Maelstrom (3 page)

And when he had everyone’s undivided attention, he talked about
Amagi
. At 46,000 tons of iron, and over 800 feet long, she was much heavier and almost as big as the improbably huge wooden seagoing Homes of the People. Most present still hadn’t seen the Japanese battle cruiser, although some survivors of
Nerracca
had. At least, they’d seen what she could do with her terrifying guns. Tassana stood beside her grandfather, Ramic-Sa-Ar, her eyes red and haunted, while Matt described the ship. Chack had seen it. He’d had a good long look from
Walker
’s crow’s nest, and often, when Matt stopped for a moment, he continued quietly in his own language, speaking of what he saw. Finally, Matt described
Walker
’s vengeful torpedo attack and the damage he thought it inflicted. To those listening it was a stirring commentary, but that wasn’t Matt’s only intent. He massaged his brow with his fingers and glanced at Nakja-Mur. The High Chief knew what he was going to say to the hushed assembly.

“She’s still out there,” he said at last, and took a long, deep breath. So did everyone else. “Mr. Mallory confirmed by direct observation that she’s still afloat and underway”—he managed a predatory grin—“but not very fast. We were right about the damage to her boilers. It looks like she’s making only about four knots. The Grik are clustered around her, probably to prevent another torpedo attack, and she and the rest of the enemy fleet have turned back for Aryaal. Her damage is severe, and remember, she was already badly damaged after the last time she met up with us. After that fish we stuck in her the other night, I’m frankly amazed she didn’t just roll over and sink. Maybe she still will,” he added hopefully, “but we can’t count on it. I think we can count on a little time, however, and maybe we evened the odds a little. A few enemy scouts were reported nosing around the mouth of the bay this morning, but Fort Atkinson’s guns drove them off. My ship is still in pretty rough shape, but tomorrow we’ll sortie and see if we can tow in some of the Grik ships we damaged in the strait. As you know, a couple have already arrived, captured by local crews. I understand the fighting against the survivors was fierce. . . .”

“So
Amagi
and the main force have retired?” Keje asked for emphasis, speaking for the first time.

“As of Mr. Mallory’s last observations before the PBY got jumped by one of
Amagi
’s spotting planes. I’m sure you all appreciate how lucky we are that plane and most of her people made it back? As for
Amagi
.” He shrugged. “Maybe her other boilers will choke and that’ll be the end of her. We could sure use one of those Strakkas right about now,” he added, referring to an intense, typhoonlike storm spawned by the slightly different climate on this very different Earth. There were murmurs of agreement, mostly from the destroyermen. “In any event, Mr. Alden and Mr. Letts have improved considerably on the defense designs I left behind. They came up with stuff I never even thought of, and then the people of this city, working themselves to death, managed to finish the job. I’m impressed. Pete explained the differences and I had a good look at them this afternoon.” He looked as many of them in the eye as he could. “They’re
good
defenses, and they ought to hold against a very determined assault. That’s good, because that’s the only kind I’ve seen the Grik make.” He paused, measuring the mood in the hall.

“Eventually, they’ll come.
Amagi
will be repaired or not, but I expect if she can be, they’ll try to wait for her. That may give us months to prepare, or it may not. They strike me as pretty notional, strategically. They might just get sick of waiting. Regardless, like I said, eventually they’ll come, and we have to continue to prepare as if the attack will come next week . . . or tomorrow.” The mood was decidedly somber. “Without
Amagi
, I think we can hold. We’ve already seen that their ships are extremely vulnerable to gunfire, particularly the high-explosive shells from
Walker
’s four-inch guns and the big thirty-two-pounders—both on the Homes and emplaced here. That’s good, and I’ve no doubt we’ll thrash the lizards if they come into the bay. The landward defenses look good too, and they’ll be in for a hell of a surprise if they try them. The problem is, as with any static defense, we don’t have any depth. If they break through anywhere, we’re done. The wall has to hold. The lizards outnumber us ten to one already. With the extra time they now have too, I expect those odds to grow even worse. They may try to force some strategic point, and keep piling in until the defenders are exhausted. That means we have to keep plenty of reserves, and we can’t commit them too soon.

