Iron Gray Sea d-7

by Taylor Anderson

  “Sure, kid… I mean, Mr. Cook,” Bernie said, catching on to Silva’s unexpected reminder that despite a degree of informality among them all that harked back even to their Asiatic Fleet days, distinctions between officers and enlisted men must always be maintained.

  “Thank you, sir,” Abel and Stuart chorused, stepping into the column that was now waiting for the meat carts to pass.

  Dennis suddenly did a double take and then trotted over to an old Lemurian, swatting a paalka clear of the pathway with a long, dried bamboo shoot. “I’ll catch up, Mr. Sandison!” he called behind him. “I gotta talk to this guy a second.”

  “No screwin’ around!”

  “No, sir.”

  “Hey, Moe. What’s up?” Silva asked the ancient ’Cat. Moe looked good for his age-whatever that was-and was still just as tough and sinewy as Dennis remembered. Now, in addition to the ragged kilt he usually wore to town, he also wore dingy rhino-pig armor with sergeant’s stripes.

  Moe looked up at him. “Si-vaa,” he said. “Where you been? Lotsa huntin’ to do.”

  “Oh, I been here and there.” Silva answered. He waved at Santa Catalina. “Heard you went on a little jaunt yourself.”

  “Damn weird place,” Moe nodded. “Weird critters too. Glad I back here.”

  Silva gestured at the heaps of meat on the carts. “I see you ain’t run outta pigs. They gettin’ harder to find?”

  “No. We kill all we want. They make more.” He shook his head.

  “Look. They’re sendin’ me and Larry and the kids over there-you remember them-up the river, north, into Injun Jungle Lizard territory. We’re s’posed to say howdy to ’em. You wanna go?”

  “No,” Moe answered truthfully, but then twitched his ears at his stripes. “But I Army scout now. They make me go, an’ I been helpin’ plan the trip.” He shrugged like he’d learned to do and gazed northward. “We go up there, we gonna die, I betcha.” He grinned. “But I old. Gonna die soon, anyway!” He laughed at Silva and swatted the paalka again. “See you around, Si-vaa!”

  A grandstand had been erected near the water overlooking the old seaplane ramp, and it was packed to overflowing. Nearby buildings were covered with ’Cats and women as far away as the Screw in one direction and the main dry dock in the other. Sailors and yard workers lined the rails of the completing ships, and others skylarked in the masts and rigging. Below the grandstand, beside the ramp, with deep water in front of it, was Walker ’s refurbished number-one torpedo mount. Some distance to the rear of the triple-tube mount, resting securely fastened on cradle trucks exactly like the one Silva remembered from Walker, were three long, shiny cylinders with rounded noses in front, and four fins and two propellers at the back. Compressors and large accumulators for charging the air flasks were close at hand. Whatever the things were actually capable of, they sure looked like torpedoes to Dennis.

  “Nice fishies, Mr. Sandison. Do they work?”

  “God, I hope so,” Bernie whispered, then raised his voice. “The torpedo division will assume their posts!”

  Dennis was surprised to see Ronson join a crew beside one of the weapons.

  “We’re trying three kinds,” Bernie explained. “Two are reverse-engineered Mk-14s like that wadded-up fish we carried around so long. The only difference is one’s hot and the other’s cold. You’re probably thinking the ship’s sailed on that one, but we’re not talking the same ranges here-yet. If the cold fish can do the job for now, it’ll save a lot of effort.”

  Dennis wasn’t sure exactly which ship Bernie meant. He didn’t much care about torpedoes and didn’t trust them. He firmly believed you should never send a fish where you could send a bullet, and though nobody knew what kind of ships the Grik were working on, he hadn’t seen anything on this world since Amagi that needed a torpedo. His attention was already focused on something else.

  “The other one uses the same gyro, Obry gear, everything,” Bernie continued, unaware he’d lost his audience. “But Ronson talked me into letting him try an electric motor and batteries in place of the air flask.” He shook his head. “I think it’ll work eventually, but I’m afraid our batteries just aren’t there yet.”

  “The only thing I care about is if the damn things’ll go off,” Silva said absently but darkly.

  “Yeah, they’ll go off,” Bernie assured him. “They’re contact exploders all the way, no horsing around.”

