Firestorm d-6

by Taylor Anderson

  “Make your course zero, four, zero!” Matt shouted as soon as the salvo buzzer rang and the gun on the fo’c’sle boomed and bucked.

  “Sero, four, sero, ay!”

  “Damage control reports one shot penetrated aa-midships deckhouse, an’ one punch through guinea pullman,” Minnie shouted in her high-pitched voice. “Two spring plates in aft engine room! They prob’ly skate in. Casualties to waard-room!”

  Matt looked at Bradford, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet since they “bug-sprayed” the Grik birds, and sighed. “You have work, Courtney.”

  Bradford nodded. “Indeed. As do you.” He waved about. The numbers two and four guns opened fire, as did the port twenty-fives.

  “Yeah. We won’t board anbody, but it looks like we’re back in the pool with the flashies again, fighting both sides. No choice. I’ll do my best to spoil their aim.”

  “God bless you for that, Captain Reddy,” Courtney murmured, and vanished down the ladder aft.

  “Lotta iron flyin’ around amongst all that, Skipper,” Norman Kutas said matter-of-factly, nodding ahead toward the densest concentration of enemy ships. Achilles and Hector were in it now, smoke gushing from their guns.

  “Yeah, and we’re bound to catch some,” Matt agreed solemnly; then his lips quirked into a grin. “You’re not worried about something spoiling your boyish looks, are you, Norm?”

  The badly-and often-scarred First Lieutenant chuckled. “No, sir. I’m way beyond that, but I feel everything that hits this old ship in my bones.”

  “Me too, Norm,” Matt agreed. “So let’s do our best to avoid as many hits as possible.”

  “Fancy footwork ain’t gonna save us from everything, Skipper.”

  “No, but right now good people are dying, and the enemy’s in disarray. We’ll race through, shooting up whatever we can while avoiding as much return fire as we can manage.”

  “Then what?”

  Matt shrugged. “We turn around and do it again until our friends are safe and every Dom out there is on the bottom of the sea.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Above Ceylon January 17, 1944

  Tikker scratched his ear around the highly polished 7.7-mm cartridge case thrust through a hole a similar cartridge once shot through it. Sometimes it itched, and he’d begun to associate that with a superstitious foreboding. He looked around. Everything seemed fine, and it had been a swell day for killing Grik. The “Nancy’s” engine rumbled healthily above and behind, and they hadn’t been hit by any Grik “shot-mortars” when they bombed the hell out of a retreating column earlier in the flight. It was windy, and the plane bounced around a lot, and the sea to the west showed white teeth, but they should be able to set down safely in Salissa ’s lee. All in all, it was a glorious day, and he didn’t know why his ear was bugging him. A shout from aft shattered his sense of well-being.

  “How come you don’t go down and let me shoot more Grik?” Cap- tain Risa-Sab-At, commander of Salissa’s Marine contingent, demanded sharply.

  “I don’t see any more,” Tikker snapped. “They’ve had enough. They abandon Saa-lon!” He pointed down, behind them, where Haakar-Faask, Naga, Bowles, Felts, Saak-Fas, and Clark were spraying grapeshot across the rocky, mushy land bridge to India proper, gnashing the remnants of the Grik host trying to cross in daylight with the ebbing tide. The Allied armies were rapidly advancing to chop up what remained of the enemy on Ceylon, and those stranded by the tide would likely be annihilated.

  “Then let’s go kill some of those trying to cross the sand!” she demanded.

  “Right! We’d probably be hit by our own ships, if we go low enough for you to shoot them with that musket! Besides, we’re low on fuel!” Tikker was growing beyond annoyed. Risa had been cooped up on Salissa throughout the campaign, and she’d begged hm to take her on this patrol. He’d reluctantly agreed when Admiral Keje just as reluctantly gave his blessing. They both knew how anxious she was to get in the fighting, any fighting, particularly after hearing of her brother Chack’s-and Dennis Silva’s-latest… adventures on New Ireland. She’d spent the flight taking potshots at Grik during their bombing runs. At first, the shots surprised and alarmed him. Then they became annoying. He’d told her that if she flew with him, she had to perform all the duties of his spotter/wireless operator, and she’d readily agreed. Once in the air, however, she’d “spotted” all right, trying to get him to dive in on every lost Grik they saw, and he’d quickly determined she barely knew Morse. Except for the column they’d chopped up, it had been a wasted patrol. He hoped the other three ships in his flight had made better observations.

