Crusade d-2

by Тейлор Андерсон

  Alone in his palace now, except for his most fanatical followers, Rasikany difference if they had.

  Ben Mallory was up, scouting the enemy approach. He’d sent a warning a few minutes earlier that advance elements of the enemy fleet, a dozen ships, were less than fifty miles away. The rest seemed to be coming on hard not too far behind. Hundreds of ships could be seen in the distance, more spread out than before since they were no longer confined between Belitung and Borneo.

  Matt ordered Mallory to fly back in the direction of Aryaal until he was out of sight of the lizards, and then proceed toward Baalkpan. Nakja-Mur’s city would need constant reports, and Matt wanted to resume direct communications with Baalkpan. In case the Japanese were able to find their direction by radio, however, he forbade any further transmissions by the PBY except in an emergency. Once home, they could monitor Walker’s transmissions. If the enemy still didn’t know about Baalkpan, Matt didn’t want to tell them now.

  Every day they had to prepare was precious. He even toyed with the idea of broadcasting continuously from Walker while steaming away down the Lesser Sunda Islands. Then they could go silent and run up around Celebes and down to Baalkpan from the northeast. It would lengthen the enemy’s lines of supply and leave them no idea where their quarry was, but it was an awfully long way and Matt wasn’t sure he even had the fuel to do it. Besides, they’d have no way of knowing if the enemy took the bait. Better to stick with the original plan and just try to get around them undetected. That was going to be hard. Even if she left right now, Nerracca would risk discovery by the advance force. The greatest danger of that would come after dark, however, and maybe then the massive ship could avoid being seen.

  «Marines are coming aboard now, Skipper,» Lieutenant Garrett reported, «and Nerracca says she’ll be ready to shove off within the hour.»

  «Anything new from Spanky?»

  «At least another hour, maybe more. They had to pull Laney out. He was nearly unconscious. The flashies must’ve figured out something’s in the sail and they’re beating the hell out of it.»

  Matt nodded and winced. He remembered Laney’s bruises from the last time. «Very well. Have Nerracca get under way as soon as she’s able. Don’t wait for us. We’ll catch up. We can move faster than she can even with only one engine if we have to.»

  Garrett shifted uncomfortably. «We’ll risk losing the screw if it’s not bolted on tight, Skipper.»

  «I’m aware of that, Mr. Garrett. I’m sure Spanky is too. But we aren’t going to bug him anymore. If it comes down to it and we have to move before he’s ready, then we will. I’d rather risk losing the screw than the ship.»

  Dennis Silva had made some dumb choices in his life, but this one took the cake. He’d volunteered to go in the water and finish the job after Laney was hauled back aboard, but even then he was less than enthusiastic. Laney looked like they’d dragged him out of a Shanghai bar after he told a dozen Royal Marines the king was queer. He was black and blue with bruises again, and at first he could barely move. It was obvious that swimming with the flashies, even with the sail as protection, wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. There was nothing for it, though. When Laney finally opened his eyes, they settled challengingly on Silva. Not a word was spoken, but the implication was clear. The snipes had done their part. Now iried with the men’s individual ability to grow one, however, and a few were a little sparse. The razors on the ship would last only so long and he wasn’t going to force the men to shave, but he did require they keep themselves trimmed. His own determination was to remain clean-shaven as long as he possibly could and he disliked appearing with stubble. It was his little ritualistic way of showing daily defiance toward the adversity they faced.

  Sensing it was important somehow, he picked up the razor after all. His officers knew he preferred to take the few extra minutes to make himself presentable. It never hurt for the men to see, no matter how desperate the situation, their skipper was always calm enough to hold a razor to his face. If time was critical enough to prevent him from doing so now, Garrett would have made that clear. He did hurry, though, and in just a few minutes he was climbing the ladder at the rear of the pilothouse. As he did so, he was surprised how rested and vigorous he felt. The long sleep had done him a world of good, but in spite of that he couldn’t ignore the growing dread that welled inside him. He always felt apprehensive when called to the bridge unexpectedly, but the fact that they were in the middle of the Java Sea, in broad daylight, only made his concern more acute. He knew his officers had probably conspired to let him sleep as long as he could and it would have taken something fairly serious to disturb him. In their current situation, things went from «fairly serious» to «catastrophic» pretty damn quick.

