“We can go back, Skipper,” Kutas said gamely.
“Noo… As Spanky said, there’re even more back there. We’re going to have to play something new. We can’t fight the Doms and those things,” he said, gesturing at the corpses behind them. “The gun’s crews would be sitting ducks.” He looked at Jenks. “What kind of range do they have?”
“The dragons?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s an interesting question. They’re rarely seen more than thirty or forty miles offshore.”
“Guadalupe’s a hell of a lot farther than that from Baja,” Gray said.
“Indeed,” Jenks agreed. “Perhaps a hundred and fifty miles. No doubt it was a one-way trip, straight out.”
“Which means there almost had to be ‘handlers,’ or some kind of support for them practically due east.”
“Which means they’ve been preparing for this a very long time,” noted Jenks darkly. “I begin to fear there may be more than we bargained for, even on New Ireland. I so wish we could pass a message back to the Governor-Emperor!”
Ed Palmer had appeared on the bridge, staring wide-eyed at the dead, winged… things. He shook his head. “I still have nothing from Admiral McClain… sirs… or any of our ships either. We took a dogleg course, but they were supposed to come straight on to Saint Francis. Maybe they got caught up in the storm northeast of us, or it’s interfering, but I’m thinking they should’ve been in range for us to hear something by now. Our transmitter’s a lot more powerful, and I keep sending our position and intentions…” He held out his hands. “Maybe they’re hearing us, but I haven’t heard a peep back.”
“We’ll hear something in a few days,” Matt said with conviction, “even if only from ‘our’ ships. Simms, Tindal, Mertz, and the oilers are on their way, even if McClain dawdled. They had their orders.”
Jenks looked at Matt. “I’d like to apologize, Captain Reddy,” he said.
Matt blinked. “What for? McClain’s probably on his way, as he promised. Even if he is goofing around, it’s not your fault. Besides, you probably saved my life when you went at that… dragon bird with a sword -and got cut up for it.”
“That’s not what I meant. I must apologize for… influencing you and your crew to take an unreasonable risk. You were right. They did know we are at war. They can only have trained dragons for the attack we withstood today, and they’d only have gathered at Guadalupe Island to prepare an assault on the colonies. I shouldn’t have made you feel… compelled to follow outdated rules.”
Matt shook his head. “Doing the right thing should never be outdated, but in this war, the ‘right thing’ gets… blurry. Don’t worry about it. It took us a while to get used to it too. Maybe it was easier because we were fighting a ‘mean’ war before we ever wound up here.” He frowned. “We would’ve gotten a few more of their ships if we’d shot first, but not many more, and not enough to make a real difference. Only sinking the transports might have done that, and they were too well screened. The dragon birds made the difference in the end.”
“What’ll we do, Skipper?” the Bosun asked. “We gonna shadow the Doms, keep an eye on what they do, or make for Saint Francis?”
“rancis. We know it’s got to be their objective, even if we don’t know their plan. Better to warn the colonies and help them prepare for as many contingencies as we can think of. Besides, we burned a lot of fuel today. Shadowing them will cost more-especially if they throw those… things at us again. For all we know, they’ve got them as tame as puppies, feeding them and letting them roost on their ships!” He stared hard at the dead creatures on the bridge, their blood beginning to congeal in long, lumpy puddles on the strakes. “We’ll have to do something about them.”
“What?”
Matt sighed. “Right now, I have no idea. However they did it, the enemy has air cover and we don’t, basically.” He looked at Minnie. “Secure from general quarters, but maintain condition three… as always. Helm, make your course three, five, five, if you please. Two-thirds. Boats, get with Bashear and form a detail to clear my ship of these flying vermin. I want casualty and damage reports as soon as possible.” He looked around. “Does anybody know if the ‘Nancy’ made it through in one piece?”
Lieutenant Fred Reynolds sat on the deck, leaning on the light gauge “tub” encircling the gun position while its crew cleaned and secured it. His pistol was still in his hand, but the slide was locked back on an empty magazine. His eyes rested on the shattered head of one of the giant lizard birds that lay in the gap at the back of the tub and he shuddered. Suddenly, the exec, Spanky McFarlane, appeared, looking down at him.
