Iron Gray Sea

PROLOGUE

The Sea of Jaapan

February 2, 1944

The sky was corroded lead, cold and gray with splotches of white. It was lighter in the east, where the sun lingered behind the heavy blanket of cloud, but there was no chance it would make an appearance that day. Beneath the sky the sea roiled, a darker, more tempestuous reflection, and alone upon it-in all the world, it seemed- Mizuki Maru shouldered her way through the unkind swells. She was an old ship, smallish, and battered by a lifetime of toil. She’d done honorable service and carried honest freight for most of her many years, but her past few voyages had been of a different sort. She’d been engaged in carrying men-worn, beaten, wretched men-to the last place on earth they could possibly want to go.

If she’d had a soul, it would have broken and fled her to escape the suffering and misery confined within her sad, rusty hull. Particularly after the last voyage. It had been the worst of all. Only a few dozen of the more than five hundred prisoners of war she’d carried-Malays, Aussies, Dutch, Brits, and Americans-had ultimately survived, and it wasn’t because they were supposed to. At some point she’d vanished from the world where her Japanese masters made her carry such dreadful cargo and arrived on a world very much the same but entirely, fundamentally different. It was no less savage, however, and her crew-and the crew of the destroyer Hidoiame, which escorted her and a war-weary oiler-had murdered as many of her “cargo” as they possibly could. They’d then abandoned Mizuki Maru, damaged and sinking. Or so they thought.

That might’ve been the end of Mizuki Maru if that was all they’d done, but during the bloodthirsty massacre of her prisoners they’d taken ashore, the confused, possibly even frightened Japanese sailors also slaughtered the… people… of a small nearby village. They hadn’t been human, but they had been people, and, more important for Mizuki Maru, they’d been under the protection of a human Japanese man who’d finally realized that regardless of flags and emperors, his honor would no longer allow him to sit idly by.

Prodded by this atrocity against people who’d become his own, “Lord” Commander Sato Okada, formerly of the Japanese Imperial Navy and the mighty battle cruiser Amagi, and now Seii Taishogun of the newly established Shogunate of Yokohama, Jaapan, finally joined the human/Lemurian alliance that had destroyed his old ship. Now he lived for little more than revenge against those who’d murdered his “new” people, and to achieve it, he had to destroy others of his own race, his nation-but not his people anymore. For this, finally, he was prepared. At long last, there was no conflict, no sense of frustrated loyalty. His purpose was clear once more, as simple and pure as the cherry blossoms he would never see again. He and his mixed crew, Japanese and Lemurian “samurai” and the scattering of “American” Navy Lemurians, were dedicated to the common purpose of destroying Hidoiame and her oiler, and killing or bringing justice to everyone aboard them.

If Mizuki Maru had a soul, and it could find her where she’d gone across whatever gulf separated her from the world she knew, it would be at peace.

“Con-taact!” shouted the Lemurian bridge talker standing behind Okada, near the aft bulkhead. The striped, furry ’Cat wore headphones fitted awkwardly to his head, and a wiring harness trailed behind him. “Range, one fi’ seero seero!”

A chill swept down Sato Okada’s spine. That close? It can’t be the enemy! “ Bearing!” he snapped.

“Two two seero!”

Okada took a calming breath. There was no way his keen-eyed Lemurian lookouts would let them pass Hidoiame that close aboard. He strode to the port bridgewing and raised his binoculars, facing aft. Fish! he concluded at last as a long, dark object rose into view, then vanished behind a swell. Another of the giant… wrongful fish of this world, he thought. A spume of atomized spray burst skyward, joined by others, and he focused more carefully. A pack-pod? — of monstrous, air-breathing fish like none he’d seen before moved through the sea just like whales would have done-if there were whales. These had some kind of bony-finned, translucent sail protruding from their backs like epic swordfish, and he wondered briefly what it was for. He grunted. So many wonders he would love to explore someday, but they couldn’t distract him now. First, he had to attend to the far bigger business of revenge.

“We will reduce speed in case there are more of those creatures about,” he said brusquely. “We are already ahead of schedule. We will not be late for our ‘reunion,’” he added grimly.

