Crusade

by Taylor Anderson

  The starboard propeller was feathered and the cowling was riddled with holes and black with smoke. Virtually the entire plane was full of holes, for that matter, and even if they weren’t very big, they seemed to concentrate in critical areas—where people had been. The cockpit windscreen was shot away, as were both the observation blisters. A few holes even crazed the nose turret. As for the rest of the plane, the wings had taken enough hits for fuel to be dripping from numerous places, in spite of the self-sealing tanks. Exotic colors dappled the water where the drops fell. The canvas control surfaces, particularly on the port side of the tail, were ravaged, and the aluminum skin around them seemed riddled by shrapnel. Most terrifying, and frankly amazing, of all was that beyond the port wing float, three or four feet of the wingtip were missing, as was the entire port aileron, as if they’d been bitten off by a shark. The float itself was unsupported, but just by hanging there it kept the wing out of the water. At least here, in the calm.

  “My God,” murmured Sandra, her smile fading away. “How did they ever make it?” Matt was wondering to himself how many actually had. Scott’s launch throttled up and headed for the plane even as its remaining engine wound down. It wasn’t even going to attempt an approach to the pier. One of Mahan’s launches raced to assist. While they watched, three bloody forms were removed from the plane and loaded in Scott’s launch. One was clearly human. They were joined by a human and a ’Cat and when they were aboard, the launch throttled up and headed for the pier, where an ambulance cart awaited. Nurse Karen Theimer, whom they’d left in Baalkpan, had taken to heart her directive to continue working to establish an efficient hospital and ambulance corps.

  Three of the launch’s passengers were whisked away on the ’Cat-drawn cart, while the others painfully scrambled across Walker’s gang-plank. A few moments later, they both stood before Matt, Sandra, and a growing number of officers from both ships. Probably only Chief Gray’s imposing presence could have kept the rest of the crew at a respectful distance.

  Ed Palmer saluted and Jis-Tikkar nervously copied the gesture. He’d never met Captain Reddy before. Ed’s voice was exhausted and full of delayed stress when he spoke.

  “Captain Reddy, I must report the successful completion of our mission to observe the enemy fleet and report their course and disposition.” He sighed. “I must also report that Lieutenant Mallory was badly wounded in the head and shoulder and both of our waist gunners were killed.” The Lemurian elbowed him sharply and Palmer rolled his eyes. “Acting copilot trainee Jis-Tikkar was also bravely wounded during the action.” Tikker proudly tugged on his right ear, displaying the neat, round 7.7-millimeter hole. Matt nodded in appreciation of the Lemurian’s sacrifice, then returned his attention to Ed.

  “What happened?”

  “We got jumped by a plane.” Palmer continued his tale in the face of astonished expressions, detailing everything from the first shot to the last. When it came time to describe the final act, his own expression turned to one of incomprehension.

  “He just rammed into us, Skipper. Deliberately. The fight was over. There was nothing either of us could do to the other, but despite everything Ben could do—he almost got us clear—that Jap still managed to hit us. As he tore into our wing, though, the wing must’ve ripped open his fuel tank. He was already on fire and he just blew up. That’s where all the damage on the port side came from and that’s when our other waist gunner bought it.”

  “Is that when Mr. Mallory was incapacitated?”

  “Well, no, sir, he was already wounded. Bad scalp wound and shot through the shoulder. But he was still flying until about an hour ago. He was getting woozy from blood loss, so I got him out of the chair and patched him up. He . . . sorta told us what to do after that.” Matt blinked.

  “Am I to understand that you, Signalman Palmer, flew and landed that plane?”

  “No, sir,” answered Ed distinctly. That left only one other possibility. Matt looked incredulously at the Lemurian standing as tall and straight as he could—and coming up to Ed’s shoulder. “He sat on two parachute packs and I worked the rudder. It was . . . a little uncoordinated at first, but we got the hang of it.” Matt grinned at what had to have been a monumental understatement.

