Distant Thunders d-4

by Taylor Anderson

  “Cap-i-taan,” Safir greeted him.

  “My lord,” said Rolak.

  “Queen Protector, Lord Rolak,” Matt replied. He looked at Rolak. “Feeling better?” The old warrior grimaced and blinked irritation.

  “A glorious day and a beautiful ship!” said Safir. She’d grown almost giddy with excitement the closer they came to her home. With luck, it would be hers again. Hers and her people’s.

  “Indeed they are,” Matt agreed. “And as for the ship, I think I love her!” he admitted.

  “You can’t have her, Skipper,” Garrett said with a grin. “I just got her back!”

  Matt chuckled. “Don’t worry, Greg. I think peeling her paint with tweezers would be easier than getting you off this ship.” He nodded past the masts and taut canvas forward. “There’s your coastline, Your Majesty, and not a Grik ship in sight. You’d think they’d at least have a few pickets out, but we haven’t seen a thing.” He shook his head. “Silly to expect them to think like us, but we know they’ve picked up a few ideas.”

  “It is a sight I have long craved,” Safir admitted wistfully. “I am excited, I admit, but some of your uneasiness tugs at me as well.”

  “Am I uneasy?” Matt asked. “I suppose. I wish we had a little recon…” He avoided saying, I wish we had the PBY, for the ten thousandth time, but they all knew what he meant. “This steaming-I mean sailing- blindly into a situation we know nothing about reminds me too much of old times. I’d almost rather we had to chase down and pound on a few scouts. Besides”-he grinned predatorily-“it would be fun.”

  “ ‘Fun,’ he says.” Garrett chuckled. “Remember what happened last time I had a little ‘fun.’”

  “But surely this is different,” rumbled Rolak. “Even a large fleet would be no match for us now, and if there are no Grik to sound the alarm, the surprise of our arrival will be all the greater.”

  “In a perfect world,” Matt agreed. He didn’t elaborate on how imperfect he considered this world to be. “But they’ve had as much time to recover as we have. Okada didn’t think they could bring anything forward for a while, but with what we know they left in Aryaal when they moved on Baalkpan, they wouldn’t need to, to make it a damned bloody fight.” He looked at Safir. “I’ve no doubt we’ll win, but I’m always counting the cost. I have to. Besides, we know the Grik can surprise us-they’ve done it before-and if they didn’t eat Kurokawa, he might’ve helped them arrange something… unexpected.”

  Two Marines tromped up the companionway. One was clearly Chack, still wearing his battered American helmet at a jaunty angle. The other seemed vaguely familiar, but Matt couldn’t place him. He was uncomfortably aware that unless he knew them well and their coloration or dress was distinctive, he had a hard time telling one ’Cat from another. The two Marines drew close and saluted.

  “Cap-i-taans,” Chack said. “Lord Rolak”-he smiled slightly-“Your Highness. I beg to report the discovery of this… creature… in my own ranks!”

  Rolak peered more closely at the Marine. “By the Sun God’s tail! Lord Koratin, you have lost much weight!”

  Koratin! Now Matt remembered. He’d been a big wheel in Aryaal and had even been an advisor to its murdering king, Rasik-Alcas! He’d met him briefly when they retook the city right before the evacuation. For some reason, Rolak hadn’t hanged him and Matt had forgotten all about him.

  “Indeed!” replied Koratin. “I feel like a youngling again! I have always maintained that martial exercises strengthen the mind, body, and character.”

  “Character!” Rolak huffed. “I have occasionally-and briefly-wondered what happened to you after our last meeting. I assumed you were aboard Nerracca when she was lost, since you hadn’t been insinuating yourself in the business of the Alliance. Yet here you stand, proving once again your consummate skill for survival!”

  “Here I stand, Lord Rolak,” Koratin answered, suddenly less ebullient.

  Chack cleared his throat. “It seems Koratin enlisted in the First Baalkpan as a private as soon as he arrived in the city. He doubted he would be popular in an Aryaalan regiment… In any event, he distinguished himself in battle and was therefore eligible to apply for Marine training.” Chack blinked irony. “He graduated ‘boot camp’ as a squad leader corporal.”

  As things now stood in the Lemurian Marine Corps, only combat veterans could be considered for promotion. If there were ever peace, that might change, but for now the system worked well.