“Ay, Lord,” cried the Lemurian helmsman. He was a “Jap ’Cat” to the “Amer-i-caan,” or “proper” Navy ’Cats aboard, who were happy to address Okada as Cap-i-taan, but the Japanese humans and Lemurians called him Lord. The engine room telegraph rang up two-thirds, and more bells rang as the dial swung in reply to the handle, while Okada slowly paced the bridge.

He’d arranged a meeting with the enemy destroyer, and, more specifically, her murderous Captain Kurita. Okada’s radio operator had been broadcasting in panicky distress ever since they entered these seas, claiming his ship was Junyo Maru — yet another vessel transported to this place. Kurita had finally risen to the bait and ordered them to cease their bleating. Once communications were established, they’d lured Kurita to a rendezvous with promises of food, supplies, parts, and ammunition. Mizuki Maru already resembled Junyo Maru in most respects, but her “mad cook,” who alone had defected with his ship, had recently seen Junyo Maru. His suggestions regarding color and the like were employed during Mizuki Maru ’s refit in the Maa-ni-la shipyards.

In addition to altering her appearance, she’d been armed with some of Amagi ’s salvaged secondary armaments that had been quickly shipped in from Baalkpan. A few of the guns showed, which was not unusual and should further allay any suspicions about her identity. But other weapons were hidden, and Okada hoped they’d come as a very unexpected surprise to the far more capable ship he considered his prey.

He contemplated Hidoiame for a moment. She was the twentieth-and last-of the Kagero class, commissioned in early 1941 as a Type A “Fleet” destroyer. He was familiar with her original specifications and had seen the ship herself before the Old War began. She was about 390 feet long, 35 feet wide, and displaced almost exactly twice as much as the overage USS Walker, the flagship of the “American” fleet on this world. She also carried twice the crew, and could probably make thirty-five knots. Again according to the almost pathetically reticent cook, however, Hidoiame had undergone alterations as the nature of the Old War evolved. She still carried twin-mounted 127 mm dual-purpose guns in turrets fore and aft, but he insisted that one aft-mounted turret had been replaced by another twin, 25 mm mount to augment her antiaircraft batteries, which brought the total number of twenty-fives to twenty-eight. As far as he knew, she didn’t have radar, but also admitted he didn’t really know what radar was. He was a cook.

She still carried a four-tube torpedo mount amidships, with four reloads, but her antisubmarine warfare (ASW) suite had been updated with the addition of improved sonar and more depth charges. Apparently, she’d sacrificed a third of her main surface battery to become more formidable against air and undersea targets, but those same antiair weapons would be devastating at the range Okada needed to achieve. He considered his main battery Hidoiame ’s equal, but radar or not, he had no integrated fire control of any sort, so he had to get close-and he had only four 25 mm mounts to a side. The way he saw it, he had to get his ship within knife-fighting range, and savage Hidoiame in the opening moments while he had the element of surprise. If at any time during his approach Kurita decided Mizuki Maru was anything other than what she claimed-or, worse, somehow recognized her-she and all aboard her were doomed.

Sato Okada was prepared for that possibility. He was approaching his rendezvous in radio silence-as ordered by Hidoiame — but he had a short list of letter codes that could be sent out immediately by his signalman, along with a constantly updated position. Back in Maa-ni-la, they would know what the various letter prefixes meant. A translated as “Action commenced.” B meant “Action commenced, surprise achieved.” Other letters represented various permutations, but the letter code had been devised primarily in case things went sour in a hurry-and he fervently hoped he wouldn’t have to send the letter G, which translated as, “We are destroyed by enemy action. Possibility of survivors is remote.” G also signified “Good-bye.”

“Con-taact!” cried the talker again. This time Okada barely tensed, assuming the lookout had spotted another… school?… of the strange fish/reptiles. The things rarely attacked anything larger than a small boat, but they were still a menace. He’d heard Walker once did minor damage to her bow when she’d struck one.

“Range and bearing,” Okada said patiently. His crew wasn’t very experienced, and the excitable ’Cats often forgot proper procedures.

“No range! Is on horizon. Gray on gray is hard to see, say lookout. Bearing tree fi’ seero! Tree seero degrees off lef-port bow!”

