Maelstrom (43 page)

CHAPTER 11

Lieutenant Perry Brister,
Mahan
’s former engineering officer, was standing on the southwest wall of Fort Atkinson before the sun came up. It was dank and humid and totally dark. There was no moon, and the stars were obscured by a heavy, drizzly overcast that had moved in during the night. The fort was entirely exposed to the elements, and there was no higher promontory nearby to protect it from the wind or shade it from the sun. If a Strakka ever directly struck it, the damage would be severe. It did enjoy the highest elevation for miles around, strangely enough, and the best view of the strait. It was strange, because, like other little geographic things now and then, Perry didn’t remember the elevation on the point where the fort was constructed being quite this high in “the old world.” He wasn’t complaining, but it often struck him as odd. Everyone always said the planet was the same, just everything living on it was different. That wasn’t always the case, according to Bradford’s “ice age” theory, and Perry agreed that whatever was responsible for all the big differences probably had something to do with the little ones too. Whatever the reason, Fort Atkinson was a lot better situated than it would have been built on the same stretch of ground back home.

He fiddled nervously with his binoculars. He wanted to raise them and take a look, but it was too early for that. By doing so, he’d only confirm his unease to the defenders gathered nearby. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Good morning, Mr. Bris-terr,” greeted Muln Rolak from the gloom. The elderly Lemurian held two cups of “coffee.” His English was still barely understandable, but Brister had become fairly fluent in ’Cat. He replied in that language.

“Morning, Lord Rolak,” he said, accepting one of the cups. He looked curiously at the other. “I thought you guys didn’t like this stuff. Only use it for medicine?”

Rolak chuffed. “I need medicine today.”

Perry nodded. He took a tentative sip and grimaced. “If bad taste is the measure of an effective dose, this stuff ought to cure you.”

“I need it to wake me up,” Rolak confessed. “I didn’t sleep well last night.” He scratched at an eye with one of his clawed fingers. “I’ve been a warrior all my life, and have fought many battles.” He blinked. “I’ve not always won, but I’ve usually enjoyed myself—and I always survived. Until the Grik came to Aryaal, I never faced the fear that I might not.” He uttered a grunting laugh. “Now I face that fear every day.” Subconsciously, Perry was fingering the binoculars again. Rolak gestured around them. “These warriors feel it too. All of them. They wouldn’t be sane if they didn’t.” He made a coughing sound that passed for a wistful sigh. “This is not a fun war.” He glanced ruefully at Brister and pointed at the binoculars. “So take a look if it makes you feel better. I doubt anyone will notice.”

Perry felt himself blushing. “You did,” he said.

Rolak blinked with humor. “But that is because I am drinking coffee.”

Slowly the sky began to brighten, and nervous, eager eyes stared hard at the strait. The sun would rise behind them—at least that was the same—so there’d be no silhouettes. They’d have to wait until the sun actually illuminated the water below.

“I see them!” came a shout, and Perry did look then. He squinted hard through the binoculars and adjusted them with his thumb.

“Where?!” he shouted in reply.

“Right
there
!”

He quickly looked up and saw a ’Cat pointing down toward the very mouth of the bay, and he jerked the glasses back to his face.

“My God.”

The squiggles he’d seen and written off as wave tops suddenly resolved themselves into scores of ships packed impossibly close. He’d been looking mostly at the horizon, beginning to emerge. Looking too far. The thing he’d dreaded to see in the distance was already
here
.

“Load your guns!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Batteries A, B, and C! Remember your training, and choose your targets!” He snatched a bleary-eyed ’Cat who’d appeared behind him. It was one of his runners. “Quick, to the semaphore tower! Have them fire the flare to signal the city the attack has begun!” He turned back to the front. Beside him was one of the massive thirty-two-pounder guns, resting on a naval carriage like the ones they’d developed for the Homes. The weapon’s crew was in the final stage of preparing it to fire. A gunner poured priming powder into and on the vent, and another ’Cat stood ready with a smoldering linstock. Perry looked at Rolak and shook his head with frustration. Then, tilting it back, he opened his mouth.

“Commence firing!”

