River of Bones

by Taylor Anderson

  “That’s just dandy,” Matt growled. Mahan had backed sufficiently far that the cruisers were only barely visible beyond a gentle bend. The river was widening again astern, and Matt wondered if the Grik might try to force the passage themselves. At least here he could sink them more safely—but he’d have to wait to do that, and who knew how many more were on their way? He stood and paced to the chart laid out on the table, covered with broken glass. “The river starts widening back out a few miles past the wreck. We can’t just sit here. Get Commander Brister on the horn and see if he has any ideas.”

  Perry Brister brought Ellie alongside Mahan, and he and Matt conferred for some time via their speaking trumpets. Perry’s first instinct was the same as Fino-Saal’s, but he agreed it would be risky, and whoever chanced it—he volunteered Ellie—might add their own wreck to the Grik cruiser. They could ask for air strikes, but both suspected the only short-term result would be further delay to the air support Chack and Tassanna so desperately needed. Paddy advocated dumping depth charges from their motor launches, but exploring that suggestion revealed several weaknesses. First, how would they get the boats (full of explosives) in the water and past the teeming galleys full of musket-armed troops—and through the fire of the waiting Grik cruisers? Second, with the charges set so shallow, how would the boats get clear without destroying themselves? Finally, after everything else, how could they possibly know if they’d successfully removed the obstacle? This line of speculation was rendered moot when inspections revealed the launches in question were too shot-up to float for long, in any event.

  Late morning turned to early afternoon, and galleys still swept past the stationary DDs, giving them as wide a berth as they could. The Grik had seen that Mahan and Ellie, conserving ammo, fired only on those that came too close. Another sortie had finally flown upriver, pounding the Grik opposite Chack’s position and ineffectually attacking the BBs giving their friends so much grief. But aside from killing a few hundred Grik and possibly stalling their assault, all the air attacks seemed to accomplish was to disperse their infantry a little more than usual—they’d already dug more trenches—and temporarily raise the bombardment by forcing the BBs to maneuver. But thousands more infantry were seen hurrying to reinforce the enemy onshore, and the BBs seemed in no hurry to follow their galley swarm. They’d long since silenced Itaa’s last guns, and it appeared as if slaughtering Chack’s command was their only purpose for now. At least the Jap-Grik fighters had quit the scene. The P1s had accounted for six or seven of them, and the rest only occasionally returned in pairs when there were gaps in the air cover. That meant their airfield had to be very close, but there was no time to look for it now.

  By late afternoon, with the sun dropping into their eyes, Matt and Perry had settled on a desperate plan. They’d secure Ellie’s anchor chain to Mahan’s stern, and the two ships would rush forward together, laying as much fire on the enemy cruisers as they could. Mahan would drop both her anchors near the stern of the wreck, attempting to hook it, and together the two DDs would try to pull it around. It was a reckless scheme, and Matt embraced all the disastrous scenarios mounting in his mind so he might prepare for them. In too many cases, however, there was absolutely nothing they could do if things went wrong. With both ships’ engines at full astern, the chain linking Ellie to Mahan might part. If that happened, Mahan’s younger sister would surge backward unexpectedly, probably slamming her rudder hard over and smashing stern-first into the cliff. Or Mahan’s anchors could tear loose, or her own chains break, sending both DDs into a full-speed, colliding catastrophe. Worse, it might not work at all, and both ships would be stuck pulling their guts out, relatively motionless, while the cruisers smashed them apart. Matt was reluctant to ask Mahan’s heartbreakingly willing crew to run such a risk, but he simply couldn’t think of anything else. They were running out of time, and the longer they waited, the more would be stacking up beyond the wreck, waiting for them. It was now or never.

  “The detail is ready aaft to take in Ellie’s chain,” Tiaa told him.

  “What about the torch detail?” Matt asked. Tabby had eight ’Cats belowdecks forward, standing by to race up on the fo’c’sle with a torch and long hoses from the oxygen and acetylene bottles positioned below. Their job, probably under heavy fire (thus the large party all armed with Blitzers), was to cut the chains if they had to. Matt tried to forbid Tabby from leading the party herself, but she reminded him she was, hands down, the best torch in the ship.

