For just an instant, as he passed her, Chack paused beside Safir. Reaching out, he gently cradled her elbow in his hand. They blinked at each other, and then he was gone. The Orphan Queen’s eyes never left him until he disappeared from sight.
“Gen-er-al Aal-den?” she asked.
Pete nodded, still looking at the enemy. “Yes. Go. I think Chack’s right.” He turned to look at her. “Be careful, Your Highness. I expect I’ll be down directly.”
“The waterfront’s in for it,” Dowden observed, peering through his binoculars. The cork in the center of the enemy advance was out of the bottle, and dozens of red-hulled ships were streaming toward the docks. Most of the mines were gone. Clusters of barrels still floated in the bay, giving the impression that mines remained a hazard, but the Grik avoided those that they could. Kas – Ra – Ar ’s smoldering wreck had finally slipped, hissing steam, beneath the water of the bay, and Matt had ordered Tolson, the last shattered, leaking frigate, to disengage. Her captain, Pruit Barry, signaled a protest, but Matt repeated the order and Tolson was retiring sluggishly, reluctantly, from the fight. She’d given a good account of herself, surely destroying the last of the gun-armed enemy ships in the center, but she’d paid a terrible price. Her sails were tattered rags, and her foremast was gone. Matt only hoped she’d reach shallow water before she sank. The heavy guns of the waterfront defenses opened up as the enemy approached and tore them apart, but unlike the plunging fire from the fort, fewer of the hits were immediately fatal or disabling. In their same old way, the Grik just kept charging through.
“Can’t be helped,” Matt ground out. Her ammunition nearly exhausted, Walker had only two obpt most of them drawn in its direction. Mainly, though, Walker had to remain visible in the bay until Amagi arrived. So far the Japanese battle cruiser was taking her own sweet time. That was as they’d hoped, from a naval perspective, thought Matt, glancing at the setting sun. They’d savaged the Grik fleet without Amagi to protect it, and Walker would be a more difficult target in the dark. But in the meantime people were dying. There’d been no word from Fort Atkinson since it was smothered beneath several ten-inch salvos. Smoke still rose from there, so fighting clearly continued, but the guns overlooking the entrance to the bay were silent.
A continuous, impenetrable pall of smoke obscured the south side of the city as well, and no one on Walker could tell what was going on from her station across the bay. Matt now knew he’d been naive to think he could control the battle from his ship. He could transmit, and presumably someone could hear him, but he couldn’t see any of his friends’ signals at all. It was beyond frustrating, and there was nothing he could do but trust the people on the spot. They were good people, and his presence probably wouldn’t make any difference, but it was nerve- racking all the same. Letts had managed to get a single message to him by means of a small, swift felucca. Several major assaults against the south wall had been repulsed so far, but the last attack had been costly, and actually made it past the moat to the very top of the wall. Most of the casualties suffered by the defenders came from blizzards of crossbow bolts, but the enemy was also employing a smaller version of their bomb thrower they hadn’t seen before. Several Grik would carry the machine between them, and once it was emplaced they could hurl a small bomb about the size of a coconut almost two hundred yards. The weapon had little explosive force, but like the larger ones it dispersed flaming sap in all directions when it burst. It was a terrible device, and the Grik had an endless supply.
Most of the reserve had already been committed, but more Grik continued pouring through the gap and up the fort road. Letts had been forced to strip defenders from unengaged sections of the wall, even as the invading army lapped around to the northeast to threaten there as well. With this new attack on the waterfront, things would get tight.
“Send a message to HQ. Tell them they’re going to have a lot of company along the dock, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“They probably know that already, Skipper.”
Matt shrugged. “All the same…” The rattling drone of distressed motors distracted him, and he looked again toward the wreck-jumbled harbor mouth. The PBY was returning from somewhere beyond, its latest load of depth charges gone. Gray smoke streamed from the starboard engine, and the plane, less than a hundred feet in the air, clawed for altitude.