  “Good,” Silva said, still distracted.

  About forty yards from the torpedo mount, on the old ramp itself, was Walker ’s glisteningly restored number four, four-inch-fifty gun. Mounted beside it, bolted to a similar concrete pedestal, was an almost exact replica of it, except the mount was taller and more reminiscent of the Japanese 4.7s they’d salvaged. Bernie had told Silva to expect it, but he hadn’t had time to come down and see the thing. He’d been too busy familiarizing himself with the small arms. Now he knew he truly was looking at a dual-purpose four-inch-fifty!

  “I’ll be derned,” he said. “Ain’t that a pretty thing? What did you make her out of?”

  “All our modern weapons are made of Jap steel, from Amagi.” Bernie shrugged. “Not sure how good it is, but it’s better than what we can make so far. Somebody calculated that we salvaged enough steel off her to make every single rifle and pistol used by everybody on both sides in the Great War. I find that hard to believe, but there’s a lot-and we can use local iron in projectiles and nonordnance applications. We are making some steel of our own now, like I said, and we’re doing it by the book-but there’s no way to know if it’s really worth a damn, since Laney’s the closest thing we’ve got to a metallurgist. He worked in a steel mill for a while before he joined the Navy.”

  “Got fired, I bet,” Silva quipped.

  Bernie shrugged. “Probably. I wish Elden hadn’t got himself killed. He really knew stuff.” He brightened. “Spanky does too, but until he gets back, Laney’s the expert. We’ve had to do a lot of guessing and experimenting with heat treating and stuff.”

  “I know heat treating-on small parts an’ springs an’ such,” Silva said, and Bernie glowered.

  “All the more reason why…” He stopped and sighed. Silva had long ago taught what he knew about making springs and case hardening. That knowledge was widespread now. Silva knew nothing about making steel for heavy ordnance. “Well, for now, the new breechloading guns like that one will still use the black-powder shells we’ve been making, to keep pressures down. They’re basically wrought iron-or wrought Jap steel.”

  “It is a four-inch-fifty? Why didn’t you standardize on the four-point-seven? We’ve actually got more of those scattered around, and I guess you could eventually convert the four-inch-fifties.”

  “We thought of that,” Bernie admitted. “We’ve got salvaged Jap gun directors and everything, but production on ‘our’ shells was already so far along and performance being so close, we figured it would be easier to line the four-point-sevens when the time came. You got us on this lining kick with your Allin-Silvas, and it made sense.”

  “Sure,” Silva nodded. “And you can reline ’em when the bores are shot out.”

  “You got it.”

  The rumble of the crowd softened when Adar, High Chief and Sky Priest of Baalkpan and Chairman of the Grand Alliance, stood from his seat at the center of the bleachers. Near silence was achieved when he raised his arms. As always, he still wore his old “sky-priest suit” as the humans called it. It was deep purple with a scattering of embroidered silver stars across the shoulders and hood, which today was thrown back, revealing his gray fur that glistened like silver in the morning sun. Beside him, Alan Letts stood as well, his whites almost painful to look at. Other high-ranking members of the Alliance flanked them, and also stood as a group.

  “Who’s the skinny guy there by Mr. Letts?” Silva asked. “In the officer suit.”

  “New guy,” Bernie replied. “Name’s Herring. Commander Herring, he made a point of rubbing in at first. He came in from Manila with a
couple China Marines, an Aussie, and some Dutchman Colonel Mallory grabbed up. They were off Mizuki Maru, poor devils. That one was ONI, and Letts tapped him for the same job around here, once he decided he was on the level.”

  “Our very own snoop brain, huh?”

  “Looks like.”

  “A fella like that might come in handy,” Silva probed.

  “He might,” Bernie answered, noncommittally. “I’ve only talked to him a few times. Kind of an odd, Ivy League sort. The first time I saw him, he was poking around the powder-blending tower, asking a bunch of screwy questions, and he hadn’t even joined up yet!”

  “What about the Grumpys? They goin’ to Alden?”