  “I feel more and more helpless,” he murmured, low enough even Tiaa probably didn’t hear over the blowers. “Nobody minds me anymore. First Tassanna, now Tabby. The Grik damn sure don’t do what they’re supposed to! What’s next?”

  His question had been rhetorical black humor, but he got his answer almost immediately.

  “Comm-aander Tiaa! Cap-i-taan Reddy!” cried the talker, his voice incredulous, eyelids a blinking blur. “Crow’s-nest lookout reports . . .” He paused to get himself under control. “Salissa an’ . . . it looks like Tara-kaan Islaand an’ Sular beyond, is all steamin’ upriver behind us!”

  “What?” Matt demanded, racing out on the bridgewing to see for himself. There he stood, oblivious to the resurging musket fire and resultant clatter of .30 cals above and behind, just staring at the massive shapes churning upriver. They were quite close. Understandably, the crow’s-nest lookout—stuck up there in the heat all day, unable to expose himself to descend—had grown less attentive to events behind them. And there’d been no word by radio.

  “Sur! Sur!” Tiaa urgently cried, unwilling to actually grab him. “Please come inside! You gonna get shot!”

  Matt spun and strode directly to the talker by the TBS transceiver on the aft bulkhead of the pilothouse. Her eyes went wide at the sight of his furious expression. “Get Admiral Keje on the horn right now. Admiral Keje himself.”

  “Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan!”

  “Whaat you think they’re doin’ here?” Tiaa asked.

  “That’s what I mean to find out. Keje probably got bored,” Matt added bitterly. “Or General Alden whipped him into it, hoping to find another place to land and march to Chack’s relief. Who knows?”

  Much quicker than Matt expected, implying Keje was waiting for the call, the talker handed him the headset. “The ahd-mi-raal,” she said.

  Matt crammed the earpiece up under his helmet and spoke into the microphone. “I sure hope you have a good reason for this,” he almost snarled. “You were supposed to keep Big Sal safe! Those were your orders, and moving her here against them is gross insubordination.” He didn’t add that Keje was supposed to keep his wife safe too, and try as he might, he couldn’t banish that thought.

  “I do keep her safe!” Keje quickly countered, voice almost pleading. “Not only do the naarrow confines of the river at this point better protect Salissa from possible enemy torpedo bombers, I did not tell you I was coming specificaally so those planes, which we know have raa-dio, would not discover it—and report it to the Grik.” Matt seriously doubted that was the main reason Keje told him nothing, but it actually was a good one. “Most of my planes are now conducting an attaack upriver. With the loss of so maany of Arracca’s planes, Tassanna’s aar-strip is more than sufficient to accommodate them. Paar-ticularly after we landed the maa-jority of our ground crews and augmented the fuel and ord-naance stores there.” He took a breath. “We really should name that aar-strip, something heroic, profound . . .”

  “You’re starting to ramble, Keje,” Matt warned.

  “Yes,” Keje replied, somewhat stiffly, “and I haave no reason to.” He sighed. “You are my brother, my comm-aander in chief, and I did not disobey you lightly. But your advaance has been staalled all day while our people, our friends, continue to suffer, and their peril only mounts. With the full agreement of Gener-aal Aalden and long before you detailed the—forgive me—wildly irresponsible solution you are about to attempt, I realized thaat b
lind obedience under these circum-staances was contraary to my greater duty, for the reasons I already stated, and more.” The deep breath he took became a sigh. “This ship—my Home and state—may now be an aar-craft caarr-ier, but above that, as you so often remind me, it is first and foremost a waar-ship of the United Homes and Graand Alliaance. Perhaaps Salissa is not fit for the baattle-line, as you also repeatedly insist, but she remains better than your tiny DDs at other things besides simply carrying aar-craft. Do not let your concern for her blind you to thaat and force you to make a risky, possibly futile, costly, and utterly unnecessary attempt—when I bring you a better way.”

  Matt blinked, taken aback, but when he spoke again, his voice had lost its edge.

  “Okay. I admit I’m stumped. What’ve you got?”

