Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(45)
Of course, all these considerations hardly affected Greg Garrett. Particularly those concerning his ship’s inadequacies. From rural Tennessee, just across the border from Corinth, Mississippi, he’d never been on the water in his life before joining the navy and coming to this world as Walker’s gunnery officer. Yet he’d become the most renowned frigate skipper in the Alliance—and loved the old Donaghey with all his heart.
“What’ve you got, Sammy?” he asked his XO, extending his telescope but waiting to be told where to point it.
“A light, Cap-i-taan. Lights,” Sammy added more specifically, pointing due north; then he pulled his large Imperial watch from his pocket and stared at it in the gloom. Greg had long given up trying to match Lemurian eyesight, particularly in the dark, and took its superiority for granted now—a fact Sammy recognized, or he would’ve called Greg earlier. “Maasthead spotted ’em half an hour ago,” he explained. “Most’re still invisible from deck, but one is . . . rather curiously so.”
Greg raised the glass and peered through it with his left eye, adjusting the objective. He grunted. “That, Mr. Saama, is a large fire, high above the sea,” he said, still staring hard. “Stationary,” he added significantly, “like a signal.” He shifted his glass from side to side, but saw nothing else. “Damn strange. What about the other lights?”
“Maasthead there,” Sammy called upward. “Report.”
“Aye, sur,” came the answer. “Dey’s tree lights mebbee five de-gees east o’ de high-up one: white, red, white. Low, hull down if it’s a ship. T’other’s west, mebbe fi’teen de-gees, an’ movin’ slow. Daat light’s yellow, laak de high one. Dim, dough, laak a haze-fuzzy star on de horizon, but is movin’.”
Greg rubbed his face and glanced around. The ship was utterly dark except for a couple ’Cats smoking pipes or PIG-cigs along the leeward rail, the red cherries glowing ridiculously bright. “The smoking lamp is out, and shade the binnacle light, if you please.” He nodded upward. “I’m going aloft.” High in the maintop, puffing from his climb, he extended his telescope again. He still couldn’t see the moving light to the west, but was sure the first was a signal fire on an island, probably Ascension, and it was beginning to fade even as they drew closer. The other lights, however . . . Harsh certainty gripped him, and, tucking the glass in his waistband, he slid down to the deck by a backstay. “We’ll bear away to the west-southwest,” he said abruptly. “Helm, make your course two four zero.”
“Two four see-ro,” confirmed the ’Cat at the wheel, and even though there was no possible way the distant lights would hear him, Chief Bosun’s Mate Jennar-Laan had caught his captain’s sense of urgency that they remain undetected and called the hands to adjust the sails without using his whistle.
“What is it, Skipper?” asked Lt. (jg) Wendel “Smitty” Smith, Donaghey’s gunnery officer. Like Greg, Smitty was an original to Walker, having been an ordnance striker before the squall that brought them here. In his mid-twenties and already balding, he’d taken to muzzle-loading artillery easier than Greg, and, for Donaghey at least, was probably a better gunnery officer than his captain would’ve made. He’d come on deck with a “tribune” (basically, a major, the way the Republic Army reckoned such things), Pol-Heena. The Republic was strange in many ways, a more bizarre mixture of different cultures—from different histories— than anyone they’d met. They used some “normal,” understandable rank structures, but sometimes added ancient, otherwise unused titles to differentiate seniority under various circumstances. For example, anywhere else Pol was just an ordinary major, or maybe prefect, depending on who addressed him, but as a tribune, he automatically had seniority over any other Republic major—or ship’s master—he encountered during the course of his specific mission. And unless that officer was also a tribune on a mission of his own, he could compel his assistance. He better be able to show he really needed it, however. Only a legate (a similar title bestowed for similar reasons on colonels) or a general might supersede him. Greg likened the titles to commodore, as they were temporary in nature but meant to add authority for a given task and prevent confusion. It confused everybody else on Donaghey, though, and they didn’t pay it any attention. The crew called Pol major or tribune indiscriminately. From a practical standpoint aboard ship, he acted as Marine Lieutenant Haana-Lin-Naar’s XO, while she taught him how to fight Grik like a Marine. The main difference between what she showed him and what he already knew was an up-close and fiercely personal brutality he’d never imagined he’d need to learn. One of his Republic companions was Kapitan Leutnant Koor-Susk. He served as Sammy’s sailing master, even though the Alliance had finally done away with that rank, as it didn’t have enough sky priests to fill the role and required all officers to learn celestial navigation.
“I’ve no doubt that’s Ascension Island,” Greg answered Smitty, nodding a greeting at Pol. “You can see the rugged outline of the mountains against the stars, and I’m almost sure there’s a steamer anchored in that little bay our old charts show just below Whale Point.”
“What makes you think she’s a steamer?” Sammy questioned.
“Electric lights,” Greg told him. “The masthead light is bright white, and there’s a red light lower down. A portside running light,” he added. “And a bright stern light, too. She’s lit up like a Christmas tree without a care in the world.”