Firestorm d-6

by Taylor Anderson

  “I mean to escort Salaama-Na as far as an island we call ‘Wake,’” he said. “I can’t remember what your charts call it. We need another comm relay. After that, I may have another short stop to make, but ultimately”-he looked fondly at Chack-“ Colonel -Bosun’s Mate Chack-Sab-At deserves to go home-and on to fight the Grik. I’m… sure he’s been sorely missed.”

  Matt didn’t notice, but Sandra saw Selass sink down slightly in her seat. She pursed her lips, sad for her friend and her hopeless love. She cut her eyes at Matt. “And what’s this ‘short stop’?” she asked, suspecting he meant to visit the Great South Island “on the way” home. It was a trip Courtney had long been pressing. There were many potential allies there-and just as many wonders for Mr. Bradford to explore. Or maybe he wanted to chase that Japanese destroyer.

  “Just a minute,” Matt asked her, looking at Shinya. “Do you mean you won’t take the job if Chack’s not with you?”

  Shinya blinked. “What? Oh! Of course I’ll take the job! I thought that went without saying! I just wanted Chack along, that’s all.” He paused. “I should take as many Imperial troops as possible, of course, and I’d like to recruit some of these ‘colonial scouts.’ I do think it’s time a few Imperial troops went west, however,” he prompted. “Our Lemurian allies have given much on this front.”

  Gerald nodded gravely. “Your point is well taken, General. Our ‘Army’ is growing quickly, but it’s still small. Do you think a regiment would suffice for now?”

  “Yeah, under the circumstances,” Matt said. “Our friends know you’re stretched. A regiment now, with a promise of more, would be sufficient and appreciated. Our losses in Ceylon have been heavy.”

  “Have you anyone in mind to command this force, Colonel Chack?” the Governor-Emperor asked.

  “Ah, yes, sir. Majors Blair and Jindal.”

  Gerald laughed, looking at the two men in question. “Blast it, you can’t have them both! I’ve just relieved half the officer corps of the entire Imperial Marines! Useless bureaucrats! Hmm. Major Blair’s already faced these Grik of yours, but Major Jindal could use the experience, and perhaps your tutelage? I shall consider it.”

  “What ‘little trip’? ” Sandra insisted again.

  Matt took a deep breath and looked at her. He’d been hoping for a better, private time, but those were likely to be rare in the few days he planned to tarry in Scapa Flow. He rubbed his forehead and glanced around the table at the people there, all friends, most practically family in a sense. “Well, I thought a little vacation might be in order, just a few days. I know this place called Respite Island. Good people, beautiful weather, lots of secluded places you can actually swim…”

  “What kind of vacation, Captain Reddy?” Sandra sternly pressed, and Matt looked around again, almost helplessly this time. He saw the grinning faces and knew he was blushing. He was in hell. “Oh, well. .. I don’t know. The… honeymoon kind, I guess,” he finally mumbled.

  Sandra was struck speechless. Not as much by the implication of what he’d said, but by seeing Captain Matthew Reddy, honored hero, fearless warrior, afflicted with the timidity of a schoolboy. “Taking something for granted, aren’t you?” she finally managed, and immediately cursed herself. What kind of dope am I?

  “No, he ain’t, Miss Lieutenant-Minister Tucker, with all due respect!” boomed a voice nearby. She spun in her seat and saw Dennis Silva leaning on one of the porch columns, a mug of beer in one hand, the bent barrel of the Doom Whomper in the other. It was all he’d managed to salvage of his precious weapon from the shattered remains of the wheelwright’s shop, and he’d moped around with the thing ever sice, waving it like a bloody shirt or using it to menace Dom prisoners. Now he was back to form. Lawrence peered out from behind him, crest rising in a kind of cringe. The amused tension around the table broke and erupted into laughter.

  “Not about you, anyway,” Silva added. “There’s one small book-keepin’ chore to settle first, though. Since I ain’t yet been ree-leeved o’ watchin out for you an’ the Munchkin princess”-he glared at the child-“who says I’m stuck pertectin’ her for life -dooty permittin’. I’m still sorta yer guardians, so to speak. The way I figger it, Skipper’s either gotta let me off the hook or ask my blessin’!”

  “Ask my blessin’!” Petey demanded insistently, and Gray had had enough.