  “Simply this: I ask that you move Mahaan and Ellie aside and let Salissa paass.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Hear me,” Keje insisted. “Though you caannot, Salissa can raam paast the wreckage of the cruiser as if it were not there.”

  “Whoa!” Matt objected. “Talk about risky. Those cruisers are pretty stout; Arracca was built a lot like Salissa, and one of ’em basically sank her by ramming. You stick that fat tub and we’re done.”

  “Never fear,” Keje replied, maybe a little huffy over Matt’s description of his ship. “You forget—after the Baattle of Baalkpan, Salissa was baadly daamaged and raather more comprehensively reconstructed than Arracca was later modified. There is a difference. As haave we all, I’ve closely studied Grik cruisers. They are stout, as you say, but Salissa can certainly crush one from the side. The engines may scraatch her bottom as she crumples them,” he conceded, “but she caan get past!”

  Matt looked around, realizing everyone in Mahan’s pilothouse was watching him. The machine guns outside had started firing again, and more musket balls whanged off the ship. The Grik were getting stirred up at the sight of such massive reinforcements, and the thunder of Salissa’s big muzzle-loading cannon, blasting great swaths of canister, had probably been shredding galleys all the way upriver. None could hear Keje’s end of the conversation, particularly over the increasing roar of battle, but they must’ve caught the gist from what Matt said. They’d been ready to try his stunt, no matter what, but were clearly hopeful there was another way.

  “Ok,” Matt finally agreed. “We’ll give it a try. But even if you grind the wreck to paste, there’s at least two more cruisers past her, probably more by now. You’ll have to stand against ’em alone until most of the wreckage you churn up washes downstream.” Matt wasn’t too worried about that. Salissa’s flight deck might get damaged, but even without armor she was still tougher than the cruisers. And though her armament had been reduced to make more room for planes (and keep Keje out of the battle line, Matt mused ironically), she still mounted twenty fifty-pounder smoothbores and retained two of Amagi’s 5.5″ secondaries. Six of the new DP 4″-50s had been installed as well, replacing a pair of 4.7″s, and she still had four twin-mount 25 mms and lots of .30-caliber machine guns.

  “Have you thought,” Matt asked soberly, “that even if this works, you might have to do it again—and again? At least until the river widens out. Even then it might be a slow grind, fighting our way all the way.” He took a long breath and closed his eyes, then added brutally, “It might be morning before we get there, and nobody left to save.”

  “I haave thought of thaat, my brother,” Keje answered, equally grim, “and aac-tually expect it to be the case. But you expected to fight all the way from the staart. Only this blockage delayed you.” His tinny sigh came to Matt through the earpiece over the louder rumble of guns. “And if our friends are indeed lost to us when we arrive, their souls waatching from above will know we tried—and they will still see the vengeance we wreak on their behaaf.”

  “Very well,” Matt agreed. “Let’s get on with it and pray to God—the Maker—that it works. We’ve wasted enough time.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “Why have you not attacked?” First General Esshk demanded of Second General Ign, even as he slid down into a covered section of the new, deeper trench Ign’s troops had been frantically digging all day. Ign glanced up, not recognizing Esshk at first, silhouetted against the setting sun. And even his voice reinforced the initial confusion. Gone was the deep, commanding self-assurance that always permeated it. In its place was a somewhat higher-pitched tone, bordering on apprehensive desperation.

  “First General Esshk!” Ign finally replied. “I thought you were in Giorsh!” Ign had, in fact, believed Giorsh was one of the three greatships of battle bombarding the enemy position. The flagship of the fleet was no longer painted white to distinguish it from the rest. While useful for signaling purposes, so other shipmasters always knew where to look for guidance, it also tended to single out the flagship for disproportionate attention from the enemy.

  “Giorsh remains beyond the nakkle leg,” Esshk replied. “I never even made it aboard. First came your unexpectedly precipitous request for reinforcements here”—Esshk gestured around—“which I immediately acted upon.” That was certainly true. Despite the damaging air attacks that began late in the morning, Ign had amassed more than twenty thousand well-armed New Army troops and almost as many cannon as his grand battery had possessed. The difficulty in bringing up the latter had been profound, however. Arduous as it was to move the big guns in the first place, the enemy flying machines had focused heavily on them, disabling many and slaughtering their carefully trained crews. “And yet to be honest, Second General Ign, your situation here very quickly lost its place at the forefront of my concern.”

