The Shark Boats, page 36
“I’m sure the fleet commander knows what he’s doing, sir,” said the lieutenant cautiously.
“I don’t think the overpromoted dunce has a clue. He’s going to have us attack the whole PNA fleet by ourselves? He’s insane. He should be relieved. We’re committing suicide.”
The door to the tactical room flew open. An enlisted man tumbled through, saluted with one hand and thrust out a piece of paper with the other.
“Sir! Admiral Thompson, sir! Just got word from outer screeners. Nick fleet’s been spotted, sir!”
Thompson’s aide took the message. Scanned over it. Passed it to the admiral.
Thompson read over it.
Orders were orders and had to be obeyed. Even when they came from a tactically-illiterate buffoon like Ruyter. Even when they meant suicide, because refusing would have meant the end of his career.
He shrugged. It was Ruyter’s decision. The end of his career when they lost.
“You know what to do,” he told his staff. “Adjust course. Attack.”
*
“Go!” Reiner cried over the mike. “Go! Go! Go! Take those sharks out and go for the destroyers!”
To his distant right, his distant left – he still didn’t think of those directions as port and starboard – the other USC MTB squadrons were moving to engage. The PNA squadrons were doing the same thing.
He could imagine Nick’s battleships, over the horizon, turning. Wheeling into battle formation. Moving to engage Thompson.
Moving to open themselves to Ruyter, but they weren’t to know that. Until it was too late.
Cannon fired. Shark boats heading for them. Shells splashed around them harmlessly.
Newbies, Reiner thought contemptuously. Pieter and Pulli were holding their fire. Two of the shark boats came in head-on toward him, running side by side like buddies. On straight intercept courses. About four hundred yards away.
Pieter turned his cannon slightly. Fired.
A second later, his shell exploded amidst the cockpit of one of the shark boats. A shell from Kaye’s boat went up amidst the stern of that boat a moment later. Long-range machine-gun fire came out from Reiner’s boats.
Shells from the destroyer began to splash around them. Calina was swerving slightly, evading. So, Reiner noted approvingly, were his other pilots. The gunners had learned to deal with it.
“Ready torpedoes!” he shouted. Approaching the destroyer.
A sound like a freight-train passing overhead.
“What the fuck is that?” Pulli asked.
“Sixteen-incher,” said Calina. “Battleships engaging.”
Torpedoes slid off the racks. Off Kaye’s boat, too. Grey and Schaffer were attacking another destroyer.
Pulli’s machine-gun opened up. Raking a shark boat that had been coming at them head-on.
Reiner raised his binoculars. Dark shapes on the horizon. Maneuvering.
Battleships.
As he watched, gouts of flame – pinpricks at this distance, even through the binoculars – erupted from the fore of one of them.
They’re engaging us, too.
Good.
*
“Take out their screening elements,” Chavez ordered, several miles to the west of Reiner’s position. “And then go for the meat. I want this subgroup to claim at least one capitalist battleship ourselves.”
Heading in. Torpedoes firing.
A USC destroyer began to burn. One of their MTBs – no, two – were dead in the water, one sinking. One of Chavez’s boats suddenly disintegrated as a cruiser shell scored a direct hit.
“Forwards!” shouted Chavez over the din. “At them! Sink the bastards!”
*
At the eastern spearhead of the PNA fleet, a nineteen-year-old shark boat commander named Miguel Prevada shook his elegant head.
“Fuck orders to turn,” he told his squadron commander. “I said I was going to be the first man to land on Centerfield. One boat won’t make a difference.”
“One boat will make a difference,” Lieutenant-Commander Gomez snarled back over the radio. “Turn around or I’ll report you.”
Prevada grinned. “Does the squadron Brotherhood officer think reporting me would be a good idea, sir? Get Lieutenant Mendoza’s word on the threat, and I’ll obey. He knows who my grandfather is.”
Ramon Prevada. Hermano del Suelo Ramon Prevada, currently the PNA’s Secretary of War.
