Into the Storm d-1

by Taylor Anderson

  Matt spun back, looking at something he’d glimpsed as he dashed inside. Seated at a dark, highly polished desk and silhouetted against the gray sea through the windows behind it, a startlingly obese Grik glared at him with intense, unblinking eyes. It was lavishly attired in a shimmering red and black silk-like robe and its fur, or plumage-whatever-was shiny and well groomed. A window was open and the desk was littered with tablets. Perhaps it was throwing things out? It snarled at him and a string of saliva foamed on its yellowed teeth. Without hesitation, it grasped a curved blade from the cluttered desk. Matt raised his sword and prepared to spring forward before it could rise. With a defiant cry, the thing drove the knife into its own throat and slashed outward, severing muscle, trachea, and arteries. Blood spumed, and the head, no longer supported by muscle and sinew, flopped backward before rebounding forward and slamming down upon the desk.

  Matt lowered his sword and stared. Gun smoke eddied in the breeze through the window, but the sharp stench of blood and voided bowels was overpowering in the confined space. The female Marine, her blood-streaked sword still in her hand, retched in a corner, overcome by nausea and relief.

  Gray hurried into the cabin, glancing about, taking it all in. He strode to the corpse of the Grik captain and heaved it roughly aside. It slid to the deck like a sack of wet tapioca. “Bugger was bleedin’ all over the books!” he growled.

  Matt shook his head and quickly joined the Chief. His eyes moved rapidly over the haul. “May be something here.” He glanced at the dead Lemurian Marines, one still lying in the doorway and the other just outside. “I hope it was worth it.” He reeled slightly as the ship rolled drunkenly and unexpectedly in a swell. The sound of battle had diminished, unnoticed, and there came a heavy banging on the barricaded door through the wardroom. They heard muffled shouts.

  “Captain! Captain Reddy! Are you in there?”

  “Who wants to know?” Gray roared.

  “Why, it’s me, Silva, you damned tyrant!” came the relieved, muffled reply. “Let me in! We’ve got the ship, or at least this deck of her. Some of them stinkin’ lizards has sneaked into the hold. We’re fixin’ to root ’em out.”

  Gray approached the door while Silva spoke and heaved the barricade aside. The smoke and stench that filled the cabin were nothing compared to what wafted in from the long deck beyond. Silva stepped inside, leading a small pack of Marines. All were exhausted and their fur was matted with blood. Silva had a long cut on his forearm extending from his rolled-up sleeve to his fist. When he saw the captain, his bearded face split into a huge grin.

  “Ahh, Skipper! Glad to see you well! We’ve killed a swarm o’ them devils. I bet there was two hundred left aboard! Most fun I ever had! I feel like a blamed pirate!” He leered at Gray and waved his cutlass. “Arrr!” Gray’s face went almost purple.

  “What about our people, Silva? Anybody hurt?” Matt asked.

  Silva shook his head. “I don’t know how many we lost on the contraption…” Matt blanched. Another big mistake! “But in the fightin’?” He looked at the two dead Marines between them. “A lot of ’cats bought it. Don’t know about any of our guys, past a few cuts and scrapes. It was a near thing too, when we first come down the ladders. Lizards got us backed up a mite. Then that Jap and my buddy Chack took ’em in the rear from the fo’c’sle. After that it was just pure, sweet killin’! Most of these lizards weren’t even warriors, I bet. Prob’ly just ship keepers, ’cause some weren’t even armed-not that they need to be with all them teeth and claws! But you should’a seen that Jap, Skipper! He’s a real terror with a sword!” There was genuine admiration in the gunner’s mate’s tone.

  “You should’a seen the Skipper!” growled Gray. “All he had was a sword!” Silva looked down and saw the bloody thing in Matt’s hand. He whistled. Matt knew that unlike Shinya’s, his own success with the sword had come from terrified desperation, not skill. But from Silva’s expression, he realized he would probably be “Captain Blood” within a few days. The ship heaved sickeningly once again and he turned to the Bosun. “We have to get this wreck under tow right away, or get off it-one or the other. There’re too many little islands around here for us to run into. Take some people. Try to secure a towline. Have a detail cut away all that wreckage topside. I bet she’ll ride easier without it trailing over the side.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Gray responded, and started to turn. Matt stopped him.

