Pass of Fire

by Taylor Anderson

  On top of that, they’d done some damage, more than they expected since there’d been more targets. But the raid had been costly as hell and raised as many questions as answers. What the hell had he and Seepy seen? What kind of threat did it represent? Did anyone else see it? Were there more? Instead of waiting for a mission debrief, he asked around now and got a few hesitant affirmations from pilots who hadn’t been sure what they saw. In his mind, that confirmed it.

  Still contemplating bizarre creatures, Orrin looked down at the sea. As usual, the approach to the Pass of Fire was thick with what looked from above like small moving islands. They weren’t islands, though—they were animals: mountain or island fish to Lemurians, and leviathans to Impies. Dwarfing blue whales on the world Orrin came from, they were the largest living things on this one. Normally, in other seas, they were solitary and highly territorial monsters that, though somewhat passive feeders (they could swallow anything that came along, including their own young up to the size of a large whale), their aggressive territoriality, ability to sprint short distances at stunning speeds, near invulnerability, and occasional extravagant hunger, made them dangerous to passing ships of any size. Only here, where the violent tidal races through the pass provided a constant, abundant food source, did they apparently gather from all over the world to mate and calve, as well as eventually die—though no one knew how long they lived—in the shallow Sea of Bones to the north where the Sea of Cortes should be. But because there was such a bounty here, not only were their newborns safe, so were passing ships. For the most part.

  Orrin was scared of the damn things and was thankful they were so acoustically sensitive. That’s how the Allies warded them off: with active sonar or depth charges if they got too close. Heavy cannon fire was known to discourage them as well, and he wondered how they’d react to the inevitable naval battle off El Corazon, right in the middle of their breeding-ground buffet. Something about that tickled the edge of his tired brain, as it had before, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

  He shook his head and looked off to the southwest, where he finally saw the mottled purple shapes of the distant carriers under high, bright clouds. They’d be home soon, and he could rest. Belatedly, he ordered the least-damaged Fleashooters and worst-damaged Nancys to land first, then sent Seepy crawling down in the hull to count holes. He knew there’d be some, and it was up to Seepy to calculate how long they could float before they were recovered by the cranes lining the sides of the carriers.

  “We’ll float long enough,” Seepy reported in a surly tone.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Orrin shouted back. “Sure, it was a tough run, but I guess we did what we set out to.”

  “Yeah, stir shit up,” Seepy snapped. “We done thaat fine, an’ I’m still bleedin’ for it.”

  Orrin started guiltily, remembering his own superficial wounds. They still stung but they’d stopped bleeding long ago. The new Dom antiair bombs weren’t very powerful, but they didn’t have to be to tear up fragile planes and flight crews. They’d have to adjust their tactics. “Well, damn it. You spent so long not griping about anything, I thought you must be okay. Are you?” he asked.

  “Yah,” Seepy grudged. “Not too baad, I guess. Jus’ would’a been nice if you aask earlier.”

  “I did,” Orrin countered, but remembered guiltily that he hadn’t followed up on the initial ambiguous reply.

  “Well . . . you could’a aask agaain,” Seepy groused. “You gonna tell Ahd-mi-raal Jenks we need to hold off? See more whaat’s whaat?”

  “No,” Orrin said, somewhat surprised by how emphatic he was. “I think we need more raids,” he temporized, “to keep the pressure on and learn more, but I really think we’ve held off long enough as it is.”

  “More raids? Like this?” Seepy asked mournfully.

  “Maybe too long,” Orrin continued, as if Seepy hadn’t spoken. “Appears to me, more time just lets ’em cook up deadlier stuff to shoot at us, and more surprises to spring. I think we need to start beating the hell out of them as fast as we can, before they kick our asses.”

  CHAPTER 14

  ////// USS Maaka-Kakja (CV-4)

  Off El Paso del Fuego

  Holy Dominion

  March 5, 1945

  What the hell was it? Are you sure you even saw it?” demanded Captain Tex Sheider.

  Orrin could only spread his hands in frustration and let them drop against the stained coveralls he wore. They’d been through this several times over the past week or so. “Like I told you the first time, I would’a figured I imagined it if some other fellas hadn’t seen it, or some others like it, too.” He shrugged. “Some kinda big-assed Grikbird.”

