Iron Rage

by James Axler

  Joe laughed.

  “Kid,” he said, “I play chess and mumblety-peg, but I don’t play a note of music. My name’s Trombino, actually, but nobody ever bothers calling me that.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Another sunset over the Sippi. Another little steamblasterboat was making its way toward the flagship of the Grand Fleet, carrying Ryan and his squad of the day. The sky had mostly gone indigo, with streaks of blue-gray emanating from a yellow glow where the sun had just rolled down beyond the western weeds.

  Ryan didn’t remember the blasterboat’s name. He barely even recalled the name of the squaddie who’d been bitten by a water moccasin, bringing an end to their day’s patrol down another dead-end bayou. The man looked to Ryan as if he’d make it, even if they had to tie him down to a makeshift stretcher to haul him back. Water moc bites were painful. He’d quieted down now, since the blasterboat crew had poured half a bottle of local rotgut down his throat to shut him up.

  It was uncharacteristic of Ryan to have trouble keeping track of details like that. It didn’t help that his personnel changed day to day. The only constant was Chief Jones and his sarcastic manner, always just nosing almost up to the point of challenge or insubordination. Ryan took for granted he was a spy for the baron now, not just a sec man along to give some seasoned backup as the new officer got some experience, although he was also good at his job, and handy in a fight, as he had shown in a couple brushes with crocs and stickies.

  They were working their way closer to Wolf Creek with every new reconnaissance patrol. That concerned Ryan, though not as much as the fact that two weeks had gone by since he’d been hauled aboard the Pearl with a bag over his head and deposited in Baron Tanya’s stateroom.

  His plan to do something fancy enough she’d be willing to let him and his friends just steam out of this place was starting to seem mighty threadbare. Between the slowly accumulating rad count his friends were experiencing, and the risk they’d be discovered, he was going to need to make something happen, sooner rather than later.

  “Hail the blasterboat!” a voice called through a bullhorn. “Stand by while we pull alongside.”

  “Fancy buggers,” remarked a crew-woman of the patrol boat Ryan and his troops were riding. She spit over the rail. “Think their drek don’t stink.”

  Ryan eyed the approaching steam launch. It was narrower than the blasterboat, if not much shorter. Instead of a permanent wooden structure that covered the helm and the boiler, if it didn’t quite enclose them, the launch had a canopy of fancy-looking cloth set up on the forward half of it. The boiler was exposed to the elements in the stern.

  The officer commanding the blasterboat ordered the helm and engineer to comply. He was a young man and seemed cowed.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan asked. “Who are these people?” They did fly the colors of the Grand Fleet from their stern. Then again it wasn’t as if a Poteetville craft would steam brazenly in here, in blaster range of some of the capital ships’ screening frigates.

  “Captain’s launch from the Revenge,” the black-haired woman said.

  A young officer stuck his head out of the canopy. “Is Junior Lieutenant Ryan Cawdor on board?”

  Ryan stepped forward. “Yeah. That’s me.”

  “Compliments of Senior Lieutenant Danville of Danville, and he wishes to speak to you on board Revenge at your earliest convenience.”

  * * *

  “MR. CAWDOR,” THE TALL, thin young man said as an orderly ushered Ryan in. “What a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Senior Lieutenant Dober Danville of Danville, First Officer of the Revenge, at your service.”

  He stepped up and shook Ryan’s hand. His hand was very slender, but his grip was firm enough. He was a few inches shorter than Ryan, and slim, with impossibly sleek brown hair. His uniform had been fussily tailored.

  The stateroom was far less spacious than Baron Tanya’s. It wasn’t much bigger than Ryan’s cabin aboard the Pearl, but it was decorated enough for two of the baron’s rooms, with lots of bric-a-brac and a big painting of what looked like Lieutenant Dober standing with an older, heavier version of himself.

  “My dear old da,” Danville said, following Ryan’s eye. He released his hand. “I’m not the Danville yet, of course. Not while the old dragon breathes. Ha, ha.”

  That didn’t seem to call for any response, so Ryan made none. “Please, be seated. Brandy?”

