Iron Gray Sea

CHAPTER 9

Imperial Port City of Saint Francis

North American Colonies

Imperial Commodore and newly appointed CINCEAST (Commander in Chief-East) of the Grand Alliance Harvey Jenks stood on Achilles’ quarterdeck, gazing about at the small fleet preparing to get underway. The North American sun that bathed him with its rays was unusually warm for the latitude at this time of year, making for a beautiful day that displayed his ships, the city, and the strange land beyond to best effect. If not for his lingering frustration over the endless series of delays that postponed this movement for so long, he would probably be utterly charmed. Instead, there had been weeks of ship repairs, organizing, arming, and properly training the… hotheaded colonial levy, and streamlining the local bureaucracy (in the aftermath of more high-level treason!) so his force could be properly supplied and victualed… The list had been endless. As it was, his chest still roiled with an impatient anxiety that threatened to plague him all the way to the Enchanted Isles. The fact that most of the delays hadn’t really been anyone’s fault did little to mitigate his concern that they might already be too late to relieve the beleaguered garrison at that strategic place.

Many of the delays may have been unavoidable, but there was plenty of blame for the haste they retarded. The Dominion had indeed attacked the Enchanted Isles, just as Admiral McClain predicted, though not in sufficient force to justify his diversion of the greater part of his fleet in that direction, leaving Jenks, Captain Reddy and his USS Walker, and only a handful of ships to face the bulk of the Dom fleet and invasion force all alone. The result was a vicious battle, and the narrowest of victories.

McClain then compounded his error by sending most of his ships home, instead of securing the isles he believed must have already fallen when he heard of the battle south of Saint Francis-then coming here himself! Jenks already knew this war had spiraled beyond their experience and even comprehension-the reports of the fighting for New Ireland proved that-and he’d seen the unprecedented nature of the war in the west, against the Grik, firsthand. He bitterly understood that compared with the experience the Americans and Lemurians had amassed, his people were literally amateurs. But there could be no excuse for the lethargy, vacillation, and incompetence High Admiral McClain had demonstrated. Jenks had relieved him on sight and sent him home as well. In retrospect, he supposed he could have been hanged for that, but the Governor-Emperor endorsed his decision, and approved his elevation to CINCEAST.

Jenks caught himself absently twisting his braided “Imperial” mustache again, and snatched his hand away and grasped it with the other behind his back. Won’t do for the lads to see me so restless, he chided himself once more. His force was bound to rendezvous with a much larger one designated TF Maaka-Kakja, built around the massive new aircraft carrier it was named for. Once together, the combined force, with all its ships, aircraft, and troops would again constitute Second Fleet, and he, like his counterpart Keje-Fris-Ar in the west, would assume overall command. It was a daunting prospect. He was sure the fleet would be sufficient to relieve the isles-if they still held! — and then they could take the war to the Doms at last. He yearned for that more than he had anything in his life. He’d seen the terrible Grik and understood why Captain Reddy had to return to that front, aside from the repairs Walker needed. But the Doms had shown themselves to be just as terrible as the Grik, and perhaps even more inhuman- because they were human!

He wasn’t sure what they’d do if they found the Enchanted Isles had fallen. The almost-certain annihilation of the garrison was bad enough, but they desperately needed those islands as a staging area at the end of unprecedented, almost unimaginably long lines of supply. Only once they were secure could they control the sea and air around them, and perhaps other islands, and amass the vast armies and war material required to end the Dom menace forever. We will take them back! That is what we will do! He promised himself. Brevet General Tamatsu Shinya would command his ground forces, assisted by Jenks’s old Marine lieutenant-now colonel-Blair, and some well-seasoned Lemurian officers. All had extensive combat experience, and Captain Reddy trusted Shinya completely. They would take the islands back; they had no choice. But it would be costly and another delay that could have been avoided!

Standing there, he tried to will the ponderous preparations of his fleet to greater speed so they could get to sea at last. Only nineteen ships of the now thirty-odd in port were raising steam, beginning to move. Some had to remain behind to protect Saint Francis, after all. He wasn’t surprised to see that USS Mertz and USS Tindal, the Fil-pin-built frigates-or DDs, as they called themselves-had already weighed their anchors and were jockeying near his own Achilles. The two “American” ships had been badly mauled in the battle but quickly restored to order. He grimaced, remembering they’d replenished their savaged crews with female volunteers!