Okada grimaced. Unless the lookout had seen a mountain fish-unlikely in these waters-they had discovered Hidoiame at last. He raised his binoculars and stared through the slightly wavy glass of the bridge windows, but saw nothing but the heaving sea. It didn’t matter. The enemy would come to him. Mizuki Maru was making enough smoke that they would easily see her even without Lemurian lookouts.

“Should we go to general quarters?” his Japanese exec, Lieutenant Hiro, asked anxiously.

“No. Not yet. But please do ask that mad cook to make something-sandwiches, I suppose-for the crew.” He gestured at the cold sea and spray beyond the glass. Slick, black ice was forming on deck. “I wish we had time for him to feed them a hot meal, but unless he has something such ready now, sandwiches will have to do.”

“Of course, Lord.”

The distant contact slowly resolved itself into a sleek, low-slung shape visible even from the bridge, and familiar to Okada, at least. It was Hidoiame. There was no mistaking the broad, overlarge-appearing gun turret on the foredeck, the high bridge, and two swept-back funnels. The ship was pitching fairly dramatically in the swells, and he caught occasional glimpses of the bottom paint at her sharply raked bow.

The wasp comes to the spider, he thought with growing excitement. Theoretically, they’d been in range of Hidoiame ’s guns as soon as they sighted her, but the destroyer was growing closer to what Okada considered his own maximum range in these seas. Hidoiame would always have the advantage in accuracy, with her sophisticated fire control, but his own well-drilled gun’s crews should manage a higher rate of fire in local control. Everything would depend on the quality of their individual marksmanship.

“Sound general quarters,” Okada said. “But ensure that our Lemurians move carefully to their posts, and that they try to stay out of sight,” he suddenly warned. He’d grown so used to his furry people that the notion had just occurred to him, and if he could almost make out the distant Japanese sailors through his binoculars… “Then go to the signal lamp yourself and ask if they are who we think they are.” He chuckled grimly. “Let us maintain the fiction that we are lost and afraid!”

“At once, Lord,” Hiro said, activating the long-anticipated alarm bell and passing the word for all the Lemurian crew of Mizuki Maru to stay down behind the bulwarks near their action stations. Only then did he step through the door into the freezing wind on the port bridgewing and began flashing a signal on the Morse lamp.

“Range?” Okada called.

“Tree fi’ seero seero,” came the talker’s reply.

“Very well.” He was worried about his enemy’s ability to mass so much 25 mm fire on his ship’s bridge or guns. It was bad enough what the “light” weapons could do to any other part of his ship. He wanted a range that would make him a difficult target for them, while still giving the crews of his own four 5.5-inchers the best opportunity. He watched while distant signal flashes responded to his own, and he studied the wind and sea. “When the range reaches two thousand, we will turn to zero five zero,” he told his helmsman. “That should give us a slightly gentler ride when we unmask our guns and commence firing!”

The gap between Hidoiame and Mizuki Maru continued to narrow, and after Kurita’s terse reply to Hiro’s signal, the lieutenant reentered the bridge, his thin mustache and chin whiskers crusted with ice. A ’Cat servant met him and helped him and Lord Commander Okada don their leather and copper battle armor, complete with the traditional weapons of the samurai.

“Take your place aft at the auxiliary conn, Lieutenant Hiro,” Okada said formally. “Only remember: whatever happens to me, the ship, to any of us- Hidoiame must not survive this day!”

“ Hai, my lord,” Hiro snapped, and jerked a respectful bow before racing aft.

“Two tow-saand!” the talker cried nervously.

“Very well,” Okada said, again staring at Hidoiame, his tone almost unnaturally calm. “Come to zero five zero.” He turned to the talker. “Inform Gunnery Officer Muraa-Laak that he may man his guns and commence firing as they bear.”

Mizuki Maru ’s first rippling salvo was wild and mostly short, but it took Hidoiame completely by surprise. Even before the destroyer managed to sound general quarters, a second, better-aimed quartet of shells were on their way, and 25 mm projectiles, chased by bright tracers, groped for her. Three shells landed close aboard but one exploded with a red flash beneath Hidoiame ’s port hawse and she veered quickly to starboard, throwing a sheet of water high in the air. For a few brief moments, she lay there, her screws slashing a trough, coiling for a sprint, her whole length exposed to Okada’s guns. His warriors-his samurai! — made the most of it.

