He just wished he knew whether he could count on them.
As usual, Matt and Greg Garrett were standing companionably silent on the quarterdeck. It was a custom they’d observed many times. Sometimes there just didn’t need to be words. Matt knew Jim understood it too. The three of them had been through so much together, small talk was often not only superfluous, but distracting Safir Maraan and Lord Rolak ascended to the quarterdeck and caught their eyes. Matt smiled at them and waved them over. The B’mbaadan and Aryaalan troops were mostly on other ships, but Chack was aboard with most of his 2nd Marines. Rolak went where Matt went; he was still insistent on that, but Matt suspected Safir was aboard because of Chack. They weren’t “officially” mated yet, but it was just a matter of time. Matt expected a formal announcement and ceremony to cap the liberation of B’mbaado.
“Cap-i-taan,” Safir greeted him.
“My lord,” said Rolak.
“Queen Protector, Lord Rolak,” Matt replied. He looked at Rolak. “Feeling better?” The old warrior grimaced and blinked irritation.
“A glorious day and a beautiful ship!” said Safir. She’d grown almost giddy with excitement the closer they came to her home. With luck, it would be hers again. Hers and her people’s.
“Indeed they are,” Matt agreed. “And as for the ship, I think I love her!” he admitted.
“You can’t have her, Skipper,” Garrett said with a grin. “I just got her back!”
Matt chuckled. “Don’t worry, Greg. I think peeling her paint with tweezers would be easier than getting you off this ship.” He nodded past the masts and taut canvas forward. “There’s your coastline, Your Majesty, and not a Grik ship in sight. You’d think they’d at least have a few pickets out, but we haven’t seen a thing.” He shook his head. “Silly to expect them to think like us, but we know they’ve picked up a few ideas.”
“It is a sight I have long craved,” Safir admitted wistfully. “I am excited, I admit, but some of your uneasiness tugs at me as well.”
“Am I uneasy?” Matt asked. “I suppose. I wish we had a little recon…” He avoided saying, I wish we had the PBY, for the ten thousandth time, but they all knew what he meant. “This steaming-I mean sailing- blindly into a situation we know nothing about reminds me too much of old times. I’d almost rather we had to chase down and pound on a few scouts. Besides”-he grinned predatorily-“it would be fun.”
“ ‘Fun,’ he says.” Garrett chuckled. “Remember what happened last time I had a little ‘fun.’”
“But surely this is different,” rumbled Rolak. “Even a large fleet would be no match for us now, and if there are no Grik to sound the alarm, the surprise of our arrival will be all the greater.”
“In a perfect world,” Matt agreed. He didn’t elaborate on how imperfect he considered this world to be. “But they’ve had as much time to recover as we have. Okada didn’t think they could bring anything forward for a while, but with what we know they left in Aryaal when they moved on Baalkpan, they wouldn’t need to, to make it a damned bloody fight.” He looked at Safir. “I’ve no doubt we’ll win, but I’m always counting the cost. I have to. Besides, we know the Grik can surprise us-they’ve done it before-and if they didn’t eat Kurokawa, he might’ve helped them arrange something… unexpected.”
Two Marines tromped up the companionway. One was clearly Chack, still wearing his battered American helmet at a jaunty angle. The other seemed vaguely familiar, but Matt couldn’t place him. He was uncomfortably aware that unless he knew them well and their coloration or dress was distinctive, he had a hard time telling one ’Cat from another. The two Marines drew close and saluted.
“Cap-i-taans,” Chack said. “Lord Rolak”-he smiled slightly-“Your Highness. I beg to report the discovery of this… creature… in my own ranks!”
Rolak peered more closely at the Marine. “By the Sun God’s tail! Lord Koratin, you have lost much weight!”
Koratin! Now Matt remembered. He’d been a big wheel in Aryaal and had even been an advisor to its murdering king, Rasik-Alcas! He’d met him briefly when they retook the city right before the evacuation. For some reason, Rolak hadn’t hanged him and Matt had forgotten all about him.
“Indeed!” replied Koratin. “I feel like a youngling again! I have always maintained that martial exercises strengthen the mind, body, and character.”
