located and laid out, but there were no facilities, fuel, or ordnance in place yet. Keje sank lower against the railing. No, First Fleet would have to fight with what it had.
He glanced down at Salissa ’s flight deck as the last of her Nancys lofted into the sky. There would be one last airstrike before Ellis made his attack, and the pursuit squadrons still carried incendiaries. There was always the chance they could get them through the antiair cannon ports if the enemy opened them. All the planes still carried hand-dropped mortar bombs, but those relied on fierce but relatively light antipersonnel fragmentation and hadn’t been effective at all against the armored ships. Somebody had come up with the bright idea of having the bomb squadrons’ OCs light fuses on the much heavier naval exploding case shot before dropping it on the enemy. Keje shuddered. The fuses were like little signal rocket motors and would flare fiercely-and possibly disastrously. There was a chance someone might drop one of the improvised bombs down an enemy stack, or a near miss detonating alongside might open seams below the waterline. It wasn’t much to hope for. There were better bombs on the way, but for now, they had to make do.
Keje sighed and nodded at Captain Atlaan-Fas. “Get on the TBS yourself. Send to Commodore Ellis on Dowden: Attack the enemy at your discretion, and may the Maker above be with you all.”
USS Dowden
“What a sight!” cried Lieutenant Niaal-Ras-Kavaat, Jim’s exec, while the 1st and 5th Naval Air Wings swirled around the monstrous Grik battlewagons like a swarm of stingers above a herd of rhino pigs. Incendiary bombs spewed rivulets of flame across the ships and the sea, keeping the antiair cannons from firing, if nothing else, and white puffs, like big cotton balls, blossomed around the ships as case shot exploded. Heavy geysers erupted in the air when the bombs hit the water.
“What a sight,” Jim agreed, watching through his binoculars. A form of hell was being unleashed on the oncoming monsters, but as far as he could tell, the six dreadnaughts-suddenly, he had to call them dreadnaughts- just shouldered it all aside and kept on coming. One of the ironclad frigates that remained with the enemy fleet suddenly jetted fire from every port and silently disintegrated under a muddy gray pall. It was long moments before the dull crack of the detonation reached them, but it was drowned by cheering. Jim was tempted to silence the crew. The destruction of the smaller ship meant nothing. Instead, he let them enjoy the moment. He didn’t know what size guns those monsters carried, but they were probably bigger than his-and longer ranged. His crew would get a wake-up soon enough.
He looked aft. Trailing behind Dowden were USS Haakar-Faask, USS Naga, USS Bowles, USS Felts, USS Saak-Fas, USS Davis, USS Ramic-Sa-Ar, and USS Clark. All were newer than Dowden and carried thirty-two- pounders to her twenty-fours, but Dowden was his ship, and would fire the first shots. Suddenly, Jim chuckled.
“What?” Niaal asked, blinking.
“Oh, nothing,” Jim said, then shrugged. “There’s six of them-eight, counting those frigate things they have left-and nine of us. Hell, this is the first time we’ve ever had ’em outnumbered!”
Niaal chuckled uneasily. “Yeah… but maybe we should’ve brought the whole division. I’d feel better if we outnumbered them a little more.”
Jim shook his head, pointing to windward where three more “destroyers” paced them. “They can come up quick enough if it looks like we’re doing any good. No sense wasting good ships and crews if we can’t scratch the bastards!” Niaal nodded, but wasn’t sure he agreed. More ships would disperse the enemy fire between more targets… wouldn’t they?
“Besides,” Jim continued, “if they knock us out, I can’t leave Keje naked. Scott ’s the only new DD he’s got back there.” He forced a grin. “Hoist the battle flag, Mr. Niaal!”
Niaal repeated Jim’s command. Moments later, the oversize Stars and Stripes ran up the halyard and broke to leeward. As the man and ’Cat watched, every trailing ship hoisted its own big flag, and Jim felt a stirring in his chest.
