Iron Gray Sea - 07 Page 2

  Chief Gunner’s Mate Dennis Silva.

  Lawrence “Larry the Lizard,” orange-and-brown tiger-striped fur, Grik-like ex-Tagranesi Sa’aaran.

  Imperial Midshipman Stuart Brassey.

  “Sgt.” Moe (L)—The Hunter.

  Fil-pin Lands

  Saan-Kakja (L)—High Chief of Maa-ni-la and all the Fil-pin Lands.

  Meksnaak (L)—High Sky Priest of Maa-ni-la.

  Chinakru—Ex-Tagranesi, now colonial governor on Samaar.

  General Ansik-Talaa (L)—Fil-pin Scouts.

  Colonel Busaa (L)—Coastal Artillery; commanding Advanced Training Center (ATC).

  Lord Bolton Forester—Imperial Ambassador.

  Lt. Bachman—Forester’s aide.

  Major Jindal—Imperial Marine.

  Mizuki Maru (general cargo). Single-screw steamer, 5,050 tons, 405’ x 50’, 10 knots. Former Japanese “hell ship” fitted with minimal protection, and 4 x 5.5,” + 4 x Type 96 25 mm AA.

  Lord Cmdr. Sato Okada—Commanding.

  Lt. Hiro—Exec.

  Second Fleet (Assigned to the Eastern Theater,or “Dom Front”)

  High Admiral Harvey Jenks—Commander in Chief—East (CINCEAST).

  Task Force ES-2 (Eastern Sea-2)

  Aboard USS Maaka-Kakja (CV-4). The first purpose-built aircraft carrier/tender, with specifications similar to Salissa but slightly smaller, faster (up to 13 knots), and better designed for air operations. 50 x 50 pdrs, 2 x 4.7” dual purpose, 2 x 5.5”/50s.

  3rd Naval Air Wing includes the 9th, 11th, 12th Bomb Squadrons and 7th, 10th Pursuit Squadrons. (Thirty planes assembled and thirty unassembled.)

  Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan (L)—Commanding.

  Lieutenant Tex “Sparks” Sheider—Exec.

  2nd Lt. Orrin Reddy—Acting Lieutenant Commander.

  Gilbert Yeager—Engineer (one of the Mice).

  Spook (L)—Gunner’s Mate.

  Sgt. Kuaar-Ran-Taak “Seepy” (L)—Reddy’s backseater.

  Second Fleet DDs

  USS Mertz*** (Fil-pin-built).

  USS Tindal*** (Fil-pin-built).

  HIMS Achilles (Square rig side-wheel steamer, 160’ L—38’ W, 1,300 tons, 26 x 20 pdrs).

  Lt. Grimsley—Commanding.

  HIMS Icarus (Imperial light frigate).

  Lt. Parr—Commanding.

  USS Pecos (Fleet Oiler).

  USS Pucot (Fleet Oiler).

  Second Fleet Expeditionary Force. 4 regiments (2 Divisions) Lemurian infantry, 3 regiments Imperial Marines with artillery train.

  Brevet General Tamatsu Shinya—Commanding.

  Colonel James Blair—Imperial Marines.

  Nurse Lt. Selass-Fris-Ar “Doc’selass” (L) —Daughter of CINCWEST Keje-Fris-Ar.

  Capt. Blas-Ma-Ar “Blossom” (L)—2nd of the 2nd Marines.

  Staas-Fin “Finny” (L)—Detached from USS Walker.

  Faal-Pel “Stumpy” (L)—Ordnance striker. Detached from USS Walker.

  Enchanted Isles

  Sir Thomas Humphries—Imperial Governor of Albermarl.

  Allied Prisoners of the Dominion

  Lt. Fred Reynolds—Special Air Division, USS Walker.

  Ensign Kari-Faask (L)—Reynolds’s friend and backseater.

  Respite Island

  Governor Radcliff.

  Emelia Radcliff.

  Lt. Busbee—Cutter pilot.

  Bishop Akin Todd.

  USS Finir-Pel***

  Lt. Haan-Sor Plaar (L)—Commanding.

  USS Pinaa-Tubo (ammunition ship)

  Lt. Radaa-Nin(L)—Commanding.

