Two-thirds of the Republic’s navy was heading this way, and the Republic had a bigger navy to start with.
Fools, she thought with cold anger. I told them that we should concentrate on building battleships.
Enough. Duty was duty; and her duty here was clear.
“Signals,” she said crisply. They had waited motionless, but she could sense the slight relief when she began to rap out orders. “To all transports in waves A and B.” Those closest to the dock. “Enemy fleet approaching. Beach yourselves upriver.”
That way the crews and troops could get off the ships, at least.
“All transports drawing less than five feet are to proceed upriver.”
Where they’d be safe from the shells of Santander battlewagons, at least. The animals still held parts of the river not far inland, but that was a lesser risk.
“Waves C through F are to make maximum speed northward.” With luck, most of them would have enough time to get under the protection of the guns of the fortresses that marked the seaward junction of the old Sierran border. Imperial forts, but adequately manned and upgunned since the conquest.
“Order to the fleet,” she said. Sixty miles . . . just time enough. “Captains to report on board the flagship, with the following exceptions. Battleships Adelreich and Eisenrede are to make all speed north and rendezvous at Corona.” Sending them out of harm’s way; the navy would need every heavy ship it had to keep control of the vital passage.
“Mine-laying vessels are to proceed to the harbor channels and dump their cargos overboard. Maximum speed; ignore spacing, just do it. End. Oh, and transmit to Naval HQ.”
“Sir.”
Her chief of staff stepped up beside her, speaking quietly into her ear. “Sir, the enemy will have seven times our weight of broadside. What do you intend to do?”
Eberdorf’s face was skull-like at the best of times, thin weathered skin lying right on the harsh bones. It looked even more like a death’s-head as she smiled.
“Do, Helmut?” she said. “We’re going to buy some time. And then we’re all going to die, I think.”
* * *
“Watch it!” someone said on the bridge.
Maurice Farr didn’t look around. He also didn’t flinch as the Land twin-engine swept overhead, not fifty feet above the tripod mast of the Great Republic. He was looking through the slide-mounted binoculars of the combat bridge as the bombs dropped. One hit squarely on A turret, the forward double twelve-inch gun mount. The ship groaned and twisted, but when the smoke cleared he could see only a star-shaped scar on the hardened surface of the thick rolled and cast armor. Behind him a voice murmured:
“A turret reports one casualty, sir.” That was to the Great Republic’s captain. “Turret ready for action.”
“Give me the ranges,” Farr said.
“Eleven thousand, sir. Closing.”
Farr nodded. They were slanting in towards the Land ships, like not-quite-parallel lines, but there was shoal water between the fleets, far too shallow for his heavy ships, or even for most cruisers.
“Admiral,” the captain of the Great Republic said, “at maximum elevation, I could be making some hits by now with my twelve-inchers.”
“As you were, Gridley,” Farr said emotionlessly.
“Yes, sir.”
Two more Land aircraft were making runs at the Santander flagship, both twin-engine models. One was carrying a torpedo clamped underneath it; the other carried more of the sixty-pound bombs. He stiffened ever so slightly; the torpedo was a real menace, and he hadn’t know that aircraft could be rigged for—
The torpedo splashed into the shallow green water. Seconds later it detonated in a huge shower of mud. The Land biplane flew through the column of spray, its engines stuttering. Just then one of the four-barrel pom-poms on the side of the central superstructure cut loose. It was loud even in comparison to the general racket of battle, and the glowing globes of the one-pound shells seemed to flick out and then float, slowing, as they approached it. That was an optical illusion. The explosion when the aircraft flew into a dozen of the little shells was very real; it vanished in a fireball from which bits of smoking debris fell seaward.