“Aye-aye, sir!”
After all stations reported manned and ready, Reynolds announced shipwide: “Now hear this, now hear this! The Special Air Detail will assemble and make all preparations for flight operations!” Those members of the Special Air Detail not stationed at the plane as part of the Plane Dump Detail during GQ sprang from their various battle stations and hurried to their new posts. Matt had decided that the ship would always be at general quarters whenever the plane was launched or recovered so everyone would be at their highest state of readiness in the event of an accident. It was then easier to call the larger air detail from their normal battle stations, which, with the exception of the designated observer, were all close by. Observers came from Lieutenant Palmer’s comm division.
“Mr. Reynolds, you are relieved,” Matt said, gesturing for Carl Bashear to take Fred’s headset. Kutas was at the helm, so Fred couldn’t hope for better ship handling.
“Aye-aye, sir! Thank you, sir!” Reynolds said, and slid down the stairs behind the pilothouse. Hurrying past the galley under the amidships deckhouse, he heard the diminutive Juan Marcos and the monstrous Earl Lanier still arguing about the night before. He chuckled. He didn’t care-he was going to fly! His division, almost entirely ’Cats, had already cleared the tarps from the plane and were arranging the tackle to the aft extended davit when he arrived. This Nancy was his own personal plane, the one in which he’d finished his training. It was one of the new, improved models, infinitely better than Ben’s prototype. It looked incredibly frail, but Fred knew appearances were deceiving. He’d botched a landing or two, and it had held together under stresses he’d have thought would tear it apart. He had confidence in the plane and himself. Shoot, he had almost thirty hours in the thing! He climbed up to the cockpit and, as always, looked at the large blue roundel with the big white star and smaller red dot with a mix of pride and a sense of incongruity. The roundel contrasted well with the lighter blue of the wings and fuselage/hull, and all the colors looked right, but the contraption they covered was, while in his eyes a thing of beauty, still strange enough to cause a disconnect between its shape and the familiar colors. He shrugged and climbed in. “Who’s my OC?” he shouted, referring to his observer/copilot.
One of Ben’s improvements, besides turning the engine around, had been installing auxiliary controls for the observer. It only made sense. Observers didn’t have to be pilots-yet-but they had to be familiar with the controls and able to demonstrate at least rudimentary flying skills. Of course, their main job was to observe and transmit those observations via one of the small, portable CW transmitters (originally meant for airplanes) that all the new transmitters in the Alliance were patterned after. There was no battery-Alliance-made batteries were still too heavy-but the “Ronson” wind powered generator and a voltage regulator the size of a shoe box gave them all the juice they needed with little weight. An aerial extended from a faired upright behind the observer’s seat to the tail.
Fred looked aft and saw Kari-Faask scrambling into her position. She was a niece of the great B’mbaadan general Haakar-Faask, who’d died so bravely in a holding action against the Grik. Kari wasn’t quite as bold and fearless as her uncle, but Fred knew she had plenty of guts. She never made any bones about the fact that she was afraid to fly, for example, but she went up anyway and performed her duties without complaint. Also, despite her still somewhat stilted English, she had a good fist on the transmitter key.
“You okay with this, Kari?” Fred called back to her.
“I good. You be good and no crash us!” she hollered back.
Reynolds could tell Walker was heaved to by the sudden wallowing sensation. He quickly checked the function of all the control surfaces and shouted down to the chief of the air detail, “All right, Chief, pick us up and swing us out! Set us down with plenty of slack but don’t cut us loose until the engine starts, hear? And keep an eye on those line handlers!”
The Nancy lifted. ’Cats strained at the taglines to keep the plane from swinging with the rolling motion of the ship. Reynolds knew Ben had been hoping to construct some kind of catapult, a sort of abbreviated version of what Amagi had had, but there just hadn’t been time. Now Reynolds better appreciated Ben’s scheme. It wouldn’t have made any difference with recovery, but with a catapult, they could have just flown right off the ship. A couple of times, the Nancy swung dangerously close to the davit and Fred clenched his eyes shut, expecting a splintering crash, but somehow, fairly quickly, the plane was over the water and headed down. Now the only immediate concern was giving the plane enough slack that the roll of the ship wouldn’t yank her back out of the water and smash her against Walker ’s side.