  “And check on Lieutenant Tucker.” Gray nodded, and summoning Silva’s companions, he picked his way through the bodies and debris forward and lumbered up the companionway. Matt turned to Garrett, who’d quietly joined them, holding his arm. “Maybe you should see the nurse?”

  “I’m fine, Skipper.”

  “Well, see what you can come up with. Sacks, sheets, anything, and wrap up whatever looks useful. Have it ready to send across to Walker in case we have to abandon this ship.”

  “Aye, sir,” he answered distractedly. “Sir, there’s something you ought to see.”

  “What?”

  Garret flicked a glance at Silva and lowered his voice, but the tone was still insistent. “Please, Captain, just… look for yourself.”

  “Very well,” he said, curious. He followed into the dead commander’s quarters, paying attention to the surroundings now. More tablets like the ones on the desk were scattered on the deck. Against one bulkhead were shelves with square partitions containing what looked tantalizingly like rolled-up charts! He stepped forward, eager to examine them. “Outstanding, Greg! This may be exactly what we’re looking for!”

  “Sir,” insisted Garrett with uncharacteristic fragility. He gestured at the heavy overhead beams. Along both sides of each, like in the other cabins they’d inspected, were many, many skulls. They were of all manner of creatures, some he knew even Lemurians ate. Matt had tacked up a few sets of deer horns himself, growing up in Texas, so he felt no innate revulsion toward taking animal trophies, even if it was creepy and bizarre to take it to such an extreme as this. What made him seethe with anger was that, by far, most of the skulls hanging in the dreary shadows were Lemurian.

  He’d never seen a Lemurian skull, but by their shape, that’s clearly what they were. Many were dry and yellow and covered with dust. Some were much fresher. A few were even decorated with garish painted designs, whatever that might mean. He shook his head, revolted, but from what he knew of the Grik, he wasn’t surprised. ’Cats are people, damn it! He looked at Garrett. It was clear he was shaken by what he’d seen.

  “Yes. Well, make sure they’re taken down carefully and with respect. We’ll turn them over to our allies and they can deal with them in their way.”

  “Captain!” Garrett hissed, pointing directly above his head. He stood in the very center of the cabin, right in front of the desk. The gimbaled lanterns cast a crazy kaleidoscope of sinister shadows in the recess. Matt followed his gaze, and suddenly the rush of blood in his ears surpassed the crashing sea that pounded the hull outside. There above him, leering down from sightless, empty sockets, was an unmistakably human skull.

  Silva had followed them into the cabin and was leafing through a tablet he snatched from the deck. He stared as well. His happy mood and customary laconic expression were replaced by anguish and rage.

  “Oh, those sorry, sick, buggerin’ bastards!”

  “Skipper!” called Sergeant Alden from the doorway. “All the hatches are sealed, and we’re ready to go in the hold. It’s not gonna be a picnic, though. There may be thirty or forty down there, and they’re crazy as shit-house rats! When they knew they were whipped, it was like Big Sal when they jumped over the side-only these had nowhere to go but down. They’re cornered, so I bet they fight like shit-house rats, too. I’d just as soon smoke ’em out, or smoke ’em period, but I’m afraid they might chop a hole in the damn hull! Besides, you said you want prisoners…”

  Matt’s face was wooden. He held up his sword and ran a finger distractedly down the notched blade. When he spoke, his vo
ice was unnaturally calm, but his eyes flashed like chiseled ice.

  “Mr. Garrett, follow my orders-and do get Lieutenant Tucker to look at that arm. Our mission is a success. We’ve learned as much as we need to know about the nature of our enemy. The documents we’ve captured and the ship itself will teach us much, much more. Sergeant Alden, you said you don’t speak Grik? Neither do I.” He turned to look at Silva. “I don’t think we really need any prisoners after all.” He motioned through the door with his sword. “Shall we?”

