Taylor Anderson - Iron Gray Sea

Niwa’s head spun. N’galsh lead an attack? Impossible! Kurokawa, a Grik noble? The man is utterly mad.

“Does First General Esshk support that?” Halik demanded, and Kurokawa’s face reddened.

“Why on earth would that matter?” he roared, forgetting himself at last. “It is the will of the Celestial Mother, supported by the Chooser. And as Lord Regent, I am no longer bound by the whims of such as General Esshk!” Kurokawa’s smile twisted further. “This land belongs to me now, as do all the warriors upon it. As do you, General Halik!”

Baalkpan, Borno

The mood was grim in Adar’s Great Hall. It wasn’t an open meeting, and with a few exceptions, only the high command and senior Allied representatives were present for this first consultation. But there were too many for the privacy of the War Room. Adar sat rigidly on the stiff cushion he preferred, while frantic jabbering filled the lamp-lit chamber. He tried to calm himself by staring at a charred tapestry on the far wall, reminding himself that things had been much worse before. The tapestry was one of the few that had survived the destruction of the previous hall presided over by the great Nakja-Mur. Rising, angry voices brought him back to the present.

“General Alden and three corps-nearly forty thousand troops-are all alone out there!” Alan Letts shouted. “Surrounded and cut off! We have to get him some relief! Figure out a way to resupply, reinforce-”

“I doubt he has nearly that many troops now, Mr. Letts. He has lost! We should concentrate on getting his remaining troops out!” Commander Herring shouted in return. He paused in the silence that ensued. “I agree about relief, however. General Alden should be relieved of his command at once!”

“Under these circumstances? Are you insane?” Alan yelled, stunned. “And pull out? You are insane! We must have India, to keep it from the enemy, if for no other reason. Ceylon can’t hold without it nor can Andaman, eventually. After all the blood we’ve spilled, you’d have us right back where we started!”

“I guess it’s a damn good thing you ain’t in charge, Mr. Herring.” Dennis Silva rumbled. He was one of the exceptions, and he’d just “come along” with Bernie again. Now he towered beside Letts, his mighty arms crossed. “Or is that what you’re anglin’ for, Mr. Herring?”

“Don’t be absurd!” Herring snapped. “And just who the devil are you to make such an accusation?”

Silva leaned forward. “You might just be amazed how ‘absurd’ I can work myself up into bein’,” he said in a tone too many people recognized. Herring took a step back, but Sister Audry-another exception-reached up and put a restraining hand on Silva’s bicep.

“You might indeed be amazed, Commander Herring,” Sister Audry said, just as angry, but controlled. “Very briefly. Pray do not bait the beast. You are new here, so perhaps you do not understand. General Alden and his command are family to most of us here. In some cases, quite literally. God alone knows how many cousins our Lord Adar himself has in the field! General Alden has faced the Grik many times before, and you have never done so. It is easy for you to decry his ‘incompetence’ while safely away from the fight!” She glared around. “It would seem General Alden made some mistakes, but so did Admiral Keje-so did everyone! The enemy is changing somehow, and most dramatically.” She looked back at Herring. “But once those mistakes were made, can you think of anyone else who could have salvaged anything of the situation, as it appears General Alden has done? Could you?”

Adar began to realize that perhaps things had never been this bad after all. Before, they’d always been united, and now he saw… factions… developing. Far too many of his own people seemed to support Herring’s proposition. He reached over and struck the bronze pipe gong insistently. “Gentlemen! My dear Sister Audry!” he said into the dissolving roar. “My people, my friends,” he continued more quietly. “As you know, the situation is this: The government of the Empire of the New Britain Isles remains in disarray after the cowardly assassination of the Governor-Emperor and his mate. Our dear Princess Rebecca Anne McDonald, whom many of you know so well, has ascended to the throne with the aid of loyal elements and our ambassador, Mr. Braad-furd. I am hopeful that stability there will soon be restored.” He blinked determination. “I said the new Governor-Empress is ours, and I meant it. She has won greater love from Baalkpan, Saan-Kakja, and doubtless the Amer-i-caan clan than I ever will. She and Saan-Kakja are as sisters. If nothing else, her ascension will likely garner even greater support from Maa-ni-la than had been forthcoming thus far.

“Otherwise, in the east, Second Fleet has succeeded in driving the Dominion from Aal-ber-maarl, the most important of the Enchanted Isles, thereby securing a forward base for eventual operations against the evil Dominion itself.” He sighed. “That is the good news, such as it is.

“In the west, Generaal Aalden has encountered a more vigorous and much more advanced and cunning Grik force than we have ever seen. He was unprepared for this, as anyone would be, and his campaign is faced with stalemate.”

“Disaster, you mean!” someone shouted in Lemurian.

“ Not disaster!” Adar retorted. “He has quickly-and I must say, masterfully-consolidated his continental force into what he calls a ‘satisfactory’ defensive posture. He needs supplies to maintain it, of course, and with the reverse suffered by First Fleet, those will be difficult to deliver for a time. We still hold all of Saa-lon, and should be able to keep it. The enemy has no means of delivering troops there at present except across the low-tide crossing, and it is well defended. Saa-lon will become our forward supply base for the Expeditionary Force. We will sustain it until it can be relieved!”

He stared hard at Herring. “And as long as I am chairman of the Grand Alliance, there will be no more talk of retreat, or relinquishing one single tail of territory we have conquered from the enemy! Most of you know there is no negotiation with the Grik, and with every backward step we take, the Grik will try to take two steps forward. We grow stronger each day, but so does the enemy. We must not- will not — abandon our gains. As the hu-maans put it, this war is for all the marbles, and always has been. If we retreat now, where will we stop? There will be no second Battle of Baalkpan!”

“How can we supply Gen-er-aal Aalden, or even Saa-lon? The fleet is destroyed!” blared a former Aryaalan noble, and Adar wondered again how the creature-and others like him with little interest beyond themselves-had been acclaimed as representative for anyone.

“The fleet is not destroyed!” Letts countered. “Sure, we got licked,” he admitted, “and we lost some ships. A good chunk of Commodore Ellis’s DDs were lost or damaged. But Jim’s alive and sorting things out at Andaman-still working with a busted jaw!” Letts looked hard at the Aryaalan. “Other than that, we came off pretty light, considering what they threw at us. Ironclads, zeppelins, suicider Grik! Damn!”

“What of Salissa and the Ahd-mi-raal?” Adar asked softly, still concerned for his younglinghood friend. “They also reached Andamaan?”

“Yes, sir. I got the word on the way here.” He paused. “Keje’s okay,” he said to the anxious faces. “Singed his fur a little, I hear. It was touch-and-go for Big Sal for a while, though. Most of her boilers were blown out by some kind of hit amidships, and she was burning bad. If those Grik battleships hadn’t been so focused on Madras, she’d be a goner. As it was, the rest of the fleet helped put out her fires, and she got a lot of her boilers relit. She averaged ten knots to Andaman, even with a hole in her guts near the waterline hangar. She won’t be carrying planes for a while,” he admitted. “Nearly her whole flight and hangar decks were gutted by the fire. If Keje hadn’t turned her downwind when he did, she probably would’ve burned to the waterline. Damn good damage control.”