Down to the Sea

EIGHTEEN

Dawn came slowly, with low scudding clouds racing in from the sea, bringing moments of driving rain that passed quickly to show brief glimpses of clear pale blue sky overhead.

Standing by the number three dock of the naval yard, Cromwell waited anxiously with the knot of officers. Beyond the gate blocking access to the pier, he could see hundreds gathered; enlisted personnel, naval yard workers, and wives, hundreds of frightened wives, their murmuring voices carrying with the wind.

It was obvious the frigate had been in a fight. Its foremast was gone, the aft turret was nothing but scorched ruins, and the ship was listing heavily at the stern, black coiling smoke curled up from several breaks in the deck.

A harbor tug eased it into the dock, lines snaking out from the shore. Sailors on board, more than one of them striped to the waist, their bodies blackened from smoke, grabbed the lines, securing them. The gangplank was barely down when a dozen officers raced aboard, the rest of the crowd held back by a line of sailors with rifles.

In less than a minute, one of the officers was coming back down the gangplank. Ignoring shouted pleas for information, he mounted up and rode to the gate, a detail of sailors falling in around him so that he could get through the mob waiting outside the navy yard.

If he wouldn’t talk, the sailors lining the deck of the shattered frigate most certainly would. Within moments Cromwell heard the comments racing through the crowd on the dock…“fleet sunk…Bullfinch dead…everything gone…the Kazan are coming!”

The word seemed to leap like a lightning bolt to the mob beyond the gate. A wild hysterical cry erupted, a commingling of screams, prayers, curses, and weeping.

Hundreds tried to surge in as the gate slipped open to let the mounted officer pass, others turned and started running back to the city.

A flurry of shots startled Cromwell. The officer, pistol raised over his head, emptied his revolver, and the crowd quieted.

“All military personnel report to your stations,” he shouted in Greek. “All dockyard personnel report to work. The rest of you civilians go to your homes and prepare to evacuate the city.”

Cromwell shook his head at the last statement. The city would be in utter chaos within the hour.

He looked over at General Petracci who stood silent, leaning heavily on his cane. Jack had come in the evening before, transferring his headquarters to where most of his airfleet was now stationed.

Jack was ignoring the madness erupting around them, looking up at the sky.

“Lousy day for flying. Wind will be up. We better start getting ready.”

“Ship in sight!”

Adam, who had been handing a wrench up to his crew chief, heard the cry as it raced along the main deck. All work stopped, and he felt a momentary panic. If it was an enemy ship they were dead; every aerosteamer had been secured below during the storm, the first of the Falcons was just starting to go up the ramp to the flight deck.

He left his chief and went through the wooden door to the base of the bridge at a run, then scrambled up the ladder to the tower. It was a violation of etiquette to enter the admiral’s realm without being ordered, but if the fight was erupting he had to know.

The admiral ignored his presence, looking forward, glasses raised. Adam respectfully stood behind him, finally spotting the smudge of smoke and then the glint of reflected sunlight.

“One of ours,” Petronius announced, “and she looks like she’s been in a fight.”

The early morning light struck the cresting waves, and if they were not in such danger, Adam realized, it would have been a beautiful sight. With the passing of the storm front the air was freshening, shifting around to the west northwest, bringing with it a drop in humidity as the wind came sweeping down out of the mountains with a touch of coolness to it.

The storm-green sea, which had been driven inward by the southerly winds of the day before, was now a mad confusion of whitecaps and short, sharp waves, which hissed and rolled.

The minutes dragged out, Adam finally borrowing a pair of glasses from the first officer. Adjusting the focus, he finally caught sight of the ship. It was a cruiser, and Petronius was right, it had obviously been in a fight. Smoke from its stacks was swirling out, but there was smoke from several fires as well, white plumes of steam, and part of a mast leaning over drunkenly.

He caught a flicker of light winking on and off.

“She’s signaling,” Petronius announced.

The ship’s signals officer was out the door to the open bridge, glasses up, with Petronius following. Adam cautiously stepped into line behind the admiral.

The signals officer turned to the enlisted man working the shutter lamp.

“Send reply. ‘Shiloh. Wilderness and Perryville following astern. Malvern Hill, please report situation.”

Adam listened to the clatter of the lantern shutter, trying to follow the Morse code, the sailor signaling so fast it was hard to keep up.

The signaling done, Adam started to raise his glasses to watch the reply, but the first officer reclaimed his property. Stepping back, he listened as the signals officer started to read the response from the cruiser Malvern Hill.

“Believe all cruisers of fleet destroyed,” and a gasp swept through the bridge. “Action last night five miles south of Three Sisters, Minoan Shoals. Four enemy battleships and numerous other ships engaged. One battleship believed sunk. Three of our frigates following astern. End message.”

Petronius, face pale, turned and looked around at his staff, shaking his head.

“Ask him about Bullfinch.”

Again the clattering and a quick reply.

“Believe dead. Antietam sunk.”

“Position of enemy fleet,” Petronius asked, making no comment on the reported death of his old friend.

“Last sighted steaming west, five miles south of Minoan Shoals. Believe they will attack Constantine by late afternoon. Am ordering remains of fleet to withdraw up Mississippi. Your orders?”

Petronius walked back into the shelter of the enclosed bridge and sat down in his chair. A gesture to a midshipman resulted in a steaming mug of tea, which Petronius slipped in silence for several minutes.

He finally looked up at the officers gathered round.

“Fight or withdraw.”

There was silence, finally the first officer spoke up.

“Malvern Hill is shot to pieces, we can see that. Admiral Bullfinch is gone. If we put our backs against Constantine we’ll be pinned and shot to pieces as well, sir. Captain Ustasha over in Malvern Hill is right, let’s come about. The Mississippi is only two hours behind us. Pull back up the river.”

There were nods of agreement, finally Petronius’s gaze settled on Adam.

“The air corps has transferred nearly everything they have down to Constantine. They won’t pull out without a fight, sir. They will launch a strike,” Adam said. “We need to support it.”

“In this wind?” the first officer replied. “It must be gusting to thirty knots.”

“It will flatten by the end of the day.”

“If that battle was fought last evening they will be off the coast of Constantine by three this afternoon at the latest,” and as he spoke, he pointed forward, for the city was now less than five hours sailing time away at full speed.

