“I’m sure of it, Your Majesty,” Matt lied.
She’d already turned away, caught up in the joyous reunion, anxious to greet others. “My word! Lawrence, my old friend! I hope you’re quite well?”
“Just shot again, now and then,” he replied a little hesitantly, glancing at Silva. Silva himself simply reached down and picked Rebecca up, holding her at arm’s length. “My li’l sis,” he murmured softly, eye suspiciously bright. Matt started to shout at him to put the Governor-Empress down, but saw the look of almost worshipful gratitude the young lady gave the big man. And she is a young lady now, Matt realized, watching Saan-Kakja squeal, “Col-nol Chack!” and enfold the battle- and soul-scarred ’Cat, pressing close. They both are. Just as important, they’ve both been to hell and back—and still love us as much as we love them. This is the soul of our Alliance; it’s what’ll keep it strong in the time to come, win or lose. We’re not just allies of convenience and necessity, we’re friends who like each other, and have helped each other in the toughest times imaginable. How else—if they didn’t trust us completely—could two heads of state let themselves act like a couple of kids again, with so many people watching? Then suddenly Rebecca wasn’t a kid anymore. She’d found herself facing Abel Cook: the boy she’d endured so much beside, who’d become a man far too young. Matt noted they didn’t embrace, but only stood looking at each other, holding hands.
Silva broke the spell, crouching between them. “Got another old friend o’ yours, still alive an’ raisin’ a ruckus. Say ‘hello,’ Petey!”
“Hello Petey!” the creature cawed and blinked at the girl without recognition. Rebecca laughed, a trace of her reserve returning. “I fear he’s forgotten me. Understandable, since I suspect he was very young at the time. As was I,” she added with a furtive glance at Abel Cook, “and quite given to impulsive sentimentality. Probably just as well.”
“No, it ain’t. You saved his goat-sniffin’ ass—’scuse my Grikish—an’ I’ve carted the little mooch along all this time just ta’ bring him back ta you. Why, Pam would’a tossed him in the wake, or ol’ Larry would’a ate him if it weren’t for you.”
Rebecca gently patted Petey’s head. “Then our association wasn’t wasted. But you’re clearly much attached to him and his life has taken him far from me. He’d find the Governor-Emperor’s palace like a cage after his adventures, and I’d never dream of separating you. Or confining him.”
Abel Cook abruptly turned and vanished in the growing crowd of onlookers. Rebecca stared after him, face torn.
“Huh,” Silva grunted. “I think Mr. Cook figured you was talkin’ as much about him as Petey.”
“Perhaps I was,” Rebecca whispered.
Silva stood. “Then you’re even sillier than you was when we was trapped on Yap,” he pronounced. “There ain’t a braver, better kid than him, an’ he’s been sweet on you ever since. You waitin’ on a better deal in an arranged match? Shit. Cook’s like a son to Cap’n Reddy an’ Courtney Bradford. Chack too. An’ he’s mated to the new Chairman of the United Homes an’ Grand Alliance now.”
Matt had moved toward Sir Sean, but he’d seen the exchange. “Why don’t we adjourn to the wardroom where we can talk a little easier?” he suggested loudly. “Or perhaps somewhere ashore? I appreciate you meeting us out here, and it means the world to the fleet’s crews, but maybe you had a different venue in mind for our planning sessions?”
The smile on Bates’s face vanished. “Hardly. Especially not after what happened in Baalkpan. These islands’ve always been infested with Dom spies. They don’t attempt much disruption because it draws attention to them, but since I expect we’ll be underway quickly enough to outrun their reports, they may try something unpleasant.” Another man had ascended the ladder, and Matt recognized Ezekial Krish. He was a captain now, but obviously still the Governor-Empress’s aide. Matt shook his hand. “We’d just as soon stay aboard here while we discuss our movements,” Bates continued, then grinned at Russ Chappelle. “I’m sure this monstrous thing has sufficient space to host all our commanding officers? We’ll bring things from shore to contribute to your kitchen, of course.”
