Keje grinned, his sharp teeth bright against his dark fur, and embraced Atlaan beside him. “Three down, and just three to go! Perhaps we do have a chance to save Maa-draas!”
“Ahd-mi-raal, Cap-i-taan Atlaan!” the talker almost screamed. The signal ’Cat hadn’t even taken time to run to the bridge. “The Grik zeps! They are almost upon us—and Cap-i-taan Tikker says they carry some new, giant bomb! He cannot stop them! His OC sends that he thinks they will ram—but it will make no difference!”
The report followed them even as Keje and Atlaan rushed out on the bridgewing. “Arracca also reports zeps closing on her and her charges!”
“These are here already!” Atlaan gasped. The tight gaggle of airships was directly above Salissa, about eight thousand feet up. One Nancy was descending at a steep angle—probably trying to keep airspeed with a dead engine, Keje guessed. Behind them, a single, last Nancy was climbing hard, trying to catch them. “Send to COFO Jis-Tikkar to break off! There is nothing he can do now but waste himself—and he is liable to bring one of those things down on top of us!” Keje shouted back to the talker. “Get everything at Maa-draas that will fly in the air! Arracca has only her reserve squadron to defend the rest of the fleet!”
“They have not dropped their bombs yet,” Atlaan observed suddenly. “Shouldn’t they have dropped them by now?”
It was hard to tell, but Keje was sure the zeppelins had crossed well beyond the optimum release point, and no bombs had fallen. “I believe they should have,” he agreed guardedly. He realized he’d been steeling himself for something like what he’d seen happen to Humfra-Dar. He squinted his eyes. “I am no aviator, but surely if they drop now, they will miss far astern. Could they have decided to go after Arracca or Des-Div Four instead?” That made no sense. The battered DDs still lay in the enemy’s path, but Arracca was north, with most of the rest of the fleet they’d pulled out of Madras as a precaution, and apparently already targeted.
“Look! Oh, look!” Atlaan shouted. “The Grik formation fragments! It splits apart!”
Keje snatched the Imperial spyglass to his eye. Atlaan was right! The Grik gaggle was splitting up, turning in all directions—and bombs, big ones, like Jis-Tikkar said, were falling now. A single large bomb dropped from one, three, seven of the zeppelins—but the last two never had a chance to release theirs because they suddenly blew up.
“P-Forties!” Keje shrieked with glee as four of the amazing aircraft bored in for the kill. He’d never seen a P-40 before, but he’d heard about them, of course, and he’d known they were coming . . . but he hadn’t really expected them! Now he understood why the Grik had hesitated—then panicked. They must have seen the planes boring in! “Oh, by the Heavens, are they not wonderful?” he chortled as three more airships erupted in flames, then two more, before the sleek, dark shapes hurtled past the aerial conflagration and turned toward the final two survivors.
Lieutenant Newman appeared, grinning hugely. “Colonel Ben Mallory’s respects, Admiral, and he’s sorry it took him so long to get here!”
“I wasn’t expecting him at all!” Keje laughed. “I knew he was expected at Andaman today. . . .”
“He was afraid to blow in case the Jap-Griks might be listening. He refueled six of his ships at Andaman and came straight on,” Newman said. “Two had to turn back with engine trouble, though. They were cutting out. Plugs probably fouled. Ben says he hopes to God those grass strips on Ceylon are ready for him, and somebody can get gas, ordnance, food, and booze—in that order—there in a hurry!”
“He should be able to land there,” Keje said more soberly, “but it may take a few days to supply him. We had to pull our ships out of Trin-con-lee in the face of those”—he gestured at the battleships forward—“and the supplies are crossing the highlands from Colombo.” Keje blinked sudden eagerness. “Did he bring any bombs of his own?”
Newman shook his head. “They had to leave them for extra fuel. All they’ve got is a half load of ammo and empty auxiliary tanks. Ben says his plane has some AP and he’ll give that a try, but he really needs to get on the ground.”
“Ahd-mi-raal!” Atlaan blurted. He was gazing through his own glass.
“Yes?”
“The . . . the bombs that fell from the enemy! They are still falling—back toward us!”