Petronius looked from the first officer back to Adam and all fell silent.

“I’m with young Mr. Rosovich here,” Petronius replied softly. “I’ve never turned my back on a fight, and I’ll be damned if we do it now.”

Adam looked over at him, obviously surprised by the response.

“But, sir,” the first officer replied heatedly, “if Admiral Bullfinch and our entire fleet couldn’t stop them and got annihilated trying, then what the hell can we do. We don’t have a gun on this ship, just a bunch of crates that can barely fly.”

“We can die trying,” Petronius said, then paused, looking around at the group. “But we’ll do it with some intelligence, gentlemen, some intelligence.”

For a wonderful, blessed moment, the high scattered clouds cast a shadow over the butte. Abe crawled out from under his shelter half, Togo calling to him.

He tried to walk erect, but his head was swimming. Feet like lead, he shuffled slowly, kicking up dust, a broken arrow, spent cartridges. He squatted down by the sergeant’s side.

Togo was pointing toward the ravine to the north and offered his glasses. Several Bantag were out of the ravine, one of them holding a bucket, pouring water over the others. They paused, as if knowing they were being watched, and waved.

“Should I try a shot, Lieutenant? Arrogant bastards.”

Abe shook his head.

“Save what we got,” he croaked.

It had been a ghastly night, followed by an even worse dawn. Three times the Bantag had tried to scale the butte, the last fight hand-to-hand along the eastern rim. The dead from both sides lay where they fell; it was beyond asking the men to scratch holes in the hard ground, or to expend what energy they had left dragging the Bantag bodies off to push over the side. The one benefit of the charge was that nine of the Bantag dead had water sacks on them, enough so that a small cupful could be doled out to each man with enough left over for two cups for the surviving wounded.

Just before dawn the suicides started. Three men shot themselves in quick succession, while two simply stood up and charged over the rim. Abe had managed to stop two more, one by sitting and talking with the trooper until the boy broke down into sobs until he fell asleep, the second one with a fistfight that had sapped what little energy he had left.

Abe looked around at his perimeter. Maybe fifty men left who could fight, another forty or so wounded, dying, or beyond caring, lying comatose.

“Lieutenant,” Togo whispered. “Your speech was all mighty fine, but if we don’t get water and food, well, it’ll be over with by the end of the day.”

Abe wearily nodded.

“We wait till dark. You and the sergeant major,” and he nodded to the old man who was dozing in the shade of a blanket propped up with several Bantag spears, “break out down the west slope. Maybe some of you can get into those ravines and find a way out.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll stay here with the wounded.”

“A lot of good that will do, Lieutenant. This isn’t the time to get sentimental or play some heroic game. You stay here, you die, and it won’t be pleasant. Those buggers take you alive and figure out who you are, it’ll be a slow death.” Abe shook his head.

“I don’t think so, and they won’t take me alive.”

“Then I stay, too.”

“No. If anyone can lead these men out, it’s you.”

Togo sighed and finally nodded in agreement.

“You know none of us will make it. They’ll expect this.”

“I know.”

Togo laughed.

“Rice wine. A gallon of it, that’s what I’ll have when I get to where I’m going.”

“Lieutenant!”

He got up and half crawled to where a trooper on the west side was calling, pointing.

Abe could see it, mounted Bantag in the ravine. “Sergeant major! Round up ten men, get them over here.”

A hundred riders swept up out of the ravine and came forward at the charge.

“Wait for it,” Abe said. “Sergeant major, pass out the reserve ammunition one round at a time!”

The riders crossed the first four hundred yards without a shot being fired.

The last two hundred yards they swept in as before, low in the saddles. The Bantag dug in at the fallen redoubt resumed their harassing fire of launching arrows nearly straight up, shafts clattering down, striking ground. A trooper cursed as one caught him in the calf.

Measured shots snapped off, dropping several of the riders. Most of them dismounted, scurrying up to the wall and dodging in amongst the boulders and rocks. A few raced forward, coming up the slope, but were dropped by carefully placed shots.

The fight slacked off.

Several of the men looked at Abe, not sure of what was to come next.

“Just to see if we still had some fight in us,” he announced. He didn’t add that the reinforcements meant that any hope of breaking out had been sealed shut. The Bantag wanted to make sure that no one escaped.

“Sir?”

It was Togo, kneeling up and pointing.

He saw it too, and within seconds so did the others. There was a feeble shout, then men stood up, waving.

High up, half a dozen miles off, a dot was moving across the sky, slowly floating along…a flyer.

Men started shouting, taking off hats, waving, ignoring the flurry of sniper shots fired from the ravines. But the flyer continued on its way, never swerving from its course, tracking off to the northwest, growing smaller and yet smaller until it disappeared.

Abe knew that whatever faint hope still lingered with his men had finally broken at that moment. If a flyer had patrolled out this way and not seen them, it would not search there again. There were ten thousand square miles or more of ground where they might be lost, and that was assuming that the courier he had sent off had even made it back to the regiment.

Wearily he stood up and headed to the hospital tent, to take the medical orderly aside and ask him what was the most humane thing to do for those men who were unconscious when night came. He knew what the answer would be, and dreaded the thought. As he walked past the major, the madman simply sat there and glared, then broke into a taunting laugh.

Commander Cromwell walked down the flight line, thrilling to the sound of a hundred engines turning over, warming up; air crews and ground crews running past. He recognized several of them, classmates from the academy who had gone on to the air corps while he had joined the naval wing.

Every plane possible had been pressed into service, fifty at this field, nearly seventy more at the other two fields hastily laid out in the narrow plains behind Constantine.

There had been over a hundred and fifty, but without hangars for the larger ships or sheltered tie downs, nearly a quarter of the entire air corps had been destroyed by the storm before a single shot was fired.

Cromwell reached his aerosteamer, the Ilya Murometz he had flown two days before. Igor was already up in the cockpit, running the final checks, and Octavian was in his gatling position astern. Xing, however, had been replaced after complaining of a sudden stomach ache. It was just as well, Richard thought, since the forward gunner was also the bombardier. Approaching the massive airship, he spotted the new aimer. Surprisingly, a Cartha like himself named Drasulbul. They shook hands, then he crouched down to look under the plane.

