River of Bones

by Taylor Anderson

  It would all come down to 1st Fleet in the end. Big Sal was short of planes as well, but the scuttlebutt had fast transports (razeed steam-powered Grik Indiamen prizes, for the most part) piling up crated planes for her at Mahe, awaiting her arrival. And Madras had a brand-new, full-strength air wing. On top of that, they were coming as fast as they could, Russ knew. But would they arrive in time?

  “Shiit!” spat the Lemurian at the EOT, ducking as another rocket exploded right over the battered fo’c’sle. Most of the deadly fragments continued on, missing the ship, but not all. A sound like hail on a tin roof clattered back through the broken windows, just as another cluster of bombs marched across the river—and over USS Naga—off the port bow. A blinding orange flash lit the fo’c’sle of the already dismasted ship, and columns of dull, phosphorescent spume collapsed down on her.

  “Shit!” Monk repeated, as the dual-purpose batteries hammered the sky again. A staggered pattern of bright pops lit the night. One was very lucky, or its crew was very good. A blue spurt of flame roiled the sky, quickly reddening and spreading across the aft section of a Grik zeppelin. It was impossible to say if it was the same one that mauled Naga, but it really didn’t matter. Flames roared, consuming the airship faster and faster as it began to fall.

  “Naga’s sig-naallin’ wit her Morse lamp!” cried the lookout on the port bridgewing. “She’s . . .” The ’Cat hesitated, watching, mentally jotting down the message. “She’s sinkin’,” he finally said. “That last one done her in, startin’ butts in the bow. Her skipper figgers she’s got maybe fifteen minutes before risin’ waater drowns her fires.” He hesitated again. “She’s gonna try to get her in thaat gaap at the sout’ side o’ the river an’ sink her there—if she caan do it before her bow sinks too deep. But Naga gots no boats! They’s all tore up, like ours!” Between the heavy fighting a few days before and the bombardment of missile fragments, there wasn’t a sound small boat left in the squadron.

  “Maybe they can swim for it,” Monk suggested lamely. “There’s not as many hungry fish in the river.”

  Russ looked at him like he was nuts. “Not as many, but plenty, including freshwater sharks and more ordinary crocodiles than anyplace has a right to. Besides, how many ’Cats have you ever met who can swim?”

  “Time!” came a shout, relayed from lead-slinging ’Cats on the fo’c’sle. They’d been shaken but not injured by the last rocket.

  Russ turned to the talker even as he began to spin the wheel, making Santy Cat’s customary turn as the dark shore loomed. “Felts has her radio back up, right?”

  “Ay, sur.”

  “Have her send a report to the commodore, then escort Naga to the gap she wants to plug.” Russ knew which one her skipper meant, and it was a good idea. “She’ll then stand by and take her people off—but be damn careful! Felts will not risk grounding herself. If Naga loses power before she’s in position, Felts’ll take her people off immediately and burn her. Drop her anchor first, though,” he added. “We don’t need her drifting downstream, lighting us up.” He paused. “Even if she makes it in, but it looks chancy getting to her crew, Felts will break off and we’ll think of something else.” Russ had no idea what that might be. Santy Cat sure couldn’t help. She drew twice as much water as her consorts.

  “Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan.”

  In the event, to everyone’s relief, not only did the grounding go off as well as hoped, but the bombing soon ended. More zeppelins fell as they retreated, chased by Arracca’s fighters, and without Santy Cat’s gunflashes to help their aim, even the rockets dwindled to a stop. This seemed to confirm two things: the Grik definitely had observers, but they didn’t have unlimited rockets. Finally, the only light came from the waning moon, nearing the horizon, and the fires the bombing had rekindled amid the wreckage clotting the river bend.

  At some point during all this, Kathy McCoy had appeared on the bridge. When Russ noted her presence at last, he was shocked by how she looked. Her normally somewhat severe countenance was haggard and sharp with fatigue, and her dungarees looked like she’d been wallowing in blood. “Will you have Naga’s people brought over here?” she asked huskily.

  “Uh, only the wounded,” Russ replied with a guilty twinge, realizing he was about to add to her burden. “How are we doing in that regard?”

