William Forstchen - Down to the Sea

It gave him a chill, and he had a sudden flash of memory, of the indistinct smudge on the horizon at sunset the night the Gettysburg went to her doom. It was a barely distinguishable difference in light, a darker shadow against a light gray sky and sea.

“About five degrees to port!” Richard shouted. “Ask Xing up forward if he sees it yet.”

The plane slipped ever so slightly, then leveled out again.

“Xing is blind,” Igor cried, “he sees nothing. You see it, though.”

He still wasn’t sure. Had he thought he’d seen something simply because he was looking so hard for it? But then it reappeared, a dark greasy smudge.

“Yes! Hold us steady on this bearing. You’re almost straight on it.”

Igor laughed.

Long minutes passed, and gradually the darkness began to spread out.

“I can see it from in here,” Igor announced. “That Xing is blind. Throw him off now. It will lighten the load so we get home.”

Richard said nothing, trying again with the field glasses, momentarily catching it, then losing it as the plane surged yet again.

Finally he saw something more, a dark spot, looking like the blade of a knife turned almost edgewise, two small dark pins rising from it. The pagodas of a battleship?

“Give us a little more speed, Igor.”

“Cromwell, our fuel. A little reserve would be comforting.”

“Just edge us up another five knots. We’ve got plenty.”

“Not if we have to start running.”

“Just do it.”

He heard the slight change in tone of the engines.

He extended one hand, holding his fingers open before his face at arm’s length. The smoke extended far beyond either side of his fingertips. If they’re still twenty, thirty miles off, it was definitely not one ship. That much smoke had to be dozens of ships.

“A little lower, we’re brushing into the cloud base.”

The nose of the aerosteamer dropped slightly, and he could feel airspeed picking up. After several hundred feet they leveled out again, where the air was slightly clearer.

He saw not one ship, but dozens of ships. In the van was definitely one of the battleships that he had seen in the harbor, the distinctive twin pagodas almost lined up on each other. Forward, surrounding the huge vessel, were half a dozen smaller ships, tiny slivers of darkness against the gray sea. Plumes of smoke trailed out behind them, drifting into a cloud astern, obscuring what he was convinced were more ships yet farther back.

“Got it!” Richard cried, and finally he heard Xing up forward shouting as well.

The moment of exuberance gave way to a knot in his gut, a strange mixed emotion that was part that they’d made a sighting, but with it a realization that the nightmare was indeed true.

Now what?

He was tempted to order them to turn around and get the hell out of there. The Kazan had some catapult-launched scout planes and a small ship for carrying additional planes and launching them. If they catch us and we don’t get back, the fleet will never know. They were nearly six hundred miles out, two days sailing, more likely three. Go back now and we can get a better read as they come closer in.

Yet, on the other hand, in another ten minutes we’ll find out what they really have.

“Commander?”

It was the first time Igor had called him that, and he could not help but grin. Igor was nervous, and it showed in that one word.

“Straight in, Igor. Xing, I don’t care how blind you are, start keeping a watch for scout planes. Octavian, same with you in the tail. If they spot us, you know they’ll send something up, and I want to be long gone.”

The dark shadow began to rapidly spread out, an indication that they were closing in.

He now had two battleships in view, then three, and in another moment five, all of them riding in line astern, each a mile or so back from the other.

He firmly braced his elbows on the wing, leaned down, and raised his field glasses. This time he caught and held the target. The lead battleship had a smaller vessel to its windward side, connected to it by what appeared to be cables. Why? Transferring coal perhaps? That could be the explanation for how they could travel so far and hope to return.

He looked farther back, until the fourth battleship caught his eye. It was flying the red banner of the emperor, just below it the gray of the Order. It was the flagship, and both of them were on board.

Sweeping over him was the memory of Hazin, the curious strange mix of emotions, of loathing and yet of attraction, of outrage and, also, most disturbing, of admiration and even of awe. He wondered if poor Sean was with him.

He felt a prickling sensation that felt almost like a warning; that somehow Hazin had sensed him and was turning his attention on him.

“Ship off the portside wing.”

It was Octavian, his voice pitched high with excitement.

Richard turned, craning back to look, and then he saw the ship, half a dozen miles upwind almost directly abeam. How they had missed it was beyond him. It was a cruiser, obviously riding forward point, and he wondered if they had gone past any other ships.

“I see it,” Igor announced, “and if he hasn’t seen us he’s blind.”

The chill triggered by thoughts of Hazin deepened. Anxiously he scanned around, and then he spotted two Kazan scout planes, nearly forty-five degrees astern of the starboard beam of his own airships, noses high, climbing steadily. They were maneuvering to come around him from behind.

He unclipped, turned, and descended into the cab. Dropping into his seat, he immediately pitched the huge aerosteamer over into a sharp banking turn to port, feeding in full throttle and edging the nose back to head to the clouds.

“We’ve been spotted! Octavian, keep a watch as we come around. Xing, wake up. Igor, I want you to sketch the ships as you saw them, then get yourself topside!”

“Oh, I see them!” Octavian cried.

“Then watch them, damn it, and tell me if they’re closing.”

Igor sat hunched over the chart board, pencil flying as he wrote down numbers and quickly drew tiny figures across the bottom of the paper. After several minutes he pushed the board down into its rack, unclipped and scrambled up into the topside gunner’s position.

“They’re closing on us,” Octavian shouted. “I think they’re faster, can climb better.”

Cromwell eased the nose even higher, watching as the altimeter gauge slowly rose through eight thousand feet. Then they were into the clouds, the world going white. He added an extra two hundred feet, sweating out the two minutes it took to climb.

Now he was flying blind, watching the compass, the bank indicator, and airspeed. The plane bumped and surged, rising up, then dropping so that for a moment they popped out of the clouds, then back again.

Had they been spotted? Did the bastards now have a bead on them?

As the surging continued, he felt a cold lump in his gut.

If the enemy scout planes don’t get us, he realized, this weather will. Looking at the fuel gauges, he wondered if they could stretch it to get home. Going higher, climbing into the heart of the turbulence, was out of the question now.

He said nothing, flying straight on as best he could.

Igor slipped down beside him, picked up his chart, looked at the gauges, then over at Richard, and he was silent as well.

“So they’ve spotted us.”

Startled, Sean O’Donald looked over at Hazin, who had quietly come up behind him. All he could do was nod.

The entire fleet had sprung into action. All ships had gone to battle positions, smoke belching from stacks so that a thick haze swirled about them in the following wind. Scout planes from the lead battleship had been launched to join the pursuit, and two more had gone aloft from the second ship of the line to maintain a watch above the fleet.