A sailor managed to work his pistol around to shoot the Khonashi man he grappled with, and when the man fell, Dennis put two bullets in the sailor. He got a quick opening and shot another man, but there was just so little room and the desperate fight so fluid! He yanked out his cutlass and dove in.
“More Nips comin’ down the companionway from above!” he shouted, seeing legs pumping down the stairs beside him. He stabbed at one, tripping what looked like an officer, and the man tumbled headfirst to the deck. He hopped the handrail and started up, but found himself face-to-face with another officer, pointing one of the stumpy-looking Nambu pistols right at Silva’s good eye. Maybe it was the sudden appearance of the towering, one-eyed, blood-smeared apparition that gave the Japanese officer pause, but Silva didn’t hesitate, and stabbed forward without thought. The pistol must’ve drawn his aim, because the clipped point of the cutlass pierced the officer’s hand and drove up through his arm alongside the bone. The pistol clattered down the stairs, and the man screamed shrilly. Dennis dragged his blade free with a savage snarl.
“I surrender! Surrender!” the officer squalled. Dennis checked his killing blow and glanced at the braid on the bloody sleeve.
“Okay, Commander Nip. Up you go!” He motioned back up the companionway. “One wrong move, and I’ll split your goddamn spine! Larry!” he yelled down. “Quit”—he grinned—“skylarkin’ around with those Japs and get your stripey ass up here!”
There were several unarmed men waiting nervously on the bridge, and the remnants of Lawrence’s squad took them prisoner. There was no discussion of terms and none officially surrendered, but the only choice was instant obedience or death. None courted the latter.
“Any o’ you the captain o’ this tub?” Dennis demanded. No one answered, but he knew Japanese rank insignia and he saw the furtive glances. He rested the tip of his cutlass against the chest of an officer who glared back at him, teeth grinding, eyes bulging. “You’re the guy. Kurita, ain’t it?” Silva’s eye glittered with hate, and he smiled in that frightening way he sometimes did that left no doubt what he was capable of. “You’re gonna wish my ol’ Walker had sunk your murderin’ ass!” He paused then and frowned. “But much as I’d enjoy skewerin’ you right now, for what you done to prisoners an’ civilians, there’s a few folks who deserve to watch you die more than me.” He pushed forward with the blade until the point drew blood. “You’re gonna hang, mister!” He finally stepped back and waved the Khonashis forward. “Tie these bastards up good.”
Dennis removed his helmet and slung the sweat from his brows with a finger. “Whoo,” he said, looking out the high bridge windows at the darkness beyond; then he strode out on the starboard bridgewing. “Damn thing’s big as a cruiser,” he muttered, looking down. Little light from the moon could reach through all the trees and brush rigged to conceal the ship, but he finally got a decent feel for Hidoiame’s size. He almost snorted at the idea of poor little Walker going up against such a thing, but he’d seen clear evidence of damage here and there, and of course Walker had gone up against Amagi. Instead he gazed about. One machine gun still chattered to the south, but a roaring tide of what he distinctly recognized as Lemurian voices was surging in from the direction of the prison camp. Horn’s BAR was silent at last, and he hoped it was because he had no targets.
All in all, a pretty happy fight, Dennis thought optimistically, and all our immediate objectives met. A pang rolled his stomach and he remembered Fristar. I wonder how that went? He walked through the bridge. “Tell your pals to get those Japs the hell outa here,” he told Lawrence. “If they make a peep, they can eat ’em.” Lawrence relayed the command, though some probably understood. More importantly, most of the Japanese surely did.
“Now?” Lawrence asked, joining Silva on the port bridgewing, squinting to pierce the brush and darkness.
“We’ll have to chase the rats out from below,” he patted the rail, “but I’m startin’ to think we may have ourselves a brand-new, slightly used, Jap tin can to add to our humble fleet!” He grinned at his friend, but then turned back to stare at the gloom. “I wish we knew what the hell’s goin’ on out on Fristar, though. I don’t see any muzzle flashes out there, so maybe the fightin’s over, but I can’t see the damn big-ass ship neither.”
Lawrence squinted harder. “A ’Cat could see. Not I, though.”
“C’mon,” Silva said. “Let’s get out on deck. We’ll see how the fight’s goin’ ashore, but we need to post fellas at all the hatches we can find and make a sweep fore to aft.”
