Crusade

can’t. She’s gained almost a knot, with this good wind on her starboard quarter. For her, that’s really moving. Right now the lizards are beating into the wind, but once they turn north after passing these islands here» — he pointed again at the chart' she won’t have a chance. She might not anyway.» He nodded toward the distant ships. «As you can see, they have the angle on us.»

«Damn it, Skipper!» Gray growled with frustration. «What can we do? There’s seven or eight thousand people on that ship!»

Matt glared a usothers. «Gentlemen, we’ve got to come up with something, and we’ve got to do it now!» McFarlane’s face wore a thoughtful expression. «Spit it out, Spanky!»

«Well, you said Nerracca’s making six knots.»

«Thereabouts.»

«If we light off the number two boiler, Walker can make thirty for a while. Hell, we could sustain twenty-eight if nothing pops.» He glanced around at the expectant faces. «That’s a hell of a lot of horsepower.»

«You mean, rig a tow?» Matt breathed. Spanky nodded.

«But will it be enough?» Garrett asked skeptically. «I know Nerracca’s mostly wood, but her hull is incredibly thick and she’s. huge! Especndant of Allosaurus, according to Bradford. The things were rare and Pete had never seen one, but by all accounts they were one of the few «dinosaurs» of this region that weren’t stunted. The Lemurian scouts had discovered tracks and blood on the pipeline. The monster must have been lying in wait for passing prey, hunkered slightly back in the dense foliage along the trail when Scott came ambling by. It was a terrible loss and Pete shuddered to think about how it must have been. Even so, the irony of the coxswain’s death wasn’t lost on him.

Anyway, since Pete had operational command of Baalkpan’s defenses, Jim cheerfully reported to him when he arrived. There wasn’t even the tiniest hint that Mr. Ellis considered it inappropriate and Pete was grateful for that. The irony of a naval lieutenant in command of a destroyer reporting to Mrs. Alden’s son was even more bizarre, to him at least, than the way poor Scott had gotten it. Ever since then, though, Jim had been down at the dock working night and day, with hundreds of Lemurian «yard-apes» crawling all over his ship. By Nakja-Mur’s command, every possible assistance, regardless of expense, was placed at the disposal of the young lieutenant and his wounded destroyer.

Nakja-Mur had certainly stepped up to the plate; Alden had no complaints about that. He no longer questioned what things cost. The High Chief had finally completely grasped the concept of total war, and everything else had dimmed to insignificance. Nothing was as important to him as saving his city and its people and he’d do whatever it took. With Letts’s help, the High Chief of Baalkpan had blossomed into a kind of bureaucratic prodigy. In a government like that of the United States, Nakja-Mur would have been performing all the duties usually associated with the secretaries of state, commerce, agriculture, public works, and war. He didn’t really know doodly-squat about any of those things, but he was smart enough to know it, and he delegated all the hands-on work to people who did. He just made sure the wheels were greased and he arbitrated disputes. He was also a genius at sorting out priorities and making sure the most important projects got the assets they needed the quickest. He relied heavily on Alden and Letts to advise him as to which projects those were, but since Baalkpan’s defense and the support of the AEF were almost everybody’s top priority, there was rarely any disagreement between them.

The exception to this unity of purpose was still represented by what Letts called the Run Away Party, which was enjoying a resurgence that began with Fristar’s return and was reinforced by the terrible news that the offensive was turning into a desperate retreat. The «Run-Aways» were still a minority since most of them had, of course, already run away. But Alden figured that as soon as the new scope of the threat they faced became known, the Run-Aways would gain many converts. There was no Lemurian president, or anything of the sort, to rule the collection of independent Homes and peoples from other «land» Homes that had gathered at Baalkpan. The leadership was more like some sort of screwy legislature of equal representatives. Kind of like the city-state setup of ancient Greece, Alden thought. Unlike the captain, Pete didn’t know much about history — beyond that of the Marine Corps — but he’d heard of the Spartans and he knew about Thermopylae. He hoped they weren’t facing a similar situation. He knew one of the problems the Greeks had faced was an inability to work together. But Nakja-Mur chaired all the meetings since he was High Chief of the «Host» Home. Hell, throw in speaker of the house while you’re at it, Alden thought. So far he’d managed to keep everybody’s eye on the ball.