  He and Seepy, dressed the same and just as filthy, were talking to Tex and Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan near one of the open bays on Maaka-Kakja’s hangar deck. The white-capped purple sea churned noisily below and between that, the wind, and the general bawling babble of ground crews racing to keep as many planes airworthy as possible, they practically had to shout at one another. USS New Dublin (CV-6) was steaming relatively close alongside, and Orrin saw the tall masts of one of Admiral Hibbs’s ships of the line jutting up beyond the other carrier. The big ship also blocked his view of the brooding shore of the Holy Dominion on the horizon. That was fine by him. He’d seen enough of it.

  “But nobody’s spotted one since,” Tex pointed out. His tone wasn’t as much challenging as perplexed. They’d flown several more deep raids, each costlier and more vigorously opposed than the last. The Doms had apparently given up trying to hide their reserve of Grikbirds. That led them to try a night raid, like had been so successful for Matt in the west, but it turned out even worse. Not only did the inexperience of some of their newer pilots cause too many casualties due to accidents, a couple might’ve even just wandered off course in the dark, never to be seen again. Worse, they’d lost two precious Clippers and their crews to “dash and slash” attacks. It turned out Grikbirds didn’t have to see as well in the dark since a plane’s exhaust flare was more visible than its attackers, and aircrews couldn’t shoot at what they couldn’t see. It infuriated Orrin that there’d been little choice but to concede the night sky to the enemy.

  The only good thing was, Nancys and Fleashooters both had the legs on Grikbirds, and the Doms couldn’t get at Second Fleet this far out unless they used their new carriers, which the pickets should warn them about. Or if these mysterious new giant Grikbirds posed some unknown threat, of course.

  “Damn near didn’t see the first ones,” Orrin objected. “The one me and Seepy saw bolted from the carrier we hit. Other fellas said the same.” He shrugged. “Maybe they’re just females, bigger than the rest.”

  “Possibly,” Lelaa conceded. “But why keep them on ships? To lay eggs? I don’t believe it. Intelligence reports it takes a year or more just to train baby Grikbirds to behave. Longer to teach them to obey commaands.” She shook her head and her tail twitched as she blinked frustration. “I must always guard against crediting Doms with behavior we’d consider raational, but I caan’t imagine they’d take whaat amount to flying Griklets out to sea. They’d be unmanaage-aable.” She paused. “That leads me to contemplate other possibilities.”

  “Such as?” Tex asked.

  “Well, just as the enemy haas always referred to Grikbirds as ‘lesser draagons,’ there’ve long been rumors of ‘greater’ ones. We thought they must be the enormous superlizards they used in the attaack on Fort Defiaance, but local myths describe laarger flying draagons, big enough to caarry a maan.”

  Orrin was taken aback. “I hadn’t heard that.” He looked uncertain. “But that’s impossible, right?” He glanced at Seepy. “I mean, we saw something, sure, and Greg Garrett even reported lizardbirds as big as a Nancy on some island in the Indian Ocean. Not sure I really believed that till now,” he confessed. “But what I mean is, seems something that big could barely heave its
own ass up in the air. How could it carry something as heavy as a man?”

  “Ordinaary Grikbirds caan caarry at least twenty-five or thirty pounds,” Lelaa pointed out. Some had dropped cannonballs and even exploding shells on ships. “Cap-i-taan Gaarrett’s lizaardbirds are surf predaators, hunting fish as laarge as flaashies, which caan reach a hundred and thirty pounds or more. They obviously don’t eat them in the waater, so they must caarry them elsewhere.” She waved it away. “I’m no engineer, physicist, or naatur-aal philosopher like Mr. Braadford, so I caan’t speak to whether it’s possible or not. I caan say something like them does exist. The question is, if the enemy haas them, how will they use them—and whaat caan we do about it?”

