Straits of Hell (42 page)

“Abort your runs, daammit!” he shouted.

“What's the dope, sur?” “Why? What?” “Did I hear ‘abort'?” “What's goin' on?” came a flurry of queries.

“Those waagons have no guns!
No armor!
Their boilers are cold, an' there's nobody home!”

“You mean they're not
real
?”

Tikker continued his orbit, still looking down. “They're real enough, just not finished, I bet. No armor bolted on, an' no iron shutters over empty gunports. They're just wood, painted black. No iron but the funnels—an' I bet the funnels're dummies!” He saw more explosions, crackling among the anchored Indiamen and the flies where they'd assumed the enemy encampments were. “Even-numbered flights, abort!” he shouted. “
Everybody
abort, I said!”

“We do!” came an immediate response. “Rockets is fallin' on our taa-gits!” Tikker stared a moment, then barked a laugh. That was something even he hadn't thought of. With their contact fuses, of
course
any Grik rockets that didn't smack a plane would go off when they hit the ground—wherever that might be. Just further proof they didn't much care what happened to the ships and equipment they'd gathered here.

“Skipper,” came another tinny voice. “The Indiaa-mans—they's
wrecks
! Old, they look like, an' no way fit for sea. Half are beached or sunk in shallow water!”

“But why?” came a confused shout.

“The rockets are real! Griks is still shootin' at us!” someone else warned.

Tikker took a deep breath. “All pilots, listen up,” he shouted, and the chatter died away. “There're Grik down there, all right, but I bet just enough to shoot the rockets. We'll take a closer look, but I think there's only one thing that can possibly be goin' on here.”

USS
Walker

“They suckered us,” Matt said grimly, handing the message form to Spanky, who passed it to Herring.

“I think it's obvious why the cruisers are absent,” Herring said. “They towed the decoy fleet here and then pulled out.”

“Obviously,” Matt agreed. “But why decoys—and expensive decoys at that, even if they're just empty hulks—and why here?”

Herring pursed his lips. “The Grik are not stupid. Not any longer. They've seen that their large battleships, at least as currently designed, are expensive in time and materials to produce, and not particularly effective. They're extremely vulnerable to our torpedoes as well. My guess is that they expended these incomplete hulks, minus the iron they mean to use on other projects, expressly because they knew how tempting they would be to us.”

“To sucker us,” Spanky repeated sourly.

“Indeed. The cruisers were complete, just as capable in a surface action, and far less costly to produce and crew. They have saved them for later.”

“Probably be better protected from the air when we see them again too,” Bernie Sandison supplied.

Matt nodded. “But they drew us here for a reason,” he said, staring out at the gray day. Ed Palmer raced onto the bridge with another message form and breathlessly handed it over. Matt scanned it quickly, then slapped it against his leg. “Here's why,” he snarled. “Jarrik-Fas on
Tassat
reports a big Grik fleet of transports approaching the Comoros Islands from the south, and all he's got to stand in its way are
Tassat
,
Haakar-Faask
, and whatever Safir Maraan can scrape up to send him, which isn't much. A few lightly armed DEs and fast transports!
Boy
, did we get suckered!” He took a deep breath and gazed around the bridge before his eyes settled back on Ed. “Message to all ships,” he said. “Recover aircraft as quickly as you can, and turn 'em around for an immediate flight to support Jarrik. They'll have to rearm and refuel at Grik City.”

Herring stepped to the chart table and put his finger on the cracked, filmy Plexiglas protecting the chart above their position. “It's about two hundred and fifty miles, Captain, and the weather is deteriorating,” Herring warned.

“I know. But they can get there in about four hours, counting turnaround. It'll take us eight to ten hours at flank speed in this sea.”

Spanky whistled. “Hard on the boilers, and we'll be sucking fumes by the time we get there,” he pointed out.

“I know, but maybe we'll be close enough to pick up any aircrews that can't make it.”

Herring cleared his throat. “Do I understand that you mean to steam
Walker
to aid Jarrik-Fas all alone? What difference can this one ship hope to make?”

“No choice,” Matt said. “And we're not going to be much help to Jarrik. Whatever he's gotten into—what
I've
gotten him into,” he added bitterly, “will probably be over by the time we get there. Let's just hope he can hold them long enough for us to get between what's left of the invasion fleet and Grik City.
Santy Cat
,
Salissa
,
Arracca
, and the rest of the escorts will proceed at their best possible speed, but we're looking at sixteen, eighteen hours before they can get there. That's too long.” He turned in his chair to face Herring full on. “And as for the other, I'd have thought by now that you'd have a far better appreciation of what ‘this one ship' and her crew can accomplish!” He turned back to Ed. “Send it! Helm, make your course one eight zero. All ahead flank!”

//////
Grik City
September 17, 1944

“I
ser' you, Lord!” Hij Geerki exclaimed, throwing himself on the swept stone floor of General Queen Safir Maraan's HQ in the former “Celestial Palace.” All conversation halted for a moment, in surprise at the strange creature's behavior. Lieutenant Colonel Saachic had been suggesting using his me-naak mounted cavalry—essentially dragoons now—as a rapid mobile reserve, while General Grisa, commanding 6th Division, and General Mersaak of the 3rd were arguing over where Major Risa-Sab-At's 1st Raider (Chack's) Brigade should be placed. Risa had ideas of her own and remained adamant that the regiment of “Maroons” her raiders had been training must stay close to her brigade. The Maroons, still represented, if not commanded by the man named “Will,” was equally insistent on that. General Safir Maraan, dressed as always in black cape and silver-washed armor had listened just about long
enough, and Geerki's intrusion gave her the break she'd been about to create.

Competing with the moaning wind of the building storm, rushing explosions throbbed outside the thick stone walls as formation after formation of Grik zeppelins pasted the city—in daylight, for the first time—and there was nothing she could do about it. All her remaining air reserves had gone to attack the fleet of Grik transports Jarrik had sighted and she'd ordered them to ignore the zeps they saw approaching. As usual with the near nightly raids, this new, bolder bombing remained largely ineffective and still focused on the waterfront. At least that was the supposition. The wind was shoving the zeppelins around so badly that it was hard to tell what they were aiming at, and their bombs fell largely at random. Even so, it galled her mightily to just sit there and take it. It galled her even more to “hide” in the Celestial Palace, and she hated the dreary place. But it was centrally located to her various defensive positions and provided her headquarters section good protection from the occasional bomb (the Grik clearly didn't want to damage their holiest temple) that hit the place no matter how careful the Grik tried to be.
Stupid,
she thought. They couldn't hurt the structure with their puny firebombs, but they might burn everybody out if they concentrated on it.

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, before 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!”