Iron Gray Sea d-7

by Taylor Anderson

  “Okay!” Matt defended lightly, deliberately misunderstanding her mood. “It’s your operation, like you said. I wasn’t trying to weasel out.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Baalkpan, Borno

  Headquarters “Home” of the Grand Alliance

  February 22, 1944

  Commander Alan Letts carefully negotiated the muddy ruts along the Baalkpan pathways. Deep trenches marked the passage of heavily laden “brontasarry”-drawn trucks that transported the increasingly sophisticated machinery built in the heavy-industry park. The trucks churned along at a regular, previously undreamed-of pace, bound for the burgeoning shipyard that continuously gouged at the dense jungle frontier north of the city. Baalkpan had always been a port city, but now the shipyard sprawled like a fattening amoeba wherever the land touched the bay.

  “Watch your step, for God’s sake!” croaked Commander Perry Brister, picking his way alongside Alan. “You get in the middle of that, you’ll be done.” The former Mahan engineering officer’s voice didn’t match his young face and dark hair. It had been ruined when he commanded the defense of Fort Atkinson during the desperate battle against the Grik that once nearly consumed the city. He pointed at a bawling, long-necked beast about the size of an Asian elephant dragging another wheeled cart in their direction. “Smushed or buried,” he grated darkly.

  “No sweat,” Letts said, but slowed his pace. Someday, he thought, if the demands of war ever give us a chance, we’ll have to do something about these damn roads. They were “repaved” constantly by the almost daily rains-and brontasarry-drawn graders-but the ruts weren’t as bad as the goopy slurry between them churned up by the massive, stupid beasts. A man-or Lemurian-could get stuck and maybe die in that.

  There could be no break in the pace of operations and wartime production, however. Baalkpan-and the young Alliance it led-was only just beginning to hit a stride that might keep up with the demands of an increasingly global war. There could be no slacking off for any reason for the foreseeable future.

  The irony’s almost funny, Letts thought. Once, on another world, he’d been supply officer aboard USS Walker, and even by his own definition he’d been the poster boy for all slackers. One could have argued at the time that the world of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet was already quite different from the rest of the Navy, but that held absolutely zero relevance now. Here, Alan Letts had reinvented himself and was proud of what he’d become and accomplished. He was Chief of Staff to Captain Matthew Reddy and, by extension, a remarkable Lemurian named Adar, who was High Chief and Sky Priest of Baalkpan, and “Chairman” of the Grand Alliance of all Allied powers united beneath (or beside) the Banner of the Trees. Also, even more ironically, Alan had become Minister of Industry for the entire Alliance.

  With the recent, more independent additions to that alliance, he wasn’t quite sure how that post would shake out, but he’d keep doing the job here regardless. He’d recently returned from a stint at the “pointy end,” where he’d served as chief of logistics for First Fleet. Initially, he’d gone because he felt guilty. His new sense of responsibility, likely heightened by the birth of his daughter, made him feel as if he’d skipped out on his shipmates and their Lemurian friends by staying in such a cushy berth so long. He realized now what an idiot he’d been. He’d seen firsthand what this war-at least on the “Grik Front”-had become, and he hadn’t chickened out. But he’d realized with blinding clarity that the reason he’d actually made a real contribution in theater was because he was a bean counter, not a warrior, and what the various expeditionary forces needed as badly as warriors were more bean counters.

  He’d raced back to Baalkpan at the end of the Ceylon Campaign to recruit as many ’Cats-and, frankly, ex-pat female “Impies” escaping their indentured lives-as he could, to establish a Division of Strategic Logistics within the Ministry of Industry. There wasn’t an awful lot of extra labor just loafing around the city, and though hundreds had arrived, he’d had to move fast on the Imperial women because the institutions they’d fled were already breaking down and the “supply” might dry up. The women that arrived in Baalkpan were almost universally illiterate, but though the quality varied, they already spoke a variety of English. A common language that used many of the “right” words for things was key to getting the division up and running now. Alan and his shipmates had awkwardly learned to get by in Lemurian, but Adar had decreed that his People, at least those from his city in the War Industry, learn English. They had to. There’d never been Lemurian words for most of what they made. Understandably, that was taking time-and most ’Cats who spoke English already had jobs. The destroyermen who’d wound up on this world had already faced one kind of “dame famine.” Alan feared another sort.