“Up and down!” came the cry from forward, relayed back to the raised, bridge-shaped “quarterdeck” control station between the large amidships paddle boxes.

“Very well,” Jenks replied. Despite his new position as CINCEAST, he still personally commanded his ship. At least for now. Lieutenant Grimsley would take over once they joined the rest of the fleet. “Helm, Quartermaster, maintain position with the engines until the anchor is secure!”

“Aye, sir!” the two men chorused, the quartermaster’s hands grasping a pair of handles attached to either side of a device almost exactly like the Americans’ engine-room telegraph. It is odd, mused Jenks, how form follows function across so vast a gulf!

The other ships of the small fleet eventually signaled their readiness and with Achilles in the lead they slowly steamed past the fortress island, through the mouth of the bay and into the wide sea beyond.

TF Maaka-Kakja

East Pacific 130 Longitude

N Equatorial Current

Second Lieutenant Orrin Reddy, Acting Lieutenant Commander and COFO for the 3rd Naval Air Wing aboard USS Maaka-Kakja (CV-4), waggled the wings of his PB-1B Nancy flying boat to get the attention of the ’Cat flying the ship off his starboard wing. Damn kid never can seem to pay attention to what he’s doing when he’s in the air, he grumbled to himself, even as he recognized his hypocrisy. He’d had the same trouble when he first learned to fly, to soar so high above the world and all the cares and even thoughts that seemed so firmly rooted there.

Regardless, he’d also learned the hard way that losing focus for even a moment in the air was the quickest, maybe most surprising, way to die that he’d ever seen. Two of his ’41-C classmates at San Diego were killed in a situation just like this: two ships, all alone, flying straight and level. One drifted into the other, a wing tangled with a prop, and it was all over but the fall. Neither pilot even got out of his tumbling craft. Of course, the Japanese and their agile fighters visited all sorts of deliberate, sudden death on his 3rd Pursuit Squadron mates in the Philippines. It added a whole new dimension when somebody was actively trying to kill you. Then he’d heard how his pal and fellow survivor Jack Mackey bought it after his first action in the west-against zeppelins! He still couldn’t get over that-when he stuck a wheel in a bomb crater on the airstrip and TL’d one of the few precious P-40s that somehow made it here. That just wasn’t fair at all.

Orrin knew he hadn’t yet discovered nearly as many ways to die on this world as his illustrious cousin and “Supreme Commander” Captain Reddy. The closest things he’d seen to Grik were Lawrence and the Sa’aarans in the Fil-pin Lands, and those few wild “flying Grik” that gave them so much trouble on New Ireland. But he was Maakaa-Kakja ’s COFO now, like it or not, and he didn’t intend to lose any of his pilots to woolgathering.

“Zap him, Seepy!” he shouted into the speaking tube beside his shoulder. “Seepy” was Orrin’s copilot/spotter/wireless-operator backseater, or OC, in the little plane. The brown-and-gray-furred ’Cat’s real name was Kuaar-Ran-Taak, and unlike so many others, his squadron handle hadn’t come from what his name sounded like to a human American. Orrin was the only one of those in the whole 3rd Naval Air Wing, anyway. Seep was an intoxicant made of the ubiquitous polta fruit that also produced, when properly prepared, the miraculously curative polta paste, so Orrin could only guess what inspired Seepy’s name, but the guy was the best backseater in the wing, and a good pilot in his own right.

“I zap him already!” Seepy answered indignantly through the same tube. His voice came dull and tinny over the sound of the air gushing past the two open cockpits and the drone of the engine above and between them. He’d sent the long, harsh keystroke from his wireless transmitter that basically meant “heads-up!” It was not something pilots wanted to receive on scout-training flights-particularly since everyone in the wing could hear it, or would hear about it, and the zap was followed by the miscreant’s tail number.

Orrin watched with satisfaction as the other plane contritely returned to its proper station, and he realized with a start that he was satisfied not only with his wayward pilot, but with his whole new setup. He’d honestly been dubious at first. He’d been through hell in the fighting in the Philippines, but that hadn’t compared to the ordeal he and only a few surviving others endured at the hands of their Japanese captors before and during their transport on Mizuki Maru. Arriving on this world and surviving the massacre that followed left him starved and mostly dead, but he had survived and he was actually starting to like it here.

