firing!”
Shortly after, Salissa flinched again as the powerful gun sent its two-hundred-pound shell shrieking toward the enemy. It landed short, but it threw up a geyser that dwarfed any other so far that day. Keje stepped back out on the bridgewing for an unobstructed view of the enemy. A haze of smoke and mist still hung where the shell had fallen, and the target had turned slightly to port. One of its stacks was gone, perhaps a victim of the 5.5-inchers. The ships behind it-except for the
derelict, now burning fiercely-were also beginning to turn, moving into a line abreast once more, just as they had against Des-Div 4.
“I think this fight will soon grow more lively,” Atlaan observed with a nervous flick of his tail. “They turn a thousand tails farther out, but they are clearly in range to hit, at least occasionally, and once the turn is complete, they will have many more guns to try it with.”
Keje paced behind him, his mind racing. He had learned a great deal about his new role in this war and thought he had done reasonably well commanding the carriers of First Fleet. That was only part of his greater responsibility as CINCWEST, however, and in that position he knew he had performed… poorly. The looming disaster on land and the mauling of Des-Div 4 was sufficient evidence of that. As much as General Aalden blamed himself for the mess ashore, Keje knew he bore the greater responsibility and deserved the greater blame. He just didn’t have the strategic wits and flexibility to control such a large, diverse campaign-and he’d been taken as much by surprise as any other by the sudden improvements and flexibility of the enemy. Somehow he should have foreseen… There had been signs, as early as Saa-lon. He hadn’t ignored them, but he hadn’t taken sufficient precautions either. This was all his fault! Maker above, but I wish Captain Reddy was here!
Now the enemy was turning west, forming its new line of battle while also shaping a course toward Madras. His few options had just been further limited.
“Ahd-mi-raal, what are your orders?” Atlaan asked almost desperately. The number one gun roared again, and Keje shook himself. Now was not the time for self-pity. He must be decisive, and he had to get it right. Huge waterspouts straddled his ship, but none hit that time.
“I do not think they can pierce our sides at this range,” Keje said at last, then gestured out at the flight deck. “But their plunging fire can do great harm. We could turn and present our own broadside, but then the great gun may no longer bear.” Even shortened, the massive number one was so long and heavy that its traverse was limited to barely seventy degrees in the space it occupied. “Besides,” he concluded grimly, “as the distance narrows, Salissa cannot survive trading broadsides with four of those armored monsters for long, and this ship must be preserved, whatever happens here today. We will keep our distance; let our long-range guns do their work!” He paused, considering how best to accomplish that.
“Slow to two-thirds,” he ordered. “We will let the enemy get ahead of us, then pursue. If he continues on toward Maa-draas, so much the better; we can work our way up from behind, destroying his ships as we advance!”
Atlaan blinked hopefully and gave the order.
Keje’s gaze was drawn to the west by a peripheral flare of light. Perhaps ten miles away, toward the hazy dark coast of Indiaa, Captain Tikker and his pursuit ships had intercepted the enemy zeppelins. One had crumpled and was falling toward the sea, trailing a smear of flame and black smoke. With a start, Keje realized that two
smaller smoke trails were already tumbling to the sea. The salvo bell rang and the 5.5-inchers roared.
“What is happening to our planes?” he demanded of Lieutenant Newman, who hurried into the pilothouse.
“Yess!” Tikker shouted as his smoky tracers ignited the hydrogen they’d released from the Grik airship before him and it began to fall within a quickly growing ball of fire. He banked right and pulled back on the stick, lining up another target. Suddenly, he saw one of his planes almost stagger in midair, then pitch downward trailing a thin stream of smoke.
“Tell them not to get too close!” he shouted to his OC. “They have weapons, some sort of small cannons, remember?” Another Nancy was tumbling down!
“I tell them,” the OC cried back, tinny, scared. “But I already getting reports these zeps got more little cannons than usual!”