The four bombs were in their racks. At five hundred pounds each, it was the heaviest load any of the attackers would carry this day. He would have given anything to have the weapons on the aerosteamer carriers.

He walked around his plane, pausing for a second to watch as a Falcon took off. It barely rolled a hundred feet before it was up, nearly losing control in the gusty wind then leveling out. Another Falcon was airborne, and then a third.

He went up the ladder into the cockpit, slipping into the seat opposite Igor. His copilot and top gunner said nothing, just pointed to the gauge for the outboard starboard engine.

“Running a hundred revolutions a minute off, we’re not getting the heat on the engine. It’ll cut our speed a good five miles an hour. If it acts up, we’ll lose it.”

Cromwell stared straight at Igor.

“You suggesting we stand down?”

Igor gave him a tight lipped smile and shook his head.

“Just thought you should know.”

“What the hell,” Richard replied, “we’ll make it there, that’s the main thing.”

“How far out are they?”

“Thirty miles, last report.”

Two enemy scout planes had crossed over Constantine just before noon, flying high at well over five thousand feet. Neither of them had been caught by the four Falcons sent up in pursuit. Two of the Falcons had made it back with the latest fix. The watch tower on Diocletian Hill above the town had telegraphed a report just before he’d left the briefing, declaring that smoke was visible on the horizon.

Two more Falcons took off. A gust of wind upended one of them, wing clipping the ground and tearing off, the ship cartwheeling, then bursting into flames.

“Well there’s one that didn’t need his parachute,” Igor growled.

Richard said nothing. Petracci had announced that except for the Falcon pilots flying cover, no parachutes would be issued. It saved nearly a hundred pounds per man, a crucial factor where every pound saved was eight additional rounds for the gatlings. As for the attack aerosteamers, they would be flying too low to ever use them. Besides, there simply were not enough to go around.

A crew chief came running down the flight line, stopping in front of Cromwell’s plane and signaling for him to rev up.

Two more Falcons lifted, then two more. The ten Goliaths were next, lumbering off one at a time, straining to lift the ton of weight strapped under their fuselages.

The crew chief pointed to the right, signaling for Richard to begin taxiing out, a dozen men on the wings pushed, helping him to turn.

A Goliath floated past, propellers a blur. Three more Goliaths were ahead of him, the lead one turning, lining up to lift off…and then it burst into flames.

For several long seconds Richard sat, transfixed, not sure exactly what had gone wrong. He saw the aft gunner of the burning Goliath staggering out of the fire, wreathed in flames. No one was helping, men running in every direction. Richard’s crew chief pointed up, then turned and started to run as well.

Richard slid open his side window and stuck his head out to look at an aerosteamer diving straight at him, a light sparkling from above its upper wing. A shot cracked through the starboard wings of his plane, striking the ground.

Then the realization hit.

“Igor, we’re under attack. Get topside, do something. I’m taking this crate off!”

“You need both of us for that.”

“Do it!”

Richard started to rev up his starboard engines. The Goliath pilot who was next in line looked over at him, and he pointed to the takeoff strip, then up.

The pilot nodded, and seconds later the two-engine ship swung out onto the runway, starboard wing swinging within a few feet of the burning wreckage. He started to take off, top gunner up in position, gatling firing, tracers snaking up.

The burning tail dragged past Richard, who brought his starboard throttles up to full. The machine simply hung in place. Cursing, he leaned over, grabbed the port throttles, and brought them up to half speed. The Ilya Murometz finally lurched as if breaking free from the ground, rolled a few yards, and then started to pivot. Richard scrambled to slam back the port throttles. Lining up on the field, he saw the Goliath preceding him flying low, flame trailing from its starboard wing.

“One coming in directly astern!” Igor shouted, and a second later his gatling opened up.

Richard pushed all four throttles to the wall, braced his feet on the rudder pedals, and started the takeoff, praying that the Goliath ahead would clear the field.

Speed slowly picked up, he caught a glimpse of a Falcon swooping low, cutting across the field at a right angle, gatling firing. Another Falcon was coming down, wing sheared off, spinning out of control. And a strange looking airship, propeller mounted forward, with a large, single wing, bulky fuselage trailing blue flame; it and the damaged Falcon impacted near the control tower.

He felt the controls biting and looked quickly at the airspeed gauge. The wind was the only luck factor at the moment, strong enough that after less than a thousand feet he leaned back on the stick. Igor continued to fire, cursing wildly in Rus.

“Damn-to our left!” he cried.

Richard looked off to port but saw nothing, then realized that Igor, in his excitement and facing backwards, had his directions crossed. He looked off to starboard and was startled to see one of the single wing planes flying directly alongside, pilot clearly visible. To his amazement the pilot actually raised a clenched fist, then the plane disappeared, nosing up, and winging over.

The Goliath ahead was still lumbering forward, unable to gain height, fire all along its wing. Richard realized that the pilot knew he was doomed and was trying to get clear of the aerodrome.

The Goliath nosed over and went in, its bomb load exploding a split second later. The blast soared up in front of Cromwell, rocking the Ilya Murometz, putting it up on one wing so that Richard felt as if he was about to lose control and add his explosives to the conflagration.

He fought the controls, wishing that Igor was beside him instead of in the gunner’s slot. The great plane finally started to level out, and, looking over his shoulder, he could see the mad confusion of the fight. Half a dozen aerosteamers were on the ground, burning, and the hydrogen gas generator was on fire. Tracers snaked across the sky; two Falcons were diving, following a Kazan plane, which appeared to be slower. Seconds later the plane began to burn, nosed over, and went straight in.

He saw smoke rising from the second airfield, but the third still looked clear. The sky around him was aswarm with aerosteamers, weaving and banking, a fight unlike anything he had ever imagined. He realized that the last thing he needed was to be in the middle of the mad swirl and banked over to starboard, heading inland to get out of the fight and let the Falcons settle it.

He could see that the surviving Goliaths had the same idea and were turning out as well, a half dozen of the Falcons weaving in behind and above them.

After several miles he was forced to turn, not yet having enough altitude to clear the crest of the Diocletian Hills Along the crest he could see thousands of soldiers standing in the open, watching the fight. The ground all along the crest was torn up with hastily dug entrenchments snaking out from either flank of the main fort that dominated the hill. The fact that they were watching, like spectators, told him that they were in the clear. Turning, he looked back. The battle was all but over. Airships were heading out to sea, flying low, several of them trailing smoke. Fires dotted the landscape between the hills and the city down on the plain, marking where two dozen or more aerosteamers had died.

