Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(60)
Matt grinned; then his face turned hard. “Good. And I hope the enemy pisses themselves with terror, because besides bombing Sofesshk almost every night, when our numbers are up”—he looked at Ben—“every now and then, we’ll send Clippers to bomb Kurokawa as well. All of them. We won’t do it often enough for them to predict us, and if the Clippers have trouble with fighters, we’ll try sneaking Big Sal close enough to provide fighter cover. I bet even Fleashooters’ll make pests of themselves against modern planes in the dark. If we’re lucky, we might even get the Macchi-Messers on the ground. Not to mention Savoie and Kurokawa’s other ships.”
“But, Captain Reddy,” Courtney said, alarmed, “won’t that risk Lady Sandra, Chairman Adar, and the others? Not only to injury or death at our own hands, but to reprisals by Kurokawa?”
Matt sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were like green agate: opaque, but reflecting the sunset like they were aflame. “It might,” he agreed softly, his voice rising as he continued. “But the campaign against Kurokawa can’t be just a goddamn rescue mission! You encouraged me yourself that it’s necessary, and I agree. But I can’t—won’t—let that crazy Jap bastard believe we’ll hold anything back just because he has our people. That’ll make him really test it, and . . .” His voice softened to a whisper that chilled his friends. “I honestly don’t know how I’d handle a direct this-or-that challenge, with Sandra at stake.” He looked at them helplessly. “I think I know. I hope I do. But I can’t be sure.” He took a deep breath. “Best not to give him the chance to make one,” he said brusquely, then singled out Bradford again. “You’re right. Bombing might put our people in danger from him, or, God help me, us. But probably less than if he gets the idea he can use them—her—to get what he wants. We all know he’ll try. So I mean to slam the door on that notion as hard as I can.”
He looked bleakly out the bridge windows at Mahe, its twin peaks looming larger now. “And if we do kill her,” he said, his voice thick, “it’s got to be cleaner than what he’ll do.” He looked back to hold each gaze. “I won’t say it’s what they’d want. Nobody wants to die. But given the stark choice between death and what Kurokawa might do to them to get what he wants, to make us waste the lives we’ve lost already and maybe lose the war, I know exactly what they’d all prefer.”
Santa Catalina’s bridge went utterly silent except for the usual creaks and groans of an old, hard-used ship, the muted rush of the sea, and machinery noises that traveled through the very fibers of her form. Finally, Ben Mallory patted his shirt pocket. “Oh,” he said, his voice nearly as grim as Matt’s. He fished a folded sheet from his pocket and handed it over. “The updated map of Zanzibar, based on Lieutenant Saansa’s observations,” he explained, while Matt opened it and looked at a map just like the one he’d seen before, only with written notations and new drawings on it. “She also said ‘the Maker is good,’” he added, glancing at Bradford. He’d sensed the Australian’s hostility toward Fiedler. “So we can probably trust it. We didn’t hear Saansa’s transmissions here,” he continued. “Too far. But the AVD immediately dispatched its Nancy and it leapfrogged in. Just arrived before I headed out to meet you.”
“The Maker is good, indeed,” Chack agreed, peering around Matt’s arm at the page. Now he could start to plan.
Matt was looking at the map and nodding. The positions of the features Saansa had described made sense, and he immediately saw potential opportunities. He’d discuss those with Pete, Rolak, and particularly Chack. The land assault would be his baby, after all. No doubt Chack would confer with Silva. “Just one thing missing here,” he said sadly. “You think she went down southeast of this Head Point?” He put his finger on the bottom of the island.
“Yes, sir,” Ben agreed.
“No chance she set down somewhere, that she’s afloat?” Unspoken was the question of whether she might’ve been captured.
Ben tightened his lips and shook his head. “The last thing they heard was that she’d lost a float and probably damaged another. She was taking hits, then . . . nothing.”
Matt nodded again, stung by mixed emotions. The loss of Saansa and the plane was tragic, but he was also relieved that the intelligence she’d gained was probably safe—and Kurokawa didn’t have yet another hostage. He took a Lemurian-made lead pencil from his pocket and roughly scratched out “Head,” and wrote “Saansa” next to it. “Kind of a crummy thank-you for somebody who died giving us so much. More than she’ll ever know,” he said, his voice tight with regret, “but it’ll have to do for now.”
CHAPTER 8
////// Sofesshk
The Palace of Vanished Gods
Grik Africa
“We should have attacked immediately, while the enemy prey was indisposed,” the Chooser, now Lord Chooser of all the Ghaarrichk’k, lamented again as he paced behind Lord Regent Champion Esshk, Guardian of the Celestial Bloodline and First General of all the Grik. The Chooser was still ridiculously plump compared to other males of his race, but his garish dress already fit looser than before they’d begun their ritual evening strolls. He hadn’t dispensed with any of the odd adornments he’d decided befitted his exalted status, however, such as the short cape interwoven with tiny gilded bones that glittered as it swayed behind him, or the macabre “jewelry” suspended about his person. Nor had he stopped weaving his crest into a rigid fan atop his head, coloring his claws, and even staining the downy fur around his eyes and snout, in a blatant display of age-defying vanity.