“Sorry,” she finally gasped, before releasing Ming who slipped off and got to her feet.
“It's all right.” Ming leaned over and extended a hand. “I liked it.”
Ming was still pale, so Vic shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. “Save your strength for the hatches.”
Ming smiled faintly but didn't demur.
There was a watertight hatch at the aft end of the hold. Like the rest of the ship it was battered and streaked with rust, though it seemed to close tightly enough. Vic tried to turn the wheel to unlock it, but it wouldn't budge.
Ming got on the other side, pushing as hard as she could with her one usable arm, but that wasn't enough. After only two or three tries, she was dripping with sweat and struggling for breath. Vic tried to make her stop after the first attempt, but Ming just gritted her teeth and kept pushing. All Vic could do was hope she didn't reopen her wound.
“Hold on.” Vic stopped pulling, and leaned against the bulkhead to get her breath. “Let me get the axe.”
Ming followed Vic's lead, and stopped pushing. She leaned forwards with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Meanwhile, Vic retrieved the axe and returned to the hatch. Once back at the hatch, she slipped the haft through the spokes of the wheel, and give it a quick tug to seat it in place. The axe moved half an inch or so, before seating hard into place. Now sure it would't fly out, she put her hands around the haft, right behind the head, and slowly started pulling down.
It wouldn't move at first, so she started putting her weight on it, adding to her strength. Once, twice, a third time. Finally, it moved a little, maybe a quarter inch, squeaking as it did so. That was all it moved; not enough to open the hatch. Vic tried again, still nothing. Then she felt a warm pressure against her back, as Ming threw her one good hand on top of Vic's and added her weight to the end of the axe.
The haft popped the first time Ming added her weight, but then the wheel spun with a screech that carried throughout the hold. The two women collapsed to the deck, Vic on top of Ming.
Vic lay there here a moment, then rolled off Ming. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, I'll be fine.” Ming didn't look fine, but there was not much Vic could do at the moment. “Just cook me up some liver and onions.”
“Do you even eat liver?”
“Not usually, but it will help with the blood loss.”
Vic got back to her feet and pushed the hatch open. Electric bells shrilled throughout the ship.
“Dammit!” Vic glared at the broken wire dangling from the other side of the hatch. She should have realized their captors would have something to alert them. They were at the end of a long companionway leading aft to another watertight hatch.
The sound of running footsteps on steel caught Vic's attention, and she fumbled to get the axe out from where it was jammed into the wheel. She got it out, but the haft snapped in her hand, leaving slightly more than a hatchet.
Gesturing Ming to get behind her, she waited for the footsteps to get closer. Gripping the shortened haft in both hands, she held the axe above her head. A soldier ran through the hatch, tripping on the coaming. As he dropped, Vic lowered the boom; smashing the axe-head into the back of his head. He fell like a sack of rocks, and Vic grabbed his Arisaka before it hit the deck.
Spinning the rifle like she was on a drill team, Vic stepped into the doorway just in time to catch the next soldier with her bayonet. She let it sink into his stomach, then casually dropped her own rifle to take the soldier's from his weakening hands. She pulled this one to her shoulder, worked the action and put a round between the eyes of the third soldier as he came through the far hatch.
“Let's go!” She gave Ming a big smile and ran for the far hatch. Finally, she was doing something active. Her footsteps echoed in the companionway, but she didn't care. For a moment, she wished for a grenade, but she didn't know what was behind the far hatch. Vic leaped the coaming as she reached it, not wanting to trip, and almost sprawled at the foot of a ship's ladder leading upwards. Her ribs ached from hitting the handrail, but she had no time to waste.
Gripping the rifle in one hand she almost ran up the ladder, sliding her left hand on the rail and making her legs do all the work. At least it was a standard ship's ladder, close enough to stairs that it was practical to climb almost hands free. Her legs ached, but she pushed on. A moment later Vic was through and onto the deck.