  “That’s what I came to report,” Kathy admitted. “We’ve got twenty-nine dead, so far, and over a hundred wounded.”

  Russ blinked in alarm, but Kathy held up a tired hand. In the dim light of the pilothouse, Russ realized her hands were the only parts of her not dark with spattered blood and grime. Of course she kept them clean. “I’m counting what you might call minor wounds,” she told him. “Stuff that would get guys sent to the rear in the old days. But our people here”—she nodded at the ’Cats around them—“can still fight through. Only about sixty are so bad they can’t do something, and half of those’ll probably die no matter what I do.” She exhaled in exasperation. “I wish we could get the badly wounded fit to move, sent out to Arracca. . . .”

  “I already thought of that,” Russ told her, “and Arracca’s supposed to be sending boats to get them, maybe before dawn. If nothing pops—and by that I mean if the enemy sticks to the current playbook—we might even steam downriver a ways to meet them, if we can get back on station before daylight.”

  “That would help. Any word when we can expect . . . ?” she tapered off, but Russ knew what she was going to ask.

  “Not really,” he hedged. He’d received some word, encrypted and very convoluted, making it unclear what kind of boats were coming. They’d been stung so badly by their open communications, they may have gone too far in the opposite extreme. And even if he thought he’d interpreted the latest correctly, from Captain Reddy, filtered by Pete Alden and then Safir Maraan, he wasn’t sure whether to be encouraged or not. Some help, “a spicy appetizer,” was apparently on the way, but the “whole enchilada,” which he expected meant all of 1st Fleet and the entire expeditionary force, was still “waiting to go in the oven.” That clearly meant it was still prepping on Mahe Island.

  “Cap-i-taan,” said the signal-’Cat on the bridgewing, “Felts is headed back. Naga went down where it would do the most good, they say, an’ they got most’a her people off.” He hesitated. “Her skipper an’ a couple others wound up in the water, stayin’ for laast an’ spikin’ guns, in case the liz-aards fish ’em out. They . . . didn’t make it.”

  “Damn!” Russ swore. He hadn’t known Naga’s new skipper well, but she’d clearly been a fine, brave officer. He didn’t voice the hope everyone shared: that she and her courageous companions had simply drowned.

  The signal-’Cat’s large Lemurian eyes strayed to Kathy. “There’s about twenny wounded. Some baad.”

  “Have Felts come alongside to starboard,” Russ told the signal-’Cat. After Santa Catalina’s turn, that was the most protected side, if more rockets came. “All stop, drop the anchor. Stand by to take wounded aboard. Details to prepare hoists and rig cargo nets,” Russ added to the talker and a messenger.

  Kathy sighed. “I better go,” she said, turning, but then paused. “For what it’s worth, Captain Chappelle, I think you’ve done okay with such a crummy hand. What’s more, even the worst hurt people I talk to think the same.” She shrugged and started to leave, almost bumping into a larger form entering at the same time. “Move it, fatso,” she snapped. “I got work to do.”

  Dean Laney stepped into the pilothouse, even filthier than Kathy. His darker dungarees didn’t show grease as badly as blood, but his khaki shirt wasn’t khaki anymore, and his hat was a crushed and shapeless gray mass with a bent and crooked brim. Red-rimmed eyes set in a grunge-streaked face followed the woman out. When he turned to Chappelle, his usual bitter expression had been replaced with honest exhaustion . . . and maybe a trace of hurt?

  “Laney,” Russ acknowledged neutrally. He hadn’t seen the
engineer in days, but even Monk told him he seemed like a changed man. Russ wondered which Laney this was.

  “Skipper,” Laney replied. Even his rough voice sounded spent.

  “How’s our baby?” Russ asked, stressing that they were all counting on Santy Cat’s engine.

  “Toilin’ away in a hot, stinkin’ swamp—like the rest of us down there. Pumps’re keepin’ up, but can’t get ahead. We plugged most of the popped rivets with bolts, where we could, or pounded Letts’s gasket material in the sloshers. Wooden pegs, timbers to shore up warped plates . . .” He shrugged. “The usual. I’d’a used gum if I had any. I’m gonna rig more hoses to pumps in other parts of the ship—which we might have to run through watertight doors,” he warned. “We’re gettin’ shorthanded, though. Guys get hurt just doin’ that stuff, whether we’re gettin’ holes shot in us or not. Gimme some o’ those Marines that’re just standin’ around.”

