Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(55)

That abruptly changed. A puff of white smoke appeared off her starboard wing, then another, and she knew her pleasant sightseeing trip was over. The Jaap-Griks were waking up. And they’ve maybe built some plane-blaasting guns like the Allied DP 4″-50s, she fretted. But Col-nol Maal-lory didn’t see anything like that on their carriers, so maybe it’s Saavoie? She banked toward the airbursts as she’d been taught, to foil corrective fire. She also dutifully reported taking flak “fleas,” as opposed to “car keys”—whatever those were—that would’ve signified rockets similar to those defending Sofesshk. Swooping lower, northward and to the right, she saw Savoie at last, tied to a long dock on the upper end of the bay. The huge, light gray ship stood out sharply against the dark green jungle beyond. She wasn’t as big as Amagi had been, but her lines looked more . . . aggressive somehow. More malevolent. And far less ascetic, she had to admit. Several flashes lit her sides, in her upper works, and brown clouds of smoke blossomed around her plane, shaking it with concussive blasts she heard over the engine. Bright tracers arced toward her as well, but there were only a couple streams and they fell well short. Still . . .

“Kay-Eff, Kay-Eff!” she said in her mic, “the fleas are new haatched. I repeat, new haatched! Goofy has his own fleas!” A burst below her plane rocked it violently and something struck it loudly. That was when she decided she’d probably seen as much as she’d get to, and it was probably time to go. One last thing, she decided. Two, she amended, banking hard to the east and diving. According to the map, Kurokawa’s personal compound was near the dock Savoie occupied. If she confirmed that, it would corroborate virtually the entire map, and she’d send the coded phrase that meant it was reliable.

And there it is!

Immediately inshore of the east side of the dock, less than 150 tails distant, was a large, single-story structure much like the Japanese barracks, but wider and shorter, surrounded by a low wooden wall. Exactly as described. She was so tempted to strafe it, but they had no idea where Kurokawa was keeping his prisoners. They might be in there with him. Reluctantly, she continued on, turning southeast toward the central airfield she’d seen coming in. She wanted a better look. The airbursts turned white again—briefly—then quickly subsided as she flashed over a repair yard and one of the barracks buildings. There’d never been a lot of “aak-aak,” which either meant she’d caught them with their kilts off or they had only a dozen or so weapons, aside from Savoie’s, that could engage flying targets with exploding shells. She hoped it was the latter, and they were just high-angle muzzle-loaders or something. She’d never seen one. Even if that was the case, though, they had to have a new carriage with better pointing and training features than anyone had seen before, not to mention some means of absorbing recoil. She didn’t like it at all. Good fire discipline too, she thought, blinking worriedly, means Griks aren’t in charge of air defense—or Kuro-kaa-wa “Haaliked” his warriors as well. That was certainly possible, and extremely concerning.

It was now universally accepted that though Grik were born stupid, they weren’t naturally doomed to remain so. They’d been kept that way by a wildly constrictive culture and God-on-Earth deity personified by their Celestial Mother. It was she—and her choosers—who decided which common Uul could live based solely on apparent aggression (a trait which, when pervasive enough, often resulted in youthful demise in any event), and by sending most others to the cookpots before they reached a mental maturity sufficient to allow something as simple as the concept of “Why?” to pop in their heads. General Halik—no longer an active enemy of the Alliaance, thank the Maker—had proven that older Grik could grow wiser, and if their instinctive obedience and late-blooming cognition was rewarded with benevolence, they might yield true loyalty, an undetermined, as yet, measure of initiative and genuine, selfless courage. They already knew General Esshk had “Haliked” a fair percentage of his army, at least, and equipped it on a material level similar to what the Allies had when they conquered Ceylon. That was likely to make the campaign for Sofesshk a bitter grind, completely aside from enemy numbers. But if Kurokawa trusted all his Grik with sentience—and better weapons—“Outhouse” might be an even tougher nut to crack than they feared.

Quickly, the jungle closed back in—but suddenly opened again, exposing the largest airfield on the island. There were two grass strips with crude, camouflaged hangers lining both from one end to the other. Many appeared empty, but at three hundred feet, Saansa saw the noses of a lot of planes poking out. She knew they’d hammered a good chunk of Kurokawa’s air power when they sank two of his carriers, but he’d apparently been stockpiling more. Whether he had enough capable Grik pilots remained to be seen. On impulse, she pulled up and came around. Nobody was shooting at her now. Maybe they didn’t have gun emplacements around the strip. But they’d already shot at her, and that pissed her off. She decided to exercise her discretion to raise a little chik-aash “if the risk is minimal.” Lining up on one row of hangers, she watched the N3 sight reaching for it. Kicking the rudder slightly left, she squeezed the trigger.

The P-40-something had only two .50-caliber machine guns. Four had been removed, put back, then taken out again for this trip to save weight. There was some extra ammo for the guns Saansa had, however, and she saw no sense in taking it all back. Smoky, Baalkpan Arsenal tracers converged on the hangers and debris immediately flew. Shredded foliage from branches and fronds placed on roofs exploded in clouds of dead leaves, disintegrating limbs, and whatever lay below. Figures ran in all directions, leaping into trenches or bolting for the jungle. A few just stood and stared. The third hanger erupted with an orange flare within a roiling ball of greasy black smoke and falling timbers. Saansa flew through the smoke, trigger still down, and was rewarded by another flash of fire from a second detonation that slammed her plane. Again, she felt it shudder when something struck the underside. Releasing the trigger, she pulled back on the stick. Blowing through the last of the smoke, she twisted around and saw something flit down the strip below. A plane! she realized. At least one. Coming after me! She reported the scramble with a kacking, double snort of derision, by saying there were “bugs on the windscreen.” Something tickled her mind, however, and she concentrated on what she’d seen. Come to think on it, the plane didn’t look like the others. It’s bigger than the single-seat jobs, so like Allied Fleashooters, but not as big as Kuro-kaa-wa’s twin-engine torpedo planes. She wondered what it might be—and it dawned on her there’d been more, maybe five just like it, gathered on the downwind end of the southwest-northeast strip.