The Shark Boats, page 38
“Kaye, deal with them!” Reiner said, taking the controls and accelerating toward the Isabella.
“Your service, boss,” said Kaye.
“You’re next, Kaye,” came Chavez’s voice. His boat had almost reached Schaffer’s wreck, the crew helpless in the water there.
It’ll be a minute before Pieter can reload, Reiner thought. And the machine-guns wouldn’t be enough.
His left hand pushed the throttle to maximum.
“Pieter, you and your crew bail now!” Reiner shouted. “The rest of you, brace for impact!”
He aimed the racing 144 directly at the Isabella.
*
“What’s he doing?” demanded Lieutenant Delmeda as the USC boat rocketed towards the Isabella. “He’s going to crash into us!”
Over the radio, Reiner’s voice:
“Die, you murdering bastard!”
Impact.
*
Metal ripped and wood shattered as 144 slammed into the side of the Isabella at forty-five nautical miles per hour. 144’s fore section, her bow gun, the leading part of her torpedo racks, simply disintegrated. Men were thrown forwards and off.
The Isabella rocked. Hard, from the impact. And began to sink, almost as fast as 144.
For a moment, Reiner’s world was blackness and pain. Then he recovered, his head still spinning. Got to his feet – nothing too badly broken.
The two MTBs were almost intertwined. He could see Chavez in his cockpit fifteen feet away, drawing a long knife. Looking at him.
Reiner drew his own pistol. Leveled it.
Something under him bucked. Other men were throwing themselves overboard, some of the Isabella’s crew taking a life raft.
“We’ll settle this like men, Reiner,” Chavez snarled. “With knives. Come on over here.”
Reiner looked carefully down the sights of his .45. The water was ankle-deep in 144’s cockpit and getting deeper at the rate of inches per second. Behind him, he could hear Kaye duelling with Chavez’s last boat.
“Honorable man, huh?” Reiner snarled back. “Tell that to D Company.”
His first shot caught Chavez in the neck, and he dropped his knife. The gun kicked, but Reiner instinctively recovered. Shot him in the chest. And again. Chavez staggered back against the side of the fast-sinking Isabella’s cockpit.
Reiner’s fourth shot got Chavez through the temple, but he didn’t stop firing until the gun was empty.
*
The first thing Thompson saw as he returned was a stricken TransEq battlecruiser.
“That is – was – the Westerveldt,” said one of Thompson’s aides. Removing its model from the plotting table. They’d been following the battle by radio, getting the same reports as Ruyter had been.
“We’re taking a lot of damage,” said Thompson.
Shells landed around them. More shells.
Explosion. Big explosion, not far away. A couple of Thompson’s officers ran to the deck to see what it had been. Thompson joined them.
Another USC battleship had been hit. Was tilting, starting to go under.
“Which one’s that?” Thompson demanded.
Like it matters. Ruyter’s going to get us all killed. They outgunned us badly before we started. They probably still do.
“That’s – the Liberty,” gasped a shocked commodore.
“The Liberty?” demanded Thompson. Realizing.
The commodore nodded.
“Yessir,” he said. Speaking was clearly an effort for the man. “Ruyter’s ship. I guess that means – you’re in charge, sir.”
Thompson nodded.
That means any more casualties, I’m responsible for!
It might be Ruyter’s bed, but he’s dead and I’m going to be lying in it when the consequences for this disaster happen!
“We’re going to preserve the fleet,” Thompson said. Talking fast. Thinking fast.
I’m going to be considered responsible for any more casualties.
“Yes. We’re going to preserve the fleet. Disengage!”
*
“They’re disengaging?” Cervantes demanded. Unable to believe it.
They’ve crippled half my fleet and were within twenty minutes of destroying the rest of it and they’re disengaging?
It has to be a trap!
No. Wasn’t Ruyter’s flagship the one they’d just killed, the Liberty?
He grinned. Evidently Ruyter’s number two was a very different man.
“Blast them as they run,” Cervantes ordered. “And with everything else, pursue!”