For that reason, Prevada knew perfectly well, Gomez would order the rest of the squadron in to cover his daring ass. They’d land on one of Centerfield’s outer islands, plant a flag and bug out before the aircraft or the garrison could nail them.
“Fuck you, Prevada,” Gomez snarled.
A minute later, Gomez’s boat turned to follow Prevada. So did the other two of the squadron.
“You’ll get a piece of the glory, boss,” Prevada said happily, as the squadron roared east.
Behind them, Cervantes’ cruisers, battleships and battlecruisers wheeled to face south.
*
Huge shells roared over the skirmishing no-man’s-water between the two fleets. Cruisers and destroyers engaged each other, flinging shells over shorter distances.
Sometimes they scored hits, and a half-dozen burning, sinking wrecks already littered the battle area. Men in orange inflatable jackets floated amidst the liferafts; men without them dogpaddled. Shark boats and MTBs attacked the capital ships, attacked each other, were blasted by destroyers and the auxiliary cannon of cruisers.
The freight-train roars of enormous shells from the capital ships were almost constant now.
Calina wheeled 144 around. Torpedomen were reloading. All over the radio frequencies, people were shouting and screaming. The general frequency especially, although Kaye was for some reason keeping a running commentary as two shark boats chased him through the line.
“Help him,” Reiner said unnecessarily to Calina.
He wasn’t sure how much of the water that coated his face was from splashed near-misses and how much was from sweat. Wasn’t sure how much of the sweat was from the hundred-and-ten-degree sun and how much was from nerves.
This counted. This counted more than anything else he’d ever done. This battle would decide the war. If they won, Nick’s fleet would be wreckage and it would be possible, especially with Centralia’s intervention in the Andaians, to contain the PNA.
To counterattack. Eventually to win the war.
If they lost…
No. We’re not going to lose.
On the tail of one of the shark boats dogging Kaye. Light machine-gun fire came back at them. Pulli reciprocated with a long blast from his fifties. A heavy shell kicked up a huge waterspout not far away. They passed a burning cruiser. A pair of destroyers starting an attack run, supported by a squadron of MTBs.
More heavy battleship shells came overhead. The fleets were closing. Far more heavy shells seemed to be incoming than outgoing.
Thompson’s element consists of two battleships and two battlecruisers, he thought. They’d be severely outgunned – by at least three to one – until Ruyter chose to close the trap.
He hoped it’d happen soon.
*
Chavez had lost control of his subgroup; the squadrons were operating independently and he’d given up attempting to give more than vague orders to their commanders. It was enough of an effort to keep his own squadron effective and his own boat intact.
The capitalist screening elements were putting up a tougher fight than he’d expected. Their destroyer commanders were aggressive, and their gunners well-trained. He’d already lost one boat, and from the reports, his squadron had been lucky.
“Kill!” he shouted, pointing. Both of the Isabella’s torpedoes slid off at a destroyer that was coming at them head-on, flanked by a second destroyer to its port and a corvette to its starboard.
The destroyer swung starboard to evade the torpedo its pilot saw. Caught a glancing hit from the other one, which exploded. Didn’t stop the destroyer. Another torpedo, from one of the other boats in Chavez’s squadron, eviscerated the corvette.
Then that shark boat was hit directly by a destroyer's shell. In an instant the boat was a blazing wreck, men bailing.
Lieutenant Delmeda looked up at Chavez, his eyebrow raised.
Are we going to rescue them?
Chavez shook his head. A rescue attempt would make the Isabella a sitting duck. Time to bug out, reload, and avenge them.
“Lugo to all shark boats and destroyers,” came an order over the third radio. “Pull back. Defend the main fleet. Their screeners are going hard at us. Destroy them, leave their capital ships bare, and then we’ll counterattack.”
Shit, thought Chavez. We’re on the defensive?
