Firestorm

by Anderson, Taylor

Garrett raised his glasses and stared at the fin cutting through the swells. “Jeez,” he said, “that’s not a shark! It’s a B-17 tail sticking out of the water!”

  “What’s a ‘bee-seven-teen’?” Saaran asked.

  “Never mind,” Greg replied flatly. He raised his voice. “Helm, make your course three, zero, zero. Mr. Saaran, please adjust the sails for speed as you see fit.” He turned and looked northeast. The Grik ships were in view now, their column in disarray. He knew they could see Donaghey, and probably Tolson, but wasn’t sure about Revenge. He wondered how they’d react. He wondered if they knew how to react. Returning to port had never seemed an option for them in the past. Just the same, he’d always tried to bushwhack them far enough out that the Allied ships could chase them down.

  “Making my course tree, seero, seero,” the helmsman replied.

  “Very well,” said Greg, looking back at the “shark.” It wasn’t following them. “Wow,” he murmured. There were some absolutely humongous sharks around here. According to reports, there were big ones around the New Britain Isles too, where Captain Reddy and Walker were. Greg honestly didn’t know whether they were a genuine danger to a ship like Donaghey or not. They didn’t ram—at least they never had—and the few times they’d “tasted” his ship, they’d left teeth the size of hubcaps stuck in her copper-clad wooden hull. He doubted one of the damn things could sink Donaghey, unless it did ram, but he always worried about the ship’s rudder. A shark like the one he’d just seen could bite it clean off. He shook his head and returned his attention to the Grik.

  “They look like a gaggle of geese on a pond,” he said. The column was falling completely apart, beginning to bunch together as if for mutual support. The Grik ships were actually acting less like geese and more like a herd of goats that just saw a bear. Greg grinned at the analogy. He’d seen that once, back home in Tennessee, and it was a funny memory. He hated goats.

  “Revenge is coming up,” cried the lookout. “There blue smoke beyond the enemy.”

  For another half hour they approached the Grik convoy, and soon the three Allied frigates had closed every route but the one back to port. It struck Garrett that if the Grik had just maintained a cohesive column and continued determinedly on, some might have broken past at least one blocking ship, but these weren’t Grik warships, filled to the gunwales with fierce warriors, and evidently that made a difference. The convoy commander was probably some bright, civilian Hij—they knew such things existed now—who thought he could think his way out of this mess. His hesitation and indecision were making it worse—for him.

  “Sound general quarters,” Garrett said, then in the tradition of the sailing Navy added, “Clear for action.” A quartet of Lemurian younglings, wearing the blue kilts and white leather armor of Marines, scampered to the waist, and their drums thundered in unison while a bosun’s mate rapidly struck the hollow bronze gong mounted near the ship’s wheel. The resulting cacophonous combination couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than the GQ alarm. Gun’s crews ran to their massive weapons, tails high in excitement, and twenty-four eighteen-pounders were run out. ’Cats rigged netting overhead to protect against falling debris, and gunners threaded lengths of slow-match through holes in their linstocks and waited for one of the midshipmen trotting the length of the gun deck to arrive and light the slow-burning match. Marines scaled the ratlines to the tops with muskets slung diagonally across their backs, and others stood near the center of the ship, prepared to move to whichever side they were directed.

  The exercise of preparing the ship for battle went off without a hitch, just as it did in the daily drills. Greg was pleased with the professionalism of his almost entirely Lemurian crew, and he knew they were proud of it too. Donaghey had a gallant name and history, and she’d already racked up more than her share of battle honors in this war. She prepared each time as if she’d face an enemy at least as powerful as she was—she’d been the first ship surprised by Grik cannons, after all—and the extra attention to detail had served her well many times. Garrett didn’t know if any of the ships Donaghey approached was armed; in fact, he rather doubted it. They weren’t acting as if there were warriors aboard, but he’d never let appearances lull him again. He raised his binoculars.

  Weird. The eight Grik ships, so similar in appearance to the ancient British East Indiamen their lines were stolen from centuries before, appeared to have heaved to, almost as if they were surrendering and waiting to be taken! “Get a load of this,” he said, handing his glasses to Saraan.

  “I don’t understand,” said the ’Cat, blinking confusion. “Most un-Grik-like. They’ve never behaved like this before.”

  Chief Gunner’s Mate Wendel “Smitty” Smith joined them. “The main battery’s manned and ready for action in all respects,” he declared.

