Winds of Wrath Page 16

  Tabby was blinking exasperation and nodding, while inwardly amused by Isak’s stubborn insularity. It wouldn’t do for her to defend USS James Ellis by pointing out that, aside from some engineering issues (the only kind that mattered to Isak), Walker’s first “daughter” on this world was better than her “mother” in almost every way. A quarter century younger and more imaginatively framed—not to mention she hadn’t been rebuilt from wreckage more than once—she was certainly stronger.

  “I know, I know, an’ we caan’t secure another boiler an’ still maintain twelve knots. Not an’ make enough auxiliaary steam for all the other leaky, worn-out stuff, like pumps an’ generators . . . I know, Isaak. An’ the paperwork ain’t my idea.” She flicked her tail and confessed, “I caan only baarely read it myself. ’Course, thaat might be because o’ your crummy writing,” she teased with a toothy grin, but pointed at the clipboard. “Thaat’s all goin’ to the yaard apes when we get to Baalkpan. Think of it as a Kiss-muss list. Scuttlebutt is, Ellie’s gettin’ new reduction gears, Saavoie’ll haave all her fire control issues sorted out, an’ we’re gonna haave weeks in dry dock. Every wish in your weird head is gonna come true.” She blinked slyly and narrowed her eyes. “How’d you like to haave a braand-new number one boiler, instead o’ thaat auxiliaary fuel taank in the forwaard fireroom?”

  Isak blinked surprise in the Lemurian way. “I thought we was keepin’ that damn thing forever, sacrificin’ a few knots for range.”

  “Yaah, but despite how faar we haave to go, we won’t need the range as much anymore. Mr.—I mean, Chair-maan—Letts’s been sendin’ oilers east for a long time. On top o’ thaat, the Impies’re gettin’ oil from their colonies an’ all their new ships burn it.” Tabby shrugged. “Once we get through the Paass o’ Fire, there’s the Nussies. They already use oil, an’ haave it at all their ports.”

  Isak sucked in a lungful of smoke and screwed his face into a thoughtful frown. “So the Skipper thinks we’ll need the speed more than the miles. I like it, but I ain’t sure I like why.”

  “Yaah.” Tabby shifted to stand under one of the blower vents. “Look, you’ll be able to give number three a rest pretty soon. Thaat make you haappy?”

  Isak looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”

  Tabby blinked. “Because we’re almost there!”

  “There where?”

  “Jeez,” Tabby said, shaking her head. “Don’t you even know where we are?”

  Isak blinked noncommittally. “Somewhere in the Indian—Western—Ocean?”

  “We’re in the Soondaa Straait! B’taava, by daark.” She looked around at the single Lemurian and two Impies in the compartment. All were female and completely competent. I wonder if Isaak even notices ’em? she asked herself. He was sweet on Sureen for a while, but I don’t know if anything ever came o’ thaat. Maybe he still is, an’ just never told her—or he did, and she brushed him off? He is Isak, after all. She shook her head, deciding. “C’mon up on deck. Somethin’ neat you oughta’ see. It’s Sureen’s waatch anyway, an’ you’re just buggin’ your snipes.” She patted him fondly on the shoulder. “You gotta get out more!”

  The deck hatch opened under the motor whaleboat on the starboard side of the ship, between the amidships deckhouse and number one quadruple torpedo mount. Tabby luxuriated in the cool breeze evaporating sweat from her fur and clothes as she climbed on deck alongside the number three and four stacks. She wondered—again—how her people could stand living in the cramped, skinny ship. How did she? Lemurians were almost universally prone to claustrophobia, but none, given the chance, ever hesitated to serve in Walker, and now other ships like her. Granted, females did better belowdecks, but she’d always written that off to the fact they were smaller and there was less heavy work to do. Conversely, she’d known only a handful of Lemurian males to thrive in the engineering spaces. It didn’t matter. The confines there never much bothered Tabby, and Walker always needed more hands topside.

  Isak joined her, blinking like a mole, and they caught cooking smells sweeping back from Earl Lanier’s galley under the deckhouse. Earl was a jerk, still somewhat obsessed with maintaining a small, battered, red refrigerator with “Coca-Cola” painted on the side. As far as Tabby knew, he never actually put anything in it. He could cook, though. Not that anyone would ever admit it, of course. “Not chowtime yet,” Tabby said, doubting Isak had any idea what time it was, “but there’s always saammitches. Waant one?”