  “Very well, and well done. Now, both of you get some rest. With Mr. Mallory laid up, you two will have your jobs cut out for you coordinating repairs to the plane.” He paused. “By the way, you’re both promoted. I just have to figure out what to. Carry on.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper,” replied Ed with a tired grin of his own. He pointed at the plane. “We’ll get some rest, but I recommend you get somebody to drag that thing up on the beach before it sinks.”

  When everyone had returned to their duties, or in Ed and Tikker’s case, gone ashore to their berths, Matt found himself almost alone with Sandra again. Almost, because they’d been joined by Courtney Bradford. Together they watched while hundreds of Lemurians heaved on ropes, dragging the battered plane ashore. The exotic city of elevated pagoda-like structures with their slightly eastern flair was now strangely familiar and certainly a welcome sight.

  “Remarkable!” Courtney exclaimed.

  “Indeed,” agreed Matt. “Remarkable in every way.” He looked at Sandra and smiled. “Everything that’s happened since we got to this world. Remarkable deeds accomplished by remarkable people, both humans and ’Cats.” He shook his head, looking back at the plane. “And that’s why I won’t give up and why, eventually, we’ll win.” He snorted. “We may not live to see it, and this city will probably look worse than that plane, but if the enemy comes here, we’ll beat them here and then wherever else we have to because, in the end, we have no choice—and it’s the right thing to do.”

  EPILOGUE

  Isak Rueben, Gilbert Yager, and Tab-At emerged into the light. They’d gone to their berthing space only to discover their racks were wrecked, along with most of the others, and so, on a whim, they decided to expose themselves to the outside world for the first time in several days. They resembled disoriented, grimy moles, squinting and sniffing at the unI accustomed evening sunlight. Gradually, their eyes began to adjust. All around was frantic activity. Rapid repairs were under way, being performed by the ship’s crew and dozens of Lemurian yard workers. The Mice had a lot of work as well, but they’d just stood eight consecutive watches and Spanky ordered them to take one off and get some sleep. That order was going to be difficult to follow. Everywhere they looked they saw extremely noisy activity.

  Right in front of them, the perforated number four torpedo mount was being disassembled. It was destroyed beyond repair, but they could salvage the steel. An incessant staccato clanging came from everywhere as tortured plates were beaten back into shape, and arcs of fire soared in all directions as the welders went to work. Air hoses and torch lines snaked underfoot and the smell of hot steel and burning paint filled the air along with bilingual curses. To Isak, the scene looked more like the scrapyards of hell than the deck of a ship that might ever fight again.

  Slowly, they worked their way forward through the jostling workers, trying to avoid being knocked down, burnt, or crushed. They made it under the shade of the amidships gun platform, but things were just as hectic there. Lanier was sitting on a stool, watching protectively while repairs were made to the galley. The shredded Coke machine lay in state on its back off to one side. For a wreath, somebody had decorated the dead machine with a silk lei they’d brought from Pearl when they joined the Asiatic Fleet. The compressor and tubing had already been removed. Lanier was guarding a platter of sandwiches on his lap. By the crumbs around his mouth, an undetermined number no longer required his protection.

  “Here,” he said, offering the plate as the Mice squeezed past. His voice held little of its usual acerbic impatience. It just sounded . . . sad. “Nothin’ but sammiches for a while, till the galley’s fixed. Thank God they didn’t get the refrigerator! No fresh bread—you better eat one of these!” he insisted. When all three Mice accepted one, La
nier continued talking, shaking his head mournfully. “Made these with the last of the bread. Now we’re gonna be tryin’ to choke down that local shit until I get my oven back.”

  “It could’a been worse,” Yager said, taking a bite. “How’s Mertz?”

  Lanier waved his hand. “Got a piece of shrapnel in his ass, and a couple more in the back of his leg. Lost a finger too, and he thinks it’s a big deal. Hell, he’s got nine more. No, the worst part is, besides the Coke machine, the damn Japs got my spice locker! The last black pepper in the whole wide world’s just . . . gone! Sneakiest stunt they’ve pulled since Pearl Harbor!” Lanier’s tone began to return to normal as he seethed. “Bastards!”

