Safir looked at Geerki, still groveling on the stones. “Does he still do this all the time?” she asked one of the Aryaalan guards who’d accompanied the creature from General Rolak. They weren’t there to prevent his escape, not anymore. They’d been sent to protect the ancient Grik “prisoner” that Rolak now trusted implicitly.
“Almost always, my queen.”
“Stop that, Hij Geerki!” Safir commanded. “And stand. I will speak to you in a moment.”
“O’ course, Lord… Qyeen!”
“The rest of you… silence. You’ve all told me what you think. Now prepare to hear my orders. What are you hearing from Cap-i-taan Jarrik?” she demanded of the comm-’Cat seated at the bank of wireless equipment. She’d learned Morse herself, just as voraciously as she learned any new language, and had identified Tassat’s current code prefix amid the clatter of the keys.
“Tassat and Haakar-Faask smite the enemy, my queen. They rake its vanguard and keep their distance. The lead enemy ships are all the older style, but mount guns in their sides. Staying ahead of them allows Cap-i-taan Jarrik to take a heavy toll while receiving little return fire.”
“Does he slow the enemy advance?” Safir demanded.
“Some,” the comm-’Cat hedged. “Tassat and Haakar-Faask have destroyed or disabled seventeen ships, by Jarrik’s best count. Our nine planes certainly destroyed five—before they were forced to return to rearm and refuel… .”
“But the airfield and seaplane docks are under constant threat from the air,” Safir added.
“Yes, my queen. And the sea is worsening. Even the bay is perhaps too rough to continue operating Nancys.”
“All planes will continue operations at any cost,” Safir Maraan said, her voice cold but her eyes closing briefly in prayer. “In a few hours, we will have all of Salissa’s and Arracca’s planes. They will attack the Grik swarm and rearm and refuel here as well.”
“Further taxing our damaged facilities,” Mersaak murmured.
“Yes!” Safir snapped. “And they’ll continue operations regardless of that as well, even should the weather turn to the fiercest strakka ever known!” She moved to the map on the great table fashioned of timbers from one of the sunken Grik dreadnaughts in the bay. “We have our warning—now,” she said flatly, “and should be able to place troops in response to the enemy landing. But I do not want to respond! I want the Grik to land where they will be most concentrated and we can best concentrate against them—to most easily slaughter them. That means, one way or another, we must drive them ashore as quickly as we can.” She pointed to the northwest side of the island beyond the “Wall of Trees” that encircled the city. “I want them to land along this coast, between the abandoned city to the south and the enclave of starving Grik.”
“I thought you did not want to fight them there, from behind the Wall of Trees?” Risa speculated. She was wet and muddy and had been working hard to improve the defenses along the point Safir now indicated.
“I did not expect to, but would if we can manage it.” Safir grinned at her. “If they round the northern point, they can land anywhere, or several places at once. Force them to come ashore directly to the west of us and they must attack through the jungle before they even reach the Wall of Trees.” She looked around. “If we can make them land there, all of them, then we can concentrate all our forces against them at that one place. The jungle is not hospitable, as you know, and not only will it slow them, but their leaders will also have great difficulty maintaining cohesion and control.”
“But how do we ‘make’ them?” Saachic asked. “Waa-kur will not arrive until late this afternoon or evening, and the rest of the fleet cannot be here before tonight at the earliest.”
“The weather will help us, to some degree, even as it makes things more difficult. I suspect some Grik ships, damaged in action, have already been driven ashore.” She took a long breath. “As for the others, I’ve dispatched every vessel but our oilers from this harbor that can carry cannon, except the ‘Pee-Tees,’ which do not and must guard the narrow port channel with their torpedoes in any case. The others will join Tassat and Haakar-Faask. Their mission, and that of our air-craaft, will be to ‘herd’ the Grik fleet toward shore, damaging as many ships as they can. My hope is that as more and more Grik seek the supposed safety of land—and many are wrecked in the attempt!—the rest, their leaders, will realize they must also land if they mean to preserve a large-enough concentrated force to menace the city.”
