B00BPJL400 EBOK (44 page)

Another series of blows racked the hull, not as many but just as hard, and another seam opened. Lemurian sailors poured down from above and Laney berated them as they arrived, directing them to shore up the sprung plates.

“They’s water in for’ard fireroom!” one harried ’Cat informed him.

“I don’t doubt it! There’s gonna be more water
in
the ship than outside if we keep takin’ this thumpin’!” He paused. “You’re a fireman. Get forward and stop up your own damn holes! I’m goin’ to the Skipper!”

Laney thundered up the stairway, shoving ’Cats aside. “Make a hole!” he bellowed, bowling through the press. Emerging aft of the casemate for the 5.5s on what had once been a kind of promenade for the few adventurous passengers
Santa Catalina
once carried, he stopped, gasping, and looked to port. “Beezle-bub in a penny-sundae cup!” he breathed. Dean Laney hadn’t seen action in a while, and had never seen anything like this. In the distance were great columns of smoke and rising mushrooms of fire where
Arracca
’s air wing was stomping all over a division of fairly smart-looking ships that bore no resemblance to the Grik “Indiamen” he remembered. Closer—much too close, in his opinion—were three momentous shapes that immediately reminded him of perversely overgrown versions of that old Confederate ironclad he’d seen in the history books he’d been forced to wag around as a kid. Two more of the things were in a bad way, one obviously sinking, but the three up front . . .
Shit! They just fired!

Laney darted to the starboard side of the casemate just as the whole ship shuddered again. Splinters from one of the lifeboats above lanced down and swept his hat over the side. More splinters, pieces of steel or iron, peppered him as well, and one of the funnel support cables parted and whipped past, nearly cutting him in half.
Couldn’t’ve done doodly
if it did,
he realized. The thing was gone before he knew it was coming. For an instant, he stood there, hurting and stunned, then the 5.5s opened up again, the pressure of the salvo pushing him along. He raced forward and scampered up the ladder to the starboard bridgewing. A single Lemurian lookout stood there, blinking furiously, his tail whipping back and forth. All the action was to port, but he was supposed to be keeping watch to starboard.
Hard to ask of a fella,
Laney realized with an uncharacteristic burst of sympathy. Then he remembered his engine was getting wet and charged into the pilothouse wearing a more customary scowl. It vanished.

The port side of the pilothouse was battered in, the heavy plates designed to drop down over the windows shot away. The engine-room telegraph was bent over at a right angle, and the big brass wheel looked like a bicycle rim that hit a curb going way too fast. Conduit and bundles of wire dangled and swayed, and the bowling ball–size roundshot rolling slowly across the deck to port gave Laney the impression this all just happened right then, while he was hiding behind the casemate. There was blood too, lots of it, and the dented roundshot left a little red trail until it thumped against one of several bodies lying on the deck. Two of them, ’Cats, were obviously dead. One was particularly, horribly shredded. The other two were men Laney knew well. Before he could move, a pair of Lemurians knelt beside them, while another took the warped wheel in hand. To Laney’s amazement, the blood-covered man the cannonball bumped suddenly opened his eyes and looked at him.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Russ Chapelle demanded, sitting up, reaching to explore his face with his hand.

“Careful, Skipper!” one of the ’Cats warned. “You got busted glass in you face! I think you okay, though. You wearin’ lots o’ blood, but not bleedin’ bad that I see.”

“Swell. Help me up. Where’s the commodore?”

“He
not
okay!” cried the ’Cat talker, kneeling beside Jim Ellis. His ears were back and his tail was almost rigid. “He not dead, though!”

Russ grimaced at the sight of his commander, friend, and one of the highest-ranking and best-respected officers in the Grand Alliance. He’d just been talking to him! Hadn’t even finished what he was saying! “He doesn’t look good,” was all he could manage, and it was a serious understatement. Most of Jim’s left arm and the associated muscles across his chest looked like they’d been peeled away. Russ lurched to the bank of speaking tubes. “Corps ’Cats to the bridge, on the double! Bring stretchers!” He looked back at the ’Cat at the wheel. “Does she steer?”

“Ay, Cap-i-taan! came the stiff, controlled reply.