  Garrett looked at the short, prematurely balding man, once just a green ordnance striker on Walker. “Very well, Smitty. We’ll probably make a turn to port as we get close, so prepare for ‘surface action, starboard.’ ” He paused. “Why don’t you take a look and tell me what you think?”

  Smitty nodded and raised his own precious binoculars. There were only two pairs on the entire ship, and the ‘Cat lookouts didn’t really need them. Russ had brought a crate of the things from his salvage mission to Tjilatjap, but most were scarfed up by HQ. “Looks weird,” Smitty confirmed. Donaghey was within six thousand yards of the enemy now, closing fast. “Can’t tell if they’re armed yet, but they’re just sittin’ there. Say, there’s Revenge, steamin’ up on ’em from the north. She’s a pretty thing!”

  The distance to the targets continued to dwindle as the morning wore on and evolved into a clear, beautiful day. The heat wasn’t as oppressive as it was within the Malay Barrier, and the steady wind kept the humidity at bay. At Smitty’s estimate of fifteen hundred yards, something caught Greg’s eye. “What the hell? Hey, look at that. There’s lizard birds swooping all over those ships, like you see around a fishing fleet—or a big school of fish. They’re swarming like flies!”

  “You’re right,” Saaran agreed. “What could be the cause? Perhaps they carry a cargo that attracts the fliers—or fearing capture, they throw it over the side.”

  “Fearing capture . . .” Greg murmured. “This whole setup makes less sense all the time. Of course, who knows how ‘civilian’ Grik sea captains act. I guess we’ve probably run across a few before . . . but they never acted this weird. Hmm.” He motioned a ’Cat midshipman near. “Tell Clancy to send this to Revenge and Tolson: ‘Watch out for something screwy.‘”

  “Ay, ay, sur! Anything else?”

  Garrett shook his head. “No . . . just . . . something screwy—and be sure they know to report it if they see anything that fits that description!”

  “What do we do?” Smitty asked. The range was down to nine hundred yards.

  Tolson was closing from the west and Revenge was about the same distance to the north of the enemy, steaming into a steady wind on her starboard bow. Greg smiled with appreciation. The new Revenge was fast, and only one of the fore and aft rigged feluccas could have matched her course. It was a near-textbook interception, but the Grik weren’t acting “textbook” at all.

  “Do we sink ’em or what?” Smitty persisted.

  “I don’t know,” Greg ground out. He shook his head. “How do you know if Grik are trying to surrender?” The very idea of such a thing would’ve seemed impossible not long ago—until an aged “civilian” Grik called “Hij Geerki” surrendered to General Pete Alden and Lord General Rolak during the “Raan-goon” operation. Ever since, the creepy old Grik had been a font of unrestrained information. It was as if, having surrendered, he’d literally, unreservedly, switched sides. Rolak owned him now, body and soul. Greg’s skin crawled. Personally, he’d prefer to open fire and sink every Grik ship in view as soon as in range, but he had to think of the intelligence value! They had Grik “captives” of the “Uul,” or “warrior-worker class,” that understood the Lemuria
n tongue—back in Baalkpan now—but they couldn’t speak anything anyone understood. Their “Hij” leaders couldn’t speak anything comprehensible either, but many could read and write English, considered the “scientific tongue.” All Grik sea captains were “Hij,” and the prospect of capturing eight more sources of information was a powerful lure.

  “Well, let’s leave it to them,” Smitty said. “We can sink some, and if the others want to surrender, let them figure out how.”

  Saaran shook his head and his ears twitched negation, even while his tail swished with amusement. “That will just frighten any out of surrendering—if that’s their intent.”

  “Whoa!” said Garrett, looking through his glasses. “They’re really starting to bunch up now, all eight. Shortening sail—and those red pennant-flag things are coming down! They’re lowering their flags! They really are surrendering . . . Looks like they’re taking in all sail and lashing their ships together too. Who the devil told them to do that?”

  Smitty snapped his fingers. “The Japs! There’s bound to be Japs on Ceylon. They must’ve told them what to do! Might even be Japs on those ships!”

  “When did you ever see a Jap surrender?” Greg demanded, but realized it must be true. They already knew few of the surviving Japanese cared much for their Grik “allies.” He shook his head. “Holy smokes. Pass the word for everyone to hold their fire. Tolson and Donaghey will take a closer look. Signal Mr. Barry to keep Revenge back, but close enough to cover us.” The range was seven hundred yards.