  And now this!

  “Hey,” Letts said, as he and Perry tried to keep themselves-and, just as important, their new shoes-from sinking in the mud. “You’re Minister of Defensive Works and all that stuff. Roads are part of that, right?”

  “Sure, and I’ll get right on it, soon as you give my engineers a few days to do the job,” Perry groused. Both knew there was nothing Brister could do, but the banter was obligatory-and neither had anything else to say. They were headed for the Castaway Cook, a sort of cafe started by Walker ’s irascible cook, Earl Lanier, that had evolved into the more or less official Navy and Marine club for what promised to be an… interesting meeting.

  Two P-40s- P-40s! — thundered by overhead, almost wingtip to wingtip, the sound of their Allison engines rivaled by the cheering of Lemurian laborers in the shops and beneath the awnings bordering the muddy pathway. Letts grinned, watching the predatory aircraft climb, banking west out over the bay. As much as he’d accomplished, he couldn’t take much credit for the “Warhawks”; their rescue from the old Santa Catalina, beached in a Tjilatjap (Chill-Chaap) swamp, was primarily due to the herculean efforts of others, most notably a former Army Air Corps lieutenant named Benjamin Mallory. Like them all, Ben had stepped up to fight an unimaginably terrible war on this opium-dream earth. He was a colonel now, in charge of the whole Army and Navy Air Corps of the entire Alliance.

  “Is Ben going to meet us there?” Brister asked.

  “Not at the Screw. He’s supposed to meet us all at the Parade Ground,” Alan confirmed. “Unless he was in one of those things”-he gestured at the diminishing shapes in the sky-“and that was his idea of putting in an appearance.” Both men chuckled, but they couldn’t hide their uneasiness from each other.

  “I wish the Skipper was here,” Brister blurted at last, voicing what both were thinking. But Captain Reddy was hopelessly far away, and as Chief of Staff this really was Alan’s job… but nobody had ever expected he’d have to deal with anything like this. “Or even Adar. How come Adar isn’t coming?”

  “I tried to get him to,” Alan sighed, “but we both figured, finally, that this is something I better try to sort out before he gets involved.” He shrugged. “It’s not really his problem… yet. He’ll do what he has to, though, if we can’t square it away.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Brister asked flatly. There it was. And Alan had no idea.

  “The same way we’ve handled everything,” he said more firmly. “We wing it.”

  Brister snorted uneasily. “So that’s why Ben’s coming, huh?”

  The Busted Screw-the decidedly unofficial but more common name for the Castaway Cook-was usually a busy place, and it was jumping when Letts and Brister arrived in time for the midday rush. Traditionally, ’Cats ate only twice a day, but the human destroyermen had arrived among them accustomed to three meals (of some sort) each day, at about the same time. That was a tradition the hardworking ’Cats in the defense industry and military were quickly adopting. Cafes like the Screw were all over the city now, catering to the various Army regiments, but only Naval and Marine personnel (with some notable exceptions) were “permitted” to sit at the benches around the tables or sidle up to the bar beneath the broad roof of the Screw. It was a raucous pl
ace, particularly at times like this. Besides the noisy patrons (allowed only the admittedly superior chow during daylight duty hours), no matter how exclusive a joint it was considered, there were no walls and all the noises of the busy bayside activities could be watched and heard.

  Letts and Brister went to the centrally located bar and tried to spot their target through the bustle. Despite the sensitive situation, Letts was beginning to think he should have just sent a detail of Marines to escort the newcomers to the War Room in Adar’s Great Hall, and to hell with the consequences. He was very busy and irritated that they hadn’t reported there when they first arrived, as expected… but, then, they didn’t legally have to, did they?