“Character!” Rolak huffed. “I have occasionally-and briefly-wondered what happened to you after our last meeting. I assumed you were aboard Nerracca when she was lost, since you hadn’t been insinuating yourself in the business of the Alliance. Yet here you stand, proving once again your consummate skill for survival!”
“Here I stand, Lord Rolak,” Koratin answered, suddenly less ebullient.
Chack cleared his throat. “It seems Koratin enlisted in the First Baalkpan as a private as soon as he arrived in the city. He doubted he would be popular in an Aryaalan regiment… In any event, he distinguished himself in battle and was therefore eligible to apply for Marine training.” Chack blinked irony. “He graduated ‘boot camp’ as a squad leader corporal.”
As things now stood in the Lemurian Marine Corps, only combat veterans could be considered for promotion. If there were ever peace, that might change, but for now the system worked well.
Rolak glanced incredulously at the twin red “stripes” on Koratin’s kilt. “You earned corporal’s stripes,” he said, astonished. “That is more than you ever did in any previous post.”
“True,” Koratin agreed, “and I cherish those two stripes more than the finest robe I ever wore.” His voice was still soft. “I owed it to my younglings. To all the younglings of our people, Lord Rolak. This, at least, I think you will believe.”
Rolak nodded and looked at Matt. “Koratin was never evil. Vain, venal, and grasping, but not evil. I did not hang him because I believed he truly tried to stop Rasik and warn us of his treachery.” He grumbled a chuckle. “It did not harm his case that Rasik was trying to kill him when we entered the city.”
“You trust him?” Safir asked, surprised.
“I trust his dedication to younglings. That was never in doubt. Even at his worst, he often told noble tales and performed dramas for younglings in open forum. Moral dramas that taught principles he never used to live by.”
“I was corrupt,” Koratin agreed. “I thought I controlled my destiny. I knew my failings, yet I tried to set an example of integrity beyond myself so the younglings of our city might become better beings than I.” He looked at Matt. “I have heard the words of your Sister Audry when she has come among the troops and I know not what power guides all things, whether it is the Sun God, or this other God of yours. Maybe they are the same.” He shrugged. “But now I know that no one can hope to control destiny; it has a will of its own, its own plans for all of us. We are but leaves swept into a whirlpool not of our making. We do our best; that is all we can do, but in the end, in this arbitrary new way of war, our fates are in the hands of whichever God truly watches over us. Ultimately, we can only hope He will consider us fit company for the ones He has chosen to reward.”
Taken aback, Matt could only stare. He hadn’t known Sister Audry’s “ministry” had penetrated so deeply. She hadn’t built a cathedral next to the Great Hall, so he figured she was keeping things low-key. He knew she’d helped many of his men who felt lost and confused, regardless of denomination, but thought she’d otherwise confined her discussions with Adar. He hoped they didn’t return to Baalkpan to find it locked in a holy war. “Jesus,” he whispered.
“Carry on, Corporal Koratin,” he said at last. “You’re dismissed.” When salutes were exchanged and Koratin was gone, he looked almost helplessly at Chack and the others. “What were we saying about surprises?”
“Are you sure he can be trusted?” persisted Safir. “Perhaps this is another of his dramas, and he speaks… most strangely.”
Rolak looked thoughtful. “I don’t think he performs; he was never that good. He was always strange, however. Chack?”
Chack blinked and shook his head. “His squad respects him, even the Aryaalans among them. When I said he distinguished himself in battle, it was something of an understatement.”
“Let him be,” Matt decided. “I guess we’ll see. He’s right about one thing: none of us knows our destiny.” He glanced toward the now barely visible passage between B’mbaado and the distant Sapudis. “Or what we’ll find in that bay.”
They pushed on through the day and into the night. Matt sent a detail of ’Cats to Jenks’s ship to serve as pilots, and keen-eyed Lemurian lookouts spied carefully ahead for shoals or enemy ships. A quarter moon gave more than sufficient light for them to warn of any danger. All night, the tension ratcheted up, and Garrett shortened sail on Matt’s orders so the fleet could consolidate. Two hours before dawn, he gave the order for all ships to advance in line abreast and come to general quarters. If they encountered the enemy, they’d execute a turn to port on a