  “The Marines?” Bernie asked, rightly suspecting another one of Silva’s odd, often unexplainable nicknames. “I snatched one of them, a corporal, for Ordnance. He’s kind of a snot-like a Marine version of Laney-but he earns his keep. I think Letts is sending the other one, a gunny named Horn, with you.” Bernie looked around. “He might be around here somewhere, or maybe he’s at the drill field.”

  “Gunny Horn,” Silva said, brows knitting. “ Arnie Horn? Big guy, black hair?”

  “I don’t remember his first name, but that sounds like him. I swear, Silva! Did you know everybody on the China Station?”

  “Most everybody that’d been there a while,” Dennis replied, reflecting.

  “Well… if he’s who you think he is, is he a problem?”

  “No. Shouldn’t be. Arnie’s a right guy. I just figgered he croaked-and I owe him one.”

  “One what?”

  “Oh, nothin’, sir.”

  Adar began to speak and his voice carried in that strange, Lemurian way. “We are gathered here, at the first Torpedo Day celebration, to behold the latest wonders wrought by our fine technicians to smite the evil foes of peace and freedom! Even as those foes grow in numbers, so does our capacity to slay them!” A thunderous cheer ensued that was quieted only when Adar raised his arms again. “Today we will view the performance of new weapons that the forces of the evil Dominion or even the Ancient Grik Enemy cannot possibly be prepared to face, and some of them are already in the hands of our precious troops, or en route to them. Their force will be felt!”

  Another great cheer built and slowly died away.

  “Yet we will also see the future! Experimental weapons that are not yet ready for battle, but soon will be! Bear in mind that as the day progresses, you may see some few contrivances that do not perform as hoped. Do not be disheartened by such setbacks or scorn those who suffer them, but honor the effort and remember: the greatest triumphs are built on the adversities encountered and defeated beforehand!”

  There was some laughter mixed with the cheering this time, and Bernie’s face turned red. “All right, Silva. You’re almost up. Get ready. I’ve got to oversee the final preparation on my ‘fishies.’”

  “You bet, Mr. Sandison.”

  At that moment, two loudspeakers Dennis hadn’t noticed before suddenly squealed raucously, like maddened rhino pigs, until the piano prelude to “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar” defeated the feedback and delighted the assembly, many of whom tried to sing along with the harmonizing Andrews Sisters. The recording was rough; it was a big favorite at the Screw and had nearly been played to death. New phonographs had been built, copies of Marvaney’s original, but the ability to broadcast was new. He looked at Ronson.

  “Yeah,” the former electrician’s mate said. “And we’ve got real radios now too, even if they’re big as a steamer trunk. And our tubes are the size of cantaloupes! We’re shrinking everything as fast as we can, and pretty soon we’ll have VHF radio-telephone-TBS sets-for every ship in the Navy! A dozen sets should be arriving at First Fleet any day. Mr. Riggs based them on our old HT-Four on Walker. The good thing is, we can actually use them since they’re short-range, line of sight only. Not likely to be picked up by anything the enemy might have.” He looked around conspiratorially. “We’re working on Huff-Duff too, so our planes’ll be able to find their carriers or airstrips if they get lost, and also detect enemy transmissions!”

  Silva blinked. “That’s swell, Ronson. Sounds like you sparky guys have been busy as a buncha little bees!” He grinned and shuffle-danced away, in time with the music, toward the carts. There he met Risa, already sorting through the weapons.

  “Hi, doll,” he said. “Wanna dance?” Risa spared him a grin as she selected one of the new Baalkpan Arsenal Allin-Silva “conversion” muskets and a cartridge box. This specimen, like all the new rifles they were issuing, had been built as a breechloader. Conversion kits consisting of new barrels with breechblocks already attached and altered hammers were being sent out as quickly as possible for installation in the field. The old barrels were to be returned for conversion by lining the barrels and installing the breechblock.

  Silva chose one of the muzzle-loading rifled muskets and a cartridge box, just like those still in the hands of all the home troops, and many of those deployed elsewhere. With the vast scope of the war, it would take time to equip everyone with the new rifles, and most of the troops with Second Fleet in the east still had smoothbores. At a glance, all the weapons looked identical, but Risa’s had a trapdoor at the breech into which fixed, metallic cartridges could be inserted.

  “Wanna race?” she challenged.