  Imperial Forces/Vicinity New Britain Isles

  Governor-Emperor Gerald McDonald.

  Ruth McDonald.

  Rebecca Anne “Princess Becky” McDonald.

  Sean “O’Casey” Bates—Prime Factor and Chief of Staff for G-E.

  Lt. Ezekial Krish—Imperial Liaison to Courtney Bradford.

  Lord High Admiral James Silas McLain the Third—Relieved.

  HIMS Ulysses, Euripides, Tacitus—completing repairs.

  Allied assets in New Britain Isles

  Courtney Bradford—Australian naturalist and engineer; Minister of Science for the Grand Alliance and Plenipotentiary at Large.

  “Lord” Sgt. Koratin (L)—Marine assistant to Bradford. Recuperating from wounds.

  USS Simms***—Fil-pin-built; under repair.

  Lt. Ruik-Sor-Raa(L)—Commanding.

  USNR—Salaama-Na Home (unaltered, other than batteries of 50 pdrs; sailing Home.)—formerly TF “Oil Can.”

  Commodore (High Chief) Sor-Lomaak (L)—Commanding.

  Enemies

  General of the Sea Hisashi Kurokawa—Formerly of Japanese Imperial Navy battle cruiser Amagi.

  General Orochi Niwa—advising Grik General Halik.

  General of the Sky Hideki Muriname.

  Signal Lt. Fukui.

  Cmdr. Riku—Ordnance.

  Hidoiame (Kagero Class). Japanese Imperial Navy Destroyer, 2,500 tons, 388’ L—35’ W, 35 knots, 240 officers and men. 6 x Type-3, 127 mm guns. 28 x Type-96 25 mm AA guns, 4 x 24” torpedo tubes.

  Captain Kurita—commanding.

  Tatsuta—Kurokawa’s double-ended paddle/steam yacht.

  Grik (Ghaarrichk’k)

  Celestial Mother—Absolute, godlike ruler of all the Grik, regardless of the relationships between the various Regencies.

  Tsalka—Imperial Regent-Consort and Sire of all India.

  N’galsh—Vice Regent of India and Ceylon.

  The Chooser—Highest member of his order at the Court of the Celestial Mother. Prior to current policy, “choosers” selected those destined for life or the cook pots, as well as those eligible for “elevation” to Hij status.

  General Esshk—First General of all the Grik.

  General Halik—“Elevated” Uul sport fighter.

  General Ugla, General Shlook—Promising Grik leaders under Halik’s command.

  Giorsh—Flagship of the Celestial Realm.

  Holy Dominion

  His Supreme Holiness, Messiah of Mexico, and, by the Grace of God, Emperor of the World—Dom Pope and absolute ruler.

  Don Hernan DeDivino Dicha—Blood Cardinal and former Dominion Ambassador to the Empire of the New Britain Isles.

  “I must note how odd it strikes me that a region of strife should be referred to as a ‘theater.’ Perhaps that peculiar little Machiavellian Prussian Clausewitz (what a bizarre combination!) is to blame for the militant association. I always related the term with entertainment—before it began to haunt me with its even broader implications concerning our overall situation. Of course, were not ‘theaters,’ as we know them, originally created to showcase tragedy?”

  —Courtney Bradford, The Worlds I’ve Wondered

  University of New Glasgow Press, 1956

  PROLOGUE

  ////// The Sea of Jaapan

  February 2, 1944

  The sky was corroded lead, cold and gray with splotches of white. It was lighter in the east, where the sun lingered behind the heavy blanket of cloud, but there was no chance it would make an appearance that day. Beneath the sky the sea roiled, a darker, more tempestuous reflection, and alone upon it—in all the world, it seemed—Mizuki Maru shouldered her way through the unkind swells. She was an old ship, smallish, and battered by a lifetime of toil. She’d done honorable service and carried honest freight for most of her many years, but her past few voyages had been of a different sort. She’d been engaged in carrying men—worn, beaten, wretched men—to the last place on earth they could possibly want to go.

