Those on the bridge stood almost stunned for a moment, but Campeti’s roar of “Next target, next target! Match pointers, goddamn it!” on the fire control platform above snapped them out of it. They’d blown up enemy ships before, but rarely before they were fully immersed in the fight-and never with so many humans aboard.
Matt turned to the bridge watch, his face hard. “They started this, so they asked for it,” he grated. “I’m not happy about it either, but I’m satisfied, and I’ll stay that way if we blow every one of ’em out of the water!”
The salvo buzzer rang again, and three more tongues of fire snarled at the enemy and jolted the ship as Walker continued her dash to get around in front of the Dom fleet.
“Hello the bridge!” came a cry from aft. “May I come up there, please?”
“Courtney! I thought you stayed in Saint Francis!” Matt said, surprised.
“Well, I didn’t. I may have made an extra effort to stay out of sight, so you wouldn’t force me to, but I am, indeed, here! I’m the acting surgeon after all, and I have my duty,” he reminded him piously. “May I join you?”
“Yeah, I suppose. But since you’re here, I expect you to do your duty without whining. If we take a hit, you’re off to the wardroom!”
“I shall vanish instantly, sir! Vanish!” He peered out at the Doms. Another salvo boomed, and he worked his jaw to pop his ears. “So we’re engaged in yet another unequal fight,” he observed cheerfully. “How exciting! Shall we see more of those dreadful but fascinating flying creatures?”
“I think you can count on it,” Matt said, watching another salvo launch water spouts around one of the lead “cruisers.” Only one shell hit the ship and it didn’t explode, but it must have struck somewhere near the wheel, because the ship suddenly fell off, beam on to the wind. It did manage a stuttering broadside in Walker ’s direction, but every shot fell randomly short.
The whole right side of the enemy formation suddenly erupted fire and smoke at Simms and Tindal as they eased ever closer, but that fire had no greater effect. The two Allied DDs held their fire.
“It must be terribly frustrating for them,” Bradford commiserated. “I mean, I doubt any of those men over there had ever heard of Walker before we waylaid them at Guadalupe, and there they stand, directly into her fire with no hope of a meaningful reply. You can despise what they represent, but you must honor their courage.”
“Theirs is the courage of the Grik, Courtney,” Matt snapped.
“It’s not! They’re… misguided. Criminally so. They’re doubtless coerced by their faith, and by our standards, even evil. But they must sense fear and understand their danger.” He shook his head. “Their courage is real.”
“I don’t know. After meeting that weird ‘Blood Cardinal’ bastard, Don Hernan, I wonder if it’s only that they’re less afraid of us than they are of him and his kind.”
“Perhaps. Pity we never caught him. I suspect he now sits happily at the feet of his ‘pope’… perhaps as a footrest?”
Matt barked a laugh. “That would be a sight, with all his puffed-up dignity!” He shook his head. “I doubt it, though. He’s probably on New Ireland. Maybe Chack’s already killed him!”
“A happy thought!”
The salvo buzzer rang.
Walker finally passed around in front of the Dom fleet, still keeping her distance on a course of two, eight, zero, mauling its ships practically at will. Roundshot, probably fired by heavy bow chasers, moaned by or plunked into the sea close aboard, shrouded in massive splashes. Courtney was as good as his word and promptly left the bridge when a pair of lucky shots staggered the ship. At this range they didn’t penetrate, but they did open seams and cause leaks. Mertz reported that the dragons had all dropped their loads, causing some damage to her decking and a few gun carriages, but little more. As Matt had predicted, they’d started shredding her rigging. The ship and her swarm of attackers were visible from the crow’s nest now, and the report said the distant struggle looked like a flock of “regular” lizard birds picking at a floating fish.
“Make your course three, three, zero, Mr. Kutas,” Matt said. “I hope those flying Grik remember what we did to them the other day and still hold a grudge. Let’s see if we can get their attention.” The salvos still flew hot and heavy to port, and the enemy van was losing its cohesion. Two more ships had been utterly destroyed by Walker ’s fire, and gouts of smoke billowed southward on the landward side of the fleet as the firing between it and the two Allied DDs grew more furious. Achilles signaled that she and her consorts were finally bringing the Dom rear under fire. Matt began to grow concerned that the enemy might wear and turn on the Imperial squadron. He didn’t think they would, not yet anyway, but if they did, Achilles and the other Imperial frigates wouldn’t last long. He had to be ready to respond quickly if that occurred.