  «Captain on the bridge!» Garrett called. He was waiting for him by the chart table.

  «As you were. What’s up, Mr. Garrett?»

  «Surface contact, Captain,» he said. «You can see it better from the fire-control platform.» The gunnery officer led him up the next ladder to the platform above the bridge. Matt followed slowly, still hampered by the use of only one arm. His plea the evening before had come to naught, but Sandra had promised to take another look at his shoulder today. Then she would make her decision. He hadn’t seen her yet today, having been asleep for most of it. Slightly winded, he gained the platform and joined the lieutenant beside the useless range finder.

  «Port bow,» Garrett suggested, and pointed. «On the horizon. Nerracca saw them first and signaled. Her lookouts are a lot higher than ours. It didn’t take long for us to see them, though.»

  Matt raised his binoculars and peered through them for a moment, adjusting the objective. Walker and Nerracca were in one of those rare parts of the Java Sea in which absolutely no land could be seen in any direction. They would soon raise the islands off the southern coast of Borneo, but for now there was nothing. The afternoon was bright and almost completely clear. A few high clouds scudded hastily overhead in the direction of Borneo. Evidently the wind had finally shifted back out of the south.

  Matt focused carefully at the point where the sea met the sky and as he stared, he began to discern towering, dirty-white sails outlined against the light blue background. There was no doubt about it. Even as he concentrated on holding the binoculars steady, more and more of the ominous shapes resolved themselves in the distance. It wasn’t just the advance element of the enemy fleet they’d been avoiding either. There were far too many. In spite of the heat, icy tendrils clutched his heart and radiated outward, across his chest and down his back. Far in the distance, beyond the ever more crowded horizon, Matt thought he could see a hazy column of black-gray smoke drifting away to the n

  «They must’ve seen us,» he observed. «At least Nerracca. Her masts are twice as tall as theirs.»

  «Yes, sir. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like they’ve altered course since I first saw them. Right before I called you. Should I sound general quarters?»

  Matt shook his head. «Not yet. But please do have Mr. McFarlane, Mr. Dowden, and the Bosun report to the bridge immediately.»

  «Aye, aye, Captain.»

  Ten minutes later, Matt gently tapped the chart with his index finger. «We’re here,» he said to the small group that had quickly gathered on the bridge. Then the same finger stabbed down a little to the northwest of their position. «The enemy is there. There’s no longer any question in my mind that they know where Baalkpan is. There’s no other reason for them to come this way.» His lips formed a rueful smirk. «Just like we feared, the Japs must’ve been ‘reading our mail.’ Monitoring our transmissions.» The smirk changed to a snarl. «And they ratted us out to the lizards. Regardless whatever other ‘inducements’ the Grik might have used to get the Japs to help them, they told them about Baalkpan because they wanted to.» He shook his head, genuinely amazed. The Japanese were the enemy and when it came to Amagi, he had to admit it was even kind of personal. But he still found it hard to believe they would actively, voluntarily,
help the Grik. Fleetingly, he wondered how Amagi’s more junior personnel felt about that. Pointless to speculate. He looked at each of those present. «Whether this force represents the bulk of the enemy fleet or not is impossible to say just yet, but it’s certainly a sizable fraction of it. Nerracca’s lookouts have counted upwards of a hundred ships so far.» He paused and took a deep breath. «And there’s definitely a column of dark smoke rising from somewhere within or beyond the enemy force. We have to assume that smoke represents Amagi.»

  «But. when Lieutenant Mallory reported the advance force nearing Surabaya, he also sighted a significant number of enemy ships on an identical course less than thirty miles behind them,» Dowden stressed.

  «Yeah, but as I’ve been concerned all along, if they really have more than three hundred ships, they have more than enough to send a ‘significant number’ in two directions at once. It seems that’s what they’ve done.»

  «We gotta warn Baalkpan!» Spanky said, around a mouthful of the yellow leaves.