Russ looked at the engine-room telegraph. “But the lee helm’s shot away.” He turned back to Laney, just as the first corps ’Cats arrived on the bridge. “Which is okay, if somebody in engineering’ll keep an ear close to the voice tube.” He looked at the talker, who’d returned to his station. “Damage report!”

“More o’ the same so far; we takin’ damage, but still holdin’ up better than we was afraid.” He paused. “The number one gun reports a caash-ulty.”

“Can they fix it?”

“Not now. They
can
fix it, but it take longer than
this
fight lasts, one way or other.”

Russ frowned. “Very well. Have its crew secure what they can and join the crews in the casemate.” He suddenly noticed Laney again. “What
are
you doin’ here, Laney?” he demanded, his temper brittle.

“Why, uh, there’s water comin’ in,” Dean replied, suddenly realizing how lame his complaint sounded under the circumstances.

“We sinkin’?” Chapelle snapped.

“Not when I headed up here, but it was gettin’ worse, and who knows now. . . .”

“
You
should know, you puffed-up, self-centered boar’s tit!” Russ roared, his temper cracking. It wasn’t the response of a “born” officer, but if Russ Chapelle ever cared about such things, he certainly didn’t then. “You came up here to bitch that things ain’t exactly like you wish they were below—that’s exactly why you’re here! Well, listen up!” He waved at the wreckage and blood around them. “We’re in a fight, and bad shit happens! Your
job
, mister, is to keep my engine running, fix what breaks, and plug the holes the enemy shoots in us. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve abandoned your post in the face of the enemy. Do you know what that means? If I see you above decks again before this fight’s done, it better be
after
the last roach and rat have fled the rising water! Am I absolutely clear?”

“A-aye, aye, sir,” Laney sputtered.

“I better be.” Russ looked down as Jim Ellis was hoisted off the deck and carried from the bridge. “Just . . . get out of my sight,” he said, his voice subdued.

The 5.5s were still hammering, and a few more shots jolted the ship amid plumes of water that cascaded across the decks. Laney, utterly ashamed of himself, happened to glance out the shattered pilothouse as he turned away. He stopped, eyes bulging. “Captain Chapelle . . . look!”

S-19

“Secure from flank. All ahead two-thirds. Flood tubes one through four!” Irvin Laumer shouted at the ’Cats on the torpedo director, amid the spray raining down on the flying bridge. S-19 had come around to a course of 080, and the three Grik ships were dead ahead, bow to stern, smoke streaming from broadsides still punishing
Santa Catalina
. S-19 hadn’t done much damage to the ship they’d shot at as she passed, and it was disconcerting that the “new” 4"-50 shells had so little apparent effect at such close range, but after only a few halfhearted return shots, neither collision victim paid them much attention. Both had more pressing problems. The first was going fast, her bow dipping deep, her screws—yes, she
did
have two—rising above the water. Grik were swarming all over her flooding carcass like ants flushed from their bed, and their shrieks of terror mingled in a shrill, steady drone. There were no lifeboats in the water. The second ship was noticeably low by the stern now, but steaming away in a wide turn to port—toward the cruiser squadron coming up from the northwest. The cruisers were preoccupied as well.
Arracca
’s Nancys flocked around them like lethal blue-and-white gulls, dropping firebombs, and the new fifty-pound bombs.

“Target course remains unchanged at three four five. Range!” Irvin yelled.

One of the ’Cats called “One t’ousand four hundreds!” and another Lemurian turned a dial on the torpedo data computer, or TDC, sheltered inside the pilothouse. “Set!” the ’Cat called back, blinking rapidly. They’d already input the course, speed, and bearing of the target—the last ship in the line.

“Open outer doors!” Irvin commanded. “Standby tubes one and two!”

“Tubes one and two ready in all respects, Skipper,” Hardee shouted back after what seemed a lifetime. The headset was held to his ear, and he was staring at the ready lights that had been moved to the aft bulkhead of the pilothouse.

“Fire one!” Laumer shouted.

“Fire one!” Hardee repeated, and the racing boat shuddered as a column of air exploded to the surface at the bow. Laumer counted to five. “Fire two!”

A second Mk-3 hot-air torpedo, proudly marked “Baalkpan Naval Arsenal,” plunged forward out of its tube, joining the first war-shot torpedo made on this world to be fired in anger.

“Both fish running hot, straight, and normal, Skipper!” Hardee repeated the report from the sound room excitedly. “Mr. Sandison’s done us proud!”

