Deadly Shores (3 page)

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Madras

HQ First Fleet North AEF

“G
o . . . osh dang it!” Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy, captain of the old Asiatic Fleet “four-stacker” destroyer USS
Walker
(DD-163), and commander in chief of all Allied forces (CINCAF) united beneath or beside the Banner of the Trees, semi-swore. His left foot had strayed from the planked pathway and his shoe was caught in the sticky mud. The stronger curse he stifled would've been inappropriate in present company, and even uncharacteristic of him for something so trivial, but he was genuinely annoyed—at himself. It had taken only a second of inattention to stray from the boards, and his wife, Nurse Lieutenant (now Surgeon Commander) Sandra Tucker Reddy, was very good at distracting him. In this instance, it merely took a toss of her head to produce the enchanting bounce of her long ponytail. She did it unconsciously, but it was one of those little things about her that always melted his heart.

“Damn,” he said, his frustration escalating as he tugged carefully against the black east Indian mud.

“Clumsy,” Sandra scolded with a grin, kneeling to see if she could help him save the shoe. It was one of a new pair, specially made, just arrived from Baalkpan with the latest supply convoy. And unlike the usual Lemurian-made “boondockers,” these shoes were smooth and highly polished. At least they had been. Carefully, together, they teased the shoe out of the mud, and Matt stamped his foot several times to knock off the worst of the black blob.

“Damn Clumsy!” Petey cawed, earning a resentful glare. Petey was a small, tree-gliding reptile from Yap Island. Discarded by the Governor-Empress of the Empire of the New Britain Isles, Rebecca Anne McDonald, as “inappropriate,” Sandra had adopted him by default. He most often lay coiled around the back of her neck like a fuzzy, feathery squirrel—with an insatiable appetite and a filthy mouth.

“They were such pretty shoes too,” Sandra said, ignoring Petey's parrotlike outburst, as usual.

“Yeah. But I guess the best thing about them is what they represent,” Matt pointed out, still scraping. “Even with all the new ship construction, weapons manufacture, logistical support necessary to maintain and supply two major fleets—more than two, counting the Imperials'—we can still scrape up enough resources to make a pair of fancy shoes!” He shrugged. “Of course, we're also supporting large armies in multiple theaters, and running what's turned into a
world war
!” He nodded ruefully at the shoe that was starting to turn gray as it dried. “I don't know whether to be proud of these or embarrassed.”

“Don't be embarrassed,” Sandra scolded, “except for maybe ruining them. And yours aren't the only ‘shiny' ones. Just be glad we've got enough shoes and sandals for all our troops. That's something to be proud of.”

Matt supposed she was right—as usual. It wasn't as if the supply of ships, planes, weapons, ammunition, rations, or anything else he could think of had slowed. If anything, it was speeding up. The only real shortage was personnel, and with more troops beginning to arrive from the Empire of the New Britain Isles—what would've been Hawaii, California, and countless Pacific isles in the world they left—and the growing addition of Lemurian troops from the Great South Isle—essentially Australia—even their numbers were starting to improve. But here, on the “western front,” they faced potentially
endless
numbers of furry/feathery, somewhat reptilian, and entirely lethal Grik.

And the eastern front, aimed at the rabidly fanatical human “Holy Dominion” in the Americas, did have serious supply problems, particularly when it came to the more modern weapons the Alliance was producing, because of the vast distances involved. Worse, it appeared that a major battle was brewing there, and Lord High Admiral Harvey Jenks, commander in chief of all Allied forces in the East (CINCEAST), had just been handed some unpleasant surprises. He was jockeying to counter them even while his forces were overextended by a strategy based on an outdated understanding of the situation.

Matt shook his head. Jenks was on his own. Half a world away, there was nothing Matt could do to help him, and he was about to embark on a major, extremely risky operation of his own. He'd always believed the old saying that “fortune favors the bold.” He couldn't remember who said it first, and recognized that history was replete with examples of the opposite. . . . Still, though the Grand Alliance was just beginning to hit its stride, it couldn't afford a long war of attrition against the Grik; Grik bred much too fast, and the Allies just didn't have, and couldn't get the numbers for that. Now was the time for a crushing blow, while the Grik were on their heels. The Doms were bad, maybe worse than the Grik in some ways, but they were people—well, human, at least—and couldn't replace losses any faster than the Allies. So, if the war in the East wasn't exactly on a back burner, the primary focus of the Alliance was—and had to be, in Matt's view—against the Grik for now.