  “Silva! Ain’t you got any decency or respect? Even a sliver? You’re the most outrageous, immoral, degenerate…!”

  “Don’t forget ‘debauched’!” Courtney added gleefully.

  “Yeah, that too. And… other stuff! Can’t you even let the Skipper and his dame have a tender, private moment without stickin’ yourself in it, damn you?”

  Silva gestured around, grinning. “Ain’t exactly private, Bosun, and I don’t think he wanted it to be, deep down. He thinks he needs our permission to be happy, you big rotten-hearted toad!”

  Gray blinked and looked at Matt, who sat staring into Sandra’s eyes.

  Finally, Matt looked around one last time and stood in the sudden, total silence. “You’re right, Silva,” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “You’re right,” he repeated more normally. “Even now, I think my crew deserves a say. Partly because if I marry her, it’s not as if she can accompany us on extended cruises anymore, and her fine advice and counsel have been invaluable in the past.” He looked down at Sandra. “That’s what bugs me most, I think. As this war drags on, I’ll probably have even less time with you if we…” He stopped, seeing her feelings reflected in her damp eyes. “Chief Gunner’s Mate Silva,” he enunciated clearly. “Request permission to marry Lieutenant Sandra Tucker!”

  Amazingly, Silva’s almost-taunting grin re-formed itself into as gentle a smile as his battered face could manage. “Permission granted, Skipper.”

  “Very well. You stand relieved.”

  Silva dropped his mug and snapped a sharp salute. “Aye, aye, sir. I stand relieved.”

  Sandra stood beside Matt as the applause began, and feet stamped the porch beneath the table. “Are you sure this is what you want?” she asked.

  “Aren’t you?”

  She hugged him. “Of course,” she whispered into his chest.

  “Good, because this is the only thing I’ve really wanted, for myself, for the better part of the last two years. Sure I’m sure.”

  EPILOGUE

  The “Sea of Jaapan”

  Mizuki Maru plodded slowly north by east into the cold sea and biting wind northwest of what should have been Kyushu. “Lord” Commander Sato Okada grimly scanned the sea ahead with the binoculars they’d found on the ship during her refit at Maa-ni-la. Occasionally, his gaze swept east, despite his efforts tovent it, and he viewed the unfamiliar coastline of his homeland with a sense of loss and betrayal. He’d come to grips with the “way things were” and accomplished great things, he thought, in the “shogunate” he’d established. There’d been few illusions of democracy, aside from the willingness of other communities to join, but he thought he’d set up a system whereby the peoples there might be ruled in a benevolent way. With that rule came responsibilities, however, and now he was hunting members of his own race for what they’d done to the Lemurians who’d adopted him-and placed themselves under his protection. Whatever national commonality he’d once shared with the people, the animals, who’d perpetrated the massacre near Yokohama, was more than eclipsed by the atrocity they’d committed-and his duty to destroy them.

  “It is still a beautiful land,” he whispered to the other Japanese officer beside him, another member of Amagi ’s crew rescued from the Grik at Singapore. There were six such men aboard Mizuki Maru, in addition to the cook/deserter who’d brought them the tale of horror. The cook was still just a cook. He had no desire to leave his galley at all. There he could surround himself with the familiar and perhaps pretend nothing had really changed. The largely Lemurian crew that came to him for meals had to be a constant reminder that such was not the case, but he persevered, sometim
es teetering on the brink of madness, but there was always hot food for the furry crew who, despite their coats, were unaccustomed to the damp cold that blew at them out of the north. It was winter, Okada knew, but only those Lemurians from his new home understood. His colony had been one of the northernmost outposts of the People known, and only the hardiest tried to subsist there. Some had even seen snow; a rare novelty. The “Navy” ’Cats that augmented his crew had no experience with snow, or even cold for that matter, and the farther north they steamed, the more miserable they were.

  “Anything on the radio yet, Lieutenant Hiro?” Okada asked the officer beside him.

  Hiro shook his head. “Nothing yet, Lord.”