  If she’d had a soul, it would have broken and fled her to escape the suffering and misery confined within her sad, rusty hull. Particularly after the last voyage. It had been the worst of all. Only a few dozen of the more than five hundred prisoners of war she’d carried—Malays, Aussies, Dutch, Brits, and Americans—had ultimately survived, and it wasn’t because they were supposed to. At some point she’d vanished from the world where her Japanese
masters made her carry such dreadful cargo and arrived on a world very much the same but entirely, fundamentally different. It was no less savage, however, and her crew—and the crew of the destroyer Hidoiame, which escorted her and a war-weary oiler—had murdered as many of her “cargo” as they possibly could. They’d then abandoned Mizuki Maru, damaged and sinking. Or so they thought.

  That might’ve been the end of Mizuki Maru if that was all they’d done, but during the bloodthirsty massacre of her prisoners they’d taken ashore, the confused, possibly even frightened Japanese sailors also slaughtered the . . . people . . . of a small nearby village. They hadn’t been human, but they had been people, and, more important for Mizuki Maru, they’d been under the protection of a human Japanese man who’d finally realized that regardless of flags and emperors, his honor would no longer allow him to sit idly by.

  Prodded by this atrocity against people who’d become his own, “Lord” Commander Sato Okada, formerly of the Japanese Imperial Navy and the mighty battle cruiser Amagi, and now Seii Taishogun of the newly established Shogunate of Yokohama, Jaapan, finally joined the human/Lemurian alliance that had destroyed his old ship. Now he lived for little more than revenge against those who’d murdered his “new” people, and to achieve it, he had to destroy others of his own race, his nation—but not his people anymore. For this, finally, he was prepared. At long last, there was no conflict, no sense of frustrated loyalty. His purpose was clear once more, as simple and pure as the cherry blossoms he would never see again. He and his mixed crew, Japanese and Lemurian “samurai” and the scattering of “American” Navy Lemurians, were dedicated to the common purpose of destroying Hidoiame and her oiler, and killing or bringing justice to everyone aboard them.

  If Mizuki Maru had a soul, and it could find her where she’d gone across whatever gulf separated her from the world she knew, it would be at peace.

  “Con-taact!” shouted the Lemurian bridge talker standing behind Okada, near the aft bulkhead. The striped, furry ’Cat wore headphones fitted awkwardly to his head, and a wiring harness trailed behind him. “Range, one fi’ seero seero!”

  A chill swept down Sato Okada’s spine. That close? It can’t be the enemy! “Bearing!” he snapped.

  “Two two seero!”

  Okada took a calming breath. There was no way his keen-eyed Lemurian lookouts would let them pass Hidoiame that close aboard. He strode to the port bridgewing and raised his binoculars, facing aft. Fish! he concluded at last as a long, dark object rose into view, then vanished behind a swell. Another of the giant . . . wrongful fish of this world, he thought. A spume of atomized spray burst skyward, joined by others, and he focused more carefully. A pack—pod?—of monstrous, air-breathing fish like none he’d seen before moved through the sea just like whales would have done—if there were whales. These had some kind of bony-finned, translucent sail protruding from their backs like epic swordfish, and he wondered briefly what it was for. He grunted. So many wonders he would love to explore someday, but they couldn’t distract him now. First, he had to attend to the far bigger business of revenge.

  “We will reduce speed in case there are more of those creatures about,” he said brusquely. “We are already ahead of schedule. We will not be late for our ‘reunion,’” he added grimly.

  “Ay, Lord,” cried the Lemurian helmsman. He was a “Jap ’Cat” to the “Amer-i-caan,” or “proper” Navy ’Cats aboard, who were happy to address Okada as Cap-i-taan, but the Japanese humans and Lemurians called him Lord. The engine room telegraph rang up two-thirds, and more bells rang as the dial swung in reply to the handle, while Okada slowly paced the bridge.

  He’d arranged a meeting with the enemy destroyer, and, more specifically, her murderous Captain Kurita. Okada’s radio operator had been broadcasting in panicky distress ever since they entered these seas, claiming his ship was Junyo Maru—yet another vessel transported to this place. Kurita had finally risen to the bait and ordered them to cease their bleating. Once communications were established, they’d lured Kurita to a rendezvous with promises of food, supplies, parts, and ammunition. Mizuki Maru already resembled Junyo Maru in most respects, but her “mad cook,” who alone had defected with his ship, had recently seen Junyo Maru. His suggestions regarding color and the like were employed during Mizuki Maru’s refit in the Maa-ni-la shipyards.

