Firestorm d-6

by Taylor Anderson

  Ahead were the Wiklow Mountains. Soon they’d cross them and view the valley beyond-and the lake that ought to be Pearl Harbor.

  “This fight looks… even bigger,” he observed a while later as they descended into the valley and neared what could only be the city of Waterford. A vast crescent of fire enveloped the northern part of the town, and Lake Shannon shimmered and glowed like a great puddle of blood. Bright flashes lit the valley, and crimson arcs of exploding shells fell on what had to be enemy positions, fired from the city and the mountains beyond. Cork was a holding action. Beyond the next range was the main Allied push, but here, the enemy had the whole campaign by the throat. If Waterford fell, each force would be isolated and vulnerable. From altiude, the battle resembled an inferno as the damp, but sappy forest burned almost everywhere. Immediately, Orrin Reddy changed his entire plan.

  “Watch really carefully now,” he instructed Silva. “That moon’s a big help to us, but it’ll help those flying creatures too!”

  In the event, the entire 10th Pursuit Squadron set down on the placid, brightly lit lake without incident, and motored toward a pier where nearly a dozen other “Nancys” were tied. Willing hands helped secure the bobbing aircraft as the engines were cut, and weary, stiff-legged aircrews scrambled onto the dock.

  “Where’s HQ?” Orrin shouted.

  “You not like it, sur,” warned a ’Cat.

  “Why?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Just take me there.”

  There was excited chattering he didn’t understand, and he was quickly led through a maze of battered waterfront buildings to a long, low-slung structure that reminded him of an army barracks. Probably every one of his fliers gaggled behind him.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” demanded an Imperial officer as Orrin, Silva, and the leading edge of aviators burst into the building. Orrin was shocked by the tone, but also the level of chaos he beheld. At first glance, the activity they’d interrupted seemed to border on panic.

  “Lieutenant Orrin Reddy, COFO of Maaka-Kakja, reporting,” he said. He didn’t salute, partly because he had no idea about Imperial rank devices, but also because his temper was rising.

  “Very well, you’ve reported!” the officer said brusquely. “Now get out of the way! In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve a battle on our hands!”

  “That’s pretty clear from the air. What’s also clear is a way to end it in a hurry!”

  “Ridiculous! We’re doing all that can be done with our meager forces here.”

  “You’re not doing anything with the planes yet.”

  “Yes… well, I heard there was some scheme to use them in the morning for something,” the man replied vaguely, “though I’ve no idea what possible use they might be. Freakish curiosities!”

  “Who’s in command here?” Silva demanded menacingly, taking a step forward. Lawrence squeezed in beside him, and his frightening visage and strangely colored armor were at least as disconcerting as Silva’s sudden entrance into the conversation.

  “Why… Commodore Luce came forward with the reinforcements from Cork. I suppose he’s the highest in rank…”

  “So he’s in charge?”

  “I don’t know as if you could say he’s in charge, per se…”

  “Is anybody in charge?” Silva roared.

  The Imperials visibly flinched.

  “Uh, Major Blair was in charge of this element of the operation, though we’ve occupied an area originally designated for the Ape-Major Chack, I mean! Neither is here at present, so I command my forces, Commodore Luce has his, though his artillery is controlled by… someone else. Major Brighton has the troops that fled here from Bray, but his supply train security force is under Major Grimes.”

  “Nobody’s in charge?” Silva roared again, but with a tone of furious incredulity. “Good Gawd a’font›hell kind of a way is this to run a war? You fellas haven’t done much o’ this, have you?”

  “Perhaps not on this scale, but I assure you…!”

  Dennis turned to Orrin. “Sir,’ he said with more gravity than Orrin had ever heard him use, “as the senior officer on the scene who has the only f… lipperin’ clue what the flyin’…” He stopped. “Oh goddamn, Lieutenant! Just rear up an’ take charge o’ this chickenshit outfit!”

  “Jesus, Silva, I can’t do that!” Orrin objected, his young face reddening in the lamplight.

  “Of course not!” the Imperial practically squealed.