  Mizuki Maru had been broadcasting terrified entreaties for someone, anyone to answer them, to tell them where to go, to assure them they weren’t alone in a terrible world gone mad. Okada could only guess that the destroyer Hidoiame and her tanker had come this way, and he had nothing tangible on which to base that guess. He assumed his… enemy would scout the Japanese coastline, ensuring there were no others of their kind, before venturing afield into the greater unknown. He wasn’t sure he’d have done that himself, after a couple of brief explorations, but it was his only hope for a quick encounter. The trail had gone quite cold, and if Hidoiame wasn’t near Japan, he had no idea where next to look. So the radio calls constantly dangled the bait of another ship, swept as they were to this world, but a “supply ship” with plenty of food and ammunition aboard, and no idea where to take it. Okada was confident that if his enemy could hear him, he wouldn’t be able to resist for long.

  “What will we do, Lord?” Hiro asked.

  Okada grunted. “We’ll continue north through the Sea of Japan until we hear word, or we’re stopped by ice. If there’s no ice, we’ll steam down the Pacific side of the home islands…” He paused. “And keep looking. We’ll put in at Yokohama, visit our people, and replenish supplies, then proceed southeast of the Fil-pin Lands, wailing our heads off all the while. I still believe we should concentrate on areas Hidoiame might hope are populated by others such as us-castaways from our world to this. After Japan itself, the more populous regions of Imperial expansion would seem most likely. We shall loop south around New Guinea and head back up along the Malay Barrier toward Baalkpan and Aryaal. Perhaps we’ll hear word of a sighting if she’s gone into those seas.” He looked at Hiro. “If we don’t find her by then, we must assume she either went east into New Britain territory, or has… somehow communicated with that madman, Kurokawa, and turned west toward the Grik.”

  “What if she encounters the Allied fleets?”

  “Actually, I’m confident they will destroy her, if one of their”-he grimaced-“ our capital ships is present. It will be costly, but I only truly fear her torpedoes.”

  “Indeed,” Hiro said nervously.

  The speaking tube from the radio shack whistled, and Hiro stepped over and spoke into it. “Bridge. Lieutenant Hiro speaking.”

  “The murderers have taken the lure, my lord,” came the tinny voice. “They want to talk to our captain.”

  Okada leaned toward the tube. “I’m on my way.”

  “We are the Junyo Maru, my lord,” the radioman reminded Okada when he entered the compartment. Junyo Maru was a ship Hidioame would be familiar with, and she was a dead ringer for their own.

  “Of course.” He took the microphone. “This is Captain Okada of the Junyo Maru. I cannot express my relief at finding countrymen here in this… wrongful place!”

  “I am Commander Kurita of the Imperial Japanese ship Hidoiame!” a terse voice crackled in response. “Now that we have established communications, please cease screaming your head off for all the world to hear! We are not alone in this place, and there may be enemies listening! We have monitored what sound like coded American transmissions, so send no more open radio messages. Any further communications will be via coded CW, understood?”

  “Understood,” Sato replied. Grinning, his radioman patted the codebook the fools had left on the ship when they abandoned it, obviously expecting the ship to sink, or if it didn’t, no one would ever make use of it. Evidently, they were more concerned about that now. “I’ll put my radioman back on,” Sato said. “Please instruct him on what frequency you wish to use, and tell us where to find you!”

  Okada handed the transmitter back to the radioman and stood back while the man finished the conversation. A few minutes later, the code-groups began coming in. A Lemurian striker versed in Japanese started transcribing what the radioman wrote, the codebook in one hand, a pencil in the other.

  “They did not give their exact position, Lord,” the ’Cat announced a short while later. “They merely ordered us to steam for Sapporo. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes,” Okada said grimly, picturing the geography in his mind. “I would wager that is where they have made their base, for now. Ishikari-Wan should make a good, deep anchorage, even here. I suspect it will be cold, my friends, but they made no mention of ice. That is a relief.”

  “How long until we reach that place?” the Lemurian striker asked.

  “A week, at this pace. Perhaps a bit longer. We’ll have them anxious to see us! In the meantime, we will prepare.”

  A Cave Somewhere in the Holy Dominion

  Lieutenant Fred Reynolds tried to open his eyes, but they felt glued shut by some thick, rough, gooey substance. He couldn’t wipe them with his hands because they were roughly bound behind his back, so he blinked repeatedly, trying to clear them. It did little good. He could see a little, not that much was visible in the damp gloom of his underground “cell.” Torches guttered meagerly in a passage beyond the iron bars that isolated his little alcove from the cavern beyond, and occasionally, he heard what sounded like distant, echoing voices.

