Firestorm

CHAPTER 1

“Western” (Indian) Ocean

Commander Greg Garrett, former gunnery officer of the old Asiatic Fleet “four-stacker” destroyer USS Walker (DD-163), now captain of the sailing frigate USS Donaghey, leaned on the starboard quarterdeck rail, staring through his binoculars. The colors of the sea and sky had proclaimed their independence from each other and a yellow-red smear splashed the eastern horizon. The boisterous sea was becoming a tumultuous, toothy, pink-tinged purple. The Lemurian lookout, high in the maintop, had sighted dawn-spangled sails to the northeast with her keen eyes, but Garrett still saw nothing. As he searched, the sun darted tentative beams over the distant, hazy line of the continent.

“What have we, sur?” asked Lieutenant Saaran-Gaani, joining Greg beside the rail. Saaran was Donaghey’ s exec, her “salig maa-stir,” in the Lemurian vernacular. He’d replaced Muraak-Saanga, who’d been recently appointed to cothe new USS Tassat when Garrett declined the honor in favor of remaining with Donaghey. Saaran was a bona fide “Sky Priest,” of a southern denomination, so he filled the “sailing master” role without suffering any of the religious resentment that sometimes plagued laymen in his post. More and more Sky Priests joined the Navy these days, surely out of patriotism, but also possibly to help secure their relevance in these strange, transitional times.

Garrett didn’t care about that. Saaran was a fantastic navigator, as were most of his order, but like Adar-the “highest-ranking” Sky Priest Greg knew-Saaran was a fanatic for “the cause.” Greg lowered his binoculars and looked at him. The oversize, dark amber eyes gazing back were common among Lemurians, but the fine, almost perfectly symmetrical coat of brown and white fur was unusual. Lemurians could be almost any color and were often striped, blotched, or even brindled, but not many had so much white. Greg shrugged mentally. Sky Priests were often odd in a number of ways. In Saaran’s case, it might even be his “southern” lineage. He was one of the few ’Cats from the Great South Island, the land humans remembered as Australia, who’d joined “the Grand Alliance” so far. He even talked funny. Word was, some “land Homes” of north and west “Australia,” culturally similar to Baalkpan and Maa-ni-la, were forming regiments and might apply for full membership in the Alliance. Garrett hoped they would. This war was a fight for all Lemurians to make-all people of whatever race or species.

Regardless of where he was from, Saaran was an aggressive, eager student of naval warfare, and Garrett felt lucky to have him. He scratched the dark hair poking from under his hat with his left hand, while still holding the binoculars with his right.

“Sails,” Garrett replied. “Plural. No count yet. Lookout caught ’em in the northeast, probably sailing in column. I can’t see squat from here.”

“Ah,” Saaran said, smiling. “The predawn ‘GQ’ strikes again!”

Garrett smiled too. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d snapped up a Grik ship simply by being on their toes at that critical time of day.

“Maybe. I hope so. It’s been a little boring out here lately.”

“Boring!” Saaran huffed. Donaghey and her sister, Tolson, under the command of Russ Chapelle, as well as the newly arrived Revenge, were blockading the western approaches to Ceylon and India. Besides the occasional enemy ship, these waters teemed with some of the most dangerous creatures in the known world. They were packed with an unprecedented (in their experience) density of ridiculously large and scary predators-some more than capable of destroying ships twice as large as theirs. The Navy had developed countermeasures that worked-when there was time to deploy them-but discovering the threat in the first place was the tricky part. Dangerous submarine creatures, like submarine boats, were difficult to detect and the “blockading squadron” was operating on one of the most nerve-racking stations imaginable.

“Well, maybe not bored,” Greg allowed, “but there hasn’t been much ‘business’ since we clobbered that east-bound convoy a couple of weeks ago.” He shook his head. “As I said before, I think they’ve figured out that somebody out here is beating up the mailman!”

Donaghey and Tolson had been making things rough on the Grik “mailman” for a while now, paired continuously since Tolson’ s return from a special mission to Tjilatjap (Chill-Chaap) where Russ helped salvagean old freighter-and her impossibly valuable cargo. The two “first new construction” frigates were the last dedicated “sailors” in the Navy besides the dozens of prize “Indiamen” that had been “razeed” into swift, lightly armed corvettes, and they were commanded by the most experienced skippers. Not only were they independent of fuel requirements and able to remain on station longer, they were the fastest ships in the Navy-with the exception of the ship that brought the destroyermen to this “other” earth in the first place: USS Walker herself.

Revenge had just arrived in theater. She was a new construction steam frigate of an entirely new-hopefully improved-design called the “Scott” Class. Named for the first Revenge, a captured Grik ship whose human-Lemurian crew fought to the last against staggering odds, she was bigger, faster, and more powerful than the first allied steamers. Her auxiliary sailing rig remained, but she was supposed to be almost as fast as Donaghey under steam alone. She had a good skipper too. Pruit Barry had been Walker’ s assistant gunnery officer, and he’d commanded Tolson during the Battle of Baalkpan. Although he’d saved his ship, he’d been so sorely wounded that he was just now returning to action. Garrett was glad to have him back.