“There you are, Reynolds!” he said. “I was starting to think one of those boogers carried you off!” He looked down at the creature at his feet. “Got this one, did you? Well done!”
Reynolds stood, a little shakily.
“Here, gimme that,” Spanky said, motioning for the pistol. Fred handed it over, and Spanky released the empty magazine and stuffed it in a pouch on Reynolds’s belt. Taking another, he inserted it, dropped the slide, and flipped the thumb safety up. He handed the pistol back. “Keep that handy,” he said. “Damn things might come back.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Spanky looked around. The day was still cool, but his face glistened with sweat. “A hell of a thing. Listen, round up your crew chief-Jeek, right?-and go over the plane. It looks like it’s mostly in one piece. Skipper wants it ready to fly as soon as possible.” He noticed Reynolds’s suddenly pale expression. “ Ready to fly. You ain’t going up with the sea like this. Send any of your fellas that ain’t hurt to Bashear-you got any hurt?”
“Ah, I’ll find out immediately, sir.”
“Okay. Make sure they go to the wardroom, even if it’s just a scratch. No tellin’ what they’ll catch from these nasty bastards.” He kicked the dead beast. “Any others you don’t need right away, send ’em to Bashear so we can clear all this buzzard bait off the ship.”
“Aye, aye, Mr. McFarlane,” Reynolds said to Spanky’s back as the man moved on. He took a breath. “Okay, you heard him. Wounded to the wardroom.” The crew from the portside gun had joined them, and he called out a couple of names. “You’re with me,” he said. “We’ll satisfy the ‘condition three’ requirement. The rest, find Bashear. He’ll tell you what to do.” He saw Kari Faask gingerly making her way through the corpses on deck, past the departing ’Cats.
“You okayshe asked.
“Swell.”
A little hesitantly, she hugged him with one arm. The healing wound in her side was still stiff and painful. “You not look swell.”
“I’m fine. You?”
“I was in comm shack, safe enough. Mr. Paalmer kept us all there. No weapons.” She shook her head, and her eyes blinked loathing. “Them things sure look like flying Grik!”
“Yeah.”
“We fly with them things?” Her tail twitched nervously.
“Maybe. We need to look the plane over.”
“I hope it’s busted.”
Fred snorted and looked at her. “Me too.”
It wasn’t, at least not too badly. They discovered that, in addition to rocks, some of the “dragon birds” had been carrying and throwing cannonballs! This was further proof they were in league, in some way at least, with the Doms. A big volcanic rock had exploded on impact with the deck and sent some easily patched shards into the fuselage of the “Nancy,” and a cannonball had punched a hole in the starboard wing, just forward of the aileron. Jeek said the hole would take a couple days to fix because it had damaged a stringer and the glue to fix it would take that long to dry-longer if it rained. Kari was clearly disappointed the plane wasn’t wrecked beyond repair.
The rest of the ship hadn’t suffered too badly. The heavy roundshot had dented the deck like giant hailstones but caused little damage otherwise. A ’Cat had been killed by one, and another had landed on Earl Lanier’s foot, smashing two of his toes. He was hobbling around now, tormenting a single crutch far beyond its capacity and bellowing for somebody to get the “damn, stinking things” cleared away from around the galley “if anybody ever wants to eat again.” Fred saw Tabby come on deck, look around, and seeing Spanky, rush to him and leap at him, enfolding him in a crushing embrace. Awful lot of hugging on this ship today, he mused, feeling a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t the traditionalist some were-like Spanky. Fred was young enough that tradition hadn’t yet seeped into his bones. But even he knew hugging just wasn’t right on a destroyer. Spanky obviously agreed, because he glanced around self-consciously while he peeled Tabby off. Everyone knew he considered her like a daughter, but proprieties must be maintained. Spanky didn’t scold the scarred Lemurian engineering officer, though; he just stood there, listening to her report on the leakage in the steering engine room, which Fred overheard was under control.