wish you could’ve had more time to get your bearings.”
Letts nodded. His fair skin had suffered during the long flight from Baalkpan and his face looked like a radish. In a few days, he’d start to peel. “It’s liable to be a challenge,” he agreed, “but this is exactly the sort of thing I pitched at Adar to get him to let me come. I guess we still haven’t heard anything?”
Pete shook his head but looked around the compartment for Keje. He located him near the big, ornately carved table, talking with Geran-Eras from Humfra-Dar, Tikker, Al, Lieutenant Leedom, and other wing leaders. He noticed a few stewards had begun to circulate with trays and large pitchers.
“I fear we will have to cancel the game,” Safir interjected, trying to lighten the conversation. Lemurians had recently taken to baseball like fiends, and upon learning it was traditional, nearly every ship in the “new” Navy had formed a team. Some of the Army and Marine regiments followed suit. Most weren’t very good yet, and their grasp of the rules was still somewhat vague, but there’d been an ongoing tournament on Andaman, and Safir’s Silver Battalion team had been slated to take on Dowden’ s the following evening.
“We may have to postpone it,” Jim allowed. As its coach, he was justifiably proud of Dowden’ s team. The Dowdens and Silvers were the best in the “First Fleet League,” and it had promised to be a great game. “Maybe we’ll reschedule it to be the first ball game in the history of Ceylon.”
“Hear, hear!” Rolak growled. The old warrior wasn’t much interested in baseball. It struck him as a confusing waste of energy for adults to “play” what resembled a “youngling’s game” when they could be training for battle, but he wasn’t insensitive to the genuine entertainment it appeared to provide everyone. Safir called him a “grump” and implied he didn’t like the game because he couldn’t understand it. Maybe she was right, but he was utterly in favor of playing baseball on Ceylon, because that would mean they’d taken it.
The snack trays gave way to a full-meal spread, laid out buffet style, as the night progressed. There were consistent reports from Donaghey, carried by a short little orange-furred female ’Cat in the comm division. She was as anxious as everyone to hear the news, and she’d been on duty far longer than the roster prescribed; yet regardless of Garrett’s reports, the issue remained in doubt. Everyone present in Salissa’ s admiral’s quarters seemed to sense a growing fatalism in the periodic messages, however, and the atmosphere and conversations among the leaders of First Fleet began to resemble a deathbed vigil. Garrett’s words remained hopeful, but his position estimates, plotted on the big map in the compartment for everyone to see, kept showing Donaghey and Tolson inexorably closer to the enemy shore.
Shortly after midnight, the orange furred “signalman” appeared once more, and Pete took the message form from her hand and gazed at the words. “Well,” he said, in the suddenly quiet compartment, “they’re going in.” He looked around, and his gaze fastened on Keje. “Both of them.” He strode to the map and pointed. “They can’t make it around this point here, east of Matara. Garrett says the tide’s running, and there’s a sandy shore… They’re going in together-trying to stay close. He says they’ll resume contact if they make it in one piece-and don’t lose the transmitter.” He rubbed his brow. “His best estimate is five degrees, fifty-six north, by eighty degrees, thirty-two east.” Pete glanced at the orange ’Cat. “Run on now. Maybe we’ll get something else.” When she was gone, he faced the gathered officers. “I guess now we know where they’ll be, one way or another. We have good charts of the coast now, and Rolak’s pet has told us where things are.” He paused. “I know some of you haven’t met ‘Hij Geerki’ and probably wonder why we pay attention to him… Well, I won’t try to explain now, but suffice it to say, his advice makes sense. Now we can start making plans.” He nodded at Keje and handed him the message form.
Keje also scanned the page in the lingering silence. Finally, he cleared his throat. “First Fleet will complete preparations for getting underway tomorrow…” He paused and frowned. “Later today, as soon as is practicable. Haste is essential, but so are those preparations. You must spare no important arrangements. If you cannot in conscience sail with the fleet, make it known immediately. There will be no shame-this incident has taken us all by surprise. Mr. Letts will compile a list of any units not entirely ready for embarkation, and which ships, for mechanical or supply reasons, cannot sail today. These will be formed into a secondary squadron and provided with suitable protection to move as soon as possible.” He paused and took a deep breath.