The windows shook and the deck plates quivered as Mizuki Maru ’s fire grew more sporadic, but also more accurate. Okada watched the two gun’s crews forward. Those of the number one gun on the fo’c’sle were Navy professionals loaned by Saan-Kakja, and they performed their evolutions with a competent grace, even though the fur left exposed by their peacoats was white with ice. They sent a 5.5-inch shell arcing into Hidoiame right between her forward stack and superstructure. They were rewarded by a swirling black gout of smoke and a billow of yellow fire. The number two gun, exposed over the forward cargo hatch now that the sides of a crate had been taken down, was crewed by survivors of the village their enemies had razed. Their drill was not as crisp as the Amer-i-caan ’Cats, but they served their gun with a vengeful passion and also achieved a hit-this one on the enemy fo’c’sle, just beneath her forward turret.

Okada’s pulse thundered with exultation as he saw the rounds strike home, but his mind remained icy and analytical. So far, they’d had everything their way, but their target was beginning to accelerate rapidly now, and swarms of 25 mm tracers were starting to reach back for them. Mizuki Maru shuddered under their sudden, slamming blows. Smoke streamed away from Hidoiame ’s aft turret, and a cataract of foam rose alongside and drenched the crew of number two, even as Okada felt a mighty blow somewhere aft stagger his ship. The stutter of impacting twenty-fives became a storm, and glass shattered and flew as some found the bridge.

“Full ahead!” Okada commanded. “Left ten degrees rudder!” A ’Cat slammed the telegraph lever forward amid a clash of bells, and another spun the wheel.

“Full ahead, lef’ ten de-gees, ay!”

Another shell crashed into the ship, and Okada heard muted screams and felt the pressure of the blast and the convulsion of tortured steel. The rest of the bridge crew had something to hold on to, but Okada nearly fell. The talker held the headset against his furry ear and shouted over the tumult.

“Number tree gun aft iz out of aaction, an half the twenty-five mounts is wrecked!”

Guns one and two barked and jolted back. Acrid smoke filled the pilothouse through the broken panes, and Okada couldn’t see if they had any effect. He lurched toward the door to the bridgewing, but the wood was shattered and he jerked the remains from the hinges and stepped outside. Smoke swirled, and instead of the cold wind, he felt the heat of flames. Looking aft, he saw his ship was burning amidships, and the portside lifeboat was scattered around the base of the funnel near a gaping hole that belched exhaust gas. He clutched the rail with one hand and stared through his binoculars.

Hidoiame was hurt! She had her own small fire forward of the bridge, and the forward turret had never turned toward them. It must be damaged. The aft stack was leaking smoke, low, and more smoke gushed from a pair of large holes aft. Whatever damage she’d taken didn’t seem to have harmed her engines, though, and she was still accelerating.

“Left full rudder!” Okada roared over his shoulder. He had to keep as many guns in action as possible, and prevent his enemy from coming around behind him, where only one remained. He’d been right to fear the twenty-fives, he realized. The damn things were tearing his ship apart, and it looked like he had only one similar mount remaining with which to reply. Even now the twin guns kept up a withering fire that probed and detonated around Hidoiame ’s bridge like bursting fireflies. His number four gun was still firing; he could hear it, even if he couldn’t see through the smoke. A blinding flash bloomed directly in front of his own bridge, sending the remaining glass flying among a chorus of cries. He wiped at blood that suddenly blurred his vision and saw corpses strewn around number two, leaving only a single, stunned ’Cat standing there. Number one barked again, and he spun to see the result.

There was a small flare of light, wrapped in a white cloud that looked like steam, amidships of Hidoiame. For an instant, he felt triumphant-until there was another flash just like the first and he saw the long, concave splashes that cracked the swell at the destroyer’s side, one after another. Sato Okada’s blood turned to ice and he thought he felt his heart shatter in his chest. The flashes hadn’t been fire and steam-they’d been torpedo impulse charges!

“Full astern!” he screamed. “Right full rudder!” Even as he gave the order, he knew it wouldn’t matter. The range was now just a little more than a thousand yards, and the two Type 93 torpedoes-weapons of devastating power and reliability that he was all too familiar with-would arrive in half a minute. It would take longer than that just to reverse the engine. If the range was greater, slowing the ship might spoil the solution, but now only the turn could possibly help-but they’d already been turning to port… “Correction!” he shouted, more controlled. “Rudder amidships! Continue full ahead!” All he could do was pray Mizuki Maru would pass the point Hidoiame ’s torpedo men had calculated for their weapons to intersect her path. With so little time, the chances of that were slim.

