Into the Storm (53 page)

It was a bold plan that he and Keje had designed and there was a lot of risk involved. But if they were successful they stood a chance of learning—at long last—quite a lot about the enemy. The lessons Matt had learned on the short end of the intelligence stick had been pounded well and truly home, and he’d managed to instill in Keje, at least, a similar obsession for information. So much was riding on this! Initially, success might accomplish little more than their destruction of the Grik ships in the strait—or the Asiatic Fleet’s little victory in almost the same place against the Japanese. But he’d hoped that, in the long term, the strategic dividend would be all out of proportion to the effort, particularly if it led to sufficient information to roll up the Grik. If they knew the enemy dispositions better,
Walker
alone still had enough ammunition to wreck a
lot
of Grik ships. With victory, or even a breathing space, they could continue to strengthen their friends, look for
Mahan
, and maybe begin their search for other humans too. Those were Matt’s ultimate goals. With bunkers full of fuel, they even seemed attainable.

Larry Dowden entered the pilothouse. “Skipper,” he said, saluting as Matt turned.

“Exec.”

Dowden glanced furtively at the other men on the bridge and lowered his voice. “Sir, I have it on good authority . . . the Mice have sneaked on board. I didn’t see ’em, but I’m pretty sure they did.”

Matt frowned. “Didn’t they get the word when I ordered all fuel project personnel to remain behind?” Many of
Walker
’s crew would miss the expedition. None was happy about it, but aside from having necessary assignments, Matt didn’t want all his eggs in one basket anymore. Letts would remain and continue coordinating industrialization efforts, aided by Perry Brister, who was also in charge of supervising the construction of defensive works. Letts had worked himself out of a job on the ship. He was too valuable in his new, expanded role. Besides, Matt didn’t want a repeat of whatever had caused the mysterious shiny black eye that he wore. Officially, he’d tripped. Karen Theimer would stay and teach their growing medical corps. Matt knew that leaving the two together would only intensify the resentment of his other officers, but it couldn’t be helped. One of the nurses had to remain, and Sandra simply refused. He was glad he hadn’t given the order when others were around to see him back down. He was furious with her . . . and glad she was coming. As far as Letts and Theimer were concerned, maybe “out of sight, out of mind” was the best course to pursue.

“I didn’t tell ’em personally, but shoot, Skipper, I never see ’em even when they’re aboard. Everybody knew it, though; the order’s been posted for a week. They just ignored it.”

Matt shook his head. “And they can claim they never saw it and so they didn’t, in fact, violate a direct order.” He sighed. “No sense throwing them off. Besides, they’d just hide.” He thought for a moment. “Nobody else ‘deserted’ back to the ship? Bradford? Lieutenant Brister?”

Dowden shook his head, grinning wryly. “Bradford almost did. He’s supposed to be helping Brister with the fortifications. He is an engineer, after all, but he didn’t want to miss the show. Nakja-Mur finally bribed him with a safari to hunt down a ‘super lizard.’ Nothing short of that would have worked, I bet.”

Matt chuckled, and then his expression became serious again. “I owe him. But as far as the Mice are concerned . . . Well, I’m not going to bring them up on charges. They’re too damn valuable—I can’t believe I just said that!—and that’s exactly what I’ll have to do if I make a big deal about it. Their rig’s going fine with just a caretaker now. They’re no longer indispensable, just . . . valuable.”

He looked at the men working on the fo’c’sle. They were having difficulty with their usual chores since the cramped space was even further encumbered by a large apparatus that Matt hoped would soon prove useful. Some of the men stared curses at the thing as they maneuvered around it, and firing the number one gun to starboard would be tough while the thing was rigged for sea. But if that gun became essential to the operation, they’d failed anyway.

“Let them stay. They’ve earned it. But if they pull a stunt like this again, I won’t care if they learn to piss oil. Make sure that information reaches them, if you please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Together, they walked across the pilothouse and Matt peered over the wing rail at the water. Even this far upriver, it was getting choppy. Above, the sky was like lead: a low, monochromatic overcast with none of the flighty characteristics of the usual daily squalls. The heavens seemed to exude a restrained, pregnant power.

“Looks like Adar’s right,” he mused aloud. “We may be in for a real blow.” He turned and grinned at Dowden.

“Perfect.”

