Straits of Hell (41 page)

Gales in the West

Battle of the “Go Away Strait”
“2nd Grik City”
USS
Tassat
September 17, 1944

I
t was dawn over the Comoros Islands, and the southeasternmost one, the one infested by the largest number of Grik, was just a couple of miles to the southwest of Task Force Jarrik. The sky was like dull, weathered lead, and the sea was a similar, wetter, darker color, topped with slashes of near white. A stiff, northerly breeze stirred the sea and made it warm and humid—for now, but it was clear to all that a storm was brewing. USS
Tassat
, under Keje's cousin, Captain Jarrik-Fas, and her consort, USS
Haakar-Faask
, under Lieutenant Commander Niaal-Ras-Kavaat, constituted TF-Jarrik, and had been cruising south of the islands under topsails alone, keeping the watchful station they'd
been assigned when the rest of First Fleet South steamed northeast to deal with the gathering Grik menace at the Seychelles.

Both DDs were
Haakar-Faask
Class square rig sailing steamers. Measuring two hundred feet in length with a beam thirty-six feet wide and displacing around sixteen hundred tons, they were not the newest wooden DDs in the Allied fleet, nor the oldest, and were two-thirds as long as
Walker
and actually heavier. Both were capable of making fifteen knots even with the new armor applied to protect their engineering spaces, and they were well armed with twenty 32-pounder smoothbores, Y guns, and depth charges.

Haakar-Faask
carried 224 officers and enlisted, while
Tassat
had 230, about a quarter of whom were “exchange Impies.” These were Imperial sailors and Marines assigned to “Lemurian-American” Navy ships to put more Imperials in the war in the West, while all Imperial ships remained in the fight against the Doms. It was a satisfactory arrangement for all concerned. The influx of volunteers from the Great South Isle would help the war effort amazingly—eventually. But those volunteers still had to be trained, and “Aus-traal-ans” didn't depend nearly as much on the sea as their cousins from the great seagoing Homes, or even those in Borno or the Filpin Lands. Most didn't even have the basic knack for seamanship that had made other Lemurians such quick learners. Factoring in the dreadful losses sustained by those more experienced 'Cats and the pace of operations that kept the rest so long deployed instead of rotating home to teach their skills, the shipyards at Baalkpan and Maa-ni-laa had outstripped the Allied ability to provide trained crews for even newer, more complicated designs. A simple lack of trained crews had created the greatest bottleneck to the deployment of ships that, had they been available, might already have turned the tide in the war.

Conversely, the Empire of the New Britain Isles was a seafaring nation. Its sailors were already well acquainted with steam power and relatively sophisticated ship designs, and Imperial vessels now under construction should have been able to cope with armored Grik warships. But those they had in service, with their exposed paddlewheels, were as hopelessly outclassed in “western” battle lines as dedicated sailors like
Donaghey
had become. Therefore, a growing number of “Impie” officers, particularly from nearer possessions such as Respite Island,
were coming west to learn their trade while ships were made for them back home.

One such officer was Lieutenant Stanly Raj, who was acting as Jarrik-Fas's executive officer on
Tassat.
He now stood beside his shorter, bear-shaped Lemurian captain on the DD's quarterdeck near the exposed helm. The ship was currently hove to and still at morning GQ, her Nancy scout plane being prepared for launch.
Tassat
had no catapult and had to set the plane in the water where it would take off on its own.

“A little rough for this, don't you think?” Raj asked, gauging the wind and sea.

“Almost,” Jarrik confirmed, “but my pilots are good. They've lifted from seas like this many times.” He blinked. “Any worse and I wouldn't let them, though, and I might still have them divert to Grik City instead of trying to recover aboard here later, if the sea gets any friskier.” He scratched the reddish brown fur above his eyes. “Especially since
Haakar-Faask
lost her plane, an' we couldn't get it replaced. Ours is the only one left out here. But it's also the only eyes we'll get in the sky today, and we gotta stay on guard.”

“It does feel a bit . . . lonely out here at times,” Raj observed wryly. “I concur that the Grik on the islands are no real threat, but with only our two ships standing between Grik City and the continent to the west—where all the Grik in the world reside . . . I certainly hope Captain Reddy is right about the Seychelles.”