  “Where are they, Pepper?” Brister shouted at the slender ’Cat with white-spotted black fur behind the bar. Pepper was the proprietor of the Screw, at least while Lanier was deployed, and he probably knew more about the state of the Alliance than any living being in Baalkpan. It was ridiculous to presume that he, at least, didn’t already know who they were here to see. He probably knew why too, whether the newcomers had blabbed or not.

  “Over there,” Pepper shouted, motioning with his ears at the farthest table, barely protected by the roof.

  Yeah, Letts decided. He knows something’s cockeyed. He’d seen the Lemurian’s concerned blinking. “Thanks.”

  “You wanna eat?” Pepper asked, coming around the bar and following a few steps while Letts and Brister made their way between the tables.

  “Later,” Letts said. He wasn’t very hungry just then, and needed to get the new arrivals away from the Screw as soon as he could. There. He saw them now. Five men sitting alone at a table surrounded by ’Cats who looked at them occasionally, blinking curiosity. “Damn,” he said aside to Brister. “They look like hell.”

  “They all do, those that survived. The Japs really put them through it,” Brister replied.

  Letts said nothing. The condition of the men could make this even harder. He took a breath and crossed the remaining distance to the table, where he stopped and waited until the men noticed his presence.

  “Which of you is Commander Herring?” he asked as courteously as he could. They all wore dungarees they’d been issued in Maa-ni-la before Saan-Kakja tossed the very hot potato they represented at Alan, but none wore any rank designations.

  With a grimace of pain, likely from aching joints, one of the skinny men stood. “I’m Commander Herring,” he said softly. “Commander Simon Herring, United States Navy.”

  Letts looked at him. The two were about the same height, but Herring’s graying hair established him as at least a dozen years older than Alan’s twenty-five, though it was hard to tell. The ordeal he’d endured had doubtless aged him.

  “Pleased to meet you, sir,” Alan replied. “I’m Commander-or Lieutenant, jg, if that’s how you prefer to look at it-Alan Letts. And this is Commander-Lieutenant-Perry Brister. Might I ask that you and your companions follow me? Maybe we can find someplace a little quieter to talk.”

  “That’s fine, Lieutenant,” Herring said, “as long as you don’t mean ‘more private.’ Right now, I don’t want to go anywhere my friends and I might just… disappear.”

  “Sir, I strongly resent the insinuation…”

  “Resent all you want,” Herring said. “But maybe you can forgive me if, after what we’ve been through and under the circumstances, I’m a little careful.”

  “The parade ground surrounding the Great Hall is as public as it gets,” Brister ground out, “but it’s quiet. It’s a military cemetery now, see?”

  The Parade Ground Cemetery that occupied the space around Adar’s Great Hall and the mighty Galla tree around which it was built seemed sparsely populated at first glance. Only about four hundred actual graves occupied a relatively small portion of the vast area at the center of the city. Looks were deceiving. Lemurians much preferred cremation to burial, but a surprising number, Navy ’Cats mostly and a few Marines, lay beneath simple markers alongside their human comrades. They’d ended up more devoted to their shipmates than to tradition. Less than half the humans lost from Walker, Mahan, and S-19 actually rested there either; many had been lost at sea or died too far away to be brought to this place. For now. Many hundreds of names had been engraved into a great bronze plaque, however, and like the cemetery itself, there was plenty of room for additions. Another, separate plaque, with thousands of names representing the people and crew of Humfra-Dar, a Lemurian Home that had joined the American Navy and been altered into a carrier (CV-2), had recently been emplaced. The bronze was still shiny, the names still bright.

  The cemetery was a quiet place for reflection in the middle of the bustling city, and there were benches here and there in the shade of bordering trees. Ben Mallory was waiting for them when they arrived, gazing grimly at Humfra-Dar ’s plaque. The scenes and memories that haunted his eyes and hardened his features warred with his otherwise boyish face. He’d known every flyer on Humfra-Dar and personally trained many of them. He turned at their approach.

  “That never should’ve happened,” he snapped, gesturing at the plaque. “One damn bomb, and Captain Tikker said she went up like a volcano! ’Cats are fanatics about fire safety on their Homes, but we’ve got them carrying fuel oil, high-octane gas, bombs, and loose gunpowder for the cannons, for cryin’ out loud! When you think about it like that, it was inevitable… and it’ll happen again!”

