by James Axler
An arm landed on the beach, and a brick shattered on the boiler of the tilting PT 144, putting a deep dent into the metal. Instantly steam whistled out of a tiny hole. Stumbling from the wheelhouse, the engineer walked around a leaking torpedo and shuffled across the bloody deck, trying to take in the sheer scope of the destruction. The rest of the crew was chopped into mincemeat, the hull broken wide open, the keel already resting on the sand at the bottom of the shallows. At least she couldn't sink any deeper. Then a whistle caught the engineer's attention, and he bitterly cursed at the fact the 144 didn't even have engine power anymore. It didn't make any real difference. The wreck was never going into battle again, but somehow it seemed to finalize her demise. The victor in a hundred fights, the deadly PT 144 had been reduced to a pile of timber in a heartbeat. Glancing around for the sister boat, the engineer saw Brandon and the crew of PT 264 racing away from shore.
"Hey, Lieutenant!" he shouted, waving an arm. "Over here! I'm still alive! Come back, sir!"
In response, a hail of miniballs hit the deck from the flintlocks of the ville sec men, and he dived behind the tattered remnant of the sandbag wall; reaching for his own blaster only to find the holster empty. Nuking hell, he had to have dropped it somewhere. Alone and unarmed, the man knew his chances for survival were zero. In a rush of blind anger, the engineer insanely stood and went to the Firebird nest. The flintlocks fired again, but the ball ammo only tugged his clothing in near misses, but never found flesh.
Bracing a boot on the smashed .50-caliber blaster, he managed to swivel the launch pod so that it faced the pirate ships. Fuck the ville. He wanted revenge on the men who had killed his ship! However, when he released the pod to light a match, it swiveled away, following the pull of gravity.
In the harbor, more harmless splashes dotted the ocean, then a hit slammed the Firebird pod of PT 75 overboard, taking six men with it into the drink. In response, PT 264 launched a lone Firebird that gracefully curved through the sky and punched through the hull of a pirate ship, detonating inside the vessel. Illuminated from within, the windjammer burst into a million pieces, flames licking upward to ignite the mainsail, even as the craft slipped into water.
"One for us!" the engineer cried, a humming miniball ruffling his hair in its passage. Grabbing a mooring line, the man lashed the rope around the pod, looped it over a cleat, then around his own waist. Lighting the main fuse with his match as it burst into sparkling action, he ducked low, holding on to the rope tightly.
He laughed in triumph as the pod jerked to the multiple launches, Firebirds erupting from the pod on a second. But then PT 144 rocked from the impact of another cannonball and the rope slipped from his hands. Fast and furious, the Firebirds continued to launch, now heading randomly for new targets.
"No!" the engineer raged, reaching for the pod, when it swung about, the hot exhaust washing over the deck. He was caught full in the face and promptly burst into flames.
Waving his arms and screaming, the man raced for the water, but tripped over the wreckage and the dead, again and again, until he was completely disoriented and began to crawl blindly for the edge of the ship, his flesh black and peeling away from his bones. The snipers on the ville wall ignored the burning man and turned their attentions to living targets.
Spiraling crazily through the air, the full salvo of rockets from PT 144 went in every possible direction.
A rocket zoomed past PT 264 in the harbor, but PT 53 took a direct hit in the wheelhouse, the captain and pilot volatilized by the blast, the rest of the crew on deck blown off the ship. Out of control, the vessel continued on its last heading and charged straight for the shore.
Out beyond the breakers, the captain of PT 286 could only stare as a Firebird from shore streaked by through the smoke-filled air, heading toward the pirate vessels, then swept back across the lord baron's armada. PT 67 was hit amidships and lifted from the water by the sheer force of the blast. PT 99 was struck in the Firebird pod, the resulting detonation seeming to shatter the world.
The rest of the Firebirds streaked on to the pirate fleet, punching holes in the sails, detonating in the air, diving into the sea. Only one hit a vessel straight down from the sky, disappearing into the hold. A fireball welled from the guts of the ship, flame shooting out the gunports and hatches. The rigging caught like fuses, spreading the blaze, until the ship was burning on every deck. Dozens of pirates leaped into the ocean, only to begin splashing madly as they found the water filled with sharks.