They were about halfway down the switchback companionways when it started. There was a heavy, rending crunch, and the whole ship began to lean to starboard. Almost in slow motion, it kept rolling farther and farther onto its side. Silva and Lawrence grabbed the rail and hung on, utterly mystified, as the lights flickered off and the crunch became an all-consuming, ripping, grinding screech. Both fell against the bulkhead that was quickly becoming the deck, and then the entire ship seemed to surge sideways with a wrenching crack. Still they rolled, until the bridge structure slammed down against the dock itself and Silva was momentarily stunned.
“’At the hell?” Lawrence demanded, his voice high-pitched, as the light structure around them began to collapse.
“Fristar cut her cables,” Silva explained simply, dizzily, “and the tide brought her ashore. That’s why she wasn’t where we was lookin’. She was already on top of us!”
The plates rumbled with the vibration of tons of water gushing into the hull, and the hot boiler exploded, jolting them even harder against sharp steel and fittings in the dark.
“We’ve just been sat on by a brontasarry!” Silva laughed bitterly. “C’mon. We better get the hell outa here!”
* * *
“Jesus Christ, Silva,” Alan Letts groaned. “I’ve seen you make messes in the past, but this is . . . amazing.” Letts was standing, hands on hips, staring at the aftermath of the battle—and the catastrophic . . . crushing of Hidoiame by Fristar Home.
“Yeah? Well, you missed some of my better ones, an’ this ain’t even my fault,” Dennis griped. He was wiping sand from his monstrous rifle, laid across his lap, and sitting near the same overlook west of the cove where he and the others laid the plan that actually went amazingly well—with one glaring exception. Cutting Fristar’s cables had been a mistake. But they’d never imagined all those ’Cats they’d seen working on her or towing gri-kakka alongside during the day were being kept ashore with the rest of the prisoners, leaving nothing but a few Japanese caretakers aboard. Perhaps it made some kind of sense, but Dennis couldn’t see it. Ultimately, Pam and Brassey’s boarding party killed or captured all the Japanese quickly enough, but they didn’t have the people to fully man even two of the great sweep oars needed to move Fristar out of the cove. Just ten of her hundred great sweeps might’ve kept her off the beach against the incoming tide, but two didn’t even slow her down. They tried everything they could while the battle raged ashore. They tied cables to Fristar’s guns and tipped them over the side, but they dragged. They even tried to sink her, by opening the great seacocks used periodically to flood the ship down, but that was much too slow. Fristar took on enough water to make it easier to get her off the beach after they pumped her out, but nothing they’d done could save Hidoiame from being crushed like a beer can by a truck tire.
Fristar was moored in the middle of the cove again, her freed people working to repair the damage to her bow. But Hidoiame lay, her forward half high on shore, nearly upside down. A crumpled funnel and her highest 25-millimeter tub was all that remained visible of her sunken stern section. Some of I’joorka’s warriors were still on the bottom with it.
Also in the cove, however, five days after the battle, were half a dozen PB-1B Nancys and two of the great four-engine “Clipper” flying boats, all secured to a hastily rigged pier.
“It’s a good thing we spotted your signal when we did,” Letts said, turning to look at him, “and the pilot decid
ed to check it out, thinking it was too tight a smoke column for a lightning fire.” He chuckled. “Imagine his surprise when he saw a big arrow laid out in a clearing beside the word ‘Japs’! That was good thinking. That one word—and the signal itself—told us an awful lot.”
“I didn’t do it,” Silva said, opening the trapdoor breech of his weapon to tease more sand out with a rag. Damn Moe buried the thing to hide it, then nearly couldn’t find it in the daylight! Maybe he’s hurtin’ a little, an’ that’s some excuse, he conceded, but I’d hate to’ve lost the Doom Stomper! Just as well I didn’t have it with me, though, he reflected. It’s really not good for much other than killin’ super lizards or blowin’ up Blood Cardinals at a distance. Not the best choice for close combat at all. He flapped sand off the rag and went back to work. There was a red-stained bandage wrapped around his head where he’d conked it when Hidoiame flipped, and he still felt a little woozy.
