sounded just like the salvo alarm. He couldn’t focus his vision through the smoke filling the pilothouse and the tears in his eyes. For a moment he thought he was alone, because there was no movement whatsoever around him. Wiping desperately at his face with a suddenly dark and tattered sleeve, he finally saw Norman Kutas trying to rise and resume his post at the wheel. Kutas had blood running from his ears. Matt helped him up, and saw his mouth moving in the flickering light, but couldn’t hear what he said. He glanced behind him and saw Reynolds was up, but dazed. Gray was sitting on the deck beside the unmoving form of a ’Cat. Two other men were still down as well. Matt looked through the window.
They were much closer to Amagi now. They’d made it under her main battery-which simply couldn’t depress enough to fire at Walker anymore. They were still racing through a forest of smaller splashes from Amagi ’s secondaries, however. Matt felt the staccato drumming as tracers probed for Walker ’s bridge. He wondered why the number one gun was no longer firing and looked down at the fo’c’sle. A long, deep gouge began near the small anchor crnds and knees, but the rest of the crew was just… gone. Then he saw Dennis Silva’s unmistakable form, closely followed by another man and two ’Cats, dash through the sleeting tracers and duck behind the dubious protection of the gun’s splinter shield. Each had a pair of shells under their arms.
A 5.5-inch shell exploded against the tall foremast behind and above their he'1em'›
The Lemurian fixed him with intense, desperate eyes, and Jim suddenly realized who it was. “I do!” said Saak-Fas. “I help make ready! I know, I… do!” The Lemurian straightened to his full height. “I need do!”
Jim looked at him, but it was hard to see through the darkness and the blood running in his eyes. “It’s my ship. My responsibility,” he gasped. The ’Cat gestured to a form on deck. It moaned.
“ ’Spons-baal-tee?”
Torn, Jim could only stand rooted to the deck. He felt it beginning to settle. Suddenly the Lemurian blinked and began making his way to the ladder at the back of the pilothouse. “I do! No time!” With that, he disappeared down the ladder. Realizing he had no choice, Jim staggered to Bernard Sandison, lying in a pool of blood, and began dragging him toward the ladder.
Saak-Fas stepped lightly down the companionway stairs to the passage leading to the wardroom. The lights were dim and flickering, but that didn’t matter; he could see as well in the dark as the Amer-i-caans could in daylight. Down yet another ladderlike stair, he entered the crew’s forward berthing space. Water was half a tail deep on deck, and more gushed in through great rents in the side of the ship. Forward he sloshed through the rising water, until he came to the passageway leading to the chain locker. The collision damage was more evident here. The deck was buckled beneath his feet and the water was clammy and slick with oil leaking from ruptured fuel bunkers below.
He’d rarely been in the water before, except for baths of course. Other than surf, he’d never stood in seawater up to his waist. That just wasn’t done. He felt a chill at the thought that some flasher fish might somehow have wriggled into the ship, but he knew it was unlikely. Most of the holes were probably too small, and besides, it was after dark. He stopped at the entrance to the passageway and looked inside with a sense of growing peace. The ordeal he’d suffered at the hands of the Grik still tortured him. He’d fought to suppress the terror, the agony of that experience, knowing that somehow, if he did, the Heavens would reward him with the opportunity now at hand.
It had been so hard at times, the added misery he heaped upon himself. The rejection of his beloved Selass, his self-imposed isolation from his people. But everything he did to torment himself further had helped create the buffer that now existed between his mind and the real pain and lingering terror that threatened to drive him mad. He’d passed the ultimate test, and now the reward was near. He looked fondly at the twelve half-submerged depth charges jumbled in the passageway by the collision. He smiled at the feeling of unaccustomed happiness that slowly filled his being. He’d savor the short additional time he’d give the Amer-i-caan, Ellis, to try to get clear. Then he’d strike a mighty blow against the hated Grik and finally end his agony in the same, glorious instant.
“Hold them back! Hold them!” Pete Alden bellowed. Even as he did, the volunteers from Manila broke. It was like a heavy cable supporting far too great a weight. The strands began to separate and fray, snapping and protesting as they did, but inexorably, as the cable began to thin, the m for a moment, just as we did at Aryaal,” she gasped. “It’s like they cannot comprehend defense. If they are not attacking, they are losing.” She shrugged. “But they are so many.”