Sandra and Pam brought Rebecca and Saan-Kakja back over. Matt looked at the two leaders, but spoke to Bates. “You said ‘we’ when you mentioned getting underway. I’m sorry, but we’re not taking the Governor-Empress and High Chief of the Filpin Lands back to the war. They just returned, and I had to order High Admiral Jenks and General Shinya to send them!”
“Of course not,” Saan-Kakja said. “We gave our word. No more fighting for us. I’ll remain here, as represent-aative of the Eastern United Homes—which will give my poor Lord Meksnaak a fit of some kind, I’m sure—but you, or he, haave no further need to concern yourselves for us.”
“I’m going this time,” Sir Sean told him firmly. “Just me, but I must.”
“And I’m only here to see you, and support all our brave sailors and Marines,” said Rebecca, with a quick glance at Chack. “I’ll certainly never question your plans.” She hesitated, smile dissolving. “I did enough of that to High Admiral Jenks. I only have a single question and I pray you’ll answer truthfully. I know we could beat the filthy Doms. They teeter on the edge of collapse even now. But all that’ll be for naught if you can’t defeat the League. I must have your honest answer. Can you do it?”
Matt looked into her earnest eyes and caught himself rubbing his chin. Then he looked around at Chack, Horn, Sandra, Pam—everyone around him as his eyes passed theirs. Finally, he glanced at the distant docks lined with what he skeptically thought of as the “half-assed cruisers” the Empire was contributing, but he nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t risk it if I didn’t. I hated the Grik for what they did, and with God’s help, we’ve nearly got them licked. Funny thing is, I don’t even hate ’em anymore because, as bad as they were, it dawned on me they’re not really evil. All this time, they were just being what they are. Couldn’t help it. Maybe that’ll change, now. The Doms’re worse than Grik because they know better. That makes ’em evil, in my book. Some of ’em, anyway, and I’ll hate ’em until they’re through.
“But the League may be the worst of the lot because of what they stand for. I won’t go into fascism and all that, even if it’s the same thing we were fighting on the world we came from. Feels like we’ve come full circle,” he mused, then continued. “But the League’s killed our people and made the wars we were already in a lot bloodier than they had to be. Worse, it knows what the Doms are and is willing to help ’em, anyway. What’s more evil than helping evil flourish? So yeah, we’re going to beat ’em because we have to, and as complicated as the final operation’ll likely be, the strategy’s as simple as I can make it.” He shrugged and looked around. “In a nutshell, we’re going to poke ’em in the eyes, then rip their guts out. It may cost every ship and plane we’ve got, and they might even ‘beat’ us in that sense, but we can make more ships and planes, faster than they can. They’ll never make it through a second round.”
CHAPTER 25
////// USNRS Salissa
El Paso del Fuego
July 20, 1945
Hell of a thing,” Matt said sincerely, gazing out at the panorama of the western mouth of the Pass of Fire.
“It is,” agreed “Ahd-mi-raal” Keje-Fris-Ar, moving to join him by the rail surrounding part of USNRS Salissa’s superstructure “island,” all that remained of her old Great Hall. The two, both wearing whites, were still a study in contrasts. One was tall, lanky, clean-shaven. The other was short, burly, and covered in rust-colored fur. Still, they couldn’t have been closer friends, and they were alone together for the first time in months, sharing a brief companionable moment and taking in the sights while the cyclone of their greatest challenge mounted beyond the horizon. “Our fellowship haas been full of wonders I never could haave imaagined, from the moment I first saaw your skinny little ship, all the wa
y to the present. Some haave been terrible,” Keje stated matter-of-factly, then blinked wry amusement, “but none haave been tedious. I’ve seen great suffering and the end of the life I knew and loved,” he conceded, “but I’ve also seen the Ancient Grik Enemy beaten baack.” He chuckled and waved to starboard, to the south, toward the captured city of El Corazon. “And here I staand on the very ‘bottom’ of the world, without falling off! I miss the . . . sweet simplicity of my old life, but it does now seem thaat it was raather . . . tiny in comparison to whaat it haas become.”
“You might be kinda short, Keje, but nothing about you ever struck me as ‘tiny,’” Matt told him, also looking at the fallen Dom city.