  Rolak glanced incredulously at the twin red “stripes” on Koratin’s kilt. “You earned corporal’s stripes,” he said, astonished. “That is more than you ever did in any previous post.”

  “True,” Koratin agreed, “and I cherish those two stripes more than the finest robe I ever wore.” His voice was still soft. “I owed it to my younglings. To all the younglings of our people, Lord Rolak. This, at least, I think you will believe.”

  Rolak nodded and looked at Matt. “Koratin was never evil. Vain, venal, and grasping, but not evil. I did not hang him because I believed he truly tried to stop Rasik and warn us of his treachery.” He grumbled a chuckle. “It did not harm his case that Rasik was trying to kill him when we entered the city.”

  “You trust him?” Safir asked, surprised.

  “I trust his dedication to younglings. That was never in doubt. Even at his worst, he often told noble tales and performed dramas for younglings in open forum. Moral dramas that taught principles he never used to live by.”

  “I was corrupt,” Koratin agreed. “I thought I controlled my destiny. I knew my failings, yet I tried to set an example of integrity beyond myself so the younglings of our city might become better beings than I.” He looked at Matt. “I have heard the words of your Sister Audry when she has come among the troops and I know not what power guides all things, whether it is the Sun God, or this other God of yours. Maybe they are the same.” He shrugged. “But now I know that no one can hope to control destiny; it has a will of its own, its own plans for all of us. We are but leaves swept into a whirlpool not of our making. We do our best; that is all we can do, but in the end, in this arbitrary new way of war, our fates are in the hands of whichever God truly watches over us. Ultimately, we can only hope He will consider us fit company for the ones He has chosen to reward.”

  Taken aback, Matt could only stare. He hadn’t known Sister Audry’s “ministry” had penetrated so deeply. She hadn’t built a cathedral next to the Great Hall, so he figured she was keeping things low-key. He knew she’d helped many of his men who felt lost and confused, regardless of denomination, but thought she’d otherwise confined her discussions with Adar. He hoped they didn’t return to Baalkpan to find it locked in a holy war. “Jesus,” he whispered.

  “Carry on, Corporal Koratin,” he said at last. “You’re dismissed.” When salutes were exchanged and Koratin was gone, he looked almost helplessly at Chack and the others. “What were we saying about surprises?”

  “Are you sure he can be trusted?” persisted Safir. “Perhaps this is another of his dramas, and he speaks… most strangely.”

  Rolak looked thoughtful. “I don’t think he performs; he was never that good. He was always strange, however. Chack?”

  Chack blinked and shook his head. “His squad respects him, even the Aryaalans among them. When I said he distinguished himself in battle, it was something of an understatement.”

  “Let him be,” Matt decided. “I guess we’ll see. He’s right about one thing: none of us knows our destiny.” He glanced toward the now barely visible passage between B’mbaado and the distant Sapudis. “Or what we’ll find in that bay.”

  They pushed on through the day and into the night. Matt sent a detail of ’Cats to Jenks’s ship to serve as pilots, and keen-eyed Lemurian lookouts spied carefully ahead for shoals or enemy ships. A quarter moon gave more than sufficient light for them to warn of any danger. All night, the tension ratcheted up, and Garrett shortened sail on Matt’s orders so the fleet could consolidate. Two hours before
dawn, he gave the order for all ships to advance in line abreast and come to general quarters. If they encountered the enemy, they’d execute a turn to port on a signal from the flagship, and form a battle line. Achilles would maneuver to keep the battle line between herself and the Grik.

  With the sun, they were close enough to see the remains of distant Aryaal through binoculars. Matt raised his precious Bausch amp; Lombs and adjusted the objective. It was still too far to make out any real details of the city, but except for a few jutting masts here and there that marked the graves of some recent Grik wrecks-possibly survivors of the Battle of Baalkpan that could make it no farther-there were no enemy ships in the bay.

  “They’re gone,” he muttered in wonder.

  “Maybe not,” Garrett warned. “Maybe their ships are gone, but they might still have an army here, waiting to pounce on us as we disembark.”

  Matt grunted. He wouldn’t put it past them. Still, unless they’d known they were coming-and he couldn’t imagine how they would-there would have been something here. Supply ships if nothing else.