  “No, thanks,” Ryan said, as he parked his weary behind in a red velvet chair. “So, what do you want from me, Lieutenant?”

  “Ah, direct, as befits a man of action such as yourself.”

  Ryan couldn’t help noticing the young man wore a sidearm in a flapped holster. He hadn’t gotten enough of a look at it to identify it.

  The lieutenant leaned forward. “Tell me what you think of the baron,” he said.

  That set warning bells to ringing loud enough in Ryan’s head that by rights they should make his forehead bulge. So that’s how it goes, he thought.

  “She’s the boss,” he said. “I do what she says.”

  “Oh, of course. Of course.” The man sat up again. “You’re a man who does his duty.”

  “I do my job.”

  “Yes, yes. Precisely. And since you put it in those terms—would you consider a change of employers?”

  “Baron Tanya seems to like my work,” Ryan said. “I don’t reckon she’d exactly release me from my contract.”

  “Ah, but the baron doesn’t need to know! Not until it’s too— That is, there would be no reason to consult her preferences in the matter.”

  “What’s your proposition, exactly?”

  “The baron is a usurper,” Danville said. “She’s leading New Vickville to disaster.”

  Why are you telling me this? Ryan wondered. He already knew the surface reason. It was the reason for them making the offer to him, now, in this way. There had to be more.

  Arrogance was clearly part of the equation. Ryan knew the signs double well.

  He leaned back in the chair, scooted his butt forward, crossed his legs and settled into a relaxed sprawl. “That’s pretty blunt,” he said.

  Danville smiled. “You are a realist, Mr. Cawdor, and you are a man whose loyalties are for sale. The baron seems to value your services highly. Understandable, based on your recent actions during the nighttime sneak attack by Poteetville, and the way you came to be in the Grand Fleet in the first place.”

  Got it now, Ryan thought. The conspirators Baron Tanya had said were out to get her? They were. It didn’t mean there was no such thing as paranoia. But in the world Ryan had grown up in if you thought somebody was plotting against you, he or she probably was.

  And likewise if you didn’t. “I represent a cadre of leading citizens of New Vickville, which you must understand is by way of a federation of villes, joined into a more powerful whole for mutual benefit and defense. As such, we have banded together in recognition of the benefits of a strong guiding hand on the tiller of state.

  “But when that hand is itself guided by the mind and morals of a gaudy slut, well…”

  You’ve decided I’m dangerous, Ryan was thinking. So you’re thinking you’ll either turn me, or burn me.

  He remembered an expression he’d heard somewhere: You’re so sly—but so am I.

  “And?” he said.

  For a moment Danville blinked, seemingly nonplussed. Then he recovered and plastered his smarmy smile back across his face.

  “And so I want to hire you on behalf of my associates, Mr. Cawdor. To the extent you may care about such things, the future welfare of New Vickville lies at stake here. But you’re an outlander as well as a mercie. What do you care for that sort of thing, right? We can pay. And offer what this Baron Tanya would not—true status among the landholders of the barony. A barony of your own, I mean.”

  “You have a few lying around spare.”

  This time Danville’s smile had fangs. “Some are likely to become available in the not-so-distan
t future, let us say.”

  Ryan rubbed his chin. “Very generous,” he said. “And mighty appealing. But again, why would you make an offer like this to a scabby mercie who got fished out of the river?”

  “Because unlike the usurping bitch, Mr. Cawdor, we recognize the true value of a man like you. We won’t pass you off with promises of reward. We’ll deliver the real thing!”

  Now, how would you know a thing like that, Junior? Ryan wondered. He filed the question away in his mind.

  Revenge had a rep among all the crews for having the shiniest brass and the most atrocious gunnery skills in the Grand Fleet. Her captain, Edmund Geislinger, was a weakling who was easily influenced and manipulated by his underlings. Not a plotter, but a weakling. If this well-turned-out young traitor depended on his crew for his sec, Ryan should have no trouble turning down the offer—and making his way out alive.

  But if not-yet-Baron Danville had his own sec men along, things might get dicey. Ryan was good, but he had too many holes in his hide to pretend to himself he was bulletproof.