  Silva raised the Thompson SMG he’d been holding innocuously by his side and yanked the bolt back. “Lieutenant Reddy, you’re fixin’ to hafta take charge after I shoot all these useless sons-o’-goats!”

  “Just wait, damn it!” Orrin shouted. He spun back to face the Imperial “commander.” “Look, I don’t want your job and I sure don’t want you fellows dead, but I do have a plan!” He pushed his way through the suddenly very quiet and attentive officers in the room to a map spread on a table. “The Doms are all around here,” he said, drawing a crescent with his finger. “Some big fires are burning here”-he pointed again-“between the enemy and this little river, probably started by Chack and Blair’s artillery.”

  “Yes,” muttered another officer. “A great tragedy, all those trees!”

  Orrin looked at the man and blinked. “Uh, okay. The thing is, those guns can’t reach any farther. We can! Maaka-Kakja ’s planes!”

  “For what purpose?”

  “We brought fuel for the planes that landed on the lake, but we don’t need all of them for this. You pull all your troops back to the city, and we rig fuel cans with mortar bombs and drop ’em on the enemy! The whole valley north of the city will go up in a wall of fire, and the Doms we don’t burn will have no choice but to pull back! By the time the fire simmers down, you should have reinforcements from the coast!”

  “Madness!” cried the “tree” officer. “To burn the enemy alive! It’s monstrous, simply monstrous! And all those trees! The beauty of the valley will be lost!”

  “You’re all nuts,” shouted Orrin in return. “You’d rather lose the battle and get nailed to a post-and maybe lose the whole damn war-than kill the enemy and burn a few trees?” He looked at Silva. “I should’ve let you shoot ’em!”

  “Still can,” Silva said.

  “Now, now!” cried the first Imperial. “This is madness! We’re all on the same side, by Imperial decree. I will respect that. You have your own command, so please do as you think best with it! I’ll pass the word to Commodore Luce and the others! Just leave us.”

  “I need some mortar bombs,” Orrin insisted.

  “As do we all. I don’t know if any can be had, but if so, you’ll have to get them from… oh, blast! I still can’t remember his name! The artillery gentleman! Now, if you don’t mean to shoot us, please leave us to fight our battle!”

  Orrin turned without saluting and strode out the door, followed by his fliers. “Silva,” he said sharply.

  “Sir?”

  “Take a dil and get me some mortar bombs… I don’t care how you do it.”

  “You bet! C’mon, Larry, you fuzzy little salamander. Let’s go get some bombs!”

  Half a dozen ’Cats followed Silva and Lawrence into the noisy, fiery night.

  “What we do now?” another ’Cat asked Orrin.

  “Let’s go see how many planes we can gas up enough to do the job, and still have enough fuel to burn the Doms out of this place!” He looked back at the HQ. “This joint’s even more screwed up than things were back in the Philippines when the Japs came! I didn’t think that was possible!”

  Within an hour, Silva returned with almost forty bombs; Orrin had eleven planes with tanks topped off, each with two five-gallon gas cans slung under it’s wings. They hadn’t figured out a way to secure the bombs to the cans in a way that would ensure the contact fuses were pointed down when the ungainly weapons were dropped, so they decided to try something like what Orrin had heard First Fleet did in the west, except in this case the observers would toss a coupl
e of bombs at the same time the pilots yanked a release lanyard on a gas tank. If they hit close enough together, swell. Some would, certainly, and their next pass with their second cans would connect the dots. Orrin knew “real” incendiaries were now in production at Baalkpan and Maa-ni-la, but they wouldn’t have them here for some time.

  “I’m almost surprised that crazy-assed Imperial gardener hasn’t sent troops to stop us,” Silva said as he propped his and Orrin’s plane, and then sat down in the observer’s seat when the engine caught and farted to life.

  “Me too,” replied Orrin, shouting over the sudden rumble of engines up and down the dock.

  “Watch where your giant shoes go!” Lawrence suddenly protested from within the fuselage.

  “Well, move your damn lizardy face out from under ’em!”

  “Lay off, you two!” Orrin said. The moon had dulled behind the smoke, and there was less visibility on the lake now. “I need to concentrate- and you do too! Don’t forget, there’re still some other ‘lizardy’ things out there!” He paused. “Besides, why’d you bring Lawrence this time?”

