River of Bones

by Taylor Anderson

  One boat was smashed by a huge ball from the looming Grik dreadnaught, but the rest managed to pack in almost two hundred bloody, dazed, utterly exhausted Raiders, Marines, and sailors. And despite Chack’s orders, more than a few were carried—including an unconscious Abel Cook, strapped to a stretcher. All the while, Itaa’s remaining fifty-pounders hammered at the approaching juggernauts, most of her shot bouncing off their armor. They had actually slowed in the meantime, clearly for the very purpose of minimizing the damage Itaa could do, and yet stayed in their line of battle like they had all the time in the world. That left only the first to continue Itaa’s systematic demolition. The ones behind started hammering Arracca (pointlessly, considering the volcano of flames she’d become), and occasionally ranged past her, their heavy roundshot striking within the perimeter Silva and his friends had established. Most of this fire was ineffective, but occasional screams were heard.

  Five launches reached the shore, spilling their precious cargo. The others had towed Arracca’s huge rafts away from the blistering heat of the burning Home, and finally every element of the first opposed “invasion” of Grik Africa that was likely to make it ashore had done so. Yet behind it was a scatter of burning and smoldering wrecks that, even in death, were still molested by mighty, unassailable leviathans. Around those great ships, swarms of galleys churned downriver, apparently unconcerned by their feeble presence. Why a tithe of them didn’t simply land and overwhelm them from the river, no one knew. Perhaps the burning Arracca kept them away or they were so single-mindedly focused on their long-delayed attack across the strait that they didn’t care about the spent survivors. Perhaps they’d even been ordered to ignore them. The beachhead was no real threat, after all. It couldn’t expand and it couldn’t retreat. Sooner or later, sufficient forces would gather to rub it out. That couldn’t take much longer. Beyond the breastworks on the gently rolling, grassy plain to the southwest, a rapidly growing army of Grik warriors massed.

  A handful of Salissa-marked Fleashooters suddenly arrived to challenge the Jap-Grik planes—Arracca’s last ones had been destroyed or driven away—but they were inexplicably few. Salissa’s pilots were better-trained and more experienced dogfighters, however, and showed up just as the Jap-Grik fighters had started focusing on the landing force. Their strafing runs were disrupted, and another wild aerial melee flared above them. But where were the rest of Salissa’s and Madraas’s Air Wings? Where were their Nancys, loaded with firebombs?

  With experienced junior officers and NCOs now helping sort things out and others racing up to deliver a blizzard of reports regarding who’d been sent where and what they’d salvaged, Chack, Silva, Horn, Galay, and Lawrence first followed Gutfeld to where the wounded were being gathered, close enough to feel the heat of the burning carrier but protected by it from fire of the Grik BBs. It was a heartbreaking scene of misery, with torn bodies laid out under the sun on the hard red soil. Corps-’Cats and SBAs were doing their best, but they were overwhelmed. Silva was relieved to see Pam’s exhausted, harried form moving quickly, triaging patients and instructing that some be taken to where canvas awnings were going up under Commodore Tassanna’s direction. That was a relief as well, both that Tassanna had survived and that she was keeping herself from focusing on her loss.

  “Hey, sailor,” came a slurred, cheerful voice, and Silva and Chack knelt beside Risa. “Hiya, doll,” Silva said when he saw her, but a huge lump in his throat threatened to choke him. Chack’s sister, and one of Silva’s very best friends, didn’t look as bad as many others, and the analgesic seep was doing its work, but Lawrence’s description of her wound hadn’t come close to preparing Dennis for what he saw. A Grik musket ball had hit her square on the shin, under her knee, and shredded flesh was the only thing holding her leg. Somehow, Silva couldn’t imagine the vivacious, fun-filled Risa he’d always known stumping around on one leg, and it scared him to think what she might do when the seep wore off. Clearly, Chack felt the same as he caressed her furry face with his hand, tears dropping unashamed.

  “I’ll be baack up on the line with you guys, soon as I’m paatched up here,” Risa promised, eyes blurry.

  “Of course you will,” Chack agreed.

  “Sure,” Silva said, his own eye starting to fill. Impulsively, he leaned down and kissed the blood-matted fur on her forehead.