“I don’t care who did it; it brought us here,” Alan continued. “And when we got our first report of what happened, we came as quick as we could with medical supplies and corps ’Cats.” He paused. “You did well, Silva. The Skipper’s happy. I sent word by wireless before I came.”
“Mr. Cook was in command,” Dennis insisted, looking at Alan intently. “He really was! He’s a good kid, an’ ready for more.” He looked down. “But I missed my boat.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Alan assured. “Seems I’m kind of in charge while everybody’s gone.” He looked back at the cove. “You made friendly contact with potential allies, and not just the jungle Grik we were hoping for, but more humans!” he said at last. “Mr. Bradford’s liable to hang himself for missing meeting them.” He paused. “And how ever it happened, Hidoiame’s goose is cooked for good. You also helped shape what’ll turn out to be a couple of damn good officers. I think that’s earned you a seat on one of the supply flights west. You can catch Walker at Andaman Island.”
“Thanks, Mr. Letts. Larry gets a seat too?”
Alan laughed. “I wouldn’t think of splitting you two up!” He arched an ironic brow. “At least not now. I thought we’d need him to liaise with these Khonashi folks, but for some reason a lot of them speak at least a little English. Imagine that.”
“Sure surprised me,” Dennis admitted truthfully. So far, Tony Scott was keeping scarce. Dennis suspected Walker’s old coxswain would come forward eventually, but he had a lot of thinking to do—not just about himself—and Silva wouldn’t blow. Nobody else would either. They’d discussed it as soon as they saw the first Nancy fly over. Tony Scott had earned the right to decide what was best for himself and his people.
Alan sighed. He knew something was up, but he also knew it was pointless to push Silva past what he’d already said. At least for now. “I’m going to leave Mr. Cook and Mr. Brassey here for now as our representatives to these folks. I’ll probably send Moe back too, once he’s better.” Moe had been shot through the left bicep by a 6.5, and the little bullet blew out a pretty good chunk of meat. “He and his Marines are the only ’Cats they like around here right now.” The lost Marines had returned during the fighting with ’Cats from the wellheads, and that had been a relief. “He’ll have help,” Alan went on, “a real diplomatic contingent eventually, and Adar already sent word that any hunters who summarily shoot anybody that looks like a loose Grik on Borno without being attacked will go on trial for murder.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Dennis judged, “but apparently there’s some bad lizards runnin’ around out there.” He waved at the jungle to the south. “General orders can be just a tad general sometimes, if you get my meanin’. Have to sort that out.” He stared down at Hidoiame’s corpse. “If you was askin’ me, though, I wouldn’t leave Mr. Cook here long. Think about sendin’ him east. He’s pinin’ for Princess Becky—I mean the Governor-Empress—and I bet he’d be good for her too.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Dennis nodded. “Let me take Gunny Horn with me too.”
“He’s hurt. Damn, Dennis, he practically had a ship fall on him!”
“He ain’t hurt that bad. He’ll want to go.”
Alan shrugged. “Sure you don’t want to take that weird little Grik brass picker with you too?”
“Nah. You can keep him.”
“Okay. Well, I’m going back down there”—Alan waved—“and try to talk to I’joorka. See if I can get him to spare some of the Jap prisoners. Not all of them were bad men.”
“What about the officers?”
“They’ll hang for what they did at Okada’s colony—not to mention what they did to their prisoners here and before.”
Dennis frowned. “Good. That’s what I told ’em, an’ I wouldn’t want to be made a liar. So long, Mr. Letts.”
“So long, Chief Silva.”
Dennis sat there for some time, just staring down at the cove, after Alan and his small escort left. A big copper-colored beetle landed noisily in front of him and marched purposefully toward his bare foot. He’d removed his half-rotten boondockers to let his pale, peeling feet breathe. “Purty bugs is always the most dangerous,” he muttered to himself, paraphrasing or warping something Courtney Bradford told him once. “I guess the same goes for broads. Course, I think he was tellin’ me not to eat the purty ones—like he ever ate a bug! Most bad, stingin’ bugs I ever saw was ugly as hell.” He picked up a stick and flicked the beetle away. “No sense takin’ chances. Bugger had some ugly choppers!”
Suddenly, Pam Cross plopped down beside him on the sandy rise. He’d heard her approach.
“Who were you talking to?” she asked.
“Just a bug.”
“What did he have to say for himself?”