Pete stared at her, struck by sudden inspiration. He hadn’t been at the Battle of Aryaal, and hadn’t seen what she had. In the heat of battle, he’d completely forgotten Bradford’s crackpot theory. Then, over her head, and far out in the bay where the flashes of Amagi ’s guns had become so common, there was another mighty flash, much bigger than the others. A sheet of fire vomited into the sky, and Amagi ’s stricken silhouette was at the very heart of the massive plume. Many others saw it too, on both sides, and the fighting became almost desultory as thousands of heads turned toward the bay. The noise of the explosion, when it came, was fantastic. Not so much in actual sound, though it was great, but in the sense of size and power it represented over such a great distance.
“My God!” shouted Pete. “It worked! That God-damn, idiotic, torpedo stunt worked!” An enormous, rising, thunderous cheer built throughout the city. “ It worked! ” screamed Pete again as he turned back to look at the stunned sea of Grik. If there was any chance Bradford was right, now was the time to find out. “ Push them! ” he bellowed. “Push them back! Up and at ’em!” He holstered his pistol and unslung his Springfield. “The army will advance!”
Walker staggered under the force of the mighty blast, and the rest of the glass in the pilothouse streamed inward like shattered ice. Kutas cried out, reflexively raising his hands to his face. Matt lunged for the wheel. “Chief!” he shouted. “Get this man below!” He spun the wheel hard to port, preventing the completion of Walker ’s suicidal dash to ram Amagi herself. The ship responded sluggishly, and once again it seemed like her speed was dropping off. He was grateful for the reprieve Mahan had given them, but horrified by her sacrifice as well. In a hidden corner of his soul, he might have even felt a little cheated. A wave of irrational anger swept over him, and he lashed out at Reynolds.
“I want a report from Spanky now!” he shouted.
“I’m trying, Skipper!” The young seaman looked close to tears. “I can’t get through! I can’t get anything!”
“I’ll find out, Captain!” Gray shouted back, as he helped the blinded, moaning helmsman down the ladder. Matt looked back at Amagi. A giant towering mushroom of fire and smoke was still rising and expanding into the dark, hazy sky. At the base of that pyre would be Mahan ’s shattered remains.
“My God.”
He was thankful he couldn’t see Mahan, as Walker ranged down Amagi ’s opposite side. The battle cruiser was beginning to list heavily to port, and a wide strip of red bottom paint was rising into the light of the burning city. They’d make sure, Matt grimly determined, although he couldn’t imagine anyone on Mahan having survived. A dreadful, heavy sadness descended upon him when he remembered Mahan ’s farewell the night before. Jim must have been planning this all along, and never said a word. He continued Walker ’s slow turn to port, and when Leo Davi›now
Across the corpse-choked moat and onto the open plain beyond, the defenders-turned-attackers kept up the unrelenting pressure while somehow, miraculously, maintaining a semblance of shield-wall integrity. The discipline and careful training Alden had insisted on was paying off. Even so, the advance began to slow. The troops were exhausted after the long fight, and the exertion of just climbing over bodies so they could keep slaughtering Grik began to tell. The thousands who fled were being killed by both sides, and the unrouted mass behind them began to move forward bit by bit. The charge finally ground to a halt, and then it was like the field of Aryaal again in yet another way: both battle lines stood in the open without support or protection, and in that situation, the overwhelming numbers of the enemy began to swing the tide back.
Alden slashed with his rifle, butt-stroking and stabbing with the bayonet, as he’d demonstrated so many times on the drill field. His pistol was empty and he had no more ammunition. Before him was a scene from a nightmare hell. Gnashing teeth, slashing weapons, and high-pitched shrieks of pain punctuated the rumbling roar of shields grinding together. The damp earth at his feet had been churned into a bloody, viscous slurry, and the only traction afforded to those holding the shield wall were the mushy mounds of unrecognizable gore half-submerged in the ooze. The frothing, working mass of Grik beyond the shields were illuminated by a red, flickering light from the fires-adding to the unreal, otherworldly aspect of the battle. Chack almost stumbled past him, shouting his name, and Pete grabbed him by the arm. “Where’s the rifle company?” he shouted.