“Deck there!” came the cry from the lookout above. ’Cats-Lemurians-had strange voices, Garrett reflected again, to carry so well even over such a brisk wind. “Sur-fass Taa-git now eight sails! Eight! Taa-git bearing seero fo fi, rel-aa-tive!”

“Course?” Saaran bellowed in reply.

“West-sou-west!”

Saaran looked at Greg. “Perhaps business will pick up today!”

“Yeah. Tell Clancy to get Tolson and Revenge on the horn. Maybe we can work it so we can snatch the whole bunch! We’ll keep our distance here to windward until we sort something out.”

Over the next hour and a half, coded wireless messages clattered back and forth between Donaghey, Tolson, Revenge, and the distant Allied headquarters on Andaman Island. They had no proof the enemy even had receivers, but crystal sets were simple to make, and they had to assume they did. Therefore, all Allied transmissions were sent in five-letter code groups. The Japanese from the destroyed battle cruiser Amagi, which came through the same “Squall” as Walker and allied with the Grik, had been “reading their mail” from the start, and that memory still stung. Now, even before the plan of attack was finalized, Greg ordered Chapelle to bring Tolson north from the southernmost station, and she’d have to move quickly to reach position if they were to intercept the enemy short of the islands to the west. Not only was there a chance the Grik might scatter among the islands, allowing some to escape, but ocean denizens tended to congregate near the rich feeding grounds the islands provided. Revenge, with her steam power, cruised closest to shore, and Barry was told to bring her south. Before long, Tolson was seen flying north with a quartering wind, shouldering the sea aside. With the plan of attack taking shape as Garrett’s squadron assembled, Donaghey prepared to turn north herself. If everything went as Garrett hoped, it would be an exciting afternoon. Of course, Greg knew all about how fickle plans and hopes could be.

“Sur-fass Taa-git, port bow, tree hunn-red yards!” warned the lookout. Garrett and Saaran crossed the deck. “Shaark!” came several cries.

Garrett raised his glasses and stared at the fin cutting through the swells. “Jeez,” he said, “that’s not a shark! It’s a B-17 tail sticking out of the water!”

“What’s a ‘bee-seven-teen’?” Saaran asked.

“Never mind,” Greg replied flatly. He raised his voice. “Helm, make your course three, zero, zero. Mr. Saaran, please adjust the sails for speed as you see fit.” He turned and looked northeast. The Grik ships were in view now, their column in disarray. He knew they could see Donaghey, and probably Tolson, but wasn’t sure about Revenge. He wondered how they’d react. He wondered if they knew how to react. Returning to port had never seemed an option for them in the past. Just the same, he’d always tried to bushwhack them far enough out that the Allied ships could chase them down.

“Making my course tree, seero, seero,” the helmsman replied.

“Very well,” said Greg, looking back at the “shark.” It wasn’t following them. “Wow,” he murmured. There were some absolutely humongous sharks around here. According to reports, there were big ones around the New Britain Isles too, where Captain Reddy and Walker were. Greg honestly didn’t know whether they were a genuine danger to a ship like Donaghey or not. They didn’t ram-at least they never had-and the few times they’d “tasted” his ship, they’d left teeth the size of hubcaps stuck in her copper-clad wooden hull. He doubted one of the damn things could sink Donaghey, unless it did ram, but he always worried about the ship’s rudder. A shark like the one he’d just seen could bite it clean off. He shook his head and returned his attention to the Grik.

“They look like a gaggle of geese on a pond,” he said. The column was falling completely apart, beginning to bunch together as if for mutual support. The Grik ships were actually acting less like geese and more like a herd of goats that just saw a bear. Greg grinned at the analogy. He’d seen that once, back home in Tennessee, and it was a funny memory. He hated goats.

“Revenge is coming up,” cried the lookout. “There blue smoke beyond the enemy.”

For another half hour they approached the Grik convoy, and soon the three Allied frigates had closed every route but the one back to port. It struck Garrett that if the Grik had just maintained a cohesive column and continued determinedly on, some might have broken past at least one blocking ship, but these weren’t Grik warships, filled to the gunwales with fierce warriors, and evidently that made a difference. The convoy commander was probably some bright, civilian Hij-they knew such things existed now-who thought he could think his way out of this mess. His hesitation and indecision were making it worse-for him.

“Sound general quarters,” Garrett said, then in the tradition of the sailing Navy added, “Clear for action.” A quartet of Lemurian younglings, wearing the blue kilts and white leather armor of Marines, scampered to the waist, and their drums thundered in unison while a bosun’s mate rapidly struck the hollow bronze gong mounted near the ship’s wheel. The resulting cacophonous combination couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than the GQ alarm. Gun’s crews ran to their massive weapons, tails high in excitement, and twenty-four eighteen-pounders were run out. ’Cats rigged netting overhead to protect against falling debris, and gunners threaded lengths of slow-match through holes in their linstocks and waited for one of the midshipmen trotting the length of the gun deck to arrive and light the slow-burning match. Marines scaled the ratlines to the tops with muskets slung diagonally across their backs, and others stood near the center of the ship, prepared to move to whichever side they were directed.