  I got to get back to Krysty and the others, he thought. That’s my only job here. Help get them out. Even the rest of the crew, if they don’t slow us down too much. I can’t risk throwing my life away here. I have to think of them.

  He stood up, grinned and stuck out his hand.

  “Looks like you hired yourself a blaster, Baron Danville.”

  “Ah, if only.” The young man’s smile was the most generous Ryan had seen on his face. Apparently Ryan’s rare attempt at flattery had worked. Not that this case had been much of a challenge.

  The lieutenant rose and extended his hand.

  “Welcome to the right side of history, Mr. Cawdor,” he said. “It gratifies me that my estimate of you has proved correct. You have made a wise choice.”

  Ryan gritted his teeth behind something he figured would pass for a smile, nodded and focused hard on not crushing that hand to pulp.

  Triple hard.

  * * *

  “AND YOU TOLD them you were in?” Baron Tanya Krakowitz of New Vickville asked. It was just the two of them by lamplight in her stateroom.

  “I did.”

  “And then you came right back here to me as fast as those long, lean legs would carry you to rat out your new employers?”

  Ryan just spread his hand and tipped his head, in such a way as to point out, I’m here.

  She tipped her head to one side, almost matching his gesture, and studied him frowningly from behind a rope of gray smoke from her cigarette.

  “If you’d go back on your word to them, can I trust you?”

  “I came here,” he said. “Like you said. You got to make your own mind up what that means to you.”

  “Are you here looking for me to outbid them?”

  “I would’ve said that straight, if that was my plan. Your move.”

  She laughed. “Good man! I’d have thought you’d turned stupe on me if you hadn’t lied to them. Not that I ever would have seen you again.”

  “That was how I sized up the situation, Baron,” he said, although he still would not have bet against his chances of making it out still breathing.

  But he had also seen yet another chance to maybe buy safe passage clear for his friends before they all died convulsing in their own runny shit. Or wound up looking at the lining of a stickie’s bellies.

  “Now that the hydra has exposed a head,” the baron said thoughtfully, “I intend to stamp on it hard with my heel. To encourage the others, you know.”

  “Remember what else there was about the hydra that made it special.”

  She laughed. “So erudite for a mercie! And yes. I recall quite clearly that along with having an overabundance of heads, they grew back when you cut one off. That’s why I would prefer it if you return this treasonous little shit to me alive. If that proves impossible, well—message sent.”

  “If I return him?”

  “Who better to arrest him? By coming here like this you’ve cemented your place as one of the few people in this fleet I know I can trust.”

  Her brow wrinkled in thought. “Let’s see…you’ll need a squad to back you up. At the least. Sec men or naval infantry? I leave it up to you.”

  “Just a boat with a pilot to get me back there and bring back a prisoner.”

  Her thoughtful look got squashed together in the middle in a look of puzzlement—and fresh skepticism.

  “Mebbe you are crazy. You’re talking about going in and arresting him on your lonesome? Even if you can deal with his daddy’s hired bullyboys— Never mind. I’m sure you can. But Eddie, wimp that he is, will still get flash-heated past nuke red if you lay the hard arm on his current pet executive officer.”

  “Then if I need troops along, a squad’s too little,” he said. “What I do need is for you to be prepared to back my play.”

  “How far?”

  “All the way.”

  A smile slowly grew across her broad face. She leaned forward. “Come closer and tell your auntie Tanya what’s on your devious mind.”

  He did.

  * * *

  RYAN RODE ACROSS the nighttime water in a vessel known as a packet boat. Its function was to deliver messages—or messengers, as it was doing now. Ryan carried an arrest warrant in a pouch on his holster belt next to his panga sheath.

  The Revenge was lit up, at least as brightly as dozens of turpentine lamps could make her. It did make her bulk seem even more looming and gigantic, even though she was far smaller than the Pearl. An unusual number of lights were lit because the frigate had reversed orders to take its place screening the flagship, replacing the Hera, which had been slotted there. Such shakeups were not uncommon, to keep captains of the lesser ironclads from getting complacent. The new placement also accounted for the trip to the vessel being so short.