“What?” Keje looked. The bombs were very large, he thought again—and getting larger! How can that be? His glass fixed on one of the objects that seemed to be falling diagonally from east to west now, perhaps a mile off Salissa’s starboard beam. “It is a long, white cylinder with a blunt nose and extra-large fins on its tail,” he muttered, “and . . . are those little wings?!” The glass shook in his hand. “Send to Col-nol Maallory at once! Ignore the Grik battleships! Destroy the zeppelins making for the remainder of the fleet at any cost—any cost!”
“What do you see?” Atlaan demanded, trying to look for himself.
“Those bombs are also little aircraft! They are controlled, probably by a Grik lying inside on his belly!”
“Then perhaps they are not bombs! With a pilot—”
“Of course they are bombs!” Keje roared, as much to convince himself as Atlaan of the horrifying madness of the scheme. “They have no engine! They will hit us—or the water. Which do you think they were brought here to try?”
“Ahead flank!” Atlaan bellowed, dashing into the pilothouse. “Right full rudder! Sound the collision alarm!”
Almost calmly now, Keje refocused on the flying bomb he’d been watching and saw it turn toward his ship. He wasn’t prepared when a much closer one, descending through Salissa’s own smoke, plunged down through the forward flight deck and exploded.
CHAPTER 29
South of the Rocky Gap
India
“So, here we are,” General Pete Alden said softly, unnecessarily, gazing out over the long, narrow, forest-crowded lake. The water was dappled by the last rays of the sun, sinking beyond the mountains to the west, and great, wide trees hung low over the shallows. Angrily squawking duck-shape lizard birds wheeled and darted in rough formations, trying to find undisturbed moorings while weary planes jockeyed toward the open shorelines, their tired engines echoing across the water. Compounding the aggravation of the lizard birds, hundreds of now-free-roaming dino-cows dominated a lot of the shady shallows they preferred, capering and bugling happily in the superabundance of water they apparently craved and had been denied by their former wranglers. Musketry still rattled in the distance, punctuated by the heavy rumble of artillery and mortars.
“Yes, here we are,” observed General-Queen Protector Safir Maraan with sharp irony. She had discarded her black cloak at some point in the fighting that brought them here, and her silver armor was dented and dark. She sounded utterly spent, but she was growing impatient with Pete’s self-recriminations. “We are here, alive, because you bravely and brilliantly saved us from the trap you sent us to,” she said bluntly. “A trap that General Rolak might have warned us against, but didn’t. A trap Colonel Flynn and I should have recognized because it was not dissimilar to one the enemy tried on us before. The Grik grow more . . . adaptable . . . than we had thought, were willing to believe, they were able.” Her tail swished irritation at herself. “Now we know. Henceforth, we must design our battles as if we were fighting against ourselves, not thoughtless animals.” She shrugged. “The majority of them may still be such, but those who design their battles are not!”
Pete Alden reluctantly nodded. “I guess. Rolak’s Corps has fully replaced yours, and nothing’ll get past him as long as he has enough ammunition.” He stopped, as if unwilling to admit he’d done something right. “We carted a lot of ammunition out of Madras before . . .” He shrugged. “We’ve got a fair amount of fuel too, since we didn’t have to worry about hauling water.” Nobody would drink lake water without boiling it first, but there was plenty of it. “We’ve got a good perimeter here, from the Gap down to the river that runs out of this lake,” he continued, “and w
e rounded up a lot of those dino-cows the Grik were staging in the jungle, so we won’t starve for a while. Eventually, ammunition and fuel are going to be a problem.” He rubbed his neck, then nodded at the lake. “I guess it might’ve been kind of pretty here once, without all the floating junk.”
All of Leedom’s remaining Nancys, battered and dingy, either floated alongside a long “dock” of fallen trees, or choked one of the gravelly beaches they’d been dragged up on to keep them from sinking. Other planes, most from Salissa, had been coming in periodically from Madras, fleeing the approaching Grik. Arracca was overcrowded, and after what happened to Big Sal, her planes had nowhere else to go. Some looked okay, but most showed hard use. One of the latter was trying to touch down now, its overworked engine wheezing and smoking, the control surfaces in rags.