  Walker had managed to maintain close station with the madly wallowing derelict, her gunners hovering protectively over their weapons, but it was clear in an instant when Gray thrust his head from the companionway that they would be on their own for a while.

  “Get to work clearing that debris!” he bellowed over his shoulder at the Marines following him up. He ran to a cluster of Lemurians helping Sandra with the wounded. She saw him coming.

  “Are you all right, Chief?” she shouted over the wind. He was covered with blood.

  “Nary a scratch, thanks for askin’.” He saw her tense expression. “Captain’s fine, ma’am.” She visibly relaxed, but Gray decided now was as good a time as any to get something off his chest. “No thanks to you.” He gestured at the pistol thrust in the web belt around her waist. “He could’ve used that.” Stung, she touched the pistol with her fingertips.

  “I told him not to leave it!”

  “Like that made a difference! I didn’t think he should even come over here, but he did and he’s the captain. He figures he got us in this mess and he can’t just sit back and watch. That’s the kind of guy he is. But your coming was just a stupid female stunt and you nearly wound up killed.” She bristled, but he stared her down. “Sure, sure, you came for ‘the wounded,’ but what if you’d been killed? What do you think that would’ve done to him? To all of us?” He watched his words sink in. Finally, he continued in a softer tone. “Look, we gotta clear this shi… stuff and this ain’t no fit place for you or the wounded. The main deck’s secure. It’s a bloody mess down there, but it’s out of the weather.” She began to nod.

  “If we can get them down there, that would be best. And Chief.. . I’m sorry.”

  Gray started to say something else, but shook his head. “Right.”

  He struggled toward a couple of Lemurians near the bulwark, clutching the chaotic mass of shrouds. They were two of the ones left on deck as a security force, but they’d obviously decided their own security was paramount. A wave crashed over the deck, knocking Gray to his knees and washing him in among the terrified forms. He reemerged from the warm gray water and grabbed one of the ’cats. A grinding and bumping was felt alongside as the ship’s masts and spars, twisted in an impossible nightmare of tangled rigging, pounded against the ship as it worked.

  “You useless bastards! Help Lieutenant Tucker get the wounded below!” He beckoned those behind him. “The rest of you, cut everything away!” he yelled, hoping they understood. “With your swords!” He pulled his own cutlass and laid into the cables with a will. They quickly got the idea and chopped with mad abandon at his side. Other Marines, relieved from the fighting below, arrived to add their swords. Piece by piece, rope by rope, the debris threatening to drag the ship over was released, and the hulk began riding more easily. The roll increased, but at least it was a more buoyant roll.

  Gray’s arm felt like lead as he swung the cutlass, huffing and wheezing with every blow. I’m close to sixty, and too fat for this shit, he complained to himself, but no word of complaint escaped his lips. Nor would it ever. The Bosun is all-powerful and indestructible. He has to be. He glanced at the sky. It was early afternoon when the Grik were first seen, so they couldn’t have much light left. Already, it was noticeably darker. If they couldn’t get a towline secured before dark, they were probably screwed. He left clearing the remainder of the wreckage to fresh, willing hands and ran to fetch something to signal the other ship.

  Five grenades went down the hatch into the gloom of the hold. Each time one detonated, there was a chorus of nightmarish wails. Silva and Scott pounded down the companionway together this time, followed closely by Matt, Alden, Chack, Shinya, and a score of Lemurian Marines. They advanced through the darkness, blasting or stabbing at anything that moved and, as Alden suspected, the confined space in the bottom of the ship was working with the vermin. Footing was treacherous on the slimy ballast stones, and there were other things, barely glimpsed in the guttering torchlight. Bones. Thousands of bones intermingled with the rocks. The stench was unreal. Then, even as they fought, and their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, they entered a waking nightmare they would never forget. With the searing clarity of a lightning strike, Matt realized he hadn’t learned the true nature of their enemy. Not till now. The belly of the ship was a slaughterhouse, in more ways than one. The gnawed and shattered bones in the ballast were mostly Lemurian. Half-butchered Lemurian carcasses swayed from hooks and all the grisly paraphernalia of the butcher’s trade dangled, obscenely well ordered, nearby. Chained along the sides of the ship, conveniently out of the way but well situated to witness the horror they were doomed to endure, cowered maybe a dozen filthy, mewling, near-starved Lemurian captives. Matt knew then, that even if he ordered it, no Grik prisoners were possible.

