”
“Get Lieutenant Mackey and Sergeant Dixon. Ask them to bring their whole detail.”
“What are you going to do, Colonel?” Bernie asked.
Ben looked at Pam, then back at the Acting Minister of Ordnance. “I’m going to fly, Mr. Sandison.”
“This is ridiculous!” Adar insisted loudly over the sound of the rumbling engine. It had been running for an hour now, slowly taken and held through various rpm ranges and Mackey, in the cockpit, held out his fist, thumb upward. “I have already apologized as sincerely as I know how!”
“This isn’t about that, Mr. Chairman,” Ben said. “Not really. Sure, I was sore for a minute; then I realized you were right. It’s time for you to look in the poke and see what you bought.”
“She’s already run longer than half the ships we sent up against the Japs in the Philippines!” Dixon yelled beside Ben, handing him a parachute. Ben considered the bulky pack for a moment, then shrugged into it. He’d need it to sit on if nothing else, and he wasn’t going over the water. He had no plans of bailing out, short of the wings coming off. Even if the engine quit, he’d get the plane back on the ground in one piece—or die trying. “Just watch your mix, with this weird gas,” Dixon added, “and don’t take her too high!”
“Guns?”
“She’s got two on board, just like you said. They will fire! I cleaned’em, tuned ’em, and bore-sighted ’em myself. . . . You’re up on those hydraulic chargers?” Ben nodded, and Dixon shrugged. “They won’t be dead-on, but they’ll put on a show. Soupy sent to clear everybody away from that banged-up barge down by the ‘Nancy’ hangars. Blow the hell outta that an’ that’ll show ’em!”
Ben gulped a cup of water somebody handed him and pulled on a pair of flight goggles, settling them on his forehead. With a nod at the gathered spectators, he ran to replace Mackey in the cockpit of the plane.
Mackey had throttled back to a rumbling idle and stepped out on the wing root. “Sure you don’t want me to do it, Colonel?” he yelled with a grin. “I did zap three Zeros, you know!”
“Not on your life, Mack,” Ben yelled back, slapping his shoulder. “No Zeros up there today. I’m only going to wring her out a little.”
“Just don’t wring her out too much!”
Adar watched anxiously with the others. He couldn’t help but feel as if he’d forced Ben to do something he and the plane weren’t yet ready for—and he deeply regretted his earlier insinuations. Ben was in the cockpit now, under the bright afternoon sun, and Lieutenant Mackey had trotted past those who were watching, which, by now, probably included every aviator and ground crewman in Baalkpan. Adar saw Mackey disappear into one of the hangars. Quickly, Ben put all the control surfaces through exaggerated motions, released the brakes, and gunned the engine. Immediately, the green and gray plane accelerated from a standing stop into what struck Adar as a foolhardy speed as it taxied away from the hangars, the tail twitching in short, erratic motions, and headed for the north end of the runway, a light, white dust cloud billowing after it. As the plane drew farther away, Adar was surprised by how rapidly the engine noise diminished.
“This is foolishness,” he proclaimed aside to Perry Brister, but Perry shook his head.
‘I don’t know, sir. It has been months, and there’s a war on. Maybe Ben needed a kick in the pants to get those planes into it before they all become ‘hangar queens.’ God knows he loves ’em like children. Besides, there’s that other little matter we came to ask him about, and if this goes well, he’s more likely to go along.”
The P-40 vanished in its own dust cloud as it stopped and turned, facing south. For a few moments, nothing happened. A ’Cat raced up. “Maa-kee got him on raa-dio in other plane! He say ‘all swell.’ He just careful; check stuff more!”
Suddenly, the distant Allison engine growled deeply with an earsplitting, feral roar
that sounded like nothing Adar had ever heard. Maybe a chorus of a dozen “gri-maax,” or “super lizards” might have come close. The plane hurtled out of the cloud, flaps down, tail already rising off the ground.
“There he goes!” Pam cried excitedly.
The hungry drone of the Allison reached a fever pitch, and about halfway down the bright airstrip, Ben’s plane leaped into the air, already moving faster than anything most of those present had ever seen, short of a bullet. The landing gear dangled strangely beneath the wings, twisting, rising, disappearing into their wells one after the other, all while the plane clawed skyward at a shockingly extreme angle.
“Yes!” roared Dixon, his arms crossed over his head. “Yes, yes, yes!”
All around him, Adar heard wild cheering, and his own silver eyes became oddly unfocused.
“How often more must I apologize?” Adar laughed, grasping Ben by the shoulders and shaking him gently. “A glorious exhibition! Such speed, such agility!” He laughed again, almost giddy. “And that poor, poor barge! Ha! I doubt you left enough of it to build one of Ronson’s battery boxes!”
“And that was with only two guns!” Dixon crowed. “Imagine what six would do—and it can carry bombs too!”
They were back in the shade of a hangar, the recently exercised aluminum steed still ticking as the heat transferred from her radiators.
“It wasn’t all peaches and cream,” Ben cautioned. “I spent more time fooling with the mixture and throttle than just about anything else—crummy gas!—and talk about a hog! I bet the spark plugs look like lava rocks!” He shook his head. “She never cut out on me, but she would have, eventually. We can’t mix ethyl with the gas, so we’re going to have to figure out a way to inject it, or something. Jeez, did you hear that detonation when I first climbed out?”
“No.”
Ben snorted. “I did!” He nodded at Adar’s starry cloak. “And talk about stars! PB-1s are swell—but I haven’t pulled any real gees in a while!” Mackey and Dixon laughed appreciatively.
Firestorm : Destroyermen (9781101544556) Page 27