  Russ nodded. There were still almost six hundred Marines packed in the ship, taking a disproportionate percentage of the casualties. And except for the ones augmenting the gun’s crews, they hadn’t had much chance to fight back. He toyed with the notion of steaming in close enough to the blockage to let them loft mortar bombs over the rocky point. Maybe he could get planes to spot for them and they could make life hell for the Grik rocketeers for a change. But they had a finite number of mortar bombs and might need them desperately before this was done. In the meantime, the Marines he sent to engineering would be safer from rocket fragments than in the more lightly protected parts of the ship. The question was, could they put up with Laney’s shit—or would they murder him if he reverted to form? “Use as many as you need,” Russ told him. “But remember, they’re Marines, and we’re liable to be counting on them to save our asses if things get close.”

  Laney waved it away. “I know that. I just need hands. It doesn’t matter if they know what to do. And I’ll . . . bear their limitations in mind.”

  Russ blinked and shook his head slightly. A changed Laney indeed. “Is that all?”

  Laney hesitated, took a long breath, and let it out slow. “I’ve quit bitchin’. I promised. Doesn’t mean I really understand what we’re doin’ here. I mean, I get what you told me—told everybody—an’ it even makes sense. But, hell, we’ve slapped the Grik all the way back to their own yard and we’re a long damn way from Baalkpan. From home. Why not back off and get stronger before the final showdown?”

  Russ seemed to contemplate that. ’Cats on the bridge were pretending not to listen, but he knew they were. He thought he had a fairly good idea what their opinions were, but some might share Laney’s. According to reports, a lot of people back home were starting to. Instead of answering the question directly, Russ walked over and sat on his chair. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Laney was taken aback. “Well . . . Santy Cat’s here, an’ I’m in her,” he stated, as if that should be obvious to anyone. He realized that wasn’t what Russ meant, however, and continued hesitantly. “I’m here for my baby,” he glanced in the direction Kathy went, “and maybe a few other things.” He frowned, frustrated. “But it’s all gonna die. I’m gonna die, an’ I gotta wonder why. Tell me why. You know I’m no coward and I ain’t afraid to fight, but I want a reason. ’Specially if it’s gonna kill me and everything I care about.” He was practically pleading now. “Give me a good reason.”

  “Damn, Laney. You need to lighten up,” Russ quipped, earning a few accidental snorts from the Lemurian bridge watch. He sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.” He spread his hands. “Yeah, we could back off, lick our wounds, and build up. We might even hold the Grik back a couple years while we did it—but we’d never win in the end. We’d have to fight our way all the way back to this exact spot we’ve earned with so much blood. Not only would that cost more lives—for the same water and ground we already paid for—but the Grik would have that same time to outbreed the absolute hell out of us. They’ve probably got a million warriors, all told. Probably more.” He pointed west. “I bet half are around the other side of that bend right now, but the rest are scattered around the empire, or down south, facing the Republic. We’ll never get a chance like this again. Given a couple years, we could build more ships and guns and raise a few more divisions. Hell, we might triple what we have. But we flat can’t make soldiers or sailors as fast as they can, and they’ll have five or six million better armed and trained troops by then. It’s that simple.

  “So, at this point in time, probably for the only possible time ever, we’ve got ’em hammered back and split up. We know they’ve kicked their Griklet factory in high gear, and we’re facing the first full-blown crop of real soldiers they’ve ever made. Halik had a few—the prototypes in India—but these are the real deal, and they’re just gonna keep making more. That means we gotta finish ’em before they can. And we will, if this old tub with your baby in it keeps the river blocked long enough for Captain Reddy to get here with everything we’ve got.”

  “I don’t . . .” Laney closed his tired eyes. “How can you be so damn sure?”

  Russ smiled. “Because we’re talking about Captain Reddy—and Pete Alden, Safir Maraan, Keje, Rolak—our friends. Sure, they’ve all made mistakes before, but they’ve always come through in the end. Do you really doubt they’ll come here as fast as they can?”