  “May I?” asked Sean O’Casey. The big, one-armed man had joined them by the rail. He’d been bored throughout the voyage and had asked to be used as an engineer on one of the steamers, but Matt wanted him close for his insights regarding Jenks. The Imperial commodore had come aboard to dine a couple of times and Matt always wanted to know what O’Casey had to say about what they discussed. O’Casey remained hidden whenever Jenks was aboard, but his insights regarding Jenks were confusing. He was clearly wary of the man, but there was a subliminal thread of respect intertwined with a deep-seated resentment that remained imperfectly explained. Matt was never sure how much of what O’Casey had to say about Jenks was colored by whatever had apparently passed between the two men. In any event, according to O’Casey, Jenks hadn’t avoided any real questions except Matt’s occasional attempt to get him to confirm his suspicions regarding the location of the Imperial capital. Even O’Casey still wouldn’t divulge that, as a matter of principle, but he knew Matt’s guess was essentially correct. Matt didn’t ask O’Casey anymore and O’Casey didn’t disseminate. It was understood.

  Garrett handed O’Casey his binoculars and the big man steadied them against a stay. “Impressive fortifications,” he admitted. “ ’Twould be a costly chore ta storm. There’s little ta see beyond the walls, however. Naught but that one fancy structure.”

  “That was the king’s palace,” Rolak confirmed. He was old, but his eyes were still far sharper than the average human’s. “We burned the rest in the face of the Grik advance,” he added sadly. “We left them nothing upon which to sustain themselves.” He shook his head and his eyes were moist. “Aryaal was once a mighty, beautiful kingdom.”

  “It will be again,” Matt assured him.

  More officers and important passengers began gathering by the rail for their first glimpse of Aryaal or B’mbaado City. Safir’s city across the strait had been undamaged by the fighting, but they’d burned it too. Now all they could see were the sad ruins atop the cliff. The fleet continued its advance, the heavily loaded corvettes angling toward the front when Matt ordered the signal aloft. Smoke coiled from the steamer’s funnels as their boilers were lit. When they had steam, they’d maneuver inshore with their troops as well.

  It was almost surreal. They’d come expecting a savage fight, but as best they could tell, there was nothing to face them. The entire environ seemed too quiet, almost devoid of life. Everything had the look of recent abandonment, and the closer they drew, the more apparent it became. The docks were strewn with debris and every small boat had been dragged ashore and shattered. Nothing at all remained of the dockside shantytown that had once served the cities’ modest fisheries. Nothing but bare, scorched ground.

  Then they smelled it. It began as a hint, a tantalizing ghost, but as they continued to approach and the wind came more from the shore, they caught the stench of death. Matt had smelled death many times now, in all its ghastly varieties. He’d smelled the decomposing Grik carrion at Baalkpan and on the plain below the very walls he looked upon. He knew what human dead smelled like: burnt, drowned, festering in the sun. This was different. It was something like what he’d smelled in the belly of Revenge after they’d taken that ship from the Grik, although there, there’d been a slimy, humid, mildewed edge. Regardless, he now recognized the growing, all-pervading stench of putrefying Lemurians.

  “Left them naught ta sustain themselves, ye say?” O’Casey whispered, and tried to hold the glasses still. Matt redirected his binoculars. There’d been a disconnect, he supposed. He’d noticed the thousands of stakes driven in the ground surrounding Aryaal’s walls, but must have assumed they’d been some new entanglement or defensive measure constructed by the Grik. Now he saw that atop each stake was a severed Lemurian head. Some were mere skulls by now, and they were still too distant for details, but many hung, slack-jawed, with tissue still attached. Some were quite fresh. Safir Maraan, bold warrior that she was, nearly lost the binoculars she’d borrowed when she lurched to the rail and vomited into the sea. Chack went to her and murmured soft words.

  “My God!” exploded Garrett. “We can’t have left that many behind! We got them all, Captain! Mr. Ellis and I.” His tone became pleading. “We took everyone we could-everyone who came to the rendezvous! Maybe some didn’t make it, but… my God!”