“Cap-i-taan!” Minnie cried. “Commodore Jenks signals on small wireless we left him that the Dom Army is attacking in force! They is a lot of them, maybe five thousands. They not have much artillery, though, and Jenks does. Artillery has kept them at arm’s reach for now, so Bosun an’ his rifle militia can kill them well! He holding. He ask how we do?”
“Tell him we’re holding too.”
“That all?”
“That’s all. For now.”
More splashes rose around Walker, falling ever shorter as she steamed farther from the Dominion fleet-toward Mertz.
Bradford clomped back up the stairs aft, waving away questioning faces. “No injuries. Nothing serious, anyway. Just the usual cuts and scrapes, bumps and bruises you always see whenever large numbers of people scamper about on a vessel this small, handling heavy shells and manipulating large objects designed to pinch hell out of anyone coming near.” His bushy eyebrows rose as he stared off the port quarter. Several ships had begun to burn, and a number of warships had turned toward Simms and Tindal, regardless of the risk. The pounding they’d been taking simply couldn’t be borne any longer. “Can’t say the same for those poor buggers, I’m sad to say.”
“No,” Matt said, “but our guys are about to get it if they don’t pull ahead. Signal Simms and Tindal, ‘Full ahead, remain to windward of the enemy.’ ”
“Ay, ay… Cap-i-taan!” Minnie passed the word, then paused, listening to her earpiece. “Lookout says, ‘Draagons come!’ Signal from Mertz says they leave her be now.” Minnie cocked her head. “Says some real tired draagons roost on ship! They shooting them!”
“Swell,” Matt replied. “Have Mertz rejoin Tindal and Simms at her best possible speed! She’s finished playing bait, and I think her sisters are going to need her!”
“Here they come!” Kutas said, peering up through the windows.
“Secure from ‘surface action port’!” Matt cried. “Stand by for air action, aft! Helm, give us a gradual turn to course two, four, zero! Reduce speed to two-thirds.”
“What exactly are you planning?” Bradford asked.
“I’m playing a hunch you gave me. Those devils have got to be getting tired, all of them. At the same time, they’re going to hate giving up chasing something. If they really are like Grik, they can’t help it! So… we let ’em chase us, farther and farther away from their ‘base’ ships, hopefully staying just out of reach as long as we can. Shooting at ’em the whole time ought to keep them stirred up… .”
“But what happens when they catch us? They might, you know. Then we’ll have half a hundred of those vicious things romping all over the ship! We won’t be able to man the guns, and go back and assist our friends!”
“You let me worry about that. I have a surprise for them based on something else you said.”
“Oh dear,” Courtney mumbled. “I certainly hope, whatever it was, I was right!”
Staring astern, Spanky stood on the aft deckhouse, striking his signature pose, hands on his skinny hips.
“Bunch of ’em,” Carl Bashear said, taking a chew from Spanky’s tobacco pouch. A virtual cloud of “dragons” had
gathered in their wake, beating their wings and gaining quickly. “Look kinda aggravated,” he mumbled around the mouthful of leaves.
“Yeah. A Grik charge in midair,” Spanky agreed. “What a hoot.” He looked at Finny, serving as his talker. “Marksmen t Redu stern. Inform the captain we’re about to engage… aerial targets.” Chief Gunner’s Mate Paul Stites had the “number four” 4.7-inch gun. Spanky scowled at him. “Don’t miss. We’re running low on those Jap time-fuse shells.” He raised his voice so he could be heard by the crews of the 25 mm’s in the tubs just forward. “Antiair… lizard batteries, in local control, commence firing!”