“Not much.”
Pam waited a few minutes, but when Silva said nothing more, she sighed. “So,” she said expectantly.
“So what?”
“We gonna keep bein’ mad at each other? I thought we got things sorted out that night in the tree, but we hardly even talked after that.”
“I ain’t mad.”
Pam’s face turned stormy. “Well I am, damn it!”
Dennis nodded. “I knew that. That’s why I kept my distance.”
“But . . .” Pam picked up her own stick and slapped the sand in frustration. “But I wasn’t mad then! I got mad again because you froze me out!”
“What the hell was I s’posed to do?” Silva countered, exasperated. “This trip wasn’t exactly a stroll down a nature trail, where we could cuddle up in our hammock bower ever’ night after a ro-mantic hike!” He scratched his beard. “Cooties, I’ll bet,” he murmured, then continued. “Look, I’ll admit I kinda hoped we’d patched things up, but I ain’t much of a cuddler when I’m in a fight—an’ we been in one ever since that super lizard nearly got us! That was my fault,” he conceded, “but it sorted me out an’ put me back in ‘fight gear,’ where I should’a been all along. You’re always shiftin’ me into neutral, doll, and we never would’a made it this far with me just revvin’ my motor.” He took a long breath. “I ain’t never told you that I was anything but what I am. Not only is there nothin’ I can do about it—there ain’t nothin’ I want to do about it! Even if I did, I can’t—won’t—right now. Don’t you get it?” He avoided looking at her because he knew her big eyes would melt him if he did. Instead, he churned on, making his point while he could. “Maybe, just maybe, I’m tolerably sweet on ya. But the only way we’ll ever get to keep anything goin’ between us is if you know, know, deep down, that I been me so long you can’t do anything about it. What’s more, you really shouldn’t even try. At least for a while. That’s just the way it is, sweetie, and the harder you try to make me somethin’ else, the more miserable you’ll be.”
Slowly, tentatively, Pam’s small arm snaked around Silva’s waist and she leaned against his shoulder. “I’ve been miserable ever since I met you,” she said softly. “But I guess it’s worse
when I haven’t got you, because I’ve never been happier either. Sometimes.”
“You’re gonna get my cooties,” Silva warned. Pam held out a clump of her greasy, tangled hair and started laughing.
“Whut?”
“My lice can fight your lice. Winner take all.”
CHAPTER
25
////// Guayakwil Bay
New Granada Province (Ecuador)
May 10, 1944
S econd Fleet had been running wild along the west coast of the Holy Dominion, from what would have been San Salvador in the north, and south beyond where Lima, Peru, should have been. Ships were cut out of harbors at night or left burning in the daylight. Soon, virtually nothing moved by sea between Dominion ports within range of Maaka-Kakja or DD-escorted tenders carrying Nancy seaplanes to bomb and scout the enemy. Planes and pilots had been lost to malfunctions, weather, and simple inexperience, but Grikbirds had taken an increasing toll as well—particularly in certain areas—and that struck High Admiral Harvey Jenks and Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan as significant. Clearly there were places the Doms didn’t want them to see, but that had been the case since the Empire of the New Britain Isles first knew them. Always a secretive society, described mostly by the illiterate slaves they sold or the company captains allowed only in certain ports, the nature of the Dominion remained amazingly vague. Its priests were twisted monsters, and its troops were competent and savage, but little was known of the country itself beyond those few ports. Regardless how costly, reconnaissance was essential.
One place no one had ever been allowed was the Sea of Bones, north, where the Gulf of California ought to be. No Imperial ship had ever returned from there, and Harvey and Gerald McDonald themselves, as young midshipmen, once attempted to reach it from Imperial holdings in the north by crossing the most horrible desert known. They failed, and were forced back by desiccating heat and terrible predators that took most of their expedition. That place was of little concern at present, however. The Dom capital was presumed to lie within the Valley of Mexico, based on the Dom pope’s title and the apparent holiness his priests ascribed to the place, but Harvey wasn’t interested in the enemy capital just yet either. He had nowhere near the forces for anything so ambitious. The presumably sparsely populated breadbasket of the Dominion in South America was his goal. Not even to take it yet, but to prick it, bleed it, force the enemy to protect it—and, incidentally, spread his forces across a continent.
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