She put her back to the cabin and looked fore and aft. There was no one in sight. Blinking back tears against the Sun, she tried to keep an eye out for any more soldiers, as she chambered another round. The Arisaka only held five, so she had at best three left after this one. At least the bayonet wouldn't run out of ammunition.
From what little she could see, they were a few miles off shore, heading roughly west. Even though it was still early, the deckhouse was already hot. A glance down the ladder showed her that Ming had reached the foot, a pair of rifles slung over her good shoulder.
Waving at Ming to keep down, Vic crouched and ran forward to the ladder that led up to the bridge. Now that she could get a good look at the foredeck, she was surprised to see that there was no one up forward. If it hadn't been for the soldiers they had already encountered, she would have thought they were alone on the ship.
The whine of a bullet off the steel beside her quickly disabused her of that notion.
CHAPTER FIVE
Showdown in the High Skies
“Ilsa!” Tigress screamed as the liger bit at Doc.
Doc rolled to one side, barely fast enough to escape losing his face. Even so, the hot carnivore breath almost made him gag. Tigress was yelling something, but Doc wasn't paying attention. As the liger reared to take another bite, he wrapped his legs around Ilsa's torso and pulled himself up against her underbelly. The liger tried to snap at him, but missed, though she was able to rake her claws across his bare back.
He bit back the pain, and tried to squirm over onto the liger's back. Pressing himself against her belly, he pulled himself backwards so he could get his right arm around her barrel behind the foreleg, and then the other. Two more rakes scored his back, burning like a lash as the cuts crossed. With a grunt, Doc dug into the liger's fur and pulled himself up onto her back.
Ilsa rolled over.
Doc yelled as over seven hundred pounds of cat tried to crush him. Pain burned from his lacerated back. Somehow, he had landed on top of the rifle.
Ilsa twisted and turned, snapping at him and grinding his back into the rifle's action.
All Doc could do was hang on and try to stay out of her jaws, but his grip kept slipping. There was nothing but fur to hang onto behind her forelegs.
He reached forward and caught hold of her collar, digging his fingers past the leather. Ilsa redoubled her efforts to break his back on the rifle, twisting and turning on top of Doc, her jaws clashing inches away from his head. Suddenly she twisted her neck within reach and he wrapped his free arm around it. Ilsa twisted back, dragging his back agonizingly across the rifle.
Doc gritted his teeth as the liger pulled him level with the back of her head. She twisted the other way, and something hard smacked him in the forehead. He opened his eyes to see a small metal box wired to the back of Ilsa's collar. Two probes led forward into the back of her neck, and the whole unit was warm to the touch.
Keeping one arm around Ilsa's neck, he slid the other one along the collar, trying to reach the buckle. Ilsa bucked wildly, but somehow Doc hung on. Tigress had stopped screaming. Ilsa's collar was tightly fastened, but luckily the buckle was normal, so he was able to get his fingers on the leather and pull the tongue out.
Ilsa kept squirming, forcing Doc to just hang on. Just as he was sure he couldn't hold any longer, she stopped moving. Without hesitation, he undid the buckle and threw the collar as far away as he could.
The liger immediately rolled off him, gave him a sniff, and then a long lick up the side of his face.
“Sit up so I can have a look at your bac
k.” Doc hadn't noticed Tigress come over until she put a hand on his shoulder.
He winced, and sat up. Every little movement of his upper body made his back hurt like fire, and the back of his pajama pants were wet and sticky. “How bad is it?”
“It isn't good, some of those cuts are almost to the bone.” Her dress rustled as she got up. “Try not to move while I get something for it.”
Doc nodded, then immediately regretted the motion as pain shot through his back.
Tigress left the room through a dark wood door at the far end, leaving the now calm liger curled up in the corner. Doc took the opportunity to look around the room. Like the cell he had been placed in earlier, it seemed to have been carved out of the rock. He was sitting on a fine silk rug that he expected he had ruined, laying over a stone floor. The room was sparsely furnished, but showed the same good taste as the one where he had first met Tigress.
