Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(66)
“Sure. The little twerp chopped off her head and marched out of the Cowflop, where everyone, including the rest of their army, could see, and waved it around on a pole.”
“I believe it was a spear, but essentially, yes. Did you hear what happened next?”
“Yeah . . . the Grik didn’t like it much.”
“That’s a rather profound understatement,” Courtney said, remembering. “In point of fact, the remainder of their forces that witnessed the spectacle, already beaten and in retreat, some even suffering the effects of Grik Rout, went absolutely berserk. Instead of showing them the futility of continued resistance and underscoring their defeat, Isak Reuben’s actions inspired them to renew the fight.” He paused. “It made little difference. By that time, we were in a position to slaughter them, both from land and the bay, but further casualties were sustained, more killed and wounded than might otherwise have been the case. It wasn’t Mr. Reuben’s fault,” he stressed, “and no one blamed him. I expect in the heat of the moment I might’ve done the same after what he’d been through. We must assume the enemy’s installed another Celestial Mother by now, however, who likely resides in what Hij Geerki translated as their Palace of Vanished Gods—the, ah, smaller Cowflop at Sofesshk. At this point, at least, we’d prefer not to give them more reason to fight than they already have, and instead of breaking their morale, we suspect that killing their new Celestial Mother might make them fight even harder. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Leedom frowned, but the expression turned into a huge yawn. He shrugged. “Take over awhile, Paraal,” he told his copilot. “Keep this heading. I’m gonna get some shut-eye, so try not to run into anything, will ya?” He leaned back in his wicker seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “I suggest you go back in the waist and do the same, Mr. Bradford,” he added, closing his eyes. “It’s a long way to Songze, and there’s not much to see below.”
CHAPTER 9
////// Enchanted Isles
(Eastern Pacific)
November 9, 1944
High Admiral Harvey Jenks of the Empire of the New Britain Isles was Commander in Chief—East (CINCEAST) of all Allied forces fighting the Holy Dominion in the Americas. Yet since his 2nd Fleet was so badly mauled at the Battle of Malpelo, there hadn’t been much he could do to directly influence the campaign. He and his deputy commander, Admiral Lelaa-Tal-Cleraan, had been fantastically busy, however. They’d made their headquarters at Elizabethtown, on Albermarl Island, not only the imperial capital of the Enchanted (Galápagos) Isles, but now the busiest Allied repair yard in the eastern Pacific. There were larger yards at Saint Francis, and the American Navy Clan yard at what they called San Diego might be even bigger someday, but its construction was on hold and most of its people were working here. The yards in Elizabeth Bay had been forced into a disproportionate percentage of the repair work, for which they were terribly unprepared in terms of labor, material, and facilities, because Albermarl was as far as many of the ships could make it after the battle.
Not only had Jenks and his staff, as well as the staff of Governor Sir Thomas Humphries, been overwhelmed arranging repairs to dozens of shattered ships, but they also had to import nearly everything to do it. Timbers, fasteners, strap iron, sheet copper, tools, new machinery—and workers, of course—had to be brought from across the vast expanse of an ocean empire. This while juggling a seriously depleted merchant marine and fleet of auxiliaries just as desperately needed to supply General Shinya’s 2nd Fleet Expeditionary Force, his “Army of the Sisters.” Shinya was trying to maneuver Don Hernan’s Army of God into a decisive, crushing battle in the middle of, basically, a trackless jungle, before it could fall back on its own supply lines and reinforcements of loyal troops.
Adding to Jenks’s frustration, though he remained CINCEAST, all the fighting in his theater was currently on land, and two heads of state were in the thick of it. His own Governor-Empress Rebecca Anne McDonald, and Saan-Kakja, the high chief of all the Filpin Lands, had stupidly, he thought, not only put themselves in harm’s way, but their presence constantly deformed strategic planning. General Shinya was easy to work with: his sole priority was to bring Don Hernan to action and destroy him. In addition, the local contacts he’d made, opposed to Dominion rule, had eased his commissary requirements tremendously. That meant a larger percentage of freight could focus on troops, weapons, and ammunition. But with Rebecca’s and Saan-Kakja’s focus on the land campaign as well, they increasingly saw 2nd Fleet’s role as one of support for Shinya. That was fine, even true to an extent, but they were losing sight of the big picture, as Captain Reddy so often described it. Even if Shinya’s desperate end-around rush to block Don Hernan’s retreat and smash him before he reached Popayan—and an open road to the Pass of Fire, or even back to the heart of the Dominion—was successful, the fleet would have to take the pass, and the fortified cities guarding it, before Shinya could press on.
Finally, Jenks thought, 2nd Fleet may soon be ready to try. He and Lelaa had just left a conference at the governor’s mansion and were striding purposefully through the bustling streets of Elizabethtown toward the yard on the north side of the bay. The people are certainly different from the half-starved scarecrows we met after the Dom siege, he thought. Most were moving as purposefully as he and Lelaa, and though many appeared tired, even exhausted, there was a satisfied, almost excited air about them as well; a sense of purpose and resolve. Workers who saw them tipped their hats and even smiled, despite their fatigue, and soldiers saluted crisply, confidently. One reason for that was that, even here, still a distance from the waterfront, the great Allied aircraft carrier USS Maaka-Kakja (CV-5) was plainly visible over the rooftops of the city. And she was no longer the brutalized hulk that crept, coughing and smoking, into the bay two months before. She, at least, was almost ready for action. Her power plant had never been much hurt, and Chief Gilbert Yeager’s snipes had put what little damage they’d found to rights. The ship’s stout hull had taken a beating, but not enough to endanger her. Even so, it took an entire shipload of timber just to repair the hundreds of shot holes. Few penetrated every layer of diagonally laminated planks, but the wood around the holes had to be cut out and new spliced in. Without a dry dock, the ship had to be lightened enough to get at the damage below the waterline, and the hull work alone took a hundred workers almost a month. But the worst damage, and what rendered her almost useless, was the near-total destruction of her flight and hanger decks. Those had to be completely replaced. Fortunately, they were able to do that while other renovations were underway, and a lot of the timber came from the relatively nearby forests on the enemy coast, cut and dressed at the former Dominion city of Guayak, its surviving inhabitants now firm allies. Regardless, Jenks thought, I hate to contemplate how many shiploads of timber went into those decks, and all the framing throughout. Drawing nearer, he could still see the bright wood of the repairs, just now being covered by an odd new geometric paint scheme of contrasting grays.