It took him a while to get used to things, of course. The presence of dames-of any race-in his cousin’s Navy, as well as commanding some of its ships, required some adjustment, but Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan, commander of Maaka-Kakja and her task force, was an absolutely swell gal-with more guts than he had, he was sure. Nancys weren’t P-40s, or anything close, but they were decent little kites and they were probably even more reliable. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about this whole new war he was in the middle of; he had no experience on the western front, but the ’Cats were good guys, and if they hated the Grik as much as they did, he was willing to take their word how bad they were. He knew firsthand how lousy the Doms were, so he guessed the reasons he fought really hadn’t changed that much for him.

He did like being COFO, he realized. He liked his pilots and he liked ’Cats in general. He’d always liked cousin Matt, even when he treated him like a kid-when he was a kid. He even liked most of the officers he’d met attached to the task force-except Colonel Shinya. He respected Shinya and believed he knew his stuff, and he knew Matt trusted the guy, but he was a Jap, damn it! He just couldn’t get over that yet. All in all, though, he guessed he could have wound up in a lot worse situation. He stretched.

“Hey, Commaander,” came the muffled voice from behind, “look tree o’clock down, mebbe six miles. There some mountain fishes down there.”

Orrin looked. Sure enough. Damn, those things are big! At five thousand feet and several miles, they looked like whales a few hundred yards off, cruising slowly, their massive flukes never breaking the surface. The bow wave they pushed in front of what he’d been told were kind of their foreheads looked like breakers on a distant beach.

“We go mess with them?”

Orrin chuckled to himself, but spoke sternly. “No, not this time.” On occasion, they used the mighty beasts like practice targets, but Admiral Lelaa had forbidden actually dropping anything directly on them. They’d already discovered they could kind of herd the massive creatures by dropping bombs around them, and they’d done it a couple of times to clear the dangerous things out of the task force’s path, but so far, for some reason, mountain fish in this region seemed totally disinterested in ships-or anything much but bombs-that might divert them from whatever destination they had in mind. Generally, they took a “leave them alone as long as they leave us alone” approach out here.

“But we got two practice bombs,” Seepy reminded. They also carried a crate of live, hand-droppable mortar bombs aboard. That was SOP now, but Seepy didn’t mention those.

“I know, and we’ll use them when we get back on one of the towed targets. Even when we miss, the guys watching will get more out of it than if we use ’em out here where no one can see.” Orrin shook his head. “We’re not going to pester the big fellas today!” He paused, glancing at the little mirror that showed him the fuel gauge bobbing in the tank, then looked at the bulky, windup clock embedded in the instrument panel. Watches were scarce these days-he sure didn’t have one-but it was essential for flight leaders, at least, to keep track of the time.

“About thirteen thirty. Time to head back,” he shouted. He’d been keeping an eye out for their replacements for a while. Sometimes the guys liked to “bounce” each other, like real pursuit pilots, and trying to get the “old man” added extra spice to the game. He didn’t discourage it, as long as things didn’t get out of hand. Nobody wanted to end up in the drink! But he also knew the Grik had aircraft now, and it was probably only a matter of time before the Doms did too. They already had their pet flying lizards. They’d been promised new planes with better performance, as soon as Colonel Mallory got the new radials on line. For some reason, nobody seemed to doubt he would. Then they needed rubber for tires, which was supposed to be coming out of Ceylon and India soon. It was widely rumored the new ships would not be floatplanes, though, and Orrin had mixed feelings about that. He loved the idea of the performance upgrade, but also liked something that would float if he was ever forced down on the scary sea.

USS Maaka-Kakja (CV-4)

Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan paced the bridge of her mighty ship with undiminished pleasure, despite the presence of her scruffy, greasy chief engineer, who dogged her every step. She knew what mice were; there were similar, if not identical, creatures on her world, and she had to admit that Gilbert Yeager, one of the original fireroom “Mice” aboard USS Walker, certainly reminded her of one, even if he was taller than she was. As much as he physically resembled a mouse, she’d heard that he’d once been just as quiet. No longer. Now he never hesitated to bring his daily reports straight to her, and if those reports sounded more like the nasal, squeaky whining of an angry mouse, she had only herself to blame. She’d encouraged it.