We should have thought of it, I should have thought of it, and he cursed himself. It wasn’t just the losses, although he feared that they were significant-maybe a third or more of the precious Goliaths. What was worse was the mass confusion. Falcons had flown off in every direction, their top cover was off chasing the surviving attackers. What was supposed to be a coordinated attack, everyone going in at once, was spread out across twenty miles of airspace. As for the aerosteamer carriers, which were to have arrived by now, they were nowhere to be seen.

“How many did they get?” Igor shouted, squatting down out of his gunnery position to look over Richard’s shoulder.

“Too many.”

“Now what?”

“We go in,” and he pointed out to sea where a cloud of dark smoke blotted the horizon.

Adam Rosovich stormed back and forth across the flight deck, shouting orders, watching as each of the Falcons was slowly lifted up from below, turned around, wings unfolded and engines started.

“Adam.”

It was Theodor, with a board tucked under his arm, a final check sheet for each of the planes.

“A word, son.”

“I don’t have time.”

“Yes, you do. Now come over here.”

Theodor led him over to the side railing. The sea below was still running high, waves rolling at ten to twelve feet, the crosswind breaking their tops, salty foam billowing off.

Adam looked up at the bridge beside him. The flag of the Republic was snapping, bent out; the ship’s fifteen knot speed added to the crosswind coming in abeam from the northwest.

“Could you make it short,” Adam asked testily, and Theodor put a hand on his shoulder.

“Relax, son.”

“What?”

“Just that. You’re making everyone nervous.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“Look, son. You’re a good pilot, and you’ve got one hell of a sharp engineering mind. Varinnia saw that in you back at the academy, she had you picked out a year before you graduated, but, son, you are not the best of leaders at the moment.”

Adam bristled.

“Friendly criticism, and please take it that way. I know what it’s like to fly into a battle. In fact I’m the only man in this entire fleet who’s done it before, and I will tell you, I used to puke from fear before I went in. You, on the other hand, are running around waving your arms and shouting orders.”

“But…”

“Hear me out. These men are trying the best they can. I won’t say they’re doing a good job yet-hell, we’re making this up as we go along-but they are trying. Your job is to lead the Goliath wing in the attack, not boss the deck crews. The best thing you can do right now is button up, take a chew of tobacco and just lean against the bridge there and say nothing. Act like you don’t have a care in the world.

“You did your briefing for your pilots. Once everything is up on deck the waiting begins until the scout plane returns. When it does, if we have them fixed, I want you to just walk over to your plane like you’re going out for a little spin around the field to impress some girl. No fancy speeches, the boys know what it is about now and the odds…”

His voice trailed off and he looked away for a moment.

“By Kesus just don’t get yourself killed. You remind me a bit of old Ferguson, you’ve got a great mind and for my penny’s worth I’d have Keane ground you the moment this is over. So just fly careful, will you?”

Adam nodded, realizing that every word Theodor had said was right.

“Thanks.”

“Hell, I needed to say something. I’m about ready to bust, myself, with the damn waiting.”

Adam looked up at the sky; the afternoon sun was tracking westward. Somewhere, off to their starboard, about eighty miles away, all hell must be breaking loose.

In spite of the fear, Yasim felt compelled to watch. It was a remarkable sight, the swarm of dots on the northern horizon growing larger, coming in. The outer ring of ships were positioned correctly, forming a screen between the main battle line and the coast, which was less than ten miles away.

His own aerosteamers were directly above. He tried to count them; twenty at least still survived. A few of the human aerosteamers, slightly smaller and faster it seemed, were mixed in, tracers streaming back and forth. Even as he watched, one of his flipped over, bursting into flames, and started to spiral downward.

The fight was trivial, unimportant. What was important was the attack coming in, the last desperate gasp according to Admiral Ullani.

Milky white puffs of smoke were igniting in the sky, the outer ring of ships sending up shells from their light guns, tracers streaking into the sky. An airship burst in a silent flash, another exploded seconds later.

They pressed on.

Yasim could not help but feel a touch of pity, of admiration. The attacks, which had been coming in for the last half hour, were completely uncoordinated, three or four planes at a time. The strike by the scout planes had been brilliant, catching them just as they were taking off, breaking up any hope of formation. It was going perfectly, just one more attack to weather and then they would press in to start the bombardment.

The dots were resolving themselves into thin lines, four of them bi-winged aircraft with two engines, and also several smaller, single-engine machines zigzagging back and forth above. And one larger, a four-engine plane almost as big as their own Zhu patrol aircraft.

Now past the outer ring of frigates, they dodged through the inner ring of cruisers, crisscrossing fire dropping one. They were less than a mile off now, leveling out; two sections of two. The four engine machine was joined with a two-engine companion trailing a quarter mile behind the first.

Every gunner forward was ready. He looked down at them, bright shell casings littered the deck from the repulse of the previous attacks.

A command echoed and everyone opened up at nearly the same instant, a staccato thunder, smoke rolling up as twenty gatlings and all the mid-range guns fired; gatlings with tracer rounds, the mid-range guns with explosive shells.

The fire swept out, water spraying up in front of the attacking airships, which continued to press in. Shell bursts blossomed. One of the twin-engine machines disintegrated in a violent explosion. The one behind it flew straight into the expanding ball of fire and debris, then emerged out of the other side, half a wing gone. It rolled up on its side then spun down, cartwheeling into the sea.

It was almost obscenely easy, and he could hear some of his warriors down on the foredeck break into laughter.

The other two banked slightly, swinging out and around the explosion, one of their escorts flying with them. The other two starting to pull up, moving to engage several of his own airships.

The action unfolded before him in a remarkable display of fire and explosions. The range closed rapidly. The two-engine plane started to trail smoke, then simply nosed over and went straight in. The four-engine plane continued to press in. Excited shouts erupted around him, several of his guard moving in closer. He could see flames licking out astern of this last plane. Part of its rudder snapped off, and the plane began to yaw, barely in control, now less than a hundred yards off.