Niaal strode to the cluster of speaking tubes by the helm. Rather ironically, and unlike the Imperials who’d adopted an elevated flying bridge amidships, “American” frigates still retained their primary conning station on the quarterdeck, aft. Maybe it wasn’t as practical, but it was more traditional and the helm was better protected behind the heavy bulwarks on either side. The auxiliary conn was aft as well, but belowdecks and tied into the same speaking tubes. “Range?” Niaal cried into the tube that ultimately snaked up the main mast to the fire-control platform in the maintop.
“Six, fi, double oh,” came the tinny reply.
Dowden may be older, but like her consorts, and most of the warships in First Fleet, she’d recently been fitted with some relatively simple but fundamental improvements. She had a crude VHF radio telephone, a “TBS” (Talk Between Ships) that, though limited to line of sight, allowed her comm officer to speak directly to his counterparts on other ships. It would come in really handy when they had transmitters small enough for aircraft. More important at the moment, Des-Div 4 also had rudimentary fire control. The guns had to be shifted manually from side to side for windage adjustments, but they could be elevated to fire broadsides-true salvos-at relatively precise ranges determined by the gunnery officer. This was accomplished with new electric primers and a gimbaled switch that would complete the firing circuit when the ship was on an even keel. The new rig wasn’t as good as a gyro, of course, but it was better than nothing. In practice, they could now put nearly every round in a ship-size target at fifteen hundred yards-even with smoothbores.
None of these improvements had made it to Second Fleet yet, due to the distances involved. There are probably some politics involved as well, Jim thought grimly. On one level, he understood. The Grik were still perceived as the immediate threat by most, including Adar, and though he supported the Imperial Alliance, he, like most Lemurians, considered the Doms as primarily an Imperial problem. What made that attitude gall Jim was the fact that there were Lemurian-American-ships, crews, and troops in the east, and they shouldn’t be deprived of better equipment simply because some thought their fight was less important. Or maybe in this instance, politics had a place. The Empire was still racked by security issues, and it had been drummed into everyone that, crude as it was, the new fire-control apparatus must never fall into enemy hands. The Japanese would probably come up with something similar for the Grik, if they hadn’t already. (We’re about to find out, Jim thought.) But it should remain a major advantage over the Doms for a long time to come-if nobody squealed. Jim shook his head and concentrated on the business at hand.
“Forty-five hundreds,” Niaal repeated the latest estimate.
“Very well. Sound general quarters.”
“Generaal quarters! Generaal quarters!” Niaal shouted at the ’Cat standing beside the alarm bell. “Clear for action!” The heavy bell began to ring and drums thundered in the waist. Jim clasped his hands behind his back and fixed a calm expression on his face. This would be his first real surface action since the Battle of Baalkpan. He hoped it wouldn’t be his last. More important, though, he hoped he wouldn’t screw it up.
The Grik dreadnaughts churned inexorably closer, their massive, sloping sides rearing high out of the sea. Des-Div 4 had the advantage of the wind, speed, and position, angling to cross the enemy’s projected course. Its first salvos should take the lead Grik ship dead on the bow in succession, and Jim wondered why Kurokawa- It has to be Kurokawa over there, he thought-would so obligingly let him “cross his T.” Was the maniacal Jap really so supremely confident? Jim felt a chill.
“Three thousands!” Niaal reported. Three huge clouds of smoke blossomed at the forward casemate of the oncoming ship.
“Kind of ambitious,” Jim muttered. A few hundred yards short, widely spaced geysers erupted into the sky. They looked like the splashes of the eight-inch cruiser guns that had dogged Walker so long ago.
“Jeez!” Niaal whispered. “Kind of daamn big! Those must be hundred-pounders, maybe bigger!”
“They’ll never hit us from this range. Grik gunnery has always been crap,” Jim reassured him. Reassured himself. “Keep track of the time between shots.”
“Maybe they don’t hit us from here, but we gotta get closer,” Niaal reminded. “Quartermaster! You timing the shots?”
“Ay, sir.”
“All ships will concentrate fire on that devil up front,” Jim ordered, even as the enemy line began to assume an echelon formation, the dreadnaughts behind starting to ease to the side and increase speed. Soon all the enemy ships would be approaching parallel to one another. Jim suspected they would make a coordinated turn to starboard, exposing their port broadsides when Des-Div 4 entered what the enemy considered his own best range. Niaal saw it too.