The exercise of preparing the ship for battle went off without a hitch, just as it did in the daily drills. Greg was pleased with the professionalism of his almost entirely Lemurian crew, and he knew they were proud of it too. Donaghey had a gallant name and history, and she’d already racked up more than her share of battle honors in this war. She prepared each time as if she’d face an enemy at least as powerful as she was-she’d been the first ship surprised by Grik cannons, after all-and the extra attention to detail had served her well many times. Garrett didn’t know if any of the ships Donaghey approached was armed; in fact, he rather doubted it. They weren’t acting as if there were warriors aboard, but he’d never let appearances lull him again. He raised his binoculars.

Weird. The eight Grik ships, so similar in appearance to the ancient British East Indiamen their lines were stolen from centuries before, appeared to have heaved to, almost as if they were surrendering and waiting to be taken! “Get a load of this,” he said, handing his glasses to Saraan.

“I don’t understand,” said the ’Cat, blinking confusion. “Most un-Grik-like. They’ve never behaved like this before.”

Chief Gunner’s Mate Wendel “Smitty” Smith joined them. “The main battery’s manned and ready for action in all respects,” he declared.

Garrett looked at the short, prematurely balding man, once just a green ordnance striker on Walker. “Very well, Smitty. We’ll probably make a turn to port as we get close, so prepare for ‘surface action, starboard.’ ” He paused. “Why don’t you take a look and tell me what you think?”

Smitty nodded and raised his own precious binoculars. There were only two pairs on the entire ship, and the ‘Cat lookouts didn’t really need them. Russ had brought a crate of the things from his salvage mission to Tjilatjap, but most were scarfed up by HQ. “Looks weird,” Smitty confirmed. Donaghey was within six thousand yards of the enemy now, closing fast. “Can’t tell if they’re armed yet, but they’re just sittin’ there. Say, there’s Revenge, steamin’ up on ’em from the north. She’s a pretty thing!”

The distance to the targets continued to dwindle as the morning wore on and evolved into a clear, beautiful day. The heat wasn’t as oppressive as it was within the Malay Barrier, and the steady wind kept the humidity at bay. At Smitty’s estimate of fifteen hundred yards, something caught Greg’s eye. “What the hell? Hey, look at that. There’s lizard birds swooping all over those ships, like you see around a fishing fleet-or a big school of fish. They’re swarming like flies!”

“You’re right,” Saaran agreed. “What could be the cause? Perhaps they carry a cargo that attracts the fliers-or fearing capture, they throw it over the side.”

“Fearing capture…” Greg murmured. “This whole setup makes less sense all the time. Of course, who knows how ‘civilian’ Grik sea captains act. I guess we’ve probably run across a few before… but they never acted this weird. Hmm.” He motioned a ’Cat midshipman near. “Tell Clancy to send this to Revenge and Tolson: ‘Watch out for something screwy.‘”

“Ay, ay, sur! Anything else?”

Garrett shook his head. “No… just… something screwy-and be sure they know to report it if they see anything that fits that description!”

“What do we do?” Smitty asked. The range was down to nine hundred yards.

Tolson was closing from the west and Revenge was about the same distance to the north of the enemy, steaming into a steady wind on her starboard bow. Greg smiled with appreciation. The new Revenge was fast, and only one of the fore and aft rigged feluccas could have matched her course. It was a near-textbook interception, but the Grik weren’t acting “textbook” at all.

“Do we sink ’em or what?” Smitty persisted.

“I don’t know,” Greg ground out. He shook his head. “How do you know if Grik are trying to surrender?” The very idea of such a thing would’ve seemed impossible not long ago-until an aged “civilian” Grik called “Hij Geerki” surrendered to General Pete Alden and Lord General Rolak during the “Raan-goon” operation. Ever since, the creepy old Grik had been a font of unrestrained information. It was as if, having surrendered, he’d literally, unreservedly, switched sides. Rolak owned him now, body and soul. Greg’s skin crawled. Personally, he’d prefer to open fire and sink every Grik ship in view as soon as in range, but he had to think of the intelligence value! They had Grik “captives” of the “Uul,” or “warrior-worker class,” that understood the Lemurian tongue-back in Baalkpan now-but they couldn’t speak anything anyone understood. Their “Hij” leaders couldn’t speak anything comprehensible either, but many could read and write English, considered the “scientific tongue.” All Grik sea captains were “Hij,” and the prospect of capturing eight more sources of information was a powerful lure.

“Well, let’s leave it to them,” Smitty said. “We can sink some, and if the others want to surrender, let them figure out how.”

Saaran shook his head and his ears twitched negation, even while his tail swished with amusement. “That will just frighten any out of surrendering-if that’s their intent.”