  “So,” he said, trying to make conversation and lighten the tension he felt. Risa was a “dish” after all, as the Amer-i-cans would say, and, despite his present aggravation, he actually kind of liked her. There were those pesky rumors about her being “mated” to Silva, and he didn’t know what to think of that. She didn’t seem to be pining for the big chief gunner’s mate, however, and he wondered if he had a chance. He never would have before the war, but now? To say things had changed was a vast understatement. She was just so damn intense sometimes! “What are you going to do? Did you really put in for a transfer?”

  “Yes,” she shouted back through the voice tube. “To a line regiment. I want to stay on this front and kill Grik, of course, but I’ll go east if I must.”

  Where Silva is, Tikker thought glumly. “There is Salissa!” he said, pointing west-southwest. The mighty ship was anchored a few miles offshore, with Humfra Dar a thousand tails beyond her. Both massive “carriers” were screened by a squadron of “DD” frigates under the command of Jim Ellis. It was a heady sight that banished his gloom. Never had so much combat power been assembled in one place, and soon Arracca and her battle group would arrive. Tikker grinned and turned toward the ships and began his descent.

  “Must we return?” Risa asked. “This has been… fun.”

  Tikker grinned and was glad Risa couldn’t see his embarrassed blinking.

  “Yes, fun,” he admitted. “To a degree.”

  Once they reached her, he circled Salissa while his squadron mates set down in the water between her and the shore and were recovered. It would still be bumpy there, but the winds were largely blocked by the bulk of the massive ship. Finally, it was Tikker’s turn. He lined up on the calmer water, fighting the crosswind that would buffet them until they neared the sea, and reduced power. Down they swooped, and he heard Risa shout with glee. Just fifteen feet off the water, he was preparing to cut power even further, when a massive waterspout erupted directly in his path and something tore through the nose of his plane, slashing him along the left forearm. Without thought, he pushed the throttle to the stop and leveled off. More splashes rose, seemingly at random throughout the area of the anchored carriers and their screen. An explosion suddenly rocked Cablaas-Rag-Lan’s USS Scott, and the new frigate coasted to a stop, her fo’c’sle bathed in flames.

  “They’re bombs!” Tikker muttered wonderingly, looking at the sky as he pulled back on the stick. “Bombs!” he shouted. “They’re bombs, Risa!”

  “Yes!” she shouted back. “Bigger than ours! But where are they coming from?”

  “They can only be shells from a mighty ship, like Amagi herself or bombs dropped by aircraft!” He frantically continued searching the sky and the horizon. Nothing!

  “What’s that?” Risa yelled.

  Tikker turned and saw her pointing almost straight up. He followed her gaze. No! That’s impossible, his mind shrieked. High above, very high, higher than he’d ever flown, thirty or forty massive objects drifted lazily, seemingly effortlessly, eastward. They were long and fat and looked like the “scum weenies” that Laan-yeer, the cook, was always trying to make people eat. They were clearly flying but had no wings!

  “Send… flying… scum weenies are attacking!” he shouted back at Risa.

  “I… I’ll try!” Risa yelled back as Tikker put the plane in the steepest climb he thought it would
handle. He was above the splashes now, and could actually see bombs hurtling down. At that moment, several things happened at once. A strangely formed engine, prop still slowly turning, dropped into the sea, followed by a woven wood contraption of some kind, filled with shrieking Grik. He had no time for the oddity of the sight to register before a bomb erupted directly in the path of another, lower plane, also trying to pull out. The “Nancy” staggered through the spume, but its left wing clipped a wave. Tikker watched in horror as the plane cartwheeled across the sea and literally disintegrated. In the next instant, before he had the slightest opportunity to recover from that awful sight, the horizon before him pulsed with light. A colossal, fiery pyramid of smoke and flame vomited upward and outward from Humfra-Dar, flinging debris, burning planes, unrecognizable fragments, and people through the air like smoldering motes.

  “O Maker!” he cried. For an instant, he was too aghast to even remember what he’d been doing. How could one bomb… and then he realized. It hadn’t been just one bomb. The 5th, 6th, and 8th Bomb Squadrons of the 2nd Naval Air Wing had been next in the rotation. They’d been on the flight deck, loaded with bombs and fuel… “O Maker,” he whispered, “guide their path.” He tried to jam the throttle past its stop, then yanked back on the stick again, blinking furiously through the tears filling his eyes. He had to get up there, where the “flying weenies” were. What he’d do-if he did-he had no idea. The “Nancys” still had no weapons besides bombs, and Tikker was out of those. Risa had a musket… Behind him, Risa-Sab-At said nothing.

