The Shark Boats, page 13
“They’re hailing us,” Umberto said.
“I’ll handle the controls,” Reiner said. “You talk.”
They changed seats. Umberto turned the radio dial until he found the one they were on.
“This is D-107-A,” a tired-sounding man was saying. “Repeat, do you have word from Rienfuegos?”
“This is Squadron Seven,” said Umberto. He shrugged at Reiner, who interpreted that as we’re clueless? and nodded. “What about Rienfuegos.”
“We heard a rumor that there’s riots there. We’re due there in twenty-four hours; have they been cleaned up? Harbor’s still usable, right?”
“Harbor’s fine,” said Umberto.
Four freighters, thought Reiner. Loaded with military stuff – probably with food and ammunition. They weren’t troop transports, damnit, because transports would have more men up on the decks, even at this hour.
No, he said to the idea that was gaining strength in his mind.
No.
But…
No.
“Keep them talking,” Reiner mouthed to Umberto, and left the cockpit to check out the torpedo racks. The New Texan – he seemed to go by just Tex – was a general engineer. He’d spent some time examining them and come to the conclusion that yes, they could be used. Both were loaded.
He went below to find Tex asleep on a bunk. A little bit of shaking caused the man to reach under his pillow and wave a pistol in Reiner’s face. Reiner flinched away from the gun, gently pushed it away from him.
“Need your help. Torpedoes. We’ve got a Nork destroyer.”
Tex looked up, shook his head, and rolled out of bed.
Sleeps with his boots on, Reiner thought. Although aboard a boat like this that was probably a wise thing to do.
“You were playing with `em earlier, remember? You think you can fire `em?”
When the sharks wiped out our convoy, it looked like one tube was enough to kill our destroyer.
Then there was the corvette to worry about.
That was what the second rack was for.
Wouldn’t it be a better idea to consult with Goldstein first?
Nope. No time, for one. For two, only one radio aboard this boat. Three, Goldstein might say no. Better to ask forgiveness…
Tex was already climbing the ladder to the deck.
“I can fire `em,” he said. “How many of them Norks you want me to kill?”
All of them, Reiner wanted to say. Every last one. And then we’ll machine-gun the survivors.
It took effort to not say that.
*
In the cockpit, Umberto looked at Reiner.
“They’re fine. They were a bit curious about what we’re doing here, but I told them that they weren’t cleared to know and if they pressed further they could ask the Special Brotherhood.”
That was the secret police.
“Good. We’re going to torpedo that destroyer, then turn around and kill the corvette.”
Before heading up himself, Reiner had woken two other men and told them to get everyone else awake and to stations.
“You’re mad,” Umberto said. “Why the hell?”
Reiner reached into the pouch and swallowed a bit more coffee. In the last sixty hours, he’d had so few hours of sleep that he could count them on one hand. In the last thirty-six, he’d had none; freebasing caffeine was a necessity.
It also meant that it was possible his judgment was fucked. He didn’t think so, but hell, he inherently wouldn’t.
Deal with it, he told himself. War is about making decisions. Sometimes they’re bad ones. This one better not be.
“Because that’s four shiploads of food, ammunition, spare parts and God knows what else that they need on Karna,” he said. “And I think we’ve got a damn good shot at being able to get it there.”
“The hell with Karna,” Umberto said, as Calina came up.
“Man one of the guns, Umberto. Calina, we’re killing the destroyer.”
Sudden sharp whooshing from the side of the boat. Calina and Reiner dashed over to see what it was: Tex, kneeling by the torpedo launcher, was grinning broadly. He gave a thumbs-up.
What the—
“While you boys was talking, I was doing,” he said, pointing at the destroyer. “We were facing her anyway.”
In the faint early-morning light, the torpedo trail was invisible even when you were looking for it. The first sign, outside of the empty launcher, was a few seconds later: a fireball that engulfed the whole stern of the destroyer.