Matt was looking aft around the chart house, trying to see the effect of the fire. Tabby was on the ball; only the faintest wisps of smoke smeared the tops of the funnels, and the 4.7-inch and 25-mm guns still ate “smokeless” Japanese shells they’d salvaged from Amagi. Even many of the marksmen still had ’03s. That left a better-than-average view of the terrifying creatures flying up Walker ’s skirt. Matt still had trouble seeing them clearly through his binoculars, as the creatures tended to group together, and the flying mass became a wild flurry of motion in his Bausch amp; Lombs. He got indistinct impressions: furry, bright-colored bodies like the ones before, grasping talons and ferocious, golden, reptilian eyes. Every mouth was open, revealing rows of teeth unlike the Grik-thinner, longer, more curved-the better to snatch prey from the sea or sky. They were not shrieking, however. Over the sound of the guns and rifles, he couldn’t tell if they made any sounds at all. His brief glimpses at their faces left him with a growing conviction they were gasping for air.
“All ahead full!” he ordered.
The deck trembled, the blower roared, and the bow lurched out of the sea between the streaming troughs. The pitching eased a bit as the ship practically leaped from swell to swell. Still the monsters gained. If anything, they seemed to be gaining more rapidly. Maybe they knew they had to board Walker or die, at this stage, and they were giving it their all. Its fuses set shorter and shorter, the number four gun fired rapidly, the dark explosions erupting closer and closer to the ship. Shattered dragons staggered in the air or plummeted lifelessly into the sea. Pom-poms blatted at the creatures that lunged ahead and tried to board on the flanks, perforating wings and shredding bodies. Muskets started firing, joined by a Thompson and a BAR. Even more monsters fell, still reaching desperately for the ship. Spanky fired at a dragon swooping over the aft deckhouse with his pistol, and a couple actually lit on the platform, causing a wild melee of shots, slashing teeth, and a fusillade of flung shell casings. More clawed their way onto the fantail, their tongues literally lolling with exhaustion. They were easily shot-with extreme care, considering their proximity to the depth charge racks.
“All ahead flank!” Matt shouted remorselessly. Realistically, most of the dragons were probably already doomed. They’d never make it back to their ships, and their only hope was to land on Walker -but Walker was even faster now, making almost thirty knots on three boilers for the first time in… Matt couldn’t remember how long. She was just a little faster than the wind now, perfect for his purposes. It was time. Kari Faask and Fred Reynolds were on his mind when he gave his next order:
“Make smoke!”
Tabby had been waiting. Raw fuel gushed into the boilers at a far more prodigious rate than they could ever burn it all, and Jeek and the rest of his flight crew activated the on-deck smoke generators with grim satisfaction. In moments, impenetrable black columns of thick, sooty smoke piled into the sky and streamed aft, slowly spreading into the wind. In many places, it swirled on the ship itself, under the bridge and through the galley space beneath the amidships deckhouse. Men and’Cats choked and coughed, holding T-shirts over their faces. The giant lizard birds chasing the ship with their final breaths fell into the sea as if they’d been switched off, and in less than three or four minutes, a gasping Spanky called the bridge and reported that all the “air-lizards” had “splashed.”
“Very well,” Matt said with vengeful satisfaction. “Secure from flank. Secure from making smoke. All ahead full.”
“Cap-i-taan Reddy!” Minnie squeaked. “ Tindal has lost her rudder and got tangled with a Dom baattle-waagon! They try to board! Mertz steams to her aid, an’ so do Achilles an’ another Imp-ee ship!”
“I told them to keep their distance!”
“They try-but lose rudder!”
“Okay. Send to Simms to stay the hell out of there, whatever she does. Try to get Achilles to break off. We’re coming as fast as we can!” He scanned the now-distant battle with his binoculars. “Still too many!” he murmured, then lowered the glasses and stepped to the bulkhead where the shipwide comm microphone was mounted. He twisted the switch. “Well done, Walkers!” he said, and waited for the relieved, triumphant cheers to dwindle. “Now, all hands resume ‘surface action stations’! We still have a battle to finish!”
