Days of Burning, Days of Wrath

by Tom Kratman

  The tarp wasn’t set up to be withdrawn mechanically. Erected by the men it also had to be taken down by the men. Even the ship’s gantry crane was useless, rolled back as far sternward—against the superstructure, actually—as it would go.

  To this end, several times more “sailors” than a container ship ought even to have had swarmed on deck to begin pulling on the ropes that furled it. Meanwhile, the ship, itself, began to swing in a wide arc to starboard to bring the port-facing rocket launchers generally to bear. There were over seven hundred long-range rockets, in clusters of twelve, carrying a mix of warheads: high explosive, sub-munitions, fuel-air explosive, and mines. As the tarp pulled back, these were revealed, in several banks, elevated to as much as twenty-eight degrees, though the bank of launchers farthest from the ship’s port side seemed to be raised to no more than perhaps twenty. The launchers twisted, indeed, almost writhed, as they changed azimuth and elevation, under the control of gunnery, in order to bear on their assigned targets.

  “This is the only part that actually frightens me,” Johnson admitted, still standing on the bridge, along with his immediate and primary staff as well as the necessary naval crew. “Once we launch then either the Earthpigs’ defenses are destroyed or we guessed wrong and we get destroyed. Both of those are out of my control, so no need to worry about them. Sort of like whether Valparaiso commits some of their air force to us. I can’t do a damned thing about it except make sure the airfield here isn’t attacked or mined by us.”

  “Firing solutions set,” announced the ship’s gunnery officer.

  “We’ll zigzag,” the captain said, “with the rockets firing as they bear . . . ummm, when they’re pointed in the right direction. Guidance only carries us so far.”

  “Standing by to fire.”

  “No!” shouted Alena. She raced to the launch control station as if physically prepared to stop the firing button from being pushed. “Hamilcar must fire! It is written . . . was written, long, long ago. One of the seven signs . . . ‘Iskandr shall strike the snake in his den.’”

  Gunnery looked at the captain, who shot an inquisitive glance at Johnson.

  “Wouldn’t do to mess with old prophecy, especially when it’s been scarily accurate so far. Hamilcar?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stand by at the launch station. Gunnery officer?” he asked, further, as Hamilcar walked the deck.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anything special he has to do?”

  “No, sir, it’s all automated from here.”

  “Show him what to push and explain when he’s to push it.”

  The gunnery officer simply lifted a green plastic cover from over a red button and turned a dial to an engraved number “1.” Pointing, he said, “You’ll push this, son. I’ll tell you when to fire . . . and . . . ready . . . FIRE!”

  Ham’s thumb mashed the button, In that instant the ship began to belch flame and shake like a whale in a meg’s mouth, as the rockets of the starboard-most battery all launched themselves at the nearest targets and at a combined rate of a dozen every second.

  Blow-out panels on the starboard side of the ship flew off wildly, spinning through the air before slicing into the sea with enormous splashes. Flame and smoke, bright orange and red and dark gray and black, shot out that side twenty meters or more.

  Gunnery removed Ham’s thumb, then twisted the dial to “2.” “Fire now, Ham.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.”

  —Karl von Clausewitz

  UEPF Spirit of Peace

  The door to the intelligence shop opened automatically. Esma, always polite, half leaned in and rapped her knuckles on the inside of the bulkhead. Inside, she saw at least half a dozen men and women hard at work, scanning intently or calculating the unknown. Otherwise, the shop was an antiseptic gray.

  Looking up from his monitor, Commander Khan, husband, smiled brilliantly—it was always a thing of joy to see the most beautiful ensign on two worlds and one fleet—and said, “Come in, Esma, please. Have a seat? Coffee?”

  “Thank you, sir, but no. The high admiral sent me to tell you she would like to be briefed on security down below at your ‘earliest convenience.’”

  “It actually isn’t very convenient,” Khan said. Which is likely why she sent you, rather than use the intercom, so I wouldn’t have to make public excuses. “Right now I am . . . well, see for yourself.”