“Whoa!” said Garrett, looking through his glasses. “They’re really starting to bunch up now, all eight. Shortening sail-and those red pennant-flag things are coming down! They’re lowering their flags! They really are surrendering… Looks like they’re taking in all sail and lashing their ships together too. Who the devil told them to do that?”

Smitty snapped his fingers. “The Japs! There’s bound to be Japs on Ceylon. They must’ve told them what to do! Might even be Japs on those ships!”

“When did you ever see a Jap surrender?” Greg demanded, but realized it must be true. They already knew few of the surviving Japanese cared much for their Grik “allies.” He shook his head. “Holy smokes. Pass the word for everyone to hold their fire. Tolson and Donaghey will take a closer look. Signal Mr. Barry to keep Revenge back, but close enough to cover us.” The range was seven hundred yards.

They began spotting gri-kakka, or “pleezy-sores” at about three hundred yards. The big “lizard fish” were deadly dangerous to small boats, and even feluccas. Ships sometimes sank after striking a large one near the surface. “Look at them all,” someone murmured quietly. No one had ever seen such a concentration before, and the closer they moved to the Grik ships, the denser they got-almost as dense as schools of flasher-fish sometimes got-and there were swarms of flashies too! The surface of the sea began to froth as giant fins lanced through the sedately cruising gri-kakka, and bright blood swirled in the water. Gri-kakka reared up, jaws agape, with sharks as large as they were fastened to their bodies, wrenching their heads back and forth. The gri-kakka started turning on the sharks as well.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Garrett muttered. “It’s like some kind of ‘war of the sea monsters’! Better shorten sail, and prepare to heave to,” he told Saaran.

A midshipman slammed to a stop beside him. “Sur, Mr. Clancy say Mr. Chaa-pelle on Tolson don’t like this.” The young ’Cat blinked irony. “He say something ‘fishy.’ ”

Smitty was looking through his binoculars. “Skipper! There’s Griks over there, throwing junk in the water. Looks like… dead stuff! Chunks of meat or something!” He turned to Garrett with wide eyes. “The bastards are chumming all these devils up!”

“Prepare to commence firing! Helm, make your course three, six, zero! We’re getting out of here before something knocks a hole in us, but we’ll blast ’em as we pass! Chumming up herds of dangerous sea monsters is not a peaceful, surrendering act!” He looked at the midshipman. “Tell Tolson we’ll steer out of this feeding frenzy, then paste them!”

The midshipman saluted and started to turn, but then did a double take over Garrett’s shoulder. “Sur!” was all he managed. The officers spun in time to see a cavernous mouth rise from the sea a few hundred yards off the port quarter. Water cascaded down the flanks of the gray-black island of flesh, and the thing immediately surged forward, taking Gri-kakka, “sharks,” and thousands of flashies into its hundred-foot maw.

“It’s a trap!” Saaran yelled. “They have lured forth a mountain fish!”

“Commence firing, all guns!” bellowed Greg. “Port battery’ll concentrate on that big fish! AMF-DiC [Anti-Mountain Fish Destruction Countermeasures] will prepare to fire!”

The great fish, seemingly oblivious of Donaghey, chomped down on its stupendous mouthful and prepared to take it down to swallow. They all knew it wouldn’t go away, however. It would be back to feed and feed until the entire smorgasbord above was consumed, or managed to flee. Revenge might get away, but Tolson and Donaghey were doomed-if they couldn’t scare the creature away. The eight Grik ships were doomed as well, and their crews had to know that. The significance of that didn’t occur to Greg just then. He looked at the Grik, just over a hundred yards off the starboard beam, hoping they didn’t have any “Grik fire” bombs. Tolson’ s guns opened up, and a moment later, Donaghey shuddered with the rolling broadside that thundered out from both sides.

Smoke gushed, choking Greg and Saaran on the quarterdeck until it passed. Smitty was gone, directing his guns. There was a momentous writhing splash to port, accompanied by a deep, bass, bone-tingling, moaning roar. The splash launched a wave large enough to heave the ship on her beam ends, and they saw the mighty flukes of the titanic monster rise in the air.

“Y guns!” came Smitty’s roar from forward, calling on the crews of the mortarlike contrivances that launched “depth charges.” They were the primary, most effective aspect of the AMF-DiC system. They weren’t necessarily meant to harm a mountain fish, but the acoustic assault they created was known to discourage the mammoth creatures. “Drop them a hundred yards off the port beam!” Smitty directed.

Greg turned aft. Depth charges!” he cried. “Set depth for one hundred feet! Roll four!” There were several, staggered whumps; two from the fo’c’sle, and two just behind Garrett on the quarterdeck. Heavy kegs vaulted skyward, almost straight up it seemed. Shortly after, four more kegs rolled into the sea aft, from racks piercing the taffrail. It was at times like this-virtually the only times anymore-that Garrett wished his ship had engines. Certainly, he’d love to be able to flee from a mountain fish, but he wanted to get the hell away from the depth charges they’d just dropped even more. They could break Donaghey’ s back if she wasn’t far enough away. Fortunately, the wind was in her favor. He stared at the great fish. You could never predict how they’d react. The bombs usually scared them away, but cannon fire-especially if it hit-sometimes caused the monsters to go amok and attack whatever shot at them.

