Taylor Anderson - Iron Gray Sea

“That was explained, but…”

“He means he-all of us-wanted to talk to people,” Corporal Miles interrupted sullenly, and Herring glared at him. “There weren’t any in Manila besides us and the other survivors of that damn Maru… well, and a bunch of half-naked broads out of the East someplace.”

“Miles!” Gunny Horn snarled, seeing the faces of their hosts redden.

“Well, it’s true!”

“That’s enough, Corporal!” Herring said, but looked at Letts. “I apologize for the unseemly interruption, but Corporal Miles has voiced a point that still needs clarification. I’ve heard of this Lieutenant Commander Reddy and what he’s done. What all of you have accomplished is impressive, to say the least. But before I submit myself and these others to the authority of a man who is actually junior to me, I need to know just exactly who is in charge here.” Herring stated.

“Let me tell you something, Commander-” Ben Mallory began.

“Wait a minute, Colonel,” Letts said, stressing Ben’s new rank like he hadn’t done for his own. “Remember how we felt when we first met the Lemurians? It took us a while to figure things out.” He looked hard at Herring. “But that’s because we didn’t have anyone to tell us that ’ Cats are people. Well, I’m telling you now, Commander, and don’t ever forget it! They may look strange until you get used to them, but we look just as weird to them.”

The Dutchman stirred. “But you have placed them in positions of authority! Even your ‘supreme commander,’ your Captain Reddy, follows their orders! This seems like on our world, you obey the Javanese or… Chinese coolies, yes?”

For just a moment, Letts was stunned. It had been so long since something as ridiculous as race had occurred to anyone that it caught him completely by surprise. He knew there were similar issues in the east, that Second Fleet had faced some Imperial bigotry, but from what he understood that was more cultural than racial and the Alliance had largely settled that by saving the Empire’s ass.

Ben appeared ready to explode, but Alan cut him off when he spoke in a wintry tone. “Have you seen a Grik, Lieutenant Diebel? We’ve managed to secure a small number of captive specimens. A couple are practically tame now, and we’ve finally begun to communicate with them and learn something about them. Most are still kind of wild though, and you ought to go down to the holding pens and have a good, long look. After you get a dose of their claws and teeth and… overall terrifying lethality, remember this: Really wild Grik can’t be taken alive. Only after they’ve been separated from the pack for a while do they seem to get a notion that they’d rather live than die killing you.

“After that, try to imagine hundreds of thousands of them armed with swords, spears, arrows, cannon, and firearms of a sort now too, all coming not just to conquer your territory but to wipe you out! These Lemurians you seem to feel so superior to stopped them and have started to roll them back.” Alan shrugged. “We helped. Maybe we helped a lot. But we couldn’t have done it without them.” He grunted. “Hell, ask the Imperial rebels or Doms in the East how ’Cats stack up against humans in combat!”

“I think you misunderstand,” Herring said with a warning glance at Diebel. “I’m sure your Lemurians are fine folk, but it has been disconcerting to see them, their Naval personnel in particular, parading around in a semblance of our Navy’s uniform, flying the American flag from their ships, and, indeed, considering themselves to be Americans! That’s odd enough. But then to find this… ‘American’… force subject to the command of… foreign… leaders!”

“Oh, I get it,” Brister suddenly interrupted, speaking for the first time, his rough voice even harsher than usual. “You’re wondering why we didn’t just take over and how come we don’t treat the ’Cats like some people treated colored folks back home. Well, if any of us ever thought that way, we don’t anymore. Navy ’Cats are Americans, far as I’m concerned. They’ve taken the same oath you did, and they mean it. Captain Reddy could have taken over, I guess, and made himself king. From what I heard, they practically asked him to. But these people are our friends, Commander, and even if the Skipper had wanted to be king, he knew the Alliance would never hold up and Baalkpan would still be all alone against the Grik. As for being under the command of “foreign leaders,” well, we are and we aren’t. It’s complicated.” He shrugged, then glared at the Dutch flyer. “But even if we were bound to follow their every whim-which we’re not-I guess us Asiatic Fleet guys were already used to that back home, after Tommy Hart got the shove…”

“You were treated rough by the Japs, Commander,” interrupted Letts more softly, before Perry could make an enemy of Conrad Diebel. “And you’ve wound up in a situation you don’t understand. You’re being careful and trying to watch out for these other guys. I get that. But in a way, we’re still fighting the same war here that we left behind. Sure, we’ve got a few good Japs on our side, and Shinya, at least, is a swell guy. Another Jap named Okada took the ship that brought you here up against the tin can that was with her.” He lowered his voice and looked around. “That’s the last we heard. Chances are, he’s dead now and that ship’s on the bottom of the sea, but he was on our side, fighting bad Japs. And most of the Japs that made it here have wound up with the Grik-and the Grik are much worse than Japs!

“The Grik keep people… Lemurians, anybody they catch, I guess, in the holds of their ships as rations. I’ve seen that, the aftermath, so I can kind of imagine what it looked like in the hold of Mizuki Maru. That said, I can only guess what it was like to be a prisoner of the Japs. I’m sure it was hell, sir, and the Japs who put you there belong in hell. With all due respect, though, Commander, you can’t have any idea what it was like for us when we first wound up here, all alone and practically sinking.” He gestured around. “It seems like we’ve done pretty well for ourselves, and I guess we have, but at first it was only us and we had less idea where we were or what had happened to us than you do.” He shrugged. “That hasn’t changed, really, besides some wild-assed guesses, but where we are isn’t the all-consuming question it once was, and at least we’ve lived long enough for some of us to kick it around a little.

“Now, if you think you’re going to just show up out of the blue and pull rank, there’s something you better know.” He held his thumb and forefinger about a quarter inch apart. “When we got here, we were that close to coming completely unwrapped, and only two things kept that from happening: the Skipper and the ’Cats. Captain Reddy never gave us a chance to wring our hands and worry and never allowed us to fall apart. He just kept doing his duty and expecting us to do ours… and we did. Not because of any oath or for a country we’ll probably never see again, but for each other.” He looked hard at Herring. “And for the skipper.” He lowered his voice. “It never even occurred to anyone until later that maybe we weren’t in the Navy anymore, but by then, it didn’t matter. The skipper was still the skipper, and Walker was the Navy.” He sighed and scratched his nose. “So the Navy’s a lot bigger now, and there aren’t many of us guys from Walker and Mahan and S-19 left, but, by God we did the right thing, the only thing, and Captain Reddy deserves most of the credit.

“As for the ’Cats, we never would’ve made it without them, and, of course, all the ones here at least would be dead by now if we hadn’t become friends. We’ve been through a hell of a lot together, side by side, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m sort of fond of the little guys. These ’Cats…” He paused and shook his head. “We just like each other. It’s hard to explain. They had their ways and we had ours, but compared to the fix we were all in together, the differences that cause separate drinking fountains back home just never mattered, see? We-us and them-never let it matter much, and when trouble came up over various things, it got squared away fast.” He chuckled. “Eventually, the little differences started going away. You’ve probably noticed how many of our ways most of them have taken on, particularly Navy and Marine ’Cats, and most of us probably seem a little weird to you too. I think, in all the ways that matter, we were a lot alike to start with.”