It was a remarkable moment; the huge plane just seemed to hang in the sky, and then it nosed up, four black cylinders detaching. With the release of the weight the plane surged up as it winged over, one engine trailing smoke, tracers stitching through it.

The guards closed in around him, pushing him down on the deck.

He felt two violent jolts in quick succession, and, cursing, stood back up, annoyed by their overzealous efforts.

Two massive columns of water were already cascading down, drenching the deck. One of the single-engine planes appeared to fly right through the spreading mushroom of water, and he watched in disbelief as it flew straight for the bridge. This time he ducked on his own as the plane slammed into the second turret and exploded, hot smoke washing up over him.

He slowly stood up a second time. Bits of burning wreckage were strewn across the top of the turret, burning fuel splashed out into some several of the gatling mounts, when warriors, on fire, writhed in agony. He caught a glimpse of the four-engine machine, trailing smoke, clumsily dodging and weaving to escape, none of his gunners firing for the moment, either stunned by the blasts or the suicidal crash of the fast plane.

Yasim looked around at the officers on the bridge, who were silent.

“They have the spirit of warriors. I hope we have not misjudged this thing.”

The moment the scout plane was in sight, Adam could contain himself no longer. Petronius, bent over a chart showing their position near the eastern end of the Minoan Shoals, gave him a curt nod and said nothing.

Adam stepped out onto the open bridge, joining the signals officer as the single-engine Falcon came spiraling in. A Morse lantern began to flash, the signals officer slowly reading off the message.

“Enemy fleet, seven battleships, fifteen miles south Constantine. While returning observed fires outside city, apparent air battle.”

Petronius, who had stood up from his chart, walked out to join the group and nodded his head.

“We go?” Adam asked excitedly.

“With intelligence, Mr. Rosovich, intelligence, I said.”

“The air corps, sir, the report.”

“That battle is most likely over by now, Rosovich. A battle they were not trained for, I might add.”

Petronius looked over at the sun, nodded his head, and went back to his chart.

Richard, one hand on the controls, reached over to Igor.

“Press it against your chest, damn you!” he cried, “Keep it pressed tight!”

Igor looked at him and actually smiled, frothy bubbles of blood on his lips. He weakly held the bundled up rag Richard was pressing to the hole in the side of his chest.

Igor, his flight overall, the deck, and the gunner’s position behind Richard, were all covered in blood. He had seen thousands die in his youth, but still it never ceased to amaze him just how much blood could pour out of a person before they died.

“Another five minutes, we’ll be down. Ten minutes, they’ll stop the bleeding.”

Igor still smiled. He tried to say something, but couldn’t.

“I need my other hand to fly this,” Richard cried. Letting go of the rag, he slapped his right hand back on the throttles, feeding in more fuel to the inboard engines. The pedals beneath his feet were useless, the cables snapped and the rudder half shot off in the last seconds of his approach.

“I should have just flown this damned crate straight in,” he said. Repeating yet again a litany he had been torturing himself with ever since the bombs had missed.

A few seconds more, just ten seconds, even five and he could have brought them straight into the bridge. He knew it was the emperor’s ship, knew he had seen him. The blast would have taken him, but it would have taken Yasim as well. And where there was Yasim, there was also Hazin.

Then a shot hit the rudder, another shattered the propeller of the already faltering starboard outboard engine, and he could feel the plane mushing into a yaw that would spin out of control. The only thing left was to yank back the stick and try to lob the bombs into the bow, and he had missed.

How he had got them out was still a mystery. There was little return fire on the way back out and he half wondered if the Kazan had fired off far too much ammunition and were ordered not to waste it on cripples that were obviously dying.

Well, this, cripple he planned to bring in. Swinging out wide to avoid most of the frigates, he had finally turned in toward shore. Only then had Igor slipped back down from the gunner’s position, looked at him, and without a word collapsed into the copilot’s chair. Richard instantly realized that the man had remained silent about his wound, not wanting to distract Richard from flying them out.

As for the rest of the crew, he knew Octavian was dead and there was not a word from the Cartha up forward ever since takeoff. Chances were the blast from the exploding Goliath had killed him.

The shore was directly ahead, less than half a mile; the city off to his right, the second airfield, the closer of the two, just a mile back from the beach.

The port outboard engine finally seized and quit, jerking to a stop with such violence that he could feel the shudder run through the entire ship.

That was it. The hydrogen bags had been shot apart, there was no lift left.

The plane began to slip, heading down the last few feet. Cursing, he pulled the stick back, trying to beg just a couple more seconds of flight to put them in on the beach.

The wheels hit the water, snagged, and the massive aerosteamer went in nose first, what was left of the forward windscreen shattering as the ocean swept in.

Unbuckling, he reached over to Igor, unsnapping his harness.

“Come on. You’ve got to help me!” Richard cried.

Holding on to Igor, he kicked his way up through the topside gunner’s hatch and out into the open, somehow managing to hang on to Igor. The airship wasn’t sinking and, for a moment, he was confused. He pulled Igor up and lowered him over the side, then dropped into the water, feet hitting the bottom. He lost Igor for a second then came back up, a wave knocking him over, the aerosteamer surging up and then ever so slowly flipping over onto its back, steam hissing as the water hit the hot engines.

Afraid of getting tangled in the rigging, he let the surf take him, going under, then coming back up again. He caught a glimpse of Igor, floating facedown and swam over to him, pulling his head up out of the water.

“It’s only a few feet more. Hang on!”

He stood up, dragging his companion, another wave knocked him down, but he held on to Igor, letting the surf rush them in to shore.

He felt hands around his waist and saw that half a dozen men were around them.

Their strength was a welcome relief, and he let them carry him the last few yards to safety.

They laid him down on the rocky beach, one of the men holding a bottle, which he gladly took, the rich Greek wine warm and soothing.

They were all talking at once, pointing to the ocean. Not a word they said understandable.

“Igor?” he asked.

They stepped back and saw his companion lying several feet away, arms wide. A Greek woman was kneeling beside the body, already closing the eyes, then making the sign of the cross.

Richard turned his gaze away, looking back out to the sea. The row of battleships were coming straight in. Already some of the frigates were but a mile off shore, opening fire on the city.

We’ve lost, he realized. Everyone dead, and they are here. Hazin is here. I tried to stop him, and it was all useless, bloody useless.

