Hell, we’ll win the war all by ourselves!”
CHAPTER 10
TF Maaka-Kakja
D iania crept down the dark companionway, deep in the bowels of USS Maaka-Kakja. Even this far from the engineering spaces, muted machinery noises were audible, and the very wooden fibers of the enormous ship trembled with life. She touched a bulkhead to steady herself on the stairs and felt the throbbing pulse of the twin triple-expansion monsters so far aft, beating like a mighty heart. There was only ambient light from the deck above so close to the forward magazine, and she felt small and vulnerable in the gloom. She had difficulty suppressing a sense of superstitious dread, summoned from distant memories of the admonitions of Dominion priests. She still believed in demons, but they weren’t the animalistic beasts of her childhood-or maybe they were. To her, the most fearsome demons of all were the priests themselves.
She’d become a devout follower of the English faith since her child- hood indenture, and even after her freedom was purchased by the “Americans” on the skinny iron steamer, she clung to it still. The Americans, of both species, seemed to care little what she believed as long as it wasn’t harmful to them or their cause. She kept her faith and found, through conversation, that it wasn’t much different from that of the Lady Sandra. If it had been, that might have caused her to convert, since she was utterly convinced that Sandra Tucker hung the moon.
Diania was in the Navy now; she, along with a number of other Respitan women, had taken the oath to defend the Constitution of the United States-whatever that was. She didn’t really care what the “Constitution” was; she’d have sworn an oath to a rope if Lady Sandra said she should. There’d been some commotion over her enlistment, mostly among the human men, she’d noticed, but she supposed that was to be expected. Women served as Naval Auxiliaries in the Empire, but none were allowed in the Navy itself. Lady Sandra clearly held more power than any woman she’d ever heard of; yet she wielded it with an ease and confidence Diania had rarely seen in men. It was all so strange, but exciting too. The Lemurian females took her induction as a matter of course, and she’d made a lot of friends. Even Sandra wouldn’t let her run around without a shirt, though, as female ’Cats sometimes did, and she wondered what to make of that. Still, she was in the Navy, with all the “rank and privileges” due any “seaman recruit”! She’d been told she could “strike” for any position she desired, and though she’d been a carpentress, she didn’t know if that was what she wanted to do. The great engines fascinated her, but so did the frail-looking “airplanes.” She yearned to learn more about Maaka-Kakja ’s many weapons. For now, however, she was more than content to be Lady Sandra’s “steward” while she learned the ropes and figured out what she did want to do.
She descended below the magazine compartments and the muted voices beyond locked doors, down into the very bottom of the ship. She knew the sea rose high around her outside the mighty hull, and down here she could even hear its booming, disconcerting rumble. Sometimes, she still grasped distant, nightmarish memories of her childhood voyage in the hold of a Company ship. The smell of rot and mildew brought them most readily to mind, but here, the new timbers still smelled sweet and the bilge had not yet soured. She took a lantern from its hook and advanced toward a raised deck where the officer’s stores were kept. She planned to cook something special tonight; as special as she knew how, for Lady Sandra and her friends. She needed some of the purple-brown sugar the “People” used for the glazed topping she wanted to make.
Something stirred in the darkness beyond her feeble light, startling her. All the thoughts of demons must have left her on edge. “Innyone there?” she called quietly. She heard another noise, a slight rustling. “Ach! You! Gi’out! Thisiz off ’ser’s stores! I’ll report ye!” she said, as menacing as she was able. Clutching the lantern and ready to swing it, she advanced. “Gi’out, I say! Show yersef!”
There was a loud clunk! and suddenly a gray-white form lunged from the darkness and fluttered in front of her face, accompanied by a thundering “Booby, booby-boo!”
Diania sprawled backward over one of the massive diagonal braces and dropped the lantern in the shallow water of the bilge. It hissed and died, plunging the compartment into darkness. With a cry, she scrambled to her feet and raced for the feeble light of the companionway she’d just descended, launching up the stairs like a rocket. Behind her, the deep, demonic voice continued chanting, “Booby-boo! Booby-boo!”