El Corazon was beginning to recover, but signs of the desperate battle remained everywhere. The high walls were scorched and blackened, still rubbled in places, and many buildings on the west side of town looked battered and misshapen. Those to the east had burned. The local population, now indiscriminately mixed with freed slaves and even former Dom soldiers, were hard at work completing the teardown so they could rebuild and Matt was gratified to see that a lot of stone was being taken from the abominable pyramidal temple in the center of the city. He was of two minds about that. On the one hand, the temple was ancient and had significant historical value. On the other, however, it represented a current, not historical, cultural depravity that had to be erased while the ruin it wrought was still running with blood.
“Look at all those bones!” Keje exclaimed, pointing at sun-bleaching skeletons beginning to collapse in the shallows. Most were smaller, but some of the ribs looked large enough to frame ships as big as Salissa.
“Yeah. Amazing.” Matt looked at Keje. “That was Orrin’s idea, by the way. Got all the mountain fish hanging around the mouth of the pass stirred up into a stampede that shattered the Dom fleet. Nobody knows how many of the fish died in it. Hundreds, maybe. I bet you didn’t see many on your way out here. We didn’t.” He snorted grimly. “Courtney’ll be furious when he finds out, if he hasn’t already. Probably go on about the ecological imbalance it caused, taking so many predators off the top of the heap. And I imagine he’d be right. Probably be a lot more flashies and gri-kakka in the seas for a while.”
“He did the right thing,” Keje said with certainty. “You would haave done the same. One trait you share is the aability to think quickly, ruthlessly, and make big decisions. They may not always seem right to you, aafterwaard, but they’re generaally for the best.” Keje blinked thoughtfully. “You aare a good person, my brother, so I know such things hurt your soul, but you haave a taalent I do not. I think too ponderously in baattle, the way we both do when we plaan. I try to think of everything. But when the plaan shaatters, as it often does, there’s no time for thaat. When suddenly faced with no good choices, you quickly choose the best baad one—more often thaan not—before it even occurs to the rest of us.” His large, thoughtful eyes gazed in the distance where herds of big, bizarre animals had returned to graze on the slopes of high, peaceful mountains beyond the city. The great volcano brooding to the north of the Pass of Fire was never entirely peaceful, but it was invisible from where they stood.
Matt was looking closer, at the vast assemblage of ships anchored nearby. First Fleet and Second Fleet were no more. All Union and Imperial ships, and whatever the Nussies might contribute, had been gathered under the umbrella of “United Fleet” for the duration of the coming operations, and would be divided into task forces. The Republic Fleet might or might not consider itself part of that inclusive organization, but had agreed to fall under Matt’s overall command “when the time came” (whatever that meant), and be attached to other Allied task forces.
But the force gathered here was already more powerful than anything Matt ever expected to scrape up to face the League. There was the battleship Savoie, of course, as well as two Gray Class light cruisers, eight Poseidon Class Impie protected cruisers, and nine “modern” destroyers, including his old Walker and the patched-together Mahan. The SPD Tarakan Island held a swarm of MTBs he hoped to make good use of, and USS Sular probably carried the best troops in the world. On top of that was the logistics train: oilers and cargo ships to keep his combatants fueled, fed, and armed. These were yet another legacy of Alan Letts, and Matt felt a familiar pang of loss when he remembered the easygoing, almost lazy kid he’d been, turned into an organizational marvel by the love of his wife.
These things alone probably left the United Fleet about on a material par with the Asiatic Fleet when it faced the Japanese Imperial Navy in the Java Sea—the closest thing to a League analog Matt could imagine—but he had several advantages. First, there was a genuinely unified command and no significant language barrier to communications. Nearly all Navy ’Cats spoke some English now, and comm- and signal-’Cats had to be fluent. Next, he’d trained this fleet himself, to do what he wanted when he wanted it, and it was very good. The Impies had learned what was expected of them on the long voyage from Scapa Flow. A lot of his crews were newies, but they were leavened by veterans. Few had ever experienced anything like what they might this time around, but they’d been tested.