  “Cut thaat out, dummy,” Risa chastised him. “Paam’s around here somewhere. She sees that, she’ll beat you up an’ cut off my booze.”

  “Yeah. Too bad,” Silva agreed, as he and Chack stood. “Me an’ Chackie’ll check back in a spell.” Leaving Gutfeld with an SBA to change his dressing, the rest of them trudged silently up past the corpse-choked Grik trench toward where the gun line had been. It was still there, only all thirteen serviceable guns had been turned to face outward and the new trench and breastworks—incorporating the wrecked guns as well—were built around them.

  “There isn’t much ammo for the captured pieces,” Horn reported. “Enough for maybe six shots apiece, split between case and solid shot. We got a handful of old six-pounders out of Arracca before the fire spread too far; some of her people went back aboard, heaved them over to the cargo-bay doors, and dropped them in the water with lines secured to their lunettes. They brought the lines and a couple of limber chests ashore, and we dragged the guns in like big fish. One broke a couple of spokes, but it should be okay. Even better, we got off a whole six-gun battery of the new mountain howitzers, and about three hundred rounds of canister for them.” The howitzers were very small guns, too light to fire solid twelve-pounder solid shot, but they excelled at close range with canister and shell. They’d originally been loaded aboard Arracca for the Raiders and 3rd Marines to use if the opportunity presented itself, and each had been disassembled and packed in three easily managed crates. “There were more in the ship, but all in flooded compartments,” Horn apologized.

  “You did well to get whaat you could,” Chack told him. Just then, a large Grik case shot burst overhead, raining fragments past their defenses. “We should spread out,” Chack told them grimly. “Gunny Horn, please see how things progress on the left side of our line. Major Gaa-lay? Inspect the right. Laaw-rence, Chief Sil-vaa, with me.” More shells exploded, sending troops scurrying for the new trench. The Grik dreadnaughts had apparently worked their way down to antipersonnel munitions at last, or just got tired of wasting solid iron. Even so, the bombardment only came from the second and third BBs. The first was still pulverizing Itaa with its monstrous forward 400-pounders. A pair of Jap-Grik planes broke loose from their attackers and swooped over, churning the hard red dirt with their two wing-mounted machine guns.

  “Goddammit!” Silva shouted, shaking his fist at them. “Where’s the rest of our planes?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out,” Chack replied, arrowing toward a hastily dug-out CP. It was basically a hole with crate timbers and soil piled on top, but he recognized the antenna aerial. Ducking inside the cramped space, Chack, Dennis, and Lawrence coughed dust filtering down from yet another nearby blast, and Silva recognized the same comm-’Cat who’d been in his launch. It wasn’t easy, since his gray-and-brown-striped fur had already turned red with the dust.

  “Comm is all jaammed up!” the ’Cat cried, knowing exactly what Chack was about to ask. “Baad snaafu! Almost all our planes was loaded for ground an’ ship strikes comin’ in, an’ Jaap-Grik planes jumped on ’em. Tore the Naancys up baad. Most pursuiters had no aammo for their guns, overloaded with bombs, but tried to keep Jaaps off Naancys. Big mess. Naancys got told to drop their bombs on the galleys already downriver an’ get the hell baack to the caar-iers. Fleashooters got called baack to re-aarm with gun aammo to escort the Naancys baack here. They hurryin’!”

  Chack took a long, calming breath, and Silva rolled his eye. “Goddamn Kuro-kawwy! Still a pain in the ass even after he’s dead!” He pointed outside. “Those are his planes, his pilots, y’know,” he told
Chack.

  “Of course,” Chack agreed, tail swishing. “Clearly, some survived to flee Zaan-zi-bar. The question is, Did some of his torpedo bombers also escape?”

  “That’s bound to be somethin’ else Keje an’ Captain Reddy is worried about,” Silva said. “They’ll have to keep some pursuit ships back to protect the carriers, dammit!”

  “Hvat a ’ess,” Lawrence agreed gloomily.

  “There’s nothing for it,” Chack said, tone brisk. “First Fleet is coming and will aassist us as quickly as it caan. Of that I haave no doubt.”

  “Me either,” Silva agreed. “I just hope they don’t get here in the nick of time to bury our dead asses.”

