Chapter Seventeen
At War
“The city is completely risen Sir!”
“Yes, I believe I can see that for myself.” Captain Hiro commented dryly in response to his first officer’s observation.
“Form battle line and signal all commanders to commence firing upon the city when they see us start the engagement. There will be no retreat!”
The signal man saluted and I watched from my vantage point at the back of the bridge as the fleet, small as it was, flared out to the sides of the capital ship. The fleet was eighteen ships strong. Three cruisers, eight destroyers, and some smaller class vessels.
All the ships showed their age despite the painstaking detail that had been spent on them in order to keep them in good working order well beyond the expiration dates of their counterparts on the surface of the above world. Would this little outdated fleet from a bygone war be enough to take out a city unlike any other that had risen from the waves and even now seemed to be coming alive before us?
Our chances didn’t look good and I deepened into the fervency of my prayer for our success the closer we got to the alien looking environment ahead of us. This city, though beautiful to behold, had a feel to it that stirred against my soul and all I could sense was that things were getting darker.
I switched tactics in that I prayed for the souls of the sailors sailing head on into a confrontation with evil more so than I had been previously praying for the success of our battle plan. I prayed like I never had before.
Strangely I wasn’t worried about my own role in all of this. I knew where I was going if I died and that knowledge gave me peace, but these sailors…….They didn’t know my God and the knowledge of that caused my soul to cry out in mourning for those who would be lost before they had the chance to experience redeeming life through my Savior and an eternity spent with Him.
To make matters worse I had the awful feeling that none of us were going to make it. The feeling of darkness all around was too great to believe that survival was even possible.
*****
Captain Hiro glanced away from the female civilian. She was doing what he’d asked her to and he could literally feel the success of her efforts in the air around him. The contrast of holy righteousness versus darkness incarnate was exposed for any who had an eye to see. If he survived this day he would speak to her about her faith in the God that she served so wholeheartedly.
He glanced up at the shifting clouds overhead, they had a grey cast to them. There was going to be a storm today and he was about to start it.
“All batteries commence firing!”
The flagship’s forward gun batteries belched flame and gunpowder smoke as they touched off in a perfect synchronization of action and power. In an echoing reverb the rest of the fleet fired, even as they continued to press forward at top speed. The salvo of lead tipped explosive rounds touched down with deafening force onto the city, which still appeared for the most part to be lifeless.
*****
It had taken longer to make repairs than expected for the possessed pirate crew, but now systems were coming back online one after the other in readiness to deal with their attackers.
One pirate screamed in an inhuman wail of anger and Captain Sally lifted her head with a baleful glare, “What is it?” She demanded.
“They’ve managed to take out our shields with that first salvo, but we do still have full weapon access.”
“Do it then! Kill them all!” Captain Sally screeched back in reply.
Screens came alive with firing options imprinted in a language that hadn’t been seen since the great flood had transpired on the world above.
*****
“Incoming Sir!”
The flagship shuddered and bucked heavy in the water as effervescent power bolts slammed into the forward gun battery mounts. Smoke filled the bridge, as explosions rocked through the ship.
“Forward guns out of action Sir! Reports of multiple fires!”
“Send fire control units to deal with it, but do not stop the fight! Message the fleet to prepare and initiate evasive maneuvers!”
Captain Hiro turned back and looked through one of the forward windows just in time to see one of his destroyers get blown apart into a terrific fireball of molten steel and human debris. Seconds later another destroyer on the other end of the line went up in flames as the first one had. The companion cruiser of the flagship cruiser was taking heavy damage as well.
Captain Hiro turned to the helmsman and barked out, “Bring us off to the side of the city and bring our rearward gun batteries into range!”
The helmsman attacked the wheel and spun it over so that the cruiser plowed off to the left in an abrupt turn even as the rear battery mounts swiveled over the side of the ship ready to fire. Water spray blasted upward terrifically where an energy salvo shot off from the city plowed into the watery position of where the ship would have been before it diverted from its course at the Captain’s bequest.
Captain Hiro hit the bulkhead beside of him triumphantly, “Fire!”
The rear batteries belched flame and caused the ship to plow sideways in the water for a moment from the repercussion of having been fired. The gun’s heavy payloads streaked toward the city through the fog of kicked up water that for the moment obscured the city from view.
“Again!” The Captain roared out with, but the command was not needed as the rear batteries had never desisted from hammering out explosively. The flagship started to make its way past the one side of the city. A city that was showing the damage of their shots upon it, but damaged or not the city’s tall towers had not ceased to spew their deadly colored light.
“Sir we’ve lost half the fleet! Permission to call off the attack Sir?”
Captain Hiro barked out, “Arrest that man and get me somebody up here who has a spine! Continue the attack!” He ordered out even as the first officer was dragged from the bridge.
On the other side of the city the second cruiser went up in a ball of flame. Moments later a destroyer directly behind the flagship went up to.
Captain Hiro gripped the railing as the ship bucked beneath him at the impact of more direct hits from the blazing towers that dominated the high-rise landscape of the city. It wouldn’t be long now, Captain Hiro admitted to himself.
There was a sudden flurry of explosions from the opposite side of the city proper and Captain Hiro saw one of the towers go down. Everyone in the bridge rushed to the other side only to see that the source of the explosions had originated from their arch nemesis the Americans.
