Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(3)
Unfortunately, however, regardless of the prevailing circumstances when Sandra and so many she cared about aboard the old Asiatic Fleet destroyer USS Walker were hounded—and somehow followed—to this world by the massive battle cruiser Amagi and these very Japanese, the wars raging here had achieved their own unique barbarism. Walker and her people had sided with the then relatively peaceful Lemurians—Catmonkeys, some called them—who’d fought and eluded the dreadful Grik for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Voluntarily or not, Amagi’s commander, Hisashi Kurokawa, united with the Grik. What was more, he apparently blamed everything that had happened to him, from being marooned on this strange world in the first place and the loss of his Amagi, to all the ordeals he’d endured since, on USS Walker. And the greatest measure of blame was laid more specifically at the feet of her captain—Sandra’s husband—Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy.
Sandra stirred from where she’d been sitting, just staring at the wall, and looked at Diania. In contrast to Sandra’s tanned but fair skin and sandy brown hair, the tiny expat Impie gal’s hair was almost black, her skin dark. Most of her people had spent the past two hundred years intermarrying with subjects of the terrible Holy Dominion in Central and South America with whom the United Homes and their allies were also at war. She—and most women of the Empire of the New Britain Isles, where the Hawaiian Islands ought to be—had once been practically a slave. That system had ended, but her previous condition probably helped her cope with the situation better than Sandra had. Diania was staring back, concern and compassion in her dark brown eyes. Sandra forced a smile. “We’ll be okay,” she managed a bit hollowly.
“Aye’m,” Diania dutifully replied. “Though I do wish we knew what they done wi’ Adar . . . an’ the lads,” she added.
“They won’t hurt them—yet,” Sandra said, the qualification slipping out before she could stop it. “They’ll use them however they can, even if it’s just to make use of us. And they’ll wonder if Adar’s really as useless to them as he claims to be.”
Diania looked down, and Sandra berated herself. She hadn’t been as encouraging as she’d planned. She forced a smile. “Gunny Horn likes you, I think.”
Diania looked up, searching. “Ye do?”
Sandra was stunned by how intensely her friend reacted. She’d wanted Diania to begin clawing out of the shell of grief she’d built around herself when Fitzhugh Gray was killed at Grik City, but hadn’t really expected it so soon. Certainly not under these circumstances. Hope is a very strange thing, she told herself, and comes at the strangest times. Here we are, helpless and surrounded by enemies, and her fondest wish is that some guy she barely knows might’ve noticed her. Maybe that’s how she copes so well? She just thinks of something—someone—else.
“I do,” Sandra assured, her tone lighter. Then she managed a genuine smile and put her hand on the battered medical bag full of clothing and a few medicines she’d managed to keep in spite of everything. The Frenchmen on Savoie had been too rattled by other events—and her distracting performance—to search it when they took her aboard. The Japanese likely assumed the French had already done it, and passed it off as what it appeared to be: a bag full of nothing useful to them. They’ll regret that, Sandra swore to herself, considering the amazing luck that had allowed her to conceal a certain deadly object for so long. General of the Sky Muriname, despite badly disguised hungry stares, had been true to his word to protect them from hundreds of sex-starved Japanese. At least until Kurokawa returned. Sandra’s smile faded. But Kurokawa’s back now. The planes that flew in and landed and all the noise coming from the docks that morning had practically confirmed it. So, Sandra thought, maybe we’ll know something soon. She looked intently at Diania. “Horn’s a good man,” she assured her. “He didn’t have to come, but he did. And I bet that was largely because of you.”
Granted, she told herself grimly, he’d probably be dead now if he hadn’t come, along with maybe three thousand wounded men and ’Cats who went down with Amerika. But if it helps Diania pass the time, why not encourage her to think about other things, hope for something else? She patted the pack beside her. It makes me feel better, imagining what I can do with what’s in there, and hoping I get a chance to use it.
The lock clattered and the door banged open. Outside, a Japanese officer stood in the light of the setting sun. He was holding a white handkerchief over his nose, and instead of Grik guards, he had a pair of armed Japanese sailors. If they had Grik with them this time, they’d stayed out of view. Brusquely, the officer motioned the women to their feet. “You come!” he shouted.
Sandra glanced at the bag and picked it up as she stood, berating herself for not hiding its important content on her person sooner. Perhaps I still can? All I can do is try.
“Stay that here,” the man stressed. “Not change place. Come back.”
Sandra nodded exaggeratedly, turning slightly away and staring in the bag as if wondering if she’d ever see it again, regardless of what the officer said. Finally, she took what she hoped looked like a wistful breath and tossed the bag on the wooden floor. No one saw her secret a very small .380 Colt pistol in her waistband as she made a show of tucking her filthy shirt in her dungarees. For once, the gloom in their cell and the sharp, bright sunset worked to her advantage. “Let’s go, Diania,” Sandra said, her tone dripping scorn at their captors. “We may as well do as they say. No sense frightening them by resisting.”