Matt raced to the bridge, still tucking in his shirt. For once he hadn’t bothered to shave. In the distance, through the windows, he saw stabbing flashes of fire as the guns of Fort Atkinson hurled their missiles down upon the still-unseen targets below. He felt and heard a deep, shuddering thunder, and the glass panes in the pilothouse rattled with each report.

“Sound general quarters! Tell Mr. McFarlane to light off number two. Where’s Gray? Pass the word: single-up all lines, and prepare to get underway!”

Campeti relayed the commands into the talker’s headset. Reynolds had gone to the head, and he raced back up the ladder and snatched the set from Campeti’s hand.

“Sorry, sir,” he mumbled. Matt didn’t even notice. He was still issuing orders.

“Signal Mr. Alden—send a runner too—and make sure HQ’s aware the attack’s underway!”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Chief Gray was heard on the foredeck, bellowing at the line handlers.

“What’s our pressure?”

“Two hundred pounds on three and four, Captain. All night long,” Campeti quickly replied. “Just as ordered.”

“Very well.”

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light in the mouth of the bay, and burning debris soared high.

“Whoo-ee!” shouted Norman Kutas, standing behind the wheel. “Something just blew the hell up!”

“Quiet on the bridge!”

“Captain,” came Reynolds’s voice, “all stations report manned and ready, except torpedoes! Mr. Sandison has placed his division at the Bosun’s disposal—except the smoke generators, and they’re manned and ready.”

“Very well. Cast off all lines.”

Juan Marcos appeared on the bridge, accompanied by a haggard Lieutenant Garrett. Instead of the usual carafe, Juan held a large, wrapped bundle in his hands.

“Mr. Garrett, what are you doing here?” Captain Reddy demanded.

“Sir,” Garrett replied formally, “my command is incapacitated, out of the fight. I’ve moved her to a safe anchorage—I hope—and request permission to resume my previous post here, for the duration of this action.”

Matt glanced at Campeti, who shrugged.

“No complaints from me, Skipper. He’s a better gunnery officer than I am. ’Sides, we might need more than one before this is over.”

“Very well, Mr. Garrett, you have my permission.” Matt looked at Juan. “What are you here for?”

“I promised to bring you this, Cap-tan,” he replied with quiet dignity. “Lieutenant Tucker sent it out a short while ago. I did not want to wake you.”

Matt began to send Juan away, but something in the steward’s manner made him reconsider. Instead he took the bulky package and curiously peeked under the folds. He blinked in surprise and glanced back at Juan, a soft look of wonder on his face.

“Lieutenant Tucker commissioned it,” Juan explained. “She said you once told her we had seen such a thing, and you admired it greatly. The one who made it would take no payment.”

“That was . . . generous,” Matt said huskily. Gingerly he handed the package to Garrett. “Have this run up, if you please. On the foremast halyard.”

Pete Alden was on the balcony of the Great Hall again, but this time with a far larger group: official gawkers, for the most part, who should have been at their posts. In spite of all their preparations, the attack had come so swiftly and unexpectedly, a measure of confusion was inevitable. Letts was shouting for them to disperse. From Alden’s perch, much of the mouth of the bay was obscured by the south headland, and even as the day began to brighten and the overcast burned away, he could see only the mast tops of the enemy ships. It reminded him of a forest of toothpicks. Fort Atkinson was invisible as well behind a shroud of dense white smoke gouting continuously from the active guns and drifting lazily toward the city. It was accompanied by a constant rumbling sound.
It must be hell for the gunners
, he thought: gasping and choking and going deaf in the dense, sulfurous haze. He didn’t know how they could even see their targets. Somehow they could, evidently, because even as he watched, another geyser of flames erupted among the clustered masts.

“The fort’s really pounding them,” Letts observed beside him. Most of the gawkers had finally fled, although Pete saw many Lemurians still crowding the nearby dwellings, trying to catch their first glimpse of the enemy.

“Not hard enough,” Pete growled, pointing at the part of the bay they could see. A phalanx of Grik Indiamen had appeared around the headland.

“They’ll be in the minefield soon,” said Letts. “Too soon. Do you think it’ll stop them?”

Pete shrugged. “It might slow them down. Bunch them up. That’ll give the fort more time to hammer their flank.”