Another impact forward sent the crew of the number one gun sprawling, but most of them rose and returned to their posts, quickly sending another shell toward their tormentor. Okada lurched back into the pilothouse, where the talker was shouting a steady stream of damage reports, punctuated by the constant drumming and staccato explosions of those wicked twenty-fives. A gout of hot steam gushed through the doorway as something ruptured amidships, and Mizuki Maru staggered sickeningly and began losing way. For just an instant, there was near-total silence on the bridge, and Okada’s eyes swept the gazes that met him.

“I have failed,” he said simply, brutally. “My oath is spent and hollow. Wasted.” He paused. “Brace yourselves, my samurai,” he breathed softly. He turned to the talker. “Have the signalman transmit code letter G with our current position… and my apologies, if he has the time.”

The Type 93, twenty-four-inch torpedo was, hands down, the best weapon of its type in service with any navy in the world when Sato Okada crossed the mysterious gulf aboard Amagi nearly two years before. Almost 30 feet long, weighing close to 3 tons, and blessed with a speed close to 60 knots and a 1080-pound warhead, it was designed to rupture the thick armor and break the backs of battleships. Probably only desperation, or possibly panic, had induced Kurita to waste two such precious, irreplaceable weapons against Mizuki Maru, so in that sense, Okada felt a sudden, perverse surge of pride that his ship and crew had forced him to resort to such a drastic measure. But the disproportionate expenditure was on a scale with shooting a beer can with a high-velocity rifle.

Ultimately, the sudden course change, the heavy sea, or the haste with which the torpedoes were launched caused the first weapon to miss its target, speeding invisibly past, mere yards behind Mizuki Maru ’s rudder. That was irrelevant, because seconds later the next torpedo slammed into her side and detonated with a stupendous dark geyser that dwarfed the ship-and blew the entire stern, aft of the engine room, completely off. Steam and black soot vomited skyward from the stack and gushing fuel oil ignited with a snarling rush.

Mizuki Maru stalled as if her legs had been torn from her hips-which might as well have been the case. Her stern, propeller shaft, and most of her machinery was already nothing but mangled wreckage plummeting to the bottom of the sea. A widening field of burning oil coated the waves around her and lapped at the boat deck, already dipping low.

Sato Okada heaved himself from the deck, practically climbing the aft bulkhead. His left leg didn’t feel right at all and he wondered if the concussion had cracked it. The helmsman slid backward and impacted the bulkhead with a cry as the murdered ship settled quickly aft, and her dripping bow left the tumultuous sea and reached for the sky. A naked, oil-soaked ’Cat crawled in through the shattered doorway, wide, bright eyes questing in dazed confusion amid black, matted fur.

The dying roar of Mizuki Maru was terrific. Tortured steel groaned and tore with dismal shrieks of agony, and the wooden deck cracked and splintered like rifle fire. Heavy machinery tumbled loose and crashed down deep in her bowels as the bow continued to rise until it was virtually perpendicular. Dimly, Sato Okada saw the number one gun, some of its crew still clinging to it, rip loose and fall against the forward bulkhead of the pilothouse. The bulkhead smashed inward under the impact, and girders pierced and pinned him.

I failed! He railed silently at himself through the waves of agony. So long he’d shunned the friendship of the Alliance, and then only when he personally was affected did he act. Shinya had been right all along. The day did come that my honor demanded more of me-but my pride held me back until it was too late, and my arrogance made me promise what I could not achieve. I failed not only the Alliance that deserved my allegiance, but my crew-my people — who deserved my protection!

Suddenly, a bloody, blackened face appeared before his eyes. It was the mad cook! Okada realized with searing shame that he’d failed him too-perhaps more than anyone-and he didn’t even know the man’s name!

“Come, my lord,” the cook said in a soft, gruff voice. “I must get you free!”

Just then, the boiling, flaming torrent of water and oil burst into the pilothouse, and Mizuki Maru quickly slid, blowing and booming, beneath the frigid, tossing waves of the iron gray sea.