by James Axler
“Fancy that happening,” Mildred said as she selected a small piece of roasted breadfruit and popped it into her mouth. “Damn shame to lose a good man like that, particularly over such a minor infraction.”
“He will be found,” Frost said, his face grim as he pushed away from the table so hard his chair went over backward. Accompanied by the other officers, he stalked down to the deck to confer with Markson, who was still bellowing orders.
“Perhaps this ship is not quite as shipshape as we first thought,” Doc said, then broke into a burst of giggles at his statement.
“Mebbe not, but that doesn’t affect us right now,” Ryan said as he pushed back from the table, as well. “Let’s get ready to head down, then go talk to them—” he nodded at Frost and the others “—once they’ve gotten their shit straightened out.”
* * *
DEEP INSIDE THE Ocean Queen, Krysty had slept fitfully. With no natural light, it was difficult to keep track of time. At least AIDAN had created an artificial sense of day and night through its lighting of the corridors and rooms in Poseidon Base. Even though she could usually lie down, sleep like a rock, and awaken at a moment’s notice, a useful—and necessary—survival ability, slumber eluded her.
Again, most of it was due to her environment. Unlike Ryan and the others abovedecks, once again Krysty was cut off from nature, and the lack of it was really starting to tell on her. While it was true that much of Deathlands was still a poisoned, uninhabitable wasteland, life still managed to find a way. The pockets of unspoiled beauty they found in their travels was proof of that, and was often enough to nourish her soul amid all of the blood and death.
Out here, however, nature was kept at bay, whether by the artificial construction of Poseidon Base or this floating madhouse. Actually, being forced to stay below on the boat was much worse, Krysty realized. It reeked of man’s hand in every rivet and seam, and especially in the nuclear reactor powering this vessel. Even the ocean, as beautiful and savage as it could be, wasn’t close enough to Krysty for her to be at her very best. Add to that the various odd noises the ship made—creaks and groans and vibrations that set her mind on edge just when she had gotten herself quiet and calm—and she hadn’t had a very restful night.
Finally, after her wrist chron told her she’d been fruitlessly trying to sleep for the better part of two hours, after getting about four hours total during the whole “night,” Krysty sat up in her bed. She yawned, shook her head and decided to take a walk in hopes of finding some kind of porthole or something where she might be able to get some fresh air.
She looked across the room at J.B. and Jak, both of whom appeared to be sound asleep. Krysty got up and walked to the door. “Going for a walk, J.B.,” she whispered.
He slitted one eye open to regard her. “Think that’s a good idea?”
“I’m not worried. Right now they need us more than we need them,” she replied. “I’ll be back in five.”
“If you’re not back in ten, I’ll come looking for you,” he said as he closed his eye again.
“Thanks.” She pushed open the creaking door, stepped out and shut it behind her.
The smells of oil, sweat and rusting metal were stronger out here, and she wrinkled her nose in a vain attempt to block the odors. Krysty looked up and down the hallway, but each side looked exactly the same. With a shrug, she turned left and began walking, the heels of her cowboy boots clicking on the metal-grid floor.
Apart from the boat’s general noises, it was quiet at this time of day. Of course, Krysty didn’t really know when a busy time really would be, since she hadn’t seen many other Downrunnners since being brought aboard.
Continuing down the hallway, she heard quiet voices ahead. “It’ll just be a few more hours. Then the entire ship will belong to us!”
Freezing at the words, Krysty edged a bit closer. She carefully placed her boots on the floor as she walked to avoid making a sound.
“Perhaps, but the ones the captain’s working with didn’t seem too on board with what he wants them t’do,” a male voice said. “I think they’re still gonna go through with it, but they may just come down here to find their own. How sure are you about these Recovered you’re working with?”
“They’re on board with us. The Chif Engner brought them over with his story!” a familiar female voice said. “We just need to get them up there and taking care of business, and then we step in and finish the job. Come on, we’ve still got a lot to do.”