As he and his boats withdrew, they passed a sinking PNA destroyer. Men cried out to them from the water.
We could lose this thing, Chavez thought for the first time.
*
“Looks like their screeners are attacking hard – to cover the retreat of their capital ships,” Lugo said to Cervantes. “They’d barely engaged – I think they only got three or four of them into the fight – and now Ruyter’s running.”
“Surprised by how much strength we have?” Cervantes mused. He didn’t think Ruyter would give Centerfield up so easily. Pulling out before he’d even fully engaged?
Maybe intelligence was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Ruyter in command. Maybe the destroyer admiral was uneasy commanding bigger, less expendable ships.
Maybe there was something happening that he didn’t know about.
No. His orders had been clear: destroy the USC fleet. If that meant pursuit, it meant pursuit.
“Close on them,” he ordered. “Keep formation and get closer. Chase them down.”
*
“Thompson’s turning tail,” Ruyter’s chief of staff told him. “Sent a signal – says he can’t win against a force four times his size. Fucking coward.”
Ruyter shrugged. He’d expected that of the man. More afraid to lose his command than the war. Thompson running, so long as Cervantes reacted as he should, was fine.
“And Cervantes is pursuing, I assume?”
“Looks like it.”
“Perfect. We’ll let him, for a few minutes. Send the signal to get ready. We sortie in twenty minutes. And five minutes later, Admiral Cervantes is going to get the worst surprise of his life.”
*
Lieutenant Prevada’s boat nosed towards the high reef that surrounded most of Centerfield Atoll. The battle was moving south, by the sound of the guns. Mostly out of sight now, although if he turned and looked through his binoculars he could see one or two of the easternmost battleships on the horizon.
Moving south, it looked like. Pursuing the retreating USC ships.
Good. The less resistance we face, the better.
He readied his flag. His pilot, Lieutenant Romero, gave him a thumbs-up as he eased the boat through increasingly shallow water. The rocky atoll sat like a fortified wall around the islands at this point.
The rest of the squadron was following closely behind. Prevada could see Lieutenant-Commander Gomez standing at the very bow of his boat. Making the best of it, as Prevada knew he would.
His boss will understand Gomez’s squadron going off with me, Prevada thought. He’d better, or I’ll have Grandfather relieve him.
This kind of thing would get Gomez another anchor on each shoulder, anyway. Second man to land on Centerfield. He’d have to write Grandfather about that. Gomez was a good sport about this kind of thing, and a good guy to drink with.
The boat scraped against coral.
“Can’t go much further,” said Romero. “But you can walk.”
“Anyone wanna come?” Prevada asked, drawing his pistol.
A couple of men volunteered, taking rifles or submachineguns. They followed Prevada down to the bow of the boat, jumped off.
The water was warm and chest-deep. Rough coral under Prevada’s boots. Gomez and a couple of his men had landed not far away, and they walked toward each other. Met up and began to scale the coral for the above-surface rocks.
Engines above them. Bombers heading out on an attack run. Prevada flinched. There’d be garrison troops around here somewhere, too. This had the potential to be dangerous. He didn’t think they’d bother guarding these outer rocks, but you never knew.
Fuck the danger. We won’t be here long. They’ll send a platoon out on a launch, but we’ll be long gone by the time they arrive.
Cresting the coral, Prevada began to climb the wet rocks. At high tide they’d probably be underwater. They were slippery with lichen.
On the other side, islands and –
WHAT?
Ships. Battleships. Battlecruisers. Cruisers and destroyers and MTBs. Bunched up tight in the narrow channels between the islands. The closest was no more than half a mile away. It looked like they were starting to move.
A whole fleet, in and around the atoll. USC and TransEquaaner ships.
I’m hallucinating.
He turned to his squadron commander, aghast. Lieutenant-Commander Gomez had frozen too. Only for a moment.
“Get. Back. To. The. Boats,” Gomez ordered. Starting to run himself, staggering and splashing across the wet coral.