Risa stared at her, wide-eyed. “To inflict such damage before the enemy rounds the northern point, Tassat, Haakar-Faask, and the others must press their attacks! Two DDs and what, six or seven DEs? Perhaps a dozen auxiliaries? Against hundreds? They cannot survive!”
Safir said nothing.
“And what if the Grik do not oblige us in this plan? What if, after such sacrifice, the greater part of the Grik fleet still survives to land elsewhere?”
“Then a smaller force will be needed to defend the Wall of Trees. Yours and the Maroons alone, in that case. And the rest will face fewer Grik elsewhere.” She blinked a sudden flash of helplessness that belied her ruthless tone. “As Cap-i-taan Reddy sent to me; ‘we have been suckered.’ My understanding of the term is imperfect, but I think sufficient for me to agree it is appropriate. We have managed the feat often enough ourselves, but now we must cope with an imaginative Grik besides Gener-aal Halik. I pray they don’t have many more.” Finally, she turned to Hij Geerki. “Your report?”
“I ser’ you, Lord Qyeen!”
“Yes, thank you. What have you learned?”
“I talk to the… encircled Griks, like you say. They is not all hungry. They let Geerki eat!” Safir’s lip curled in disgust, imagining what they’d fed him. “They is gettin’ less an’ less o’ them, though,” Geerki continued. “Less than, ah, sixteen thousands o’ they still there. The rest get eat. They said the soldier Griks all killed one another and get eat right at start. Just regular Griks, like Geerki, is all that’s there,” he added a little skeptically.
“Did you tell them what I offered?” “Offers” of various sorts were things that Grik warriors understood, when “offering” to let others join their eternal hunt. Presumably, they “joined” other Grik hunters, from other regencies, for joint operations. That was probably how they amassed their “swarms.” But no one they’d considered “prey” had ever asked a group of Grik to join them. Obviously, there was no question of anyone actually allowing these Grik to join the Alliance, but Safir had promised they’d be fed, in return for labor… and they’d live.
“I did, Lord,” Geerki replied. “An’ I told they to look at Geerki! I a great critcher now, nearly a… ph-erson! They is a’nazed,” he added modestly.
“What did they say?”
“They say they see. They is not soldier Griks,” he stressed, “and they know you kill they all easy.” He hesitated. “They also know General Esshk is returning, though, too. Think he kill you.” He shrugged strangely. “He not kill you, they surrender,” he ended simply.
“But they won’t fight to aid him if he comes?”
Geerki made a fluppering sound with his tongue behind dull yellow teeth. “They can’t! They not soldier Griks any ’ore than Geerki!”
“But you have fought,” Safir pointed out. “Alongside Lord Muln Rolak.”
The old Grik looked to the side, then stared down for a moment before he spoke.
“Geerki still not a soldier Grik,” he finally said quietly. “’Ut Lord Rolak turn Geerki into a… else thing. Not just Grik. I nearly a ph-erson! A ph-erson do soldier things, he has to, e’en he not a soldier.”
• • •
The action that would come to be known as the Battle of the Go Away Strait grew much more furious with the arrival of the six DEs and ten “fast transports” from Grik City to join the already weary DDs under Jarrik-Fas’s command. All the new arrivals had once been Grik “Indiamen” themselves, identical to those they came to fight, befo
re being captured, cut down to lighter, sleeker lines, armed and provided with steam engines. Unlike the DDs, they had no applied armor to protect their engineering spaces, and if their guns were better than those on the Grik warships, they didn’t have as many. Even so, Jarrik was sure his meager force could’ve savaged the old-style invasion fleet the Grik had sent—given time, replenishment, and most of all, sea room. The problem was, he had none of those things. Safir Maraan had told him where she needed him to force the enemy to land his troops, and that meant he had to get “stuck in.”
The sea was getting rougher, the sky darker, and the normally tight Grik formation, which had always spoken well of their seamanship if nothing else, was spreading out. But to keep from being hopelessly scattered, Jarrik figured the whole force would have to shoot the gap between the easternmost island he’d been cruising near that morning, and the coast of Madagascar. That was where he chose to face them with his combined “fleet,” and that was where he wanted all the Allied planes to focus their attention as well, concentrating on the ships farther back in the formation for two reasons. First, that was where the highest concentration of dedicated transports was likely to be, and second, he didn’t want the planes hitting any of his own ships when things got tangled up.