He closed his eyes and, tilting the wine sack up, he drained it.

The wind slashed the length of the deck, the flag of the Republic and the red launch flag standing straight out.

Adam tensed, watching as the last of the Falcons started its roll. The deck beneath them was surging up and down, one second pointing down at the ocean, seconds later pointing up at the late afternoon sky; the red sun almost directly ahead.

The Falcon lifted as the carrier rode up on the crest of a wave, then dropped out from under the aerosteamer.

The launch chief turned, faced Adam, and held his red flag overhead, then twirled it in a circle. Adam rewed up his engines. The chief pointed forward. Adam pushed the throttles the rest of the way. His Goliath, the first in line, started forward.

He carefully watched as the right wing passed within a couple of feet of the bridge. He saw Petronius standing on the open bridge. To his amazement the admiral offered a salute, Theodor by his side, waving.

Adam snapped a salute back, then focused all attention forward, watching the deck surge up and down, speed of his roll out slowing as it pitched up, accelerating as it went down.

His grip on the stick tightened. Even with the wind it was going to be tight. There was no copilot beside him, no top gunner, every pound of weight stripped out except for fuel and what was slung underneath.

Another roll up, then starting down. He tentatively tried backing the stick, hoping to lift as the deck dropped, but he didn’t have enough speed.

The deck continued to pitch down, his own speed picking up, and he rolled right off the end of the ship, heading down toward the foaming sea. Easing back on the stick he leveled out, ever so slowly climbing up to a hundred feet and then leveling off again, heading due west. Overhead the Falcons had formed up, circling around to come in above him. He looked back over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the next Goliath, throttles full out, coming up to fall in on his left wing.

A half mile off was the second formation from Wilderness, and beyond them the flight from Perryville. Looking to starboard, he could see Malvern Hill, valiantly struggling to come up and join the three aerosteamer carriers, which had leapt ahead to gain position. Two more frigates had fallen in with the group during its dash southward to the edge of the Minoan Shoals, and they were now screening ahead of the main ships, yards bare, running on engines alone into the westerly wind.

Thirty miles to the Three Sisters, then a slow arcing turn out to the northwest, and then finally back in low, and out of the west toward Constantine. Two and a half hours of flying time, then an hour back to the carriers, which would run straight in toward Constantine for the pickup.

Fortunately, the lead pilot of the Falcons was a wizard at navigation. All Adam had to do was fly, and then go straight in on the emperor’s ship if he could find it.

“Hazin!”

A Shiv lookout, up on the forward deck, was pointing off to the North. They were far off, on the other side of the shoals, hardly visible in the mist kicked up by the waves driving into the rocks a mile away.

The dots bobbed and weaved, rising and falling in his vision, and he turned away, shaking.

Was it truly a foretelling? Or fantasy, a dream vision of the future that had taken him to this time and place long years ago? Or was it merely his imagination telling him it was so?

He saw O’Donald down on the deck, attention still focused on the other horizon. The first of the transports was just coming into view, the fifty ships holding the umens of the Shiv.

Hazin could see, too, see him as in the dream, and it fascinated him. Am I the master of my fate, he wondered. Or has fate cast me into this moment, this role that would change everything.

The gun in the number one turret began to lift up, steam hissing from the exhaust line. The massive thirty-foot-long barrel stopped, and Yasim half turned, covering his ears. There was a blinding flash of light, barrel recoiling, water going flat from the shock wave.

He raised his glasses, training them on the burning city. Explosions were lifting up, fires spreading. Another explosion blew. It was impossible to tell if it was from his ship; at the range of nearly two leagues it was impossible to track where a shell might land. Closer in to shore the cruisers and frigates were attempting to slam aimed shots into the fortifications on the heights beyond the city. Aft, the number four gun now fired, again the shock wave.

For a human city it was actually rather impressive. On one of the hills in the center of the city was a great golden domed building. Yasim had overheard one of the gunnery officers discussing the rivalry between the gunners in the three turrets as to who would hit it first. The fourth turret, damaged by the suicidal pilot, was still out of action. Water was still leaking in from dozens of buckled plates below the waterline, and all pumps were working hard to keep ahead while the chief engineer directed repairs. He had requested that the flagship cease firing, as the vibration of the great guns firing was making the situation difficult to control, but Yasim would not hear of it. Honor demanded that his ship participate in the initial bombardment. At least the fact that the bombardment required slow cruising had helped, the ship barely moved at a league and a half in an hour as it hovered off its target and pounded the city to rubble.

The sun was low on the horizon, illuminating the clouds of smoke from the gunfire and from the burning city, a beautiful sight, worthy of a hada, a seven-line poem of alternating five and seven words.

He tried to compose one even as he watched the billowing explosions, the first spreading across the city, a secondary explosion in what one of the gunnery officers described as most likely the Republic’s main shipyard.

It was a glorious, beautiful sight-and yet he felt that something was not correct, not in place.

Was it Hazin?

There had to be a reason why, always the game within the game, like the toy he had had as a child; a golden ball that when opened revealed another within, and then another within that, and then yet another.

He had ordered his chamberlain to go through the ship’s roster yet again, to have his chief protector question yet again any who might be suspect, who might be of the Order and concealed in the ranks. Yet they had found nothing.

Something was wrong, marring this moment, and then another explosion caught his attention, a cheer rippling along the deck. The golden dome had been hit, disappearing in a shower of flame and smoke, which glowed in the late afternoon light.

Then the alarm sounded.

Adam leveled out, pulled up his goggles to wipe the sweat from his eyes, wiped his hand on his pants leg, then gripped the stick again.

It was stunning. The city had been their beacon for fifty miles, smoke and flames as they flew a circular approach far behind the fleet, swinging around to the west before coming down to wave-top level and then flying straight in for twenty miles.

“Low, sun at your backs and in their eyes,” Petronius had said. “The bastards will all be looking the other way, focused on the burning city, enjoying themselves, figuring the battle is won.”

Petronius was right. The seven battleships were lying four miles off the coast, the frigates and cruisers lined farther in, with only two frigates several miles out on picket to the west of the battleships.

In the lead, Adam led his flight of eight Goliaths wide of the frigates, and not a shot was fired until he was abeam the second ship. A few shells detonated, and then they were past, the battleships four miles ahead.