The demon didn’t pursue her. She made it through the darkened forward magazine spaces where the various types of ordnance were stored, levering past a growing number of staring ’Cat sailors and working her way aft. She’d chosen to traverse that deck instead of the one above because of the quicker association with non-demonic creatures, but now she was anxious to get into the light. Gasping, she raced up the compaionway forward of the number one fireroom and found herself on the broad but cluttered hangar deck. Spinning, looking for someone she knew, she attracted even more stares before scrambling to starboard through the jumble of “Nancys” and the surprised crews working on them. There was only one place left to go; she’d find Lady Sandra on the bridge. She might not believe her-Diania didn’t know Sandra’s position on demons-but she’d seen something in the hold, and people had to know… before whatever it was ate a hole in the ship!
It was windy topside, and Sandra’s increasingly customary ponytail had been undone by the stiff, westerly gale. She faced into the wind alongside Colonel Shinya and Captain Lelaa, her still sun-streaked and tow-highlighted hair streaming to leeward. It was too long, she thought, longer than she’d ever allowed, and it was difficult to control and much too difficult to style. Matt had once hinted that he liked it long, however, and she meant to surprise him. Who knows how long it’ll grow before I see him now, she thought moodily. She didn’t know exactly what she expected would happen when they reunited in “the Isles,” but she was sure what she hoped for. With the end of the “dame famine,” their own situation had finally changed, and she supposed she harbored inner fantasies of a dramatic, romantic, Imperial wedding. But Walker wasn’t there. She’d steamed into the vast Eastern Sea to protect their new allies’ important colonies from a threatened Dom attack.
It was necessary she knew, and only the old destroyer had the speed to get there in time, but she was beginning to wonder if hers and Matt’s stars weren’t doomed to be crossed forever. She sighed. We’ve all been through so much, and I’ve become… such a sight; nearly thirty now too… She couldn’t always suppress an almost- instinctual concern that he might not even want her anymore. She honestly doubted that. She didn’t think she’d have fallen for him if he was that sort. But she was a woman, and despite her outward confidence and professionalism, she possessed normal apprehensions and insecurities common to the species, she supposed. She sighed again.
Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan felt the almost-imperceptible working of the ship and watched the oilers pitch dramatically alongside. The whitecapped sea had become a sparkling metallic gray beneath a humid, gray-blue sky. She heard her friend’s sighs and suspected what was on the human female’s mind. She found it vaguely amusing that the “iron woman” could worry so about nothing. She didn’t personally know Captain Reddy well, but his and Sandra’s unrequited love had reached almost-mythical, if imponderable dimensions within the Alliance. Of course, based on the extremely limited examples, human mating customs in general were imponderable to Lemurians. The People were straightforward about such things, and either a male or female, usually of higher perceived status, might “propose” to a prospective mate. Sometimes, among sea folk, this even involved mating outside one’s “clan,” or specialty, but that was rare. Those within the same clan, or among land folk in general (Aryaal and B’mbaado aside) who were considered “equal,” often gravitated toward “matrimony” in an apparently more “human” way, through a style of courtship in which prospective partners became intimately acquainted. All this was more tradition than rule, but it was fairly universal-at least before the war. Now, many of the old clans-wing runners, Body of Home, etc.-were becoming increasingly diverse and fragmented into something like “clans” representing the various naval divisions. There were attempts to found ordnance clans, engineering clans, deck clans, all under the greater umbrella of “snipe” and “ape” clans, within the overall “Amer-i-n Na-vee” clan, but this sort of regimentation was frowned on and even discouraged by the senior officers. It was all very confusing, and the “sub” clan system itself was probably doomed. Regardless, considering how long Matt and Sandra had “courted,” and how well they had to know each other by now, Lelaa thought it appropriate to worry about the man’s safety; he was a warrior on a dangerous mission. She considered it silly to worry about his feelings.
Tamatsu Shinya was thinking about other things. The effort to “liberate” New Ireland was scheduled to begin almost immediately. He understood the political necessity but thought the attempt precipitous. Chack and Blair’s plan seemed sound, and he had confidence in it. Besides, even if it failed, or came apart in some unforeseen way,