  Baalkpan

  Bernard Sandison was a happy man, and he whistled erratically as he walked briskly from his small office in Adar’s Great Hall down the damp, crowded street to the expanding complex past the “Navy Yard” that comprised his “division.” Occasionally, he paused and watched a group of “dames,” newly arrived from Maa-ni-la, being led on tours of the city. Quite a few had wound up working for him in the ammunition factories, and he was admittedly more than a little sweet on a couple. He restrained himself, however. No sense in committing himself so soon when new “drafts” arrived almost daily now. Besides, they all wanted to work and were so willing to please, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t taking advantage of them during this initial, vulnerable time. They’d been virtual slaves in the Empire, and the transition to free citizens with all the rights, benefits-and responsibilities-involved was difficult and confusing for most to adjust to. Not all the guys were so conscientious, and he owled. Dean Laney was probably the worst at “making the most” of the situation, and Bernie meant to have a word with Riggs about that yet again. Laney was such a jerk.

  His expression softened as his thoughts returned to other things. The news on all fronts was good-or at least not bad-and he felt that was largely due to his herculean efforts (and those of all the great people he had working for him in Ordnance). He was still mad at Silva for going AWOL, but the new “Allin-Silva” conversions were coming along nicely. A regiment’s worth of the “kits,” consisting of barreled actions with calibrated sights already installed, as well as cast conversion hammers, were now ready for shipment. The next batch would be ready in half the time, and he expected that to improve even more as production hit its stride. Once the “conversions” arrived at the front, troops in the field could simply install the new barrels and hammers themselves in a few minutes’ time, and then send their old barrels back for lining and alteration. It was an elegant solution that would cause no downtime at all. He’d have preferred the. 45-70 cartridge for ballistic reasons but settled on what was essentially a . 50-80. The extra powder would help make up for the larger diameter, and that diameter would mean the weapons would only be a little heavier than the. 60-caliber smoothbores. What extra weight there was would help tame the heavier recoil. He considered it an ingenious compromise, if he did say so himself. No more smoothbore small arms were being made in Baalkpan.

  He’d finally solved the problem of making small cartridge cases too, which made him particularly happy. In this, he’d been assisted by a Lemurian bowl maker who applied his own methods to the task. Bernie had no idea how it “should” be done, but what they did was cast brass case heads at the base of a large, thin disc. The case heads, with primer pockets already formed, were clamped in new specialized lathes with a precision template and a long, thin “live” center in the tail stock. After that, they simply spun the lathe and formed the disc into an appropriately shaped tube. The cool thing was, they could make. 30-06 and. 45 ACP on the same machines since the heads were identical. They just cut the. 45s off shorter. Other machines made. 30-40 for the Krags, 6.5 for the Japanese rifles salvaged from Amagi, . 50 BMG, and some other calibers for the few civilian weapons found on the first visit to Santa Catalina, but most were dedicated to the new. 50-80 cartridge. They’d started out making a few hundred shells a day; however, as production expanded, machines were built, and workers trained, they’d be making tens of thousands a day very soon. Of course, then the shells had to be loaded.

  The. 50-80s would always be fed black powder for pressure reasons, but Bernie’s team had finally created suitable nitrocellulose powders for the remaining “modern” firearms. The testing had destroyed a Krag and split a 1911 at the ejection port, but now they had the formulas and loads down to the point that the weapons functioned properly and trajectories matched the calibrated sights. New, fixed ammunition was coming out of Baalkpan Arsenal for the first time. Bernie wasn’t satisfied with that. He was still improving the explosive rounds for the four-inch-fifties and the salvaged Japanese guns, as well as the mortars and bombs. They were still stuck with muzzle-loading, smoothbore artillery for the foreseeable future, but he was making progress toward rifled guns, and ultimately, rifled breechloaders. He was even close to testing new torpedoes at long last. That would make Captain Reddy smile, he knew. He frowned. Captain Reddy may not smile when he finds out about some of the other “projects” Adar’s got me working on. But Adar’s Chairman of the Grand Alliance, and it makes sense to have the stuff, even if we never use it, Bernie supposed. And it’s not as though we can transmit to the Skipper-and even if we could, other folks would know…

  He avoided a mud puddle and hurried on.

