Firestorm : Destroyermen (9781101544556)

by Anderson, Taylor

  “General Muriname!” he boomed, throwing the door aside.

  “Sir?” answered a small man seated at a large desk, blueprints scattered before him.

  “You have orders.” Kurokawa proceeded to explain the mission and the timetable.

  “But”—the small man searched the room with his eyes—“that is madness! Such a distance! There will not be fuel for them to return against contrary winds! We will not only waste the machines, but all the aircrews we’ve worked so hard to form!”

  Kurokawa allowed the outburst. It mirrored his own feelings, after all. Better to cultivate this man’s goodwill—and animosity toward their “masters”—than slap him down. “Indeed,” he agreed grimly, “as I argued. But their course is set. Do your best to consider alternate landing and fueling sites. Some will make it to India.”

  “But what of the others, destined for these even longer flights?”

  Kurokawa sighed. “Doomed, I agree. I fear within a fortnight we will have to begin all over from scratch! Fear not, however. I have taken pains to ensure none of us will be blamed for failure or loss, nor will any of our people suffer—beyond those few who fly the mission. And who knows? Perhaps it will succeed, and ours will be the greatest share of glory!”

  Muriname ignored the reference to glory, though he was relieved there’d be no more reprisals. “Must we send the entire fleet? All our trained crews?”

  “Yes,” Kurokawa said. “To hold back would be seen as courting failure, and if the balance of victory is perceived to have teetered on numbers, we will be blamed.”

  “I must keep at least two craft to continue training operations,” Muriname stated. “Otherwise, it will take months to recover the most rudimentary skills. “Production will continue—it’s only now reaching its stride—but we must keep training so the machines will have aircrews that can fly and maintain them.”

  Kurokawa frowned. “Of course. I’m sure Esshk and the Chooser will agree. Two craft should make little difference. But I must get the blessing of their vile empress, to protect our people.”

  “Yes, Capt—General of the Sea.”

  Muriname remained standing for some time after Kurokawa left. The new “Air Forces” had been his project since its inception, and be- sides the improved treatment he’d won for the Japanese engineers and other former Amagi crewmen in his “department,” he was proud of what they’d accomplished. Despite the limitations and difficulties they’d faced pertaining to Grik physiology, not only had they built machines the creatures could operate, but they’d solved the difficult technological problems of power plants with simplicity itself: horizontal-opposed, two-cylinder, Reed valve, four-stroke engines that weighed only about one hundred thirty pounds, even made of iron. Lower rpm meant higher torque and reliability—and no need for a reduction gear. Muriname believed the things developed close to forty or fifty horsepower, while burning only about three and a half gallons of precious gasoline—they’d only just started to receive in quantity from the north—per hour.

  Unlike the enemy, as far as he knew, they had naturally occurring rubber (or something so much like it as to make no difference) within the territory under their control, and they’d solved most of the other issues of large-scale production in the face of a labor pool with less intelligence than young children. Many of the “mass production” techniques pioneered by Kurokawa in the shipyards had been well applied, but the precision required for weights and shapes was far more critical for flying machines, and he’d noticed that, slowly, even his most unskilled laborers—those who survived—had begun to grasp more and more of what they were taught. Some were becoming quite competent, in fact, and a precious few could even comprehend how what they did related to other things.

  The training aircrews were on an entirely different level; all were “Hij,” or “elevated” specimens that generally exhibited levels of intelligence on a par with young adult Japanese. They were enthusiastic learners, and though insular and as slavishly devoted to their “Celestial Mother” as many Japanese youths were to their emperor, they demonstrated a hungry curiosity. He was beginning to form some rather radical ideas about their “allies’” society, and though he still loathed the Grik in general, he no longer hated them individually. He supposed he even felt vaguely attached to some of the aircrews! Regardless of the terrible waste of time, training, and resources, deep down, much of the sudden anxiety he felt regarding his orders stemmed from the simple fact that he just didn’t want his students to die. He felt torn and confused.