Oddly, the huge beast was just lying there, wallowing in the swells like a dead whale surrounded by a school of dolphins. He’d never seen that reaction before. The bombs from the Y guns splashed down about half the distance to the fish. Breathlessly, those around Garrett waited. The Y gun bombs would detonate at thirty feet-probably at about the same time the depth charges blew. Tolson had surely fired her Y guns as well, hopefully in a pattern complementing theirs. The timbers of the ship shuddered again, and the sea around the mountain fish and in Donaghey‘ s wake spalled like cooked flint. With a mighty convulsion of foam and smoke, the waves contorted into an inverted cataract of spume. Despite their fear, Donaghey’ s crew gave an exultant cheer as water rained down on them-along with countless flashies, pieces of flashies, and a ten-foot-long gri-kakka flipper that nearly crushed a ’Cat gunner.

Garrett wiped the lenses of his binoculars with his shirtsleeve, then stared through them again. “Now I’ve seen everything,” he said incredulously. Despite the cannon fire and depth charges, the mountain fish hadn’t moved. It hadn’t dived or swum away, or even attacked. It hadn’t done anything. He looked at Saaran. “Say, you don’t suppose it’s dead?” He looked back at the fish. “You know, I think it’s dead! Smitty!” he yelled. “Get up here, you ball-headed Kraut! Your willy-nilly broadside found a weak spot and killed the damn thing!”

Smitty arrived amid enthusiastic cheering, grinning ear to ear. “I just wish I knew which gun did the trick-and where it was aimed!” There was a roar of laughter and stamping feet.

“It might have been fire from Tolson,” Saaran reminded him. “Or the combined fire of both ships. It is said, however, that the inestimable Dennis Silva once killed such a creature with a single shot from a four-inch-fifty.”

“It was four shots!” Smitty denied. “I was there! One shot might’a killed it, but he shot that big empty forehead hump three times first!”

Garrett patted Smitty on the shoulder, then looked back at the gathered Grik ships, now off the starboard quarter. The broadside they’d fired into the gaggle had left it even more disarrayed. He raised his glasses. “Helm,” he called. “Mr. Saaran, we’ll come about and finish that mob. Prepare to wear ship!” The Grik were no longer flinging gobbets of meat over the side, and the swarm of feeding fish, those not killed by the depth charges, were beginning to abandon them for the mountain of bleeding meat floating nearby. Now, most of the Grik in view, furry, upright, vicious-looking crosses between an emu and a komodo, just stood there, staring sullenly. Their plan, clearly to break the blockade by destroying Garrett’s entire squadron at one act, hadn’t workedand he was suddenly stunned that the Grik had been capable of conjuring such a scheme, not to mention implementing it. Grik always seemed ready to attack with everything they had, or flee with equal abandon. To design a plan that called on them-even Hij-to cold-bloodedly, calculatingly, sacrifice themselves for others of their kind was so utterly alien to anything they’d come to expect from their foe, it was still difficult to imagine. There was no doubt they’d deliberately lured the mountain fish, hoping it would destroy all of Garrett’s ships. They had to know it would destroy them as well. Damn.

Donaghey had come about, steering to bring her port broadside to bear on the bows of the enemy where they were linked together. Tolson was preparing to pummel the north side of the confused raft of ships. At just over one hundred yards, Garrett opened his mouth to give the command to fire. He never had a chance. With a cataclysmic eruption of fire, shattered debris, and a massive, towering mushroom of dirty white smoke, all eight Grik ships simultaneously blew themselves up.

Greg Garrett opened his eyes to see Clancy’s fuzzy, worried face hovering near. Greg was totally disoriented, and it took him several moments to figure out where he was. He decided he must be lying on his back somewhere on the quarterdeck, but looking up, he couldn’t see the sails, yards, or the spiderweb of cordage that should have been overhead. That con- fused him even more. Clancy’s mouth was moving, but at first Greg couldn’t understand anything he said. There was only an all-encompassing, high-pitched buzz, with a kind of muffled warbling creeping in around the edges. He stared hard at Clancy and began to realize part of the warbling sound was the communications officer calling his name. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and propped himself up on his elbows.

His vision was clearing, and other sounds began penetrating the incessant noise inside his head. He commenced a rapid inventory of all the new aches and pains he felt, but decided nothing was broken. Looking at himself, he saw that he was spattered with blood, but except for a few small tears in his clothing, he thought he must be okay. Most of the blood had to be somebody else’s. He suddenly realized the sky was empty because the mainmast had snapped off just below the top, taking the main yard and everything above over the side. Tangled stays and shrouds stretched taut across the deck, and the bulwarks on either side were smashed. Even as he watched, bloodied, disheveled Lemurian sailors hacked at cables, and each one parted with a sound like a rifle shot. The ship beneath him wallowed uncomfortably in the uneven swells, and there was a great grinding, pounding in the fibers of the deck from the shattered mast working alongside.