A ripping sound drew his attention back to the doorway at the back of the room, and a moment later Tigress stepped through it with a bundle of white cloth in one hand and two bottles in the other. “I don't have any bandages, but I do have clean sheets.”
She walked around behind him. “This will sting.”
A slight smell of juniper reached his nose, and then his back screamed as she poured a whole bottle of genever down his back. The alcohol burned as it sluiced out the wounds, but Doc simply gritted his teeth.
Tigress then patted his back dry, and started winding strips of silk around his chest. “Hold still, and I'll get these cuts covered.”
After a few minutes, she got up and asked him to move around. Doc found he could still move about fairly well, though it hurt when he tried any stretching. In addition to the sheets, she had also found some clothing of Van Houten's, which actually fit Doc fairly well. He couldn't help but notice how appreciatively she watched him change. The shirt was a bit loose in the chest and short in the arms, but the pants were almost a perfect fit, only a little short. The one thing she couldn't find Doc were shoes. Van Houten's were at least three sizes too small for him.
Once dressed, Doc opened the door and took a look outside. It was a wasteland; scorched stone was everywhere, the facades of all the buildings were black and there was nobody in sight. All the bollards and boat handling gear was gone and the smell of burnt fuel lay heavy on the air. The docks themselves were shattered, blasted to pieces by the explosions.
With the rifle at the ready, Doc moved slowly through the doorway. Tigress followed, one hand on Ilsa's neck. The further out they got, the worse everything looked. This had been a comfortable base for Tigress and her people, now it looked like the photographs he had seen from the bombing of Guernica a few weeks before. It was a shambles, absolute devastation. Buildings closer to the blasts were piles of rubble, opening onto tunnels and caves.
Tears streamed out below Tigress' mask. She didn't say anything, but her body movements told Doc everything he needed to know. There was no grace in her movements, each step heavy and slow.
As they moved towards the waterfront, he saw the bodies: at least a platoon of Japanese soldiers, all lying where they had fallen. Half of them still had their rifles, but even the ones who looked only slightly wounded had their throats cut. There were a few dead guards as well, Van Houten's men from the look of it, but they were fewer in number.
The worst part of the situation was that there didn't seem to be any way out. Climbing was out of the question. Sure, there was an opening above them, but it was over half a mile straight up, and that was not a climb Doc was in any condition to face.
A few moments later, he found a boat. It wasn't much, it was bigger than a dinghy, but only by a couple of feet. At first glance, it looked perfect for them, about eight feet long, wide and flat bottomed with three solidly built thwarts. Unfortunately, when he took a closer look he saw why the boat was still there; someone had taken an axe to it, right under the center thwart. They could get it in the water, but it would be on the bottom before they got a dozen feet.
“Any luck?” Tigress wiped the tears from her face.
“Unless you have an escape tunnel, I only see two choices, climb or swim.”
“It was on my list, but I never got that far.” She shrugged.
“Then swim it is.”
Doc stripped off his shirt and tied it around his neck, while Tigress simply kneeled down and whispered something in Ilsa's ear. Leading the way to the edge, she wrapped her arms around the liger's neck and the two of them jumped in. Doc immediately followed.
The water kicked him in the stomach as he hit flat, doing a perfect belly flop. The impact knocked most of the breath out of him, and then the warm salt water hit his back. It soaked the bandages in a moment, making his wounds sting furiously. Blinking the water out of his eyes, he took a breath and started to follow Tigress and her liger down the tunnel.
#
The bullet rang in Vic's ears. That was one way to find out they were not alone on the ship. Luckily, she was close enough to the superstructure that shooter hadn’t been able to get a good look at her. It was either that or they were a lousy shot, and Vic didn't feel that lucky. Besides, a lousy shot was no fun.
She poked her head out for a quick look but couldn't see anything except the far end of the flying bridge. There was no ladder here on the port side, but there was an open passage that seemed to split the deckhouse into two sections just a few feet ahead of her.
