“He can’t have missed the signal! Such a show!” Blair stopped and looked at the sky. A “Nancy” was burning, plummeting toward the sea. “Terrible!” he said.
Chack looked into the gray-gold sky in time to see another plane, its right wing shredded, spiraling down. A bizarre shape detached itself from the falling “Nancy” and darted off into the darkness. “Something is destroying our planes!” he said in alarm.
“What can it be?”
“I don’t know, but those poor pilots have done their duty. We must do ours. Advance!”
USS Maaka-Kakja
“Something’s taking out our planes!” Orrin Reddy said, entering the bridge from the flight comm shack that overlooked the flight deck. Maaka Kakja was the first carrier to have the separate compartment, as well as the first to have an alternate frequency capability. First Fleet would have it as soon as the new equipment was delivered or the more talented “signalmen” made the simple modifications to the equipment already deployed. Orrin had been listening on the new, dedicated “air” band.
“What is it?” Lelaa asked, blinking concern, looking up from a just-delivered fleet report.
“That’s just it! They don’t know! Some kind of flying things, like giant lizard birds, are jumping them out of the dark, and tearing hell out of the planes. Nobody ever said there were giant lizard birds on New Ireland! And why would they go after our guys? They can’t even fight back!”
In the midst of his alarming report, Lelaa noted Orrin had used the term “our” a couple of times, for the first time, since he began performing the duties she’d set him aboard. She shook her head.
“How many have we lost?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get them to make individual reports, but four for sure. Some may have lost their aerials, but others are damaged and don’t think they can make Glasgow. I told them to try for the fleet, either north or south. If they’re over the island, I told them to make for that big lake by Waterford-if they can find it in the dark! Damn communications! If we could get through to anybody, we could get the guys in the town to light some fires!”
“I cannot contact anyone in the town, but there are plenty of fires in Waaterford, Mr. Reddy. The enemy has begun his assault there, and I’m informed by the Imperial Navy off the coast that the remaining troops at Cork have moved to reinforce.” She turned. “Pass the word for the signalmen to ask any Imperial commander they can contact what those ‘lizard birds’ are and what to do about them. If anyone expected them and didn’t tell us, I want him arrested!”
“But… that’ll leave the guys from Cork cut off with everybody else!”
“It may, for a time. Until we get there. You may have noticed we’ve increased speed.” Her tail swished agitatedly. “That creature, that mouse, Gilbert Yaa-ger, ordered me to come to the engineering spaces and see the murder I was doing to his engines!” She sniffed.
Orrin stopped. “But… will we make it? I mean…”
“Of course. Even Yaa-ger allowed as much, reluctantly. We have never truly done a full-speed trial, and it’s past due. He’s merely protective of the youngling engines.”
“Well… but we’ve got to do something!” Orrin insisted.
“What more can we do?” Lelaa demanded. “We can’t send another air attack, it’s long past dark. We will put Colonel Shinya’s army ashore at dawn, and it will march to the relief of Waaterford. Major Chack has broken into the outskirts of New Dublin, and the Dominion troops that stopped him there were unable to prevent the landing of almost five thousand Imperial Marines in the harbor! One of the forts has been taken already.” Lelaa paused thoughtfully. “Apparently the Dominion cannot use their ‘giant lizard birds’ against ground troops. I suspect the creatures don’t distinguish friend from foe, individually.”
“But what about Waterford?”
“The troops there, even with the reinforcements from Cork are in trouble,” Lelaa admitted. “They amount to only a few hundreds and as your ‘recon’ flights suggested, they face several thousands. Apparently, there were many more enemy soldiers in Bel-faast than we expected.”
Orrin was looking at the chart. “Almost as if they stuck them way out there knowing we’d ignore it.”
“As I now suspect.”
“My guys bombed the column, but it was still strung out, and it didn’t do much good-no lizard birds got after that flight either… .”
“What are you thinking?”
“Captain Lelaa!” interrupted the signalman. “We get dope on ‘lizard birds’!”
“What’s the story?” Orrin asked.
“They not from here! They like ‘draa-gons’ Im-peer-aals hunt as food-sport critters, but these big draa-gons only ever seen in Dom country! They baad-attaack ships sometimes, but nobody ever know they do for Doms! They prob’ly here to pester ships, laand-een boats, up north!”
“Has Sor-Lomaak reported any such incidents?”
“Mebbee so,” the signalman said uncertainly. “They go in with dark and gun smoke. Some few reports say see boat Maa-reens shoot at sky. Mebbe same monsters get planes, then jump on boats-nobody see good.”
“They’ve been keeping the damn things at New Dublin!” Irvin Laumer said, hearing the last as he came onto the bridge.
Lelaa looked back at Orrin. “You were saying?”
“Okay, I do have an idea. First, I get every plane not already committed for New Scotland to make for the lake at Waterford. I take the Tenth Pursuit straight to Waterford now, no bombs, just gas-and weapons for the spotters! We refuel the planes that make it there and rearm them with mortar bombs-they’re the same thing, anyway. That’ll give us airver Waterford, and you can still support the landing with the bombers left aboard here, plus any that refuel and rearm at Glasgow!”
“Flying at night is too risky, especially now with those ‘draa-gons’ out there!”
“Captain, I probably have more night flying time than anybody on this world, next to Lieutenant Mackey. I can get there, and the rest of the squadron can follow me in.”
Lelaa hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. And besides”-he tossed his last ace on the table-“with the planes there, we’ll have communications!”
“Very well, then. How will you defend against the monsters?”
“How many modern weapons are aboard?”
“We brought everything we had with us to get the submarine,” Laumer said. “Two tommy guns, a few Springfields and Krags, and a couple of 1911s.”
“That’s it?”
“Afraid so. There were some Jap rifles and pistols left on Mizuki Maru, but Okada kept them.”
“It’ll have to do. Muskets with buckshot are probably just as good. The pursuit squadron will fly top cover for the bombers and try to keep the lizard birds off them. They won’t need the best spotters, just the best marksmen.”
“I can outshoot anyone here with a pistol,” Sandra said suddenly from the opening to the bridgewing. Her new “orderly,” Diania, stood beside her, the expression on her face betraying the contrast between knowing she probably shouldn’t be there, and daring anyone to send her away. No one had noticed them till now, but they’d clearly caught most of the conversation.
“I’m sure of it,” Captain Lelaa agreed, “but this time I command, and you cannot go. Besides some rather obvious reasons, we will likely need your medical skills quite badly very soon.”
Silva suddenly popped his head around the corner, just above Sandra’s. Diania instinctively recoiled. “Well I damn sure ain’t goin!” Dennis boomed. “Flyin’ in the dark? With wingy Grik birds chasin’ us? My beloved ass!”
CHAPTER 16
USS Walker
I t was still dark when Walker steamed into “Saint Francis” Bay in the wee hours of January 4, 1944, and they