“That will be Captain Jis-Tikkar,” said Safir. “We have comm again at last, and he sent that he was on his way here.” Her large eyes cut toward Pete. “He is the last.”
“Orderly!” Pete shouted. “My compliments to Captain Tikker, and get his ass over here as soon as he steps out of that heap. Make sure you get some water in him—or anything else he wants to drink.”
“Big Sal? Pete asked when Tikker saluted him.
“Afloat and underway,” Tikker replied. “Somehow.”
Pete had heard that, but it was nice to have it confirmed. Salissa’s comm was out, but Keje—thank God Keje was safe!—had reported via Scott that his ship was out of danger but was incapable of flight ops of any sort and couldn’t even defend herself. She had taken two direct hits from the crazy Grik gliding bombs, and all her upper works forward of the bridge had burned. There was also serious damage amidships on the starboard side.
“I could see her burning all the way to Maa-draas,” Tikker reported, “but once the rest of the fleet joined her, they brought the fires under control. The entire fleet now retires to Andamaan, except for Scott, a gaas-o-leen tanker, and a few other DDs that will make a run to Trin-con-lee to offload whatever they can for Colonel Maallory’s planes and aircrews.”
“They’re staying?”
“I do not know, Gen-er-aal.”
“Well . . . but otherwise, we’re on our own?”
Tikker shook his head, blinking denial. “I cannot say, sir. All is still very confused. Three Grik baattle-ships are in Maa-draas, bombarding the empty city”—he snorted and blinked—“and if that were all there was, I think Ahd-mi-raal Keje would remain aboard Arracca. A broader combat air patrol could ensure against more Grik zeps getting close enough to use their gliding bombs—but reports from a picket ship off south Saa-lon say more Grik baattle-ships are on the way. Perhaps they were sent later, or were delayed by breakdowns. . . . Regardless, since the only weapon we had to usefully combat them was Salissa . . .”
“Yeah,” Pete said. “No sense risking the fleet if we can’t even dent the bastards. But that brings us back to Ben Mallory. His P-Forties could make short work of them with proper bombs. They brought something to Andaman they thought would work—”
“Yes, sir, but they cannot, could not, bring them here. The range was too far to bring the bombs and the fuel necessary to make the trip.”
“Maybe a ‘Clipper’ . . .”
“That is one discussion we monitored between Ahd-mi-raal Keje and Colonel Maallory,” Tikker said.
“Rest assured, Gen-er-aal Aalden,” Safir Maraan told Pete, “Cap-i-taan Jis-Tikkar is correct. Nearly every message we have monitored or received involves relieving this force. It has become the priority of the western war effort. All we have to do is hold out until help arrives, as it surely will.”
Pete smiled at her. She made it sound so easy, but he knew she had no such illusions. She did have faith, though; that was plain. Faith that help would come and they would hold. Pete remembered his earlier mood with embarrassment. Clearly General-Queen Protector Safir Maraan still had faith in him in spite of everything, and he determined then that he would die before he disappointed her.
“We’ll hold,” he said, his voice firm. He gestured out at the lake. “Tikker, you and Leedom have the biggest air wing in the world right now. Even after you strip the wrecks, you’ll have more planes than a carrier, I’ll bet. We brought some fuel out of Madras, and we’ve got incendiaries. Maybe the battleships shrug ’em off, but they kill the hell out of Grik in the open. The guys are digging in like fiends. We’ll see how the Grik adapt to trench warfare.” He grinned. “Which I never was a big fan of, by the way. We’ll let ’em get used to it and see how they like it; then, out of the blue, we’ll knock the shit out of ’em!”
Grik Madras
“We have achieved a great victory!” General of the Sea Hisashi Kurokawa loudly proclaimed as he met generals Niwa, Halik, and Muriname in the heavily guarded field north of Madras. The sky was utterly black and only the fires of the burning city hinted at the huge bulk of the black-painted airship that had brought the other leaders, besides Niwa, to him there. He knew it must have been a harrowing flight, because even Muriname’s personal craft, heavily armed as it was, required only a spark to roast them all alive as they plummeted to the earth. Kurokawa felt a chill. He would never ride one of the terrifying things. There were already reports that many of the enemy aircraft had escaped to a lake west of there. Surely some of them would be on the prowl?