  The other “divisions” hadn’t been idle, he confessed to himself. New ships were coming off the ways, some with bolt-on armor protecting their engineering spaces. They’d finally located and literally hoisted shattered Mahan from the waters of the bay, using two Homes to place her on one of the new floating dry docks. Now the debate raged as to whether they should rebuild her, or incorporate her machinery in new construction. The latter seemed to be the consensus regarding S-19. She was so badly damaged-and nobody but Laumer and a few others really wanted a sub. Riggs and Rodriguez had made electric arc searchlights to replace the one Walker lost and equip new ships with the simple, powerful lights. Based on the USAAF SCR-284 sets that came with the P-40s, Riggs was also on the brink of completing real-voice radios.

  Yes, things were going well and Bernie was happy, but that happiness came with a measure of anxiety. It seemed every time they got an edge, the Grik came up with some way to negate or match it, and he couldn’t help wondering what they had come up with in the equally abundant time they’d had to plot and scheme. He snorted. Whatever it is, they’ll be hard-pressed to match us this time! Through the crowd, he caught sight of Riggs and Rodriguez making to cut him off. Speak of the devil, he thought. Despite the heat of the day, he felt a chill when he noticed their expressions.

  “C’mon, Bernie!” Riggs said urgently. “We’re headed for the Great Hall.”

  “I just came from there! I have work…”

  Without a word, Riggs thrust a sweat-darkened message form into his hand.

  FROM KEJE-FRIS-AR CINCWEST AND CMDR FIRST FLEET X TO ALL STATIONS

  X SUBJECT GENERAL ALARM X AT 0855 THIS DAY A LARGE FORMATION GRIK REPEAT GRIK DIRIGIBLES REPEAT DIRIGIBLES ATTACKED FIRST FLEET WITH HEAVY BOMBS FROM HIGH ALTITUDE ESTIMATED 15000 FEET X SEAPLA
NE CARRIER HUMFRA-DAR DESTROYED WITH ENTIRE 2ND NAVAL AIR WING MINUS SQUADRONS ALOFT THAT WERE RECOVERED ABOARD SALISSA X FEWER THAN 300 SURVIVORS X RESERVE CAPTAIN GERAN-ERAS AND COFO LT CMDR ALFRED VERNON USN MISSING AND PRESUMED LOST X SERIOUS DAMAGE ALSO SUSTAINED TWO DDS X MINOR DAMAGE SUSTAINED SEVERAL AUXILIARIES X NO EFFECTIVE ANTIAIR EFFORT POSSIBLE BUT CAPTAINS JIS-TIKKAR AND RISA-SAB-AT DESERVE NOTICE FOR CLOSE INSPECTION AND DESCRIPTION OF AIRSHIPS AS WELL AS SENDING ONE OUT OF CONTROL WITH MUSKET FIRE X NUMEROUS OTHER ENEMY CRAFT DESTROYED BY INEXPERIENCED HANDLING X EXAMPLE: RAPID UNCONTROLLED ASCENT AFTER DROPPING BOMBS APPARENTLY CAUSED CATASTROPHIC STRUCTURAL FAILURE AT LEAST SIX (6) GRIK ZEPPELINS X DESCRIPTION GRIK ZEPPELINS: APPROXIMATELY 100 TAILS (YARDS) LONG WITH 4 TAIL-MOUNTED CONTROL SURFACES AND 5 HORIZONTALLY OPPOSED TWO-CYLINDER ENGINES X COMMODORE ELLIS DESCRIBES AS “STUMPY VERSIONS OF ACRON OR MACON” X MAJORITY OF SURVIVING AIRSHIPS RETIRED 345 DEGREES RELATIVE OUR POSITION TOWARD MAINLAND X SOME CONTINUED ON BEARING OF 115 DEGREES POSSIBLE TARGET ANDAMAN X DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT ASSUME THIS IS ONLY RAID X MAKE ALL PREPARATIONS FOR ATTACKS SINGAPORE ARYAAL BAALKPAN X JAP ADVISOR KUROKAWA MUST BE INVOLVED SO REMEMBER JAP AFFINITY FOR COORDINATED AIR ATTACKS X CINCWEST SENDS X

  “Oh my God!” Bernie breathed. “Zeppelins! It makes perfect sense, though. No Grik’s ever going to sit in the cockpit of a proper plane. Look, you guys go ahead! I’ll run out to the airfield and give Mallory the dope! We can’t let those bastards hit us here! Not now!”

  “Relax, Bernie. We’re hardwired to Ben’s CP from the comm center. He’s already got the word and says he can get four ships in the air if he has to. He’ll have them armed and prepped just in case the red rockets go up. Everybody’s watching the sky, and we’ve already diverted a squadron of PatWing One ‘Nancys’ on a training flight. More planes’ll be up within the hour.”