  “I’m sure you got all you could, Greg,” Matt said, his voice wooden. “But they were here a long time. Long enough to scour Java clean of all the ‘prey’ we never had a chance to save. The people of Bataava, the other cities…”

  Rolak jerked his sword free of his belt and desperately cast his eyes about for something to cleave. With a wail of anguish, he finally buried the point in the deck. Even Garrett didn’t scold him.

  “Do you think they’re gone then?” Safir asked, stepping to face him. Her eyes were pools of horror and Chack supported her as though she might faint. Her usually immaculate silver-washed breastplate had been splashed with the contents of her stomach.

  “Yeah. I think so.” His lips curled in a snarl. “Why else do that ?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Chack. “We know they collect skulls.. . ‘trophies’ of their prey.”

  “But they didn’t collect them!” Matt insisted. “They left them here like that! Maybe not all of them are gone, and keep that in mind when you go ashore, but I bet most are. For some reason, they’ve abandoned this place and they knew, eventually, we’d return.” He gestured at the city and the literally thousands of stakes. “And they wanted to make sure, when we did, we’d see that!”

  “Skipper,” Garrett said quietly, “I think if Mr. Bradford were here, he’d say something profound, about the lizards being more sophisticated than we thought, or something like that. I bet they did this as a warning. To scare us. Make us stay away.”

  “You’re probably right. Maybe they are more sophisticated, or maybe Kurokawa put them up to it. Doesn’t matter.” He looked at those around him, then forced himself to look at the city again. “I think they’ll find it has an opposite effect than they intended. Just like Pearl Harbor.” By now, most of the ’Cats knew the significance of that reference. “I want to exterminate them like the vermin they are.” He paused, then spoke to Garrett. “Signal the corvettes to disembark their troops as planned. Form a perimeter around the landing area. The steamers will cover the landing with their heavy guns. Once we have a beachhead, we’ll put the rest of the troops ashore, again, just like we planned. Whether the landing is contested or not, I want everybody acting like it is. Good practice. Finally, send a signal to Achilles, with my compliments, and ask Commodore Jenks if he’d care to accompany me ashore.” Matt’s face hardened. “I think it’s high time our reluctant British friends saw the true face of our enemy.”

  Captain Reddy met Jenks’s boat at the dock. Rolak was with him, along with the old warrior’s staff. The only other human was Chief Gray, looming behind his captain with a Thompso
n submachine gun. The gun had once been Tony Scott’s personal weapon and it hadn’t saved him in the end-but he hadn’t had it with him, had he? Gray was determined that Captain Reddy would always have him and the weapon at his back whenever he was at risk. Jenks stepped out of the boat with another white-coated figure. Both held perfumed cloths over their faces. Four of the red-coated, bare-legged Imperial Marines stepped ashore as well, bright muskets on their shoulders.

  Jenks was watching the rapid, professional deployment of the Marines the 600, and the slightly less practiced arrival of the Army regiments. Once ashore however, the Army seemed as competent as the others. Matt sensed that Jenks was a little surprised and perhaps slightly daunted by what he saw. The Marines established a perimeter near where the old breastworks once had been, and Safir’s 600-who trained with the Marines to the same rigorous standards-deployed across the road leading to the main gate. The Army regiments, in their multicolored leather armor and kilts, took supporting positions as the Marines broadened the beachhead. Four light guns were off-loaded and placed, by sections, in the center and on the right flank. Nothing stirred across the vast plain on the left.

  Slowly, the steamers nudged their way closer to the dock. General Alden led the rest of the forces ashore and soon the area within the perimeter teemed with troops. In two hours, they had four thousand battle-tested, well-trained soldiers from every Allied power probing slowly forward and automatically preparing defensive positions around the perimeter. The steamers moved away and joined the frigates, where they could defend against any attack from the sea, while covering the ground force with their guns. It struck Matt how differently this landing was going from the first one they’d made on these very shores. Then, it had been dark and chaotic, and the Army was largely untested. It wasn’t quite as big either. He was confident that if he’d brought these troops ashore back then, they could easily have defeated the nearly twenty thousand Grik despite Rasic’s treachery, without any help from Aryaal at all. The weapons were the same as before, even though there’d been some familiarization training with the new prototypes. Full-scale production was just beginning when they left, and there was no sense “trickling” the new weapons in. The main difference between this Army and the old was, literally, a level of professionalism that came only with experience and confidence.