Across the harbor, Brandon couldn't believe what he was seeing. Four of his ten gunboats annihilated by one of their own, only two enemy ships sunk. It was a disaster! Kinnison would have his balls for this. Or worse.
Shouting commands, the lieutenant rallied his crew and they began waving colored flags at the ville and specific ships, assigning targets to the other gunboats. As the ville and pirate cannons roared, the remaining PT boats changed their courses while grim sec men dashed about preparing weapons.
Chapter Seventeen
Billowing smoke covered the sea, lances of flame stabbing into the murky clouds as the giant windjammers thundered volley after volley, Cold Harbor ville doing the same.
Frantically dodging the cross fire, PT boats darted about spraying the ships with machine guns, dropping the occasional torpedo or launching another Firebird, all the while being extremely careful not to hit any of their own ships again. Two of the Peteys nearly collided in the chaos, and another just missed being crushed under the foamy bow of the Gibraltar when it zigged instead of zagged.
Midway between the breakers and the dock, the old fishing trawler was moored to the stump of an old gnarled tree lying on the silvery beach.
Kneeling behind the gunwale, a sec man clutched his flintlock and watched the combat with a worried expression. "Baron Wroth, we should join the other defenders in the ville."
"We stay and wait," Krysty replied, the S&W .38 in her fist. "Should be here any second now."
"What, a cannonball to blow us to hell?" another guard asked. "We must retreat to safety inside the ville while we still can."
"Try, and you'd never get this boat ten yards from shore," Krysty snapped over the explosions of the battle. "And stop shooting at the pirates. You're only wasting ammo."
The sec men did as they were ordered, but unhappily, and shared angry glances with each other.
"This is bullshit," one man whispered. "Lord bastard's ships are getting slaughtered. Pirates, too. No way of telling who's gonna come out on top."
"Doesn't matter," the other softly replied. "Long as we have the tech that made the black powder. Both sides will pay big for that. Our lives, slaves, anything we want. What do you think?"
The first guard nervously glanced at Krysty and didn't respond, his pensive face racked with indecision.
Creeping to the bow, Mildred risked a quick look at the noisy battlefield. The dead were everywhere, wrecks burning as they sank, the sharks going berserk in a feeding frenzy, and worse, a glow was rising from the jungle behind Cold Harbor. The Firebirds that missed the ville had set the jungle on fire, even more smoke thickening the sky and lowering visibility. It also neatly removed the possibility of running into the greenery to wait out the fight and steal a boat after it was settled. They were trapped, with the fire and the enemy ships forcing them toward the cannon of the ville. Classic rock and a hard place.
"Cannons to the left of them, cannon to the right," Doc rumbled, worrying his blaster.
"Poem," Jak said in disdain.
"Based on a very real battle," J.B. said, squinting at the turmoil on the ocean. He could barely see it.
The albino raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Anybody survive?"
"No," Krysty said.
A sudden thump sounded from the side of the trawler, and Dean rose into view tossing a soggy backpack onto the deck.
"Somebody give me a hand," the boy said, holding on to the gunwale while he tossed another on board.
While the companions rushed to ass
ist, Ryan climbed onto the craft and knelt behind the gunwale. "We've got to get off this thing," he stated gruffly. "Sooner or later somebody is going to spot movement and blow it out of the water."
"Just been waiting for you, lover," Krysty replied, staying low.
The munitions bag back where it belonged, J.B. hit the deck alongside the man and woman. "Find them?" he asked hopefully.
"Dean did," Ryan said, reaching into a pocket and passing over the glasses.
Wiping them clean on a shirt cuff, J.B. slid on the spectacles, blinking a few times to focus his vision. Back in business.
