“How is our dear Saan-Kakja holding out?” Adar asked. Saan-Kakja was a remarkable High Chief in many ways. Like so many of the “youngling rulers” or commanders this war had created or “brought of age,” Saan-Kakja had “stepped up to the plate” with poise, resolve, and a singular dedication to “the cause.” They’d been fortunate in her, and others as well: Tassana-Ay-Aracca, Safir Maraan, Chack-Sab-At, Princess Rebecca—arguably even Matthew Reddy himself. He was no “youngling” at thirty-three, but he was awfully young for the responsibilities heaped upon him. So was Pete Alden. He’d been just a sergeant in USS
Houston
’s Marine contingent, and now he was General of the Armies and Marines. Alan Letts himself had been a lazy, freckled kid from Idaho, marking time as
Walker
’s supply officer. Now he was Adar’s and Captain Reddy’s chief of staff. It was like that for most of the men and women who’d ridden
Walker
,
Mahan
, and S-19 through the Squall that brought them here.
Of them all, however, Saan-Kakja was burdened with the greatest responsibility for her age. While in Baalkpan, she’d passed her fourteenth season and, as High Chief of all the Fil-pin Lands, she ruled over the largest single territory claimed by any one High Chief. Even Adar didn’t claim all of Borno. He ruled only the inhabited settlements thereon, and then only until they were independent. Most of the many islands of the Fil-pin Lands were populated to some degree or other, and all were “daughters” of Ma-ni-la. Only her brother’s settlement on southwestern Mindanao, Paga-Daan, had been close to independence, and now that brother was dead—killed by Walter Billingsley and the HNBC.
In addition to the difficulties of overseeing a painful and somewhat resentful industrial revolution in a land that was rapidly becoming the “arsenal of freedom,” Saan-Kakja had to deal with an even larger population of malcontents and antiwar “runaways.” The guilds were more entrenched there, and she hadn’t even had the support of her own Sky Priest, Meksnaak, at first. Her iron will had finally co-opted Meksnaak and the council members she hadn’t fired, and with Shinya’s help and the devotion of her army and the majority of her people, she’d steamrolled the guilds. Adar—and most of the chiefs of the allied Homes and cities—worried most about the “runaway” faction. With Maa-ni-la firmly in the Alliance, they had nowhere left to flee, and it is always remarkable how violent some “pacifists” can become in order to maintain their status.
Adar worried for Saan-Kakja, with her mesmerizing golden eyes. He worried for Matt and
Walker
. He worried about the fate of Princess Rebecca, Sandra Tucker, and even Dennis Silva. He feared for the safety of his own new realm and the exposed distance of the 2nd Allied Expeditionary Force. He couldn’t help it. All were beyond his help and all were people he cared about a great deal.
He glanced through the small shutter at the world beyond the War Room. The rain that had come with the dawn was over, and as though the Heavens had exhausted themselves early that day, the sky was suddenly clear and bright.
“I am, of course, well informed regarding those events that have transpired in Baalkpan today,” he began. That was certainly true. He’d been at the docks himself when his old Home,
Big Sal
, finally rebuilt and completed as the allies’ first “aircraft carrier,” or more appropriately, “seaplane tender,” got underway and steamed slowly out of the bay under the command of his oldest friend, Keje-Fris-Ar.
Watching that had been a bittersweet experience. His old Home had risen from near destruction to become the most powerful warship known to exist, but she was no longer his Home. Baalkpan was his Home now; he’d made that choice. But
Salissa
epitomized the changes his society—his world—was undergoing at such inexorable speed. No longer did she stand to sea under her lofty, mighty, beautiful wings. Instead, she belched smoke, and two massive engines turned a single giant screw propeller. She would never be fast, like
Walker
, but she would always be faster than she’d ever been, and in any direction.
Adar knew
Salissa
’s conversion was the only way she would ever survive this new kind of war. It was the only way she could really contribute. Other High Chiefs had volunteered their Homes as well: Tassana had offered
Aracca
, with the consent of all her people. Geran-Eras’s
Humfra-Dar
was in the dry dock, with work already begun. Still, it made him sad.