  Grik Ceylon

  General Halik hissed and slashed at the map with his claws. “They are monsters!” he howled. “Each attack we send against them is savaged, and many turn prey!” He looked at Niwa. “Those who do are not destroyed, but they are so far gone, I fear they may never recover—or become useful for anything but fodder!”

  “Give them time,” Niwa said. “You’ve seen it before.”

  “But we don’t have time! I want victory! A victory, any victory, to show General Esshk that Ceylon can hold. Only that will gain us aid!”

  “That was not our mission,” Niwa reminded him.

  “It becomes mine,” Halik snapped. “If I were . . . accustomed to failure, I would not be alive. Only victory in the arena deserves life!”

  “But this isn’t the arena, and we’ve accomplished the mission we were set—to engage and assess the enemy; learn how they fight and what they fight with. That was the greater mission. Saving Ceylon was never expected of us.”

  “I expect it of myself, ” Halik replied in a quieter tone. “I cannot help it. Despite my ‘elevation,’ I’m not—cannot be—dispassionate.” He straightened. “Nor does it seem I have gained the wisdom General Esshk expected of me. I don’t have the troops being bred and trained for defense, but as you said, wise offense can counteract that. I know it is so! I just can’t . . . make it happen, and I chafe!”

  “You still talk of attacking with your shield, as you did in the arena,” Niwa observed, “but you know that sometimes a shield is just a shield, a tool to deflect a blow. Even your lowliest Uul understand this.”

  “Ha! You expect them to line up in the face of the enemy and deflect his lead spheres, arrows, cannon, bombs, with shields? They cannot stand that. They will attack, and nothing I can do will stop them!”

  “And they are slaughtered.”

  “Yes.”

  Niwa sighed. He understood how Halik felt, and he felt for him. At some point, he’d finally stopped thinking of Halik as a creature, a Grik he somehow got along with. Maybe it was his isolation from his own kind, or perhaps it was the prestige of his position and his real power over the Grik of Ceylon. Maybe it was just the camaraderie of battle. Whatever the reason, he considered Halik a friend, and he couldn’t help it any more than Halik could prevent suffering under his own burden. Oddly, Niwa wasn’t even conflicted. He hated Kurokawa and had no real attachment to any of his “own” surviving people. Nor did he feel anything for the enemy other than a measure of admiration, even though he knew he had far more in common with them than any Grik. In spite of everything, they were the enemy. Halik, on the other hand, was honest, loyal, and brave. He was perhaps a true samurai in all the ways that mattered, and Niwa respected him for that.

  “Then use your mind to shield them,” Niwa suggested. “You already laid the groundwork for our ‘surprise’; is it complete?”

  “Not yet. Everything has happened so quickly, and the enemy moves like a machine! I never imagined anything like it. Now our front collapses to the south, and all we . . .” Halik stopped and stared at the map. “All we can do is take from one place and put it in another,” he said softly. “The enemy will see that—their thrice-cursed aircraft—but they cannot see what we do in the dark!”

  “That’s true,” Niwa said. “They occasionally fly at night, but they can’t really see.”

  “They’ll expect us to take from the highland front to reinforce the southern plains. The highlands are difficult
country, and though they don’t know it, that was precisely why we amassed such power there, emplaced your ingenious devices! But they won’t come!” He paused. “Or will they?” Excitedly, Halik peered at the map. “They will watch us take forces from there to a place where they have made it necessary! The highland passes will appear to have been abandoned, while the plain grows more formidable! They will come where we want them, thinking it an empty road!” Halik snarled again, in triumph this time.

  “Excellent,” Niwa said approvingly. “But the movements must be convincing, and the troops and guns we leave must be well concealed.”

  “Of course,” Halik agreed, “as well as the warriors we return there!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “As we both agree, they cannot see what we do at night. We’ll move nearly everything out of the highlands! Prod them into attacking just as Uul will chase wounded prey! Under the cover of darkness, we put it all back!”

