The Chosen

making some hits by now with my twelve-inchers.'

'As you were, Gridley,' Farr said emotionlessly.

'Yes, sir.'

Two more Land aircraft were making runs at the Santander flagship, both twin-engine models. One was carrying a torpedo clamped underneath it; the other carried more of the sixty-pound bombs. He stiffened ever so slightly; the torpedo was a real menace, and he hadn't know that aircraft could be rigged for-

The torpedo splashed into the shallow green water. Seconds later it detonated in a huge shower of mud. The Land biplane flew through the column of spray, its engines stuttering. Just then one of the four-barrel pom-poms on the side of the central superstructure cut loose. It was loud even in comparison to the general racket of battle, and the glowing globes of the one-pound shells seemed to flick out and then float, slowing, as they approached it. That was an optical illusion. The explosion when the aircraft flew into a dozen of the little shells was very real; it vanished in a fireball from which bits of smoking debris fell seaward.

The stick of bombs from the next aircraft fell in a neat bracket over the Santander battleship, raising gouts of spray that fell back on the deck. Tentacled things floated limply on the water, or landed on the deck and lashed their barbed organic whips at the riveted steel.

Thud. Flash. Thud. Flash. The eight-inch guns of the Land cruisers on the other side of the shoal were opening up on him. He smiled thinly, observing the fall of shot. Water gouted up, just short of the leading elements of his seventeen battleships-the eighteenth, the President Cummings, was aground on a mudbank back half a kilometer and working frantically to it. The shell splashes were colored, green and orange and bright blue, dye injected into the bursting charges to let observers spot the point of impact. All were just a little short, although the foremost Santander battleship had probably been splashed. Another flotilla of four-stacker destroyers was darting out from behind the Land heavy ships, surging forward over the shoal water impassable to the deeper keels.

For a moment, he abstractly admired their courage. Then he spoke:

'Secondary batteries only, if you please.'

'Yes, sir. Admiral, there may be mines in the channel ahead.'

'I don't think so; we rushed them. In any case, damn the mines, continue course ahead.'

'Yes, sir.'

The Great Republic had her weapons arranged as most modern warships did: two heavy turrets fore and aft, in this case twin twelve-inch rifles, and four turrets for the secondary armament, two on either side just forward and abaft the central superstructure. That meant each of the battleships could fire a broadside of four eight-inch secondaries. They bellowed, the muzzle blasts enough to rock every man on the bridge and remind them to keep their mouths open to avoid pressure-flux damage to the eardrums. Shells fell among the Land destroyers, sixty-eight at a time. Four destroyers were hit in the first salvo, disappearing in fire and black smoke and spray as the heavy armor-piercing shells tore into their fragile plate structures.

One destroyer came close enough to the Great Republic to begin to heel aside, the center-mounted three-tube torpedo launcher swinging on its center pivot. Every pom-pom on the battleship cut loose at it, hundreds of one-pounder shells striking from stem to stern of the destroyer's long slender hull. So did the six five-inch quick-firers in sponson mounts along the armored side. Afterwards, Farr decided that it had probably been a pom-pom shell hitting a torpedo warhead that started the explosions, but it might have been a five-incher penetrating into a magazine. The light was blinding, but when he blinked back his sight and threw up a hand against the radiant heat there was still a crater in the water, shrinking as the liquid rushed back into the giant bubble the shock wave had created. Of the destroyer there was very little to see.

Another salvo of Land eight-inch shells went by, overhead this time.

All along the line of Santander battlewagons the main gun turrets were turning, muzzles fairly low-they were close enough now that the flat trajectories of the high-velocity rifles would strike without much elevation. Farr didn't trust high-angle fire at long range; it was deadly when it hit, but the probabilities were low given the current state of fleet gunnery.

He smiled bleakly. I've waited a long time for this, he thought. Aloud:

'You may fire when ready, Gridley.'

Sixty-eight twelve-inch guns spoke within two seconds of each other, a line of flame and water rippling away from the muzzle blast all along the two-mile stretch of the Santander gunline. The Great Republic shivered and groaned, her eighteen-thousand-ton mass twisting in protest. The massive projectiles slapped out over the furrows the propellant gasses had dug in the water, reaching the height of their trajectory as the sea flowed back.

Then they began to fall towards the Chosen, multiple tons of steel and high explosive avalanching down. When their hardened heads struck armor plate, it would flow aside like a liquid.

* * *

Heinrich Hosten looked out over the harbor of Barclon with throttled fury. The surface of the water was burning, floating gasoline and heavier oils from the sunken tankers still drifting in flaming patches. The masts of sunken freighters slanted up out of the filthy water, among the floating debris and bodies. A few hulls protruded above the surface, nose-down with the bronze propellers dripping into the filth below. Other columns of smoke showed low on the western horizon, where the Santander battleships and their consorts were heading for home. The air stank of death and burnt petroleum, with the oily reek of the latter far more unpleasant.

'At least the enemy are withdrawing,' the naval attache said.

Heinrich swallowed bile. 'Captain Gruenwald, the enemy are withdrawing because they have accomplished their mission and there are no targets left which warrant risking a capital ship. Now, get down there and see what assets we have left-if any. Or get a rifle and make yourself useful. But in either case, get out of my sight.'

'Jawohl.'

The naval officer clicked heels, did a perfect about-face, and left. Heinrich's head turned like a gun turret to his chief of staff.

'Report?'

'We got about ninety percent of the troops and support personnel off the transports,' he said. 'Half the supplies, mostly ammunition. Very little of the food'-it had been in the last convoys-'and only about one-quarter of the motor fuel. We may be able to recover a little more from tankers sunk in shallow water.'

So much for the masterpiece of my career, Heinrich thought. An operation going absolutely according to plan, which was a minor miracle-until the Santander fleet showed up. It could have been worse. A day earlier, and they'd have slaughtered the entire army at sea.

Aloud: 'Well, then. Immediate general order: All motor fuel to be reserved for armored fighting vehicles. The officers can walk or ride horses. Next, the reports from the other elements.'

This was a four-pronged invasion: his, down here in the coastal plain; an air assault on Nueva Madrid and points between here and there; and the two overland drives into the mountains on the Sierras northern and southern flanks.

'Sir. Brigadier Hosten reports successful seizure of the central government complex in Nueva Madrid, most of the personnel on the critical list, of the National Armory, and the refinery. The refinery will be operational within six to ten days. She anticipates no problem holding her perimeter until linkup with the main force. All the other air- landing forces report objectives achieved.'

Heinrich grunted with qualified relief. The rhythm of operations would be badly disrupted still, but at least he wouldn't run completely dry of fuel when what he had on hand was gone. When he held the triangle of territory based on the Gut and reaching to Nueva Madrid, the bulk of Sierra's population and industry would be under Chosen control.

The aide went on: 'General Meitzerhagen reports that the northern passes are now secured and he is advancing south along the line of the railway. Resistance is disorganized but heavy and consistent. Also, there have already been raids on his line of communication.'

Heinrich grunted again, running a thick finger down the line of rail leading towards the central lowlands, with a branch westward along the Rio Arena.

'My compliments to General Meitzerhagen, and his followup elements are to secure the line of rail by liquidating the entire population within two days foot-march of the railways.'

The aide blinked; that was a little drastic, even by Chosen standards. Cautiously, he asked, 'Herr