“My God,” said Prevada. The force they’d been engaging – what was that?
A diversion. To throw the PNA fleet out of shape. These ships were starting to move – they’d sortie out and cross Cervantes’ T and oh fuck.
“Romero! Get on the radio! There’s a million USC battleships out there at Centerfield!” Prevada shouted. “Tell Captain Lugo – fuck the chain of command, tell Admiral Cervantes! Warn them!”
*
Captain Lugo stiffened like a ramrod as he read the message from the disobedient shark squadron. It was abruptly cut off, with an annotation from the radio man saying that the transmitter might have been hit.
You survive, Gomez or whatever your name is, and you might just escape execution for your disobedience, Lugo thought.
A minute later, he’d explained it to Cervantes.
“Oh, shit,” Cervantes said. Staff officers were already moving, starting to give the orders that would reposition the fleet. To face this new threat.
The real threat.
Wheeling the fleet around would take time.
Even with warning, Lugo thought, I’m not sure if we have it.
*
“It’s a diversion,” the officer on the other end of the radio said. “We’ve redeployed the whole fleet against a feint.”
Chavez swore.
“Yes. We’re re-aligning the fleet now. Spread your subgroup out and cover them.”
Ships, the northern and western escorts and pickets, were only now beginning to arrive. An hour into the battle, but they’d been spaced as far as two horizons away.
“We could attack,” suggested Chavez.
“No. Not yet.”
*
Ruyter swore under his breath as the reports came in. Cervantes had had warning – a shark boat squadron that must have been disobeying orders. It had been wiped out by concentrated cruiser and destroyer fire, but too late. Cervantes was redeploying now.
He wouldn’t have time to do it fully. Ruyter could make sure of that.
“All destroyers and MTBs,” he ordered, “go straight in. Cruisers, support them. Engage at point-blank. Disrupt their maneuver.”
*
“They want us to go into that?” Pulli asked. Gesturing at the line of battleships, five or six miles away now. They were starting to move, beginning to change formation.
Much more of a threat were the dozens of PNA cruisers, destroyers and MTBs in the intervening space.
“They want us to do whatever we can to interfere with Nick’s redeployment,” Reiner said.
Calina was already maneuvering 144 into position. Other squadrons were moving around – the other four attached to Task Group Thompson. Reiner imagined the other six or seven MTB squadrons, the ones attached to Ruyter’s main element, doing the same thing.
Freight-train sounds came from overhead. Thompson’s battleships had stopped running, or at least paused to fire.
Cruisers. Destroyer squadrons. Everything Task Group Thompson had, with the exception of the three remaining capital ships, was forming up.
Attacking battleships at point-blank, Reiner thought. Well-escorted and well-defended battleships.
Squadron Ten had been lucky so far. There’d been casualties, but no boat losses.
He doubted that would stay the case.
“Elliott here,” came over the radio. “Go on my signal. Leave their screening elements alone – let `em pursue you in if you can. Let their own destroyers and MTBs disrupt their capital ships’ maneuvering.”
And we’re going to be doing this, Reiner thought, to buy Ruyter more time for his capital ships to bombard the PNA fleet.
The fleet that we’ll resultingly be right in the middle of.
This is going to be suicide.
“Go!” called Elliott.
“Go!” came Vinson’s voice.
“Move in,” Reiner ordered his squadron. Somehow his voice remained calm. His body was shaking.
Engines powered forwards. Around Reiner, the rest of his squadron was doing the same: moving straight for the wheeling PNA battleship formation. Destroyers doing the same. Cruisers moving in. Other MTBs, dozens of them, accelerating for the PNA. To the northeast, coming out of Centerfield, he could see specks in formation: bombers.
I can’t believe I’m doing this, Reiner thought. Going head-on into the center of Nick’s fleet. Into the center of his own side’s fire.
Except that everyone else was doing the same thing – MTBs powering in from alongside him, from the south. From the east as well, no doubt.