“… an’ after I tole ’em to fix it, they just oogled at me an’ asked me how!” Gilbert ranted. “How many times I gotta show ’em how to do the same god d… gut-dumpin’… thang, again an’ again, afore they get wise?”

Until you learn to explain what you are doing and why, Lelaa thought.

“How we ever come this far without stallin’ out, sinkin’, ’er just rollin’ belly-up, is a myst’ry to me,” he droned on, “since mosta my division cain’t find their swishy tails with both hands, let alone figger out which end of a wrench ta’ grab!” He shook his head, then stared at the deck. “I’ll admit it. I’m tired, Skipper.”

“This entire crew is inexperienced, Chief Gilbert,” Lelaa replied pleasantly. “It is fortunate we have a core group such as yourself to help the others along.”

“Well, ain’t that my point? They ain’t gettin’ much along, even with all my helpin’!”

Lelaa didn’t know Isak and Tabby, the other “Mice,” but she knew that while Gilbert might be a font of engineering wisdom, the tap was perpetually closed to a trickle. Despite his newfound ability to communicate, he still couldn’t pass ideas and technical information very well. His division seemed eager enough to learn, as far as she could tell, but Gilbert was, frankly, a crummy teacher. Considering the situation threatened to suppress her fine mood. It was a serious issue. So far, most of Maaka-Kakja ’s machinery had functioned flawlessly. It was overengineered to a point of almost gross inefficiency, after all. But what if? They were steaming toward certain eventual combat, and they had little real notion of the Dom defenses or domestic capability. All they’d seen so far was what the Doms could do at the end of a very long rope-like they would soon be.

“Relaax, Mr. Yay-gar. Actually, you must relaax. You-how do you say? — own a plank of this ship, as do most aboard her, so I understand your concern. I will give this matter the thought it requires, I assure you. In the meantime, you do have some good people. Not all are as green as you say. Make use of them.”

Gilbert shrugged. “Well, maybe they ain’t all useless, but them who ain’t are as wore down as me. Some folks just don’t get it that this gal has the biggest… dern… power plant we’ve ever thowed together, an’ there ain’t nothin’ light down there. Stuff one fella could do on my ol’ Walker takes a dozen fellas aboard here…” He stopped and blinked. “Which that don’t compare, ’cause she has turbines an’ we got these jug jumpers…”

“I believe I know what you mean,” Lelaa said.

“Well, maybe you do, but it boils down to as wore out as I am… I’m just as tired o’ worryin’. I don’t want none o’ my fellas gettin’ hurt. See? It’s like a Chinese fire drill down there half the time.”

Lelaa didn’t know what that was, but his other words reinforced her belief that his primary concern was for his division and the ship. That spoke well for the very strange man.

She cast her eyes over the surrounding seascape and the, to her, unprecedented numbers and power of her element of Second Fleet. Besides Maaka-Kakja, there were steam-powered and fast-sailing oilers, tenders, colliers, and transports. All of the newer Company steamers had been seized or requisitioned as troopers, and if they were the slowest ships in the task force and set its pace, they could at least be counted on to manage the same creeping station every day. Another task force, built around the even slower, heavy, Imperial ships of the line, or liners, would be along later. Around and among all those ships present were dozens of Lemurian-American and Imperial DDs, and nearly everything out there was driven by steam. There were the usual mechanical casualties, but there were a lot of competent engineers in the fleet. Maybe she could borrow a few to give Gilbert a hand-if only to interpret his grunts and disapproving stares for his snipes. One thing was sure: Gilbert couldn’t keep Maaka-Kakja running essentially by himself forever. He was wearing out. Lelaa suddenly wondered how he would take it if she brought in some professional help. Mice could be sensitive creatures.

“Then maybe you need a larger division as badly as experience.”

“If they could stay outta each other’s way… that might help. Manilly Bupers seems ta’ think this tub didn’t need any bigger black gang than a harbor tug.” Lelaa saw he was studying the vast fleet surrounding them now. He stuck his hands in his pockets, then jerked them out. “Could maybe… a bigger, more experienced division happen?” he asked hesitantly, and Lelaa blinked amusement.

“I am sure we can work something out.”

After Gilbert left the bridge, Tex Sheider approached her, grinning. He’d been S-19’s radioman, but, like all of them, his capacities had expanded amazingly. Not only was he one of Lelaa’s best friends, but he was also her exec.