The two Japanese generals saluted him, followed a moment later by Halik, who mimicked the gesture. “Come, my friends,” Kurokawa boomed, still for the benefit of the many onlookers. “I have a large tent, captured from the enemy, that we may relax within while we discuss our ultimate reconquest of my regency!”
Halik and Niwa looked at each other. Kurokawa’s regency? It occurred to both of them then that N’galsh was nowhere to be seen, nor had Niwa seen the vice regent since Muriname arrived in the south. Niwa didn’t know Muriname well. The scrawny former NAP 1/c seemed older than his years and was already losing his hair. Niwa barely recognized him. Together, they moved toward the tent. Once inside, Kurokawa’s temper took a profound turn. Never did he raise his voice to a level that might be overheard by the guards some distance away, but Niwa recognized an old, almost fanatical intensity.
“Why, General Halik, was the enemy not destroyed in the pass? With the numbers at your disposal and the new warriors you were sent, it should have been simple enough!” Kurokawa demanded.
“The enemy is not a stone that one may overturn at will,” Halik replied evenly. His words were carefully enunciated to be clearly understood, and Kurokawa almost recoiled in surprise. Halik had been “just another elevated Grik” when Kurokawa saw him last. He’d been talented, certainly, and clearly had great potential, but that potential had not yet been realized. “His discipline is better than all our warriors but the hatchling host, and his tactics more flexible. They have better weapons—I understand you have seen the examples we captured?—and he uses them well.” Halik continued, his crest rising. “Ultimately, we could not force the Gap because our air power was taken from us—and we had not enough artillery when we needed it most.”
Niwa was proud of his Grik friend. Never had an underling stood so straight and spoken so forcefully to Kurokawa before. He hoped it wouldn’t cost Halik his life. He prepared for Kurokawa’s explosion. Instead, to his amazement, the general of the sea merely stared. Eventually, he nodded.
“You make sense, General Halik. The enemy has better weapons than even I believed possible,” he admitted. He glared at Muriname. “As the travails of my own Grand Fleet can attest. I suppose you did well, under the circumstances. You did not take the pass from the enemy, but you denied him the open plain beyond where I fear his flexibility would have been far more difficult to counter—and where he might have interrupted your only secure line of supply.” He fumed, looking around. “We have no other as yet, and will not until we control the sea and sky!” He glared at Muriname again.
“In all honesty, my Grand Fleet was savaged,” he confessed. “We have more ships on the wa
y, but nothing faster than theirs, so the matter of supply and reinforcement remains. If the new bombs had been used sooner, I would not have lost so many ships—including my own flagship!” The rage threatened to spill over again, and Muriname shifted uncomfortably.
“General of the Sea,” Muriname said, “I ordered the attack as soon as I received word—and it did succeed in the likely destruction of one of their carriers. . . .”
“For the loss of nearly every airship under your command!” Kurokawa snapped. “And you would not even know what they accomplished if I had not seen it myself! All that attacked were lost!” A troubling thought resurfaced in Kurokawa’s mind. He’d been too distant to see what did it, but something destroyed the last of Muriname’s airships before they could finish the big enemy carrier, and something else wiped out the second force with equal ease. Or could it have been the same thing that destroyed both? he wondered.
“More airships are on the way,” Muriname soothed. “But they remain at a disadvantage in speed and maneuverability—not to mention other inherent risks.” He straightened and looked strangely at Kurokawa. “Ultimately, they are all we have for now. We must make do, and devise better tactics for their use.”
Kurokawa nodded thoughtfully, oddly quick to halt his attack against Muriname, Niwa thought. What is that look? Is there something better than dirigibles taking shape at the Japanese enclave on Zanzibar? Suddenly, Niwa was sure of it. But why keep it secret? Then it was clear. For the same reason they kept communications secret—from the Grik. He remembered Kurokawa’s ways well enough to know the madman doubtless still plotted and schemed.
Finally, Kurokawa turned to Niwa. “I have missed you, General, more than you know. You have accomplished much and made me proud.”
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