  The Marines went amok. They fought with abandon and no regard for their own lives. So, to a degree, did the humans. Scott staggered back, blood on his face, and Shinya dragged him from the fighting. Matt took the Thompson himself, firing controlled bursts at maniacally charging Grik. He burned with a towering, righteous wrath. At last there was focus for all the rage and anxiety, grief and loss he’d suppressed for months. When the Thompson clicked empty, he drew his sword again.

  “At ’em!” he screamed. Once, he’d never imagined drawing his sword in anger, but now it seemed an extension of his very soul: the instrument of purification. The Marines surged forward, bronze spearpoints gleaming red in the guttering light. With a ringing whoop, Silva drew his cutlass, and so did the others. Alden knew with sinking certainty that of all the people in the world, Captain Reddy had the least business in this fight, but it was pointless to try to stop him. They charged. Without even shields, they slammed into the final, teetering Grik line and slashed it apart with a manic savagery that must have shocked even the Grik. The survivors broke. Shrieking in mindless terror, they fled farther into the darkness, flinging themselves against the hull, the overhead-anything to escape. Most had dropped their weapons. For a moment, Matt paused, leaning on his knees and gasping for breath. He started forward again.

  “Captain,” Alden said gently, grasping his arm. “It’s done. It’s done!”

  Matt started to shake him off, but then stopped, shocked by the intensity of his emotions. He nodded. The Marines, still in a blind frenzy, shouldered past and slaughtered the twenty or so Grik holdouts that had fled to the farthest reaches of the dank, half-flooded hold. They mercilessly hacked apart every last Grik they found, and the Americans stood, listening, until the final shriek ended.

  Chack returned from the gloom, limping and leaning on Dennis Silva. Both were drenched in blood and Chack was clearly hurting, but Silva looked like some mythical god of war. Marines filtered back into the dim light, dazed.

  “Sergeant Alden, get our wounded out of here, then form a detail to release these poor bastards.” He gestured helplessly at the captives.

  Most of the captives had begun a shrill, keening sound. In their tortured reality they probably thought their time had come to face the knives and saws. They seemed utterly mad. Matt remained for a while, watching while they were gently released a few at a time and taken on deck to the open air, as far from their prison as possible, by expressionless, furiously blinking Marines. Once there, they were wrapped in sailcloth against the wind and spray that came over the rail. They were fed and watered and carefully tended, but their chains weren’t removed. In their current state they might harm themselves or others if freed.
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br />   Silva was helping Chack through the stones (he’d flatly refused to be carried) when the Lemurian suddenly halted before a captive still chained to the hull. The wretched creature recoiled from his stare and made small gurgling sounds. Its skeletal chest heaved with terrified gasps. Matt stepped closer and regarded the creature with pity. He had great respect for the Lemurian people. He’d come to know them as stout warriors and generally cheerful, free-spirited individualists-not unlike his own destroyermen-but the things the captives had seen and endured would have broken anyone.

  “Leave him alone, Chackie,” said Silva, uncharacteristically subdued. “Can’t you see he’s fixin’ to vapor-lock?”

  Chack shook his head and leaned closer still. “I greet you. Do not fear,” he said in his own language.

  “You know him?” Matt demanded.

  Chack nodded, a strange smile on his face. “I know him.”

  “Does he know you?”

  Chack spoke rapidly, repeating a few words many times. A slight sheen slowly returned to the captive’s flat, dull eyes and, hesitantly, he spoke. After a moment, Chack turned. “He said these were mostly survivors of Chill-chaap, but there were some from other places. He himself was transferred from another ship-as was a Tail-less One like yourself.”