“But what news is there from the AEF?” he asked. “I noticed the messenger from the telegraph office seemed more heavily burdened than usual. Has there been a major action?”
“No, sir,” Letts replied. “If there had been, that would’ve been the first thing I told you when you came in.” He shook his head. “No, it’s mostly just a bunch of logistical stuff. Alden and Mr. Ellis are gearing up to jump on that Grik force at Rangoon.” He stood and paced to a map on the wall. “Mr. Ellis was inclined to bypass it at first, but General Alden changed his mind. He thinks a bunch of the Grik that abandoned Singapore might have wound up there by now. Some didn’t break. We still don’t know what to make of that. We’ve got those Grik ‘guards’ Rasik-Alcas had, and I wish we could understand them. They seem to understand’Cat but can’t speak it. You ask me, I think they’re too young. They act crazy to please, like dogs, but don’t seem to really know what’s up.” He scratched his nose. “I sure wish Lawrence was here.”
“As do we all,” Adar agreed. “I sincerely doubt he speaks the same language, though. He had no idea what the aboriginal—I think Mr. Silva called them ‘Injun Jungle Lizards’?—had said to him during their encounter. Perhaps he would be better able to learn their language, or teach them his, however.”
“Yeah. Anyway, it’s starting to look like being on their own for a while kind of ‘wakes them up’ a little, or something. Pete says that gives him the willies.”
“Do you think they might influence this Grik force at Raan-goon?”
Letts shook his head. “Not really, and neither does Pete. Chances are, the Singapore Grik will never even make it to Rangoon. Alden, and Mr. Ellis now too, see the campaign more as a chance to test new tactics and equipment before the bigger push later, than anything else. But face it, Mr. Chairman, our ‘tame’ Grik aside, meeting Lawrence has forced us to realize that the Grik probably aren’t all nuts. They may be born nuts, and the Hij may do their best to keep their Uul that way, but that doesn’t mean they just naturally have to stay that way.”
Adar stroked his whiskers in thought. “A most disturbing ... speculation.”
“You said it,” agreed Brister.
“I suppose that leaves only Mr. Mallory’s expedition to discuss,” Adar said.
Riggs looked at the other men, then back at Adar. “Mallory’s little squadron has passed through the Bali Strait and should reach Tjilatjap—’scuse me, ‘Chill-chaap,’ within a few days. They picked up another transport and two hundred more troops and laborers at Aryaal.” He shook his head. “That whole deal is going to be complicated as hell. I really wish we didn’t have to spend the resources on it just now.”
“I agree with you on that,” Brister said, “but think of the payoff if he succeeds! I wish I was with him. He’s going to need a good engineer, and time isn’t on our side. The longer we wait, the more deterioration there will be.”
“He’s got Mikey Monk, Gilbert Yeager, and Jim’s dispatching Isak Rueben to help out.”
Letts laughed. “Both original Mice back in one place, working together! Ha!”
“An effective combination, surely, but who will ‘wrangle’ them?” Adar asked.
“Well, they’re all ‘chiefs’ now, but Monk’s a lieutenant. He worked with Mr. Mallory throughout the development of the Nancys. At least he knows something about airplanes, and Ben Mallory likes him.”
“Yeah, but he’s almost as screwy as the Mice, and all of them will be under the command of a hot-pursuit jock who’s just been given the greatest Christmas present of his life,” Riggs pointed out.
“No, I sent a message to General Alden and he talked Captain Ellis into giving
Tolson
to Russ Chapelle. Russ has earned her anyway. He’ll take
Tolson
down to Chill-chaap for two reasons: first, it’ll give the expedition some real defensive firepower if they need it, and second, Russ will assume overall command.
Tolson
’s current skipper will get one of the new steam frigates when it arrives.”
“Russ Chaap-elle,” Adar mused. “An interesting choice,” he continued delicately. “He has always struck me as a most formidable man, but perhaps a little . . . too much like Sil-vaa? In some ways.”
“He
is
like Silva in some ways,” Letts agreed. “But Silva—if he’s alive—is like a lone marauding wolf that might take on protecting a cub now and then. He’s loyal to the Skipper and damn handy in a fight, but otherwise, his most predictable personality trait is to ‘kill whatever worries you so you won’t have anything to worry about.’ ” Letts shook his head. “Honestly, regardless of the fate of the other hostages Billingsley took, I expect Silva’s dead. I can’t imagine even Billingsley being crazy enough to let somebody that dangerous live.”