Jenks had a formidable, if somewhat outdated force at his disposal, and he was getting at least a few of the new weapons. He also had General Shinya. The former Japanese naval officer who'd become Matt's friend was maturing into an excellent infantry commander. He had a carrier commanded by the Lemurian Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan, with Matt's own cousin, Lieutenant Orrin Reddy as COFO (Commander of Flight Operations). Orrin had been in the Army Air Corps in the Philippines before being captured by the Japanese and also winding up here, and by all accounts he was shaping up well. Jenks also had a lot of other veterans of hard fighting under his command: Colonel Blair, Captain Blas-Ma-Ar, even a few of
Walker
's “old” Lemurian hands. He'd do fine; Matt was sure. Right now, he had to concentrate on his own mission.

“If you're finished with your mud pies, we're running a little late,” Sandra reminded him.

“Yeah,” Matt muttered, and with a final scrape of his shoe, he joined her to proceed down the walkway.

The storm, a genuine “strakka,”—essentially a particularly vigorous typhoon—had battered them for the better part of a week, but now it had passed entirely, leaving the sky bright and clear. More, it was as if the great storm had finally swept away the lingering “rainy season” that had plagued the region, and made the prelude to the great Battle of Madras, or Alden's Perimeter as it was interchangeably called, so miserable for its participants. It had also hindered rescue efforts for those wounded in the jungle combat, as well as repairs to the ships damaged in the battle at sea. Now, the humidity remained terrible, but that wasn't unusual, and the Lemurian Sky Priests predicted that they might actually be rewarded with several sunny days in a row.

The storm had been a bad one, but Matt was still awed by the sheer scope of the battle—and the victory. Serious problems still faced the Allied occupation of south and east Indiaa, and there were still a hell of a lot of Grik beyond their frontier, but a major Grik army had been decimated and a fleet that took two years to build had been destroyed. Madras was the prize, though: a major port with access to abundant raw materials. North of the city were stands of trees with interlocking root systems that produced a kind of rubber that would be a great help. There were coal, copper, tin, and many other metals, minerals, and chemicals the Allies needed, and, just as important, had now been denied to the Grik. There was also iron in preexisting mines stretching like battered moonscapes northwest of town, and hundreds of tons of processed plate had been stockpiled for Grik ironclads. It appeared to be even better stuff than they'd originally used on their ships, which spoke disturbing volumes about what the enemy had achieved technologically. The earlier Grik armor was thick but brittle, and having actually captured a couple of the monster ships fairly intact at the anchorage, they could directly compare the quality. Those ships now floated, also under repair, but Matt wasn't sure what good they'd be. That was where he and Sandra were headed first—to finally inspect one of the behemoths before attending a staff meeting aboard the even bigger aircraft carrier/tender, USNRS
Salissa.
It was there that Matt would announce his decision regarding the composition of his audacious mission, and he wasn't looking forward to it. A lot of his friends were going to be disappointed.

Nearing the pier, Matt was reminded that many Allied ships had been lost or damaged in the battle as well, including his own USS
Walker
. Rust streaks marred her sides, and she was fire-blackened aft of the amidships gun platform. At least most of her more serious damage had already been attended to, and so soon after a major overhaul, they'd had a lot more to work with than usual. Brad “Spanky” McFarlane,
Walker
's former engineering officer and now Matt's exec—as well as Minister of Naval Engineering—had assured him they'd even start
painting
over the old ship's sores as soon as the weather permitted. Matt was content with the pace of repairs, considering the constraints.
Walker
would be ready.