*
“They’re disengaging?” Ruyter demanded, drenched to the skin and not giving a damn. The cruiser Milton had been nearby, was now crowded with survivors from the Liberty. “We’re shooting them to pieces and then Thompson disengages?”
“Yessir,” said the Milton’s captain, a young-looking officer named Jones. “Man gave the order pretty unambiguously. And we’d better go, sir.”
Yes. The other battleships were obeying Thompson’s order. Turning around. PNA shells splashed into the area. An MTB loaded with men came by, close enough that Ruyter could read its identification: 147.
“MTB 147,” Ruyter said into the radio. “Respond. Repeat, respond.”
“Major Reiner here, Squadron Ten. What can I do for you?”
“Ruyter here. Turn around and cover our retreat. With the rest of your squadron.”
“Sir, I would, but we’re out of torpedoes and cannon ammo, and this boat is my squadron.”
“Fuck,” said Ruyter. “Never mind, then. Get your men out. We’ll fight another day.”
He turned to the captain of the Milton, as the cruiser began to pick up speed and head east. For Alissandro’s Country. Abandoning the crucial Atoll to the enemy because, God damn it, he had no effective way to countermand Thompson. No encrypted way.
“God damn it!” he snarled, slamming a fist onto the bridge table. “Centerfield was supposed to turn the tide of the war. We weren’t supposed to lose this one!”
*
Shells were landing hard amidst the fleeing USC ships. There was return fire, but not much of it – turning around had reduced the USCN firepower by two thirds.
Reiner sank back in Kaye’s cockpit. Pulli was behind him, filling in for Kaye’s wounded machine-gunner.
“It’s a disaster,” Kaye said. “I can’t believe it. I don’t think some of those ships are even going to have enough fuel to make Alissandro’s Country.”
“They’ll send out tenders,” Reiner said.
Chavez is dead. I killed him. I put eight rounds into him and he was probably dead by the second. I shot his head open. Three times.
The butcher of D Company had been brought to justice. Finally.
“They’ll save the fleet,” he said. “Macquarie will return to the Five Ports. Eventually.”
“I don’t know,” said Kaye. “I don’t want to admit it, but people like Dad will probably use this as an excuse to seek terms.”
Reiner shook his head.
“They might try,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll succeed.”
Epilogue
The last time this many people had flooded the streets of Schuylerville had been Red Tuesday. Today they came out for an entirely different reason.
A week ago, in the wake of the disaster at Centerfield, the PNA had offered peace terms. Ramirez had gone to neutral Mayflower and invited the Chancellor to join him there. To accept his offer.
Today, Chancellor Walter Stanley Christian was returning. Senator Kaye was one of the hundred thousand people who’d flooded the airfield to watch him land. Lines of soldiers – freshly-inducted recruits and hardened, recovering-from-wounds, veterans – held the mob at bay. Their raised bayonets glinted in the late-autumn sun.
Kaye and his chief of staff were on the other side of the barricade, of course, amidst several dozen other dignitaries and their senior aides.
Christian was a stubby man in his sixties. He wore a bowler hat, clenched his trademark stogie in the side of his mouth as he stepped out of the long-range airliner.
The man comes from a fine patrician family, thought Kaye. Why does he insist on dressing like a plumber?
No, a bricklayer. That’s what I hear he does in his spare time. For fun.
A dozen radio microphones probed out at him. Two movie cameras click-click-clicked. A hundred thousand people were watching this here. Millions were listening on the radio.
Christian raised a sheaf of papers above his head.
“Ramirez has offered us peace!” he declared. “In exchange for the Andaian Islands, where we now have an ally. In exchange for the Rim, where the first of his brutes is yet to set foot. In exchange for betraying our ally TransEq, Ramirez offers us peace in our time!”
Christian waved the papers in the air, then ripped them in half. Then in half again and again, throwing the pieces to the ground.
A massive cheer rose from the crowd.