He looked aft, northeast, across the rising swells. Tassat led the puny battle line he’d formed, and seventeen ships, bare-poled, steamed dutifully behind her. Haakar-Faask was near the center of the line.
“It certainly looks impressive,” Lieutenant Stanly Raj observed.
“It does,” Jarrik agreed. “And they’re all of similar size and rig to us, who have already bloodied the Grik’s ugly snouts. They can’t know how weak most really are. Maybe the prospect of a lot more of what we’ve already given them will make ’em think twice.”
“Do you really think that?”
Jarrik blinked thoughtfully. “No,” he confessed. “But not because the Grik we fight today are particularly formidable, except in numbers.” He saw Raj’s confusion and explained. “These come on like the ‘old’ Grik we fought early in the war. To you, Grik are Grik, but there’s a difference. The old Grik fought ferociously but with little thought. They came in swarms, like those ships: bunched up in a great, lethal mob that couldn’t be stopped without practically killing them all. Sometimes, if they got suddenly surprised or somehow scared enough, they might rout”—he grinned toothily—“caat-a-strophically. And we got good at making interesting setups to bring that about. But the Grik learned and became much more… difficult.” He paused, gauging the distance to the enemy across the heaving sea. Less than a mile now. Soon, the battle would begin in earnest. “The thing is, the plan, the… straa-ti-gee that brought this all about was very good. Too good. And now we’re in a jaam. This ‘Gener-aal Esshk,’ or whoever we face, is like that daamn Halik. He has a noodle,” he said, tapping his head. “But right now, I think, he’s usin’ old tools to shape a new, good plan. Does that mean that’s all he has left?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Tikker seen organized army camps when he first started scoutin’ Aaf-ri-caa in his Pee-Forty. I think, like them old ships that was at the Seychelles, and those comin’ at us”—he pointed—“Gener-aal Grik—whoever he is—is tryin’ to hurt us as baad as he can, throwin’ all his old tools at us, hand over fist, before he sends his new stuff.” He blinked irony and waved at the following battle line. “The funny part is, if this is all we can scrape up, he might not even need his new stuff!”
He considered awhile, and Raj was quiet as Tassat pitched into the foaming sea, her engine and shaft rumbling beneath their feet. The Grik ships were close enough now that they could’ve commenced firing to some effect even in such a boisterous sea, but Tassat’s earlier long-range nibbles had depleted her shot locker more than Jarrik liked, and he wanted to get closer before the rest of his ships revealed how lightly armed they were. “Just for hoots,” he suddenly said, “I’d better send my notions off in case nobody else has thought them up—and just in case they’re right. I kind of doubt I’ll get a chance later.” He quickly summoned a young Imperial midshipman and dictated a note to be taken below to the comm shack. Then he turned to Raj. “We’ll cross their bows at least twice, firing as we go,” he said, just above the noise of the sea, wind, and engine. “That should jumble them up. Slow them down. Hopefully, by then, our air-craaft will arrive.”
“Then?”
“Then we’ll try to do the same on the western flank of their ‘formation,’ causing as much mischief as we can. Maybe ‘herd’ them east, as Safir Maraan desires. At some point, though, I expect our battle line to fall apart. It’s inevitable in this sea. I’ve already passed orders that if any ship finds herself separated or surrounded, she must engage the thickest concentration of Grik she can reach.”
Raj blinked surprise in the Lemurian way. “That is suicide! And they would invite capture!”
