Rangoon. We can’t afford the lives it might cost.”
Alan let that sink in for a moment before he continued. “Ceylon will be the biggest stunt we’ve ever pulled, maybe bigger than Baalkpan. Surely our biggest offensive to date. If, God forbid, it all falls in the pot and I’m not there, how will I live with myself?” He gestured in the direction Karen had taken Allison. “How will I look Them in the eye, when I might have made a difference?”
Adar shifted in his chair, but said nothing. After a while, he steepled his hands, elbows on his knees, and stared long and hard at Alan with his large, penetrating eyes. “I will consider it,” he whispered at last. “In the meantime, please do concentrate on helping get Aracca out of the dry dock.” He chuckled, in his Lemurian way. “Major Mallory pesters me constantly about putting Saanta Caat-alinaa in there to retrieve the rest of his toys from her hold. He fears she will sink beside the dock! Moving his great, heavy boxes to the still incomplete ‘airstrip,’ is proving quite a chore as well!”
USS WALKER -Scapa Flow
“It’s official, Skipper,” Ed Palmer said, handing over a sheet of the yellowish Imperial paper. It was a report via Government House forwarded straight to Matt. “Two Imperial frigates tried to enter the harbor at New Dublin and take possession of the Dom ships that escaped the battle and wound up there. The frigates were fired on by the forts! There was no damage, and they lit out, but New Ireland’s either been occupied by the Doms-or they’ve thrown their hat in the ring with ’em.”
Matt had been leaning on the rail by the signal lockers behind the pilothouse, surrounded by Bradford, Spanky, Chack, and the Bosun. All were staring aft at the repairs underway. Sparks jetted from torches, and lines and hoses littered the deck. Almost all the hull damage was on the starboard side, and scaffolds had been rigged to straighten plates and rerivet seams near the waterline. When that work was finished, they’d turn the ship and continue upward from the safety of the dock. (Even if the local variety of flashies weren’t as big, or apparently as insatiable, as those within the Malay Barrier, they were still damned dangerous, and there’d been a lot more in the neighborhood since the battle.)
They had all the help they needed. Walker had actually been given priority over the Imperial ships in the yard, but she had plenty of hands with the arrival of Simms, and local technicians and specialists were better employed fixing Imperial damage. Some of the female yard workers still tried to do anything they could. They wanted to help. Chief Bashear finally told them to get scrapers, chippers, and brushes and turned them loose with paint cans. The portside had barely been touched, since TaciTus had absorbed most of the shot fired from that direction. They could paint there until the starboard side was ready.
Spanky was a hero-again. He’d fought Walker brilliantly after power was restored, and through speed and maneuver he’d savaged most of the Dom ships that Tacitus and Euripides had protected Walker from-then worked tirelessly to save them in turn. Matt finally forced him to accept that he was Walker ’s de facto exec. Either Tabby could handle engineering or she couldn’t. Which would it be? Reluctantly, Spanky admitted she was “better than most” engineering officers he’d known, and if he “helped her out” now and then, she could probably “manage.”
The new Nancy had been assembled and lowered over the side to keep it safe and out of the way, but Reynolds was in no shape to fly it. He was banged up and needed a rest, but his worst injury was mental. He blamed himself for Kari-Faask’s critical condition, and even if she lived, Matt wasn’t sure the young flier would bounce back. Maybe he should talk to him. He knew all too well how it felt when someone died because he’d made a mistake. Ultimately, he would order the kid to fly if he had to-they needed recon now more than ever-but it was important for Reynolds to snap out of it on his own… if he could.
Matt took the sheet from Palmer and looked it over before passing it to Spanky. “Stupid,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Palmer agreed. Everyone was mentally and physically exhausted from the labor of repairing the ship. The services for Frankie, Miami, and nearly thirty ’Cat sailors and Marines had left them emotionally drained as well. Sensing the dark mood that prevailed, Palmer quietly left the bridge.
“So what’s the deal, Courtney?” Matt asked. Almost a week had passed since the battle, and Bradford had spent most of the time sequestered with the Governor-Emperor and Sean “O’Casey” Bates. Gerald McDonald was much improved, almost magically so, and Selass had decided not to remove his leg. He would limp forever, but he would walk-and live. Even as the man’s health improved, his rage toward the Dominion became more acute. “Has anybody found Don Hernan yet?”
