“Goddamn snakes are everywhere!” Lieutenant (jg) Wendel “Smitty” Smith snapped with a grimace and a noticeable quaver in his voice as his shore party clambered up the ship’s side and reported to Captain Garrett. Donaghey and Matarife had enjoyed fine weather for another week and a half, pleasantly slanting northwest while they repaired the damage they’d inflicted on each other, but the southern edge of a fierce tropical storm finally caught them. It sped them along amazingly for a while, but eventually hammered them severely in exchange. Matarife’s foremast survived, though not without some very concerning sounds and a tendency to lean alarmingly with the wind. Only the heavy hawsers they’d rigged had saved it, and possibly the ship. She’d labored particularly hard as well, opening seams in her bow and stern, both of which had taken a beating in the fight. As she took on water, she worked ever harder and Lieutenant Mak was finally forced to set his prisoners pumping to relieve his exhausted crew. To his surprise, they’d been happy to help in spite of their fear of their captors. Then again, they’d been locked in the hold up to that point—with an immediate appreciation of the amount of water the ship was making, and the peril they were in—and were anxious to lend a hand to save themselves.
When the storm swept past and the two ships came within hailing distance, Greg decided they must stop and make more concerted repairs if they didn’t want to abandon their prize. Raising an active, smoky Martinique Island with a clear dawn, they’d approached the eastern shore with care. In their world, Martinique had been French, and it was possible the League had already occupied it. There’d been no sign of anyone as they approached, however, and all they saw as they entered a picturesque bay on the northeast coast and dropped anchor at last was a jagged, mountainous isle covered in dense forest. Two of the mountains sullenly smoldered, but there was no recent evidence of more boisterous behavior.
“God, I hate snakes,” Smitty continued. “I was raised in Baltimore and never even saw one from then till now, an’ they still give me the willies. Must’ve seen too many jungle pictures an’ Westerns I guess. Always bitin’ somebody or squeezin’ ’em to death. Anyway”—he nodded at the shore a hundred yards away—“they’re thick as maggots workin’ in meat over there!” Greg Garrett could sympathize with Smitty’s discomfort. He’d seen snakes, big timber rattlers, and didn’t like them any more than his gunnery officer. And there hadn’t been any to speak of within the Malay barrier, or almost anywhere else they’d been. Too many things on this world would gulp a snake like a worm.
“An’ lizards!” Bosun Jenaar-Laan added emphatically, blinking yellow-green eyes. “Big as skuggiks, but with haands, an’ runnin’ on two legs. They look laak little spiky-back Griks, with scaly fish bodies.” He grinned at Smitty. “Least they eat the snakes. I seen one snaatch up a snake an’ eat it, even while gettin’ bit.”
“Immune to the poison,” Surgeon Sori said with interest, having joined them with so many others, anxious to hear what lay onshore. “Or the scales protect them.”
“You saw nothing else?” Greg asked. “No sign that anyone might be around?”
“Nothin’, Skipper,” Smitty confirmed. “No fire pits or chafing marks on trees near shore where a boat might’ve tied up. Not even a beer can. I bet the snakes keep ’em away,” he added significantly.
“Or the smoking mountains,” Sori speculated. There were a lot of those, with a long history of violent activity, where he came from. The worst recent example had been Talaud Island, but several volcanoes on Jaava and Sumatra always seemed on the verge of “pulling a Talaud.” “We know the Doms an’ new Amer-i-caans sail this far.”
“As has the Republic,” Leutnant Koor-Susk defended, though it had been forty years or more since any of his people came here. The final known visit was made by a swift little topsail schooner, exploring beyond St. Helena. No one knew if she’d run into Doms, a NUS ship, or someone else, but whoever it was had fired on her, probably to induce her to heave to. She ran instead, easily leaving her lumbering pursuer in her wake. No one had returned since—till now—and all depictions of shores beyond the easternmost windward isles of the Caribbean were based on charts older than memory, or brought to the Republic by SMS Amerika.
“They probably have more important islands—to them—to fight over,” Greg speculated, referring to the NUS and Dominion. “Any outpost this far out would be too hard for either to protect.” He snorted. “I bet they do come to the west side of the island from time to time, just to tip over each other’s flags and plant their own.” That produced a few chuckles. “I’m sorry, Smitty,” he continued. “Snakes or not, we need to get Matarife and Donaghey squared away. That means stopping the prize’s leaks, if we can get at ’em, and replacing her lower foremast, if there’re suitable trees ashore. We also need water and fresh food of some kind—if, again”—he grinned—“there’s anything besides snakes and lizards.”