  “What, you wanna leave him back there with that buncha dopes? I doubt any of ’em has ever seen his type before. Hell, they’d have ’em on a leash-or in a fish tank-by the time we got back.”

  “Just as well,” Orrin said. “After the stunt you pulled, I’m not sure we should go back! Listen, as soon as we’re up and get some altitude, send a report to Makka-Kakja about the mess here, and what we’re going to try.”

  “Okay,” Silva responded doubtfully, “I’ll try. They may have trouble readin’ my writin, though!”

  “Just do your best,” Orrin directed. “Use the ‘air’ frequency. You’ll have a better chance of getting through that mush offshore.” With that, he advanced the throttle and the “Nancy” accelerated across the water.

  Once they were airborne and the rest of the pickup squadron, mostly from the 10th Pursuit, had formed on them, Orrin banked wide around the valley to the south of the lake, almost to the sea. There, the sky was clear and the bright moon was almost overhead now. He circled to the east, near the Sperrin Mountains, and tried to view the battle for New Dublin, but all he saw was a bright glow on smoky clouds beyond the cggy peaks. He steadied up on a northeast to southwest flight path that put the greater enemy concentration directly ahead.

  “We’re first,” Orrin shouted back. “The rest of the guys’ll try to lay their eggs just beyond ours, and then the next plane’s in succession! It’s gonna be tough in the dark. Hell, it’d be tough in daylight, but there’s not much else we can do. If we leave it to those rear area… gentlemen at their supposed HQ, your Jap buddy’ll have to fight this whole campaign all over again.”

  “He may be a Jap,” Silva returned, “an we ain’t exactly ‘buddies,’ but if he has to start over, I guarantee his campaign-with our guys-won’t be anything like this one! These New Brits ain’t like our Marines, but they ain’t bad soljers, I hear. I can tell you their Navy men are damn good-but their Navy’s kept ’em from havin’ to fight a big land war before, an’ except for that Blair fella-accordin’ to Chack-they don’t much know how.” He looked over his shoulder at the glare beyond the moun- tains. “An’ which it looks like ol Chack an’ Blair are stuck in pretty good. Chack damn sure knows how to fight!”

  “Yeah, well maybe we’ll have a look after we’re done here.” Orrin nodded back toward the lake. “As I said, maybe we ought not go back there. Now hang on!”

  Suddenly, the nose pitched down and the plane aimed for the edge of the now-much-larger fire burning on the enemy’s left flank. Orrin’s warning had really been just a figure of speech, because Silva couldn’t hold on with a ten-pound bomb in each hand. The “Nancy” hurtled downward, and if it hadn’t been for the sudden fusillade of musketry crackling toward them, it would’ve been frighteningly difficult to tell how low they were getting.

  “Get ready!” Orrin yelled. Musket balls began striking the plane. “Now!”

  Silva pitched his bombs just as the plane jolted to starboard with the sudden lightening of the port wing. He was pressed back into his seat as Orrin pulled back on the stick and applied full throttle, but still managed to keep his eyes on the general area where their “ordnance” fell. “Who-eeee!” he roared when two small flashes ignited a mushroom of orange and black. Myriad trees and limbs were silhouetted, many already adding yellowish wisps to the fireball. “That was a good-un!” he cried as the plane continued climbing, banking east over the city and out of the haze already lingering over the enemy position. Another fiery eruption extended the fire a little southwest, and Silva whooped again. There was nothing more for several moments beyond a few probable mortar bursts, long past the time for the next two planes to drop. Suddenly, the sky spit a spiraling meteor that spun out of control and impacted almost a quarter mile past the last explosion. It detonated with even greater force than their own bomb had done-just as another “Nancy” suddenly blew up a little beyond where the first had fallen.

  “Two of them must’ve run into each other,” Orrin said stiffly. Even as they watched, the new flames leaped back the distance toward the first. Evidently, the drops had been good; they just hadn’t ignited. They did now. Tall, sappy trees became instant torches, swirling flames coiling around them and pointing at the sky. Another plane dropped its payload, then another. Orrin was sad about the pilots he’d just lost, but damn, the rest of the “boys” were pasting them!