“What? They can’t carry more cannons if they have their usual bomb load!” His crude sights aligned on his target and he pulled the lever that would depress the trigger on his gun. The plane shook violently while tracers arced into another zeppelin. Something hit his starboard wing as he blew by, beneath an airship he hadn’t had an angle on. He looked out at the wing and saw a frightening number of holes. Another gun from the same source fired at him, but must have missed aft. “Daamn! They do have more guns, and they’re pretty good with them!” He looked back at his target and saw it drooping, but then at least four small guns, all in the forward gondola, fired at him at once!
“Sheet!” He chirped. A number of half-inch holes appeared in his ship, and something stung his neck. With the detonation of its guns, however, his target literally exploded in flames, falling in burning chunks toward the sea. They must have lit their own gas, he thought, feeling his neck with his fingers. They came away bloody. He took a moment to make sure his engine sounded okay and all the controls still worked.
“You still back there?” he asked.
“Yes.” The OC’s voice sounded shaken.
“They gotta have at least eight little-like, swivel guns-on those things. Maybe more!” he shouted. “Send it!” If each of those guns was loaded with a double handful of half-inch balls, they could throw a lot of metal at his planes that had to get close-and fly steady for a moment-just to fire a single shot. He was through the Grik formation, and he banked left to make another run. “Maker!” he breathed. The sky was filled with fire and long trails of smoke. Zeppelins were falling, engulfed in flames, but at least one more of his planes was spiraling down toward the sea.
“Cap-i-taan! I only get four rogers, an’ two o’ them say they hit bad! The other ship with maa-sheen gun losing oil pressure. He gonna try to make it to Maa-draas!”
Tikker was stunned. In just a few short minutes, he was down to only three planes, and there were probably a dozen Grik zeps still headed for Second Fleet! No, he realized, they’re heading for Salissa! “Tell what’s left to keep their distance-don’t bore in! Try to snipe them around the edges!”
“Ay! But… what we do?”
Tikker blinked a shrug. “We have to bore in. The gun’s in the nose, remember? I’m going to try something different, though.”
He pulled up, climbing above the enemy, then pushed the stick forward. They can’t have guns on top of those things… can they? He hadn’t seen any place for one before, and it was assumed the Grik dirigibles probably leaked at least a little gas all the time. Setting off something that spat a lot of fire up top like that would have to be pretty dumb. A zeppelin appeared in his sights, and he hosed it hard. Even as flames belched from the seam he’d torn, he pulled up slightly and fired at the next in line. Black smoke and rising, burning fragments of fabric engulfed the plane as he eased left. If the second target went up like the first, he didn’t want to fly through the fireball! He broke out of the smoke and barely missed colliding with another zeppelin just off the port wingtip. He blew by so fast and so suddenly that the enemy never had time to fire at him. He looked up as he darted under the airship-and saw something strange.
He was behind and below the formation now, and he slammed the Nancy into a tight, banking turn to bring it back around. Rising from aft of one of the trailing machines, he started to pull the firing lever… but waited a moment. He couldn’t see any guns on the aft “bomb” gondola, and he wanted a better look at what he’d seen. Drawing closer, he noticed that the gondola had no floor, at least not a complete one. There was a large rectangular hole in the bottom-and nestled inside, protruding down a bit, was what looked like a really big bomb!
“Maker!” he mumbled. But that didn’t make any sense! The zeps already had a lot of new weight forward-the guns. Calculations had determined about what the zeps ought to be able to carry, and the added guns had to eat into that. So how could they carry something else that big, unless… Maybe they had fewer crew than usual forward. Maybe they weren’t carrying much fuel… And maybe the bomb wasn’t as heavy as it looked. No more time. With his sight in the vicinity of the bomb, he pulled the firing lever. Tracers arced in, and the zeppelin exploded with a force that tossed Tikker’s Nancy away like a youngling’s paper toy in a Strakka wind.