  They began spotting gri-kakka, or “pleezy-sores” at about three hundred yards. The big “lizard fish” were deadly dangerous to small boats, and even feluccas. Ships sometimes sank after striking a large one near the surface. “Look at them all,” someone murmured quietly. No one had ever seen such a concentration before, and the closer they moved to the Grik ships, the denser they got—almost as dense as schools of flasher-fish sometimes got—and there were swarms of flashies too! The surface of the sea began to froth as giant fins lanced through the sedately cruising gri-kakka, and bright blood swirled in the water. Gri-kakka reared up, jaws agape, with sharks as large as they were fastened to their bodies, wrenching their heads back and forth. The gri-kakka started turning on the sharks as well.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Garrett muttered. “It’s like some kind of ‘war of the sea monsters’! Better shorten sail, and prepare to heave to,” he told Saaran.

  A midshipman slammed to a stop beside him. “Sur, Mr. Clancy say Mr. Chaa-pelle on Tolson don’t like this.” The young ’Cat blinked irony. “He say something ‘fishy.’ ”

  Smitty was looking through his binoculars. “Skipper! There’s Griks over there, throwing junk in the water. Looks like . . . dead stuff! Chunks of meat or something!” He turned to Garrett with wide eyes. “The bastards are chumming all these devils up!”

  “Prepare to commence firing! Helm, make your course three, six, zero! We’re getting out of here before something knocks a hole in us, but we’ll blast ’em as we pass! Chumming up herds of dangerous sea monsters is not a peaceful, surrendering act!” He looked at the midshipman. “Tell Tolson we’ll steer out of this feeding frenzy, then paste them!”

  The midshipman saluted and started to turn, but then did a double take over Garrett’s shoulder. “Sur!” was all he managed. The officers spun in time to see a cavernous mouth rise from the sea a few hundred yards off the port quarter. Water cascaded down the flanks of the gray-black island of flesh, and the thing immediately surged forward, taking Gri-kakka, “sharks,” and thousands of flashies into its hundred-foot maw.

  “It’s a trap!” Saaran yelled. “They have lured forth a mountain fish!”

  “Commence firing, all guns!” bellowed Greg. “Port battery’ll concentrate on that big fish! AMF-DiC [Anti-Mountain Fish Destruction Countermeasures] will prepare to fire!”

  The great fish, seemingly oblivious of Donaghey, chomped down on its stupendous mouthful and prepared to take it down to swallow. They all knew it wouldn’t go away, however. It would be back to feed and feed until the entire smorgasbord above was consumed, or managed to flee. Revenge might get away, but Tolson and Donaghey were doomed—if they couldn’t scare the creature away. The eight Grik ships were doomed as well, and their crews had to know that. The significance of that didn’t occur to Greg just then. He looked at the Grik, just over a hundred yards off the starboard beam, hoping they didn’t have any “Grik fire” bombs. Tolson’s guns opened up, and a moment later, Donaghey shuddered with the rolling broadside that thundered out from both sides.

  Smoke gushed, choking Greg and Saaran on the quarterdeck until it passed. Smitty was gone, directing his guns. There was a momentous writhing splash to port, accompanied by a deep, bass, bone-tingling, moaning roar. The splash launched a wave large enough to heave the ship on her beam ends, and they saw the mighty flukes of the titanic monster rise in the air.

  “Y guns!” came Smitty’s roar from forward, calling on the crews of the mortarlike contrivances that launched “depth charges.” They were the primary, most effective aspect of the AMF-DiC system. They weren’t necessarily meant to harm a mountain fish, but the acoustic assault they created was known to discourage the mammoth creatures. “Drop them a hundred yards off the port beam!” Smitty directed.

  Greg turned aft. Depth charges!” he cried. “Set depth for one hundred feet! Roll four!” There were several, staggered whumps; two from the fo’c’sle, and two just behind Garrett on the quarterdeck. Heavy kegs vaulted skyward, almost straight up it seemed. Shortly after, four more kegs rolled into the sea aft, from racks piercing the taffrail. It was at times like this—virtually the only times anymore—that Garrett wished his ship had engines. Certainly, he’d love to be able to flee from a mountain fish, but he wanted to get the hell away from the depth charges they’d just dropped even more. They could break Donaghey’s back if she wasn’t far enough away. Fortunately, the wind was in her favor. He stared at the great fish. You could never predict how they’d react. The bombs usually scared them away, but cannon fire—especially if it hit—sometimes caused the monsters to go amok and attack whatever shot at them.

