Sandra chuckled. “For us and Adar to receive! I do dearly love Saan-Kakja, though you may have created a monster when you helped break her out of her shell!”
“She and Princess Rebecca are two of a kind, only one doesn’t have a tail!” Matt agreed. “About the same age, fearless, honest, and very quick to anger…” He paused. “God, I hope Governor-Emperor McDonald and his wife, Ruth, are all right! I think Courtney, Sean, and our forces in the New Britain Isles will help keep things together if… they’re not. But if Princess Rebecca winds up on top, a lot of heads will roll, and she may not be too particular whose they are!”
“Courtney won’t let her become a monster,” Sandra said with conviction. “And don’t forget: something else Saan-Kakja and Princess Rebecca have in common is their devotion to you.”
Matt shifted uncomfortably. “Well, the point is,” he said, skipping Sandra’s observation, “that Saan-Kakja thinks Herring’s a jerk. Alan doesn’t come right out and say it, but he does too.” He rubbed his nose, broken in the Battle of Baalkpan. “You know, we’ve always gotten along with the ’Cats, right from the start. Sure, we had differences-still do-but nothing we weren’t both willing to try to overcome. We’re more like them now, and they’re more like us-but we had a lot in common to start with… and it makes me wonder.”
“What?”
“Well, we both saw it before the war back home. There were a lot of different navies within the United States Navy that didn’t even think the same way. The rivalry, the different cultures, of the deck apes and snipes are just the tiniest example. Destroyermen might almost be a different species from submariners, and the battleship boys are something else.” He rolled his eyes. “Then you’ve got the tenders and oilers! It… was like different tribes! To make it even more confusing, crews attached to the different fleets for a while were different too. I had to make some big adjustments when I came from the Pacific Fleet to the Asiatic Fleet, and it took me a while. The Pacific Fleet was always more spit and polish, with newer ships and better gear.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was even more professional in some ways, but the guys in the Asiatic Fleet did what they could with what they had, and the Philippines felt more like home than home did, to some. They were more laid-back, more tolerant, I guess, and more used to people who didn’t look and act like ‘us.’ I’ve always believed that’s why we hit it off so well with the ’Cats, and I’m not so sure a ship from the Pacific Fleet, even another destroyer, would’ve had it so easy”-he snorted-“in that respect, at least.”
“I think I understand where you’re headed,” Sandra said thoughtfully. “Herring’s not Asiatic Fleet. He’s not even a fleet officer. On top of that, he’s very recently suffered terrible mistreatment from the Japanese-people who are ‘different.’ Do you think that’s why he rubbed Saan-Kakja the wrong way? Just his attitude?”
“I hope so. Like Letts said, Adar seems to trust him, and Adar’s a good judge of character, I think…”
“But?”
“But,” Matt agreed, “he’s also-understandably-obsessed with exterminating the Grik, and with things heating up in the west, he might lose some of his objectivity.” Matt shook his head as if to clear it. “I trust Adar’s judgment,” he repeated, “but I also trust Saan-Kakja’s instincts. She’s been stampeded before and knows what it feels like.” He smiled at his wife. “I guess we’ll see when we get there.”
“Cap-i-taan,” Minnie said behind them. “Lookout says ‘pleezy-sores bearing seero tree seero, relaa-tive! Two t’ousand yaards! Many pleezy-sores!’”
Matt left his chair and stepped out on the starboard bridgewing, raising his binoculars. “Wow,” he muttered. “What a pack!” It looked like hundreds of the things were swimming along, blowing on the calm surface of the sea. Their backs rising and falling like whales. He handed the binoculars to Sandra. “I’ve never seen so many before.”
“What are they doing?” Sandra asked, adjusting the glasses. Then she saw. “Why, they’re like dolphins!” she exclaimed. “Maybe they’re not leaping at our bow, but they do seem to be pacing us from a distance!”
“Better they stay at a distance! They’re a lot bigger than dolphins,” Paddy said.
“What’re daw-fins, if ye please?” Diania asked hesitantly.
“Cap-i-taan,” Minnie said. “Lieutenant Campeti requests permission to test the new ordnance again, an’ shoot at them devils.”
Matt shook his head. “Permission denied. I thought he was happy with what he learned last night against that mountain fish?” The new shells worked much better than they’d expected, almost perfectly tuned to the gun director-as a distant mountain fish discovered to its mortal confusion under the light of a bright, clear moon. The trajectories were good and consistent and the tracers worked-even if the color was a little off. The explosive force was better as well, even though the bursting charge was the same. They were simply better projectiles in all respects than anything they’d had since they ran out of those they’d brought to this world.
“No,” Matt confirmed. “If those things keep their distance, we’ll leave ’em alone.” He took a deep breath. “No sense wasting ammunition we might need very badly soon.”
Spanky climbed the skeletal iron stairs to the upper-level catwalk in the aft fireroom. Heat shimmered off the top of the massive, roaring number three boiler. It was absolute hell here in the highest reaches of the fireroom where, contrary to physics, the heat seemed almost to compress itself into a physical, oppressive presence. He wore a bandanna over his mouth and nose to protect him from the ’Cat fuzz that hung in the space like a fog, but it was already soaked with sweat and plastered to his face. His eyes watered, and seemed to float in little pools of salty, caustic acid.
“There you are!” he hollered over the thundering boiler and the blower that forced air into the contained inferno. Tabby shot a grinning, sopping glance at him before returning her attention to a pair of ’Cats wielding a massive wrench.
“Hi, Spaanky,” she shouted over her shoulder, intent on the work she was supervising.
“Damn, it’s hot!” Spanky said, joining her.
“You get soft running around in cool air topside,” she accused.
“Yeah, maybe. It was nice being off the equator for a while.”
“We head north soon, right?”
“We already have. We’re in the Fil-pin Sea, but we had to stay south of the Carolines until we cleared ’em. Too many uncharted knobs in there to run into in the dark. It should cool off tonight, and we’ll be off Samaar tomorrow.”
“Gettin’ close. We kill them damn Jaaps, we go in dry dock?”
“That’s the plan.”
Tabby wiped the foamy sweat matting the fur above her eyes and slung it at the boiler. “Thank the Maker. I don’t know how long we keep steaming on this bitch.”
“Another leak?”
“Not real leak,” she assured him. “Just hot foggy round this coupling.” She shook her head. “Mr. Letts’s gasket stuff is swell, but it seems to be going all at once. Like it gets saturated an’ steam just kinda smokes out, see? We ain’t had no failures, but we gotta tighten couplings all the time.”
“I bet it’s the heat,” Spanky said, and Tabby nodded.
“Me too. Meantime, I gotta watch these dopes, make sure they don’t spin a bolt or nut off the flange. I think we get a big failure then.”
“Yeah. Hey, be careful, wilya?”
Tabby sent him another damp, tired smile. “Don’t worry. We keep number three goin’-at least till after the fight!”
“Yeah. But you be careful! You and the rest of your snipes. If you get cooked down here, who am I gonna replace you with?” He chuckled. “I’ll have to come back down here myself!”
“No worry, Mr. Spaanky! I keep you safe in cool air!”
Spanky left them with it, tapping gauges as he went. He stood with a water tender for a moment, eyeing the water level in the feedwater line. All the pumps, feedwater, fuel, everything, were starting to gasp, and no wonder. The ship had steamed halfway around the damn world, fought several battles, and then steamed back. He didn’t want to think about how many hours of continuous steaming each boiler had racked up. He sighed and cycled through the air lock into the forward engine room.