Footsteps rang on the metal ahead of her. Krysty had just taken a step forward, as if still walking, when Raina came around the corner with a dripping-wet man in tow. Her expression flipped from anticipation to surprise. “Oh—hello, Krysty!”
“Hi. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d take a walk around.” Her mind racing, Krysty peered at the man next to Raina. “You look familiar—weren’t you on one of the longboats that brought us in?” All the while, she was wondering if they knew she’d heard them. She had to get back to the others.
He nodded. “Elial’s the name, miss. I was cast overboard after I spoke to one of your group too casually.”
“Elial’s joining us now,” Raina said, holding his hand. “Is the rest of your group awake yet? I know that the Chif Engner is anxious to get started on the plan to stop the Topsiders.”
“I’m sure they’ll be awake soon enough,” Krysty said, starting to turn. “I should go back and check. I’m sure they’ll want to get started.”
“No, you’re not going anywhere.” Raina’s normally pleasant voice had turned cold and hard. “Grab her!”
Elial wrapped both arms around Krysty and lifted her off the ground. Krysty, however, knew several ways to get out of this hold and decided to use the most direct one. Lowering her head, she whipped it back into Elial’s face. The crunch of breaking bone told her she’d hit right where she had wanted.
“Ow!” Dropping her, Elial clasped both hands to his nose, which was gushing bright red. “You bitch!”
“Shut up!” Raina said as she drew a rust-spotted blaster and pointed it at Krysty, who had been reaching for her own. “Don’t! I really don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”
Krysty froze, her hand inches away from her own weapon. She calculated the odds of Raina’s old blaster actually firing, but decided the risk was too great, and slowly took her hand away from the butt. “What are you doing? We’re on the same side, remember?”
“Not exactly,” Raina replied. “And now that we’re so close, I just can’t take the chance that you overheard something you shouldn’t have. This was going to happen anyway, you just stumbled into it a little faster than planned, that’s all.”
Krysty spread her hands out, trying to placate the other woman. “Look, all I really want is to find my friends topside and get out of here. I don’t really care what you and he and anyone else down here have in mind, so if you’d just let us go do what we’re supposed to do for you, we can get it done and get out of here.”
“That’s the other problem,” Raina said. “Come on, we’re taking a little walk. Go past me and don’t try anything, or I will shoot you.”
“If you do, won’t the shot attract attention?” Krysty asked.
“If it does, you won’t care, because you’ll already be dead,” Raina replied. “Get moving.”
Krysty did so, keeping her hands up and out. She doubted a scream would carry back down to their quarters, and she knew ten minutes hadn’t gone by yet, so her only hope was to stall them until J.B. came looking for her. “What do you mean?”
“Keep moving—I won’t ask next time.” Raina prodded her hard in the kidney with the blaster’s muzzle. “You people are mercs—you don’t really give a damn about us or what we’re fighting for. So we knew it’d be necessary to keep one of you as a hostage in order to make sure the others do their jobs. Once it’s done, we’ll be happy to send all of you on your way.”
Krysty decided to lay her cards on the table. “Okay, assuming that works, a
nd my friends don’t just come down here to get us out and chill you anyway, what are you planning with Elial? From what I heard, it sure didn’t sound like you were part of the Downrunners.”
“You did hear us! I knew it!” Raina said. “What very few people—and now you—know is that there’s a third group on board.”
“Raina...” Elial said, his voice stuffy-sounding due to his broken nose.
She waved him off. “It doesn’t matter now—who is she going to tell? It operates behind the scenes, working against both groups!”
“Why?”
“Because the leaders of this ship, both above and belowdecks, are stupid fools!” Raina replied. “This ship is the ultimate power on the seas. Nothing can come close to it. Yet they’re content with what they have, living hand-to-mouth like this, and the rest of us can go hang if we don’t like it.”
