Ironclad

by Daniel Foster

  Kearsarge’s smith had been unable to repair the dent because the metal had not simply been bent. It had been stretched. The smith and his strikers had then compounded the problem by heating and hammering and reheating until the damaged area was both brittle, and stretched so far that it no longer fit within the original dimensions of the panel.

  The repair would be beautiful because, to do it, Garret would have to accomplish what most considered impossible.

  Garret had once met a smith, older than the hills, who knew how to forge Delhi iron that built up a little surface rust and then stopped. It lasted forever. His grandfather had known a way of working nickel so that it would hold an edge better than steel. Any modern man of science would tell Garret that stretched metal could not be returned into its original size and shape without melting it down. But it wasn’t true. It could be done with great difficulty. It was an Old World secret, and there were only a handful of people left who knew how to do it.

  Garret was one of them. His Grandfather had taught him, but not his Pa.

  Though Garret had repeatedly asked why, his Grandfather would only say, This isn’t about Iron, Garret. This is about heritage, and I’m leaving it to you.

  Months ago, Garret had not seen a man pressed against his house, nor had he seen the rifle butt swung through the dark to injure him. Because he did not see, that moment had taken everything away from him. But those moments do not end us, unless we let them.

  I’m gonna fix this damn thing. Whatever it is. Just because I can. I’m meant to.

  Though Garret would never see it, he reset the course of the world that night, and because he did not see, a great many terrible things that could have happened, wouldn’t. Redemption comes, even if we do not know when it is with us. It comes to all who are hurt. It changes the world. But most importantly, it changes us.

  Garret didn’t pick up one of the heavy leather blacksmith aprons to protect himself. He shucked his shirt. He cleaned the clinkers out of the coal bed and stoked the forge fire back to searing life. He paused only for a second before he picked up the hammer. The handle was smooth against his palm, worn by countless hours of work. The weight of it felt good. It was wholesome. It was right.

  So Garret forged.

  Sparks flew, and metal rang pure and clean in the night. Garret did not know why he was doing it. He only knew that it was who he was, and that made it right. The fire glowed, slicking his bare chest with sweat. The metal also glowed as he coaxed it back into shape.

  Though Garret would never know it, he saved the world that night, and because he did so, that was the night he began to break free of the darkness that had held him for so long.

  Chapter 26

  Someone was pounding on Andrew’s door. It boomed around inside his little cabin loud as cannon fire. Andrew flopped drunkenly in his narrow bunk, and pushed himself up on his arms. His body felt disjointed and sluggish, both from fatigue and the sudden awakening. He felt like he had a hangover, even though he hadn’t had a drop to drink. It was just the fatigue, piled up. The pounding continued, demonically insistent.

  Andrew fell out of his bunk, driven towards the door by years of duty. He pushed down on the handle and pulled the door open. He squinted in the bright electric lights.

  Mr. Wilkes was standing in front of him, wearing yet another tweed suit. Andrew wondered if the suit was actually part of him. Maybe he couldn’t take it off if he wanted to. Andrew was only wearing underwear.

  “Where is Captain Maxwell?” Wilkes huffed. His face was blotchy, flushed and pale at the same time.

  Instead asking the obvious question: How the hell do you expect me to know, I’ve been asleep? Andrew simply said, “If he’s not in his cabin, he’s probably on the bridge.”

  Mr. Wilkes was leaning on the facing, resting most of his weight on his age-spotted, blue-veined hand. “Where else? I’ve checked both places. I must find him immediately.”

  Andrew was coming around quickly, forcing himself back into his new image of a proper captain that he’d extrapolated from Maxwell. It was miserable. “Why is that Mr. Wilkes?” he asked smartly, despite the fact he was standing beside the officer’s dining room in his underwear.

  “Someone has repaired the Astra,” Wilkes said, pushing himself back to a full standing position.

  “That’s… good news,” Andrew said.

  Wilkes shook his head wearily. “You don’t understand. We must find out who did it. The metal work, it’s a technique that was lost centuries ago.”