  Orrin ran his hands through sweaty hair. He and Seepy had been working on planes as hard as anyone. “You’re the admiral, and I know you and Jenks’ve already considered the probability Doms have contact fuses for their bombs by now, which’ll make Grikbirds tossing them around even more of a nuisance. But I’d figure, if what you say is right, these things can carry heavier bombs, and that’s what they’ll have ’em do. The only answer I can think of is to make sure our most vulnerable ships, like carriers and transports, stay as far from shore as possible at night when my pursuit ships can’t protect them as well. During daylight, I bet a Fleashooter could knock one down even easier than a regular Grikbird.”

  Tex frowned. “We’ll have to keep back a heavier combat air patrol to protect our ships when the operation kicks off.”

  “Which means less protection for our planes and pilots devoted to the attack,” Lelaa said, staring hard at Orrin. He sighed and nodded irritably. The grand, coordinated assault they’d planned against El Corazon might be tough enough as it was, because they weren’t sure what defenses they’d meet. So far, all their raids had gone deep and hadn’t so much as scratched the primary objective or the modest but respectable fleet offshore. The reasoning was that no attack could come as a complete surprise, so they had to do their best to achieve confusion. The best way to do that, even Orrin agreed, was to lull the defenders at El Corazon as best they could—then drop an avalanche on them out of the blue. Hopefully, the shock inspired by the sheer ferocity of the attack would substitute for surprise.

  The trouble was, now it seemed the enemy might have a weapon in the overgrown Grikbirds that could prevent them from closing the shore under cover of darkness. That would necessitate drawn-out, fully observable daylight maneuvering for the naval, ground, and amphibious assault—if they were all still supposed to happen at once. And Orrin’s Nancys would have less protection from already alerted Grikbirds. It could be a nightmare in the making.

  “Not really a good answer for this mess, is there?” Orrin asked absently, staring at the men and ’Cats working around them to repair or replace engines, patch torn fabric on wings and fuselages, and replace broken support struts. The pungent smells of gasoline, oil, sweat, and the various nitrate dopes sometimes came at him separately, swirling in the hangar deck, and sometimes hit him all at once. The rubberized dope they put on Nancy hulls under the blue and white paint really stank. “Can’t we go in and smash their fleet and harbor defenses first?” he suggested. “Just my planes and Hibbs’s battle line. We can cover the transports with the same CAP I’ll have to leave over the carriers, and all my pilots’ll have to worry about is hitting their targets and watching their asses.”

  It was Lelaa’s turn to sigh. “Gener-aal Shinya and I both aargued exactly thaat with High Ahd-mi-raal Jenks and Ahd-mi-raal Hibbs. I suspect thaat, still, neither of them thinks quite as much in terms of air power as you or me.” She blinked that away. “Actually, thaat’s not true. After whaat happened to TF Eleven, I think they appreciate it perhaaps too much and fear it more. Especially since none of our new-construction ships are here yet and their old baattle line’s as vulnerable from the air as the Doms’. They lean toward the single, mass, coordinated attaack, hoping it’ll still be strong enough to create the confusion they desire.”

  “You’re pullin my tail,” Seepy objected disgustedly. “Ah, Ahd-mi-raal,” he added quickly, blinking contrition. “But, Jeez! First we give ’em months to get ready for us, then give up surprise for shock, shock for confusion, now confusion for whaat? We aimin’ to staartle ’em now? They see us comin’ on top of ever’thing, we’ll be lucky if they’re surprised we’re so stupid!” He cut his eyes at Orrin. “That aact-uaally might confuse ’em some, thinkin’ we caan’t be thaat dumb.”

  Lelaa looked as though she agreed but blinked denial. “No, Sergeant,” she said. “No maatter whaat we do now, the cost will be high, but I’m sure we’ll do faar more thaan staartle the enemy.”

  Orrin looked down, then nodded slowly as his gaze turned to Seepy. “She’s got a point. Where I came from, in our Philippines, we heard about the Japs hitting Pearl Harbor at about oh four hundred and knew we were next. We all ran out and jumped in our planes, waiting for the word to go after ’em, our bomber guys itching to hit Formosa. What we didn’t know was that everybody in charge was running around like . . . akka birds with their heads cut off. Damn MacArthur,” he swore bitterly. “Anyway, time went by, the sun came up, and we sat there, all morning long, cooking in our cockpits. A few planes took off chasing ghosts, but most of us finally climbed down and took naps in the shade under our wings. That’s when the Japs hit us, right in the middle of the day, and you can’t imagine a more tragic, screwed-up mess.”