  “Chancy,” Niwa said, “all will depend on concealment and exaggeration—two things they will not expect of Grik, based on those they’ve met before.”

  “Indeed,” Halik said with a self-satisfied gurgle. “We must see to it ourselves. The warriors we leave, those trained on the cannons, will have to hide—not an easy thing to achieve in itself—and . . .” He paused. “When we shift the warriors back to the highlands in darkness, we will fill the lines south of the city with the city’s inhabitants themselves. Use the noncombatants.”

  “What will N’galsh say?” Niwa asked.

  “He will wail as if being flayed alive. All his followers, merchants, artisans—his preparers of food!—all the privileged Hij in the city, along with their own little armies of Uul forced into the company of ungroomed warriors . . . !” Halik could barely contain his glee. “Perhaps we’ll even arm them!”

  Niwa chuckled himself. “The idea of N’galsh wielding a sword is amusing . . . but can he if he must?”

  “Of course not, but if we fool the spies from the air, we will know it soon enough. The enemy will pause before the ‘mighty force’ we assemble before it, long enough to strengthen itself, while his lighter center force that slogs slowly through the mountains to the east will charge headlong into the trap! Once we destroy it, we’ll attack the western force from the side, the ‘flank,’ as you say!”

  “It could work,” Niwa allowed, studying the map. “If we do it, it must work, because nothing remains if it fails.”

  “Yes,” Halik agreed, sobering. “Either we achieve a great victory—or depart as originally planned. By then that might be . . . difficult!”

  CHAPTER 18

  New Ireland

  The once almost-pacifistic Major Chack-Sab-At was a veteran of many battles now, but the wild melee that erupted in the darkened streets of New Dublin was something new in his experience. It was somewhat like the climax of the battle at the Dueling Grounds on New Scotland, except here it was on a completely different scale, sprawling through the congested streets of a large, unfamiliar city. He couldn’t even tell which direction was which, because the smoke from guns and burning buildings hid the sky and blotted out the stars. Few of “his” Imperial troops had ever been to New Ireland before, and even fewer had been in this Company city. Most were as lost as he was in the confusion of this bizarre battle.

  Blair’s attack down the slope and across the field toward the city had succeeded far better than expected. The enemy positions had been devastated by the aerial bombing and mortar attack, and the remaining Doms were completely surprised when assailed through the smoky darkness by a force they’d been sure was withdrawing. They broke. Blair’s regiments charged onward, yelling like fiends, flush with success—and lost all cohesion. The Imperial Marines weren’t real professionals after all, Chack had reflected sadly, and he tried to round up as many clumps as he could when his own division went in, but when they continued advancing—while trying to maintain some contact with Blair—everything fell apart. By the sound, the seaborne assault had commenced with a will, likely catching the Doms attempting to respond to Chack and Blair’s attack, as hoped, but now there was fighting everywhere, and Chack had personal control of barely a company of mixed “American” and Imperial Marines.

  “The harbor’s that way,” gasped Lieutenant Blas-Ma-Ar, pointing vaguely over the top of a stone barrier that she, Chack, and the rest of his remaining command had been forced to shelter behind. The barrier formed a rectangle around the Company/Government headquarters building, and there were a lot more rebels or Doms within than Chack had Marines outside. “I can hear the monstrous, great guns still firing from one of the forts,” Blas added.

  “I’m glad someone can still hear something,” Chack growled irritably. “This war gets noisier all the time.”

  “You like the exploding shells,” Blas accused.

  “They don’t explode repeatedly next to my ears,” he said. “And if our enemies ever begin using them, I’ll probably like them less.”

  “General Aalden was right about the muskets, though,” Blas insisted. “You can’t poke a bow over a rock wall and loose an arrow without showing much of yourself!”

  “A point.” He looked around. Firing had resumed in the direction they’d come from, echoing dully down the narrow, debris-strewn streets, and he had no idea who was shooting at whom, or in which direction. It would probably not be a good idea to go back that way. “If they made their buildings up off the ground in a proper fashion, we could see more,” he grumped.