 

Ben Mallory couldn’t believe he was flying, particularly in such heavy weather. After the conversation in which Captain Reddy told him they’d have to wait to look for
Mahan
—and why—he’d been afraid the PBY would be treated like a museum relic. He’d been wrong. If the plane could let them know what was coming—and didn’t fly too far—the captain was reluctantly willing to risk it. Especially now that the radio worked.

Mallory was battling through the driving wind and rain north of a cluster of tiny, rocky islands off the southwest coat of Celebes. The world was gray, and the sea below was a roiling, foamy white. The thundering, rattling, swooping turbulence was enough to make him sick, and he was enjoying every minute. He spared a quick glance at his copilot. The young sable-furred ’Cat was peering through a pair of binoculars through the open side window. His name was Jis-Tikkar, but he liked “Tikker” just fine. He was a good companion and a fast-learning “wrench.” He worked as hard as anyone keeping the plane ready to fly. On this, his very first actual flight, he was enraptured by the wonder of soaring high above the world at a measly hundred and ten miles an hour. Oh, how Ben missed his P-40E!

Whatever Ben called him, Tikker wasn’t ready to
be
a copilot yet. For one thing, he could barely see over the instrument panel. Mallory allowed him to take the controls for a little “straight-and-level” before they flew into the storm, but it would be a while before he did it again. As soon as the little devil got his hands on the oval-shaped wheel, he’d nearly put the big plane into a barrel roll. It was all very exciting, and the flying lessons abruptly ceased. Tikker’s duties reverted to observation, and keeping Ben awake with his irreverent humor. Currently, the humor was absent as the’Cat concentrated on the business at hand.

The rest of the flight crew consisted of Ed Palmer and two farsighted Lemurians in the observation blisters. Ed sat directly behind the flight deck, checking in with
Walker
and keeping track of their navigation. He wasn’t a pro yet, but he was a quick study. In his short time aboard
Mahan
he had, for all intents and purposes, been the navigation officer, since Monroe couldn’t plot his way out of a paper sack. As long as there were landmarks he could identify, he wouldn’t lead them astray—and they were forbidden to fly at night.

“There is the felucca!” Tikker said.

Ben banked slightly and craned his neck. Far below, a dark shape slashed through the heavy sea. The Baalkpan feluccas were fore-and-aft rigged and surprisingly nimble, but heavy weather was rough on them. “He’s headed southeast! He must have run into something!” Ben banked again and dropped the nose, peering through the windscreen. The wipers flailed as fast as they could, but they only smeared the water.

“There!” said Tikker, straining his eyes through the binoculars. He looked at Ben. “The third Grik ship! It is chasing the felucca!” Through the wipers, he caught brief glimpses of a distorted red-hulled shape.

“Should we get closer?” Ed asked behind him. “I’d just as soon not get closer. Besides, they’ll hear us.”

“Not a chance, with all the sea noise down there and the rain,” Ben replied. “All the same . . .” He began turning south. “Get on the horn . . .”

“Wait!” said Tikker urgently. “There is another . . . ! And another! Two more Grik are in company with the first!”

“Shit!” said Palmer. “Any more?” For a long moment they stared.

“Nooo,” Ben decided at last. The three ships were clustered close together, and no others were in sight. “No, I think that’s all.”

“That’s enough!” Palmer cursed and headed for the radio. He picked up the mike. “You still there, Clance? Tell the Skipper we’ve got
three
hostiles inbound!” Palmer transmitted in the clear. Who else was going to listen?

“Roger,” came Radioman Clancy’s terse reply through the static. “What’s the weather like up there?”

“Moderating,” admitted Palmer. “It’s gone from an eggbeater to a martini shaker. Adar was right. Those Sky Priests are way better than our weather weenies were!”

“I’ll say,” agreed Clancy. “Lots more to those guys than reading maps and wearing silly suits. Wait one.” A moment later Clancy’s voice crackled in Palmer’s ear again. “Skipper says to double-double-check the enemy numbers, then get the hell out.”

“But Ben . . . I mean, Lieutenant Mallory, thought we might fly cover. You know, shoot somebody up if you need us.”

“Negative. Captain says to get your big blue butt back to Baalkpan! It’s our show now. You’ve done what we needed you to. Hell, you can’t even set down!”

“Wilco,” Ed grumbled. He clipped the mike and lurched back to the flight deck.

“What’s the scoop?” Ben demanded.

