“Damn,” he said mildly. “Must be two dozen of them.”
twenty-six, Center said. including two which are damaged beyond minimal functionality.
They were all the same type, slim little craft throwing plumes of water back from their sharply raked bows. Built for speed, with smooth turtlebacks over their forward decks to shed water; a light gun-turret behind that, and a multibarreled weapon of some sort aft. Alongside the funnels were pivot-mounted torpedo launchers, each with four U-shaped guide tubes fastened together.
None of the battlewagons had managed to get their main or secondary batteries into action. The heavy guns wouldn’t have done much good, anyway, since they took so much time to train and reload. Several of them had gotten their quick-firers working; four-barreled cannon firing little two-pound shells at one per second per barrel, worked by lever-actions and fed from hoppers. The light weapons were a continuous crackle of noise and red tongues of flame along the sides of the big warships, with a pall of dirty gray smoke rising to the sky. Two of the Land vessels were dead in the water, burning and listing, with quick-firer shells sending up spurts of water all around them. The others bored in like wolves slashing at aurochos. Their speed was amazing, almost impossible.
thirty-one knots, Center said.
They must be turbine-powered, Jeffrey thought. He was vaguely conscious of driving, and of Lucretzia’s nails digging into his shoulder. The Chosen had been experimenting with steam turbines for more than a decade now. Santander was doing the same, as a possible way to generate electric power. It was obvious that the Land had had other applications in mind.
Another Chosen destroyer was hit. This one staggered in the water, then vanished in a globe of fire that sent water and steel scrap and probably—undoubtedly—body parts up in a plume hundreds of meters high. The quick-firers must have hit the torpedo warheads. When the spray and smoke cleared the bow and stern of the light craft were already disappearing under the water.
Now the first flotilla of destroyers was within a thousand meters of the battleships. They peeled off, turning, heeling far over with the momentum of their charge. As each came to a quarter off their original course the torpedoes lanced overside in a hiss of steam from the launching cylinders. The long shapes splashed home into the still waters of the harbor and streaked towards their targets. The muzzles of the quick-firers depressed, trying to detonate the torpedoes before they struck, but they were only a few hundred meters away, and the destroyers’ own weapons were raking the open firing positions. Jeffrey saw four tin fish strike the Empress Imelda from stern to three-quarters of the way to her bow.
Each of the warheads held over a hundred kilos of guncotton. Confined by the water, the explosions would punch holes big enough for two or three men to walk in abreast . . . and Imperial warships had lousy internal compartmentalization. For that matter, safe at anchor the watertight doors would be dogged open for convenience sake while they made ready for sea. He let out the throttle lever and braked to a stop.
“What are you doing?” Lucretzia asked.
“Taking a better look. Shut up for a second.”
He pulled back the fabric top of the car and stood with his binoculars, bracing his elbows against the metal rim of the frame holding the windscreen. The Empress rolled over as he watched, shedding ant-tiny men. A few managed to run up onto the bottom as the weed- and barnacle-encrusted plates came into view, but the ship was settling fast as well as capsizing. Most of the rest of the heavy warships were listing or sinking. As he watched the Emperor Umberto blew up with a violence that was stunning even at this distance. Jeffrey shook his head and ignored the ringing in his ears, letting the binoculars thump down on his chest and sliding behind the wheel.
There were Land merchantmen heading in towards the docks, with uniformed figures crowding out from the holds onto the decks. He didn’t want to be here when they arrived. His watch read 10:00. Barely an hour after the first dirigibles arrived overhead.