the whole damn world until it’s a safe place for the people you care about to live in peace and freedom!” She dried her eyes. “Okay. That’s the way it is. That’s who you are, and as much as I hate it sometimes, that’s also why I love you so much. I DO love you, but you’ve made me wait an awful long time. I’m thirty, now, Matthew,” she said, “and yes, maybe I want kids. Mainly though, I want you, for however often… or however long I can have you.”
“Okay!” Matt defended lightly, deliberately misunderstanding her mood. “It’s your operation, like you said. I wasn’t trying to weasel out.”
CHAPTER 2
Baalkpan, Borno
Headquarters “Home” of the Grand Alliance
February 22, 1944
Commander Alan Letts carefully negotiated the muddy ruts along the Baalkpan pathways. Deep trenches marked the passage of heavily laden “brontasarry”-drawn trucks that transported the increasingly sophisticated machinery built in the heavy-industry park. The trucks churned along at a regular, previously undreamed-of pace, bound for the burgeoning shipyard that continuously gouged at the dense jungle frontier north of the city. Baalkpan had always been a port city, but now the shipyard sprawled like a fattening amoeba wherever the land touched the bay.
“Watch your step, for God’s sake!” croaked Commander Perry Brister, picking his way alongside Alan. “You get in the middle of that, you’ll be done.” The former Mahan engineering officer’s voice didn’t match his young face and dark hair. It had been ruined when he commanded the defense of Fort Atkinson during the desperate battle against the Grik that once nearly consumed the city. He pointed at a bawling, long-necked beast about the size of an Asian elephant dragging another wheeled cart in their direction. “Smushed or buried,” he grated darkly.
“No sweat,” Letts said, but slowed his pace. Someday, he thought, if the demands of war ever give us a chance, we’ll have to do something about these damn roads. They were “repaved” constantly by the almost daily rains-and brontasarry-drawn graders-but the ruts weren’t as bad as the goopy slurry between them churned up by the massive, stupid beasts. A man-or Lemurian-could get stuck and maybe die in that.
There could be no break in the pace of operations and wartime production, however. Baalkpan-and the young Alliance it led-was only just beginning to hit a stride that might keep up with the demands of an increasingly global war. There could be no slacking off for any reason for the foreseeable future.
The irony’s almost funny, Letts thought. Once, on another world, he’d been supply officer aboard USS Walker, and even by his own definition he’d been the poster boy for all slackers. One could have argued at the time that the world of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet was already quite different from the rest of the Navy, but that held absolutely zero relevance now. Here, Alan Letts had reinvented himself and was proud of what he’d become and accomplished. He was Chief of Staff to Captain Matthew Reddy and, by extension, a remarkable Lemurian named Adar, who was High Chief and Sky Priest of Baalkpan, and “Chairman” of the Grand Alliance of all Allied powers united beneath (or beside) the Banner of the Trees. Also, even more ironically, Alan had become Minister of Industry for the entire Alliance.
With the recent, more independent additions to that alliance, he wasn’t quite sure how that post would shake out, but he’d keep doing the job here regardless. He’d recently returned from a stint at the “pointy end,” where he’d served as chief of logistics for First Fleet. Initially, he’d gone because he felt guilty. His new sense of responsibility, likely heightened by the birth of his daughter, made him feel as if he’d skipped out on his shipmates and their Lemurian friends by staying in such a cushy berth so long. He realized now what an idiot he’d been. He’d seen firsthand what this war-at least on the “Grik Front”-had become, and he hadn’t chickened out. But he’d realized with blinding clarity that the reason he’d actually made a real contribution in theater was because he was a bean counter, not a warrior, and what the various expeditionary forces needed as badly as warriors were more bean counters.