There was silence in the War Room for a moment while those present reflected on the probable loss of a bold and valuable warrior, as well as what his death might mean for the other hostages under Billingsley’s control.
“Anyway,” Letts continued, “Chapelle is sort of like Silva. He’s a wolf, but he can lead a pack—or be part of one.” He glanced at Adar. “Sorry for all the human euphemisms. What I mean is that he can be aggressive as hell, but he can also be counted on to follow explicit orders and lead others in carrying them out. He started out as a torpedoman, so he’s got some engineering smarts, but he’s also been exec of two square-riggers now, so we know he can sail, lead, and organize men and ’Cats. With him riding herd on Ben Mallory, I’ll feel more confident that the mission will proceed in an efficient, timely fashion than if the ‘euphoric pursuit jock’ was running the show.”
“Does the ‘euphoric pursuit jock’ know all this yet?” Riggs asked.
“Sorta,” Letts hedged. “He knows he’s in charge of recovering and/or preserving the airplanes, and he’s already done a good job preparing for that. He’s mixed up a quantity of what we hope will serve as high-octane fuel with all the ethyl alcohol we could cook up in so short a time. He says if we mix it with the gas we’re running in the Nancys it ought to work; it’ll just be inefficient as hell.”
“And I still don’t think it’ll
stay
mixed,” Brister objected, continuing an apparent argument.
“Maybe not,” Letts allowed with a sigh. “I’m not the guy to ask. There’s no way, under the present circumstances, we can come up with tetra-ethyl-lead—that’s the stuff Mallory and Bradford told me they usually add to the gas. Anyway, we’ve got an airstrip started north of the shipyard. If he and Russ decide to try to fly the things out, we’ll have a place to land them. God knows who’ll fly them, though. He’s got a few of our new pilots with him, but as I understand it, learning to fly a P-40E is about as far beyond flying a Nancy as brain surgery is beyond picking your nose.” There was general laughter at the analogy, but Adar clearly didn’t quite understand. Hopefully, he would one day.
“Personally,” Brister said, “I’d rather they try to get the ship out, with the crated planes on board.”
Letts nodded. “That’s my hope too, and one of the main reasons Russ will be in charge. Ben won’t give a hoot about the ship; he’ll just want the planes. I’d rather have it all, and if there’s any way that can happen, I bet the Mice and Mikey Monk will figure it out.”
“Captain Ellis said the area the ship’s in, this . . . swamp, is a really spooky place,” Riggs pointed out.
“Yeah, well, if it was easy, we wouldn’t have to send as much to do the job.” Letts looked at Adar. “I know you’ve been a little reluctant about this. You think ‘we’ve got airplanes, why do we need these?’ All I can tell you, until you see one fly, is that they’re even further out of our Nancys’ league than
Amagi
was out of
Walker
’s.”
With an exhausted grunt, Adar stirred himself from the cushion and stood. “Oh, I believe you. I just hope the gain will be worth the effort—and the cost as well, I fear.” He sighed. “I have been hiding here long enough, however, not to mention interfering with your meeting.” He bowed to Alan Letts. “Please do convey my kindest regards to your mate, Nurse Kaaren. I know nothing of human birthing customs, but among our people it is expected that the male should be nearby, to render support and protection to his mate during her time of helplessness.” He blinked, and Alan Letts shifted uncomfortably.
“Another similarity our cultures share,” Riggs proclaimed. “It’s not like a fellow is supposed to be in the
room
or anything, but he ought to be there. That’s pretty much what we told him when we showed up for this meeting.”
Letts cast a scathing look. “Pam and Kathy said they’d send word when . . . you know, the . . . water thing ...”
“I know you are busy,” Adar said. “You have great responsibility over momentous events, but the first human youngling born in Baalkpan is momentous as well. The city stands still in anticipation! Perhaps you might consider that, as well as the possibility that the war might manage to muddle along without you for a short time.” He turned to the others. “Mr. Riggs, Mr. Brister, good day.”
