Straits of Hell (44 page)

“My Lord Regent Consort!” The shipmaster hurled himself at Ragak's feet on the sodden deck of his flagship, the
Giorsh
. Ragak stared suspiciously at the creature.
Giorsh
, with her white-painted hull and lavish appointments reminiscent of another time, had been the flagship of all the Grik for a hundred years. Ragak had been astonished when Esshk gave her, and the prestige that went with her, to him. But he was suspicious of her master's constant caution.

“What is it, Shipmaster?” he growled.

“The lookout describes a ship, Lord, a ship of
steam
with
four smoke pipes
, approaching from the north-northeast!” the shipmaster wailed at the deck.

Ragak was taken aback. He remembered Esshk had described such a ship as having something to do with their misfortunes in the past, but by all accounts it wasn't very big. He was sure Esshk had blown the little steamer's contributions far out of proportion to further excuse his failings. But why should this pathetic creature seem so terrified, so close to turning prey himself? He hadn't even commanded
Giorsh
during the earlier . . . setbacks the Grik suffered at Baalkpan, for example. That one had gone on to command one of Esshk's new iron steamers. Seeing the nervous slouching of the other Hij officers nearby, Ragak slashed at the
shipmaster with the talons on his feet. “Get hold of yourself—or destroy yourself at once!” he snarled.

“Of course, Lord Regent Consort, at once!” the shipmaster agreed fervently, and dragged himself away, blood seeping from his back to drip and spread on the wet deck. Rising, he trotted aft, down a companionway by the wheel, leaving Ragak with no idea which he meant to do.

What Ragak didn't realize was that shipmasters and their officers, as a separate class of Hij and as required by their trade, were particularly social creatures. Other Hij—generals, engineers, artisans of every sort, even choosers—jealously guarded their methods and thoughts to promote their own value, but shipmasters had to share their knowledge of the sea, the weather, and the meticulously crafted charts they were taught to make. They also shared tales of places they'd been, shores they'd seen—and enemies they'd fought. That information spread much more widely than any passed by comparatively insular regency generals, and the one ship that had entered the collective nightmares of Grik shipmasters everywhere, particularly those still commanding the hopelessly outdated “Indiamen,” was USS
Walker
.

•   •   •

“
Waa-kur
,
Waa-kur
, come in
Waa-kur
! This is Cap-i-taan Jis-Tikkar, COFO of
Salissa
's First Air Wing! Do you read me, over?” Tikker was orbiting a thousand feet above a loose concentration of Grik ships and what he saw below might have been the most stirring sight he'd ever witnessed. All alone on the wind-tossed sea, USS
Walker
lanced through creamy waves, shearing foam and spray from her knife-edge bow, wisps of smoke peeling away from three funnels behind the big battle flag that streamed taut behind her foremast. Before her, the range shrinking fast, was a vast armada; still somewhat scattered, but numbering more than any single ship should ever have to face. Bright jets of flame flashed from three of
Walker
's four 4"-50s. A moment later, two water columns rose beside a Grik Indiaman about six hundred yards away. At the same time, a mighty blast shook the ship and debris flew in all directions. A few Grik were already firing back, peppering the water around the old destroyer with roundshot splashes.
Not many of the enemy here is armed,
Tikker thought. Most of those had stayed to tangle with TF-Jarrik, but there were enough to be a threat.

“Hi, Tikker!” came Lieutenant Ed Palmer's voice, scratchy in Tikker's ear. He and Ed had been friends since they flew together with (now Colonel) Ben Mallory in an old, battered PBY Catalina they'd almost literally worked to death, and finally lost at the Battle of Baalkpan. They'd all been lucky to survive, and though Ed never flew again, all three shared a special bond.

“Ed! I'm up here, ah, your eleven o'clock, about two miles an' a thousand feet. Is
daamn
windy up here!”

“We got you, Tikker! What do you see?” Ed's voice on the TBS was punctuated by the crash of guns that Tikker saw lash another Grik ship, though he'd have never heard it otherwise.