Jarrik shook his head. “No Lemurian, and no Amer-i-caan Navy ship will be captured by the Grik. The, ah, ‘proto-col’ for that was established long ago by the first USS Revenge, and there are fuses of several types in the maag-a-zines of all our ships.” He grinned at Raj’s horrified expression. “Believe me, you don’t want to be captured by the Grik!” He turned to face the growing enemy fleet, its red hulls and dingy sails darkening the heavy sea, even as the sky above continued to darken into a malignant black swirl. “I believe we may be building to a true strakka!” he said gleefully, and spread his arms. “I, for one, embrace it! A strakka of wind and fire! Starboard baattery!” he roared. “Run out your guns and stand by to commence firin’ in local control! Pass the word to all ships,” he cried to the talker standing by the cluster of voice tubes beside the helm. “Local control” merely meant that the guns would be individually aimed instead of controlled by Tassat’s crude but effective gun director in her main top. Since the aim was not necessarily to sink a few ships but to damage as many as possible, salvos would not be used.
Raj managed to compose himself—what else could he do?—and watched the gunports open and the great guns roll to their stops. He’d heard how ferociously his Governor-Empress’s furry allies fought the Grik, but he’d never imagined himself in his current situation. He was here to learn, not die. But it looked like he was about to die regardless. His subconscious railed against that, but his conscious mind, the part ruled by honor, supposed that to die in such company would be a privilege, after all.
“Are strakkas more intense than the great cyclones, the ‘typhons’ in the East?” he asked conversationally, trying to sound steady and unconcerned.
Jarrik blinked at him with respect. “I do not know,” he answered. “I’ve never been east of Maa-ni-la. But they’re brisk enough to suit anyone in a ship as small as this, and if we’re lucky and the Heavens smile upon us, it might do much of our work for us.” He grinned. “And who knows? We may even ride it out ourselves!”
Jarrik-Fas turned to gauge the distance once more. “Fire as you bear!” he commanded. One by one, or occasionally in pairs, ten great guns roared and rumbled back, spitting their heavy shot screeching at the enemy. The smoke was quickly swept away, and glancing back, Jarrik saw white puffs and yellow flames jet away from the ships astern. Looking back at the Grik, he saw tumbling splinters and toppling masts torn aside by the freshening wind, and the closest ships twisted and collided, dragged around by trailing wreckage—but exposing their own batteries as well. One ship fired a heavy broadside, just a couple of hundred tails away. Most of her shot went wild, but a few ripped the air above Tassat’s deck or slammed into her hull. One caromed off her tall funnel, leaving a tremendous dent, and whined away to splash into the sea. Jarrik grinned at Raj. “Isn’t it wondrous how when the shooting starts, all concern immediately fades?”
Raj nodded dutifully, but he didn’t necessarily agree. He was still afraid.
• • •
Captain Jis-Tikkar had been in the air all day, first for the aborted raid on the Seychelles, and now on this lo
ng-range raid on the Grik fleet that Jarrik was jamming up east of the Comoros Islands. There’d been a longer-than-expected delay, rearming and refueling all the planes. None could land on water or decks with bombs still slung, so they’d quickly dropped their ordnance on the Grik ghost fleet after all, before returning to their ships. No sense in leaving anything for the enemy to make use of. But the weather was worsening even then, and what should’ve been accomplished in half that time wound up taking more than two hours. Now midday, the two Naval Air Wings were finally closing on Jarrik’s reported position after flying through the worst weather Tikker had ever experienced in any plane, much less anything as tiny as a P-1 “Fleashooter.”
The little windscreen and the propwash of the five-cylinder radial kept most of the rain off him, but he couldn’t see through it. Every time he peeked over the top, his goggles quickly went opaque, and he spent the next few minutes drying them on his damp flight suit—smearing them, mostly—before taking another peek and doing it again. He’d been forced to fly into the darkening sky and increasing wind almost entirely by compass, and his little plane bounced and swooped as erratically as a leaf. Often glancing from side to side and behind, he was gratefully amazed to see that most of Salissa’s and Arracca’s planes were still with him. All “his” pilots were experienced veterans now. Still, he knew he’d lost a few. Most of those had simply become lost or separated from his straggling formation, and he’d ordered them to make for Grik City. Some had gone down, though, and even if Walker had been close enough to pick the pilots up, he doubted she’d ever see them in the heaving sea below. “What a mess,” he mumbled to himself for perhaps the hundredth time.
Straits of Hell: Destroyermen Page 41
