Taylor Anderson - Iron Gray Sea

The thought of the shocking and totally unexpected appearance of enemy dirigibles over First Fleet, Aryaal, and even Baalkpan itself still burned Jim’s soul. In his mind’s eye, he again saw the mighty Lemurian Home-turned aircraft carrier Humfra-Dar erupting like a fiery volcano as bombs fell on her crowded flight deck. There’d been very few survivors of the holocaust that engulfed the great ship. Some had been aloft flying missions and were recovered aboard Keje’s Salissa, or “ Big Sal,” (CV-1), but perhaps the only thing that preserved the few awkward swimmers, flailing in the terrifying sea long enough to be rescued, was the stunning underwater acoustics of the terrible explosions.

The zeppelins had swarmed them in their scores, loosing sophisticated bombs in a density a flight of B-17s might have envied that not only destroyed Humfra-Dar, but also heavily damaged several of her screening DDs. The only consolation was that many of the Grik “air lizards” must have been extreme amateurs at the time, and a large number of their airships made no compensation for the sudden loss of their bomb load and practically rocketed into the sky and were destroyed by structural failure or the catastrophic expansion of their gasbags. The resulting spectacle created a viscerally satisfying, almost grim amusement, but little comfort for their loss. Most of the surviving zeppelins escaped over India to God knew where, although Captain Jis-Tikkar “Tikker,” Commander of Flight Operations (COFO) for the First Naval Air Wing, managed to claw high enough to get a good look at the things and even bring one down.

Only a few airships attacked Aryaal, and they were repulsed after inflicting only minor damage. The larger raid on Baalkpan was decimated by Ben Mallory’s P-40s. No zeppelin that survived either raid was likely to have had the fuel to return, so their losses had probably been total, but First Fleet had seen groups of the things again, several times, so they must have established bases for fueling and maintenance somewhere in India. Jim frowned. Every time we think we’ve got the damn Grik figured out, they pull something new out of their hat. That crazy Jap Kurokawa is probably behind a lot of it, but not all. Apparently not all the Grik, their Hij, at least, are fools. We KNOW they’re building a new fleet. I hope to God it doesn’t come as big a surprise as their zeppelins did!

“What’s the dope?” he asked aside as he became aware of Niaal-Ras-Kavaat, his dark-furred exec, standing beside him.

“The scouts report that the enemy continues to gather, preparing for our assault.” Niaal blinked pleasure and grinned, showing his wicked young canines. “And we continue to kill them!”

“Good. Hopefully we can keep it up for a while, before they get wise.”

“Not much chance of that,” Niaal said in a contemptuous tone.

“Of them catching on? I don’t know,” Jim countered softly. “Pete-I mean, General Alden-thinks the Grik have a new cheese who knows what he’s about. Flynn’s Rangers-shoot, the whole Third Division of Queen Maraan’s Second Corps-ran into something that nearly ate it alive, and it sure gave everybody the creeps.”

“What did General Lord Rolak’s pet Grik, Hij-Geerki say about it? And weren’t a few prisoners taken at Colombo?”

“Geeky didn’t know what happened. Said he never heard of such a thing. Of course, he was just a clerk… sorta… at Rangoon. He was from Ceylon, originally, but hadn’t ever been anywhere else. Besides, we caught him before all this new stuff kicked in.” He paused. “He does seem loyal to Lord Rolak now, though, and everybody’s pretty sure he’s adopted the glorious old goat as his new pack leader, or whatever. He questioned the prisoners, but all he got was a little more about that new Grik General Halik”-Jim’s face turned grim-“with a Jap tagging along, who seemed to throw just as much weight.”

“Kuro-kawaa himself, perhaps?”

“No such luck. Kurokawa’s apparently General of the Sea, or something, for the whole Grik Empire now. This new Jap is a soldier. My guess is he’s one of those special Navy Jap Marines, or something, who was part of a contingent on Amagi, kind of like Alden was a shipboard Marine himself.”

“That could be… bad.”

“Right. All the more reason to stay on our toes.” He nodded at the seething shoreline. Case shot continued to burst among the trees a mile or more inland, and he imagined what it must be like to be caught beneath that clawing, shrieking hell. “At least we’re killing ’em now, and I bet we have their undivided attention!”

“Indeed.”

“We’ll keep this up all night. At dusk, Arracca will ‘secure from air ops in all respects’ and move in to replace the DDs with her big guns.” Lemurian/American carriers were also heavily armed with large guns, but after Humfra-Dar, they’d determined they shouldn’t function as battleships and aircraft carriers at the same time. The combination of bombs and highly flammable aviation gasoline was bad enough, but add gunpowder and open magazines to the mix, and they’d just been asking for trouble. With the freak hits on Humfra-Dar at exactly the wrong time, probably nothing would have made any difference, but they’d made as many adaptations as they could to prevent accidents from achieving the same results. Everyone knew the new safety procedures were stopgaps, but for now, it was the best they could do. “We’ll get ammunition lighters to replenish the DDs; then we’ll spread things out a little.”

“Does that mean we will get in on the fun ourselves, at long last?” Niaal asked.

“Sure. Everyone will. We want it to look like we’re building for the jump-off here, so the Grik’ll keep swarming in. It’s the most logical place, after all. When the sun comes up, Arracca will ‘secure from surface action’ and launch everything she’s got, loaded to the gills with incendiaries-those gasoline and sticky-sap bombs.” His eyes narrowed. “Then we’ll burn this whole corner of India to the ground! Even if they’re starting to get reports from other places, they’ll have to worry those are the diversions. One way or another, they should stay tied up in knots for at least a couple of days!”

400 miles NNE

Near Maa-draas

Grik Indiaa

General Pete Alden, former Marine sergeant in USS Houston ’s Marine contingent, splashed across the last few feet between the barge and the moonlit beach. He did it quickly, with a chill down his spine. The thick forest beyond the beach might harbor unknown threats aplenty, along with an only guessed-at number of their enemies, but he had confidence he could deal with that. Any opponent he could shoot remained just that: an opponent that he had a growing confidence he could best. The waters around Indiaa were some of the most dangerous they’d encountered yet, however, and maybe a little like Tony Scott, Captain Reddy’s long-lost coxswain, any physical contact with them gave him an almost supernatural case of the creeps. Maybe there weren’t as many flasher fish-tuna-size piranha, for all intents and purposes-as they endured within the Malay Barrier, but there were sharks out there that could sink a ship!

His staff and their guards hopped across the gap with similar uneasiness and joined him amid the tumult of an army trying to sort itself out in the darkness of an unfriendly shore. In front of them was the malignant black blob of the forest. Behind, the wave tops glittered like they were strewn with floating foil. The deceptive peacefulness of the night was marred by the now-familiar chaos of amphibious operations. There was shouting, cursing, and the wailing of the vaguely moose-shape paalkas being hitched to clattering limber traces, and the deep creaking of wooden wheels as guns, wagons, forges, and all manner of vehicles were drawn through the sand. Drummers beat regimental tattoos, drawing wayward troops into growing formations-which were often thrown into confusion by other columns of troops or teams of paalkas grunting the heavy guns through their ranks. More shouting ensued. Occasional musket shots thumped in the forest as pickets or skirmishers from advancing regiments fired at lurking Grik, other frightening creatures, or perhaps nothing at all. Drowning out much of this was the constant surf sound of thousands of hushed voices and the sea.