“The Griks are spread out, straggling bad, but starting to concentrate as they round the point. Some rounded it too quick,” he added with satisfaction, “an' hit the rocks off the harbor mouth. Guns there are firing on those an' others that get too close. The rest . . . The rest
look
like they're makin' for pretty much the same beach Safir Maraan hit with Second Corps.”

“It's the best, for the way Grik land; just running their ships up on the beach. All sandy,” Ed agreed. “Anything landing northwest of the harbor, where the Grik civvies are?”

“Not on purpose. Geerki must be right. Griks have to know they're there, but them not bein' warriors, they probably think they'll just get in the way, slow their rush toward the Cowflop.”

“General Safir will
stomp
their rush!” Ed replied.

“
We
know that,” Tikker agreed.

Walker
was charging into a bigger cluster of Grik ships now, her guns flashing in all directions, smoky tracers arcing from the 25-mm gun tubs in her waist and the red tracers from “old world” ammunition brought by
Santa Catalina
seared bright across the dark water from the two.50-caliber machine guns mounted on each side. The smaller rounds probed wildly for Grik ships from their leaping platform, but mauled them when they touched. They'd finally solved the brass problems with the 25s and.50s. The ammunition for them wasn't as rare and precious as it had been for so long, but
Walker
had apparently picked up some more of the “good stuff” when she rendezvoused with
Santy Cat
off the Seychelles.
At least something good came from that,
Tikker thought grimly. Two more Grik ships were hit and one erupted in
flames, its magazine of “Grik fire” igniting. The other spun beam on to the sea, pulled around by a toppled mast, and simply rolled on its side. There was no perceptible pause before
Walker
's guns sought new targets.

“Say, Ed. You're a helluva sight down there,” Tikker managed.

“I bet. Can't see anything from the radio room.
Nobody
can see much from down here. Skipper wants to know if anybody's heard from Jarrik, and whether any large force landed on the west coast?”

“I don't know,” Tikker confessed. “General Maraan's deploying to face this bunch and wants me to spot for her—and you.”

“Well, tell us what you see here and then hightail it southwest and have a look!”

Tikker hesitated just an instant. He knew Safir's comm section was monitoring them and she'd hear of the exchange. And Captain Reddy
was
Supreme Commander . . . but his plane was using a lot of fuel. The weather
seemed
better here, on the surface, but not up high, and he'd be pounding right into the wind to check to the south. He'd have to refuel before he went, or on his way back here if he wanted to stay in the air long enough to do any good—which meant he'd have to land.
Great.
Another chance to break my neck!

“Wilco,” he said, “there's a
lot
of daamn Griks down there. Most are gonna get past you, and Gener-aal Maraan will have to stop 'em on the beach. But near the center of the concentration you attack is one of those big white-hulled jobs.” They'd seen those before and knew they were the Grik equivalent of flagships. Take their leaders out and the Grik would still attack; that was what they did. But they'd lose whatever ability remained to them in this mess to coordinate anything at all, or react to the resistance Safir Maraan was preparing.

“Thanks, Tikker. I'll tell the Skipper.”

Feeling conflicted since he didn't want to leave his friends below, Tikker made his own report to Safir Maraan and turned his Fleashooter into the wind, southwest, and started to climb. He figured it would take an hour, bucking the storm, to reach the coast opposite the Comoros Islands.

He didn't have that long. He hadn't quite reached the harbor mouth when his engine coughed and the spinning prop in front of him skipped a beat.

“Oh, you better
not
!” he warned. The Alliance had been very lucky with its aircraft engines from the start. Granted, they'd had a functioning prototype to study and keep going—for a while—and then they'd been gifted with the still-underused (in Ben Mallory's opinion) P-40Es. They'd also had fine manuals that covered the basics very well, not to mention all the original destroyermen with their wide and varied technical expertise—and then actual airmen who'd had to learn the very basics covered in the manuals, and had practical experience applying them. The four-cylinder Wright-Gypsy–type engine in the Nancys had been a great success and was used in a wide variety of applications now. The five-cylinder radial powering the newer P-1 Mosquito Hawks had been fairly successful as well, but failures were more common. And the engine on Tikker's plane had already been through a lot. Add the adverse conditions, the moisture it was sucking, and the wild ride that had to be annoying the carburetor, and there was no real telling why the engine suddenly quit.