“Mallory must’ve tried to drop on Amagi,” Larry said. “Crazy bastard. Now the plane’s shot to pieces! I thought you told him to stay away from her.”
Matt nodded. He had. He also knew Mallory’s view of the battle was better than anyone else’s. Only Ben Mallory knew exactly how the enemy was deployed, and he must have thought things were desperate indeed to try to tip the balance single-handedly. Amagi must be getting close, and Ben must have thought the defenders couldn’t take it.
The plane rumbled forced tby, heading for the north inlet, where a backup landing ramp and fueling pier had been established. Up close now, Matt saw it was riddled with holes, and a wisp of smoke trailed the port engine as well. Ben obviously had his hands full just keeping it in the air. The navigation lights flashed Morse.
“ Amagi,” Dowden said.
As they watched, orange flames sprouted around the port engine and leaped along the wing, consuming leaking fuel. Black smoke billowed.
“Oh, no,” Matt breathed.
The plane turned into the failing engine, but with an apparently herculean effort, Ben managed to straighten her out with the big rudder and claw for the nearest shore.
“Come on!” someone murmured.
Even as the lumbering fireball fought for altitude, however, throttles at the stops, the fight ended with a suddenness as appalling as it was inevitable. The port support struts gave way, and the plane staggered in agony. An instant later the wing around the engine, weakened by fire, simply folded upward. Flaming fuel erupted, spewing from the sky with a heavy, distant whoosh! and the brave PBY Catalina and its gallant crew plummeted into the sea.
“Get a squad of Marines into the launch to look for survivors,” Matt said huskily. By his tone he didn’t expect them to find any. “Then you’d better resume your station, Larry,” he added, referring to the auxiliary conn. With only the Grik to fight so far, he’d allowed Dowden to remain on the bridge.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Larry said, still staring at the erratic plume of smoke hovering above the burning, sinking wreckage of the plane. He took a deep breath and looked at Matt. “Good luck, sir.”
“You too.”
Keje-Fris-Ar paced the battlement spanning the width of his Home, his fond eye tracing details he’d so long taken for granted. Even if all went well, his ship-his Home-would likely be reduced to a smoking, sunken wreck in the shallow water off the fitting-out pier. The distant sound of battle in the south had become a living, gasping, thundering throb, and the guns behind the fishing fleet wharf had begun booming as the Grik drew ever closer to his beloved Salissa. They were so densely packed he couldn’t even count them. Far to the west, he saw Walker beneath her massive flag, racing to intercept a red ship that had strayed too close to the inlet. Tiny waterspouts erupted around the Grik as one of Walker ’s machine guns came into play. In spite of his dread of what lay in store for his own ship, he felt a surge of guilt, mingled with gratitude for all Walker and her people had done for them. What they had yet to do. He sent a prayer to the Heavens for their safety, and added one for Mahan as well. The thick smoke had prevented him from seeing the PBY go down.
He knew some still believed the Amer-i-caans had brought this upon them, that the horror they faced was somehow connected to the arrival of the slender iron ships. He also knew that was ridiculous. The Grik had always been there, and today was but a reenactment of that terrible, prehistoric conflict that fraeje grunted. “How did he get up there?” He shook his head. “Never mind. He knows the Jaaps may target the tree and the Great Hall?”
“He does. Suddenly he seems aware of quite a lot. He hopes his prayers will protect them.”
“Do you think they will?”
“No.”
Keje nodded. “Then surely mine won’t do much good,” he muttered wryly. He looked down. When he spoke again, his voice sounded sad, almost… desolate. “Will you pray with me now, Sky Priest?”
Adar blinked rapidly, overcome by emotion. “Of course.” Together with Selass and the few others on Salissa ’s battlement, they faced in the direction the sun had set and spread their arms wide. As one, they intoned the ancient, simple plea:
“Maker of All Things, I beg Your protection, but if it is my time, light my spirit’s path to its Home in the Heavens.”