  “What do I get if I win?”

  Risa’s grin faded, and she blinked regret. “You can’t win, Dennis. Everything is different now.”

  “Yeah.”

  The music ended, and a Lemurian with a speaking trumpet that magnified his already powerful voice explained to the spectators that they would now compare the accuracy and rate of fire of the old rifles against the new. Floating targets had been placed in the bay at one hundred, two hundred, and three hundred tails, and other targets dotted the seascape at intervals that reached beyond easy view. Silva and Risa were both well-known warriors of extraordinary skill, he continued, but skill alone, and certainly size (Silva made two of Risa) would make little difference when all Allied troops were armed with the wondrous new weapons.

  Everyone knew the Allin-Silvas weren’t Springfields or even Krags, but they also knew they were a big step in the right direction. Enough of the troops in the crowd remembered when the Grik were defeated with virtually no firearms other than crude cannon. And the new rifles might not be repeaters, but the big fifty-caliber bullet on eighty grains of powder had been proven even deadlier against large beasts than the. 30–06 Springfields and. 30–40 Krags. The lower-velocity and much heavier bullets of the. 50–80 afforded them better penetration against the dangerous animals in the vicinity-and they inflicted gruesome, charge-stopping wounds on Grik. That was more important than flat trajectories to people accustomed to fighting berserk enemies at close range.

  At the sound of a whistle, the competitors commenced firing. Silva was good with the muzzle loader, no question about it. Each shot he fired rang off the iron gong and caused the float to bob. But it was very quickly apparent that he was outclassed. Risa also hit every target, the butt slamming against her muscular shoulder with each booming crack, but she’d already moved to the second target by the time Silva loaded his second shot! She finished with all her targets before he fired his last shot at the first. Without a word, she handed him her rifle. He flipped the rear sight up and shot at a target bobbing in the bay about five hundred tails away. He operated the weapon almost mechanically, recocking the hammer, flipping the breechblock open and ejecting the empty, smoking cartridge. Inserting a new one, he closed the breech, raised the rifle, and fired again. Even offhand, he hit the distant, swaying gong four out of five times.

  The crowd cheered and stomped enthusiastically at the demonstration. The superiority of the new weapon was clear, and by exchanging rifles, Silva and Risa showed just how little adjustment the troops would have to make. Ostentatiously, and to instill the conscientious need to do so, the pair then gathered their empty brass off the ground and the speaker expla
ined that it could be washed and loaded again.

  They next selected two more weapons off the cart. The first was Silva’s heavy Thompson. He inserted a twenty-round magazine, racked the bolt back, and fired at the first of several barrels floating about forty tails offshore. A cloud of white smoke erupted around him, since these were some of the shells loaded with black powder. He stitched the barrel, but many of his later shots went wild as the smoke obscured his aim.

  “Suckers kick a little,” he muttered ruefully as he squirted gri-kakka oil in the action around the bolt and inserted a magazine loaded with their dwindling Rock Island ball. “Raises the muzzle more than I’m used to.” He stitched the barrel again with the old world military ammo. This time, he kept all the rounds on target and left the barrel sinking amid a swarm of splinters. After the appreciative applause, the talker announced that he would now use ammunition made entirely-brass, bullet, powder and all-at the Baalkpan Arsenal!

  Silva inserted the third magazine, the bolt already back, and aimed at another barrel. This string of twenty shots left the smoking-hot barrel at the same apparent velocity and even better accuracy. There was a little more smoke, but it was dark and probably came from the burning lube on the lead bullets. The bullets themselves may not have penetrated both sides of the barrel, but they shattered it even more thoroughly when they deformed on impact. Silva lowered the scalding weapon with a grin amid happy cheers.

  “Yes, friends!” the talker said. “We have now matched the amazing, less-smoking ammunition the first Americans brought us here! But as wonderful as that is, there are few of the Thompson guns. How will that help the Alliance as a whole?” Risa stepped forward with an odd cylindrical device with a pistol grip, a thin wooden butt stock, and a skinny barrel with a tall front sight. She inserted a standard Thompson magazine into a rectangular well forward of the triggerguard, and pulled back a large knob located on the side of the tubular receiver.