  “Nah.” Isak was looking south to starboard, at a jungle-choked shore. A couple of mountains soared high and purple in the hazy distance, but the coastal land beneath the trees seemed relatively flat. “Big deal,” he said. “I seen plenty o’ jungle islands. Too many boogers. Too many goddamn trees. Who’d ever wanna go there? You’d get ate by somethin’ before you took a dozen paces.”

  “Not thaat way, stupid,” Tabby chided, leading to port, past the vegetable lockers, over the peak of the crowned deck, and finally past the portside torpedo mount to the rail. “There,” she urged, flicking her ears northwest. Ten or twelve miles away, a dark, conical mountain rose straight out of the sea, thin brown smoke spiraling endlessly into the sky from a summit perhaps five thousand feet high. And ribboning its steep flanks, glowing bright as blood against the soot-black cone, rivers of lava flowed down to touch the water and form a misty shroud for the shore. It was so striking at first glance, only a longer inspection revealed smaller islands surrounding it. All except the monster in their midst were as green and lush as the shore to starboard.

  “I’ll be,” Isak mumbled.

  “Why, if it ain’t ol’ Isak, rose up from his steamy iron tomb!” came a loud voice, and Isak saw Dennis Silva, Lawrence, and Pam Cross approaching from under the deckhouse. Silva looked up and ostentatiously blinked his good eye, pretending to flinch from the sun. The fuzzy lizard around his neck did the same—but it always looked where Silva did. “An’ it ain’t even dark!”

  “Can it, Dennis,” Pam growled. “No wonder he never comes out, the way everybody pesters him.”

  Isak shrugged. He didn’t care what people thought. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “A vol-caano,” Tabby told him.

  “I know that, but . . . damn, I never seen one bleed.”

  Silva spat a thick stream of yellowish Aryaalan tobacco juice over the side and grunted. “That ain’t blood, you idiot.” Pam poked him savagely in the ribs with her sharp elbow and gave him a harsh look.

  “I know that too, you overgrown possum,” Isak replied through clenched teeth. “I just . . . never seen its like.”

  “You will, though, what I hear,” Silva told him, tone more serious. “There’s another whopper on the Pacific side o’ the Pass o’ Fire. The strait’s tighter than this there too, an’ we’re goin’ through it. Gives me the quivers.” He pretended to shake, then grinned and pointed. “On the other hand, you asked what that was, an’ best I can tell from the charts, it’s Krakatoa.”

  Isak gulped. Every sailor in the Asiatic Fleet had heard tales of Krakatoa’s 1883 eruption; how it blew up bigger than all the bombs ever made, loud enough to be heard around the world, and sent tidal waves high enough to plop a Dutch gunboat a hundred miles inland on Java. Isak figured many of the tales had been exaggerated, but didn’t know which ones, or how much. “So . . . if it blew up, what’s it doin’ here?”

  Silva rolled his eye. “Different world, remember? It just didn’t go off on this one . . . yet.” He grinned again. “It’s way bigger here too. When it does pop, I bet it’s twice as bad!” He squinted. “Looks about ready, if you ask me.”

  “Oh, knock it off,” Pam scolded, exasperated.

  “An’ how much farther is this joint we’re headed?”

  “We’ll anchor in Soonda Bay, off B’taava. I don’t know. Maybe eighty, a hundred miles?” Isak seemed to relax. “Which won’t make any difference, o’ course,” Silva continued. “Wa
ll o’ water a thousand feet high? Ha! It’ll wash us away like a soap flake in the tub.”

  “Not a gag,” Lawrence said, voice flat, and Silva nodded thoughtfully. They’d survived a volcano-stirred tidal wave on Yap Island together, and Lawrence’s people—they’d been Tagranesi then, not Sa’aarans—were virtually wiped out.