Raina’s voice had gotten more strident as she continued. “Well, we say ‘no more!’ Once you take care of the officers up above, and your people take care of the leaders down here, we’ll be poised to swoop in and take over both sides. We’ll bring them back under one group of leaders and give anyone who doesn’t wish to join us the option to be set ashore on an island. Then, we will begin taking what is ours, and no one out there will be able to stop us!”
As her captor kept talking, Krysty reached one inescapable fact: Raina was totally insane. Unfortunately, Krysty couldn’t do anything about it, as they had reached the room where she was to be held prisoner—the same one that Jak had been held in. “You aren’t serious?”
“Oh, yes, we are,” Raina replied. “We can’t risk you going anywhere until your friends have done what we wish of them—on both sides. Once it is done, and we are in control, we will free all of you.”
Krysty nodded, although she knew the odds of that happening were very slim. J.B. had always said the first rule of assassination was to kill the assassin. With hundreds of square miles of ocean around to dump bodies in, these people would have no reason to keep the companions alive once they’d finished their work. In fact, they’d be more of a threat to the new rulers, since they would have the firepower and ability to take them down, as well.
She had to figure out how to get a message to J.B., and she was running out of options.
The good news was that no guards were on duty here, since there was no prisoner inside—yet. If she was going to escape, it would have to be now.
Krysty sensed that Raina was now standing about two feet behind her. She stopped at the doorway, putting both her hands on the edges. “I’m not going in there.”
“Yes, you are!” Raina stalked forward to push her into the room.
Exactly what the redhead had wanted her to do.
Whirling, Krysty swept her right hand up and out, catching Raina’s forearm and pushing the blaster away from her. Her left hand was moving, as well, aiming a punch at Elial’s still-bleeding nose. She connected, making him squeal like a stuck pig and dance away, fresh tears springing to his eyes.
With one attacker temporarily disabled, Krysty turned to Raina to finish her off, only to find that the blonde woman wasn’t going down without a fight. Already recovered from the shove on her arm, she was now trying to bring down the butt of her blaster on her former prisoner’s head. She got close, but a tendril of her hair uncurled out and coiled around Raina’s wrist.
“What the fuck—?” she cried, instinctively pulling away. That was all the distraction Krysty needed. She hauled off and punched the other woman in the jaw. As she stumbled backward, the redhead followed up with a jab to the abdomen, making Raina fall to her knees, gasping for air. But even so, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around Krysty’s legs and trying to shove her off balance.
Hopping backward, Krysty interlaced her fingers and brought her hands down in a punishing hammer blow on the other woman’s back. Raina groaned in agony but didn’t let go, so Krysty did it a second time. Raina slumped to the floor but still wouldn’t release her grip.
Krysty had just bent down to pry her arms off when she felt a heavy blow on the back of her head, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ryan and company were heading up to the captain’s room to go over the plans for infiltrating the Downrunners’ lair. “Remember, we’re here to get whatever information we need to get our people back and get out of here. From this point on, everyone keep their minds on the mission, and only open your mouths if you have a question or a valid point to raise. Got it?”
Both Doc and Mildred looked innocently back at him, despite Ryan pinning each of them with his best glare. Finally, they both nodded. Ricky, of course, was already on board.
“Probably wouldn’t be any fun, anyway. The head jackass is still pretty pissed about losing his man,” Mildred said. She was right. Although the rescue crews had searched for more than an hour, they’d found no sign of Elial.
“All the more reason for us to be polite and helpful, and that means all of us,” Ryan replied. “I’m not any more pleased with this guy than you are, but he’s got what we need, so we just have to play along for a little while longer, got it?”
“All right, all right,” she replied. “Can’t vouch for Doc, though. Since he’s been firing on all cylinders lately, who knows what’ll come out of his mouth?”
“I’d prefer that Doc keep any pithy comments to himself until we’re safely away,” Ryan said. “If any of you get the urge to make trouble, step outside. What I’m saying is if you really want to get out of here, don’t make it any harder than it already is.”