It was another mile in before he sensed that the Kazan were finally reacting. The battleships were moving slowly, guns firing, and then finally the last ship in line began to turn off the firing line to starboard, heading south, trying to run straight out into the open sea. Perfect, for it set them abeam, the widest target possible.

The second ship in line began to turn as well, still lumbering along. Adam grinned. Petronius had predicted that as well. Ships of that size would take ten, fifteen minutes to build up to battle speed, and by then it would be over.

He raised his glasses, scanned the first ship, then the second and the third, which was continuing straight on course. The fourth ship in line. That was it, the red banner.

He looked to left and right. The other Goliaths were roughly in position to either side.

He finally caught the eye of the pilot off to starboard. He.pointed at the battleships, held up four fingers, and then pointed forward. The pilot nodded. He tried to get the attention of the man to port, but he was completely focused on the spectacle ahead.

He started to bank out, moving to swing beyond the range of the guns of the last battleship in line. It would add several dangerous minutes to the flight, but the emperor’s ship was the one he wanted.

The first battleship was directly abeam, a mile and a half to port and still turning. One of the Goliaths on his port side banked up and started to turn in on the ship.

“No damn it, no!”

There was no way he could reach him. If he tried to turn to catch him, the others would follow and assume they were going in.

He flew on, cursing even more when a second Goliath rolled out to attack. Several of the Falcons flying above them broke to follow the two planes.

Adam looked back to his right and saw the groups from Wilderness and Perryville off to his left, a mile or two farther back, spreading out slightly, focusing on the first two battleships.

Far off to his left, close in to the burning city, the cruisers were breaking out of the firing formation, beginning to speed up.

Finally the shooting started, breaking the tension. Every gun on the aft battleship seemed to go into action, medium-caliber weapons letting loose. Seconds later an explosion ripped the sky directly ahead, several hundred yards off, fragments slashing the water.

The agonizing seconds dragged out; the third ship was abeam, beginning to fire as well, and then a half mile farther on and a mile off his port side was the target. A minute and a half he realized, a minute and a half and either its sinking or I’m dead, or perhaps both.

He lightly touched the release lever. He was tempted to pull the safety pin out, but decided against it, fearful that something might go wrong. He forced himself to continue on, watching the ship, gauging its speed, trying to calculate where it would be in another minute.

It was beginning to turn, swinging like the other ships, southward.

He looked back at the pilots to starboard; they were still with him. He raised a clenched fist, held it aloft, then jerked it down even as he kicked in the rudder and pushed the stick over.

The move was a little too aggressive with the half ton weight slung underneath, inertia wanting to push the plane along the path it had been following. Wings straining, he began losing altitude, dropping down to less than twenty feet. Leveling out, he felt he was off, aiming too far astern, and pulled the stick back slightly, gaining a few precious feet. He slipped in a touch of rudder, correcting the approach, and then everything broke loose.

Gatlings opened up from the deck of the battleship. The rounds fell short by several hundred yards as they arced up high and plunged down, but they appeared before him like a visible wall that he would have to fly through.

Amazingly the Falcons, which had been there to provide top cover if any Kazan aerosteamers were about, went in as well, going up to full throttle to move ahead of him. He wondered if they should have been ordered to carry a light load of bombs as well, but it was too late now for that. The first one went through the curtain of fire and seconds later was in the sea, wings snapped off, a second Falcon going down a hundred yards farther on.

Their actions brought him precious seconds of time, diverting fire from the slower attack planes. He spared a quick glance to starboard again; his remaining three Goliaths were still with him.

Looking to his left, he saw chaos. The aerosteamers from Wilderness and Perryville were boring in on the two battleships astern. Smoke was coiling up from a dozen or more wrecks dotting the sea, while tracers slashed back and forth. The lead Falcon was already over the battleship, soaring past it, his gun still firing.

A jolt snapped his attention forward. Another jolt came as a tracer slashed past his windscreen. A stream of tracers from a gun aft was snaking around, following him. Yet another jolt, and the sound of glass shattering. He was glad he didn’t have a copilot, because the man would have been dead.

Range was half a mile.

An explosion. To his right, the Goliath on his wing was gone.

He focused forward.

Water sprayed up, slashing through the broken window. His ship dropped, as if the spray from the explosions would push him down into the sea. He surged back up, over correcting, losing speed. Pushing throttles to the wall, he nosed over and leveled out, then another jolt shredded the wing just inside from the port engine.

Six hundred yards.

Another round hit the forward windscreen, more glass shattering. Something tore at his right arm.

He reached down, wrapping his hand around the release lever.

More spray, tracers crisscrossing. A Falcon flew directly across his path, nearly colliding.

Four hundred yards.

He touched the rudder in, leaning into the sight, judging the angle. He pulled the lever.

Nothing happened.

He pulled again. And still nothing. The damn safety pin!

Fumbling, he reached around to the side of the lever, found the pin, and yanked it out.

Another jolt. He looked up and realized that he was off alignment, turning out and away. He jammed the rudder back in, realizing he was crabbing, that the torpedo would strike the water at an angle, and not nose straight in. If it didn’t break up, the fuse might not arm.

Stick over, coordinate with rudder, straighten back out.

Three hundred yards.

He grabbed the lever and pulled.

His airship surged up. Now what?

Bank to port, starboard. He had never thought to discuss it, to plan it, he might pull across right in front of someone else. He pointed straight at the enemy ship and pressed in. The seconds passed, fire crisscrossing. He pulled up, skimming over the deck, too terrified to look to either side. Cleared of the ship, he nosed down slightly and raced out for several hundred yards without a shot being fired, then finally several of the guns on the enemy’s port side opened up, tracers splashing the water around him.

He started to jink, still running low across the water. A half mile out he finally began to turn, for the enemy cruisers in close to shore had all come about and were speeding toward the beleaguered battleships.

As he turned, he finally looked back toward his target. The torpedo should have crossed the three hundred yards. A lone Goliath was zooming over the stern, a Falcon directly above it.

And then the bow of the ship seemed to lift, a massive column of water, several hundred feet high, a blinding flash sweeping over the deck, seconds later another explosion farther aft. As he continued to climb, he saw both battleships, sterns blazing, the farthest aft with its bow blown clear off, the ship already settling.