  Khan gestured at the monitor embedded in the workstation. Esma stepped over and looked down. There seemed to be, faint through the clouds, a large ship, turning hard to its right and leaving behind a churned sea.

  “What is it?” she asked. “I mean, yes, I know it’s a ship but . . .”

  Khan explained, “It’s a freighter, a good-sized one, though they use some much bigger down below. We noticed it a little less than an hour and a half ago—as soon as it looked like it would breach the forty-kilometer exclusion zone—and have been tracking it ever since. Waste of time and effort, though, as it turned out, since it’s veering away from Atlantis Base at something like full speed.”

  “Why forty kilometers?” Esma asked.

  “Funny,” Khan chuckled. “I wondered about that, too, when I first was posted here. Turns out it was the limit of naval cannon gunfire when we dropped nukes on the Federated States, toward the end of the Great Global War they had down below. The dozen or so lasers we mounted to defend the base from aerial attack were sufficient, but no laser in the inventory could stop a thirty- or forty-centimeter spinning steel shell, so we concentrated on bluffing the barbarian states that had battleships and heavy cruisers. We declared the zone then, except for the regular freighter service from Valparaiso, and it was never updated, especially since naval cannon fire, down below, was mostly dispensed with. Anyway, you can stay here, young ensign, if you like. You may learn something useful to you. Meanwhile, I’m going to my day office to get ready for my chat with the high admiral.”

  Esma nodded, saying, “Yes, I’d like that. Thank you, sir.”

  Khan turned to go and had actually taken several steps past the hatch when Esma turned and shouted to him. “There’s something wrong with that ship! It looks like it’s blowing up and burning!”

  BdL ALTA

  “Holy shit,” Ham said, shocked from the shaking, the roar, the fire, and the smoke. Alarms, too, were going off on the bridge as, apparently, there were some uncontrolled fires raging on the starboard side of the missile deck. Ham looked up and, mesmerized, saw a massive cloud of smoke rising ahead.

  “Fire now, Ham,” the gunnery officer repeated.

  “But the . . . yes, sir.” Again, the boy looked down and mashed his thumb onto the firing button. Again, the ship recommenced spewing the heavy long-range rockets at a rate of a dozen per second. The color of the flames shooting out to starboard changed slightly.

  “They’re carrying melted steel and maybe even some burning ferric oxide with them,” Gunnery shouted over the incredible roar. “Pay it no mind.”

  He gave the dial another partial twist, to “3,” and then said, “Fire, Ham.”

  “What if there’s a misfired missile with an unexploded warhead?” the boy asked.

  “Worst case? Probably the flames torch off the rocket and it at least goes somewhere besides here. There are baffles and barriers, too, to keep it from doing much damage if it explodes on the ship.”

  “Okay.” Again, Ham mashed the button. It all seemed fine until, maybe ten seconds into the salvo, there was an explosion, a very large explosion, in the middle of the port-side array of missiles. That one was quickly followed by two more, and then one more, and a number of smaller ones.

  The first blast cracked the glass of the bridge. Alena cried out then moved like lightning, sideways, to put her body between Ham and the blast. The glass of the bridge shattered a fraction of a second later. She cried out again, this time in pain, as one piece sliced her s
calp and another embedded itself in her abdomen. She clutched herself and sank to the deck, a long, low moan of agony escaping her lips.

  The captain of the ship shrieked as a storm of thin slivers lanced into his face and eyes. He clawed at those, while continuing to scream.

  Johnson was more fortunate; whatever any of the smaller fragments might have done, one large piece of glass sliced through his neck, cleaving his jugular. He fell as a kind of blood fountain, spraying a crimson spiral across the bridge as he twisted to the deck. He was either dead or soon to be.

  Ham had heard ships alarms before, but nothing like this. There seemed to be half a dozen, all of different quality and frequency, all demanding attention from somebody who knew what he was doing. He heard through a loudspeaker the call for damage control parties to control flooding on one of the lower decks, and an equally insistent call for firefighters for the deck below the missile deck. The missiles—those that had not exploded in their launch racks—continued spewing forth at the same rate of a dozen per second.

