accurate enough at this range that it would be hard to miss. On the other hand, if they spread their fire among all the ships, they were less likely to do serious damage to any-but they might disrupt the enemy’s gunnery and cause them to rush their imperfect aim. The second alternative might be safer, but the first was more likely to achieve something. He sighed. This one was his call. He decided on a compromise.
“ Dowden, Haakar-Faask, Naga, Bowles, and Felts will continue firing on the first target-the Grik flagship, most likely,” Jim ordered. “All others will target their opposite numbers in the line of battle. Maybe we can wreck the one while keeping the others shook up.” Niaal repeated the order to fire control and the comm shack.
“Range eight, fi’, oh! Bearing, tree tree seero! Speed… they still turning, but I make it eight knots!” came the report from aloft.
“Match elevations at eight hundred, and fire when ready!” Jim replied.
“Stand by… Stand clear!”
“Clear!” chorused the midshipmen, and the salvo bell rattled for a long moment as the ship steadied. Then, with a thunderous jarring that shook the ship, all twelve starboard guns spat fire and heavy shot. An instant later, Haakar-Faask was enveloped in smoke as her guns thundered. Then Bowles, Naga, and Felts all seemed to fire at once. Even while the mighty spheres were still in flight, the rest of the division opened up on their respective targets.
ArataAmagi
Kurokawa was thrown to the deck of his pilothouse when perhaps fifty heavy shot struck his massive ship with an unprecedented, ear-splitting fury. Somewhere aft, deep, it seemed, he heard a terrible crashing and a chorus of shrieks.
“Fire back, you fools!” he roared. “Destroy those ships at once!”
Akera staggered back to the wheel, catching it as it spun, and leaned over the ship-wide tube. “Commence firing!” he cried. “Commence firing!”
“Not all the guns yet bear!” came the tinny reply, “and we took two roundshot through the open shutters-not to mention some serious dents that time! The timber backing has splintered in many places I can see from here!”
“All the more reason to return fire at once!” Akera almost screamed, glancing quickly at the compass binnacle in front of the wheel. He spun the wheel again. “Fire as they bear!”
Kurokawa had regained his feet, and his eyes smoldered. “Have the special comm division contact General Muriname at his aerodrome! I had hoped we wouldn’t have to use him-it will be costly-but we are taking damage, and the enemy capital ships do not seem inclined to engage. Tell Muriname it is time for his ships to come up! He knows what to do.”
USS Dowden
“That had to leave some bumps,” Ellis muttered, staring through his glasses. The target had almost disappeared behind the blizzard of battering, shattering shot that churned the sea around it with splinters of iron. All his division used iron shot now that enough sources had been found to provide it. With so much copper needed for mixing the bronzelike metal for the big guns, and alloying brass cartridges for the new breechloaders and the “old” modern weapons they had, iron had actually become more disposable. Shot-grade iron was crude, high- phosphor, brittle stuff that could be cast quickly-but the process also made nearly perfect spheres that could be pushed at high relative velocities. Velocity was key to smoothbore accuracy. Without the spin provided by rifling, the shot would eventually hook, but the faster it was going, the farther it went before the hook became apparent. Shot-grade iron also hit nearly as hard as copper, but instead of deforming, it sometimes exploded like a ball of glass. That could be handy against wooden ships and enemy flesh. Maybe it wasn’t so good against armored targets, though…
Jim gazed back down the enemy line. All the Grik dreadnaughts had been hit, and the sunlight revealed suddenly mottled, dented armor that had shone smooth just moments before. Dented, but apparently not broken. He frowned. There’d been a few return shots, but none of his ships had reported any damage. How long can that last? he asked himself anxiously. He heard the gunnery officer shout, “No change, no change! Same elevation!” Cries of “Ready!” reached his ears. “All guns report ready,” Niaal yelled in the tube.
“Stand clear!”
“All clear!”
Jim looked back at the target. A mere instant before Dowden ’s salvo bell began to ring, he saw the side of the dreadnaught vanish behind its own massive, stuttering pall of smoke. The entire Grik battle line and the ships of Des-Div 4 fired almost simultaneously, but the projectiles that passed one another on opposite trajectories didn’t care. The Allied shot flew faster, but the Grik shot was heavier and retained its lower velocity better-and still had more than twice the energy when it hit naked wood.
It was Jim’s turn to tumble to the quarterdeck when two one-hundred-pound balls crashed through his beloved Dowden amid massive near-miss plumes of white seawater that stood high in giant columns around her. The splashes rocked the ship and left her deluged when they collapsed.
“Damage report!” Niaal bellowed, even as Jim quickly jumped to his feet and studied the results of their own fire. The spray around the target was clearing, revealing a sloping iron side that had begun to resemble the surface of the moon.
“She still looks as invincible as ever!” commented Niaal’s lieutenant.
“Maybe,” Jim replied. “But all those dents are going to start raising hell inside her.”
“Commodore!” Niaal cried. “We’re taking water forward. The balls punched straight through both sides of the ship, and one came out at the port waterline! Damage control is trying to plug the hole, but it is very large.”
“Worst case?”
“It won’t sink us. If it comes to that, we can seal the compartment and the pumps will handle the seepage. But it will slow us down.”
“What of the other ships?”
“ Naga and Bowles report damage. Naga ’s is much like ours, but Bowles lost her mizzenmast and her engine. I recommend you order her to retire under sail.”
“No,” Jim said firmly. “She stays in the fight until she falls too far behind. Then she can retire!”
“Stand clear!”
“All clear!”
Dowden spat iron once more, and Jim followed the shoosh! of the shot. Haakar-Faask fired, and her smoke passed in front of him, so he couldn’t see their own broadside strike, but did see Haakar-Faask ’s hit. Was it his imagination, or did he see plates spin away from the enemy and fall into the sea? Something flashed bright at the periphery of his view, and he redirected his glasses toward the rear of the enemy line. The rearmost Grik dreadnaught had just… blown up! There was no way to know what caused it; only Clark had been targeting it. Maybe it was a super lucky shot-or even an accident on the Grik’s gun deck? Whatever the cause, he would take it, and the crew of Dowden cheered and pranced exuberantly as tons of debris splashed into the sea.
“Commodore!” Niaal pointed aft. Haakar-Faask was heeling hard over on her port beam, making a radical starboard turn. Debris was still flying from a massive wound at her stern. Perhaps worse, USS Davis, just aft of Haakar-Faask, looked like she’d just been the target of a gigantic shotgun blast. Her masts and cordage practically sprayed away from her amid a cloud of bright splinters, and steam gushed from her innards. By the extent of the damage and volume of splashes, two Grik dreadnaughts must have targeted her at once, some of the shot pattern catching Haakar-Faask too.
“Jesus!” Jim muttered. “She’s done for! What’s Haakar-Faask ’s status?”
“She just report!” Niaal said. Like many ’Cats, his normally good English slipped under stress. “She lose helm control, but still have auxiliary conn. She back in line soon!”
“Stand clear!”
“All clear!”
BaBOOM! SHHHHHH!
Dowden heaved, and Jim felt like somebody hit him in the face with a baseball bat. It didn’t hurt, not really, but his thoughts were scattered. They always say you see stars, he thought, but purple stars? ’Cats scurried around him and he heard shouts and screams, but for a while-maybe a long while-he didn’t feel like he was really there. “Hey!” he finally said, realizing Niaal was holding him up- For how long? The deck around was scattered with shredded corpses and great, jagged splinters. Jim looked down to see a huge gap that had opened not far away, as