  “No,” Silva agreed. “Not funny at all, I s’pose.” He nodded at the diminishing mountain of fire. “It prob’ly won’t do nothin’, an’ we won’t be at B’taava long. Just take on fuel. Maybe some grub. Skipper’s whuppin’ the horses hard. Ever’ day it takes to get to Baalkpan is one less we have to get from there to wherever the hell else we’re goin’.”

  “An’ one day less we get in the yaard, I bet,” Tabby agreed.

  “Could be,” Silva granted, “but I don’t think so, this time. He’s in a hurry, sure, but I get the feelin’ he wants this old tin can readier to fight than she’s ever been. Figgers she’s gonna need to be.”

  Petey had raised his head, sniffing, probably smelling Earl’s cooking. “Eat?” he inquired, almost politely.

  “Not yet, dumb-ass.”

  Isak watched the exchange with interest. “You really talk to that thing,” he said. “I mean, it understands you?”

  Pam laughed. “Sure, a real meeting of the minds. An’ he talks back too,” she added with a measure of satisfaction.

  “Almost as much as you, doll,” Silva quipped.

  “I used to talk to Grikky,” Isak confessed, reminding them he’d once caught and partially tamed a baby Grik. “I thought he understood me,” he added, glaring aft at Savoie, “until that bastard Laney murdered him.” Dean Laney was Savoie’s engineering officer now.

  “Let it go,” Tabby advised. “Laney’ll always be an aasshole, but he paid his bill in Saanty Caat.”

  Isak scratched the thin, scruffy beard on his chin, then looked back at Petey. “You let me watch him once, remember? But the only thing he ever said was—”

  Pam stopped him. “For God’s sake! Don’t use the ‘E’ word! It’s one thing if he says it and you shut him down. You say it, you’ll wind him up and he won’t quit till he, uh, gets to.”

  “But he throws out other words. I’ve heard him.”

  “Yeah,” Silva agreed. “Mostly bad ones, like a parrot, er somethin’, but he can tell you stuff too. I figure he’s smart as a barn cat, or maybe one o’ them stupid little dogs rich broads wag around.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sure. I’ve even taught him some tricks.”

  Pam laughed louder. “Like gliding back to the ship after you throw him overboard?”

  “Not just that. We’re workin’ on a new one, might be useful.” Silva looked at Lawrence. “Ain’t we, Larry?”

  Lawrence snorted. “Yes. He’ll ne’er do it, though. Not in ’attle. E’en you say he’s a ‘chicken lizard.’ He’ll just run a’ay.”

  “He’s reformed,” Silva defended, thumping Petey on the head.

  “Reformed!” Petey adamantly confirmed.

  “Maybe I oughta get me one o’ them critters,” Isak speculated. “I’ve seen a few on ships that stopped at Yap on their way back an’ forth from the Empire.” He lowered his voice. “Pickin’ up thorns to make that ‘killer kudzu’ stuff.” “Killer kudzu” was an insidious carnivorous plant infesting a large percentage of Yap Island. It quickly incapacitated its victims with a single thorn, then rapidly spread through their bloodstream and devoured them from the inside. The plant then burst forth from the corpse and spread in all directions, infecting anything it touched. Once considered a viable area denial weapon, the thorns had been carefully collected and various means of deployment explored. But Yap was the only known origin of the plant and the danger of spreading it across entire islands, even continents, ultimately prevented its use—all but once.

  “I might buy one off some Impie,” Isak continued. “Even if he didn’t talk much, it might be like havin’ ol’ Gilbert around again.”

  The brow arched over Silva’s good eye. “Better, I expect.”

  “Aw, can’t you see Chief Reuben’s lonesome?” Pam pronounced, patting Isak on the arm.

  The skinny engineer tensed. “Am not!”

  “Sure you are!” Pam argued, turning to Silva. “Why don’t you just give him the little shit, Dennis?” When she said “little shit,” her tone turned malevolent. She didn’t like Petey. He knew it and cringed tighter to Silva’s neck.

  “Can’t,” Silva simply said. “He ain’t mine. I’m just holdin’ him for Lady Sandra, who was keepin’ him for Governor-Empress Becky, if you recall.” Petey did still—technically—belong to Rebecca Anne McDonald, ruler of the Empire of the New Britain Isles, and closest ally of the United Homes. “Lady Sandra”—he also stressed the title the Imperials gave Sandra Tucker Reddy—“don’t want the gluttonous bastard hoverin’ around little Fitzy—with good reason—so I’m stuck witheem.”