Suddenly, Reynolds felt the independent motion caused by water under the plane. There’d been no thump or splash at all. “Switch on!” he yelled, and Kari leaped up to lean against the little railing that kept her body away from the prop. Reaching as high as she could, she grabbed a blade and yanked it down. There was a cough, but nothing else. She repeated the process and was rewarded by a loud, muffled fart and the blades blurred before her. Reynolds advanced the throttle while she fell back into her seat and strapped herself in. This was the signal for the detail on the ship to pull the tagline pins that released all ropes from the plane. Kicking the rudder hard left, Reynolds advanced the throttle still more to gain some distance from the ship.
“All right!” Reynolds shouted, tension ebbing away. “We’re on the loose!” Behind them, the ship slowly eased forward, exposing them to the westerly breeze. Turning the Nancy’s nose into the wind, Reynolds advanced the throttle to the stop. The new liquid-cooled engine was heavier than Ben’s makeshift prototype, but the power-to-weight ratio was actually a little better. It stayed uniformly cooler too, which could be good and bad. They’d need better spring technology before they could do a proper thermostat. The big, exposed radiator behind the cockpit also negated any potential speed increase, but having flown a couple of times in the prototype, Fred liked “his” Nancy a lot better. Unlike Ben, Reynolds had also quickly figured out a major secret to seaplane flying. Maybe it was because he’d had no preconceptions and just did what came naturally, but he’d amazed Ben on his third flight by “bouncing” his plane into the air off a wave top with half the speed and in a third of the distance with which Ben had ever managed it. Ben had been flabbergasted, amazed, annoyed, and proud all at once. After he got Fred to first figure out what he’d done, and second explain-and ultimately show it to everyone else-the practice became SOP.
Fred used the procedure now, and within moments of his applying full power, the plane was in the air. “Whooee!” he shouted, banking low over the water. He gradually pulled back on the stick. The Nancy’s CG was still just a little aft, and Ben had constantly pounded it into them not to fool around with the stick, particularly at low altitude. Slowly, the plane climbed. In the distance, about ten miles away, he saw Achilles. He knew no one on the Imperial ship had ever seen a man fly, and he was tempted to cruise over and buzz her. He resisted the impulse, realizing it probably wasn’t appropriate to goof around in the air the first time the skipper let him fly. He grinned, thinking about what it would be like-Ben had told him of the chaos he’d caused on Ajax that one time. Shaking his head, he banked a little sharper and flew back toward Walker, gently waggling his wings as he flew over.
In all the wide expanse of the world around them, there was nothing but sea. He’d never flown over the empty ocean before, at least not beyond sight of land, and it made him a little queasy. Worse, it was a dull, humid day and the higher he flew, the more difficult it became to tell where the sky and the horizon met. He looked at his clinometer and steadied his wings. As far as he could see, there was no sign of land at all. Just the hazy, grayish sky and the hazy blue sea below. Achilles and Walker were there, of course, and that comforted him, but the only other things in view were the distant ships the lookout had spotted. It was time to get to work.
“Definitely four shi
ps,” he shouted to Kari through the speaking tube, knowing she would report it, although by now Walker and Achilles would probably know that already. There were no ships beyond those, however, and that would be news. He reported that as well. Closer and closer to the unknown ships he flew, gaining altitude. Still nothing beyond them but maybe an atoll or something. He couldn’t tell for sure, and it might even have been a distant squall. But the four ships were clearly alone. “Tell ’em they’re sailing steamers, like Achilles
… and Ajax. All have those paddle box things on their sides. When we get a little closer, I’ll take her down a little and see if we can get a look at their flags. They’ve got flags; I can see that much from here.”
A short time later, he was kiting a few thousand feet above the strange ships. He still couldn’t see what flag they flew, but they must have noticed him. He couldn’t tell if his flying machine had caused any consternation below, but they were taking in sail, and puffs of smoke began streaming from their tall, slender funnels.