“We can do this, but it’s going to take unflinching discipline”—he let that sink in—“and it’s also going to take more troops.”

“But . . .” Keje spread his hands, palm up. “Where will we find them?”

“The Fil-pin lands,” Matt said simply. “Manila. It’s our only hope.”

The Fil-pin lands and some other Homes not yet on the front lines of the war recognized the threat posed by the Grik and gladly sent almost everything asked of them. They knew the consequences if Baalkpan should fall, but for the most part they jealously reserved the one commodity Baalkpan needed most: warriors to match the countless hordes of the enemy. Token forces had been sent; Nakja-Mur suspected that was mainly so they might learn the new ways of war taught by the Americans, but with the exception of the Sularans across the strait, their combined numbers would not make up a single regiment of Alden’s “Marines.”

“I know they’ve refused to send significant forces in the past,” Matt continued, “but if we go and talk to them, tell them,
show
them what the stakes are, maybe they’ll change their minds. Besides,” he added with a strange expression, “we might find more friends than the Manilos. I’ve been thinking about those reports of an ‘iron fish’ in the Fil-pin Sea. If it’s what I think it is, and if we can find it,
Amagi
might be in for a very big surprise if she ever comes here.”

“But who will go?” asked Adar. “It is a journey of months.” Matt turned to him.

“You’ll go; so will I. So will
Walker
. After a few weeks in the yard she can get there, meet the Manilos, look around for the iron fish, and still be back in plenty of time. We’ll establish another wellhead on Tarakan Island too. Bradford says it’s a good choice, and we need a fallback fuel reserve.”

“What if the Grik do not wait?” insisted Nakja-Mur.

“We’ll stay in touch through the radio in the plane.” Matt looked at Mallory. “If Ben somehow manages to get it airworthy again, he won’t fly until and unless Lieutenant Riggs and Radioman Clancy’s experiments with other types of receivers are successful. Understood?”

Mallory nodded reluctantly. “Understood, Captain.”

“There,” Matt said. “
Amagi can’t
come before we get back, and if the Grik try to send their main force, you should be able to hold for a time, and we’ll be less than a week away. This is what I propose to do. . . .”

After the council adjourned, Matt and his former executive officer, Jim Ellis—now
Mahan
’s captain—were joined by Sandra Tucker, and together they strolled slowly along the pier. Ellis, burly, once ebullient, still showed the effects of his ordeal aboard
Mahan
. His limp, caused when he was shot by Kaufman—an Air Corps captain who’d taken over his ship after they came through the Squall—was better, but he was still haunted by what he felt was his less than stellar performance as
Mahan
’s commanding officer. Most of the already shorthanded old destroyer’s remaining crew had died while she was nominally in his charge. Matt knew it wasn’t his fault, but Jim didn’t see it that way. Nor could he and the rest of
Mahan
’s survivors dispel the sense of dishonor that seemed to have settled upon their ship, due to Kaufman’s actions and their own inability to prevent them.

Sandra Tucker was as petite as Ellis was physically imposing. The top of her head, long, sandy-brown hair coiled in a bun, reached only to Matt’s shoulder, but her seemingly delicate frame concealed a strength of will and character that had been tested over and over again on the grisly battlefields of her operating tables. She’d faced wounds of a type and scope few Americans ever had, since the primary weapons of this war were designed to hack, stab, and slash. The unwarlike Lemurians had never seen anything like it before either, and she and Nurse Theimer had created, from scratch, a professional, efficient Hospital Corps. The ’Cats possessed a powerful analgesic, antiseptic paste, a by-product of the fermented “polta” fruit, so wounds were less likely to fester and fewer wounded were lost to disease. But battlefield medicine—the wholesale treatment of terrible wounds—was something the ’Cats had known nothing about. Sandra was just as tired as Matt. Many in her hospital now were younglings who’d survived the loss of
Nerracca
. The ship had been shelled into a sinking inferno, and a lot of the injuries she now faced were terrible burns on tiny, whimpering bodies.