It had worked! By all the saints, it had worked. Now the only question left was how to get his crate home.

Yasim stood in stunned silence. Damage control parties raced past him without ceremony, dragging hoses. Flames swirled up from the foredeck, the ship all but dead in the water.

A thunderclap of fire burst across the western horizon, the battleship Yutana going up. Behind it, Motaka had rolled over, keel pointed heavenward.

“Sire.”

He stirred from his thoughts and dark contemplations. It was Admiral Ullani.

“Sire, I suggest that you transfer your flag.”

Yasim nodded, saying nothing.

“Sire, we can save this ship, but come dawn they might strike again. It would be best if you were on a vessel that can maneuver.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

He looked back to the burning city. All this to achieve what? He wondered. This contemptible place, for what?

It was time to turn about, to find Hazin, to find out the real reasons for all of this, and then to kill him.

Minutes later a cruiser slowed, lines snaking out to the stricken flagship, swinging in close so that a chair could be run across to bring the emperor over.

Word had flashed through the ship that the emperor was leaving, from his third bodyguard, to a message runner, straight to an ammunition handler in the main magazine.

Twenty years prior he had taken the Oath of the Novitiate of the Third Order, had taken his assigned task and lived it across all the years, in a dozen battles, two hundred feet aft of Yasim and forty feet below him. He had even received, from Yasim’s own hand, a commendation for heroism at Tushiva. And all that time he had waited, never knowing when the order would come or how it would come. It had arrived only the night before and only if the ship had already been hit seriously, otherwise he was to do nothing.

The ship had been hit, the emperor was fleeing, and the word had come.

He silently said the blessing of parting as he walked into the main ammunition locker. Powder bags for the great guns lined the walls, each in its own rack, sealed inside a wooden container. He had done the routine a thousand times, in drill and in battle. Lift the wooden container out of the rack and walk with it out of the powder locker room, the door guard opening and closing the barrier. An assistant loader would take the container and run it into the ammunition hoist; then he would turn, go back, and do it again.

This time he tore the lid off one of the containers, drew a concealed folding knife out from under his shirt and flicked the blade open. The hilt of the knife was cunningly made; a simple twist and a small container popped open, a simple wooden match falling into his open hand.

With the knife he slashed open the powder bag, a cascade of black powder spilling out. He pulled another lid open, did the same, and then a third. The door opened, one of the assistants putting his head in.

“Pava, what…?”

The Novitiate of the Third Order held the match up, and with his thumb flicked it to life. Smiling, he touched it to the stream of black powder pouring out of the torn bag.

Richard Cromwell sat on the beach, drunk from the wine, watching as the fireball soared a thousand feet into the air. The civilians around him had been cheering the spectacle of the air battle and its aftermath as if it had been a chariot race. The explosion sent them into a new frenzy of celebration.

He was disgusted with the whole affair and felt no qualms about relieving them of another sack of wine, which they were more than happy to provide to the hero.

The emperor was dead, and somehow he knew it was Hazin who had done it.

They came just after sunset, five aerosteamers, soaring in from the northwest.

Togo, as always, heard them first. The men around Keane began to stand up, incredulous, several of them laughing, saying it was only a hallucination.

But it was not.

The first aerosteamer, a Falcon, winged over, swooping down on the ravine to the west, stitching it with gatling fire. Men who were so parched that they had not spoken for over a day, cheered hoarsely, pointing, laughing as the tables were turned. The next two were Goliaths, flying straight toward the butte. They came in low, throttling back, and for a second Abe thought that they were going to try some mad landing.

The lead ship skimming barely a dozen feet above them started releasing bundles, the first one almost hitting Abe, the second and third dropped near the hospital area. The fourth one sailed over the edge and disappeared.

The same performance was tried by the second Goliath. The first package fell short, but the second and third and fourth landed safely.

They made three passes, the men scattering with each pass, cursing when one hit too close, but then cheering and waving.

The last two aerosteamers were Falcons as well. They swept around the butte, tracer fire pouring down. One of the Falcons broke away and started back west, engine misfiring, but holding to its course. The two Goliaths buzzed back over one last time, wagging their wings. The men cheered. The bundles were already being broken open, discipline breaking down for a moment as the men leapt upon the full canteens bundled up inside, tearing them open, then gulping down the water. Abe saw cartridge boxes, rations, and a package stamped with the green insignia of the medical corps.

The last Falcon circled back in, a small package with a red streamer tumbled down, landing in the middle of the butte. One of the troopers hobbled over, picked it up and brought it to Abe. The Falcon continued to circle.

Abe tore the red streamer off and opened the package. Inside were half a dozen cigars, weighed down with a package of forty cartridges for a revolver, and a note.

To the commander of the beleaguered force near Carvana Pass,

My sincere apologies, sir, and please consider the cigars enclosed a small token of respect. We have been searching for you for five days. The airship that passed near you this morning reported your presence, the pilot wisely refraining from coming too close out of concern that it might trigger an assault to finish you before help could arrive. I hope its flying by without notice did not adversely affect the morale of your command.

Abe chuckled and shook his head.

A relief column has been dispatched, supported by a company of land ironclads, and should arrive late tomorrow. Airship support will return at dawn and maintain watch over you and also bring in additional supplies.

I must request, sir, a reply, which I believe you will understand given the nature of the situation. If Lieutenant Abraham Schuder Keane is with your command and still alive, would you please respond by waving the red streamer attached to this package. I apologize, sir, for singling out one particular trooper for concern when so many lives are at stake, but I hope you understand my reasons.

I look forward to meeting you, sir, and to personally congratulating you for what has obviously been an heroic stand.

I remain, sir, your ob’d and humble serv’t,

General of the Armies Vincent Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Abe handed the letter to Togo and waited for him to read it.

“I’m tempted not to wave it,” he sighed.

Togo looked at him, grinned, and shook his head. He picked the streamer up from the ground and started to wave it over his head. The Falcon banked over, wagged its wings, then circled back out, turning to the west.

Abe handed the cigars to Togo.

“I don’t smoke,” he announced.

Togo pocketed four of them, fumbled for a match in his haversack, and struck a light, puffing two of the cigars to life. He handed one to Abe.

“You do now.”

Abe sat on the ground, canteen in one hand and a cigar in the other and watched the sun set.