CHAPTER 8
Jaava Sea
A
dmiral Keje-Fris-Ar honestly still couldn’t decide if his colossal ship’s new configuration made him ecstatic or morose. Certainly he had spells when one emotion or the other predominated. The unavoidable sight of his beloved Home from her new “bridge” constructed from the abbreviated “battlement” made him sad. Gone were
Salissa
’s three great pagodalike structures, the apartments of the wing clans. Gone as well were her towering tripod masts and vast “wings,” or sails. All that, almost her very identity, her soul, had been demolished in the great Battle of Baalkpan.
Salissa
Home, or
Big Sal
as his human friends called her, had been altered forever by that cataclysmic day and night. She was not dead, however, and difficult as it sometimes seemed, he still believed he sensed a soul within the pounding, vibrating body beneath his feet.
Salissa
now had only a small offset superstructure and four large, equally offset funnels, venting gray smoke from her eight oil-fired boilers where once the Body of Home clan and her vast polta gardens and fish-drying racks occupied her main deck. She looked like nothing Keje had ever seen before—squat, in a way, but longer somehow, even though he knew she wasn’t.
What Keje believed was still
Salissa
’s “soul” tasted of a different purpose now as well. She’d lost the benign, passive essence that once so mirrored the great Galla tree that had grown upward from her very keel to bask in the glory of the light let through the shutters of the Great Hall. In its place, her soul was now an avenging spirit, sustained by the pounding, steam-driven heart deep within her body. She was a thing of heat now, of passion, no longer content to move with the wind. Now she harbored an urgent anger, a drive to return to the fight and avenge her people who’d been taken from her by the Grik.
Keje considered his Home formidably enough armed, particularly if her planes were as effective as the destroyermen predicted. Dozens of the ungainly but oddly familiar “Nancys” she’d been rebuilt to accommodate were secured to her high, flat deck. Even more were stowed below, where they could be serviced and assembled and moved up to the main deck by means of ramps that dropped to accept them. Far below, in
Salissa
’s magazines, were bombs that would give teeth to the fragile-looking craft. The planes weren’t her only weapons. She now boasted a broadside armament of fifty 32-pounder smoothbores, twenty-five to a side, and they’d breeched and mounted a section of one of
Amagi
’s ten-inch naval rifles on a pivoting carriage forward, beneath the “flight deck.” They’d designed a muzzle-loading projectile for the gun with copper skirt and bearing bands, and the nearly two-hundred-pound bullet could reliably strike a target the size of a small felucca at a range of fifteen hundred tails. No “gyro” was required because the massive Home was so stable in most seas. All they needed was a good range, course, and speed estimate of the target. There were also a couple of longer-range guns aboard, fore and aft of the superstructure. These were five-and-a-half-inchers salvaged from the sunken Japanese battle cruiser. They could have installed more of
Amagi
’s guns, and they might still, but Matt, Spanky, and Brister had other plans for them.
That was some consolation.
Salissa
was back in the fight, one way or another, and though her splendor was gone, Keje had long recognized that form and function often possessed a beauty of their own. He couldn’t entirely suppress the elation he felt over the fact that his altered Home could now move in literally any direction he desired. Also, with her mighty engines throbbing at their maximum safe rpm’s, she could do so at the almost unimaginable speed of twelve knots! Before, his ship had been capable of achieving ten knots on occasion, when the sweeps were out, but the speed could be maintained only until his people were exhausted. Now
Salissa
could steam at “high” speed almost indefinitely. Her fuel bunkers were immense, easily large enough for her to replenish other ships. Combined with her two huge, relatively crude but extremely reliable reciprocating engines turning a single shaft, there was sufficient mechanical redundancy to make him confident that his ship could steam to any point in the known world. He’d often wondered why
Walker
was so utilitarian, so devoid of the decorations his people loved so much. Now he knew. Just as had now been done to his own precious Home, aesthetics had been sacrificed for capability.