Walker dashed back toward what had become a chaotic, sprawling brawl with a bone in her teeth, shouldering aside a mounting swell. The transports had turned, possibly making for Monterey, but Port Admiral Rempel aboard Perseus was leading two more of the Imperial Frigates in a determined attack against them. Matt was frankly surprised by that. Rempel hadn’t struck him as a particularly bold fighter-and maybe he wasn’t, since the transports were only lightly armed-but he was pressing his attack with sufficient gusto to prove he had no sympathy for the enemy. Tindal was in a bad way, almost dismasted, her bowsprit snared in a Dom cruiser’s foremast shrouds. Despite her loss of control, she was still driving forward, keeping the link as rough as possible to prevent boarders from swarming across. Her guns still vigorously pounded other Dom ships that ventured too close.
Mertz had almost joined her, orange flashes stabbing out either side, smashing mighty hulls, and utterly disrupting enemy attempts to close or even maintain formation. She’d become the focus of the Dom’s attention, however, and even as she plowed forward, she was being viciously mauled. To the south, Achilles and the rig-damaged frigate Hector slashed their way through damaged and undamaged Doms alike, guns thundering and paddles churning. It was a terrible, inspiring sight. If the Doms hadn’t been thrown into such disarray, largely due to their initial formation and inability to alter it with any precision, the four allied ships in their midst would already be floating debris. Matt reflected yet again how lucky they were that the Dominion had elected to start this war before fully “modernizing” its warships.
“Pass the word to Campeti,” Matt shouted as Walker drew to within a mile of the fight. “Concentrate fire on those battleships working over Tindal and Mertz. It looks as if the remaining cruisers are peeling off to protect the transports. Get that big devil twenty-five degrees off the starboard bow! She’s stern on to us, but she’s giving Mertz hell!”
“He acknowledge!” Minnie cried, and moments later they all heard Campeti’s bellow above. “Surface target, bearing one four zero; course zero, zero, five; speed six knots! Range… three nine five zerouns one, three, and four, match pointers!”
“On target!”
“In salvo, commence firing!” The salvo buzzer rang and a mere instant later, all three guns boomed, and the smoke quickly vanished to leeward. Even over the ship noises, the “Shhhhhh!” of the shells was audible. Three splashes erupted just aft and short of the big enemy ship. “Up fifty!” came the cry. “Adjust left zero zero five degrees!”
“On target!”
“Fire!”
Three more shells screeched away, and all must have crashed through the vulnerable stern of the Dom ship before detonating against something substantial. There was a series of flashes, and, once again, another huge Dom ship of the line vanished amid an expanding cloud of smoke and a blizzard of splinters and larger fragments.
“New target! Range…”
Matt quit listening. Campeti was good-maybe as good as Greg Garrett. He concentrated on conning his ship through the tumult ahead. Mertz was closing on Tindal now, starboard guns flaili
ng the port bow of the liner Tindal embraced, smoke streaming from her perforated stack in half a dozen places. The liner spat back, chopping further at Mertz ’s mangled rigging, but most of the shot flew aft of the target and battered a wallowing, dismasted hulk beyond her. Soon, Mertz would add her boarders to Tindal ’s and they’d have a chance to turn the tables on the Doms. For just a moment, Matt glanced at Tabasco, standing out of the way beside the chart table. The ’Cat steward had brought his pistol belt to the bridge, with his Academy sword hanging from it. No, he decided. Much as he’d have liked to, joining a boarding action wasn’t Walker ’s job. Not his job. Not this time. For now, he had to be content with destroying as many Dom ships as he could, and a stationary Walker was bound to attract too much fire-and far too many holes. No one aboard his ship had anything to prove, and Walker was much safer and far more effective underway. His decision was punctuated by a series of hammer blows pounding the port flank of his ship, and he rushed to the bridgewing, followed by Bradford. A ship of the line had suddenly turned and presented them with a full broadside.
“Get that son of a bitch!” he roared up at Campeti.
“Surface action port!” Campeti bellowed in reply. “Guns two and four engage that battlewagon at zero three five in local control! Range, uh… eight hundred! Commence firing! Portside twenty-fives assist!” He paused for only an instant. “Guns one and three maintain fire control connection! Target bearing one eight five! Range two thousand! Match pointers!”
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