  USS Felts was alongside now, and wounded ’Cats were rising, secured in rectangular wicker baskets. These were lowered to the deck as carefully as possible in the dark before Kathy quickly inspected them, determining the extent of their injuries, and sent them to her operating room beneath the armored casemate for the 5.5″ guns. Assistants and sick-berth attendants (SBAs) came and went.

  Laney had to shake his head. “No. I guess not. I just hope ‘as fast as they can’ is fast enough—for us.”

  Russ took his own long breath. “Me too,” he agreed. “And maybe it won’t be,” he admitted. “But if it comes to that, it won’t be because you and me, or this old ship, didn’t do our part, will it? I asked what you’re doing here and you gave a straight answer. Pretty much what I expected. But I’m here for our friends—humans and ’Cats—to give them a chance for a life and world they can raise their kids in without the near certainty the goddamn lizards’ll wind up on top, and all those kids’ll just end up in a Grik cookpot someday.” He shook his head. “That’s my cause, as simple as that.” He considered. “And the new Union, the United Homes, represents all our friends. It’s the country I’m fighting for.”

  He scratched his whiskers again. “You know, it’s weird. I’m not even sure what kind of country Mister Letts cooked up. I mean, I hear it’s based on the same US Constitution we all swore to defend, but I haven’t been home since they shook it out, so I don’t really know. At the same time, though, Baalkpan—the Union—feels more like home than home ever did. Does that make sense? I think that’s because, when you boil it down, most of us’re fighting for the same things people in our situation have always fought for: each other. And if you think about it, there aren’t many real civilians in this war, goofin’ off and sitting it out. Most’ve all been on the front lines themselves, at one time or another, out here, or at Aryaal or Baalkpan—who knows where? And since we’ve fought with ’em, side by side with Captain Reddy and the rest, even ’Cats in the shipyards—or doing anything else you can think of back home in Baalkpan—still count as ‘each other,’ far as I’m concerned. Way more than a lot of folks I never knew and never fought beside back in the States during our ‘old’ war.” He shook his head, frustrated, unsure he’d gotten through, but Laney seemed to be thinking about it.

  “I can see that, sorta,” he said. “I ain’t ever really thought about it like that.” His expression hardened. “Just so long as I ain’t riskin’ my ass for some half-baked opium dream that this beat-up tub is stickin’ it out so we can ‘end all wars,’ or make this whole screwy world ‘safe for democracy.’” He paused and squinted
, rubbing his brow. “’Cause, past maybe the reasons you gave, none of that’ll mean shit to anybody when we’re all shot up an’ sinkin’ to the bottom of the river.”

  Russ actually laughed, but his response was interrupted. “Sur, Felts has transferred all her wounded an’ is ready to shove off.”

  “Very well.” Russ stood and walked back to the wheel, waiting a moment while the DD’s battered shape eased away and was engulfed in gloom. The moon was almost gone, and it would get very dark when the horizon swallowed it completely. “Hoist the anchor, ahead slow. Leadsmen, report.” He looked back at Laney. “I have to agree with you. And we won’t be through with war even if we win. There’s still the Doms and maybe the League and God knows who else. There’ll always be war. Those idiots in the League of Nations who cooked up the notion that war is unnatural, or there’s some way you can put a stop to it forever, were nuts. I’ll settle for licking our current enemies and staying strong enough to fend off any more we run into, at least long enough to figure out whether we have to fight them too.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Senior First of One Hundred Jash stepped around the complicated arrangement of ropes and blocks securing the great gun on Slasher’s bow and stared eastward, where the tumultuous night beyond the bend was growing quiet at last. The roaring, sparkling rockets had finally stopped, their muffled, flashing thumps now silent. And the strange, bright battle in the sky had drifted away in various directions. All that had left him vaguely uneasy about what combat with the prey, the enemy, would be like, since—except for the rapid hammer of high-angle cannon his race had yet to master—the fighting in the air had been almost noiseless from where he was. Judging by the number of airships that fell burning to the ground, it had been extremely one-sided as well. He had no way to tell if the rockets or airship bombs had any effect other than making a satisfying racket.