Gesturing at Ming to stay down, Vic slipped forward and swung the rifle across the opening. Nothing happened. Leaning against the warm metal, she listened for a moment, and then swung out into the passageway, leveling the rifle in front of her.
The crosswind caught her by surprise. The ship wasn't rolling so Vic had not expected much of a wind. It was dim, making the blue sky and sea stand out that much more. She didn't have time to appreciate it; so she ran through the passageway keeping low so as not to be seen through the portholes in the doors on either side. At the far end, she paused, her back against the bulkhead.
Catching her breath, Vic tried to remember the layout from when they were brought on board. The flying bridge from where she'd been shot at was two levels up, and spread the width of the ship.
Poking her head out from the passageway, she glanced up the to the next deck. It looked empty.
Staying as close to the deckhouse as she could, Vic padded up the ladder. Rubber treads helped cushion her steps. The lower level of the flying bridge looked empty, so Vic nipped around the corner and up to the ladder to the upper level. Just before she reached the top of the ladder, she stopped, keeping her head below the level of the flying bridge.
Vic slowly poked her head up. A yell from her left told her it was the wrong thing to do, so she crouched down. The crack of another shot had her head back down in the shadow of the deckhouse in seconds. Footsteps thundered across the bridge as the shooter ran towards her.
She took a deep breath and leveled her rifle, keeping it flat but below the level of the bridge. Vic smiled broadly, then stood up straight. A charging Japanese soldier filled her sight picture and she squeezed the trigger. His eyes opened wide as the round punched into his chest, knocking him off the bridge and onto the deck below.
Vic was running the rest of the way up the ladder before she heard the impact. There was no one else on the flying bridge, but a movement from the wheelhouse caught her eye. She pushed through the swinging door, rifle at the ready.
Her mouth dropped open as she passed through the door.
There was no wheel, no engine telegraph. Instead there was just a black metal case with lights and a central antenna. An open toolbox rested on top of the case. Feng leaned over the case, his hands hidden behind an open panel. He had changed from the loose brown clothes into a leather flying suit festooned with metal braces and gears running down his arms and legs. What had first appeared to be a backpack was in fact some mechanical device strapped to his back like an iron spider. It whirred as he twisted to face her, his whole b
ody moving rather than just his head. He snapped the panel closed with one exoskeletal hand.
“I see you've chosen to die in the sunlight.” His voice was hollow, mechanical, coming through a grill in front of his mouth.
“I could say the same for you.” Vic smiled as she raised her Arisaka to her shoulder.
She leaned into the stock, letting his face fill her sights.
Gears whined as he darted forward faster than any human had a right to and backhanded the rifle across the compartment. Vic backpedaled into a chart table, hard.
Feng twisted to face her, reaching out with mechanically reinforced hands. Vic ducked and rolled, trying to get past him. She avoided his fists, but Feng caught her with an elbow as she ducked under his arm.
Pain exploded as something cracked just under her left shoulder blade. Despite the pain, she kept moving, heading across the small compartment for her rifle. Feng's mechanicals whined behind her, so she scooped up the weapon and rolled right. Her left hand dropped, and it was all she could do to hang onto the rifle as she got out of Feng's way. Wood splintered beside her as he drove a metal-clad fist through a chart table.
He was fast, very fast, and strong, but he couldn't turn quickly. The spider-legs growing out of the machine on his back gave him incredible power, but he seemed to have difficulty controlling it. Feng was breathing hard, too, the plates on his chest pumping like bellows.
“Stop moving and I'll make it less painful for you,” Feng said, wheezing in time with the plates compressing his chest.
“I can make breathing less painful for you,” Vic replied taking advantage of the brief break to scan the compartment. There were two chart tables, one on either side of the compartment, and the large mechanism Feng had been working on. “You don't really need that suit.”
Air Pirates of Krakatoa Page 13