“The Peoples’ Northern Alliance started this war, but we will end it! They will not swallow our Alliance in pieces! We shall carry this on until the end!”
More deafening cheers. The crowd was shouting itself hoarse.
What?, thought Kaye. Unable to believe what he was seeing. Or hearing.
Christian still wants to fight, and the plebes are supporting him? After Centerfield, they still want to fight?
“We shall fight them on the Uphams and New Borneo! We shall fight in Alissandro’s Country and Te Kauti! We shall fight alongside our allies of the Rim; we shall stop Ramirez, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight them–”
Cheers drowned him out.
*
“We’ve lost,” said Kaye to his chief of staff later that day. It had been hell getting from the airfield to his office; the streets had been thronged with pro-war demonstrators. “Why can’t these sheep accept it? We’ve lost the war!”
“Sir, have you seen the latest poll?” the aide asked. Handing over a folder.
“Was this the one we commissioned after Centerfield?”
“Yessir. The polling agency delivered the results while we were at the airport. Two thousand people, across Bay Colony, all surveyed after the news of Centerfield was known.”
Kaye opened the folder and skimmed the summary.
Unable to believe his eyes.
Eighty-two percent believed that Ramirez’s peace offer was a sham, that he would attack the United Southern Colonies within three years anyway.
Ninety-one percent of his constituency believed the war should continue.
Despite Centerfield.
Well, that was what they were shouting about outside, wasn’t it? Something like a million Schuylervillians were out to make that point clear.
He flipped through the report until he got to the section that outlined why the respondents felt that way. Distrust of Ramirez was one reason. The other was Centerfield: almost three quarters of the polled voters rated revenge for that defeat as ‘very important’ or ‘most important’.
Damnit, before Centerfield only seventy-two percent of my voters wanted to continue the war!
Now it was ninety-one percent. That cut well into his core of solid reliables. Voter loyalty, and money, only went so far.
What it boils down to, Kaye thought, is that it is no longer politically feasible for me to oppose the war.
“Very well,” he said. “Prepare a press release. We’re backing Christian all the way. Tell the others in our group that if they want to stay in office past next year’s elections, they’d damn well better do the same.”
The Colonies need a united front, Kaye made himself think. It was easier to take actions one believed in, after all. A man could believe anything if he really wanted to.
The time has passed for an opposition. In the wake of Centerfield, it is time for us to back the Chancellor.
Yes. Ramirez started the war, but we’re going to end it.
*
More than a quarter-million people flooded Schuylerville’s broad Unification Boulevard. From the hospital balcony, Goldstein and Lewis watched as they waved signs and banners. Avenge Centerfield, they were shouting. A radio nearby was replaying Christian’s ‘fight them’ speech from the airfield.
“The Rim is open,” Goldstein said. “Now we don’t have much of a navy left, Ramirez is going to take a lot of it. Oh, there’ll be expatriate armies and governments in exile and partisan warfare and so forth, but Ramirez has enough troops to hold the islands anyway. It’s possible he’ll invade Mayflower and start a continental front. It’s likely he’ll reach Diego Sud. Plausible that at some point in the course of the war, we may wind up fighting on our own streets and beaches, as Christian said.”
“Shouldn’t we have considered his offer, then?” Lewis asked. “If we’re in that much danger?”
Goldstein slowly shook his head.
“You know I have sources,” he said. “A lot of them.”
“Yes.”
“At Centerfield, we lost a decisive battle. We did not come close to losing the war. Ramirez thinks he can control the sea with his battleships and the air with his Nines, and for now he does. But there’s research nearing completion in the Red Sands desert, Sarah, that will make both Nines and battleships as outdated as horse-cavalry facing tanks.”
“What kind of research?” Lewis asked.
“I’m not at liberty to give specifics,” Ramirez said. The mild smile on his face became a nasty grin. “But I can say that before long, Ramirez and Stavrenis are going to get a very nasty surprise.”
THE END
Coming Late 2021: The Devil’s Halo
Leo Champion, The Shark Boats