  Tabby was surprised by the cook’s priorities, but Isak and Gilbert both nodded solemnly. “It’s a hell of a thing,” Isak agreed. “How’s your gut feelin’, Earl?” Lanier glared up at him.

  “None of your goddamn business, snipe!” He straightened up on the stool as best he could and pulled his shirt closed over his grimy bandage. “Now you’ve stolen the best sammiches I had left, why don’t you quit goofin’ off and get back to work! I can’t fix the whole ship by myself!”

  They crossed the deck and ducked under the bridge beside the radio shack. Clancy was inside with the hatch open. His earphones were on his head and he nodded as they passed. Who knew what he was listening for. Going through the hatchway that led onto the foredeck, they emerged into sunlight again. Finally they’d found a place that hadn’t been damaged the night before—beyond a few dents and scratches from shell fragments—and so, for now at least, it was probably the quietest place on the ship. They crawled up under the splinter shield of the number one gun and stretched out in the sparse shade beneath it.

  “Laan-yeer is a strange man,” Tabby observed at length. “He think whole ship—just so he have galley.”

  “Yeah,” Isak agreed from beneath his right arm, which rested across his eyes. “But we’re sort of the same way, I guess. Nothin’ really matters except our boilers. Spanky has it tough. He has to worry about the boilers and the engines. Other stuff too. Chief Gray’s like that with the topsides. But that’s just the way it is. Everybody has a particular part of the ship that it’s their job to take care of. Nobody could do it all.”

  “Except the cap-i-taan,” Tabby said thoughtfully. “He have to worry about everything. Not just all ship, but everything.”

  They lay quietly for a moment, listening to the racket from aft.

  “Yeah,” Yager breathed at last. “I sure wouldn’t want his job.”

  Read on for an excerpt from Book III in

  the exciting Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson

  MAELSTROM

  Coming from Roc in February 2009

  There was a new rumbling sound below, but it went unnoticed by the eight-year-old girl swaying in the sailcloth hammock. Her slumber was already filled with the incessant rumbling and groaning of the working hull and the endless, hissing blows of the pounding sea. Then came another rumble and another, each more insistent than the last. Still she didn’t stir from her dream. In it, she’d been swallowed by a leviathan, just as she’d dreaded since before the strange voyage ever began. Every night, as soon as the lids closed over her large, jade-colored eyes, the same terrible dream came again. She was in the very bowels of the leviathan and the rumbling, hissing roar was the sound of its belly digesting the ship. The voices came—there were always voices—excited, urgent. Voices in a tone entirely appropriate. Of course there would be dreadful voices in a dreadful dream. She knew what would happen next . . .

  She was facedown on the thundering deck and only her tangled bedding protected her delicate nose from the fall. Her eyes were instantly open, but she could barely see. The only illumination in the stateroom came from the meager light of a gimbaled lantern on the far bulkhead. Slowly emerging from the dark nightmare of a moment before, she began to understand she’d entered another. The deck felt wrong, its motion contradicting what she’d come to perceive as normal. She still heard the voices and although the words were muffled, they were louder and shrill with alarm. One word she clearly understood sent a spasm of primal terror through her heart: “Leviathan!”

  The rumbling groan intensified and the deck heeled hard beneath her. She had the impression the ship was rising up, much of the noise coming from the mighty timbers of its very bones, stressed beyond endurance. With a screech of agony and a splintering crash, the stress fell away like a broken spring and she tumbled against the aft bulkhead that suddenly became the floor. With a sickening, wallowing lurch, the stateroom righted itself, but then quickly tilted down toward the bow. She hugged her knees to her chest and sobbed.

  The stateroom door crashed open and her heart leaped with relief to see the wispy form of her tutor, Master Kearley, stumble into the room.

  “My lady!” he cried, over the rising pandemonium in the passageway.

  “Master Kearley! Oh, Master Kearley!”

  “There you are, child,” he exclaimed in a more normal tone. He even paused to straighten the lapels of his frock coat. “Come along quickly—no, do not hesitate to dress! A simple shawl will do.”

  She was accustomed to following his orders and she did so now without thought, snatching her shawl from the hook by the door and quickly draping it around her shoulders.