  In addition to altering her appearance, she’d been armed with some of Amagi’s salvaged secondary armaments that had been quickly shipped in from Baalkpan. A few of the guns showed, which was not unusual and should further allay any suspicions about her identity. But other weapons were hidden, and Okada hoped they’d come as a very unexpected surprise to the far more capable ship he considered his prey.

  He contemplated Hidoiame for a moment. She was the twentieth—and last—of the Kagero class, commissioned in early 1941 as a Type A “Fleet” destroyer. He was familiar with her original specifications and had seen the ship herself before the Old War began. She was about 390 feet long, 35 feet wide, and displaced almost exactly twice as much as the overage USS Walker, the flagship of the “American” fleet on this world. She also carried twice the crew, and could probably make thirty-five knots. Again according to the almost pathetically reticent cook, however, Hidoiame had undergone alterations as the nature of the Old War evolved. She still carried twin-mounted 127 mm dual-purpose guns in turrets fore and aft, but he insisted that one aft-mounted turret had been replaced by another twin, 25 mm mount to augment her antiaircraft batteries, which brought the total number of twenty-fives to twenty-eight. As far as he knew, she didn’t have radar, but also admitted he didn’t really know what radar was. He was a cook.

  She still carried a four-tube torpedo mount amidships, with four reloads, but her antisubmarine warfare (ASW) suite had been updated with the addition of improved sonar and more depth charges. Apparently, she’d sacrificed a third of her main surface battery to become more formidable against air and undersea targets, but those same antiair weapons would be devastating at the range Okada needed to achieve. He considered his main battery Hidoiame’s equal, but radar or not, he had no integrated fire control of any sort, so he had to get close—and he had only four 25 mm mounts to a side. The way he saw it, he had to get his ship within knife-fighting range, and savage Hidoiame in the opening moments while he had the element of surprise. If at any time during his approach Kurita decided Mizuki Maru was anything other than what she claimed—or, worse, somehow recognized her—she and all aboard her were doomed.

  Sato Okada was prepared for that possibility. He was approaching his rendezvous in radio silence—as ordered by Hidoiame—but he had a short list of letter codes that could be sent out immediately by his signalman, along with a constantly updated position. Back in Maa-ni-la, they would know what the various letter prefixes meant. A translated as “Action commenced.” B meant “Action commenced, surprise achieved.” Other letters represented various permutations, but the letter code had been devised primarily in case things went sour in a hurry—and he fervently hoped he wouldn’t have to send the letter G, which translated as, “We are destroyed by enemy action. Possibility of survivors is remote.” G also signified “Good-bye.”

  “Con-taact!” cried the talker again. This time Okada barely tensed, assuming the lookout had spotted another . . . school? . . . of the strange fish/reptiles. The things rarely attacked anything larger than a small boat, but they were still a menace. He’d heard Walker once did minor damage to her bow when she’d struck one.

  “Range and bearing,” Okada said patiently. His crew wasn’t very experienced, and the excitable ’Cats often forgot proper procedures.

  “No range! Is on horizon. Gray on gray is hard to see, say lookout. Bearing tree fi’ seero! Tree seero degrees off lef—port bow!”

  Okada grimaced. Unless the lookout had seen a mountain fish—unlikely in these waters—they had discovered Hidoiame at last. He raised his binoculars and stared through the slightly wavy glass of the bridge windows, but saw
nothing but the heaving sea. It didn’t matter. The enemy would come to him. Mizuki Maru was making enough smoke that they would easily see her even without Lemurian lookouts.

  “Should we go to general quarters?” his Japanese exec, Lieutenant Hiro, asked anxiously.

  “No. Not yet. But please do ask that mad cook to make something—sandwiches, I suppose—for the crew.” He gestured at the cold sea and spray beyond the glass. Slick, black ice was forming on deck. “I wish we had time for him to feed them a hot meal, but unless he has something such ready now, sandwiches will have to do.”