  Oddly, the huge beast was just lying there, wallowing in the swells like a dead whale surrounded by a school of dolphins. He’d never seen that reaction before. The bombs from the Y guns splashed down about half the distance to the fish. Breathlessly, those around Garrett waited. The Y gun bombs would detonate at thirty feet—probably at about the same time the depth charges blew. Tolson had surely fired her Y guns as well, hopefully in a pattern complementing theirs. The timbers of the ship shuddered again, and the sea around the mountain fish and in Donaghey‘s wake spalled like cooked flint. With a mighty convulsion of foam and smoke, the waves contorted into an inverted cataract of spume. Despite their fear, Donaghey’s crew gave an exultant cheer as water rained down on them—along with countless flashies, pieces of flashies, and a ten-foot-long gri-kakka flipper that nearly crushed a ’Cat gunner.

  Garrett wiped the lenses of his binoculars with his shirtsleeve, then stared through them again. “Now I’ve seen everything,” he said incredulously. Despite the cannon fire and depth charges, the mountain fish hadn’t moved. It hadn’t dived or swum away, or even attacked. It hadn’t done anything. He looked at Saaran. “Say, you don’t suppose it’s dead?” He looked back at the fish. “You know, I think it’s dead! Smitty!” he yelled. “Get up here, you ball-headed Kraut! Your willy-nilly broadside found a weak spot and killed the damn thing!”

  Smitty arrived amid enthusiastic cheering, grinning ear to ear. “I just wish I knew which gun did the trick—and where it was aimed!” There was a roar of laughter and stamping feet.

  “It might have been fire from Tolson,” Saaran reminded him. “Or the combined fire of both ships. It is said, however, that the inestimable Dennis Silva once killed such a creature with a single shot from a four-inch-fifty.”

  “It was four shots!” Smitty denied. “I was there
! One shot might’a killed it, but he shot that big empty forehead hump three times first!”

  Garrett patted Smitty on the shoulder, then looked back at the gathered Grik ships, now off the starboard quarter. The broadside they’d fired into the gaggle had left it even more disarrayed. He raised his glasses. “Helm,” he called. “Mr. Saaran, we’ll come about and finish that mob. Prepare to wear ship!” The Grik were no longer flinging gobbets of meat over the side, and the swarm of feeding fish, those not killed by the depth charges, were beginning to abandon them for the mountain of bleeding meat floating nearby. Now, most of the Grik in view, furry, upright, vicious-looking crosses between an emu and a komodo, just stood there, staring sullenly. Their plan, clearly to break the blockade by destroying Garrett’s entire squadron at one act, hadn’t workedand he was suddenly stunned that the Grik had been capable of conjuring such a scheme, not to mention implementing it. Grik always seemed ready to attack with everything they had, or flee with equal abandon. To design a plan that called on them—even Hij—to cold-bloodedly, calculatingly, sacrifice themselves for others of their kind was so utterly alien to anything they’d come to expect from their foe, it was still difficult to imagine. There was no doubt they’d deliberately lured the mountain fish, hoping it would destroy all of Garrett’s ships. They had to know it would destroy them as well. Damn.

  Donaghey had come about, steering to bring her port broadside to bear on the bows of the enemy where they were linked together. Tolson was preparing to pummel the north side of the confused raft of ships. At just over one hundred yards, Garrett opened his mouth to give the command to fire. He never had a chance. With a cataclysmic eruption of fire, shattered debris, and a massive, towering mushroom of dirty white smoke, all eight Grik ships simultaneously blew themselves up.

  Greg Garrett opened his eyes to see Clancy’s fuzzy, worried face hovering near. Greg was totally disoriented, and it took him several moments to figure out where he was. He decided he must be lying on his back somewhere on the quarterdeck, but looking up, he couldn’t see the sails, yards, or the spiderweb of cordage that should have been overhead. That con- fused him even more. Clancy’s mouth was moving, but at first Greg couldn’t understand anything he said. There was only an all-encompassing, high-pitched buzz, with a kind of muffled warbling creeping in around the edges. He stared hard at Clancy and began to realize part of the warbling sound was the communications officer calling his name. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and propped himself up on his elbows.