  “I know, Ben,” Alan said softly. “Keje’s working on new procedures, better magazine and bunker protection…” He shrugged. “None of us were ever on a flat-top. There’s so much we’re still making up as we go-and nobody was expecting Grik zeppelins!”

  “Procedures!” Ben grumped, then sighed. “Look, Alan,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’m kind of busy today. We’ve got those evals on the new radial this afternoon, and I’m still trying to wrap up the nuts and bolts of deploying half my modern birds.” He shook his head. “I know I agreed, but there’s a lot more to it than just flying the damn things off to the front! Asking me to believe the fuel and airstrips are ready without seeing ’em is kind of like expecting me to believe in the tooth fairy-and I know we haven’t got parts prepositioned all the way to Andaman yet. We can’t afford to lose any ships and pilots on the way, and even if all the ships make it, half are liable to be down, waiting for spares.”

  “Relax, Ben,” Alan said. “This is important. Besides, you just worry about getting the squadron ready. We’ll sort out the logistics on my end. It’ll still be a few weeks before you get the go date. We’re organizing the supply-ship schedule, so if any of your guys have to go in the water, there’ll be somebody nearby to fish ’em out in a hurry.”

  “For what good that’ll do,” Ben replied. Considering the prolific and voracious nature of the aquatic life on this world, particularly within the Malay Barrier, any rescue ship would have to be close indeed.

  Letts flashed a pained expression. “We all do the best we can,” he said. He truly sympathized with Ben. The P-40s had been a glorious gift, and he knew the airman considered them-and their rapidly improving, mostly ’Cat pilots-almost like children. Alan himself was half tempted to keep them all here. The planes had come in very handy when Grik zeppelins suddenly appeared over Baalkpan itself several weeks before and began dropping bombs. Three Warhawks took to the sky and destroyed the crude dirigibles before they could do much damage, but they’d been the only things available that could have done it at the time. Now they’d armed a few of the home-grown PB-1B “Nancys” for air defense, but the P-40s alone could savage any Grik invasion attempt like the one that had so nearly cost them the city and ended it all. The thing was, they could also savage any similar force that came against First Fleet-and it was better to do it there than here. It was an old argument, but ultimately they all agreed that any weapon, no matter how irreplaceable, was useless… if you weren’t willing to use it.

  “Okay,” Ben said, changing the subject. “So, what’s up? These the new guys?”
>
  Alan fidgeted. “Sort of.” He glanced at the men. “This is Commander Herring.” He paused. “I haven’t been introduced to the others yet.”

  “Excuse me,” said Simon Herring in a reserved tone. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten some of the niceties of civilized behavior.” His voice moderated slightly. “Let me present my companions. That stocky fellow there with no neck and the black jungle of a beard on his face is Gunnery Sergeant Arnold Horn. The one that looks like his taller twin with a neck is Lance Corporal Ian Miles. Both are from the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines. I shipped out of Shanghai with them to the Philippines, and they’ve been watching out for me ever since.” The men nodded but didn’t salute.

  “The skinny blond Dutchman there-we’re all kind of skinny, I’m afraid-is Lieutenant Conrad Diebel of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force. I’m sure he would have appreciated one of the P-40s we saw earlier. He was battling the Japanese-very near here, as a matter of fact-in Brewster Buffaloes until they were all shot out from under him.”

  “I was shot down twice,” the man confirmed in accented English, “but I got four Japs.”

  The last man didn’t wait for Herring to introduce him, but actually stepped forward. “You were on Walker?” he asked Letts with a clear Aussie twang. “I’m Leadin’ Seaman Henry Stokes, HMAS Perth. We was in the Java Sea together.”

  “You were sunk.”

  “Aye, with Houston, later that night in the Sunda Strait. That was a helluva fight! Me an’ some o’ me mates swam ashore an’ dodged the Nips for a few days, but they nabbed us. Set us to breakin’ sodding rocks.” He shook his head sadly. “Me mates died there or in the ship with these blokes, an’ I never seen any o’ me other shipmates again.”