Glancing farther forward, he saw that the foremast was gone completely, snapped off at the deck of the forecastle, and its remains had already been cleared away. Looking around with increased urgency, he realized that only the bowsprit and mizzenmast still stood intact. A great many bodies lay scattered on deck, some moving, others not, and the pitiful cries of the wounded began to seep through the ringing buzz. The surgeon was on deck, along with Marine corpsmen and pharmacist’s mates, moving from one prone figure to the next. Some they quickly inspected before moving on, and others they had carried below to the wardroom. What had been a taut, beautiful, well-run ship had suddenly become a scene of devastation and chaos.

“Mr. Garrett! Thank God!” he finally heard Clancy say. “I thought you were a goner when I first laid eyes on you.”

“What happened?” Greg asked. It may not have been the most original phrase uder the circumstances, but right then, it was the most appropriate.

“I’m not sure, sir. I was belowdecks in the wireless shack when I heard this god-awful, humongous boom-and something hammered the ship. I came up here”-Clancy gestured around-“and seen all this! Jesus! One fella I ran into told me those Grik ships, all eight of ’em, just blew the hell up! All at once! My God, the only way they could’ve done it like that, simultaneously, is electrically! Electrically!” he repeated. “No fuse would’ve worked. They’d have gone up like a fireworks show, not all at once. And they couldn’t have done near as much damage that way. I swear.” He shook his head.

“How about Tolson?” Greg asked, managing to stand with Clancy’s help.

Clancy pointed. “Hell, sir, she looks worse than us. Lost every stick.”

Garrett saw Tolson, completely dismasted, wallowing helplessly to leeward, surrounded by a sea of floating debris. Revenge was standing by her, apparently undamaged, trying to rig a towline. “Where’s Saaran?” he asked.

“In the wardroom,” Clancy said. “Looks like he’s maybe got a concussion. Something conked him on the head. Caught some splinters too. You’re lucky, Skipper. Smitty was with you when I came on deck, but the surgeon said you ought to come around soon, and Smitty took off to help with damage control. You were out about twenty minutes.”

“Do we have communications?” Garrett demanded.

“Yes, sir. One of my strikers just reported. We can’t get Tolson, or at least they can’t respond, but we’ve got Revenge.” Clancy shrugged. “Our wireless aerial’s on the mizzen, and it’s still mostly in one piece.”

“Okay,” said Garrett, shaking off Clancy’s supporting hand. “Tell Revenge she’ll have to try to tow us both. Then get a message off to HQ; tell them what happened… and they might want to kind of expect a call for assistance.” He smirked. “Like there’s anything they can do about it. As far as I know, there’s not another Allied ship for five hundred miles!”

“Maybe they’re doing another coast recon of the proposed LZs?” Clancy speculated.

“Maybe… and we wouldn’t know it either. They won’t make a peep in case the Japs have helped the Grik come up with a transmission direction finder of some sort,” Greg fumed. “Let’s just hope we won’t need any assistance Revenge can’t give us!” He paused. “Thanks, Clance. You get back to the radio shack and keep your ears open.”

The new steam frigate passed a heavy cable to Tolson and eventually, carefully picking her way through the raft of floating chunks of eight entire ships, pulled Russ’s derelict close to Donaghey . In the meantime, much to Greg’s relief, Smitty and the ’Cat carpenter reported that his ship’s leaks were under control. Most were caused by the pressure of the blast-opened seams, but some were made by pieces of Grik ships striking at high velocity. A bowsprit had speared Donaghey like a harpoon amidships. Garrett’s ship would float, but she’d lost a lot of people. All the Marines in the tops, for example, had gone over the side. With so many predators in the sea, their deaths had probably been quicker than drowning-if even more horrifying. Almost a third of the crewfolk and Marines exposed on deck were dead or wounded.

Garrett saw Russ near Tolson’ s stern, a bloody rag around his head, directing a detail preparing to send or receiv a cable. Greg already had a similar party waiting in his ship’s fo’c’sle. He raised a speaking trumpet. “Are you okay, Mr. Chapelle?”

“I’m fine,” Russ replied. “My ship ain’t,” he added bitterly. Bloody water gushed down Tolson’ s sides from the scuppers, her pumps working hard. “We’re staying ahead of the flooding, though.” He paused. “If you don’t mind my saying, Donaghey looks like a porcupine.” It was true. Greg had peered over the port side and was amazed by the number of timbers and splinters sticking in his ship. “I bet you could build another whole ship out of all that junk!”

“I promise not to throw any of it away, then,” Greg countered. “You might need it.”

“You said it,” Russ shouted back ruefully.

