Taylor Anderson - Iron Gray Sea

“Is Ben going to meet us there?” Brister asked.

“Not at the Screw. He’s supposed to meet us all at the Parade Ground,” Alan confirmed. “Unless he was in one of those things”-he gestured at the diminishing shapes in the sky-“and that was his idea of putting in an appearance.” Both men chuckled, but they couldn’t hide their uneasiness from each other.

“I wish the Skipper was here,” Brister blurted at last, voicing what both were thinking. But Captain Reddy was hopelessly far away, and as Chief of Staff this really was Alan’s job… but nobody had ever expected he’d have to deal with anything like this. “Or even Adar. How come Adar isn’t coming?”

“I tried to get him to,” Alan sighed, “but we both figured, finally, that this is something I better try to sort out before he gets involved.” He shrugged. “It’s not really his problem… yet. He’ll do what he has to, though, if we can’t square it away.”

“How are we going to do that?” Brister asked flatly. There it was. And Alan had no idea.

“The same way we’ve handled everything,” he said more firmly. “We wing it.”

Brister snorted uneasily. “So that’s why Ben’s coming, huh?”

The Busted Screw-the decidedly unofficial but more common name for the Castaway Cook-was usually a busy place, and it was jumping when Letts and Brister arrived in time for the midday rush. Traditionally, ’Cats ate only twice a day, but the human destroyermen had arrived among them accustomed to three meals (of some sort) each day, at about the same time. That was a tradition the hardworking ’Cats in the defense industry and military were quickly adopting. Cafes like the Screw were all over the city now, catering to the various Army regiments, but only Naval and Marine personnel (with some notable exceptions) were “permitted” to sit at the benches around the tables or sidle up to the bar beneath the broad roof of the Screw. It was a raucous place, particularly at times like this. Besides the noisy patrons (allowed only the admittedly superior chow during daylight duty hours), no matter how exclusive a joint it was considered, there were no walls and all the noises of the busy bayside activities could be watched and heard.

Letts and Brister went to the centrally located bar and tried to spot their target through the bustle. Despite the sensitive situation, Letts was beginning to think he should have just sent a detail of Marines to escort the newcomers to the War Room in Adar’s Great Hall, and to hell with the consequences. He was very busy and irritated that they hadn’t reported there when they first arrived, as expected… but, then, they didn’t legally have to, did they?

“Where are they, Pepper?” Brister shouted at the slender ’Cat with white-spotted black fur behind the bar. Pepper was the proprietor of the Screw, at least while Lanier was deployed, and he probably knew more about the state of the Alliance than any living being in Baalkpan. It was ridiculous to presume that he, at least, didn’t already know who they were here to see. He probably knew why too, whether the newcomers had blabbed or not.

“Over there,” Pepper shouted, motioning with his ears at the farthest table, barely protected by the roof.

Yeah, Letts decided. He knows something’s cockeyed. He’d seen the Lemurian’s concerned blinking. “Thanks.”

“You wanna eat?” Pepper asked, coming around the bar and following a few steps while Letts and Brister made their way between the tables.

“Later,” Letts said. He wasn’t very hungry just then, and needed to get the new arrivals away from the Screw as soon as he could. There. He saw them now. Five men sitting alone at a table surrounded by ’Cats who looked at them occasionally, blinking curiosity. “Damn,” he said aside to Brister. “They look like hell.”

“They all do, those that survived. The Japs really put them through it,” Brister replied.

Letts said nothing. The condition of the men could make this even harder. He took a breath and crossed the remaining distance to the table, where he stopped and waited until the men noticed his presence.

“Which of you is Commander Herring?” he asked as courteously as he could. They all wore dungarees they’d been issued in Maa-ni-la before Saan-Kakja tossed the very hot potato they represented at Alan, but none wore any rank designations.

With a grimace of pain, likely from aching joints, one of the skinny men stood. “I’m Commander Herring,” he said softly. “Commander Simon Herring, United States Navy.”

Letts looked at him. The two were about the same height, but Herring’s graying hair established him as at least a dozen years older than Alan’s twenty-five, though it was hard to tell. The ordeal he’d endured had doubtless aged him.

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Alan replied. “I’m Commander-or Lieutenant, jg, if that’s how you prefer to look at it-Alan Letts. And this is Commander-Lieutenant-Perry Brister. Might I ask that you and your companions follow me? Maybe we can find someplace a little quieter to talk.”

“That’s fine, Lieutenant,” Herring said, “as long as you don’t mean ‘more private.’ Right now, I don’t want to go anywhere my friends and I might just… disappear.”

“Sir, I strongly resent the insinuation…”

“Resent all you want,” Herring said. “But maybe you can forgive me if, after what we’ve been through and under the circumstances, I’m a little careful.”

“The parade ground surrounding the Great Hall is as public as it gets,” Brister ground out, “but it’s quiet. It’s a military cemetery now, see?”

The Parade Ground Cemetery that occupied the space around Adar’s Great Hall and the mighty Galla tree around which it was built seemed sparsely populated at first glance. Only about four hundred actual graves occupied a relatively small portion of the vast area at the center of the city. Looks were deceiving. Lemurians much preferred cremation to burial, but a surprising number, Navy ’Cats mostly and a few Marines, lay beneath simple markers alongside their human comrades. They’d ended up more devoted to their shipmates than to tradition. Less than half the humans lost from Walker, Mahan, and S-19 actually rested there either; many had been lost at sea or died too far away to be brought to this place. For now. Many hundreds of names had been engraved into a great bronze plaque, however, and like the cemetery itself, there was plenty of room for additions. Another, separate plaque, with thousands of names representing the people and crew of Humfra-Dar, a Lemurian Home that had joined the American Navy and been altered into a carrier (CV-2), had recently been emplaced. The bronze was still shiny, the names still bright.

The cemetery was a quiet place for reflection in the middle of the bustling city, and there were benches here and there in the shade of bordering trees. Ben Mallory was waiting for them when they arrived, gazing grimly at Humfra-Dar ’s plaque. The scenes and memories that haunted his eyes and hardened his features warred with his otherwise boyish face. He’d known every flyer on Humfra-Dar and personally trained many of them. He turned at their approach.

“That never should’ve happened,” he snapped, gesturing at the plaque. “One damn bomb, and Captain Tikker said she went up like a volcano! ’Cats are fanatics about fire safety on their Homes, but we’ve got them carrying fuel oil, high-octane gas, bombs, and loose gunpowder for the cannons, for cryin’ out loud! When you think about it like that, it was inevitable… and it’ll happen again!”

“I know, Ben,” Alan said softly. “Keje’s working on new procedures, better magazine and bunker protection…” He shrugged. “None of us were ever on a flat-top. There’s so much we’re still making up as we go-and nobody was expecting Grik zeppelins!”