Exchanging weapons with Mildred, the Armorer checked the Uzi, then finally looked at the fight to see how it was going. Smoke obscured most of the action, but the cannons of the ville roared defiantly, the shots hitting the large windjammers but missing every one of the darting Peteys. Another torpedo leaped from the little gunboats, but this time it struck wood. The watery blast ripped open a hole in a pirate ship large enough to drive a Hummer through. The sea poured into the vessel, men scrambling to reach the lifeboats, the cannons on the slanting deck still thundering as the pirate ship quickly began to sink.
More torpedoes plowed right by the moving pirate ships, never altering their course by a hair. Yet the much smaller rockets would swing across the harbor to impact directly onto a cannon emplacement hidden in the brick wall.
"How the hell can they do that?" J.B. demanded softly. "Just isn't possible that the lord baron was working computer guidance systems."
"For black-powder rockets?" Mildred scoffed, sliding her med kit over a shoulder and tightening the strap. "No way."
"Mebbe alive," Jak said, ripping open a damp cardboard box and pouring the shells into a pocket of his jacket. Cracking the cylinder, he yanked out a few spent shells and reloaded every chamber. The rounds from Langford's Magnum worked fine, but gave off tremendous smoke, making it hard for him to see to shoot again, and making him a perfect target, a small ball of smoke standing all by itself. Fuck that.
J.B. scrunched his face in thought, then shook his head. No. It couldn't be.
"Whoever wins," Ryan said, opening the bolt of the Steyr to check its mag, "we better be long gone when the smoke clears."
"How?" Mildred demanded. "This tub is slower than hell. They don't have to sink us. They could pull alongside and throw rocks."
"The scope okay?" Ryan asked.
J.B. patted his bag. "Sure."
"Find the damaged PT, the one without the wheelhouse. Should be on the opposite shore somewhere."
Digging the Navy brass from his backpack, J.B. swept the distant shore until locating the vessel. Straight across the harbor, the damaged PT had finally reached shore, going straight along the short runoff from the lagoon near the waterfall and plowing into the soft sand. The boat stopped traveling, but rocked back and forth as the spinning props still tried to force the vessel onward.
"Bingo," he reported, compacting the brass down and tucking it away. "She's in the lagoon, motors still running."
"There's our ride home," Ryan said, draping the Steyr across his back. "And the boiler will provide the copper tubing we need. Grab your stuff, we have to run for it through the trees."
"In front of the ville?" Dean asked, wiping his face clean on a rag. His hair was still slicked down, making the boy seem years older.
"Not going anywhere, outlander," a sec man said, cocking back the hammer on his flintlock. "Everybody freeze."
"Nobody moves, nobody gets chilled," the other man said, doing the same to his blaster.
"Sorry, Baron, but we need you to barter for our lives," the first man explained, aiming the weapon at the woman. "You die, or we do. No choice there."
"There's always a choice," Krysty said, then the woman dived for the deck.
As she got out of the way, the rest of the companions cut loose with their blasters. The sec men were torn apart by the fusillade of rounds, their flintlocks discharging wildly into the sky as they fell.
"Let's go," Ryan urged, grabbing his backpack from the deck.
Hopping over the side of the craft, they splashed into the water and waded to the shore, using the trawler as cover. Sprinting along the dead tree, the companions made it into the bushes just as the fishing boat broke in two, a cannonball punching straight through its old hull and disappearing into the beach.
"Glad we didn't shoot at anybody while aboard," Mildred said, clutching the med kit.
"It was those damn blackpowder blasters." J.B. scowled. "The two of them going off must have resembled a cannon firing."
"So how are we going to do this?" Krysty asked, spreading the leaves of a flowering bush to see the ville. "We sure as hell can't run across the front— we'll be mowed down by both sides."
"That fire is coming mighty close," Doc rumbled, studying the growing conflagration on the mountainside.
"Will it burn down the ville?" Dean asked.
Jak snorted. "Wall too thick."
"We go around the back," Ryan said, switching the SIG-Sauer from his right hand to the left. Just the short run from the boat had opened the shallow knife wound, and he nearly dropped the blaster in the slick blood. "Around the ville, there are fields cleared for planting crops. We'll move a lot faster on flat ground and should be able to outdistance the flames. At least nobody is going to be shooting at us in that direction."
