Firestorm d-6

by Taylor Anderson

  “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 quic
ker 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.