  There was also an insistent searing pain over Ham’s right ear. He ignored that, running around the gunnery station to his “mother in all but womb,” Alena.

  She looked pale and ghastly but was still awake and alert. He gasped at the blood flowing down her face, coloring her emerald green eyes red, and seeping through the fingers clasped over her abdomen.

  He forced tears from his eyes. No sense in letting her see how bad it looks.

  “Iskandr,” she said, “do not worry for me. This ship must survive and the attack must go on. Legate Johnson?”

  “Dead,” said Ham, after glancing at the still corpse in a pool of blood.

  “No one else can do this, then, but you, my lord. Use my husband as your executive, but you must command the attack. It was written.”

  “I will.”

  Two of the ship’s corpsmen, along with a not terribly senior naval officer, a lower grade, and correspondingly short, tribune by the name of Campos, suddenly appeared on the bridge. Already smoke from the successful launches, the resulting fires, and the unplanned explosion was drifting in through the shattered windows.

  Gingerly, Ham bent over to kiss Alena’s forehead. Before he stood he had to use a sleeve to wipe blood from his lips.

  Ham gave an order he had no legal right to give. “Take command of the bridge and the ship until relieved. Keep her afloat. Move us in closer to shore with whatever speed you can get consistent with the damage control effort. I am going to go below and take command of the landing force.”

  Whether it was the blood dripping down the right side of his face or not, Ham never knew, but whatever it was, the tribune saluted, said, “Yes, sir,” and took over the captain’s station. As he did, the corpsmen split up, one going to the captain and the other to Alena.

  Ham ran to the ladder but stopped, sparing one glance, maybe a last one, at the woman who had, as much as his mother, raised him. Turning away he practically flew down the ladder, then used the ladder as an anchor to spin around to the next one down, and flew through that, too . . .

  . . . and entered a kind of hell on earth. There was hot smoke floating in the passageways, and men . . . oh, and boys, too . . . were crying out for help from somewhere deeper in the ship.

  He found David Cano, Alena’s husband, in consultation with some member of the ship’s crew.

  “How bad is it?” Ham asked Cano.

  “Not as bad as it looks. One maniple of cadets was assembled in one of the corridors under the explosion—what the fuck was the explosion, Ham?—and they’re . . . well, not many survivors and those few are too badly hurt. The hovercraft, the tanks, the helicopters, and the Ocelots are all fine. But instead of a dozen maniples of cadets, we have eleven.”

  “It was one of our own rockets’ warheads that went off, David,” Ham said. “That set off two or three more. From up top it looks bad, but that’s only the top. Ships don’t sink from the top up.”

  “Where’s Legate Johnson?” Cano asked.

  “He . . . he didn’t make it. I am taking command.”

  “Alena told you to, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. You would know, if anyone would. She’s hurt, by the way. As her husband you’ve a right to know.”

  “Will she live?”

  “I’m not an expert. She’s lost some blood, but she was conscious and alert when I left her. I do think she’ll live.”

  Cano breathed a heartfelt sight of relief. “Thank God for that. As for how I knew, she said that it should be you, if things went to crap. I trust her judgment, even though she is biased where you are concerned. I will follow. Some of the others might have trouble taking orders from a boy, after all. I’ll keep them in line.”

  “Thank you. I’d hate to have to face your wife after she recovers if I hadn’t obeyed her orders.”

  At that, Cano, despite the circumstances, laughed. “You or me. Thataboy! Now what are your orders?”

  “I’m going to go look over the damage. While I’m gone, first, I want . . .”

  UEPF Spirit of Peace

  The ship was already engulfed in smoke by the time Khan returned to the monitor. Sudden eruptions of fire illuminated the smoke inside, flashing like lightning inside a storm system, first here, then there, and then somewhere else.

  Khan scrolled in to bring the ship into greater focus. It was only then that he caught the waves of foot-wide somethings surging out from the ship toward the island base.