Mildred and Doc both nodded this time.
An ensign standing outside the door nodded to them, then knocked on the door. “Ryan Cawdor and the others are here, Captain.”
“Show them in,” Frost said. Ryan and his companions walked in to find the room much more businesslike than the previous day. Markson, Coller and Frost were clustered around a square table with a large roll of paper on it.
“Captain,” Ryan said. “Any word about your missing man?”
The captain rubbed his face. “No sign of him, yet. I wouldn’t put it past the Downrunners to have snatched him, possibly to hold him for ransom. While I hate to expand the scope of what you’re already doing for us, could you keep an eye out for him down there?”
“We’ll do what we can, but finding our people and removing the Downrunners in charge are our top priorities,” Ryan said. “I don’t know if we’ll have the time or ability to find him, but we’ll keep an eye out. Now, take us through what you’ve got.”
“You’re sure all of you are okay with this?” Coller asked with one black eyebrow raised. “I’m aware that some in your group aren’t too thrilled with how we do things here.”
Ryan opened his mouth to speak, but the captain beat him to it. “Now, now, Aturk, they’re here, aren’t they? I think that serves as more than enough proof of their intentions. Am I right, Ryan?”
“Exactly.” Ryan turned his attention to the table. “What’ve you got?”
Coller unrolled the papers, which were detailed blueprints of the ship that had been laminated for protection long ago. Changes to just about every section of the cruise ship were depicted.
“The good news is that you and your people will be able to gain access to the Downrunners’ main floor in a straight shot here.” He pointed at an elevator shaft at the front of the ship. “They don’t head up toward the front nearly as much as they used to—they think they’ll run into some of us there.”
“And would they?” Ricky asked.
“Time was, yes,” Coller replied. “I think they’ve just forgotten about it over the years, but we haven’t.”
“You said good news. What’s the bad?” Ryan asked.
“It’s the farthest away from their main living quarters, as well as the engineering room and the nuclear reactor,” Coller replied. “Figured you’d prefer the element of surprise rather than heading down right into the thick of them.”
“
You’ve got that right,” Ryan replied as he studied the complex maze of corridors and service passageways. “So, there’s this main hallway running the length of the ship, except for bulkheads, and it’s paralleled by two smaller ones, one on the left and one on the right.”
“That’s correct,” Coller said. “As you can see, there are four cross hallways that you can use to keep moving toward the rear of the ship, where most of the people are.”
“You don’t expect us to kill everyone we come across, do you?” Mildred asked.
“Not at all,” Frost replied. “As I had mentioned yesterday, we would prefer the lowest body count possible, because we’ll need people to run the systems afterward.” He tapped a spot on the paper. “Your primary target is the Chif Engner, who’s usually here, near the reactor itself.”
“Obviously you’ll need to use extreme caution while working around the reactor,” Markson said.
Ryan nodded. “Who are the other targets?”
“You need to secure the main engineering room, as well, which lies behind the reactor,” Frost continued. “There should be a working ship’s intercom in there. Once you’ve secured it, call us, and we’ll come in and handle the rest. When it’s over, you’ll all be free to go.”
Ryan looked at Coller. “At breakfast you said you were trying to figure out where they might be holding the rest of my people. Got any ideas?”
The huge man stroked his chin. “If they’re holding them prisoner, near as I can figure, they’d be over here.” He pointed at a row of rooms alongside the curve of the port side of the hull. “They harass us out of these, and use them to fish. The rooms are bare and metal, making them perfect prisoner quarters.”
“Okay. And for the sake of argument, what if they’re not there?” Ryan asked.
“If they’ve cut some kind of deal...” Coller frowned as he looked over the blueprints, although Ryan couldn’t tell if he was reacting to the idea or was simply trying to find the most logical place to keep guests below. “They’re most likely here.” He pointed to a series of rooms amidships, just off the main hallway. “That’s where most of them rest.”