  “Thaat will not haappen,” Chack snapped, wincing at the pain in his side. He pressed harder against the bandage and looked at the comm-’Cat. “Aall the same, please specific-aally, offish-aally inform Cap-i-taan Reddy and Ahd-mi-raal Keje-Fris-Ar from me that Saanta Caatalina, Arracca, and Ris are all destroyed. Itaa’s . . . beached wreck now defends us against a growing number of Grik baattle-ships. Maany of the enemy’s undaamaged cruisers now head downstream with their gaalleys. Either we are out of range of their rockets or they haave not been released to engage us, but we’re under air attack and bom-baardment, and eight to ten thousand Grik haave thus far gaathered beyond our works. More aarrive continuously.

  “Opposing that, we have perhaaps five thousand survivors from all our ships and combaat units combined, only two-thirds of which are aarmed and caan be considered effective. Less than haaf my Raiders and Maa-rines still live, and I doubt haaf the survivors are fit to fight. So,” he continued, his voice growing harsher—even Chack had his limits, it seemed—“in the face of these vaarious difficulties, this beachhead is currently held by perhaaps eight hundred combaat troops and—hopefully—as maany as twenty-five hundred sailors. We haave maany wounded, little food, almost no drinking water, no mortars, and few caannon. Worse, we only sal-vaaged enough small aarms aammunition for about an hour of sustained firing. Not thaat we’ll laast an hour against the force opposing us without aar-tillery or air support, if it chooses to make a determined aassault.” He paused, thinking, then shook his head. “Send thaat.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “Goddamn it!” Matt Reddy bellowed, surprising everyone in Mahan’s pilothouse. Captain Reddy almost never swore, and the Lemurian bridge crew recognized the phrase as a second-tier curse, reserved (for those who didn’t sling it about habitually and meaninglessly) for extremely intense frustration. That didn’t mean they thought his outburst was unjustified. Their mission had started well, with Mahan and Ellie making good time, but then, about an hour and a half before dawn, their very long and difficult morning had begun.

  First, they’d run into the advance trickle of Grik galleys making their way downriver to the sea. Mahan was in the lead and literally ran into one, shearing off all its portside oars and swamping it immediately. But unlike Arracca or the captured Grik cruisers, Mahan and Ellie couldn’t just bash their way through countless galleys, regardless of how fragile the smaller vessels were, without accumulating damage to their thin-skinned bows and vulnerable propellers. Reluctantly, considering that First Fleet’s arrival was probably still unsuspected by the Grik—no enemy airships had ventured near, and spies would take time to carry word to their leaders—Matt was forced to order Mahan and Ellie to “light ’em up” with their searchlights. This might shorten the distance scouts had to carry reports, but hopefully the Grik would think the leading edge of their swarm had only run into a supply run for Santa Catalina by the captured Grik cruisers. They had searchlights of their own, provided by Kurokawa. The light helped them avoid collisions and kill Grik with their machine guns, but Matt was surprised and concerned by how quickly the galleys thickened on the river—and shot back at them with muskets.

  The powerful smoothbore muskets, probably about .60 caliber, like the ones the Alliance first had, fired a soft lead ball that tended to spatter even against the relatively thin steel of the DDs. They left dents, to be sure, but couldn’t do any real damage to the ships. The same couldn’t be said for the wooden boats on the davits, bridge windows, or searchlights. Matt was even beginning to worry about the torpedoes in their lightweight tubes. Worse, exposed personnel manning the machine guns (and starting to use a lot of ammo they might badly need later) had only the mattresses hooked to stanchions for protection, and Mahan’s and Ellie’s dead and wounded were starting to pile up. Matt finally ordered his two ships to simply avoid as many galleys as they could. What chance did they stand against the tightly packed mass of First Fleet behind them?

  Then, just as the first hint of gray began to color the eastern sky and a luminous, flashing orange glow could be perceived to the west, everything else went to hell at once. They’d long been aware of Santa Catalina’s urgent situation and suspected Tassanna’s disobedience to Keje’s order that she not, under any circumstances, put Arracca in similar danger. They’d known nothing of her participation in the battle until after she’d been rammed and Tassanna radioed her desperate plan to beach the ship and assault the south bank so she’d have someplace to land TF Bottle Cap’s survivors. Matt had still been confident the situation could be salvaged by the massive airstrike already sortied from Big Sal and Madraas, but then the flight—entirely configured for ground attack—got bounced by perhaps a dozen Jap-Grik fighters. Before they knew what hit them, twenty-two Nancys (nearly a third of the complement of both carriers) and four Fleashooters were swatted from the sky. The marauders fled, probably to refuel and rearm.