  Likely Captain Geislinger was cussing up a storm on his bridge right now. He took such unexpected changes in routine personally. A man who was serious about his complacency, by all accounts.

  They dropped a wooden ramp with side railings as the packet approached the frigate’s starboard quarter. Such comings and goings were routine, at any time of the day or night.

  “Junior Lieutenant Cawdor,” Ryan said to the single sailor standing stiffly at the top of the ramp. “Carrying a personal message to First Officer Danville from Baron Tanya.” He waved a piece of lumpy paper that had been folded and stamped with the baron’s seal in red wax.

  The sentry ran a contemptuous eye over Ryan. The sailor had a shiny chin strap fixing his pillbox hat to his head, and a full-size Springfield 1873 replica with a fixed bayonet slung over his back. If the blade had ever nicked an edge scraping human bone, or had its shiny finish sullied by blood, there was no evidence Ryan could see.

  The kid nodded wordlessly. Courier from the baron or not, Ryan was clearly not important enough to be worth actual words.

  The one-eyed man walked on his way, purposefully, but without hurry.

  * * *

  RYAN TURNED THE latch and pushed open the door on the upper deck of the Revenge’s cabin.

  Senior Lieutenant Dober Danville sat at a fold-down desk, writing. He had little pince-nez specs perched on the end of his long nose. He looked up.

  His expression of rising rage turned to blank befuddlement. “Cawdor. What are you doing here?”

  Ryan held up the paper with his left hand. “Senior Lieutenant Danville, I’m placing you under arrest by the baron’s personal orders. Stand up and turn around.”

  He had a pair of predark handcuffs jingling from his belt. They were easy to pick, if you could get hold of a little piece of metal and bend it a little. He did not make Danville for a man who knew that.

  Danville leaped to his feet. “What’s the meaning of this? Why, you traitor!”

  His handsome and insipid face had turned purple. Now it flashed to a pale white.

  With a commendable turn of speed, the senior lieutenant undid the flap of his holster and began to h
aul out his sidearm.

  Before the handblaster cleared leather, Ryan had drawn his SIG, dropped into a crouch and fired two quick rounds.

  Danville jerked as the 9 mm slugs punched through his sternum to pierce the left atrium and aorta of his heart, respectively, like little blood-pumping balloons. His right arm dropped, returning the handblaster to its carrier.

  Ryan fired a third shot on top of the classic double tap, right through the middle of his forehead. Danville’s eyes rolled up, his lower jaw dropped, and his tongue flopped from his mouth. Then he folded to the deck like an empty suit of clothes.

  Ryan shoved the door closed behind him with his boot heel. He holstered the SIG and drew a stubby handblaster from behind his back. He cracked it open from the top. In his pouch he carried two flares for the device. He slid the red one into the single chamber and locked up the piece. Then he stepped to the port.

  Less than two hundred yards away the Pearl rose like a shadow iceberg. Ryan aimed the blaster high over the flagship’s top deck.

  The flare that blossomed against the night sky burned red.

  Not a minute later the door, which he had pushed closed with his heel after chilling Danville, was kicked open by a heavy boot. A Revenge sec man appeared in the doorway, pointing a longblaster into the room.

  He looked confused. There was no one in front of him. Unlike Baron Tanya’s sec men, with their longblaster repeaters, he had to make do with a single-shot Springfield 1873 carbine. It did have a bayonet fixed, though. “Over here,” Ryan said, from the wall to his right of the door, where the late lieutenant’s fold-down bunk was folded up behind walnut paneling. “Twitch that blaster even a hair this way and you’re a dead man.”

  Ryan was holding both his SIG and Danville’s weapon at arm’s length in front of him. He mostly did it to intimidate: if you actually tried to shoot two handblasters at once, you could wind up missing with both. It did make for a mighty fast reload, though. You just switched hands when your first blaster ran dry.

  A man bustled into the cabin. His short, wide shape was wrapped in a purple dressing gown over pale blue pajamas. Ryan thought they might be real silk. He had a shock of white hair and a face that likely wasn’t always that red.