They eventually passed a cable from Donaghey to Tolson, and when it was secure, Revenge took up the slack on both ships. Slowly, they began to move, gaining speed, and settling on a southwesterly course at about five knots. Garrett glanced back at the debris-strewn sea. The dead mountain fish still lay, a mile or more astern, huge and seemingly as invulnerable as an island, yet the sea around its wallowing corpse was stained red, and predators-gri-kakka, “super sharks,” and flashies in their countless multitudes-churned along its flanks. He looked to the northeast, toward whatever port the eight Grik ships had put out from. He could still barely believe it. The enemy had executed a carefully, redundantly planned operation to break the blockade, and it had worked. Every time the allies thought they had the Grik down, the damn things pulled some crazy stunt that stood all their preconceptions on their heads. Granted, they were dealing with some “civilian” Grik now, but how much difference should that make? Something had changed; something fundamental. He sighed. Well, that happens in war, he supposed. He only wished he and Donaghey weren’t always on the receiving end of these discoveries. He took some comfort from one fact, however. The allies had changed too. No Grik in the coming campaign against Ceylon and India could have any notion of the new Allied equipment and tactics. Hopefully, they’d be basing whatever preparations they were making on the capabilities they’d seen at the Battle of Baalkpan. They too would be surprised.

Massive sharks and a few gri-kakka shadowed the wounded train. It must have been the bloody water trailing behind that drew their attention. Slowly, as the trickle decreased and diluted, most veered away, back to where they knew an endless meal awaited-but a few continued dogging them. One massive creature, bigger than any shark had a right to be, with a fin as high as a killer whale’s, cruised effortlessly past Donaghey, just under the surface. Its back was a mottled grayish blue-black, and while maybe a quarter Donaghey’ s length, it looked nearly as broad. Garrett suppressed a shudder. In a moment, the fish was gone, outpacing them, apparently intent on examining the other ships forward. Saaran appeared on deck, a bulky wrap around his head, and glistening smears of the curative “polta paste” applied here and there across his chest and shoulder.

“What’re you doing here?” Garrett asked. “You look like hell.”

“Doc Miller told me not to sleep,” he said. “If I work, I won’t sleep.”

Garrett grunted. “Okay. If you’re determined to run around, see if you can put a detail together to sway up a new main-topmast and a few yards. Get some sail on her.” The mizzen looked okay, but the remnant of the mainmast didn’t have much support left. “We’ll have to rerig the shrouds and ys as well. See if we can do anything to get a new foremast stepped.” He looked around. “I don’t know what we’ll use… . Anyway, Revenge’ ll have enough worries dragging just one ship behind her.” Suddenly, Donaghey seemed to slow, and Tolson began to slew to starboard. “What the devil?” As Garrett watched, Tolson continued turning, until she was almost beam-on to the following Donaghey.

“Hard a’port!” Garrett cried, hoping they had enough steerageway to miss the other ship. At the moment, they were aimed directly at her, amidships.

“Hard a’port, ay!” replied the helmsman. Slowly, slowly, Donaghey wallowed left, edging more and more aft of her sister. It still looked as if they might hit her in the stern, and everyone tensed, expecting an impact. Somehow, they managed to clear the other ship, but only by a few feet. Garrett shouted across to Chapelle. “What’s going on?”

“Beats me,” came the wind-muffled reply. “Revenge just stopped all of a sudden! I don’t know what’s up! We had to turn to keep from hitting her, just as you did!”

Clancy ran up the companionway. “Skipper,” he cried, “something hit Revenge! She’s taking water aft!”

“What? What hit her?” Greg demanded.

“I don’t know. I don’t think they do yet. That’s all I got so far.”

“Well… get back down there and find out!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

Garrett could see Revenge now, as Donaghey eased past Tolson. The steamer looked odd, dead in the water, and low by the stern. Before long, the tow cable grew taut, and Donaghey began to turn to starboard, pulled around by her attachment to Tolson. To Greg’s amazement, he saw boats starting to slide down Revenge’ s quarter davits into the sea. “What…?”

Clancy ran back on deck. “Skipper!” he said, shock in his voice. “Cap’n Barry has broadcast a distress signal! He says something ate his ship’s screw! With it all new and shiny, he thinks something hit it like a Heddon Zig Wag lure! His words. They didn’t see what did it, but there’s blood in the water aft. Anyway, her shaft is warped all to hell, and the packing and all the support timbers were shattered before they managed to secure! He-he says whatever happened, it couldn’t have been much worse if they’d taken a Jap torpedo in the ass, and they can’t stop the flooding!”

With a tight chest, Garrett suddenly remembered the huge shark he’d seen. He’d often wondered what some giant denizen might think of a ship’s turning propeller-especially when it hadn’t yet turned dingy and green… “What can we do?” he asked.

“Well, Pruit-I mean Cap’n Barry-asks if we can stand by to take his crew aboard-us and Tolson.”

“My God. We’re going to lose Revenge? He’s sure?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

Greg thought fast, considering the wind and current. The tightness in his chest became a vise around his heart. “Tell Revenge we’ll stand by and any boats we have in one piece’ll be over as soon as we can send them.” He paused. “Tell him also that we’re going to need every musket and every last round of ammunition they have time to save. Make sure he understands that. Bring every single weapon he can grab! Make sure HQ knows what’s going on”

“Aye, sir,” replied Clancy, looking at him strangely.

