«Aye, aye, Captain.» Bernie addressed Randal Hale in a brisk, nervous voice. «Mount one: Fire one! Fire three! Fire five!»
With each new command, there was a thump-chuff! and a sharp flash of yellow light aft as the small black-powder charge within each tube expelled the torpedo. The brightly polished weapons shone only as long dull shadows as they arced into the sea and entered the water amid a gray, concave splash.
«Helm, left full rudder. Come about to course one zero zero.»
«Aye, aye, sir. Left full rudder,» confirmed the helmsman. «Making my course one zero zero!»
As the destroyer heeled to starboard, Matt went out on the port bridgewing and waited for the stern to come around. This would be the most critical moment. If anyone on Amagi saw the impulse charges go off and looked hard in their direction, they’d probably see the ship as she turned broadside-on for a moment. Soon Walker steadied and Matt heard the helmsman announce he’d achieved his course. He raised his binoculars to watch the enemy ship. He couldn’t see the torpedoes and he felt strangely cheated, even though he knew it was for the best. If it was too dark for him to see the telltale trails of bubbles, then the Japs couldn’t see them either. Uh-oh, something was happening. Even as Matt stared at Amagi, a searchlight flared to life. Then another.
«All ahead flank!» Matt shouted into the pilothouse. The launch must have been seen after all. The searchlights stabbed at the darkness in their general direction, but for the moment they concentrated on an area to port. Then another light came on and almost instantly, Walker was seared by the harsh, bright glare.
«Commence firing!» Matt yelled. «Target their searchlights!» Gnd number four fired together and the tracers lanced into the night. Another salvo left the guns before the first was halfway there.
«Come left ten degrees!» Matt said and raised his glasses again, trying to see through the blinding light. He knew the course change would make Walker a larger target, but he wanted the number one gun in the fight. When the next salvo fired, it joined the others. The other two lights had found them now, and then yet a fourth. One suddenly winked out, however, and Matt supposed they must have gotten a hit. «How long on the torpedoes, Mr. Sandison?» he demanded.
«Another minute, Captain.» The torpedo officer had taken station on the port torpedo director — not that there was anything left to direct. He just had to see.
Other lights lit the battle cruiser, gun flashes from her secondary armament. The first splashes fell about two hundred yards to starboard and a little aft. The second group of enemy shells raised geysers just off the port beam and shell fragments peppered Walker. Amagi’s secondaries weren’t nearly as large as her main battery, but they were bigger than anything Walker had. The ship staggered under the force of a direct hit aft, and the sound of the explosion and the screams of refugees were deafening. The ship recovered herself, however, and continued her frantic sprint. Another blast, farther aft, and Walker shuddered in agony.
«Torpedoes?!»
Sandison’s eyes flicked to the stopwatch in his hand.
«Now!»
The lights went out.
Matt snapped the binoculars to his eyes in time to see a bright, slashing pulse of fire rising from Amagi’s waterline, just aft of amidships. A jet of sparks vomited from her stack and illuminated the rising cloud of smoke caused by the blast. The searchlights that just moments ago had been so remorselessly fixed on the destroyer were now askew, throwing eerie, smoke-dense beams in all directions.
«Yes!» shouted Bernie as his relief surged forth. Not what they’d hoped for, but one hit out of three was better than their average to date. He was pretty sure he knew which one it had been. Cheers erupted all over the ship. Cheers of relief and vindication.
«Secure from flank! Come right ten degrees. Let’s get some distance while she decides whether or not to sink. If she doesn’t, I’d just as soon we were out of range when they get their priorities straightened out. Cease firing main battery.»
A few more desultory shells landed in Walker’s wake, but without the searchlights to guide them the Japanese gunners fired blind. However much damage they’d caused, the torpedo attack had taken them completely by surprise. By the time the searchlights began scanning for Walker again, she had disappeared completely into the dark.
Matt slowly let out a breath. «Damage report?»
«That last hit tore hell out of the guinea pullman,» Reynolds said, referring to the crew’s berthing space situated above the propellers. «Lots of refugee casualties in there.» He paused. «There’s some flooding in aft general storage and the steering engine room. There’s people in there too.»
Matt was staring aft at the amidships deckhouse. He couldn’t see much in the darkness except for the occasional white T-shirt and hat dashing through the smoke that still poured from under it. «What about the hit amidships?ït of ’Cats hunkered under the deckhouse. He has no idea how many bought it. The galley’s a wreck, but Lanier made it okay.» Reynolds blinked. «He was in the head. Mertz and the cat-monkey mess attendant are both wounded.» The talker paused again, listening. «Oh, goddamn!» he exclaimed in an indignant voice. «Beggin’ your pardon, Captain.»
«What else?»
«Those Jap bastards got the Coke machine!»
Matt almost laughed. The last of their Cokes had been gone for weeks — all except one that was stashed in his own quarters. He doubted he’d ever drink it. The machine itself had remained a source of pride to the crew, in a strange, black-humor sort of way. They may have been lost on a hostile, alien — other — earth, but by God, the Coke e mac enough ahead of the Grik that she should be safe from pursuit, but Matt wanted Ben to make sure.
Tsalka glared across the water as Kurokawa’s launch returned to his ship. «You know, General, I grow increasingly weary of that creature.»
General Esshk hissed agreement. «I begin to understand why those who joined us in the Great Hunt in the past have ultimately fallen prey themselves. If they were as grasping and unpleasant as that one» — he gestured at the retreating boat" it is no wonder the Hij of old turned them out and hunted them to extinction.» Tsalka agreed, but he knew there was more to it than that. Despite the Ancient Way, that whoever hunts together may partake of the meal, he knew it was difficult for any predator to share its prey. The tail-less, almost toothless Hij he had just endured was not one he would care to dine beside.
«Their iron ship is damaged again and it will move even slower now,» Tsalka mused. «But it is still wondrously powerful. I heard the tales of how it destroyed our Uul before it joined the hunt. Last night, I saw how it did so. Magnificent!»
«Most impressive,» Esshk hedged. «But to strike from such a distance! Where is the challenge. the sport in that? It is the hunt that counts. The harvest is secondary.»
Tsalka looked at him with his slitted yellow eyes. «Indeed. But it is not very sporting when the prey consumes the hunter. This prey has teeth! I do not desire another catastrophe such as befell our hunters at the walled city. Such a thing has never happened before and it will not happen again. The Celestial Mother would not be pleased and neither would I.» He gazed at the lumbering iron monstrosity. Black smoke belched from its middle as it burned the coal that somehow pushed it along. There was other smoke still, from the wound it suffered last night, and Tsalka perceived a slight list. Despite its amazing power, the Tree Prey had friends who could damage it. The thought gave him pause. They had damaged a thing that multiple vigorous assaults by his own race did not scratch. Insufferable as the Hij leader of the iron ship folk might be, Tsalka was beginning to suspect that he was right about one thing: the Grik needed them, and might need them very much if the Grand Swarm was to meet with success. The thought rankled, and yet it might be true. The Tree Prey had grown into Worthy Prey in their own right, but with friends such as they had. the slow iron ship of the new hunters might have to make the difference.