Probably most significant, he had something the Asiatic Fleet never had, and neither did the League as far as he knew. He’d be bringing four aircraft carriers to the fight: Salissa, Madraas, and the hastily repaired Maaka-Kakja and New Dublin. Half were actually overloaded with older planes, for various reasons, and they’d soon reshuffle the mix, but Matt intended to relentlessly exploit his air advantage, and his very first priority was to keep it.
“I’m still not sure whaat you mean to do with those,” Keje said, pointing at two strange shapes. They were the former Grik BBs Matt diverted to the Enchanted Isles, where the Impie’s first 8″ guns, recently sent there as shore batteries, had been hastily installed. The rest of the modifications he’d asked for had been mostly cosmetic, including mock superstructures meant to resemble Savoie’s.
“They’re the rest of our battle line, along with the Impie cruisers,” Matt replied with a straight face. “I considered asking them to do the same to Raan-Goon when I heard they’d never get her new flight deck finished in time.” He shook his head. “We’ll have to watch for those big dragon bombers. They really did a number on her. Doesn’t matter, though. She’s probably too big to pull it off. Besides, we might need her. Can’t risk all our carriers in one throw.”
Keje grunted and blinked skepticism at the awkward-looking ships. “Those things won’t fool anyone. They look ridiculous.”
“Maybe. But if we’re lucky, the Leaguers still don’t even know we have Savoie. Three of her showing up might give ’em a fit—make ’em think she’s somewhere she isn’t. I’ll take what I can get.” He shrugged. “And if we’re not lucky? I doubt they’ll believe we already made two more like her, but those things might fool ’em on the horizon, or from the air. And the whole idea is to disperse their attention and their fire.”
“Draaw their fire, you mean.”
“If you want to look at it like that. Their crews know the score and they’re all volunteers. Honestly,” he added bitterly, “that’s pretty much how I’ll probably have to use the Impie cruisers too.”
Keje blinked at him. “You see?” he asked softly. “You’ve already made a ‘best baad’ choice before our operation even begins. I could never do thaat. But even as you described it, I knew it waas one.”
Matt shook his head. “Maybe not. I really don’t want it all to come down to a daylight punching match, and we’ve still got a few stray aces up our sleeves.” He lowered his voice, though there was no one around to hear. “As you know, Adar and Sineaa punched through the Pass yesterday evening with the tidal race, escorting two tankers, two cargo haulers, and High Admiral Jenks’s last two sail-steam ships of the line, USS Destroyer and USS Sword. Both of those are ex-Doms and might be useful. Anyway, they’re all making for Cuba, and there’s not supposed to be anything in their way. U-112 w
ent through to skulk it out a week ago, and was ordered to squeal if she saw anything. We’re not going to be able to keep radio silence much longer, and they’ll be expecting to hear something coming from this way anyhow.”
“U-112,” Keje growled, blinking skepticism anew.
“Yeah. Hard to believe we’ve got a Kraut pigboat on our side,” Matt admitted, somewhat wonderingly. “Sure wish I could’ve talked to her skipper more, but Alan did the right thing sending her to Tarakan for overhaul. Fiedler spent a lot of time there, and I guess Hoffman got a good dose of ’Cats and the way they think while they were refitting his boat. Fiedler believed in him. So did Alan, after they met.” He sighed. “I wish Fiedler hadn’t been so banged up in Fueen’s crash. We sure could’ve used him out here. But just like I guess not every Kraut on my old world could’ve been a hard-core Nazi, they aren’t all Leaguers here. And even if Hoffman wanted to betray us, we swiped most of his submariners for other stuff. I don’t think he’s got enough left to run the boat without the ’Cats that took their places, and they’ll kill him if he turns.” He blinked philosophically in the Lemurian way. “He might come back to bite us on the ass, or he might save the day. Who knows?”
A door opened and Sandra stepped out on the deck they stood on, eyes twinkling. Their time on Respite had been too short and they’d had little time alone in the Empire, but Matt knew he loved her more now than he ever had. “Sorry to interrupt you guys,” she said, “but I think everyone’s waiting on you.”
“They’re all here at laast?” Keje asked her.
“You saw the Clipper set down, and Miyata brought Maa-ni-la’s skipper over with him.”
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