Pete gazed out across the city below and wondered yet again at the ingenuity of the people here. Insteadlike those that proved so effective in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like its predecessors, this one was festooned with heavy guns that covered the harbor entrance and there were defenses around it similar to those that encircled the city. There were also sufficient provisions within that it could hold for quite a while if it was ever cut off from Baalkpan. Brister had named it Fort Atkinson, after Mahan’s captain who’d been killed in the battle with Amagi. Brister had admired Captain Atkinson very much. He was proud of the fort and Pete was too. He was proud of everything they’d done to prepare for a possible attack. Now, as he stood waiting for Nakja-Mur to join him for their afternoon bull session, he fervently prayed that all the defenses he’d helped design and build and all the citizen-soldiers he’d trained would never face the test they’d been preparing for.

A tapestry separating the balcony from the Great Hall parted, and Nakja-Mur strode through to join Sergeant Alden with his own goblet of nectar in his hand. His face was expressionless, as usual, beyond a small, clipped frown that didn’t reveal his teeth. His shoulders sagged and his tail drooped and it was clear he was exhausted.

«Good afternoon, Gener-aal Aalden,» he said by way of greeting.

Pete grimaced. He hated it when Nakja-Mur called him that, especially in front of others. «Good afternoon, Nakja-Mur, U-Amaki Ay Baalkpan.»

«Preparations continue to proceed well?» Nakja-Mur asked.

Pete shrugged. «Well enough. We started building up the overhead protection for the batteries today, now that we know about Amagi.» He shook his head. «Not that it’ll do much good against ten-inch guns. That’s one thing we never planned for. I’ve also started working on more shelters for troops and medical facilities. It’s mostly revetments to protect from fragments, but it’s better than nothing.»

«These ten-inch guns are very bad?»

Pete nodded. «They’re more than twice as big as Walker’s.»

«But the guns you helped build for my people are as well.»

«True,» Alden agreed, «but as we’ve discussed many times, those guns, as powerful as they are, are still no match for Walker’s in range, power, or accuracy. I wish they were, but we just don’t have the facilities to make anything like that yet. As for Amagi, her guns are bigger still than the best we’ve been able to make and they can shoot ten times as far.»

Nakja-Mur nodded solemnly. «You’re saying we have no real defense against this Amagi? Not even now that there are two of your fast iron ships?»

«No. As you can surely see for yourself, Mahan’s in no shape for a fight. Jim’s killing himself trying to get her ready and hopefully he’ll have time. But even if Walker and Mahan were brand spanking new, they’d be no match for that damn thing. We’ll think of something. We have to. But right now I sure don’t know what it’ll be. Pray, I guess.»

Nakja-Mur nodded. «I will certainly do that,» he said. «I will pray that it never comes. It may not, you know,» he added hopefully.

Just then, Ed Palmer was escorted onto the balcony by a pair of Nakja-Mur’s guardsmen, who paused and waited to be summoned close. Ed accompanied them and Pete’s heart sank when he saw the signalman’s ashen face.

«My guess is,» Pete said before Ed spoke a word, «we should have been praying already.»

A skept Matt didn’t think the Grik could catch them. On the other hand, Amagi would soon be in range of her big guns. With darkness falling, she wouldn’t have a target, though, would she? Once she got behind them, she’d never catch up either. Not if eight knots was all she had.

A couple of Grik ships, either because of better seamanship or cleaner hulls, were drawing ahead of the pack. Matt had a good eye for geometry and there was no way Walker would drag Nerracca past those two, at least.