He’d raced back to Baalkpan at the end of the Ceylon Campaign to recruit as many ’Cats-and, frankly, ex-pat female “Impies” escaping their indentured lives-as he could, to establish a Division of Strategic Logistics within the Ministry of Industry. There wasn’t an awful lot of extra labor just loafing around the city, and though hundreds had arrived, he’d had to move fast on the Imperial women because the institutions they’d fled were already breaking down and the “supply” might dry up. The women that arrived in Baalkpan were almost universally illiterate, but though the quality varied, they already spoke a variety of English. A common language that used many of the “right” words for things was key to getting the division up and running now. Alan and his shipmates had awkwardly learned to get by in Lemurian, but Adar had decreed that his People, at least those from his city in the War Industry, learn English. They had to. There’d never been Lemurian words for most of what they made. Understandably, that was taking time-and most ’Cats who spoke English already had jobs. The destroyermen who’d wound up on this world had already faced one kind of “dame famine.” Alan feared another sort.
And now this!
“Hey,” Letts said, as he and Perry tried to keep themselves-and, just as important, their new shoes-from sinking in the mud. “You’re Minister of Defensive Works and all that stuff. Roads are part of that, right?”
“Sure, and I’ll get right on it, soon as you give my engineers a few days to do the job,” Perry groused. Both knew there was nothing Brister could do, but the banter was obligatory-and neither had anything else to say. They were headed for the Castaway Cook, a sort of cafe started by Walker ’s irascible cook, Earl Lanier, that had evolved into the more or less official Navy and Marine club for what promised to be an… interesting meeting.
Two P-40s- P-40s! — thundered by overhead, almost wingtip to wingtip, the sound of their Allison engines rivaled by the cheering of Lemurian laborers in the shops and beneath the awnings bordering the muddy pathway. Letts grinned, watching the predatory aircraft climb, banking west out over the bay. As much as he’d accomplished, he couldn’t take much credit for the “Warhawks”; their rescue from the old Santa Catalina, beached in a Tjilatjap (Chill-Chaap) swamp, was primarily due to the herculean efforts of others, most notably a former Army Air Corps lieutenant named Benjamin Mallory. Like them all, Ben had stepped up to fight an unimaginably terrible war on this opium-dream earth. He was a colonel now, in charge of the whole Army and Navy Air Corps of the entire Alliance.
“Is Ben going to meet us there?” Brister asked.
“Not at the Screw. He’s supposed to meet us all at the Parade Ground,” Alan confirmed. “Unless he was in one of those things”-he gestured at the diminishing shapes in the sky-“and that was his idea of putting in an appearance.” Both men chuckled, but they couldn’t hide their uneasiness from each other.
“I wish the Skipper was here,” Brister blurted at last, voicing what both were thinking. But Captain Reddy was hopelessly far away, and as Chief of Staff this really was Alan’s job… but nobody had ever expected he’d have to deal with anything like this. “Or even Adar. How come Adar isn’t coming?”
“I tried to get him to,” Alan sighed, “but we both figured, finally, that this is something I better try to sort out before he gets involved.” He shrugged. “It’s not really his problem… yet. He’ll do what he has to, though, if we can’t square it away.”
“How are we going to do that?” Brister asked flatly. There it was. And Alan had no idea.
“The same way we’ve handled everything,” he said more firmly. “We wing it.”
Brister snorted uneasily. “So that’s why Ben’s coming, huh?”
The Busted Screw-the decidedly unofficial but more common name for the Castaway Cook-was usually a busy place, and it was jumping when Letts and Brister arrived in time for the midday rush. Traditionally, ’Cats ate only twice a day, but the human destroyermen had arrived among them accustomed to three meals (of some sort) each day, at about the same time. That was a tradition the hardworking ’Cats in the defense industry and military were quickly adopting. Cafes like the Screw were all over the city now, catering to the various Army regiments, but only Naval and Marine personnel (with some notable exceptions) were “permitted” to sit at the benches around the tables or sidle up to the bar beneath the broad roof of the Screw. It was a raucous place, particularly at times like this. Besides the noisy patrons (allowed only the admittedly superior chow during daylight duty hours), no matter how exclusive a joint it was considered, there were no walls and all the noises of the busy bayside activities could be watched and heard.