Repairs came first, of course, but though provisions had held up well (there was plenty of salt meat, fish, biscuit, and dried polta fruit), they’d grown less appetizing with every mile. And Matarife’s stores weren’t even considered edible by Donaghey’s crew. “I hope we can count on the NUS for help with more comprehensive repairs and such,” Greg said, “but all our information about them comes through Fred’s and Kari’s eyes. How free have they been to meet with more than just a few handlers? We have no idea. The NUS could be worse than the Doms for all we really know, so we have to be ready to fight whoever we come across when we continue west. We may not get another chance to do the work we need.” He frowned. “That said, it’s about time to start transmitting on Fred’s frequency. Starting tomorrow, we will. We likely won’t hear back for a while; Fred’s set is a short-range job, out of a Nancy, but he should hear us.” As may the League, he added darkly to himself.
Greg hated the Grik. They were nightmarish monsters that’d killed a lot of people he cared about. The Doms were just as bad, and probably even more evil from a moral standpoint. But of all their adversaries in this goofed-up world, Greg Garrett probably despised the League most of all. He considered the Grik to be predators, pure and simple; murderous reptilian jackals, with an almost hivelike pack mentality. Intellectually, he knew that was a simplistic view. There was more to it than that, and from what he understood, their leadership was pretty perverted. Maybe General Halik and Hij Geerki had proven even Grik could learn to behave, to rise above what they’d been conditioned to be, but, generally, Grik remained dangerous animals as far as he was concerned—like snakes. They were a plague, a pestilence, vermin that would tear you apart and eat you. They were easy to hate.
The Doms had descended to embrace a barbarism equal to the Grik, and were a culture that placed no more value on life. But Greg’s Dom prisoners were people, ordinary seamen, impossible to hate. They’d done as they were told, as they’d been conditioned to do, fully believing it was God’s will. And even those who fired into his ship after receiving mercy did so at the command of their “evil leadership”: a possibly deranged, wounded officer. The impression he got now, reinforced by Mak’s report of their prisoners’ behavior during the storm, and the fact no Blood Priests were taken alive, despite spending the battle belowdecks—was they were more afraid of what their own people would do to them for having been taken, than of their “demon” captors.
The young midshipman had ridden out the storm aboard Donaghey, and though they still couldn’t communicate with him, the boy seemed little more than a terrified child. Greg knew what Doms were capable of, what they’d done elsewhere and how they treated their prisoners. He didn’t doubt they were the enemy and they were bad. But so far, Matarife embodied his entire personal experience with them, and in spite of Sammy and the others he’d lost, he hadn’t come to hate the Doms like the Grik—or the League.
A submarine belonging to the League of Tripoli had sunk two Allied ships without warning or mercy, ships crammed with people he knew and supplies desperately needed to fight the Grik.
The League, represented by Savoie, also basically incarcerated Donaghey and prevented the Republic from joining the war against the Grik on schedule. Savoie then destroyed Amerika, also packed with what Greg considered his people, including Adar and Sandra Reddy. Adding insult to injury, the League then gave Savoie and her prisoners to Hisashi Kurokawa, arguably the Allies’ most uniquely dangerous enemy of all. So despite the fact they weren’t technically at war with the League, Greg hated it—and certainly felt at war with it.
Then, as if his dark thoughts had summoned the devil in his heart, a cry came from the masthead: “On deck! A ship! A steamer, baar-een one two seero! Is hull down, but comin’ faast. About eighteen tous-aand tails—I mean, yaads!”
Greg whipped his telescope to his eye but saw nothing over the choppy sea beyond the placid little bay. Tucking the glass in his waistband, he scrambled up the ratlines to the maintop, followed by Jenaar–Laan. There he paused and looked again.