“What the hell?” came over the radio from the corvette.
“Tell them we spotted a periscope – now!”
Umberto was on the mike.
“Submarine! Convoy corvette, there is a submarine in this area! Help us engage!”
“No! We’re going to the relief of the Fuegos Bay.”
The aft half of the destroyer was on fire, and she was sinking.
“You kill that submarine,” the corvette ordered.
“Play with the depth charges. Roll off a few and make us sound serious,” said Reiner.
And how long before they figure out we did it?
Probably not too long. The thing to do was kill them first.
The freighters were going crazy; zigzagging, increasing speed. Their formation was ruined as the corvette sped through them for the stricken destroyer.
“Fire two?” Tex asked.
The corvette was in the exact same location.
“Oh, God yes,” said Reiner.
This was just too easy. He liked shark boats.
Twenty or thirty seconds later, the torpedo hit the corvette. Somewhere combustible, because the ship simply exploded in a fireball that, from where Reiner stood, probably wiped out the rest of the destroyer’s crew. When the smoke cleared, there was no sign – other than a few pieces of floating debris – that the two ships had ever existed.
And from then, it was a simple matter of telling the rest of the convoy that he was taking command, that he had special intelligence about a new USC submarine design, and that they would be turning around and heading for Puerto Quinto under complete radio silence.
I had no damn idea piracy was this easy, Reiner thought, as the four transports obeyed his orders and headed back north.
*
Karna. Even without Goldstein’s navigation, Reiner could tell they were approaching the place. Artillery carried over water.
“You’ve been there before?”, Reiner asked Goldstein. The smuggler was aboard the Isabella, with Gascay driving the Chang Kai-Shek.
“A few times. It’s always been a fortress. Back before Vienna, the old world government had antispace weapons there. Then successive governments – the Puerto Quintans, yours during the Colonial Period, Puerto Quintans again. There’s a dock, but I don’t know if it’s still intact.”
Karna was a peninsula at low tide, an island at high tide. It sat like a surviving tooth in the midst of the decayed mouth that was Karna Bay, the biggest of the ports that gave Puerto Quinto its name. On the northeastern side of the massive bay was Philipstown, the nation’s capital.
More explosions, and they were still half an hour out. They were lobbing something heavy at Karna tonight. Reiner wondered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that, then realized that he’d be seeing for himself before long.
“Attention all convoy ships,” Reiner said into the radio on their frequency. “The plans have changed. Be advised that we have four torpedoes loaded in tubes, and are prepared to use them. Acknowledge.”
Four acknowledgements – with one “What the hell?” – came through.
“My name is Jack Reiner, Captain, USC Army,” Reiner said, reading in Spanish from the translated script Goldstein had given him. “For the last fifteen hours, you have been prisoners of war. You will direct your ships in to the port at Karna. Any attempt to sabotage the cargo, to call for help or to escape will result in your immediately being torpedoed and machine-gunned. Behave yourselves and you’ll be well-treated prisoners of war. Resist and you’ll be dead men.”
I really hope there are no bloodthirsty Brotherhood fanatics who don’t give a damn, aboard any of those ships.
“If any of you would like to test my resolve, feel free to disobey my orders. You were targets of opportunity and I would be glad to make an example of you. There will be no survivors from any ships that attempt this.”
Bright flashes on the horizon. Then the rippling booms, carrying well over the water.
We’re heading into that, Reiner thought.
Well, he’d been used to that for a week now. He should have been heading into that with Company D.
Hopefully General Macquarie would be satisfied instead with four shiploads of whatever these freighters carried.
*
At the docks: he’d radioed ahead, and men were on hand to take the ships, climbing up ladders and boarding. The Chang Kai-Shek had already docked, with Gascay and the other smugglers coming off and talking with USCA officers.
Reiner kept the Isabella undocked until the fourth all-clear order came from the USCA men who’d taken command of the freighters. He watched prisoners, their hands in the air, being marched down gangways at gunpoint onto the docks; then he brought the Isabella in, between two of the freighters at one of the few spare points on the concrete wharf.