Fortunately,
Big Sal
was still large enough for some amenities. The “battlement bridge,” which was quickly becoming simply “the bridgewings,” still sported decorative awnings to protect her officers from the sun and the occasional swirling soot. There were no cushions on the bridge, but there were stools for the watch to rest upon. Speaking tubes were clustered here and there, connecting the bridge with every part of the ship, from the “crow’s nest”—a dizzying hundred tails above the centrally located “pilothouse”—to the “ordnance strikers” stationed in the dark, gloomy magazines far below the waterline. Matt had told him that
Salissa
now most resembled a ship from his own world he’d called
Lexington
, and he insisted
Salissa
’s hull was probably much tougher and her aircraft nearly as capable as the ones
Lex
first sailed with. He’d shown Keje a picture of
Lex
in one of his books, and Keje had to agree the comparison was not without foundation.
Striding across the wide bridgewing, Keje reached his own favorite stool. The rest of the stools were ornately carved, but not his. His was old and creaky and somewhat battered, but he and it had been through a lot together. The faded wood was even liberally stained with his own blood. He wasn’t about to abandon it—and woe was he whom Keje ever caught sitting on it! There’d been several occasions now, enough that he suspected his new officers had begun a tradition of hazing their juniors as they rose, when “newies” had been told they had to “start out” on the ugliest stool, only to have the “aahd-mah-raal” descend upon the unlucky candidate like a roiling Strakka. Instead of being angry with his officers, he played along, pleased that they too seemed to recognize the need for many new “traditions” in this new Navy to replace some of those they’d lost.
Settling upon the protesting stool, Keje leaned on the rail before him and watched the labor far below on the forward “flight deck.”
“Aadh-mah-raal,” said Captain Atlaan-Fas, “we have received a wireless message from Lieutenant Mark Leedom, Tikker’s executive officer. He will arrive within two hours with our new medical officer, Nurse Lieutenant Kaathy McCoy. Captain Tikker has been working his flight crews very hard and begs you to allow him to fly a sortie to meet Lieutenant Leedom’s plane.”
“Outstanding,” Keje replied. “I assume that if Nurse McCoy is joining us, Nurse Theimer’s—I mean, Letts’s—youngling must be thriving.” He shook his head. “Most curious that human females change their names when they mate.”
“Not terribly curious,” Atlaan objected. “Our younglings often follow the names of their fathers.” He grinned. “It is certainly not the most significant difference between our peoples!”
Keje huffed a laugh. “No concerns for the mother?”
“Surely not, or Nurse McCoy would not be joining us.”
All Allied transmissions the evening before had been virtually dedicated to the happy news that “Allison Verdia Letts” had been born into this world at last. Congratulations were returned from the far reaches of the world, from Commodore Ellis in the Western Ocean to a late-night message from Captain Reddy in the Eastern Sea, relayed through Manila. Chairman Adar had proclaimed that this day, October 3 by the American calendar, would henceforth be “Allison Verdia Day,” in honor of the first human youngling born among the Lemurian people. May there be many more.
“Very well,” Keje replied. “It is time we tested the new launching system, at any rate. Captain Tikker may take a single flight of planes. We will have plenty of time to recover the aircraft before dark.” Keje grinned, and glanced port and starboard at the two new steam frigates pacing his Home. One was USS
Kas-Ra-Ar
, named for his lost cousin and the first frigate of that name destroyed during the Battle of Baalkpan. The other was USS
Scott
. Everyone believed that a frigate was a far better monument to the heroism of
Walker
’s lost coxswain than a motor launch. “You may also grant his request to ‘play’ with our escorts when he returns!”
“Aye, aye, Aahd-mah-raal.”
Captain Jis-Tikkar, or “Tikker” to his friends, glanced to his right, over his shoulder, to make sure the rest of the ships of “B” flight were still where they were supposed to be. He was mildly amazed to see that they were. Somehow, in the twisted way of things that seemed to have become the norm, he was
Salissa
’s “Commander of Flight Operations,” or “COFO,” in general, and commander of
Salissa
’s air wing of, eventually, forty planes, in particular. Officially, the wing was the “1st Naval Air Wing,” composed of the “1st and 2nd Naval Pursuit Squadrons,” and the “1st, 2nd, and 3rd Naval Bomb Squadrons.” Evidently, the officious, confusing, multiple names of the elements under his command were the result of a compromise between Major Ben Mallory and the Navy types that predominated. If it didn’t make much sense to him yet, he presumed that it would eventually, when other “wings” were operational.