Garrett pointed at the distant coast of Ceylon. “Don’t you get it?” He laughed, the slightest hint of hysteria in his voice. “If we can’t get enough sail on this wreck, this ship and Tolson both are going to wind up on the beach… over there! It looks like the invasion of Ceylon may start a little early.” He turned to Saaran. “Of course, our invasion’ll be like dropping a bug with no legs right in the middle of an ant mound!”

Not a soul was lost when Revenge finally went down. The semiwater-tight, compartmentalized design kept her afloat longer than anyone had a right to expect, and not only was the entire crew saved and distributed between the other two ships, but all the small arms, ammunition, and a large percentage of her other supplies were salvaged as well. Captain Barry came aboard Donaghey with a little less than half his crew- Tolson needed the extra hands more-and he was horrified by the loss of his brand-new, beautiful ship. All he could do was stand by the quarterdeck rail, knuckles clenched white, and watch while Revenge slid under the sea by the stern.

“God!” he gasped when the waves closed over the stars and stripes still fluttering at the masthead, and he burst into tears.

“I’m awful sorry, Pruit,” Garrett said, a little uncomfortably. He could imagine how the other man felt, but couldn’t stand to see him bawling like that. “Come on, pull yourself together. We’ve got to sort out this mess and get your guys working with mine to bend as much canvas as we can. The current’s running strong and the wind’s picking up out of the southwest. We’ll lose everything and everybody if we can’t claw away from that shore.” He pointed at the coast of Ceylon, growing noticeably closer. Barry wiped his face on his sleeve and nodded.

“You bet,” he said roughly. “I’ll do whatever I can. So will my guys.”

“Thanks, Pruit. Let’s see if we can get them helping out with the divisions they’re accustomed to.” He nodded toward Tolson, wallowing aft. “And not only do we have to save this ship, but we’ve got to save her too. She doesn’t even have anything left to jury-rig.”

Barry nodded, looking at the repairs already completed. So far, Donaghey had close to a full spread on her mizzen, a course on the main, and a pair of staysails rigged to the bowsprit. Alone, it wasn’t enough to keep Donaghey off the beach. “Okay,” he said. “My exec went to Tolson, but I’ve got my bosun and a lieutenant. How can we help?”

By nightfall, Donaghey had a new main-topmast, a topsail, and another staysail rigged. The repairs had been unbelievably perilous, with the ship pitching and wallowing in the mounting seas. There’d been injuries, but amazingly, no one was killed or lost over the side. Still, their last glimpse of Ceylon before it was swallowed by the gloom showed it disconcertingly close-less than ten miles away, according to Smitty’s best guess. Garrett’s long experience at estimating ranges as a gunnery officer put it at just over eight. The wind continued stiffening, and the sea grew more determined to break the battered ships. On Tolson, Chapelle was pushing his crew to the breaking point, rigging a pair of short masts out of spare topmasts, but the only canvas she had yet was a shortened course and a couple of staysails. It took a little strain off Donaghey, but the staysails on both ships, while necessary, were pushing them farther to leeward-ever closer to shore.

Together in the wardroom, beneath the light of a swaying lantern, Garrett and Saaran scrutinized the charts they’d worked so hard on, throughout their deployment. With sinking hearts, they realized that no matter how they calculated it, Donaghey couldn’t clear the southern coast of Ceylon with Tolson in tow. Realistically, it was almost certainly too late for Donaghey to make it alone.

“So that’s it,” Garrett said as quietly as he could over the wind, the tumult of labor on deck, and the increasing noises of the working ship. He took a deep breath and looked at Saaran almost helplessly. “What now?”

Saaran scratched the fur on his forehead. “The sea is rising, and so is the tide. If we have no choice but to run ashore, perhaps we can choose where we do it.”

“What difference will that make?”

“If we are not forced ashore among jagged rocks, but drive ashore at high tide, on a soft, sandy beach…”

“We let the wind and heavy sea carry us as far up on the beach as it can,” Garrett interrupted with dawning hope.

“Yes,” Saaran continued, “and the flashies will not be active in the nighttime shallows, particularly with the sea running high.”

Greg nodded. “If the ships don’t break, and we make it until low tide, we off-load the ship’s guns, supplies… If we fort up, maybe make it to some better ground… we might have a chance.”

“A slim chance,” Saaran agreed, “if we can hold until rescued.” He met Garrett’s eyes and blinked determination. “And if we can’t hold that long… at least we will die killing Grik.” Saaran coughed a laugh. “We may be a bug with no legs falling in an ant mound, but we do still have our teeth!”

Greg blinked back in the Lemurian way. “Pass the word. We’ll have to coordinate with Russ on Tolson; keep our ships as close together as we can, when we make our run in.” He sighed. “I’d better get Clancy to inform HQ.” He smiled and shook his head. “God help us.”