  Keje had to recall the strike. The pursuit ships had to rearm with ammunition for their guns, and the unprotected Nancys couldn’t just swan around until they returned. Nor could they land on the water with bombs under their wings. And not all the Fleashooters could rejoin the strike when it was ready again. If the Grik had fighters, they might have some of Kurokawa’s torpedo bombers too. Some of the pursuit ships would have to protect the fleet. Keje did order all the planes to drop their bombs on a concentrating gaggle of galleys and several cruisers Matt couldn’t yet see, but that was small consolation set against the mounting desperation of Chack’s and Tassanna’s radio pleas.

  Finally, and what had just inspired Matt’s intemperate outburst, not only did a cluster of Grik cruisers finally appear, blasting away, in one of the narrowest charted stretches of the river, but Mahan’s second salvo from her numbers one and two 4″-50s apparently got hits that were just a bit too lucky—and fully consistent with all the bad luck they’d endured so far. The target belched steam from a hit amidships, but the worst damage must’ve been to its helm or steering. Abruptly, it veered away to starboard, slamming into the rocky, steep-sided shore. There was just enough light for Matt to see Grik fall onto the cruiser through his binoculars, plummeting down from the crushed warren of cave dwellings Russ Chappelle first reported. It would’ve been bad enough if the enemy ship settled there, but its crew immediately reversed its engines, grinding off the rocks even as it started to fill. Maybe it was instinct or maybe it was deliberate—no one would ever know—but all Matt could do, even as galleys surged past his ship and the next cruiser opened up with its heavy bow gun, was watch the first one sink, rumbling and booming and spewing steam from splitting boilers. It finally came to rest, beam on, bulwarks barely visible, effectively blocking the river. Debris, coal dust, and bodies from the wreck were already swirling past them as huge crocodiles—and other things—nibbled at the latter.

  “Goddamn it,” Matt said again, lower, clenching his fist. There was no glass left in the pilothouse windows, but musket balls whanged off the battle shutters. A pair of machine guns on the port side opened up on the galleys, and a big splash sprouted mere yards off the port bow as the next cruiser fired again. Less than half a mile away, those guns could gut Mahan.

  “All stop,” Matt ordered. “All astern, one third. Back us away. Signal Ellie. Have Pack Rat resume firing the main b
attery at the following cruisers.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Paddy Rosen said. With enough light to see, they didn’t need the pilot anymore, and Paddy was probably the best helmsman in the fleet. Certainly the most experienced with Walker—or Mahan. He’d been conning the ship with the wheel in his hands, but Tiaa-Baari had the deck. Neither complained when Matt essentially ignored that. Tiaa blinked misery, as if this whole situation were somehow her fault. Matt sensed her mood and offered a small, fleeting smile. “It’s just war, Commander. Crazy stuff happens. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “We caan still get paast,” Tiaa urged hopefully, gauging the gap between the wreck and the high cliff on the north side of the river. Paddy looked dubious, and Matt wasn’t so sure either. And there were still those other cruisers. This was the absolute worst place this could’ve happened, and he realized, belatedly, he should’ve expected it for that reason alone.

  “Aacting torpedo officer Fino-Saal asks why don’t we blast the wreck with torpedoes?” the talker passed on.

  Matt considered that but shook his head, doubting torpedoes alone would do the trick. Maybe we could use depth charges too? he thought. Won’t work, he decided. Even if the torpedoes shatter the wreck, we’ll have to creep across it to drop the charges—all the while a sitting duck for following cruisers. “No,” he murmured regretfully. “Not a bad idea, but we’ll have no way of knowing if it worked until we get past—or get snagged. We need something quick, but it has to work. Maybe more than once,” he added gloomily.

  “Arracca is aground,” the talker reported. “The laand-een party haas taken the baattery, but they’re gettin’ haammered by Jaap-Grik planes. There’s a big enemy force aassembling to attaack. . . .” The ’Cat talker blinked rapidly in horror. “An’ three Grik BBs is shellin’ ’em now!”