“We double-double-check, then beat feet for Baalkpan. Damn, we won’t even know how it goes!”

“Yeah, there’re a few more guests than expected. It’ll make things more difficult, but not three times as difficult—I hope.”

“Well . . . what are we gonna do?”

Ben looked at him. “We’re going to follow orders, sailor. But he didn’t say we couldn’t come back in the morning!”

 

The storm had finally begun to subside. It had indeed been a real blow, more violent than even Adar anticipated. The wind still blew at thirty knots or more, and the whitecaps of the heavy sea disintegrated into foamy spray. Keje stood on the sandy, desolate beach and stared bleakly at his beloved Home.
Salissa
lay at an unnatural angle, decidedly low in the water, a few hundred yards offshore. She now rested, exposed for all to see, on the bottom of the gently shoaling sand of what Matt called the Gulf of Mandar. How they’d ever managed to get her there, through the maze of huge rocks and mountainous seas, he could barely remember. All he recalled at the moment, in his exhausted, sodden state, was that the effort had been
chi-kaash
—hell.

All around him, people erected shelters amid piles of vulnerable supplies and others tended smoky cook-fires for knots of soaked, bedraggled people who’d paused from their labors to warm themselves. As far as he could see, the beach was inhabited by the debris and pitiful, helpless survivors of a traumatic calamity. Some stood as he did, staring out to sea, and some just milled about. Others waded back and forth through the surf, bearing bundles on their shoulders from one of the feluccas driven onto the beach. Another felucca still stood offshore, beating impotently back and forth, unable to risk the rocks and surf to come to their aid. Behind him, the tufted fronds of the trees beat and cracked with the wind, and the tall, skinny trunks leaned forlornly against the gray afternoon sky. Keje looked back out to sea, straining his eyes against the stinging spray.
Walker
was nowhere in sight.

Even over the thunderous surf, he heard Adar’s shout behind him. “They’ve seen something! They’re running!”

Keje wiped his eyes and peered through the binoculars Bradford had given him. Sure enough, the distant felucca was piling on more sail and slanting rapidly northeast with a grace and speed he envied. Farther away, another was racing down to meet it. The feluccas could sail much closer to the wind than
Big Sal
. Closer than the Grik. Signals snapped to the tops of their masts, and he focused carefully on them. Keje grunted. “I must return to
Salissa
,” he shouted back at his friend. He’d done all he could ashore.

It was a miserable trip in the barge, damp crew folk straining at oars against the marching waves, but soon they were alongside
Salissa
, sheltered in her lee. Keje scurried up a rope and hands pulled him aboard. He glanced quickly around. Other than those gathered near, his Home seemed deserted. The forward wing clan’s pagoda that they’d so recently rebuilt was intact, but the great tripod lay athwartships, its huge wing trailing over the side. Frayed cables, shattered barrels, and other unrecognizable debris were strewn across the exposed deck area. With a surge of concern, he glanced shoreward where his helpless People raced around in panic as rumors began to fly. A few tried to rally a defense, but not many. Here was a prize, ripe for the taking. The enemy couldn’t possibly refuse. An entire Home of the People, loaded with food and supplies. Riches beyond calculation to any Grik raider fortunate enough to stumble across her! And her People! Their favored prey! Tired, traumatized, disorganized! There’d be no restraining them. He raced up the ladder to the battlement, and a memory of the last time he stood there, preparing thus, flashed through his mind. So much had changed since then. He raised the binoculars again.

Grik!

Three towering clouds of dingy canvas resolved themselves against the dirty-gray background, charging toward them as quickly as they dared. Already, the bloodred hulls were visible, and there was no question they’d sighted their prey. A stone seemed to churn in Keje’s stomach. The Grik were as predictable as a school of flashers when a person fell into the sea, and just as remorseless.

“They’ve seen us,” he muttered pointlessly.

For a long while he stood on the tilted platform with a handful of his officers. Jarrik-Fas was there, as was Adar’s senior acolyte. Adar himself remained ashore at Keje’s command, to take charge in his absence. His daughter, Selass, was aboard as well, somewhat to his surprise. They’d spoken little since Saak-Fas disappeared, but much of that was probably his fault. He’d been so busy. They didn’t speak now, and she stood nearby but apart. That may also have been because Risa-Sab-At was present. She’d been recently promoted to commander of the Forewing Guard, and there was tension of some sort between the two females.