Many of the delays may have been unavoidable, but there was plenty of blame for the haste they retarded. The Dominion had indeed attacked the Enchanted Isles, just as Admiral McClain predicted, though not in sufficient force to justify his diversion of the greater part of his fleet in that direction, leaving Jenks, Captain Reddy and his USS Walker, and only a handful of ships to face the bulk of the Dom fleet and invasion force all alone. The result was a vicious battle, and the narrowest of victories.
McClain then compounded his error by sending most of his ships home, instead of securing the isles he believed must have already fallen when he heard of the battle south of Saint Francis-then coming here himself! Jenks already knew this war had spiraled beyond their experience and even comprehension-the reports of the fighting for New Ireland proved that-and he’d seen the unprecedented nature of the war in the west, against the Grik, firsthand. He bitterly understood that compared with the experience the Americans and Lemurians had amassed, his people were literally amateurs. But there could be no excuse for the lethargy, vacillation, and incompetence High Admiral McClain had demonstrated. Jenks had relieved him on sight and sent him home as well. In retrospect, he supposed he could have been hanged for that, but the Governor-Emperor endorsed his decision, and approved his elevation to CINCEAST.
Jenks caught himself absently twisting his braided “Imperial” mustache again, and snatched his hand away and grasped it with the other behind his back. Won’t do for the lads to see me so restless, he chided himself once more. His force was bound to rendezvous with a much larger one designated TF Maaka-Kakja, built around the massive new aircraft carrier it was named for. Once together, the combined force, with all its ships, aircraft, and troops would again constitute Second Fleet, and he, like his counterpart Keje-Fris-Ar in the west, would assume overall command. It was a daunting prospect. He was sure the fleet would be sufficient to relieve the isles-if they still held! — and then they could take the war to the Doms at last. He yearned for that more than he had anything in his life. He’d seen the terrible Grik and understood why Captain Reddy had to return to that front, aside from the repairs Walker needed. But the Doms had shown themselves to be just as terrible as the Grik, and perhaps even more inhuman- because they were human!
He wasn’t sure what they’d do if they found the Enchanted Isles had fallen. The almost-certain annihilation of the garrison was bad enough, but they desperately needed those islands as a staging area at the end of unprecedented, almost unimaginably long lines of supply. Only once they were secure could they control the sea and air around them, and perhaps other islands, and amass the vast armies and war material required to end the Dom menace forever. We will take them back! That is what we will do! He promised himself. Brevet General Tamatsu Shinya would command his ground forces, assisted by Jenks’s old Marine lieutenant-now colonel-Blair, and some well-seasoned Lemurian officers. All had extensive combat experience, and Captain Reddy trusted Shinya completely. They would take the islands back; they had no choice. But it would be costly and another delay that could have been avoided!
Standing there, he tried to will the ponderous preparations of his fleet to greater speed so they could get to sea at last. Only nineteen ships of the now thirty-odd in port were raising steam, beginning to move. Some had to remain behind to protect Saint Francis, after all. He wasn’t surprised to see that USS Mertz and USS Tindal, the Fil-pin-built frigates-or DDs, as they called themselves-had already weighed their anchors and were jockeying near his own Achilles. The two “American” ships had been badly mauled in the battle but quickly restored to order. He grimaced, remembering they’d replenished their savaged crews with female volunteers!
“Up and down!” came the cry from forward, relayed back to the raised, bridge-shaped “quarterdeck” control station between the large amidships paddle boxes.
“Very well,” Jenks replied. Despite his new position as CINCEAST, he still personally commanded his ship. At least for now. Lieutenant Grimsley would take over once they joined the rest of the fleet. “Helm, Quartermaster, maintain position with the engines until the anchor is secure!”
“Aye, sir!” the two men chorused, the quartermaster’s hands grasping a pair of handles attached to either side of a device almost exactly like the Americans’ engine-room telegraph. It is odd, mused Jenks, how form follows function across so vast a gulf!
The other ships of the small fleet eventually signaled their readiness and with Achilles in the lead they slowly steamed past the fortress island, through the mouth of the bay and into the wide sea beyond.
TF Maaka-Kakja
East Pacific 130 Longitude
N Equatorial Current
Second Lieutenant Orrin Reddy, Acting Lieutenant Commander and COFO for the 3rd Naval Air Wing aboard USS Maaka-Kakja (CV-4), waggled the wings of his PB-1B Nancy flying boat to get the attention of the ’Cat flying the ship off his starboard wing. Damn kid never can seem to pay attention to what he’s doing when he’s in the air, he grumbled to himself, even as he recognized his hypocrisy. He’d had the same trouble when he first learned to fly, to soar so high above the world and all the cares and even thoughts that seemed so firmly rooted there.
Regardless, he’d also learned the hard way that losing focus for even a moment in the air was the quickest, maybe most surprising, way to die that he’d ever seen. Two of his ’41-C classmates at San Diego were killed in a situation just like this: two ships, all alone, flying straight and level. One drifted into the other, a wing tangled with a prop, and it was all over but the fall. Neither pilot even got out of his tumbling craft. Of course, the Japanese and their agile fighters visited all sorts of deliberate, sudden death on his 3rd Pursuit Squadron mates in the Philippines. It added a whole new dimension when somebody was actively trying to kill you. Then he’d heard how his pal and fellow survivor Jack Mackey bought it after his first action in the west-against zeppelins! He still couldn’t get over that-when he stuck a wheel in a bomb crater on the airstrip and TL’d one of the few precious P-40s that somehow made it here. That just wasn’t fair at all.
Orrin knew he hadn’t yet discovered nearly as many ways to die on this world as his illustrious cousin and “Supreme Commander” Captain Reddy. The closest things he’d seen to Grik were Lawrence and the Sa’aarans in the Fil-pin Lands, and those few wild “flying Grik” that gave them so much trouble on New Ireland. But he was Maakaa-Kakja ’s COFO now, like it or not, and he didn’t intend to lose any of his pilots to woolgathering.
“Zap him, Seepy!” he shouted into the speaking tube beside his shoulder. “Seepy” was Orrin’s copilot/spotter/wireless-operator backseater, or OC, in the little plane. The brown-and-gray-furred ’Cat’s real name was Kuaar-Ran-Taak, and unlike so many others, his squadron handle hadn’t come from what his name sounded like to a human American. Orrin was the only one of those in the whole 3rd Naval Air Wing, anyway. Seep was an intoxicant made of the ubiquitous polta fruit that also produced, when properly prepared, the miraculously curative polta paste, so Orrin could only guess what inspired Seepy’s name, but the guy was the best backseater in the wing, and a good pilot in his own right.