A tall, emaciated man with tarnished colonel’s eagles on the filthy shoulderboards of his battered uniform was waiting, flanked by a couple of junior officers and a civilian.
Reiner saluted.
“Company D reporting as ordered, sir,” he said. “Or what’s left of it.”
All the men here, Reiner noticed, looked like walking skeletons. The last rumor before his convoy set out, said that rations had been reduced from half to a third. These ones carried themselves like walking wounded. Most of them were.
“It’s good to see you, Captain,” said the colonel. “I’m afraid to ask you what happened along the way.”
“It’s – a long story, sir.”
“I’m Colonel Palmer, Captain. The General’s chief of staff. He wants to hear it. I understand that along the way you burned down a port on the PNA’s supply chain – Port Victoria, Dennyville, Brangelis, one of those?”
“Dennyville, sir. And the lowlanders did most of the burning. We just helped them out a little.”
I don’t want to talk to General Macquarie. I want to sleep.
It was an effort to be polite to this guy.
Goldstein was tapping his foot impatiently.
“Goldstein,” said Palmer coldly.
“Charlie Dog,” said the smuggler with a slight grin.
“Colonel Palmer.” Even more coldly.
“To your men, sure, Charlie. I’m not in your chain of command. Tell Foxhole Fred I want to see him, will you?”
Palmer visibly bristled. Barely restrained a snarl.
Will you stop antagonizing my superior officer and insulting his boss?, Reiner wondered. There was probably some byplay going on here, some contextual stuff that he could figure out if he wasn’t so exhausted. Or maybe he was just so exhausted that he was imagining it.
“And what would the General want to deal with you again for?” demanded Palmer.
Goldstein handed him a leather pouch. “Just give him this and tell him I’m here, will you?” He turned, asked the nearest NCO: “Where is it a guy can get a bed around here?”
“That’s a good question,” Reiner blurted.
Palmer turned back to him.
Oh shit. He drew himself to attention.
“I hope your passenger’s conduct doesn’t reflect on your attitudes, Captain.”
“Sir. No. Sir.”
“You do look exhausted,” Palmer said a little more compassionately. “I can have quarters prepared for you.”
There’s some military etiquette that applies here, Reiner thought. Beyond ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was.
“My men, too,” Goldstein said loudly to the flustered-looking NCO, and shot a glance in Reiner’s direction.
Oh yeah.
“My men first,” Reiner said.
Palmer gave him an approving look.
“We can do that,” he said.
*
All too soon, an aide to Palmer – an aide’s aide? An aide squared? – was waking Reiner.
“The General wants to see you now, sir,” said the lieutenant, whose left leg ended just above the knee. He walked on a crutch and flinched hard with the jolt of every step.
They were in a complex of bunkers that had been cut deep into the rocky hills at the southern end of the peninsula. The whole thing rumbled dully as shells came down.
Men ran back and forth in the intersecting corridors. A convoy of wounded, two to a stretcher, came bustling past at one point. The men wheeling the stretchers didn’t look much better than the ones in them.
This place is every bit as fucked as the worst rumors said it was, Reiner thought.
The lieutenant led him into an antechamber where Palmer waited. Next to him was a craggily handsome man in his early sixties, wearing a dressing gown and smoking a pipe. Three stars were embroidered onto each shoulder of the gown, and a shiny fourth gold star was pinned below those three.
Macquarie.
Reiner pulled himself to attention and saluted hard. He’d never met a full general before. Until a few weeks ago, the United Southern Colonies had only had one. Macquarie had been pulled out of his demi-retirement as a sort of USC Ambassador Emeritus and senior military adviser to the Puerto Quintans – meaning, in his case, effective commander of their army – and promoted when President Quintillian had made it clear that his army wouldn’t accept the orders of anybody else. In Schuylerville he was still a controversial figure, and his appointment to command the DTF had led to street protests and a lot of angry speeches in Parliament.