Other ships weren't so lucky. Poor
Mahan
(DD-102),
Walker
's only recently reanimated sister, had nearly been sunk by one of
Walker
's own errant torpedoes! The new weapons worked amazingly well, arguably winning the naval battle largely by themselves, but they weren't perfect. Their range remained limited to a couple of thousand yards, and they still had some guidance issues that Bernie Sandison,
Walker
's torpedo officer and Minister for Experimental Ordnance, blamed on himself. Matt—everyone—assured the dark-haired young man that it wasn't his fault, and the torpedoes still worked better than any they'd had to use against the Japanese. It didn't matter. Bernie was working himself to death, night and day, trying to solve the problem. Part of his difficulty was that the torpedoes had gone into mass production back in Baalkpan (headquarters of the Grand Alliance on the south coast of “Borno”), and all he could manage were simple field modifications. If he figured it out, the fix could be incorporated at the factory, but he had only finished weapons to tinker with. Matt wasn't worried. The dreary sight of
Mahan
sagging at the dock, her new bow blown off, was a sad, cautionary example to them all. It also put a kink in his operational planning for the upcoming mission. But as far as he was concerned, the torpedoes were a success.

Beyond
Mahan
lay the “Protected Cruiser” (CA-P-1),
Santa Catalina
. She remained whole, but had arguably been in greater danger of sinking than
Mahan
after the beating she took. She'd been the main focus of the whole battle line of massive Grik dreadnaughts and had suffered serious casualties. Among the killed was Commodore James Ellis,
Walker
's old exec, and Matt's best friend. She suffered even more later that night when Kurokawa and the last of the Grik fleet broke out of Madras in conjunction with a mass attack by Grik zeppelins and their damn “suicider” bombs. She'd been riddled with heavy shot at close range, and her consort, the old submarine-turned torpedo gunboat, S-19, had been rammed and sunk with nearly half her crew. It had been a terrible, shocking exclamation point to the otherwise successful operation, and Matt took savage satisfaction from the subsequent, personal destruction of every ship they could find that broke out that night. He was morally certain they'd finally killed that Japanese madman, Hisashi Kurokawa, the architect of so many of their woes, and it was impossible not to be pleased by his destruction. Matt supposed Kurokawa would never really be “dead” to him, since he'd never
seen
him dead, but considering how complete the slaughter of his force had been, he wouldn't lie awake worrying about him anymore either.

On the pier itself, they passed
Walker
,
Mahan
, and
Santa Catalina
, self-consciously waving at the cheering men and Lemurian “'Cats” working on board. More cheers came from the wooden-hulled steam frigates, or “DDs,” beyond, and they finally reached the gangway leading aboard the dark, malignant shape of the first Grik ironclad.

The thing was huge, over eight hundred feet long, and powerfully armed. The dark iron casemate protecting its armament sloped upward and away, towering high above the harbor water, and resembled nothing more than a gigantic version of the old Confederate ironclad
Virginia
—or
“Merrimac
.
”
Besides being much larger, however, there were other differences. There were two gun decks instead of one, for example, and four slender funnels protruded high above the casemate. So close, the thing seemed invincible—until one observed the deep-shot dents and shattered plates, as well as the heavy streaks and blotches of rust that proved the thing was mortal after all. And of course, Matt had seen torpedoes make very short work of the massive ships with his own eyes.
No, it's not invincible,
he told himself.
It may not even be good for anything, now,
he decided. He might've considered it a dinosaur if it weren't for the fact that there were real dinosaurs on this world, and some remained extremely formidable.

“What are we here to see?” Sandra asked, somewhat reluctant to go aboard. The Grik kept captives as rations on their ships, and she never wanted to see the . . . aftermath . . . of that again.

“Actually, we're here to see Spanky, and hear what he has to say about this thing,” Matt replied. “Besides, I'd kind of like to have a look. Chances are, we'll run into more of them.” He saw her expression. “No, I don't expect we need to go down in the hold.”

They mounted the gangplank and saluted the Stars and Stripes streaming above the perverted version of a Japanese flag, its rising sun embraced by a pair of Grik-like swords that appeared to have been adopted as a kind of Grik naval jack. They turned and saluted a 'Cat guard at the top of the gangway.