“Say, Kari,” he shouted, “I don’t know what it means, or if they’re reacting to us or our ships, but they’ve lit their boilers. Seems that would mean they want to be able to maneuver. Better send that; then we’re going down for a closer look.”
“Yes, I send,” Kari said. “But stay out of musket shot! If they Jenks people, they muskets are no as good as our new ones, and no near as good as you rifles, but they plenty good shoot holes in this ‘crate’ you get close enough!”
“Don’t worry. I plan to stay well clear.” He eased the stick forward and began a slow, spiraling descent. “Let’s see,” he said, mentally kicking himself for forgetting a pair of binoculars. He’d have to remember that in the future. Surely Kari could hold the plane level while he took a look-or he could do the same for her. She was the observer, after all. Maybe with her better eyes… “Hey, Kari, if you get a good look at the flag, describe what you see!” he yelled.
Still closer they flew, swooping down to within three hundred feet of the water. The ships looked just like Jenks’s, for the most part. One had more gunports, the others fewer, but all followed essentially the same lines and rig. Sooty black plumes rose thick from all four ships now.
“I see flag! Imper’al flag!” Kari confirmed. “Is same as Jenks.. . I think.” Something about it, she didn’t know what, didn’t look exactly right.
A single puff of smoke belched from a gun on the nearest ship.
“They shoot at us!” Kari shouted. “With cannon! We out of range their muskets, but not cannon!”
“Relax,” said Reynolds, a little shaky himself, as he banked abruptly away. “We probably just spooked them. That had to be a warning shot telling us to keep our distance. If they were shooting at us, I doubt if they’d have used just one. Think about it: they’ve never seen an airplane before in their lives. They don’t know if we’re dangerous or not. I can understand them not wanting us too close.” He rubbed his wind-blown face. “From what I could see, they looked like Imperial flags to me too. Send it. Tell Captain Reddy we’re coming home and ask him to fly a signal saying what he wants us to do.” Fred would be glad when they could make headsets for the observers. His Nancy had one of the simple receivers, and the little speakers Riggs had come up with worked fine, but they couldn’t compete with a droning motor. For now, they had to rely on visual instructions from the ship.
“Wilco!” Kari shouted through the speaking tube.
“He says-En-sin Reynolds says-they Imperials, all right. Chase plane off with warning shot,” one of Ed Palmer’s comm strikers reported. “He ask we hoist signal flags, tell more instructions.”
Matt was thoughtful. “A warning shot, huh? Very well.” He turned and spoke to the Bosun. “Have him orbit us while we meet the strangers, fuel permitting. He should have plenty and it won’t be long. The main reasons I let him fly in the first place were to test his procedures-we had to do that sooner or later-and to get the plane off the ship when we meet these guys… just in case.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Gray said, and he strode the short distance to where the signalmen and signal strikers stood, just aft of the charthouse.
“That’s most odd,” Courtney observed.
“What, the warning shot?” Matt asked.
“Well, that too, but I suspect even our Harvey Jenks would have done that when we first met, had we flown an airplane at him. Imperials do seem to have a rather well-defined societal arrogance. Mr. Jenks has mellowed rather satisfactorily, I think. Actually, though, what suddenly strikes me is that presumably they can see us as well as we can see them by now.”
“Sure…” Matt glanced at the approaching ships and saw the black smoke above them. They were much closer, maybe only six miles away. Under steam and sail, they were probably making ten or twelve knots. Walker had slowed to five when the plane took off, but she’d accelerated to fifteen as the Nancy swooped back over the ship, reading the flags they’d hoisted. Matt peered past the port bridge wing and looked north-northwest, where Achilles had been keeping pace. He saw that Jenks’s ship had closed the distance to about seven miles, and smoke was streaming from her stack now too. “What the hell’s going on here? Those ships are clearly heading toward us, not Jenks. And why did everybody light their boilers all of a sudden?”
Palmer himself appeared on the bridge. His voice had an edge when he spoke. “Message from Achilles, Skipper.”
“Okay. What’s it say?”
“Commodore Jenks suggests that we not, repeat not close with the approaching squadron alone.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t say.”
“Well, find out, damn it, because they’re sure as hell closing with us, and they’ll get here before he does!”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Palmer said, and left the bridge.
