Matt focused carefully at the point where the sea met the sky and as he stared, he began to discern towering, dirty-white sails outlined against the light blue background. There was no doubt about it. Even as he concentrated on holding the binoculars steady, more and more of the ominous shapes resolved themselves in the distance. It wasn’t just the advance element of the enemy fleet they’d been avoiding either. There were far too many. In spite of the heat, icy tendrils clutched his heart and radiated outward, across his chest and down his back. Far in the distance, beyond the ever more crowded horizon, Matt thought he could see a hazy column of black-gray smoke drifting away to the n
«They must’ve seen us,» he observed. «At least Nerracca. Her masts are twice as tall as theirs.»
«Yes, sir. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like they’ve altered course since I first saw them. Right before I called you. Should I sound general quarters?»
Matt shook his head. «Not yet. But please do have Mr. McFarlane, Mr. Dowden, and the Bosun report to the bridge immediately.»
«Aye, aye, Captain.»
Ten minutes later, Matt gently tapped the chart with his index finger. «We’re here,» he said to the small group that had quickly gathered on the bridge. Then the same finger stabbed down a little to the northwest of their position. «The enemy is there. There’s no longer any question in my mind that they know where Baalkpan is. There’s no other reason for them to come this way.» His lips formed a rueful smirk. «Just like we feared, the Japs must’ve been ‘reading our mail.’ Monitoring our transmissions.» The smirk changed to a snarl. «And they ratted us out to the lizards. Regardless whatever other ‘inducements’ the Grik might have used to get the Japs to help them, they told them about Baalkpan because they wanted to.» He shook his head, genuinely amazed. The Japanese were the enemy and when it came to Amagi, he had to admit it was even kind of personal. But he still found it hard to believe they would actively, voluntarily, help the Grik. Fleetingly, he wondered how Amagi’s more junior personnel felt about that. Pointless to speculate. He looked at each of those present. «Whether this force represents the bulk of the enemy fleet or not is impossible to say just yet, but it’s certainly a sizable fraction of it. Nerracca’s lookouts have counted upwards of a hundred ships so far.» He paused and took a deep breath. «And there’s definitely a column of dark smoke rising from somewhere within or beyond the enemy force. We have to assume that smoke represents Amagi.»
«But. when Lieutenant Mallory reported the advance force nearing Surabaya, he also sighted a significant number of enemy ships on an identical course less than thirty miles behind them,» Dowden stressed.
«Yeah, but as I’ve been concerned all along, if they really have more than three hundred ships, they have more than enough to send a ‘significant number’ in two directions at once. It seems that’s what they’ve done.»
«We gotta warn Baalkpan!» Spanky said, around a mouthful of the yellow leaves.
«That’s happening right now. I just hope they can hear us. We’re still pretty far away.» He frowned. «I told Clancy to ask for confirmation when he gets through. Radio silence is pointless at this stage. They clearly know where we’re going.»
Dowden’s face suddenly went white with dreadful realization. «What are we going to do about Nerracca?»
Matt nodded slowly. «Precisely. What are we going to do? Walker can easily outrun the enemy, but obviously Nerracca can’t. She’s gained almost a knot, with this good wind on her starboard quarter. For her, that’s really moving. Right now the lizards are beating into the wind, but once they turn north after passing these islands here» — he pointed again at the chart" she won’t have a chance. She might not anyway.» He nodded toward the distant ships. «As you can see, they have the angle on us.»
«Damn it, Skipper!» Gray growled with frustration. «What can we do? There’s seven or eight thousand people on that ship!»
Matt glared a usothers. «Gentlemen, we’ve got to come up with something, and we’ve got to do it now!» McFarlane’s face wore a thoughtful expression. «Spit it out, Spanky!»
«Well, you said Nerracca’s making six knots.»
«Thereabouts.»
«If we light off the number two boiler, Walker can make thirty for a while. Hell, we could sustain twenty-eight if nothing pops.» He glanced around at the expectant faces. «That’s a hell of a lot of horsepower.»
«You mean, rig a tow?» Matt breathed. Spanky nodded.
«But will it be enough?» Garrett asked skeptically. «I know Nerracca’s mostly wood, but her hull is incredibly thick and she’s. huge! Especndant of Allosaurus, according to Bradford. The things were rare and Pete had never seen one, but by all accounts they were one of the few «dinosaurs» of this region that weren’t stunted. The Lemurian scouts had discovered tracks and blood on the pipeline. The monster must have been lying in wait for passing prey, hunkered slightly back in the dense foliage along the trail when Scott came ambling by. It was a terrible loss and Pete shuddered to think about how it must have been. Even so, the irony of the coxswain’s death wasn’t lost on him.
Anyway, since Pete had operational command of Baalkpan’s defenses, Jim cheerfully reported to him when he arrived. There wasn’t even the tiniest hint that Mr. Ellis considered it inappropriate and Pete was grateful for that. The irony of a naval lieutenant in command of a destroyer reporting to Mrs. Alden’s son was even more bizarre, to him at least, than the way poor Scott had gotten it. Ever since then, though, Jim had been down at the dock working night and day, with hundreds of Lemurian «yard-apes» crawling all over his ship. By Nakja-Mur’s command, every possible assistance, regardless of expense, was placed at the disposal of the young lieutenant and his wounded destroyer.
Nakja-Mur had certainly stepped up to the plate; Alden had no complaints about that. He no longer questioned what things cost. The High Chief had finally completely grasped the concept of total war, and everything else had dimmed to insignificance. Nothing was as important to him as saving his city and its people and he’d do whatever it took. With Letts’s help, the High Chief of Baalkpan had blossomed into a kind of bureaucratic prodigy. In a government like that of the United States, Nakja-Mur would have been performing all the duties usually associated with the secretaries of state, commerce, agriculture, public works, and war. He didn’t really know doodly-squat about any of those things, but he was smart enough to know it, and he delegated all the hands-on work to people who did. He just made sure the wheels were greased and he arbitrated disputes. He was also a genius at sorting out priorities and making sure the most important projects got the assets they needed the quickest. He relied heavily on Alden and Letts to advise him as to which projects those were, but since Baalkpan’s defense and the support of the AEF were almost everybody’s top priority, there was rarely any disagreement between them.
The exception to this unity of purpose was still represented by what Letts called the Run Away Party, which was enjoying a resurgence that began with Fristar’s return and was reinforced by the terrible news that the offensive was turning into a desperate retreat. The «Run-Aways» were still a minority since most of them had, of course, already run away. But Alden figured that as soon as the new scope of the threat they faced became known, the Run-Aways would gain many converts. There was no Lemurian president, or anything of the sort, to rule the collection of independent Homes and peoples from other «land» Homes that had gathered at Baalkpan. The leadership was more like some sort of screwy legislature of equal representatives. Kind of like the city-state setup of ancient Greece, Alden thought. Unlike the captain, Pete didn’t know much about history — beyond that of the Marine Corps — but he’d heard of the Spartans and he knew about Thermopylae. He hoped they weren’t facing a similar situation. He knew one of the problems the Greeks had faced was an inability to work together. But Nakja-Mur chaired all the meetings since he was High Chief of the «Host» Home. Hell, throw in speaker of the house while you’re at it, Alden thought. So far he’d managed to keep everybody’s eye on the ball.