Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(112)
“They probably have more important islands—to them—to fight over,” Greg speculated, referring to the NUS and Dominion. “Any outpost this far out would be too hard for either to protect.” He snorted. “I bet they do come to the west side of the island from time to time, just to tip over each other’s flags and plant their own.” That produced a few chuckles. “I’m sorry, Smitty,” he continued. “Snakes or not, we need to get Matarife and Donaghey squared away. That means stopping the prize’s leaks, if we can get at ’em, and replacing her lower foremast, if there’re suitable trees ashore. We also need water and fresh food of some kind—if, again”—he grinned—“there’s anything besides snakes and lizards.”
Repairs came first, of course, but though provisions had held up well (there was plenty of salt meat, fish, biscuit, and dried polta fruit), they’d grown less appetizing with every mile. And Matarife’s stores weren’t even considered edible by Donaghey’s crew. “I hope we can count on the NUS for help with more comprehensive repairs and such,” Greg said, “but all our information about them comes through Fred’s and Kari’s eyes. How free have they been to meet with more than just a few handlers? We have no idea. The NUS could be worse than the Doms for all we really know, so we have to be ready to fight whoever we come across when we continue west. We may not get another chance to do the work we need.” He frowned. “That said, it’s about time to start transmitting on Fred’s frequency. Starting tomorrow, we will. We likely won’t hear back for a while; Fred’s set is a short-range job, out of a Nancy, but he should hear us.” As may the League, he added darkly to himself.
Greg hated the Grik. They were nightmarish monsters that’d killed a lot of people he cared about. The Doms were just as bad, and probably even more evil from a moral standpoint. But of all their adversaries in this goofed-up world, Greg Garrett probably despised the League most of all. He considered the Grik to be predators, pure and simple; murderous reptilian jackals, with an almost hivelike pack mentality. Intellectually, he knew that was a simplistic view. There was more to it than that, and from what he understood, their leadership was pretty perverted. Maybe General Halik and Hij Geerki had proven even Grik could learn to behave, to rise above what they’d been conditioned to be, but, generally, Grik remained dangerous animals as far as he was concerned—like snakes. They were a plague, a pestilence, vermin that would tear you apart and eat you. They were easy to hate.
The Doms had descended to embrace a barbarism equal to the Grik, and were a culture that placed no more value on life. But Greg’s Dom prisoners were people, ordinary seamen, impossible to hate. They’d done as they were told, as they’d been conditioned to do, fully believing it was God’s will. And even those who fired into his ship after receiving mercy did so at the command of their “evil leadership”: a possibly deranged, wounded officer. The impression he got now, reinforced by Mak’s report of their prisoners’ behavior during the storm, and the fact no Blood Priests were taken alive, despite spending the battle belowdecks—was they were more afraid of what their own people would do to them for having been taken, than of their “demon” captors.
The young midshipman had ridden out the storm aboard Donaghey, and though they still couldn’t communicate with him, the boy seemed little more than a terrified child. Greg knew what Doms were capable of, what they’d done elsewhere and how they treated their prisoners. He didn’t doubt they were the enemy and they were bad. But so far, Matarife embodied his entire personal experience with them, and in spite of Sammy and the others he’d lost, he hadn’t come to hate the Doms like the Grik—or the League.
A submarine belonging to the League of Tripoli had sunk two Allied ships without warning or mercy, ships crammed with people he knew and supplies desperately needed to fight the Grik. The League, represented by Savoie, also basically incarcerated Donaghey and prevented the Republic from joining the war against the Grik on schedule. Savoie then destroyed Amerika, also packed with what Greg considered his people, including Adar and Sandra Reddy. Adding insult to injury, the League then gave Savoie and her prisoners to Hisashi Kurokawa, arguably the Allies’ most uniquely dangerous enemy of all. So despite the fact they weren’t technically at war with the League, Greg hated it—and certainly felt at war with it.
Then, as if his dark thoughts had summoned the devil in his heart, a cry came from the masthead: “On deck! A ship! A steamer, baar-een one two seero! Is hull down, but comin’ faast. About eighteen tous-aand tails—I mean, yaads!”
Greg whipped his telescope to his eye but saw nothing over the choppy sea beyond the placid little bay. Tucking the glass in his waistband, he scrambled up the ratlines to the maintop, followed by Jenaar–Laan. There he paused and looked again.
“No sails,” he gasped significantly at the Bosun, who wasn’t even breathing hard. “A dedicated steamer, for sure.” He stared harder, trying to improve the focus of his glass. Then his heart quickened. The thing looked like an old British destroyer, a four-stacker like Walker, but with a raised fo’c’sle. Gray smoke streamed downwind, so it was an oil burner. A Brit oil burner. What if . . . ? Then it dawned on him. “Crap,” he said sharply. “The Spanish Alsedos look like that, and there’s Spaniards in the League. No way to tell if it’s the same ship Matarife met, but it’s likely.” He paused. “Or is it? If so, where’d she go between then and now? I wonder what her range is. Maybe the Doms met her tender or some other ship coming to take possession of Martinique. Either way . . .”