“No sails,” he gasped significantly at the Bosun, who wasn’t even breathing hard. “A dedicated steamer, for sure.” He stared harder, trying to improve the focus of his glass. Then his heart quickened. The thing looked like an old British destroyer, a four-stacker like Walker, but with a raised fo’c’sle. Gray smoke streamed downwind, so it was an oil burner. A Brit oil burner. What if . . . ? Then it dawned on him. “Crap,” he said sharply. “The Spanish Alsedos look like that, and there’s Spaniards in the League. No way to tell if it’s the same ship Matarife met, but it’s likely.” He paused. “Or is it? If so, where’d she go between then and now? I wonder what her range is. Maybe the Doms met her tender or some other ship coming to take possession of Martinique. Either way . . .”
A furious determination seized him. “Come on,” he said, and he and Chief Laan slid down the backstays together and Greg started barking orders as soon as he hit the deck. “Let our anchor cable out another ten fathoms,” he said, looking at the prize, “and stand by to pass a line from our stern to Matarife’s hawse. We’ll take it in until her bowsprit stands right over our taffrail. In the meantime, I want a boat to carry an anchor out from the prize’s stern with a spring in the cable to bring her around parallel with the beach, nose to tail with us. See?” He looked at Smitty. “Back in your boat. I want cables secured to shore. The tide’ll soon start to ebb, and I want us to maintain position when it does.”
Smitty glanced nervously at the beach and nodded. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“What will you do?” Tribune Pol-Heena asked.
Greg turned to him. “I’m pretty sure that’s a League DD out there, coming this way. If my memory of her class serves, she’s a little smaller than Walker but with similar armament.” Pol’s eyes went wide and there was an explosion of excited chatter.
“Silence fore an’ aaft!” Laan roared.
“Maybe she hasn’t seen us yet, with the island behind, but she will soon enough. And I think she’s coming in the bay, anyway.” Greg snorted ironically. “We may have to fight before we sail west.”
Pol’s eyes went even wider, if that was possible. “How can we?” he demanded. “It is said your Walker has destroyed hundreds of Grik ships—vessels not so different from ours. And you just told us the intruder is not unlike her in its capabilities. Surely we must try to talk to them, even perhaps . . . contemplate surrender?”
Greg glared at Pol-Heena, amazed. “You’re kidding, right?” he snapped, voice rising. “I hope to God I didn’t trade Bekiaa for a pack of cowards. If that’s really who’s coming in, I will not be a ‘guest’ of the goddamn League again. Do I make myself clear? And who’s to say, after what they did to Lady Sandra and Chairman Adar, they won’t just give us to the Doms? No, sir. You’ll find your courage, Tribune, and obey my orders as you swore to do, or I’ll throw you over the side myself. Is that understood?”
“Ah . . . yes, of course. I didn’t mean . . .”
Greg spun to face Lieutenant Haana-Lin-Naar. “Get all your Marines over to Matarife as quick as you can and acquaint Lieutenant Mak with the situation. He’ll need you, and we don’t have much time at all. I’ll try to send more of our topmen.”
“Aye, sur. But what is the situation? What’re we gonna do?”
Greg smiled grimly and quickly laid out the plan that had suddenly bloomed, fully formed, in his mind. It was a long shot, and depended on a number of things falling their way, but it was probably the only chance they had. “We’ll wait until we’re absolutely certain she’s a Leaguer—and nobody does anything until I give the command,” he stressed. “But, fortunately, one Spanish word I’m pretty sure of is ayuda. It means ‘help.’”
• • •
Antúnez was indeed an Alsedo class destroyer, as Greg Garrett guessed, renamed in honor of a nationalist officer who’d supported the coup ushering Spain into the fascist alliance with Italy and France. She was 283 feet long, displaced 1,300 tons fully loaded, and was quite similar to USS Walker in performance, armament, even general form. The most pronounced differences were her raised fo’c’sle, lack of a large aft deckhouse, and that her aft three funnels actually seemed to decrease in height. Those, and a lack of the generally battered appearance Walker seemed doomed to wear despite her frequent repairs, set her quite apart. And, of course, in addition to the naval jack of nationalist Spain, she also streamed the fascist banner of the Confédértion États Souverains, which had carried over to this world as the flag of the League of Tripoli.