The American ships were streaming into the battle guns blazing from Captain Hiro’s former position of attack. Soon there would be ships on both sides of the city and that would be a good thing as the energy blasts from the towers would have to be diverted between the two fleets.
The Americans seemed to be as much a surprise to those manning the city as to the Japanese fleet. More explosions expanded about the city as the Americans pumped a second salvo into it.
The Americans had more firepower as their fleet consisted of twenty-one ships, but more importantly they had two Iowa Class battleships equipped with sixteen inch diameter gun turrets forward and aft. Those sixteen inch shells were falling on the city with deadening force.
Another tower spewing power bolts left and right went down, but there were still so many towers left. An American destroyer went up in pieces and a battleship got hit hard, but its forward batteries continued to belch flame impressively as they fired blindly through the black smoke that wreathed up from the forward decks of the ship.
The moment of open conflict was surreal and Captain Hiro saw the scene of hell on water as if it were a slow-moving opera of deadly motion for a second. Neither they nor the Americans had ever engaged in such open outright warfare before.
They had only fought slight skirmishes through the years, but this was something else entirely. This was all out war, only the Americans weren’t firing on them, but rather with them.
So many were dying. So many were already dead. The death count would only continue to rise as guns blazed and energy bolts sizzled, but Captain Hiro could not deny the beauty of open conflict as men gave it their all and made the ultimate sacrifice out of loyalty to protect those who would lose their lives in grotesque and inhumane ways if this battle was lost.
Captain Hiro pulled himself as if partly reluctant from his quiet interlude found within the hectic hell of the battle to call out to the signal man, “Single what’s left of the fleet to shoot through the gaps of the Americans as they make their move to circle around the city as we just did! Then tell those who are able to continue the fight to circle back and attack the city once again after we’ve made the turn!”
“Yes Sir!”
Captain Hiro left the bridge to go out onto the forward deck. The repercussions of many guns was deafening within this hallowed amphitheater of war and gunpowder smoke. It was an infectious feeling of triumph to hear the heavy resistance of firepower and smell the defiance of each powder laden shot on the breeze.
An American destroyer slipped by and Captain Hiro found himself lifting a hand in a salute to the captain of the American ship. How did that old Roman saying go, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ That was certainly the case today!
The hard-hit American battleship was listing heavy in the water, but it continued to plow blindly on towards the city with all guns blazing. It was a kamikaze run and Captain Hiro took his hat off in reverence to the ship and its crew for their bravery. His sign of reverence was echoed by every other officer and sailor in attendance.
The injured American battlewagon didn’t make its target. The enemy, as if sensing the threat a collision would affect upon the city centered all outgoing fire from the city on the battleship that was approaching head on.
The explosion was so great that it literally lifted the battleship out of the water for a moment and then burning debris sloughed across the face of the water in every direction. The shockwave from the blast blew all those gathered at the railing backward against the bridge.
The Americans continued in their approach of slipping around the city to take up the Japanese fleet’s former position of attainment. Their number was down by half.
Tears in his eyes Captain Hiro turned away from the burning oil field that was all that was left of nearly a thousand brave men. He reentered the bridge at almost the same moment that the cruiser took several more hard hits from the city’s towers.
Fires had broken out both forward and aft and he thought he even felt the sound of deeper inner explosions within the ship. For a moment he thought they’d go up in flame, but the explosions stopped.
Coughing he got back up to his feet and staggered to the com tube.
“Damage control report!” He bellowed down the pipe.
It took a moment, but a voice made harsh by smoke and exertion came back wearily, “Its bad Sir! We’re taking on seawater, but the pumps are handling it for now. We’ve lost all forward propulsion.”
“Are you telling me we’re dead in the water?”
“Pretty much so Sir. We still have reverse, but that’s about it.”
Captain Hiro looked up. The city was behind them.
Decision made he called down the com tube, “Give me all that you’ve got!”
“Reverse Sir?”
“Full speed sailor!”
“Yes Sir!”
The flagship cruiser started backward sluggishly at first as it was listing off to the one side heavily, but it soon picked up speed as it left a trail of acrid black smoke. The city was hard to see through all the smoke given off by the burning oil field that marked the grave site of the American battleship.
Captain Hiro called out, “Tell rear gunnery crews to cease all fire until I say otherwise. I want what available personnel not involved in damage control to start loading as much heavy explosive material as they can toward the rear of the ship.”
A junior officer swallowed and said, “You intend to ram the city Sir?”
“Yes I do and I’m going to go right through there!” Captain Hiro said pointing at the oil slick fire where the battleship had been blown apart not so many minutes before.
“The smoke will shield our approach and we will finish what our friends started. Now see that my orders are carried through!”
“Yes Sir!”
The young officer said saluting before he ran off to accomplish his Captain’s orders.
Captain Hiro made his way to the woman, who had never stopped praying.
*****
I looked up at the Captain’s approach. In broken English the Captain said, “I’m sorry. The island perhaps would have been safer.”
I shook my head no and reached out to squeeze his hand, “I wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else in the world right now. This is where I belong. Thank you for bringing me!”
Captain Hiro nodded and continued on. The woman had courage. She had faith too. This ship shouldn’t still be in one piece much less under propulsion of any kind, but it was and the city was getting closer with every passing second.