Jarrik grunted. “Me too. And he probably is. Reports have a
lot
of Grik ships gathered there.” He blinked. “But I known Cap-i-taan Reddy a long time, an' sure as he might be, he's gonna want to watch for sneakin'.” He grinned. “That's why we're here!”

The Nancy slapped the water and tried to surge against the side of the ship, but the boom held it away. Moments later, its observer propped the engine and when it was running smooth, the pilot pointed it away and the shackle attaching it to the boom was released. Immediately, the plane wallowed away from the ship.

“Secure from special air detail!” Raj called. “Resume course!” Piercing whistles shrieked, and men and 'Cats heaved on lines, bringing the yards back around where the sails could bite. Almost immediately, they felt the ship surge ahead.

“By the way,” Jarrik said to Raj, “congratulations! It seems the victory at the Battle of Malpelo was more complete than first suspected. A large number of Dom ships that were thought to have escaped were later captured, severely damaged, and unable to keep up with their friends. Combined with reports from Fort Defiance, it seems things may be looking up in the East at last.”

“Indeed, and thank you. The aftermath of battles on land and sea is often quite confused, it appears,” Raj observed. “What seems like a defeat, or perhaps a draw in this case, may turn out to be a great victory, under further scrutiny.”

“It is natural,” Jarrik said. “I've been in enough battles to understand that one rarely knows what's happening beyond one's own view, much less how an entire, sprawling battle proceeds. And it's equally natural to concentrate on one's own wounds before devoting much interest to how badly one's opponent is hurt.” He snorted a Lemurian chuckle. “And in this case it seems High Ahd-mi-raal Jenks was quite busy gently probing his broken nose while what remained of the Dom fleet dragged itself away, trailing its entrails!”

“An appropriate, if somewhat disrespectful metaphor,” Raj conceded a little stiffly.

Jarrik blinked amusement. “No disrespect. He won a great victory, as did Gener-aal Shinya. And like all victories, it remains to be seen how complete they were. But certainly the war in the East can now proceed more briskly?”

“Let us hope so, and hope also that Captain Reddy can achieve a similar victory north of here.”

“As you say, ‘indeed.'” Jarrik swished his tail, watching the Nancy disappear in the sky to the south. “Malpelo was a helluva fight, and there will be another one today. Just two days ago,” he said, his tone turning somber, “
Santy Cat
and
Arracca
's battle group finally joined
Walker
east of the Seychelles after a hard voyage. They immediately proceeded to a point fifty miles south of the islands, and already—right now, most likely—the first planes from
Salissa
and
Arracca
are closing on the enemy anchorage. Soon the bombs will fall, the new Grik rockets will rise, and destruction will reign. People will die. Let us hope that surprise has been achieved and the cost will be light. But there will be a cost.”

For the next half hour,
Tassat
and
Haakar-Faask
cruised on
companionably, alone in the “Go Away Strait,” with nothing but the Comoros Islands to share the sea as far as the horizon in all directions but to the east, where Madagascar's low, dark form could be seen. And there was near silence aboard
Tassat
except for the pounding rush of the sea and the wind in her rigging. Everyone knew a great battle was shaping up to the north and time must pass before any reports were made. It remained unknown whether the enemy had the ability to monitor their wireless transmissions, but they proceeded under the assumption that it did. The codes had been changed, after cryptic orders to do so were received, and traffic was being kept to a normal minimum to prevent
any
listening enemy from suspecting anything was up, just in case.

Tassat
's Lemurian signal officer scampered up the companionway from below and stood before Jarrik and Raj, eyes wide and blinking distress.

“Well? What is it?” Jarrik demanded. “Has the attack begun?”

“I, aah, not have news of the Saay-shells attaack yet, Cap-i-taan, but our scout makes a report!”

“Then spill it!” Jarrik demanded. “What have they seen?”

The 'Cat gulped and swished her tail in agitation. “Grik ships! Hundreds of 'em! All old Indiaa-maans like they use to carry warriors only, is thirty miles sou-sout'west o' here an' comin' this way!”

“How many ‘hundreds'?” Jarrik snapped.