  Andrew’s professionalism slipped enough for him to drop his head and rub his temples in fatigue. “I thought it was just a dent, Mr. Wilkes.”

  “It was, but the metal was repaired in a way I’ve seen only once before, and then on a forging from ancient Greece. Someone on this ship knows the technique. I must find him.”

  Andrew was bushed. He hadn’t had more than three hours sleep per night in days. He leaned against the door facing so he didn’t fall over. The world just might end tomorrow, and if Andrew didn’t get some sleep, he might end with it, and if Wilkes didn’t stop talking and go away, Wilkes’ world might end quite a bit sooner than that. That’s not how a captain should think…

  Wilkes was still entreating, though he looked tired and depressed. “It could improve our steel fabrication methods in a dozen different ways. The world needs this.”

  “And you need to give it to them,” Andrew said flatly, his exhaustion pushing him to a rare frankness. “You need this.” He waved a hand vaguely around them.

  Mr. Wilkes moved his mouth soundlessly for a moment. Then he clenched his jaw in anger. “What we do tomorrow, we do because we must.”

  “I know that, Mr. Wilkes,” Andrew replied shortly.

  Mr. Wilkes blew up, or at least as close to blowing up as a, weak, sweating, desperate old man could get. “How dare you imply that this is my legacy!”

  Reputation, Andrew thought. We’re trying to stop a war, and this man’s worried about his reputation. Andrew couldn’t think about anything but his bunk.

  Oh wait, Mr. Wilkes was walking away, stumping across the deck as quickly as his old body would take him. Andrew slammed the door to his cabin, stumbled across the room into his bunk and was asleep before his head hit the mattress.

  W

  June 21st, 1914. Seven days to Vidovdan

  The day came quickly on the USS Kearsarge. A hot Mediterranean sun blazed over emerald water. The ocean was spirited that morning, making small crests and troughs with the wind, playfully slapping Kearsarge’s armored flanks. Under the hands of her relentless captain, the old vessel herself continued to bull ahead. The time had drawn nigh. She’d either do the thing she’d been built for, so many years ago, or be destroyed in the attempt. And her crew with her. They all knew it.

  Or at least Garret and his friends did. Fear of death had become so omnipresent that parts of Garret were dulling to the sensation, like bare feet too long on frosted ground. The fact that he’d spent most of his night working like a dog in the smithy wasn’t helping clear his head.

  The height, however, was.

  Garret kept a solid grip on the rail around the fire control top. He couldn’t imagine what conspiracy of terrible planning and lack of manpower had landed him this duty. There was little to do as a lookout, other than watch the horizon with a glass, cling to the rail, and imagine what kind of a mess he’d make if he fell to Kearsarge’s deck.

  There were two other guys on duty in the fire control top. They, however, were used to the height. They sashayed around in the small circular confines as if they were walking around a picnic in a churchyard. Garret kind of hated them.

  He leaned out a bit and looked down the full height of the cage mast, atop which they were perched. It looked like a mile. The height multiplied every motion of Kearsarge’s deck. If Kearsarge rolled just a few degrees, it swung the fire control top several yards to one side or the other. Additionally, the stern cage mast was g
one, leaving only a ragged stump of scorched basket-woven steel sticking out of the upper deck. The sight was not encouraging.

  Garret wasn’t the only one clinging to the rail. Mr. Wilkes was there as well, still wearing one of his tweed suits, so many layers of wool wrapped around his old body that Garret expected him to begin melting at any moment. Just watching the frail, awkward old Mr. Wilkes climb the ladder up the cage mast had probably knocked a year off of Garret’s life. The old man had enough trouble on flat ground.

  When Mr. Wilkes had finally made it, pale, sweating, and making a wet gasping sound, Garret had asked him why he’d made the climb.

  The only answer he would give was “Because I must see this.” There was no pride in the statement. He said it in the way that Judas might have as he wound the rope around his own neck.

  Garret put the glass to his eye and scanned the horizon again. The other enlisted men had binoculars, but Garret had been given an old spyglass. Anyway, there was nothing to see. Nothing but an arc of glittering green water, fading to grey-blue as it curved over the horizon.