His own lofty new status was gratifying, he supposed, but it still struck him as astounding. Granted, he’d become a good pilot and had learned he actually had a gift for teaching. He was also the most “experienced” Lemurian aviator in the entire world. But it hadn’t been that long ago when Ben Mallory had actually forbidden him to touch the controls of the battered PBY Catalina they’d finally lost in the Battle of Baalkpan. Well, he’d improved. Everyone had. This first draft of “Naval Aviators” from the growing “Army and Navy Air Corps Training Center” outside of Baalkpan was composed of raw but competent pilots. Tikker was proud of them, proud of the role he’d had in training them.
Calling the group of four aircraft he now led “ ‘B’ flight, 1st Naval
Pursuit
Squadron” didn’t make any sense at all, however, and Tikker wasn’t sure it ever would. He and Ben both
hoped
it would, eventually, but at present, each of his “Nancy” flying-boats was identical, regardless of its designation. Of course, even if some planes were ultimately specially designed to chase something down and shoot it out of the sky, as far as they knew, there was nothing else in the world’s skies for them to “pursue.” Yet. Tikker and Ben both worried that that wouldn’t always be the situation, and Ben, at least, wanted some kind of organizational structure already in place. Just in case.
Tikker was a “believer,” but he shrugged mentally. Right now he didn’t really care. He was flying, and that’s all that mattered. The “improved” Nancys, or “PB-1Bs” as Mallory preferred to call them, were showing themselves to be pretty good little airplanes. They were easy to build and maintain and the ridiculously simple power plant was reliable and powerful enough for anything they would ever need a Nancy to do. They weren’t fast (by Ben’s standards), but they were maneuverable—while being forgiving at the same time—something Ben always said was hard to achieve. Tikker had the flying bug in a big way, and if they could only invent a seat that was comfortable for a ’Cat with a tail, he would have no complaints about the planes at all.
He was also pleased that he could report that the new hydraulic catapult worked even better than anyone expected. The fundamental mechanism was simple—if leaky and extremely messy—but the means of launching aircraft without landing gear had required unexpected imagination. They’d settled on a wooden “cradle truck” that accelerated forward, supporting the fuselage of a Nancy until it reached the end of the flight deck. At that point, the truck slammed to a stop and tripped a release hook. Tikker had to admit, it scared him half to death when the machine literally flung his plane into the air in front of the ship. The acceleration was extreme, and he was amazed it didn’t break any of the planes. The contraption might need a little adjusting to take some of that initial jolt out of it, but it beat lowering the planes over the side one at a time with the big crane and then having them take off in possibly dangerous seas. They still had to land on the water, but they could then simply motor into one of the huge bays that opened in
Big Sal
’s sides, from which she’d once launched her gri-kakka boats. If they ever launched every plane on the ship, that wouldn’t work, but they could still hoist out the extras with the crane.
He glanced again to make sure his flight was keeping up, then spoke into the voice tube beside and a little behind his head.
“Hey, Cisco,” he called to his copilot/engineer/observer in the aft cockpit. Cisco’s real name was Siska-Kor, but like nearly everyone in the Naval Air Corps, she had a nickname now. “We’re going to gain some altitude. Send that we’ll climb to five thousand and maintain formation.”
“It will be cold up there,” came the tinny, windy reply.
“Not that cold,” Tikker assured her. He realized they were going to have to get some proper flight suits for the air crews. Right now they wore little more than the regulation Navy kilt and T-shirt, with goggles for the primary pilots. They needed goggles for everyone, but the glass industry in Baalkpan was having fits and starts and they were still using salvaged glass from
Amagi
. Cisco was right, though—it would be chilly. He’d never really known what cold was until he flew. He wasn’t even sure what the Nancy’s “service ceiling” was, since he’d always been too cold to reach it.
“Besides, Lieutenant Leedom is a ‘hotshot.’ A natural. Strange for a sub-maa-reener, I guess, but he’s liable to try to intercept
us
, and I bet he and Nurse McCoy are wearing warmer clothes!”