  “And your bonnet too, I suppose,” he instructed. Obediently, she took the bonnet from its place beside the shawl and pulled it down over her long golden locks.

  “What has happened?” she asked tremulously.

  “Come,” he said. “I will tell you what I know as we go, but we must hurry.”

  The darkened passageway swirled with kaleidoscopic scenes of shadowy panic. Shrieks of terror rent the air and bustling shapes surged aft against the increasing cant of the deck. An indignant roar rose above the turmoil and the girl thought she recognized the voice of Director Hanes. Even his exalted status couldn’t protect him from the animalistic instinct of the throng. The metallic sheeng! of a sword leaving its scabbard quickly silenced the dignitary.

  “Hurry!” Kearley prompted as they wove, hand in hand, toward a companionway. “We have struck a leviathan—or it has struck us. It makes no difference. The ship will quickly founder. Her back is broken.” The girl sobbed again and her terror threatened to overcome her. The nightmare was true after all.

  “Make way, there!” Kearley shouted at the broad back of a man blocking the ladder. “Are you unmanned? Don’t you know who this is?”

  The big man whirled and made a fist, preparing to strike the frail scholar. His eyes were wide and white with fear, his huge, disheveled black mustaches almost covering his entire mouth. Before he released the panicked blow, however, he recognized the small form below him.

  “Yer pardon, young miss!” He almost squealed with contrition. “Clap onto me back and I’ll plow us a road!”

  Kearley grabbed a handful of belt with one hand and took the girl’s wrist with the other. Together, they fought their way up the choked companionway and onto the tilting quarterdeck. Once there, to the girl’s surprise, the big man stooped and swept her off her feet.

  “We must put her in a boat this instant!” he cried. His voice had returned to what was surely a more normal growl.

  “My thanks, good sir,” Kearley replied. “I appreciate your assistance.” The man spared him an incredulous glance. Now that he recognized the girl, there was no question he would die to save her.

  The girl was oblivious to the exchange. Around her in the darkness there was no longer any doubt: her terrible dream had come to life. Helpless canvas flailed and snapped and the once fascinating scientific intricacy of the rigging was a hopeless mare’s nest of tangled lines. A constant, deadly hail of blocks and debris fell from above. Beyond her immediate surroundings, she dimly saw the bow, twisting and bent, jackknifing ever upward until the bowsprit pointed at the sky. The fragile paddle wheels on either side, amidships, resembled twisted flowers, shorn of their petals. Stea
m and smoke jetted from the funnel. In the center of this catastrophe, the deadly sea coursed into the ship.

  Then, past the bow, coal dark against the starry horizon, she saw a monstrous form. It was clearly the great leviathan that had destroyed the ship—possibly entirely by accident. It may have simply risen from the depths, unknowing and unconcerned, to inhale a cavernous lungful of air. Perhaps only then did it discover the water bug on its back. No matter, it noticed it now. Even as the girl watched with unspeakable dread, the island-sized creature completed its leisurely turn and came back to inspect the wounded morsel in its wake. The big man saw it too.

  “Into a boat!” he bellowed, carrying her to the larboard rail, where a dozen men frantically tore at the quarter-boat tackle. “Make way, damn ye! Can ye not see who I bear?” A wide-eyed young officer motioned them through the gathering throng that regarded the boat with frantic, greedy eyes.

  “Are you a sailor?” the officer demanded of the big man. “You are not one of the crew.”

  “I was a sailor once,” he admitted. “And a soldier. I’m a shipwright now, bound for the yard at the company factory.”

  The officer considered. “Right. Take her aboard under your protection. As soon as you launch, you must hold the boat close so we may put more people aboard.” He cast an appraising glance. “You do look strong enough.”

  Before the girl could form a protest, she was hoisted over the rail by the man’s powerful arms and deposited in the boat. Quick as a goat, he followed her and turned to accept the bundles hastily passed to him. A sailor jumped aboard too, encumbered by a double armful of muskets, which he quickly stowed. The girl found her voice.

  “Master Kearley!” she wailed. “Master Kearley, you must come too!”