  The blood drained from Khan’s face, leaving it a ghastly white. “Oh, shit! Oh, fucking elder gods! The base is under attack!”

  There were no other officers present in Intelligence. No, wait, young Miranda, here, is commissioned.

  “Esma?”

  “Sir?”

  “I want to you take charge here. Forget the embassies we’ve been watching. Split your efforts between that ship—dirty bastards waited until they were just about in range before they declared war!—and the island. I’ve got to go see the high admiral now!”

  “Yes, sir! I will, sir.”

  “Call the high admiral,” Khan yelled over his shoulder. “Tell her Atlantis Base is under attack and that I am coming to her quarters!”

  BdL ALTA

  Ham pressed himself against a bulkhead to allow two men carrying a stretcher to pass. The bearers wore masks. The undersized form on the stretcher, he saw, was blackened and charred over a good part of the body; in places it was impossible to tell what were scraps of burnt cloth and what were strips of skin. Somehow the poor boy on the canvas still hung onto life, whimpering softly into arms crossed over his face.

  Taking the implied hint, Ham took a mask from a dispenser and put it on. No more stretchers came. I wonder why just the one? Maybe they did well getting the wounded out.

  With the stretcher having passed, Ham continued onward. Farther ahead he found the answer to the stretcher question: men and boys, but more of the latter by a factor of twenty, lay, fully equipped but heaped and tangled with each other. The corpses made a solid carpet. Nowhere could Ham see a piece of deck to place a foot; he had to step not just over but onto the bodies to keep going.

  Carrera’s son shuddered, then muttered, “Dead, all dead; an entire maniple of dead.” He was too much his father’s son not then to think, And how do I find replacements for them? For they must be replaced. That, or the plan must change and in a hurry.

  Smoke poured overhead, hugging the top of the passageway, while water—deeply red-tinged, to be sure, with odd bits of solid black in it—eddied around the bodies. Ahead, Ham heard cursing and the sound of high-pressure hoses.

  He steeled his heart and soul to what he had to do. Whispering, “Sorry, friends,” he stepped onto one of the bodies. That done, the next was easier, and the next easier still. At length, he came to a naval noncom, directing the crews of two hoses. They all wore silvery suits.

  “Status?” Ham demanded, briefly lifting the mask off his face.

  The noncom didn’t turn to l
ook who had asked. Nor did he seem to notice that the asker’s voice was young. Lifting his own mask, he leaned sideways toward Ham and shouted, “Iffy, sir. We’ve got the fires mostly contained down here, but the real problem is up on the missile deck above us; we don’t know how many rockets and warheads failed to launch and are still unexploded.” The sailor replaced the mask, took a few deep breaths, and continued, “The division chief took himself and another man in fireproof suits to inspect but they haven’t come back yet. I’m starting to worry.”

  Suddenly two men emerged from a side corridor. They moved awkwardly up to the noncom, one man leaning heavily on the other. On closer inspection, that one being half carried had blood seeping through some tears in his silver firefighter’s suit.

  Said the one helping to carry the other, “No more rockets unexpended, but I think there’s a warhead—writing’s all burned off so no idea if it’s mines or high explosive or FAE or submunitions—sitting on the deck. It’s hotter than Hades up there; we’ve got to fight our way to it and cool it down!”

  “Great, sir,” said the noncom directing the hose parties.

  “Can you do it?” Ham shouted.

  “That or die trying,” answered the division chief.

  “Not good enough. I repeat, ‘Can you do it?’”

  The division chief answered, “We partly did, using handheld fire extinguishers. Then some little goddamned bomb went off and tore up my sailor, here. I’m going to grab another man, and four more extinguishers. Then we’re going to try to get it to where we can shove it over the side. Big gash in the hull, up there, so we might be able to.”

  Ham felt in the air several noticeable concussions.

  “What the hell was that?”

  The sailor answered, “Bomblets. Well . . . big bomblets. One of the warheads that went off must have been carrying submunitions. Not a danger to the ship, but it’s a danger to the people trying to save the ship.”