Carnifex

BdL Dos Lindas

"Captain, we've found something you ought to see."

Fosa nodded his head and said, "Pat, I've got to go. I'll report in around sunset. I might have a better idea of our chances then."

"Before you go, put me on the speaker," Carrera ordered.

Fosa looked over at the communications bench and gave the nod. A sailor flicked a switch. "Go ahead, Pat. Wherever the intercom still reaches, you'll be heard. Fosa, out."

From the speakers, echoing across the length and breadth of the carrier, came, "Duque Carrera to the officers, centurions and men of the classis, and of the tercios Jan Sobieski, and Vlad Tepes: Men, listen; don't stop working to save your ship, but listen. You've taken a hard hit . . . "

* * *

Fosa didn't really listen to Carrera's speech. It wasn't much more than the same generalities he'd been spreading, himself: We've done well . . . they threw the worst they had at us and we took it and came back punching . . . we'll save the ship. He just hoped it was all true.

At the base of the tower he turned around and looked out over the flight deck. Already crews with cutting torches were slicing away the warped sections and forcing some of the underdecking back into position. There was plywood and perforated steel planking, down below, that they could use to make some temporary patches, enough for the Crickets and maybe even a lightly loaded Finch.

From there, he descended down the double stairs to Deck 2. A balcony off that deck overlooked the hangar. He went to the balcony and looked down. The hangar was filled not only with burned and blasted airframes; it had become a morgue, as well. Even now, parties of crewman, some of them hurt themselves, brought in corpses and laid them out respectfully in rows. Some of his crew, Fosa saw, were curled up in fetal positions, their charred limbs eloquent testimony to the fire that had killed them.

You will not throw up, Fosa gave himself the order. Even so, he turned away.

The sailor who had summoned the captain from the bridge said, "This way, sir. By where we took the hit near the stern."

"Lead on."

The way led through the officers' quarters at the stern, past Fosa's and then Kurita's cabin.

What am I going to do without that old man to guide me? Fosa wondered. For, though he had put out the call to find the commodore, no one had as of yet seen a sign. The nearest thing to a report was the mutterings of a now legless and semi-comatose sailor in sickbay, a gunner on one of the port rear platforms. He'd said something about going "back for the commodore."

Fosa rested his hand lightly on the cabin's hatch, then continued on forward and past the filter room and the two rocket storage rooms.

"We found it out here, Skipper" the sailor guiding Fosa said as he pointed to the twisted scrap that had been a gun platform.

Fosa stepped gingerly out onto the ruin of the platform. It seemed solid enough. There was a ruined forty-millimeter gun there, as well. Fosa turned and . . .

"My God," he whispered.

There, against the hull, to all appearances a part of the hull now, was the outline of a small man. He might not have known who it was except for the ancient, once reforged katana that was apparently welded to the hull, and joined to the body's outline by the shadow of a thin arm.

Fosa crossed himself and said a small prayer for the soul of Tadeo Kurita, along with the wish that he now be reunited with his wife and children. For, Lord, he was a good man, and a good sailor, and did his duty as he saw it . . . to the end.

* * *

Fosa looked ahead to where the two corvettes were being rigged to tow the Dos Lindas to port. Astern, they'd managed to get the one remaining AZIPOD working, but it was non-steerable. The corvettes would pull the bow around to steer the ship, with the AZIPOD providing the bulk of the forward drive. He guessed he'd be able to make at least ten knots that way, maybe even twelve, which put the nearest useful and trustworthy port, in Sind, a good eight or ten days' sailing away.

"We're going to make it, Pat," Fosa told Carrera, later that night via secure radio. "We may be pumping like madmen all the way, and we're toast if were attacked at sea, or hit a really atrocious storm. But barring those, we'll make it."

"I've alerted Christian back in Balboa to push to make good your personnel losses," Carrera answered. "A freighter will be sailing in three days with replacements for your lost Crickets and Finches. It will be a month and a half before we can replace your Yakamovs. I've given orders that a cruiser be readied to sail ASAP. That, and that another escort be sent along. But, Rod, we don't have another Patrol Torpedo until we can have some built. Will a corvette do?"

"It will," the captain answered. "Pat, has the cruiser been rechristened yet?"

"No, why?"

"Because I'd like it to bear the name of Tadeo Kurita, if that works for you."