  “Ship off the starboard beam!” one of the other guys yelled, then stepped to the voice tube and repeated his message down to whoever was listening on the bridge. Garret swiveled his head and glass to starboard, sweeping the horizon. There was indeed a ship, and probably a very large one, but that was all he could make out.

  “Two ships off the starboard beam!” Came the new cry while Garret was still looking. One of the other guys relayed it down the voice tube. Garret scanned around the first ship, but saw nothing else. No wait, there it was, the top of a tripod mast, and another just beginning to break the horizon. The ships came up quickly. They were probably battlecruisers, considering how fast they were moving.

  “Convoy off the starboard beam,” came the cry.

  Jesus, how many are there? Nervousness fluttered in Garret’s throat. Everyone in the officer corps had been tight lipped for days. Even so, the increasing tension in their voices and postures spoke clearly enough. Whatever crazy thing they had been sent to do, it was drawing nigh. Sure enough, far beneath Garret, Kearsarge began the turn to intercept. The mouse was hunting the cats.

  “Why haven’t they opened fire?” one of the other guys muttered grimly. “They outgun us twenty to one.”

  During the battle with Audacious, Garret had gotten an intuitive feel for Kearsarge’s firing range. It was far less than that of the newer, more fearsome ships, such as the ones headed their way right now. Garret raised the glass again. The first trident of ships had come far enough now that Garret could begin to make out their general build. But they just kept coming, more and more. Ship after ship after ship crested the horizon. Tripod masts, looming conning towers, and guns upon guns upon guns.

  The other two guys in the fire control top were relaying information in a rapid fire stream down the voice tube. Most of it was guess work, but they appeared practiced at it, one of them manning binoculars and yelling what he saw, and the other relaying the information down to the bridge.

  If their guesses were correct, most of the ships were either French or German, with an oddball Italian vessel. There were no British warships in the convoy. They were traveling in a standard heavy convoy V formation, and Kearsarge was headed straight for the tip of the spear.

  One of the other guys in the fire control top said hoarsely, “That’s got to be 200,000 tons of war machine.”

  “Why haven’t they opened fire yet?” the other repeated.

  “Shut up, Paul,” came the tense reply.

  “Are we gonna die?” Garret asked no one in particular.

  There was no answer. The guy nearest to Garret was as pale as Garret felt.

  From the fire control top, Garret could see everything. He could see the convoy, spreading larger and larger across the horizon in an ever widening V as it came. Yet, while Garret could see everything, he could also see nothing.

  He couldn’t see the shell and powder crews deep inside Kearsarge. He couldn’t see them working frantically, hands and backs slicked with cold sweat as they loaded the four gleaming, wasp-waisted shells into the ammo hoists. He couldn’t hear the whines of the electric hoists that raised the Brahmanda Astra and their special powder, which was in cylinders instead of bags, into the forward turret, where more pale young men awaited. Garret couldn’t feel the power of the juggernaut-like electric rams as they shoved the thousand pound shells into four open breeches, onto the new liners of the waiting guns.

  All of that Garret missed. He was only aware of the salty breeze, the Mediterranean sun, and 200,000 tons of warships bearing down on them.

  One of the other guys in the fighting top stepped up to the range finder and spun it to face the oncoming convoy. The rangefinder was a long metal tube, sort of like a telescope, except that instead of having a large lens in one end, it had two apertures on its long surface, both facing forward like a pair of wide-set eyes. The man operating it was peering into a third aperture, a sight of some sort, partway along its length on the back side. He adjusted a graduated slide as he stared through the sight.

  He fine-tuned the adjustment, then yelled out, “Three point seven five nautical miles, North by North West!”

  The other guy relayed the firing instructions down the voice tube. Kearsarge’s forward turret began to pirouette in response.

  The convoy was so close now that Garret could see the individual national flags fluttering from their sterns. He imagined he could also see the frowning visages of their commanders. He didn’t have to fantasize anything about seeing the guns, all of which were clearly visible, in a march of steel.

  Kearsarge bobbed a bit, which was magnified to a sickening pitch and roll in the fighting top. Then she settled.