“Reiner. Emmanuel says you’re a hell of an officer. From him, that means something. Come in.”
Macquarie’s office was sparse except for a couple of elegant sofas. Most senior officers in Reiner’s experience had photos of themselves with various high-level types on their walls, to impress visitors. The General’s office had only one photo: of himself, alone.
Sprawled on one of the sofas, smoking a cigar, was Emmanuel Goldstein.
“Close the door, will you, Charlie?” the General told his chief of staff. “Major, at ease. And take a seat.” He gestured towards the other sofa. Macquarie took a well-cushioned office chair.
Major?
Reiner touched the captain’s bars on his shoulder, to make sure.
Macquarie chuckled.
“Field promotion. Let’s see: you got a dozen soldiers to safety, you seriously damaged a major PNA supply base and cost them a few thousand of their labor force. You got rid of two of those accursed shark boats, rescued the PNA’s number one enemy, and finally brought me four shiploads of food and ammunition – all of which is desperately needed here. Believe me, we’ve largely been subsisting off captured PNA ammunition for the last couple of weeks; we’ll appreciate more of it. You’re a major, and if the General Staff doesn’t confirm it, screw `em. I’m also putting you in for a medal.”
“Sir. Thank you.”
Damn. I’m a major.
He grinned.
“Cigar, Major?” asked Goldstein, and tossed him one. A glance at the label: a good brand. An excellent brand; Tuan cigars had been luxury items for a century and, after the PNA had taken the place, were rumored to be pretty highly-prized among the senior Brotherhood. Worth a fortune in Schuylerville, when guys like Goldstein could bring them down.
He accepted Macquarie’s offer of a light and waited for the General to speak. He didn’t, for a couple of minutes. Reiner enjoyed the comfortable sofa and the very good cigar.
“You have two boats, Major,” said the General eventually. “You took them; they’re yours.”
I took one boat, Reiner thought, and looked at Goldstein.
The smuggler – and what the hell else, to be smoking a cigar with his feet on General Macquarie’s sofa? – shrugged. “You got us the parts. She wouldn’t have left Rienfuegos without you.”
“Do you have any plans for them?” Macquarie asked. “Anything in mind you’d like to do with them?”
“Sir,” said Reiner before his brain could intercept the thought. “If I could, I’d like to hunt down and kill that murdering son of a bitch Chavez. The bastard whose boats killed my company.”
“Counter-shark sharks, eh? I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. The shark boats have been menacing our supply line, Major. But the enemy has just as long a supply line, with as many points of vulnerability. And the Navy can’t be trusted; the Navy thinks we should abandon Karna! The Navy thinks we should surrender, that the people of Puertos Quintos aren’t worth our effort and must be abandoned to the mercies of the PNA!”
The General was on his feet now.
“Major, the admirals are not to be trusted. I want my own boats; I want boats that will fight this war, led by an officer that does not allow them to be wrecked by saboteurs and incapacitated on the opening day! I want them led by an officer who doesn’t make excuses – who gets the damn job done. And politically, Major, it would help a great deal if that officer was a hero. A guaranteed bona-fide hero with the Star and everything else.”
The Haag Star?
Nobody had been awarded the Star, the Colonies’ highest battlefield decoration, in Reiner’s lifetime. Although that might have changed in the last few weeks.
It was still absurd. He’d never imagined getting the Star, not even in daydreams. And now, apparently, Macquarie was putting him in for it.
“Major, those two boats are yours, and so are Goldstein’s other ones. He has two more, you know. At safe harbor.”
“Diego Sud might not be safe for too much longer,” Goldstein murmured.
“That’s a squadron. The first of many, I hope. Your job will be to intercept enemy shipments. The smugglers’ boats are ideal for this: better, better-adapted for the purpose than the enemy’s, I think.”