  “We can’t stay here, Major. We must get back into the fight.” Blas looked around. “We need a mortar—gre-naades. Something to raise the enemy fire so we can move.” An errant roundshot, a big one, probably from Salaama-Na herself, crashed into the building before them and showered rocky fragments into the street. The strange but geometrically pleasing city was being systematically destroyed. Smoky dust filled the air.

  “Major!” cried an Imperial Marine nearby. “Look there!” A door had opened across the street, and an arm was waving them toward it.

  “A local?” Blas asked.

  “Must be. It may be a trap, though,” someone said.

  “Not all here are rebels, surely,” Chack speculated. He looked at the Marine. “Try to make it across. We’ll fire a volley as you move, to cover your sprint!”

  At Chack’s signal, the men and ’Cats behind the barrier fired their muskets at the Company headquarters, and the red-coated Marine scrambled through the rubble and disappeared safely through the door. There was little return fire from the Doms. Several minutes later, a red-sleeved arm motioned from the door in the gloom, and Chack ordered the covering fire resumed. The Marine almost made it back before he tripped and fell, but he managed to scrabble back to safety with musket balls “vrooping” by above his head, or sending shattered rock over the top of the wall.

  “Major,” he wheezed, crawling up beside Chack, “it’s a New Dubliner, all right. A cobbler.” The man grinned. “He don’t know what you Lee-mooans are, and he was a touch nervous, but he seen our red coats. He’s a loyal man. Says his sons are watchin’ the fight from the rooftop. Lots of locals are, all over the city, an’ many’re with us! The Doms’ve treated folk rough.” He shook his head. “Anyway, a lot have risen up—that’s one reason we’re not takin’ much fire from above. There ain’t many of ’em armed, but those that are are tryin’ to stay out of the way, on the roofs! They ain’t fightin’ much,” he admitted, “just enough to keep the Doms down off their places, see, and not enough to provoke ’em as much against them as they are against us!”

  “That’s a larger service than they credit,” Chack mused. “But are they not vulnerable to the flying creatures the Doms control?”

  “They might be, but for the smoke. Seems the bloody damn things don’t like it. Can’t see through it, or breathe it, maybe. They don’t know why. Anyway, all them devils are gone, or stayin’ above the fight, says he.”

  “Does he know where our closest friends are?”

 
“Aye. If you’ll look up, he has three stories. A fair view. There’s maybe another company just two streets yonder!” The Marine pointed beyond the cobbler’s establishment.

  “Okay,” Chack said, deciding. “Will you take me to meet your new friend?”

  The Marine looked back across the avenue he’d just crossed twice. “Aye, sir.”

  “Good. Blas? Same procedure as before.”

  They both made it again, though a few balls came close, and they bolted through the door followed by splinters and powdered, gravelly dust. The “cobbler” was still in the dark room, standing behind a substantial wall. He started to move to greet them, then stopped, his eyes going wide in the gloom at the sight of the Lemurian.

  Chack touched his battered helmet. “Major Chack-Sab-At, of the Amer-i-caan Navy and Maa-rine Corps,” he said as pleasantly as he could manage. “Ally and friend of His Highness, Gerald McDonald. I am at your service, sir.”

  “By all that’s holy!” blurted the balding, tall man. “The Doms said ye were demons, an’ ye do look like one!”

  “I hope we are demons to them, sir,” Chack said, “but we’re friends of the Empire.”

  “Well . . . that’s good enough for me,” the man decided. “If those bloody bastards fear ye, an’ men such as this Marine obey ye, I’d wager ye’re near a saint! How can I help?”

  Chack quickly scanned the room. Shadowy objects were discernible. Shoe lasts, benches, stacks of leather, tools. “I’m told you can see the battle from above?”

  “Aye.”

  “May I have a look?”

  The man hesitated only slightly before nodding. “Aye, follow me.” He opened a door that concealed a flight of stairs and retrieved a burning lamp from a step. “This way, if ye please.”