“Shit!” Tikker shouted when the prop wound down and the plane almost immediately tried to stall. He pushed the stick forward to get the nose down and looked frantically around below, since he'd only about doubled his altitude before losing power and didn't have time for much of anything but to try to figure out where—and if—he could set the plane down. He couldn't bail out. He had the altitude, barely, but the wind would carry him over the bay and drop him in the water. Nope. He couldn't even report his situation: his high-frequency transmitter was powered by the engine. And one thing was sure; he'd never glide all the way back to the airstrip. The harbor sprawled before him, and even if he made it across, only the jagged ruins of Grik City lay beyond. The fort guarding the eastern mouth of the harbor was just below, and the ground past that was laced with trenches and other defensive positions facing the beach. The beach. That was his only option, the only flat stretch he could possibly reach. The wetter sand would be the firmest, probably better than the mud at the airstrip—but the surf was breaking hard and washing far up the beach. Grik ships that had evaded
Walker
were coming in and the defenses manned by Safir Maraan's 3rd and 6th Divisions were preparing to give them a hot welcome, but the beach between them was his only hope. He considered jumping out there, but he'd be too low by then. Besides, even if the wind brought him down
among his friends, his plane might crash among them too. He was just going to have to ride it down.

Turning, he lined up on the beach, trying to hold his northwest to southeast glide path and struggling against the crosswind that threatened to flip him. He eased the stick a little farther forward to gain a bit more speed, remembering the last “dead stick” landing he'd been a part of, when he and Ben tested the very first Nancy over Baalkpan Bay. This was worse. The world was coming up awful fast, and the P-1 kept drifting toward Safir's first trenchline. He tried to compensate and wound up over the water. That wouldn't do at all, even if he'd been in a Nancy. He adjusted again, aiming for that imaginary line on the beach that the sea only occasionally reached, but the line was capricious and he could only control his touchdown to within a few instants, either way. He expected Safir was watching now, along with thousands of her troops, and figured she was praying for him—and cursing him—with every breath. The time for thinking was over, and only his sense of the wind and his aircraft could save him now. He'd
feel
his way through this or die. He thought he caught a glimpse of the sea fading just as he pulled back on the stick, flaring out, trusting the mushy Indiaa rubber “balloon” tires not to sink and stick in the sand—and they didn't! The plane bounced, but it continued forward, smacking the wet sand again, again, slowing each time. Then he saw white foam surging forward across his path, and a geyser of spray erupted around him. The plane tipped up, slamming hard on its nose. His forehead smacked against the crude tube gunsight piercing the windscreen, and he saw bright purple sparks.

For a moment, his eyes didn't work, and he heard and felt a big wave rush around the plane. He figured it would topple it over on its back and drown him, but instead the tail slammed down again with a splash. He felt dizzy, twisting this way and that; then another wave pushed the tail hard to the right, and for an instant he caught a hazy glimpse out to sea. There were still gunflashes far out over the water, and bright flares danced in the dim-lit day where Grik ships burned on the heaving sea.
Walker
was invisible beyond other dark shapes of distant ships, but she was still fighting; that was sure. Despite that, other Grik were coming in, lots of them, and one ship seemed aimed right at him, all sails hastily set to drive it as far up on the beach as possible. Its bow shouldered the sea aside as it drew closer, bigger, until it looked like it would crush him.
He felt all alone, just waiting for the Grik to smash him in the plane, tear him apart. Eat him. Then, just fifty or sixty yards away, the ship surged to a stop, sending the foremast toppling into the surf trailing a long red pennant. Instantly, Grik poured over the side, splashing into the sea. Most disappeared entirely and he thought they were drowning themselves, but then he saw them as they thrashed through the marching swells or somehow rode them in, their heads and weapons held high.

“Get him out! Hurry!” a 'Cat cried, tugging at the harness holding him fast to the wicker seat. “Cut it!” someone else shouted urgently. He drifted away. A short time later—he didn't know how long—he coughed water and sputtered as he was dragged up on the beach and across the sand by panting forms that clutched him tightly under his arms.