  “Stuck!” Petey boldly chirped at Pam before burrowing tighter around Silva’s neck.

  Pam blinked and Tabby said, laughing, “I think, like Silvaa, thaat daamn lizaard is smaarter thaan he lets on!”

  “Gotta get me one,” Isak agreed.

  USS Walker entered Soonda Bay at dusk, still leading the small convoy of warships. Even though B’taava had once been a fairly prosperous Lemurian land Home, the Grik had swarmed it early in the war, practically exterminating its population, and none of them had ever been here before. An MTB pilot boat was waiting to lead them to the Navy Clan docks. A Morse lamp flashed in the gathering gloom, providing the recognition signal, the boat’s number, and a request that Walker maintain her current course and speed while the boat came alongside to transfer a pilot.

  “Gutsy to hop aboard at twelve knots, even for a ’Cat,” Matt remarked when a signal-’Cat on the starboard bridgewing relayed the message.

  “Chart says we’re about eleven miles from the dock,” observed Chief Quartermaster “Paddy” Rosen, looking at the red-lit chart table. “It’s tricky water, though. Lots of little islands, with shallows and coral heads. I’d rather have somebody familiar with the place at the wheel, instead of just following a light.”

  “But why not heave to? Or slow down, at least,” asked Commander Bernard “Bernie” Sandison, standing by one of his precious torpedo directors on the starboard wing. They were all reconciled to the terrifying additional hazard of living and fighting in a ship on the insanely predator-rich seas of this world, but why risk falling in the water for something like this?

  Matt shook his head. “Probably for the best. Our ships are steaming at pretty tight intervals.” That was so they’d never be separated, and less experienced watch standers would get used to close formations. Also because the League possessed at least one more submarine, and their fuel constraints had prohibited high speeds and zigzagging. He doubted a sub could operate this far from League support anymore, and the League was probably just as paranoid about losing it as he was to meet it, but if it was somehow around, and stuffed a few fish down—probably Savoie’s—throat, he wanted the rest of his ships close enough to help with damage control or take off survivors. And kill the sub, of course. “If we stop, we have to stop everyone,” he explained. “No big deal, except for Captain Chappelle. His people are still learning how to handle that fat battlewagon. We’re going to do a lot more maneuvering in formation drills,” he resolved aloud. “Call the special sea and anchor detail,” he told Minnie the talker behind him, “and have them rig a sea ladder.”

  Chief Jeek’s bosun’s pipe trilled on the fo’c’sle, working its way aft through the starboard side bridge hatch. Bare Lemurian feet thundered on the thin steel deck. (’Cats only wore sandals when the steel was broiling under the sun and always shed them after dark.) The MTB had made a wide turn and was closing on Walker’s starboard beam just as a wood rung rope ladder unrolled down her side, aft of t
he bridge. The MTB swept deftly in, and to Matt’s surprise, a young man, not a Lemurian, snatched the streaming ladder and scurried up as nimbly as a ’Cat.

  The MTB peeled off and raced ahead to take its leading position as surprised greetings on the deck below preceded the sound of shoes on metal steps behind the pilothouse. Matt stood to face their visitor and was surprised again. “My God, Nat! What’re you doing here?” Lieutenant Commander Nathaniel Hardee, maybe all of seventeen, grinned and pulled his officer’s hat out of his shirt and plopped it on his head before saluting. “Request permission to come aboard, sir,” he said, smiling, his accent still very British. Of course, he was British. He and a bunch of other kids in the care of Sister Audrey had been snuck out of Surabaya in the old S-19 before the Japanese could catch them. Whether arrival on this world could be considered escape was still debated by some, but not Nat. He and most of those kids had thrived. Abel Cook, about the same age, was a Marine major in Chack’s Brigade.

  “Of course you’re welcome, Mr. Hardee,” Matt said more formally, after returning the salute. Nat started buttoning his shirt. “I just wasn’t expecting you. I thought you were heading to the Filpin Lands, to command MTB-Ron-5.”