“I—I don't know.”

“Then find out—and send to all stations: whatever the Grik are doing in the Seychelles, they're also hitting us here,
now
. Ask Gener-aal Safir Maraan to release all armed auxiliaries to join us near our current position. With this wind, they might just make it in time. Tell her also that we'll direct her aircraft as best we can, once we get a better fix on the enemy position.” He paused. “And tell her that if the Grik are indeed in their ‘hundreds,' we can't stop them alone and she must be prepared for a ground assault upon the city.” He continued grimly. “Even if no surface elements survive, she should be able to predict where the enemy will strike by air observations, and deploy accordingly.” Blinking irony, he looked at Lieutenant Raj. “It seems there'll be a ‘helluva fight' here today as well.”

Over the Seychelles

Captain Jis-Tikkar, COFO of Salissa's 1st Air Wing, and back with his Home where he belonged, led
Salissa
's and
Arracca
's combined air wings against the Grik anchorage in the Seychelles from the single seat of “his” P-1 Mosquito Hawk, or “Fleashooter.” Much as he'd have preferred to fly “his” strange P-40E configured as a floatplane, that aircraft, draggy as it was with the big Japanese pontoons bolted on, was still too fast to keep formation with his other planes. Besides, as strapped as they were, he considered the P-40 too valuable to risk in this role—whether he survived to fly it again or not.
Big Sal
had only two short squadrons left, just under twenty Nancys, but
Arracca
had sent forty, plus a dozen “Fleashooters” configured for antiship attack, with no guns and a pair of fifty-pound bombs. Not since the air attacks preceding the First Battle of Madras had he had so many planes under his command—and now he had far better bombs, and voice communications via the miniaturized TBS sets now installed in all planes in the West! As his planes approached the anchorage, it looked like they'd achieved complete surprise. The ironclad Grik battleships, or “waagons,” just lay there, moored nose to tail, and there was no smoke rising from their funnels. They didn't even have steam up! None of the cruisers was in view, so perhaps they were clustered around one of the other islands? But there were plenty of the ubiquitous Grik Indiamen that the enemy used to transport troops and supplies.

“Taally ho!” he cried into the clumsy microphone mounted on a boom in front of his face. “Odd-numbered flights target the waagons. The rest of you, burn down those transports!” Replies came fast and his planes bored in. It was then that he realized that not all the Grik were asleep. He'd examined the new antiair rockets they'd captured at Grik City. They were about two tails long and very narrow, with a nose shaped like a bullet and topped with a rather delicate-looking contact fuse like a big musket cap glued to a piece of tubing. Three fins were positioned toward the rear. In most respects, they looked just like oversize signal rockets to him, and if they hadn't already lost some planes to the things, he might've discounted them, imagining how hard it would be to hit a plane with a signal rocket. But he'd never seen them in action before and when clustered
shocks
of the things jetted into the sky in initially
dense, but diverging patterns, he was surprised both by their speed and their sheer numbers.
Just like everything the Grik do, numbers are what make them dangerous,
he realized. A lot of the rockets went wild, cartwheeling in the sky, disrupting the flight of others, or just flipping manically along the ground until they went off with small explosions. But a truly stunning number rose to meet his planes. His first “vee” was already past; they'd fired late, but when he looked back, he saw smoky tendrils intersect the next formations, followed by several flashes of light. At least four planes fell out of formation, one completely out of control with its wing peeling away. Another drifted down almost lazily, in scattered, smoldering pieces.

Grimly touching the polished 7.7-mm cartridge case piercing his left ear for luck, he bored in on the ships below. Closer he got, closer, his left hand fingering the bomb release lever, caressing it gently, waiting for the exact instant he'd practiced so often. The first great ironclad loomed large below him—and he suddenly began noticing things.

“Abort! Abort the run! All planes abort!” he cried into his mic as he pulled back on the stick, still not sure if he'd really seen what he thought. Banking right, he looked down and saw that several planes had already released, and bombs exploded on or near two of the huge ships below. Great wooden splinters blasted away from one ship, leaving a gaping wound in the sloping casemate, but there was no secondary explosion. Most telling of all, the damage seemed too extensive to have been caused without setting something off inside.