"Let's get going," Krysty said, and the companions raced deeper into the thick growth.
Moving parallel to the beach, they used knives to cut and hack a path through the dense foliage. Monkeys screamed at the intrusion, and something large thumped out of their way, never to be seen. Masked by the vines and banyan trees, the companions could hear the thunder of the cannons mixed with the whoosh of Firebirds streaking by overhead, and the occasional crash of a direct hit. As the plants thinned, the ville came into sight and they could now hear the civilians screaming and blasters firing nonstop. Rioting had to have seized the ville, old scores being settled permanently while there was no baron to level justice.
"Stupes," Jak panted, wiping the sweat from his face with a sleeve. "Doing pirates' work for them."
For the usually taciturn Cajun, it was quite a speech, and nobody disagreed with the statement. The greatest danger to man had always been humankind.
Following along the base of the brick wall, they went behind the ville and started to run across the smooth fields. In passing, Ryan noted there were only a few cannons sticking out of the wall on this side, and nobody was walking the palisades. All eyes were on the big fight in the harbor.
Sinking up to their knees in a muddy irrigation ditch, the companions half expected to hear the whip-crack report of a flintlock firing, but they reached the other side and took refuge behind a bamboo toolshed in the middle of the open expanse without incidence.
They paused to catch their breath, and canteens were passed around.
"Thought jungles were wet," Dean said, scowling at the dark smoke rising on the horizon. "So what's burning?"
"Moist on top. Underneath it's all dead leaves," Krysty replied. "And once it gets hot enough, everything will burn, even the green wood and moss."
"We must be wary of a stampede," Doc rumbled. "The fire will chase out all the animals. It could be very bad indeed."
"For the locals," J.B. said roughly, patting the Uzi. "Not us."
Walking over, Mildred took Ryan by the hand and poured water on the cut to clean it for inspection. His cheek twitched, but the man said nothing.
"Got to bandage that now," the physician said, opening her kit. "Deeper than it looks."
"Once we're at sea," he said. "No time now. J.B., Doc, cover me. We should check the toolshed."
With the others flanking him for support, Ryan clumsily drew the weapon with his left hand and kicked open the door, ready to shoot. But there were no sec men on duty inside, only some chained slaves dressed in tattered rags. The skinny prisoners cried out in terror at the sight of the armed people, and huddled t
ogether whimpering. After making sure no sec man was hiding in their midst, Ryan started to leave, then turned and fired, the 9 mm slug blowing the lock off the long chain looping through their ankle cuffs.
"Head to the north!" he barked, and the prisoners dashed away, going in every direction. Some headed straight toward the approaching jungle fire.
With a somber expression, Dean asked his father a silent question.
"They'll confuse our trail," he explained.
"Right," the boy answered.
A minute later, they started across the fields once more when a slave stumbled back from the greenery, his face split in two, eyes and brains sluggishly flowing from his ghastly head wound. Then swarms of the tentacled muties came shambling out of the trees hooting madly.
"Stickies!" Krysty cursed, firing her blaster.
In his whole life, Ryan had never seen anything like this before. Each stickie was armed with a stone ax, the shaft attached to the right arm with layers of vines tied in place. Across each of their chests was a crude shield of bamboo wrapped with leather straps. A new group had joined the battle for Cold Harbor ville, and their bizarre army was coming straight for the norms.
"Aim for their heads!" Ryan shouted, switching to his right hand and wincing every time he fired. Blood dribbled from his hand, but the man didn't slow or stop.
More stickies boiled out of the bushes, and J.B. flipped the switch on the Uzi to full-auto. The chattering little machine gun sprayed a halo of hot lead death at the scampering creatures.
Lowering the LeMat, Doc held down the trigger and fanned the hammer. The Civil War hand cannon repeatedly thundered in discharge, blowing a foot-long lance of flame from the barrel, followed by a dense blast of black smoke. Stickies fell, but more replaced them.