The sky was clear, and in spite of the glow from the city and the pier, the stars stood out brightly overhead. In a way it was much like that night, so long ago now, when Matt and Sandra so tentatively discovered how they felt toward each other. On that occasion they’d been serenaded by drunken men singing an off-color song as they were transported back to the ship. Tonight the background music consisted of crackly, indistinct, upbeat tunes, from the dead gunner’s mate “Mack” Marvaney’s phonograph, playing over the ship’s open comm. The music was accompanied by loud, hoarse voices and clanging metal, as the men continued working under the glare of the searchlights.

The main difference between that night and this, however, was that back then, they still had no real idea what they faced. They’d had a few minor successes against the Grik, and their concerns about fuel had been put to rest. In some ways it was a hopeful time. Matt had chafed at their ignorance regarding the enemy, but compared to now, that ignorance had indeed been bliss. Now they knew what they faced, and the mood was more somber. Back then, things seemed to be looking up. Tonight, hope and optimism were in considerably shorter supply.

They stopped at the end of the pier, a hundred yards aft of
Walker
. In the gloom, weirdly illuminated by the ambient light, the PBY was beached near its own short pier to keep it from sinking. The plane appeared to sag with exhaustion, its wings drooping low. The only things keeping them horizontal to the fuselage seemed to be the wingtip floats on either side, supported by blocks and makeshift braces. Matt remembered something else that had changed: he’d been committed to protecting and husbanding the irreplaceable Catalina. Since then, he’d nearly used it up, as his idealistic intentions gave way to the demands of reality. It was just as well, because if they’d kept to his original plan of, basically, not letting it fly out of sight, they’d all be dead right now. They’d have never known about the approach of
Amagi
and the Grik ships that accompanied her. He still felt a deep regret.

Few of the plane’s injuries were visible in the shadows, but he could see them still by memory. Bullet holes and shattered Plexiglas, shredded control surfaces, the fire-blackened cowling, the terrible, violently amputated port wingtip . . . all added to the already generally dilapidated appearance of faded blue, brine-streaked paint. He didn’t seriously expect her to ever fly again, in spite of Lieutenant Mallory’s assurances. Even if Ben was right, the plane couldn’t have many hours left to give them, and when it was gone, there’d never be another. Of course, the same could be said for
Walker
and
Mahan
, and the destroyermen that kept them alive. He was using them up too.

Matt finally broke the silence that had descended upon them. “So, Jim,” he said, “what do you think of the plan? You didn’t say a lot during the meeting.”

Jim didn’t answer at once. Instead, he stared back at the two destroyers tied to the dock.
Mahan
lay just ahead of
Walker
, lights burning aboard her as well. Even before the war they left behind, on another Earth, both ships had been antiques, commissioned in 1918 and 1919, respectively. Since then, they’d spent much of their lives toiling in neglect with the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. When the Japanese ravaged the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and ran wild during the early months of the war, all that stood in their way were obsolete relics like the ones he was looking at. Their sleek hulls and rakish, primitive appearance little resembled their more modern counterparts, and in comparison they were sadly underarmed. A meager four 4-inch guns and a single 3-inch gun constituted their “main battery,” and a few machine guns mounted on the rails were all they ever had against aircraft. Their main offensive capability had always been their speed, and twelve 21-inch torpedo tubes. Now, both ships’ speed had been reduced by battle damage and mechanical failure.
Mahan
had only one propeller, for example. Her other one had gone to replace one lost by
Walker
. They also had but a single—hopefully—operational torpedo between them; an obsolete MK-10 they’d scavenged from a warehouse of condemned equipment before evacuating Surabaya. During their “old” war. They’d originally fled that place with another American “four-stacker,”
Pope
, and the British cruiser
Exeter
, and destroyer
Encounter
. All three other ships were destroyed by the Japanese, leaving only
Walker
and
Mahan
to face
Amagi
—and the Squall that swept them all here.

Any realistic assessment of the two destroyers would have left them condemned to the breaker, or at least several months in a dry dock after what they’d endured, but they had no such luxury. Therefore, with monumental ingenuity, jury-rigged parts, and the tireless efforts of their human/ Lemurian crews, the ships were being prepared for yet another last-ditch defense.