“We’ll see,” Laumer hedged. “New target is the center ship in the line!” he shouted, the excitement raising his voice.

“Ay, ay!” cried the ’Cat behind the director. “Bearing . . . mark!”

“Bearing seero seven eight!” shouted his mate.

“Recommend course seero four two!”

“Make your course zero four two!” Irvin shouted at the helm.

Theoretically, they could program the torpedoes themselves to intersect the target at a given point, but for this first effort, Irvin decided to set all his fish for straight runs at a depth of ten feet. To simplify things for the new torpedoes, he’d aim S-19 where the target should be when his torpedoes reached it. In a way, this seemed almost a betrayal of all the hard work and hard-won technical expertise that went into making the new Mk-3s just as capable and versatile as their old fish had been—except for speed and range, of course. But simpler was always better, and they knew the fish would go off if they hit. That was a confidence they’d never had with the modern torpedoes they’d started their Old War with. Still, for this type of shooting,
Walker
should have it easier, since she could traverse her torpedo mounts on deck.

“My course seero four two!” cried the ’Cat at the wheel.

“Ten seconds!” came the shout from the torpedo director.

Irvin Laumer looked at his watch. “Fire three!” he yelled. “Fire four!”

Two more gouts of air burped at the bow, and the old sub bounced.

“Three and four are running hot, straight, and normal, sir!” Hardee exulted.

“Very well. Close the outer doors and reload all tubes!”

S-19 had started with twelve torpedoes. Enough of her complicated pumps, pipes, and internal tanks remained to trim the ship as the weight of each weapon left her, but manually cranking the doors closed, reloading, and retrimming took time. It was necessary, though, since S-19 was essentially the gun that aimed the torpedo “bullet,” and she had to be as steady as possible when she fired. Irvin Laumer judged the angle of the final dreadnaught forward, and gauged the distance to the harried, dwindling cruisers to the north.

“We’ll never reach that first one from here,” he said simply. “Helm, come to three five five. All ahead full. We’ll try to throw all four fish at that last sucker before we get too close to the cruisers.”

“We may not have to worry about them,” Danny said, glancing up from his watch and pointing aft at the frothy wake they were making. “And, besides, I hope—I
bet
—those Jap-Griks are about to start looking in our direction pretty quick. Our first torps ought to be there . . . well, now.”

For a terrible moment, nothing happened. Apparently they
had
been seen, though, because a few of the Grik battleship’s dozen-odd broadside guns fired on them, the heavy roundshot rumbling mostly overhead to splash some distance to port. One came dangerously close, deluging the fantail and the crew of the three-inch gun aft.

“Yes!” Nat Hardee practically squeaked, raising both hands in the air and nearly dropping his headset. Maybe ten seconds later than expected, a tight, high plume of water jetted skyward, aft of amidships on their first target. The geyser rose and rose, higher than the ship’s funnels, before collapsing back on the ship and into the sea. A monstrous jet of coal dust and black smoke belched from the third funnel as well, joined an instant later by a dirty gout of steam. There was no second hit—they’d likely missed with their first torpedo—but one was more than enough. Even at this range they could see they’d opened a massive hole in the side of the enemy leviathan that extended even a short distance up the armored casemate. From what they’d heard from previous actions and observed that day, the Grik ships had no real watertight compartmentalization belowdecks. It had probably never been considered necessary during their design. Their heavy armor and armaments must’ve been thought sufficient to protect them from a distance, and Kurokawa—or whoever dreamed them up—likely never worried about how vulnerable they’d be to an honest-to-God torpedo!

The gaping hole quickly vanished as the great ship rolled toward them, spewing more steam from her gunports as water rushed against hot boilers. It was stunning how fast the ship turned turtle once she got started, and soon she lay belly-up in the bright sun. Even before she quit wallowing back and forth, her wooden keel pointing at the sky, she was already slipping. Irvin was staring through his glass at the few Grik that had managed to squirm through gunports into the sea, but that wouldn’t save them. The flashies—or flashylike fish—teeming in these seas were already gathering to the flailing, shrieking buffet laid before them. Irvin had just lowered his glass, grimacing, when
both
torpedoes they’d fired at the second ship impacted—aft again, but close together—and virtually demolished the entire stern of the massive, iron-plated monster.