  The guy manning the range finder began to relay more detailed information, but he didn’t get the chance to finish, because without warning, it happened.

  Someone pulled the trigger.

  Garret would later find out it was Mr. Sokolov. Apparently, at a random moment, Sokolov decided to disregard Maxwell’s orders, modern technology, and logic. When the sea settled around the Kearsarge, and the wind lulled, Mr. Sokolov saw an opportunity and took it. He made a split-second decision, shouldering all the responsibility, just as do the best of men. And the worst.

  The normal sound of American heavy guns was an overwhelming roar that made the body hum and the ears ring. During the battle with Audacious, Garret had thought of it as an instantaneous sound, but it wasn’t. In reality, as the immense powder bags burned, generating the expanding superheated gas that drove the projectiles, the concussive sound took almost a second to build, crescendo, and abate.

  Whatever powder launched the Astras burned much more quickly and violently. The sound was a single heavy thud, a sledge hammer that hit all of them in the chest. It weakened Garret’s knees and felt like it loosened his teeth. Both of the other guys in the fighting top staggered. Mr. Wilkes buckled and collapsed.

  The guns roared, the recoil wrenching Kearsarge’s hull, popping rivets, and slapping her bow sideways in the water. One of the eights split like a fire log, cracking from one end to the other along its lower starboard side. Propellant gasses shot from the crack like a scalding razor, burning two men to death instantly, and slicing into the deck and the railing like a blade.

  One of the thirteen inch barrels exploded. Chunks of steel flew, denting the foot thick steel that armored the turret, and tearing through the deck planks like paper, pounding the Kearsarge’s lower decks with shrapnel and killing anyone unlucky enough to be close.

  As the salvo flew from the barrels, far too fast to be seen, arcs of electrical discharge leaped from the guns. One hit the conning tower, blackening it. Another leaped to the donkey motor mounted to the deck, blowing it to bits.

  But no one was looking at the motor or the conning tower. Every living soul on the Kearsarge was watching the convoy, waiting to see if the Astra would find its mark. The Astra�
��s flight only took a single heartbeat, but it was the longest one of Garret’s lifetime.

  A single ship sailed dead in the center of the V, hundreds of guns and armor plates around it, safe from all harm. Until the Brahmanda Astra hit it.

  There was a flash of white light, tinged with purple, which seared Garret’s retinas and left a greenish blue afterimage on his vision. A shockwave rolled out from the blast, rocking all the other ships in the convoy with a wave of burning gasses. Almost instantly, the detonation of the Astra was followed by another, far larger explosion. Everywhere the material from the Astra touched the water, it exploded again, as if the two reacted violently to one another’s touch. The second explosion raked the surface of the ocean and ripped at the ships like a gutting knife. It also spread the material from the Astra until it seemed not a ship or a man in a two mile radius wasn’t covered with it.

  Everything that it touched began to burn. Garret knew fire. He’d been around it all his life. It kept him warm. It kept him safe. This was something else entirely.

  Garret might have said it was like watching hell open up and pour its fury onto the ocean, but he wasn’t sure even hell contained the like of the Astra’s flames. Not only were they pure white and nearly as bright as the sun, the Astra’s flame didn’t… well, it just didn’t behave rightly. Garret had seen a raccoon once, stricken with a brain disease. He’d watched the crazed animal attack a cow, clawing, biting, tearing at the larger animal until the cow had run away, a bleeding wreck. He’d watched the raccoon run in circles, slavering and making terrible noises. He’d watched it roll over and over, tearing at itself. He’d watched it kill two hunting dogs, both four times its size. Watching the Astra was like that, but multiplied beyond count.

  The Astra’s flames raged, crackled, and danced in a way that put Garret more in mind of an electrical arc than a flame. Instead of spreading gradually as a camp fire might, the Astra’s flames shot over the ships with violent, insane enthusiasm, gouging deck boards, ripping at steel, entwining around masts, until everything made of steel, wood, or flesh was gripped in the brilliant fingers of death. It was as if fire itself had been driven mad.