“My friends, we’ve worked and sacrificed for this moment a long, long time. True, the exact moment may have been forced upon us”-he flicked his large red-brown eyes at Alden-“but it is our moment, regardless.” He paused. “As has recently been pointed out to me, I was not ‘on the ground’ at Raan-goon, though Salissa’ s planes participated in that fight, and I understand the nature of our Ancient Enemy grows even darker and more abominable as we strike at their lands. Saa-lon and Indi-aa are long-established territories-perhaps even the jewels of their eastern empire. Wresting them away will not win the war, but it may strangle the enemy of vast resources, just as it undermines their sense of racial superiority-the Grik have never been on the defensive before! Raan-goon was an isolated outpost. They may not even know it’s lost. There will be no way they can hide or ignore the loss of Saa-lon and Indi-aa, and we cannot foresee what effect that will have on their society as a whole.” Keje sipped from a cup of seep a steward had handed him.
“I can foresee the advantages we will gain! No more will we be fighting on Mi-Anaaka-Lemurian-land, where our younglings and old ones suffer so gravely. No more will our land Homes be ruined by battles! As the Grik are pushed back, our own defenses grow deeper, more secure. We will gain the resources and even the ‘in-dust-rees’ the enemy has developed there, including much steel, and even something like this ‘rubber’ that our makers of things so crave! We must expect the Grik to ‘adapt,’ to make efforts to counter our straa-ti-gees, and it’s essential we keep our eyes peeled for ever more imaginative traps such as that set for Task Force Garrett. Do not grow complacent; do not expect the Grik to continue always as before. We are invading his world now, and just as we made changes with the help of the first Amer-i-caan destroyermen, to defend our Homes, we have to expect the Grik to do the same-perhaps with the aid of their ‘Jaaps,’ their ‘Cap-i-taan Kuro-kaawa.” He took anothe sip, and held his cup high. “May the Heavens protect and guide us in this noble endeavor, just as they always so unfailingly direct us through all the perilous seas of life!”
There rose a determined cheer, and the enthusiastic stamping on the deck reverberated throughout the abbreviated superstructure of Salissa Home-USS Salissa (CV-1).
CHAPTER 3
Off New Scotland, southeast of the New Britain Isles, in the “Eastern Sea”
USS Walker (DD-163), the old “four-stacker” destroyer and possibly the sole survivor of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet on a lost, increasingly less relevant “earth,” slashed through the brisk, breezy sea off the southwest coast of New Scotland. On that dimming world she’d been swept from-saved from, most likely-by an eerie, anomalous squall, New Scotland would have been several islands, including Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Kahoolawe. Here, due to lower sea levels (there was now definitive evidence this “earth” was locked in an “ice age”) and the random nature of volcanism, the clustered islands were one. The old destroyer had been healed of the recent damage she’d sustained, and she bounced through the swells on three boilers like a happy puppy racing to meet a massive, full- grown playmate she hadn’t seen in ages.
At long last, Task Force “Oil Can,” composed of the stupendous Le- murian seagoing Home, Salaama-Na, two more “Amer-i-caan” steam frigates, some sailing tenders and dedicated oilers, and the Imperial steamers Ulysses and Icarus, had arrived. Salaama-Na dominated the squadron with her huge sails, or “wings,” and it was toward her, flagship of the task force, that Walker sped. Unlike some others of the great Homes, Salaama-Na hadn’t been altered into an aircraft carrier, or more appropriately, a seaplane carrier/tender. Her beautiful, awesome lines hadn’t been altered in any way. That was one reason it had taken her so long to arrive-she, like others of her kind, was very, very slow-but it didn’t make her a less welcome sight.
Captain Matthew Reddy, “High Chief” of the ever-growing “Amer-i-caan” clan, CINCAAF, (Commander in Chief of All Allied Forces-by acclamation), and more specifically-currently-CINCEAST, was grinning broadly at the sight of the huge ship. His green eyes, often capable of icy remorselessness, sparkled with pleasure, and his mood was reflected by the mixed human/Lemurian-“American”-crew around him in Walker’ s pilothouse, and indeed, throughout his veteran ship. Matt had been grinning a lot lately, despite the added pressure and responsibility of a “whole new war” here in what their allies considered an impossibly distant “far east.” Nearly two years of constant war and the associated stress had taken their toll, but that was a kind of stress for which he’d always been well equipped. His long funk had suddenly been erased by almost-miraculous news of a very personal nature. Compared to the relief that gave him, even an added theater in an apparently endlessly growing war seemed barely able to
