Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(53)
Greg was surprised by the request, but quickly controlled his expression. After so long together, he couldn’t possibly hide his “face moving” from Donaghey’s crew. And, perhaps oddly, he did understand. Mak, blinking impatience that they’d brought this up now, with so much to do, seemed on the verge of sending the delegation packing. He was a fine officer and would make a good XO, but he hadn’t developed Sammy’s patience with the hands, or his flexibility when dealing with awkward cultural issues. Sammy had been so good at it, they rarely even came to Greg’s attention anymore—but when they arose, they had to be addressed. Greg touched Mak’s arm to forestall his gathering rant and blinked acceptance. “Of course, Boats. I get it. And I’m sure we can spare the shot. I’d want the same myself.”
“Thaank you, sur,” the delegation chorused, and the toil around them resumed, the workers apparently satisfied. Greg looked at Mak. “Carry on. I’m going aft to have another look at the papers and such.” He shook his head. “It’s a mess back there, and stuff is scattered everywhere.” He blinked frustration. “And I can’t read anything I find anyway, so we still won’t know what the Doms and Leaguers were up to at Ascension. Our best bet is to carry on with our mission. But there’ll be no more casting about, exploring. We’re bound straight for the NUS navy base on Cuba. It’s even more essential we make contact as quickly as possible; let them tell us what they make of the papers and prisoners we took. We can’t read them,” he repeated. “Let’s find someone who can.”
CHAPTER 7
////// 340 miles SE of Zanzibar
Alongside USS Keshaa-Fas (AVD-26)
October 28, 1944
Lieutenant (jg) Saansa-Belkaa dumped a parachute on the seat of her bobbing P-40E Warhawk, serial number 41-5304, before plopping down on it—atop the other parachute she already wore—and checking that the block extensions bolted to the rudder pedals hadn’t shifted. Then she strapped herself in and looked up past the open canopy and black silhouette of the AVD at the sky. There was a hazy quarter moon overhead with a bright quarter halo washing the stars from the Heavens. Fortunately, however, the wind had settled to a virtual calm and the sea was much smoother now. When she’d set down alongside USS Keshaa-Fas—one of numerous armed seaplane tenders converted from Dowden and Haaker-Faask class steam frigates—the afternoon before, the sea had been fur-raisingly rough. Even worse than her first stop for fuel from AVD-11. And since no P-40 was ever designed as a seaplane, the bizarre contraption they’d created by “slaapin’ a pair of Jaap floats” on number 41-5304 would’ve been difficult for even an experienced Warhawk pilot to get the hang of. That she, Captain Tikker, and the two others rated to fly the ship hadn’t cracked it up already was considered a minor miracle, and she’d thought their (and particularly her) good luck was over the day before, when she almost flipped the thing.
Oddly, though, she was deeply devoted to the plane. It floated like a Nancy, so it could—theoretically—set down anywhere on the wild, predator-rich sea, and even with the weight and drag of the floats, it was faster than the new-model “Fleashooters.” She positively gloried in the sheer muscle of the big Aal-i-saan engine. She loved to fly anything and was very good, or she wouldn’t have been chosen to fly the Pee-Forty-something, as it was often called. She certainly wouldn’t’ve been picked for this mission. But nothing made her feel more powerful and free than to strap on the big, thunderous fighter and bolt through the sky at the three hundred miles per hour it could still achieve.
The propeller had been pulled through before they set her in the water, and she quickly performed the complicated startup procedure. She cracked the throttle an inch, set the mixture, and switched the propeller to Automatic. Generator switch on, fuel boost pump on, she energized the starter. Five strokes of the priming knob, and she flipped the boost pump off. With the Mag switch on Both, she engaged the starter. The prop turned with a high-pitched whine and the engine fired erratically. Without thinking, she moved the mixture control to Auto-Rich and turned the boost pump back on, feeding the engine with the priming knob until it settled down to business and ran smoothly.
Exhaust swirled in the cockpit, quickly swept away by the roaring propwash, and after a glance at the oil pressure, she looked to her right when someone slapped her on the shoulder. “God go witchoo!” came a shout. She couldn’t see the face in the dark, but knew her well-wisher was Keshaa-Fas’s air division chief, there to unhook the cradle straps used to lift the plane. P-40s didn’t have built-in lifting points like Nancys, or even the giant Clippers. The chief’s farewell was what gave him away, because she’d noticed before that he wore a wooden cross. Lots more Chiss-chins these days, she thought, not really troubled, just baffled. Even with Sister Audry gone east, her Caato-lik . . . herd—she shought that was the right word—keeps growing. She wasn’t sure why. As far as she could tell, the fundamentals of Chiss-chinny weren’t that different from her own faith in one Maker of All Things. But then someone told her Chiss-chins worshipped three gods: a father, his son, and a spook. That bothered her. Most Lemurians believed in ghosts who, for one reason or another, couldn’t ascend to the Heavens. Captain Tikker—kind of—straightened her out, explaining the three gods were really one (even the spook), who combined to become a Holy Trinity. At least in Sister Audry’s version. Other Chiss-chins, like some of the old destroyermen—and most of the Empire of the New Britain Isles—kept things simpler, it seemed, believing in one Maker who sent his son to save people from themselves. But they killed him! And it was his ghost that came and told everybody he still loved them before he went to the Heavens. Or something like that.