  «That’s happening right now. I just hope they can hear us. We’re still pretty far away.» He frowned. «I told Clancy to ask for confirmation when he gets through. Radio silence is pointless at this stage. They clearly know where we’re going.»

  Dowden’s face suddenly went white with dreadful realization. «What are we going to do about Nerracca?»

  Matt nodded slowly. «Precisely. What are we going to do? Walker can easily outrun the enemy, but obviously Nerracca can’t. She’s gained almost a knot, with this good wind on her starboard quarter. For her, that’s really moving. Right now the lizards are beating into the wind, but once they turn north after passing these islands here» — he pointed again at the chart" she won’t have a chance. She might not anyway.» He nodded toward the distant ships. «As you can see, they have the angle on us.»

  «Damn it, Skipper!» Gray growled with frustration. «What can we do? There’s seven or eight thousand people on that ship!»

  Matt glared a usothers. «Gentlemen, we’ve got to come up with something, and we’ve got to do it now!» McFarlane’s face wore a thoughtful expression. «Spit it out, Spanky!»

  «Well, you said Nerracca’s making six knots.»

  «Thereabouts.»

  «If we light off the number two boiler, Walker can make thirty for a while. Hell, we could sustain twenty-eight if nothing pops.» He glanced around at the expectant faces. «That’s a hell of a lot of horsepower.»

  «You mean, rig a tow?» Matt breathed. Spanky nodded.

  «But will it be enough?» Garrett asked skeptically. «I know Nerracca’s mostly wood, but her hull is incredibly thick and she’s. huge! Especndant of Allosaurus, according to Bradford. The things were rare and Pete had never seen one, but by all accounts they were one of the few «dinosaurs» of this region that weren’t stunted. The Lemurian scouts had discovered tracks and blood on the pipeline. The monster must have been lying in wait for passing prey, hunkered slightly back in the dense foliage along the trail when Scott came ambling by. It was a terrible loss and Pete shuddered to think about how it must have been. Even so, the irony of the coxswain’s death wasn’t lost on him.

  Anyway, since Pete had operational command of Baalkpan’s defenses, Jim cheerfully reported to him when he arrived. There wasn’t even the tiniest hint that Mr. Ellis considered it inappropriate and Pete was grateful for that. The irony of a naval lieutenant in command of a destroyer reporting to Mrs. Alden’s son was even more bizarre, to him at least, than the way poor Scott had gotten it. Ever since then, though, Jim had been down at the dock working night and day, with hundreds of Lemurian «yard-apes» crawling all over his ship. By Nakja-Mur’s command, every possible assistance, regardless of expense, was placed at the disposal of the young lieutenant and his wounded destroyer.

  Nakja-Mur had certainly stepped up to the plate; Alden had no complaints about that. He no longer questioned what things cost. The High Chief had finally completely grasped the concept of total war, and everything else had dimmed to insignificance. Nothing was as important to him as saving his city and its people and he’d do whatever it took. With Letts’s help, the High Chief of Baalkpan had blossomed into a kind of bureaucratic prodigy. In a government like that of the United States, Nakja-Mur would have been performing all the duties usually associated with the secretaries of state, commerce, agriculture, public works, and war. He didn’t really know doodly-squat about any of those things, but he was smart enough to know it, and he delegated all the hands-on work to people who did. He just made sure the wheels were greased and he arbitrated disputes. He was also a genius at sorting out priorities and making sure the most important projects got the assets they needed the quickest. He relied heavily on Alden and Letts to advise him as to which projects those were, but since Baalkpan’s defense and the support of the AEF were almost everybody’s top priority, there was rarely any disagreement between them.

