On the surface, the battle grew closer. The lead ships were either burning from the magnesium in the tracer fire or the explosion of the twenty- and forty-millimeter cannon fire. The din was deafening as the fire continued. A few of the smaller ships virtually disintegrated in front of their eyes as .50-caliber rapid fire tore through the wood, shell, and skin construction. The sickly green bodies started to be hit as many of the Wasakoo attackers chose death in the sea rather than the burning steel-jacketed dismemberment.
The explosion rocked the stern of Peter the Great. Even those lining the railings of Shiloh and Simbirsk ducked as the roar ripped over them. Jack cleared his vision as best he could and then saw the large black cloud as it reached skyward from the stern of the great battle cruiser. As he watched, he saw why as another round object came down on her deck. It rocked the ship once more as it too detonated. The sight was baffling at first, as he thought he was looking at some sort of giant bird. It was Henri who quickly realized what it truly was. He was the first to open fire into the blue of the sky.
A hundred manta-like winged creatures swooped in low. The wings weren’t the short, stubby sort you would see on normal manta rays, but long and silky looking. The scales were transparent in nature, making them light but strong. Each of these animals was saddled, and the Wasakoo rode them like stallions in a cavalry charge. They each tossed round balls that hit the decks of both cruisers and exploded. The grenade-like weapons were as deadly as their modern variant. Both Peter the Great and Shiloh were aflame before they even knew what was hitting them. After delivering their payloads, they drove back into the sea and vanished. Others rose to take their place, and more explosions rocked all three ships.
The volume of defensive fire slowed as each man tried to dodge the death being delivered from an area they never saw coming — the sky. Then the ships finally gained the right distance, and they too opened fire. This attack was far deadlier than the one from the air. The large arrows thumped down and around the men as they tried in vain to dodge both explosives and the sharpened projectiles. They thumped into and penetrated the steel of all three ships. The small platelets of steel-like material attached to the arrows burst to killing life, like a magnesium flare. The steel of the decks and the bulkheads where they struck started to burn and melt. Men ran from conflagration to conflagration, extinguishing as best they could the sun-hot chemical.
The small-arms weapons fire erupted from the railings of all three ships. Jack and the others took aim and started placing a withering fire into the ships as they came close enough to start tossing grappling hooks toward the anchored ships.
Suddenly, Shiloh burst to life as her stern dug deeply into the sea as her large propellers churned at full speed. The turbine wash was so severe, it threw seawater high into the air enough so that Jack and his men were inundated with a blinding sea.
“Peter the Great is also moving!” Henri shouted as he quickly lashed out with the butt plate of the Thompson, sending one of the climbing Wasakoo flying back into the roiling ocean.
Two hundred yards away, Peter the Great, with her engines screaming, exploded into movement. Her bow dug in at first, and then, when her powerful power plant kicked in, the stern went down, and then the giant ship was off. As they watched both the smoldering ships moving off, the men fighting on the desk of Simbirsk felt their hearts sink. It was a lonely feeling, seeing all that firepower leaving you behind.
Still, the heavy bombardment from above continued as sailors fired into the sky. Magnesium-fed tracers of green, white, and red filled the air as bullets went in all directions. Simbirsk was now fighting for her life.
21
Jack realized that this was not a probe; this was an all-out Wasakoo assault. He leaned over the rail and fired on the closest of the sail-laden ships as they came alongside with the black-emblazoned skull and crossbones flags waving in the increasing winds of a growing storm. Sailors at the rails shot down into them, but still the ropes and grappling hooks kept sailing through the air to attach themselves to Simbirsk.
Peter the Great was going out to meet the oncoming fleet. Her main guns of fifty twenty-millimeter and forty-millimeter rounds chewed up the seas as she lay down a withering fire. As Collins managed a look through the din of noise and light, he saw that Peter the Great was causing severe damage to the attackers. At the bow of Simbirsk, Captain Jackson had placed the Aegis cruiser in between their only ride home and the maniacal Wasakoo as they charged forward. Jack had to admire the determination of this aquatic species as they gave their lives in massive numbers to accomplish their goal, of which Collins and the others had yet to see for themselves.
“Oh, come on!” Ryan said as he dodged one of the large arrows that dug into the steel deck next to his feet, forcing him to hop and jump out of the way. Henri quickly and alertly kicked out at the flaming steel attached to the bone weapon and kicked it over the side. Ryan nodded his thanks but quickly returned to the rail and pointed.
The seas parted, and thirty giant sea turtles rose to the surface. The wakes they created made it seem as though the strange sea life in this even stranger ocean was under some form of high-energy power. On the backs of these enormous turtles that were at minimum thirty-five feet in diameter were the Wasakoo in all their colored glory, waving swords and spears at the defenders. They shot arrows and spears and even catapulted the deadly extinguisher-resistant steel platelets into the quickly burning ship. Jack and the others started concentrating their fire on this new threat even as more of the flying mantas burst from the sea for a second strike from the sky.
To their front, the Shiloh was delivering a brutal defense against this new submerged threat. She rammed three of the turtles just as they broke the surface, forcing the massive bulk of Shiloh up and over the creatures, crushing the Wasakoo on their backs. Red blood mixed with the violet-colored sea as the world exploded around them.
The men at the railing ducked as the recently removed Gatling gun of the old and reliable R2-D2 system of Phalanx opened fire manually from the stern of Shiloh. Without their radar guidance system operating, the men operating the large cannon had a hard time placing the thousand rounds per minute exactly where they wanted them. Before they knew what was happening, over fifty of the Wasakoo were swept into the sea after the twenty-millimeter rounds bashed their fragile boats and bodies to pieces.
“This doesn’t make sense!” Jack yelled at Everett as the captain released a relentless burst of firepower from his Thompson. When that was out, he removed the old Colt .45 and started blasting those he had missed. He faced Jack as he replaced the pistol and then quickly slammed home another clip for the Thompson. “Why are they doing this?”
“Maybe because they are just mean bastards!” Jason offered before Carl could. The captain just shook his head.
“I don’t know, Jack — I gave up trying to figure this place out with the purple seas!” He fired again over the railing as a webbed-fingered hand appeared and tried to pull the Wasakoo up and over the rail. Everett’s rounds caught the strange creature right in the face and blew most of its head free of its body. Carl grimaced.
“They’re running a scam on us!” Jack said as he was pushed out of the way by Farbeaux, who saw the Wasakoo attack from the rear. He quickly shot the scale-covered creature in the chest three times as it crumpled to the deck.