  Ign’s orange, slit-pupiled eyes widened and his crest fluttered. “Indeed? May I ask what else has transpired?” And what brought you back here, he didn’t say aloud.

  “You may, since you will have to deal with most of it directly. There have been . . . developments,” Esshk conceded. “First to reach me, after yours, were rather tortuously delivered reports of events in the south, on the Ungee River. Airships were only able to bring them partway, not only because of the threat in our skies”—Esshk’s own eyes grew wider—“but because the Other Hunters staging their impudent ‘distraction’ at Soala have revealed dangerous flying machines of their own! Messengers were forced to carry their reports some distance before being flown as close to here as they dared. Only then could they proceed on foot once more. Crack the bones of that ridiculous Kurokawa for never sharing his rapid means of communications with us!” he spat in frustration, teeth gnashing emphasis. Regaining control, he continued. “In any event, this very morning the Other Hunters launched a massive, well-coordinated assault across the Ungee. Early indications are that their attack could succeed.”

  Ign was thunderstruck. He’d never been as complacent as Esshk regarding the Other Hunters, but he’d never imagined they could cross the Ungee in the face of the force arrayed there either. Then again, he considered, look what has happened here. This entire day had been overwhelmed by the impossible.

  “In addition,” Esshk continued relentlessly, “reports from Kurokawa’s Japhs who joined our hunt in the air have confirmed that all the enemy’s First Fleet, which we believed incapable of consolidating itself so quickly, has indeed arrived off our shore and is currently forcing its way upriver here. A . . . large percentage of the Final Swarm making its way to the sea in galleys has already been destroyed. We have fed them directly into the enemy’s jaws, morsel by morsel,” he added bitterly. “For what good it will do, I already sent orders to stop the galleys out there”—he gestured at the river, where, sure enough, most of the hundreds of galleys in view were now just milling about—“and dispatched messengers east, running along the riverbanks, to signal all galleys past our view to return at once, or ground their ships and make their way back on foot. The cruisers must stand and oppose the enemy.”

  If Ign was thunderstruck before, now he felt as if the lightnin
g had burned him to the bone—as did Jash, apparently. He’d scrambled up, probably to make a report, and heard everything. He’d never even known the Other Hunters existed, and his gaping jaws betrayed surprise about a great many things.

  “Finally,” Esshk said with a measure of affected disdain, “I also received word directly from the Palace of Vanished Gods that the Celestial Mother herself has expressed ‘concern’ over these various reports. Reports to her,” he emphasized. “Which means either she has developed a network of informants on her own—quite astonishing—or the Chooser, left perhaps overlong as her sole guardian, has been indiscreet. Possibly for purposes of his own,” Esshk added darkly. “I must return to the palace to discover the extent of our troubles there.” He glared at Ign. “You, however, must force yourself to imagine not only that the enemy on the river might manage to fight his way here, but that the Other Hunters have succeeded in crossing the Ungee and destroyed the force at Soala. Based on that assumption, we must reconsider all our plans accordingly. So I ask again: Why have you not attacked?”

  Ign was baffled by Esshk’s apparently random train of thought. “I have been waiting. . . .” He paused. “The enemy flying machines have retired for the moment, doubtless to refuel and rearm. But their attacks are more frequent, with greater power.” He nodded understanding. “More evidence that the rest of their fleet does indeed approach. At the same time, the trenches constructed by Ker-noll Jash and other troops you sent have protected those inside them amazingly well. We are safe here and so are the additional forces you send me, once they arrive. Some are somewhat shaken by their experience in the open and need time to recover,” he confessed. “But, ultimately, we serve our purpose. The enemy cannot attack us; they are trapped.”

  “But they will,” Esshk insisted, “when—if—their reinforcements come. And the enemy before you has provided a perfect place for them to land. You must attack at once before their flying machines return. If you get close enough, quickly enough, the flying machines cannot strike you without killing their own, and you have more than enough troops to swarm them under, depriving them of the claw hold they have gained.” He paused. “If you cannot . . .”