  Tex was nodding grimly, but then he got Lelaa’s attention and showed her his watch. She nodded too. “Very well, caarry on,” she told them. “But if you think of a way to confirm the presence of laarge numbers of these greater draagons, or come up with a counter for them, please let me know.”

  “Ay, ay,” Seepy said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied Orrin.

  When Lelaa and Tex were gone, Orrin let out a disgusted burst of air. “Me and my big mouth. Should’ve just kept quiet about those things from the start. Even if they’re as dangerous as Lelaa thinks, there can’t be many of ’em, can there? We only saw one bolt out of a ship full of ordinary Grikbirds. Some of the other fellas might’ve seen the same one, so there couldn’t’ve been more than two or three.”

  Seepy looked thoughtful. “Yah, but if they’re only legends here, then they musta come from somewhere else. Maybe the Dom Pope’s private birdcage, off to the southeast where their big temple is. They’d haafta bring ’em here—an’ they mighta brung a bunch already.” He shook his head, tail drooped in resignation. “Nope. Jenks may be right, I guess. If we’re gonna run into somethin’ weird, it’s prob-aably best to do it in daylight so we caan see it.” He shrugged. “Maybe the Jaaps thought thaat about you? ’Sides, if we get croaked then, the Maker’ll see it an’ we’ll get claassier digs in the Heavens—unless you croak us stupid, by runnin’ us into a mountain or somethin’.”

  Orrin just looked at him and blinked until he remembered that wherever Seepy was from, he clung to the Aryaalan belief that the sun was the Maker. They’d had a hard enough time getting those who thought like that to fight at night at all.

  “Well, at least we can shoot ’em if we see ’em,” he agreed at last, “but it’s gonna be hell for Hibbs’s battle line, and worse than hell for the Army and Marines. We’ll do our part,” he added grimly. “But I wouldn’t trade places with any of them, or give a wooden nickel for their chances.” He nodded at some ’Cats working on a Fleashooter with all its jugs off and dripping pistons sticking out at odd angles. “Let’s give those guys a hand, then see if the dope on our plane’s dry enough for paint yet,” he suggested. “We’ll get some chow after that.”

  Even as he worked and talked cheerfully, his mood darkened. Sure, he’d avoided taking the oath to Matt’s Navy Clan, but that was as much because, though he liked and admired his cousin, he was glad to be out from under his thumb. Besides, he’d never even seen a Grik, not counting Lawrence and the few Grik prisoners in Baalkpan and
Maa-ni-la, and would’ve just been another pilot in First Fleet; probably already dead like most of Ben Mallory’s 3rd Pursuiters. Here he was the Fleet COFO, the fight against the Doms had become his own, and Second Fleet’s flyers were his pilots. Still, he had to think Matt would’ve come up with something better than a daylight frontal assault, and for maybe the first time—other than the simple fact he was family, and sometimes Orrin really missed his family—he caught himself wishing Matt would hurry up and finish with the Grik so he could come take charge out here.

  “Hey,” he said, wiping his oily forearm across his brows. They’d pulled the engine entirely and he’d stuck his hand down in the back of the crankcase to feel for metal shards while the whole thing gently swayed under the hoist. “Gimme a rag, wilya? I got stuff in my eye.”

  CHAPTER 15

  OPERATION WHIPSAW

  ////// Camp Simy

  At the mouth of the Zambezi River

  Grik Africa

  March 14, 1945

  We are all gonna die, y’know,” Dennis Silva stated casually, stepping from the improvised dock directly through the large hatch forward of the observer/gunner’s open window in the portside fuselage of the big four-engine PB5-D Clipper. The thing was huge, with an even deeper fuselage than the old PBY Catalina they’d found on this world and Ben Mallory’d flown to death. The wing area was about the same, Silva judged, but all four of the new stacked radials together barely exceeded the 1,200 horsepower each of the PBY’s Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasps could summon. It worked out, Silva supposed, since the Clipper’s lighter construction meant they weighed only about a quarter of what a PBY did.