“Regrettably, no. It’s assumed he’s still hiding on New Scotland, and no leaf shall be left unturned… Realistically, it’s suspected that he already made his escape aboard one of several small craft seen departing Leith, even while the outcome of the battle here was still in question. Unfortunately, no word of the attack reached the town until the following day.”
“Damn.” Matt looked at Spanky. “No, he bolted at just the right time. As soon as Walker steamed into battle, the outcome wasn’t in doubt.”
“Thanks, Skipper, and damn straight! But all we had to do was make a stir while everyone else woke up.”
“And he knew that,” agreed Matt, “so my bet is he’s gone. Damn!” he repeated. “Having that sick bastard on the loose is like walking barefoot and blindfolded through a pen full of rattlesnakes.”
“Silly devil in a red dress-he don’t scare me,” said the Bosun.
“He should, Boats,” Matt told him, “because I’ll also bet that most of this crackpot, shoestring scheme-that almost worked -was his. Had to be. Reed was a true ‘convert,’ and he might’ve even had some pull, but I don’t think the Dominion was taking any orders from him.”
“I doubt our Imperial friends would call a major fleet action a ‘shoestring’ affair either!” Courtney said.
“But it wasn’t supposed to be a fleet action,” said Spanky, “and it wouldn’t have been if us and Jenks hadn’t sniffed a rat.” He shook his head.
“So, Courtney,” continued Matt, a little hesitantly, “you thought you’d wrap up your other ‘negotiations’ today?”
“Um, yes. The Empire of the New Britain Isles formally requests full membership in the Grand Alliance- pending ratification by the other members, of course.”
“That’s what I figured,” Matt replied flatly.
Courtney’s face reddened. “Captain Reddy, you’ve done your job and now I’ve done mine! One reason we came here in the first place was to secure an alliance with these people.”
“Yeah, and maybe we’ve ‘done that job,’ ” Matt ground out, “but we haven’t accomplished our mission.”
“The Company is dead, at least as it was,” Chack offered lamely, blinking uncertainty.
“Yeah, but we didn’t… find the girls… and damn it, we didn’t get… even!”
“You killed Reed,” Gray pointed out.
“Not good enough! Not anymore.” Matt gestured around at the ravaged fleet in the harbor and the damage to his own ship. The destruction and loss suffered ashore weren’t visible, but it was present in all their thoughts. The civilian casualties from the indiscriminate Dom artillery had been appalling. “And the list has gotten a whole lot longer. To ‘get even’ now, we’ve got a full-blown, two-ocean war on our hands! You think Adar will thank us for that?”
“Adar will understand, Cap-i-taan Reddy,” Chack said. “Never forget the person he is. He knows the evil of the Grik. Do not doubt he will recognize the evil of the Dominion, and he is not alone. Most of our people have come to understand that evil, in whatever form, cannot simply be ignored. We have as much reason to help these people against their evil enemy as they have to help us.”
“I guess we’ve just got to fight the ‘war we’re at,’ Skipper, like you said,” growled the Bosun softly. “Wherever we are.”
Ed Palmer rushed back onto the bridge, flourishing another sheet. “Skipper!” he almost shouted.
“What now?” Spanky growled. “Every time you show up like this, somethin’ has just come off the rails. Makes it easier to understand why folks used to kill messengers!”
“We got another transmission from the resupply squadron out of Respite! They finally heard from Manila-good news for a change, sir!” Ed said, glancing at Spanky. “Well, not all good… but the good part’s great, I swear!”
Almost reluctantly, Matt took the sheet and began to read, skipping the preface.
TALAUD ISLAND OBLITERATED BY UNPRECEDENTED VOLCANIC EVENT X MASSIVE WAVE UNKNOWN SIZE HAS STRUCK SOUTH FIL-PIN LAND MINDANAO X NO SURVIVORS FOUND VICINITY OF PAGA-DAAN X SEARCH CONTINUES X SLIGHT DAMAGE MANILA BUT MANY OTHER SETTLEMENTS SEVERELY AFFECTED X RESCUE EFFORT COORDINATED BY COLONEL SHINYA AND ARMY-NAVY ELEMENTS X MAY DISRUPT LOGISTICS TRAIN