Capitan de Cobeta Francisco Abuello Falto stared out the bridge windows of his ship, hands clasped behind his back, his pink, fresh-shaved face festooned with tiny pieces of bloody tissue. Occasionally, the breeze took one and a seaman quickly tracked it down. Capitan Abuello Falto didn’t like to see the little specks again after his steward applied them. Ahead lay Galion Bay, smaller on this world than his charts depicted, but better protected. It would make a fine anchorage for a League station in the western hemisphere one day. Beyond the bay lay the rugged, heavily forested island of Martinique, and Abuello Falto was entranced by its beauty, despite the smoldering mountains. He was deathly afraid of volcanos for some reason, though he’d never seen one erupt. Perhaps he was haunted by childhood tales? The focus of his attention at present, however, was the two square-rigged ships moored in the bay.
“The one is certainly the Dominion fragata that rendezvoused with that Italian idiota, Contrammiraglio Oriani, at Ascension, Capitan,” said Teniente Casales Padilla, the destroyer’s executive officer, gazing through binoculars.
“And the other?” Abuello Falto asked mildly.
“She must be the Allied/American fragata we were sent to intercept, as she crossed the Atlantic. She’s exactly as described, and flies the Old World flag of the Estados Unidos, with its many stars and stripes”—he coughed with amusement—“and the Dominion rag with its heretical cross flies above it!”
“An end to our primary mission, then,” Abuello Falto said with evident relief. “Now we can get on with the rest.” He hadn’t relished returning empty-handed, which he’d begun to fear would happen. Donaghey was a very small ship on a vast ocean, after all, and they’d only had the vaguest notion of her course. He was slightly disappointed, however. Catching the elusive American ship himself, after it so humiliated that French royalist, Laborde, would’ve been delicious. And of course there was a pang of queasiness over how Donaghey’s crew had probably already met their end. He’d heard tales of Dominion Blood Priests. . . . He would’ve treated the Americanos and their hombres simios properly, with as much courtesy as he could. It was the least he could do—before turning them over to Oriani and his OVRA reptiles. OVRA had been the Italian Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Antifascism and had become the chief party enforcement arm of the League on this world. Each national faction retained its own military intelligence branch, which often competed with or even targeted the others. The OVRA had been granted exceptional powers by every member, understanding there had to
be a supreme, coordinating authority when it came to quashing dissident elements and compiling intelligence. And, sadly, given the way this cruel world turned, the OVRA used methods not terribly distinct from those attributed to the Dominion when it came to extracting information. He supposed they had little choice.
“What do you make of them, Alferez?” the captain asked the young ensign on the starboard bridgewing in a louder voice. Alferez Tomas Perez Moles wasn’t quite twenty, and was slightly built with blond hair and a fair complexion. He’d been a mere first-year officer cadet when the entire Confederation task force suddenly found itself on this . . . different Earth. Since then, he’d progressed rapidly, and Abuello Falto had high hopes for him. He was an excellent seaman and the men respected him despite his youth. If he had a single flaw, it was perhaps a lack of fervency for League ideals. But that might change, and avoiding politics was always best for younger officers.
Tomas was also straining his eyes through a pair of binoculars, trying to make out details of the ships now less than 1,200 meters away. “Matarife seems to have suffered worse than the American. Both are torn by battle and storm, but though the American seems little hurt, Matarife was clearly raked. Her bows have been dreadfully abused and she must’ve lost her foremast. It’s been crudely repaired.”
“Damage consistent with eagerness to close with the enemy and board,” Abuello Falto murmured, nodding. “That’s how they took her, no doubt. Donaghey’s crew was not reputed to be large. What else do you see?” he called.
“A signal for assistance,” Tomas replied. “But all the cannon on both ships are run out, and pointing . . . generally at us as we approach,” he added with a concerned glance at his captain. Abuello Falto stepped out on the wing and raised his own binoculars.
“She has suffered cruelly indeed,” he agreed. “Do not mind the guns, Alferez. Why should they threaten us? We are now allies of the Dominion, are we not?” He said the last with a grimace, still dwelling on the Blood Priests. He shook his head. “It’s in the nature of primitive ships of that sort that all their guns point to the side. There’s nothing they can do about it. Fear not. No doubt the guns are run out to air the deck and make room for repairs. And look: there are hoses discharging water through the gunports, and they toss debris through them as well. Look again, Alferez, they wave! They welcome us!” He paused and considered. “Though there are dreadfully few of them. The fighting must have been horrific. It’s a wonder they managed to sail both ships, and through a storm as well.” He lowered the binoculars at last. “Of course they request assistance. We will stand in and render it.”
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