  He was beyond miserable; naked, cold, covered with filth and reeking mud. He couldn’t remember when he’d last been given water. Every part of his body hurt, but his shoulder was still the worst. He suspected his collarbone had broken when the “Nancy” flipped in the surf, and his heel might be broken too. In any event, he’d almost drowned before Kari dragged him out of the sea and up on the beach. She’s been injured too, he remembered, pretty badly, and he didn’t know how she’d managed. All that had happened to them after the crash had become little more than a vague blur.

  Neither of them had been in any condition to resist when the Doms came for them. Fred was pretty sure he’d been unconscious when they arrived. It didn’t matter. He’d lost his pistol in the crash, and didn’t have the strength to fight them. All he remembered was being carried, slung on a pole like a dead hog, for what might have been minutes or days. At some point, he’d been carried aboard a ship in the darkness, and the next he knew, he was here. He’d probably been drugged. He knew they’d taken Kari too, but he hadn’t seen her since. He prayed she was alive.

  The voices in the passageway became louder, and he expected a visitor at last. Maybe I should pray Kari’s not alive, he reconsidered, remembering what he knew of the Doms. New torches flickered, adding their light to the darkness, and forms appeared, moving toward him. A lock clanked, and a barred door swung open with a damp, rusty groan.

  “Fetch water, fools,” said a mild voice that contrasted with the perfunctory order. “This man is ill, hurt! He cannot be allowed to die before given a chance to atone! To be purified!”

  “At once, Holiness!” came a nervous reply in thickly accented English, and a dark form retreated.

  Fred was grateful he’d get water at last, but chilled by the other comments. Torches were placed in sockets and others lit. There was plenty of light now, but his sight remained blurred.

  “Poor creature,” the soft voice whispered again, and a red-robed figure bent and gently wiped the goo from Fred’s eyes with a soft cloth. “Better?”

  Fred nodded, seeing a face at last. It was dark skinned, pleasantly solicitous, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and chin whiskers.

  “What is your name
?”

  Fred cleared his throat. “Frederick Reynolds. Lieutenant, junior grade, serial number…”

  “Your given name is sufficient for God to know you, my son,” the man consoled. “I am Don Hernan de Devino Dicha, Blood Cardinal to His Supreme Holiness, the Messiah of Mexico and Emperor of the World by the Grace of God. It pleases him-and myself-to offer you sanctuary from the wicked, damned heretics whose orders placed you in contention with God Himself. But God is merciful, my son! You may yet achieve grace in His eyes, and your soul and life be saved!”

  Don Hernan! He’d heard that name. Oh, Jesus, help mean!

  “You know of me!” the Blood Cardinal exclaimed. “Most excellent, indeed!” He shrugged. “It was a simple thing. I merely took passage on the very ship the heretics sent to ‘warn’ their illegitimate colonies of the hostilities they initiated. Her captain is a child of God.”

  So, that explains a lot. There was no point in arguing who’d started the war. “Where’s Kari?” Fred managed. “What have you done with her?”

  Don Hernan blinked. “You mean the animal captured with you? It has a name?”

  “Of course she has a name! And she’s no animal! Where is she?”

  Don Hernan shook his head. “Such a tone! I forget sometimes that the unenlightened are known to form deep attachments to their pets.” He peered intently at Fred. “It lives, for now. I’ve considered putting it on display, as a curiosity. That might still be done if it dies, of course. The creature is a menace, dangerous to handle, even with its sharp nails and teeth removed! I should have it killed and stuffed.”

  “No!”

  For the first time, Don Hernan’s voice rose. “You shout? You demand? Of me? ” Visibly, he calmed himself. “The creature’s fate, as is your own, is up to you. You must be purified, of course, but your suffering thus far has doubtless earned you some measure of grace.” Don Hernan made a sour face. “I confess the sin of arrogance. I badly underestimated your ‘Captain Reddy’ and his iron steamer. Our efforts to bend the small dragons to our will have been lengthy and tedious. Their potential facility is great-as you and your marvelous flying machine have proven-but a decade of preparation and great expense was lost in a single day to Captain Reddy and his stratagems. Not to mention his remarkably swift and unexpectedly powerful ship.” He paused. “The ship we can counter,” he said confidently, “but continuing the small dragon project seems of dubious value-except of course for having brought us you. They do appear effective against your flying machines!” He hesitated and smiled. “Which brings us to you!”