“Look!” cried Nakja-Mur, pointing westward, toward the middle of the bay. Under the brightening sky,
Walker
lanced across the placid water at a flat sprint. Gray smoke streamed aft from three of her rusty funnels, and white water curled from her bow beneath the proud, faded numbers and churned along her side. She was rust blotched and streaked, and all the patches and welds gave her once-sleek hull a leprous look, even at the distance from which they viewed her. But her sad, frail appearance wasn’t nearly enough to offset the impression of bold determination she managed to affect. Straight out behind her high foremast, brilliant and new in the first rays of the sun, streamed a huge American flag. Alden raised his glasses and saw words embroidered on the broad stripes:
Makassar Strait, 1
^st
Java Sea, Escape from Surabaya, 2
^nd
Java Sea (Salissa), The Stones, B’mbaado Bay, Aryaal,
and simply
Nerracca
. The names of
Walker
’s major actions.

“Now, isn’t that just the damnedest thing you ever saw?” Letts managed to say. Pete only nodded. With the size of the lump in his throat, he didn’t trust himself to speak.

Another, different rumbling boom came from across the bay. They watched a dirty gray upheaval of water and debris gush skyward from among the leading Grik ships. The red-painted hull directly over the explosion lifted bodily into the air, breaking its back. It sank quickly beneath the settling spray. Several ships nearby looked mortally damaged, and masts plummeted into the sea or fouled other ships as they listed.

“It worked!” Letts shouted, clapping his hands. “My God, what a mess!” Nakja-Mur clasped his paws together in a gesture of thanks.

“Yeah,” muttered Alden, “but they’re still pushing through. Look at those coming up behind. They’re not even stopping for survivors!”

Letts nodded, his joy draining away. “The captain—and everybody with the AEF, for that matter—told me the Grik show no concern at all for losses. I guess I didn’t really believe it. Only at the end of the Battle for Aryaal, when all was lost, did they finally break.”

“It’s like they think they’re winning, no matter what, as long as they’re on the attack,” Pete agreed, remembering Bradford’s observations. Another depth-charge mine exploded, causing similar destruction to the first. The Grik sailed inexorably forward.
Walker
was nearer the enemy now, well within range of her guns. She slowed to a near halt short of the minefield and turned to port, presenting a three-gun broadside. Four, if one counted the three-inch gun on the fantail. In this instance, even it would have effect.

“She’s at point-blank range!” Letts said excitedly. “She can’t possibly miss from there, even with the new shells!” With simultaneous puffs of white smoke,
Walker
opened fire. Copper bolts slashed into the approaching ships near their waterlines. Another mine detonated, and more Grik ships and warriors were swept away. The entire center of the enemy advance had been thrown into disarray by the mines and the lonely four-stacker with the huge, streaming flag. Fort Atkinson continued its uncontested slaughter as well, firing down into the ships that waited to push forward. The semaphore tower was barely visible through the smoke, but a runner arrived with a hasty report. Brister had sent that many of the heavy copper balls were crashing completely through and out the bottoms of their victims, and the closer reaches of the entrance to the bay were clotted with settling hulks. In spite of the initial uncertainty, it looked like the battle was under control.

Another runner appeared, her yellow eyes wide and blinking with excitement and fright. “The Grik are landing on the south coast, east of the fort!” she gasped. “
Amagi
has been sighted to the south, accompanied by another large force!”

“Very well,” Pete replied without inflection, but his chest tightened with the news.
Under control, my ass,
he thought
. It hasn’t even started yet
. He turned to Letts and Nakja-Mur. “I ought to be down on the south wall, the way things are shaping up.”

Letts shook his head. “Not yet, Sergeant. The landing in the south might be a feint.” Alden raised a skeptical eyebrow. He didn’t believe the Grik were that subtle. “Even if it’s not,” Letts persisted, “sooner or later they’re going to get past
Walker
. She doesn’t have the ammunition to hold them forever. When that happens, it might get hairy on the waterfront in a hurry. The only way you can be two places at once is if you’re right here, where you can direct all the defenses.” He shook his head again, apologetically, looking at the man almost twice his age. “But you’re the Marine. I’m just a supply officer.”