  “Okay, one more run!” he commanded. “Send it, if you can.” He circled around, out of the growing haze of smoke to the southwest, and tried to line up on the procession of strengthening firesi›It must be hell down there, he thought, but then tried not to think about it. They took more bullets on this run, and Lawrence squeaked when a ball tore through the hull and exploded some of his tail plumage, but they made their drop without serious injury to the plane or themselves. The gas didn’t burn this time, but a plane behind them connected fuel to the flame, and the whole thing went up in a quickening rush. Orrin was probably only imagining the screams he thought he heard over the engine and the wind rushing by.

  “Jesus,” he muttered, looking down. The Dom artillery flashes had all but stopped, and the semicircle of encroaching fires had become a cauldron of flame. Somewhere in the midst of all that were hundreds- thousands of men who’d had absolutely no idea what was coming, how to deal with it, or even how to take cover. They’d never been attacked from the sky before. He felt a little sick. In the dark days before the Philippines fell, the few remaining American planes had been forbidden to tangle with Zeros. They could outrun them or dive away, and that was what they’d been told to do, to preserve their planes for recon and ground attack. Mixing it up with the nimble Japanese planes was a losing proposition. Therefore, he’d strafed and bombed his share of landing craft and troop columns-but that was different. They were Japs, they’d attacked his country, and they were after him. He felt protective of “his” pilots now and he mourned those he’d lost, but this still just didn’t feel like “his” war yet.

  Below, the flames grew more intense as the prevailing east wind curled around the flank of the Sperrin Mountains and blew them northwest. He began to see why the “tree officer” had been so concerned; the conflagration was growing and threatened to consume the entire valley in a sea of fire. Well, that was tough. He’d come to save people, not trees, and the increased fire from the Imperial positions showed that “his” side was taking advantage of the situation and pressing the Dom survivors back toward the blaze. Their reserves, caught on the other side of the advancing firestorm, were abandoning them and starting to flee up the Waterford road. Soon, those left behind would have to surrender or die.

  “Our work here is done,” Silva shouted in the lofty tone of some satisfied warrior prophet. “Let us go across the mountains!”

  “You think we ought to take the rest of the flight?”

  “I dunno. They’re as likely to be welcomed as hee-roes as shot, I g
uess, an’ they was just followin’ orders. Then there’s them giant lizard birds to consider.”

  “Right. Tell ’em to set back down on Lake Shannon and await further orders. If they don’t hear from us in a couple of hours, they’re on their own. If they can’t get any reception, they can take a plane up once an hour and try to contact Maaka-Kakja. Otherwise, they can still support the ground elements here, but don’t let the boneheads push ’em around! We just won their damn battle for ’em,” he added grimly.

  Silva sent the message, and the two men and Lawrence turned northeast for the pass Chack and Blair had crossed to New Dublin.

  “Have Major Jindal bring his company up even with us, on those parallel streets to the right, then move up several more… sections? Blocks! Several blocks, and wait for us to do the same! Oh, and watch for people on the roofs! Ask their aid in spotting enemy concentrations. They’ve been most helpful.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Shmuke, and he trotted off with his squad.

  The “mystery company” they’d joined near the Company HQ was one Jindal put together much like Chack had. It even included some of Blair’s men. No one had been prepared for urban combat like this. The only good thing was that the Doms apparently weren’t very good at it either; and even fractured as they were, the allies were pushing from all directions while the enemy had little choice but to contract toward that heavy bastion in the northwest of the city.

  That didn’t mean the fighting had gotten easier. The first thing Chack and Jindal accomplished together-with the help of the light six-pounder an industrious Lemurian artillery crew had brought forward-was the capture of the holdouts in the Company HQ house. Several double-shotted loads collapsed the south-facing portico, and a final round of double canister preceded a bayonet charge by the two companies of’Cats and men. The fighting in the rubble of the entrance, and then through the corridors of the building, had been savage but ultimately futile for the defenders. Some surrendered-rebels and Company men for the most part-and were dragged roughly into the street where Chack and his Marines had been pinned down.