“Slow to one-third,” Matt ordered. “Maybe we can reduce our closure rate, at least. I’m not sure showing our heels will make the best impression.”
“We ought to go to flank and steam circles around the buggers,” Gray muttered to Bradford as he returned.
“While perhaps highly satisfying,” Bradford whispered back, arching his eyebrows, “it may also be deemed provocative.” He raised his voice. “I think I know why they are concentrating on us, Captain,” he proclaimed. “When Jenks dispatched his message, he surely must have reported that Her Highness desired us to take her home on this ship. No doubt Jenks would have described Walker as she had been described to him: a dedicated steamer with an iron hull. No sails. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s why they are converging on this ship; they believe the princess is aboard!”
“Maybe you’re right,” Matt replied. “And if it hadn’t been for Billingsly’s stunt, that would make me feel a lot better. Even so.. . Even if they’re all as big a pack of jerks as Billingsly, I can’t imagine they’d fire at us and risk hurting the girl. Billingsly took her-and the rest of our people-’cause he wanted her. He could have just bumped her off at any time.”
“Not and lived,” Gray growled.
“Good point,” Matt agreed. He rubbed his face again. “If they’ve got twenty four-pounders, like Achilles, they can punch holes in us out to what, five hundred yards? Six?”
“I’d think about that, Skipper,” Gray agreed. “Probably dent the hell out of us to a thousand. But round shot loses a lot of energy quick. It’s buckin’ a lot of wind for the weight.” He shrugged. “If they’ve got anything even a little bigger, though, the weight goes up exponentially for just a little more wind resistance. A thirty-two’s not buckin’ much more wind than an eighteen pounder, like Donaghey carries, but it’ll punch a hole in us at a thousand!”
Matt made up his mind. “Okay, at two thousand yards, we heave to, broadside. We’ll fly a white parley flag, but all batteries will remain loaded, trained, and aimed for surface action starboard. The gun director will concentrate on that big boy that must be their flagship. If they close to fifteen hundred yards, we’ll fire a warning shot of our own with
the Jap gun aft. Have Chief Gunner’s Mate Stites lay it himself, in local control. Tell him to use HE for a really big splash and put it close enough to rain on ’em without hurting anybody, clear?”
Chief Bashear understood that the tactical conversation was over and that orders had been issued. He quickly passed the word. “Skipper?” he asked when he received confirmation. “I oughta be aft.” Chief Gray might be the “Super Bosun” of the fleet, but Carl Bashear was Walker ’s official chief bosun’s mate now. Since Gray’s self-appointed battle station was the forward part of the ship, near the captain, Bashear’s post was aft, near Steele, on the auxiliary conn. Chack was a bosun’s mate too, but since he also commanded the Marine contingent, he oversaw things amidships, where he could remain close to his Marines.
“Of course, Boats… Bashear,” Matt said with only a slight hesitation. Gray would always be “Boats” to him, but “Boats Bashear” had seemed to make Carl happy. “By all means, round up a relief and take your post.”
Staas-Fin, or “Finny,” quickly arrived to take his place and Carl Bashear was gone. Time passed while all the ships gradually converged. Achilles was really cracking on, but even with Walker ’s speed reduced to slow, Jenks clearly couldn’t arrive until shortly after the Imperial squadron reached the two-thousand-yard mark and things began to happen. The squeal of the halyard behind the charthouse announced that the parley flag was on its way up. Reynolds’s Nancy flew by ahead, just a few hundred feet off the wave tops. Matt had to admit the thing looked a lot better in the air than it did strapped to his ship.
“I see a white flag going up on the biggest Imperial ship,” cried Monk from his lookout post on the starboard bridge wing. About that time, the same report came from the crow’s nest.
“Sir,” said Palmer, gaining the bridge again, “Jenks says firing the boilers is Imperial SOP when they clear for action! He asks if we are certain the ships fly the same flag he does, exactly the same? The Imperial Naval jack is basically the same as the national flag-thirteen red and white stripes with red on top and bottom, and the union blue in the field! The Company flag has white on top and bottom with no blue, just a red cross of Saint George! He says the Company revived an older flag to show a distinction!”
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