All his ships were lumbering, gawky-looking things, to his sensibilities, but they could all strain to accomplish ten knots and carried heavy batteries. The cruisers were virtual copies of Japan’s very first French-built ironclad ram, Kotetsu/Azuma. Designed to use sail and steam, and powered by double expansion engines, they’d taken almost as much effort-if not materials-to build as his battleships. He’d hoped their hundred-pounder smoothbores would make short work of the powerful American frigates.
His battleships were his pride and joy, and resembled nothing more than monstrous, eight-hundred-foot, four-stack versions of one of the first ironclad warships that fought in the American Civil War. He couldn’t remember which side it was on-it was the one without a turret-but that didn’t matter, and the irony was amusing. His own ArataAmagi was the flagship, and all the others were essentially identical. ArataAmagi had an eighty-foot beam, two engines, and four boiler rooms. She mounted a four-hundred-foot sloping casemate amidships that protected 32 hundred-pounder guns behind three feet of hard, laminated timber and six inches of armor plate. Kurokawa would have preferred more armor, but when he first learned about the enemy aircraft, he’d been forced to add more sloping plates atop the originally flat upper deck, fo’c’sle, and fantail to protect against falling bombs. The ships were already somewhat top-heavy. He was glad he’d taken those precautions now, and they had worked to some degree. The overhead protection he’d added to his battleships kept bombs off exposed wooden decks, and the small, high-angle cannons loaded with grapeshot had accounted for a number of attacking aircraft. But the enemy had recognized the momentary vulnerability their use revealed and had managed to set barely containable fires in the upper casemates of two of his battleships. Much as he hated not being able to fight back, he’d been forced to order that his only air defenses not be used again.
Still, the enemy could have nothing that would pierce his armor or they’d have used it already, and he’d steamed ahead, confident of victory.
Unfortunately, so far, the enemy had not obliged him with a meeting engagement. Their air attacks were almost constant-so he knew he had to be close to their fleet-but it remained tantalizingly out of reach. He had to find it soon or retire to refuel-which would show enemy scouts where his primary coaling depot had been established on the west coast of India! Worse, his cruisers had proven sadly vulnerable to bombs from above, and he was down to nine fire-scorched survivors.
Pacing back and forth in the heavily armored pilothouse of ArataAmagi, Kurokawa fumed. As before, with his old beloved Amagi, he had all the power in the world but was frustratingly unable to bring it to bear! He considered sending the cruisers away. They were fine ships for what they were designed to do (if one forgave the engines), and at this rate, they would all be destroyed sooner or later. Bachiatari aircraft! Nothing had really scratched his battleships, despite countless bombs hurled at them, and they could easily handle the enemy fleet alone-if they could catch it… He stopped pacing and stared ahead through the viewing slits in the armor. Or threaten something it has to protect!
“Captain Akera,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could. Akera had been a lowly ensign on Amagi, but came highly recommended, and he was loyal. All Kurokawa’s battleship commanders were Japanese, as were most of their officers.
“Yes, General of the Sea?” Akera replied nervously.
“We cannot continue like this,” Kurokawa said flatly. “We haven’t the fuel to chase the enemy forever when we don’t even know where he is! Our… reports…” He glanced around. Even though there were no Grik on the bridge, he was still hesitant to discuss radio or the wireless set and operators that Niwa had been given when Muriname arrived in India. “Our reports indicate that the enemy has established his base of operations at Madras. Do we have the fuel to achieve that port?”
Akera considered. “To steam entirely around Ceylon and that far north… we would not make it back to our own coaling station.”
“But we could make it to Madras?”
“I believe so… but then what would we do?”
Kurokawa ignored the impertinent question and smiled. “There is plenty of coal at Madras,” he assured Akera. “It was the primary export there, after all. Looking back, I do wish we had chosen oil to begin with, like the Americans, since the Grik possess such vast reserves of it, but when we refitted Amagi at Colombo, coal was all that was available. Now most of our coal reserves are under enemy control! We shall take it back!” He paused, peeking through the viewing slits. “We are not under attack at the moment. Rig the signal staff,” he said, using the euphemism for the wireless antennae, “and signal the other battleships-and General Niwa-that the fleet will make for Madras! We will drag the American monkeys into battle, if we must, and General Niwa will provide the troops we need to secure the port!”
“Of… of course, General of the Sea,” Akera said, “but the enemy will see where we are going. They will have time to prepare!”
“Excellent!” Kurokawa barked.
Aboard USS Salissa (CV-1) “Big Sal”
“So, what do you think?” asked Ahd-mi-raal Keje-Fris-Ar, CINCWEST, from a simple chair in the large ready room, or pilot’s wardroom, aboard Salissa. Captain Jis-Tikkar sat across from him, as did nearly two hundred pilots, OCs, and senior support personnel. Sandy Newman and Kathy McCoy were the only humans in the compartment. The ready room was still mostly illuminated by lamplight, but a single, globular, incandescent lightbulb dangled from a chain-reinforced socket in the center of the compartment, its glare harsh. Soon, all Salissa ’s lights would come from “bulbs”; they were safer and used the electricity the ship produced in abundance. But the light lacked the soft normalcy of lamps.
Tikker was clearly exhausted, and if the “big board” hadn’t been there on the long bulkhead to remind him, he wouldn’t remember how many sorties he’d flown. Lemurians usually wore as little as they could get away with, but the pilots had taken to wearing their flight suits all the time. Not only did they need them in the air, but it set them apart from “ordinary” People in ways perhaps similar to the old clan structure. Tikker’s flight suit was soiled and stained, and crackly with dried, foamy sweat.
“I think they are licked in every respect but the one that matters most,” Tikker replied with a toothy yawn. “We have destroyed most of their smaller steamers and all the Indiaa-men we could find, but nothing we do seems to faze the iron-clad battleships.” He nodded at Sandy, who’d coined the term. “They alone, and six of their smaller steamers, continue on as if they have won, and they are no longer groping in the dark for us; they are clearly bound for south Saa-lon.”
“They can’t find us, and have given up trying,” Keje surmised. “They cannot know we are faster than they, at any rate.” He considered. “They know we must have forces at Colombo, but do not make for there. They may know we have a base at Trin-com-lee, on east Saa-lon-but Colombo would be the closer, more logical objective. To me, this change of theirs can only mean they intend to round Saa-lon and threaten Maa-draas-or Andamaan!”
“I don’t see how they can even know about Andaman,” Newman objected. “They haven’t acted like it, anyway. Elements of their big bombing mission that sank Humfra-Dar off Colombo made it all the way to Aryaal and Baalkpan, but none of them even flew over Andaman.”
“The sea is vast,” Keje said. “We cannot watch it all. They may have sneaked a scout ship past us. As for their failure to bomb Andamaan, that only means they either don’t know about our presence there or they don’t want us to know they know,” he groused.