“Getting that squirrel to ask for the dose you wanted to make him take is one of the slickest things I ever saw!” he laughed.

“He may be a ‘squirrel,’ but he is a good man. It was only a matter of discovering what he really needed, so I could help him know.”

“Figuring out anything bobbing around in that weird little head is bound to be a miracle. Spanky said it can’t be done.”

A pair of four-cylinder Wright Gipsy engines roared on the flight deck below as the great ship eased slightly more into the wind, and one after the other, a pair of Nancys were hurled into the sky ahead, assisted by the hydraulic catapults. (Those were other devices Gilbert Yeager passionately despised.)

A signals ’Cat entered the bridge from the separate comm shack dedicated to air ops. “Commaander Reddy’s flight has rejoined the other flights of the Eleventh Bomb Squadron and has the task force in sight. He asks permission to proceed with the scheduled training exercises.”

“Of course,” Lelaa said. “Signal Icarus to stream the target.”

“Ay, ay, Cap-i-taan!”

They watched through Impie-made telescopes as the twelve planes crept toward the task force in a long, echelon formation. Two planes suddenly banked away from the others and dove on the target barge Icarus had unreeled about two hundred yards in her wake. Tall white splashes straddled the barge on the first pass, and again on the second. Only one splash marked the passage of the third pair, so one of them must have hit the barge itself. The exercise continued, with similar, satisfactory results. Only one plane missed dramatically, nearly hitting Icarus on its second pass, but its pilot was likely one of Orrin’s replacements. The wing had lost a lot of pilots and machines in the New Ireland fighting, but as a whole, it had gained a lot of experience as well. Replenishment ships out of Maa-ni-la had brought the wing back up to strength in both flyers and aircraft, and not only were there now extra pilots; there were also thirty spare Nancys aboard, still in crates. Perhaps sixty more were scattered through the fleet, and the tenders each had an assembled plane mounted on a new directional catapult amidships. Walker ’s precedent of carrying a plane aboard for long-range reconnaissance had been as successful here as the same practice had been for larger ships on the world she’d come from.

In total, Orrin would eventually command more than 120 aircraft when they reached the Enchanted Isles- if the islands were still in friendly hands, and if there was a protected waterway to operate them from when they got there. Hopefully, they would have answers to those questions within the next week, even before they rendezvoused with Jenks’s elements. There was no transmitter in the Enchanted Isles, and somebody had to either get there or at least get eyeballs on the place before they’d know the situation. Fleeing ships had confirmed the attack, but since then there’d been no news.

Orrin even had a couple of pursuit planes. The P-40s that arrived in Baalkpan in Santa Catalina ’s hold had been designed for six. 50-caliber machine guns each. Colonel Mallory had decided not to mount them all on the planes, with a couple of exceptions. The P-40s could carry four times the bomb load of a Nancy, fly four or five times as fast, and with an auxiliary fuel tank and minus the weight of four of their guns, they even had slightly greater range. With the spare guns aboard the ship, the Alliance now had almost 150 extra of the powerful weapons. Several had been hurried out to Scapa Flow before the fleet put to sea, with instructions on how to mount one gun each in the noses of Nancys in such a way that they wouldn’t shake the little planes apart. The same had been done for First Fleet with more urgency and in greater numbers, considering the airship threat and what had happened to Humfra-Dar. It wasn’t much, but at least Second Fleet had some air to air protection now.

“Orrin’s shaping up just fine,” Tex observed.

“He is. I had some doubt at first. He is… very different from his cousin, Captain Reddy.”

“Yeah, and he’d already been through a lot when we got him. He didn’t have a lot of time with Captain Reddy when they were both in the New Britain Isles either, but he definitely respects the ‘old man,’ and he’s plenty committed to fighting the Doms, at least.”

“Indeed, and perhaps more important than his commitment to the cause, Commander Reddy has become even more committed to his aircrews. That is good.”

Tex shrugged. “Sure. Gilbert’s right, though. The ship is green, but at least Orrin’s given her some damn sharp teeth.”

“Yes,” Lelaa replied. She turned to the officer of the deck. “I believe Commander Reddy has almost completed his exercise. Stand by to begin recovery operations. The fleet will assume its appropriate stations and observe all signals.”

“Ay, Cap-i-taan!”