  The exception to this unity of purpose was still represented by what Letts called the Run Away Party, which was enjoying a resurgence that began with Fristar’s return and was reinforced by the terrible news that the offensive was turning into a desperate retreat. The «Run-Aways» were still a minority since most of them had, of course, already run away. But Alden figured that as soon as the new scope of the threat they faced became known, the Run-Aways would gain many converts. There was no Lemurian president, or anything of the sort, to rule the collection of independent Homes and peoples from other «land» Homes that had gathered at Baalkpan. The leadership was more like some sort of screwy legislature of equal representatives. Kind of like the city-state setup of ancient Greece, Alden thought. Unlike the captain, Pete didn’t know much about history — beyond that of the Marine Corps — but he’d heard of the Spartans and he knew about Thermopylae. He hoped they weren’t facing a similar situation. He knew one of the problems the Greeks had faced was an inability to work together. But Nakja-Mur chaired all the meetings since he was High Chief of the «Host» Home. Hell, throw in speaker of the house while you’re at it, Alden thought. So far he’d managed to keep everybody’s eye on the ball.

  Pete gazed out across the city below and wondered yet again at the ingenuity of the people here. Insteadlike those that proved so effective in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like its predecessors, this one was festooned with heavy guns that covered the harbor entrance and there were defenses around it similar to those that encircled the city. There were also sufficient provisions within that it could hold for quite a while if it was ever cut off from Baalkpan. Brister had named it Fort Atkinson, after Mahan’s captain who’d been killed in the battle with Amagi. Brister had admired Captain Atkinson very much. He was proud of the fort and Pete was too. He was proud of everything they’d done to prepare for a possible attack. Now, as he stood waiting for Nakja-Mur to join him for their afternoon bull session, he fervently prayed that all the defenses he’d helped design and build and all the citizen-soldiers he’d trained would never face the test they’d been preparing for.

  A tapestry separating the balcony from the Great Hall parted, and Nakja-Mur strode through to join Sergeant Alden with his own goblet of nectar in his hand. His face was expressionless, as usual, beyond a small, clipped frown that didn’t reveal his teeth. His shoulders sagged and his tail drooped and it was clear he was exhausted.

  «Good afternoon, Gener-aal Aalden,» he said by way of greeting.

  Pete grimaced. He hated it when Nakja-Mur called him that, especially in front of others. «Good afternoon, Nakja-Mur, U-Amaki Ay Baalkpan.»

  «Preparations continue to proceed well?» Nakja-Mur asked.

  Pete shrugged. «Well enough. We started building up the overhead protection for the batteries today, now that we know about Amagi.» He shook his head. «Not that it’ll do much good against ten-inch guns. That’s one thing we never planned for. I’ve also started working on more shelters for troops and medical facilities. It’s mostly revetments to protect from fragments, but it’s better than nothing.»
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  «These ten-inch guns are very bad?»

  Pete nodded. «They’re more than twice as big as Walker’s.»

  «But the guns you helped build for my people are as well.»

  «True,» Alden agreed, «but as we’ve discussed many times, those guns, as powerful as they are, are still no match for Walker’s in range, power, or accuracy. I wish they were, but we just don’t have the facilities to make anything like that yet. As for Amagi, her guns are bigger still than the best we’ve been able to make and they can shoot ten times as far.»

  Nakja-Mur nodded solemnly. «You’re saying we have no real defense against this Amagi? Not even now that there are two of your fast iron ships?»

  «No. As you can surely see for yourself, Mahan’s in no shape for a fight. Jim’s killing himself trying to get her ready and hopefully he’ll have time. But even if Walker and Mahan were brand spanking new, they’d be no match for that damn thing. We’ll think of something. We have to. But right now I sure don’t know what it’ll be. Pray, I guess.»

  Nakja-Mur nodded. «I will certainly do that,» he said. «I will pray that it never comes. It may not, you know,» he added hopefully.

  Just then, Ed Palmer was escorted onto the balcony by a pair of Nakja-Mur’s guardsmen, who paused and waited to be summoned close. Ed accompanied them and Pete’s heart sank when he saw the signalman’s ashen face.

  «My guess is,» Pete said before Ed spoke a word, «we should have been praying already.»

  A skept Matt didn’t think the Grik could catch them. On the other hand, Amagi would soon be in range of her big guns. With darkness falling, she wouldn’t have a target, though, would she? Once she got behind them, she’d never catch up either. Not if eight knots was all she had.

  A couple of Grik ships, either because of better seamanship or cleaner hulls, were drawing ahead of the pack. Matt had a good eye for geometry and there was no way Walker would drag Nerracca past those two, at least.