Chapter 29
The second bomb did the job. Both of them had gone down. The woman, floating in the water, had lost a wig and it was floating beside her unconscious form. Curiously, the hair beneath was a similar yellow blonde to the wig. Suddenly the woman cried out. Then just as suddenly, she disappeared below the water, dragged from below, and saving the hunter a bullet.
The target lay still. He’d been thrown in the explosion and landed on the yellow boat of the unfortunate sport fisherman. The hunter wondered how they would have felt if they’d lived long enough to realize that their courtesy of waiting for the other boat had cost its captain his life. The hunter himself was disgusted by the untidy nature of it all. To make matters worse, there was a lone cargo vessel approaching him at the top of the lock, so things would soon get messier still.
Chapter 30
The horror attached to her leg seemed determined to pull Snow all the way to the bottom of the lock. It was so singularly focused on this task, it completely failed to notice Snow unsheathe a razor-sharp ceramic knife. She bent her leg, drawing the attached beast closer, and slashed out at it. The slash removed one of one of the beast’s numerous thick tentacles, and got its attention, though not in the way Snow had expected. It seemed now to like her more than ever. More than it liked its own tentacles apparently. Redoubling its effort, the tentacled fish launched more limbs at her and latched onto her other leg. Swimming furiously, it dragged her deeper into the lock.
Snow’s body snapped back from the unexpected pull on her leg and the knife slipped from her grip, plunging downward quickly. She lunged for the knife, the water resisting her quick movements, but caught it with the tips of her fingers. She squeezed the hilt tightly and folded forward to slash at the fishy body of her attacker. The knife dug in, lacerating its four-foot scaly frame. That at last convinced the creature to release her and to move on.
By now her ears were splitting and her lungs burning. She put the blade in her mouth and swam with both arms, driving hard upwards. The surface was still so far away. Panic started to build. She forced it down even as she continued upwards. Her arms became leaden. She continued to swim. Her strokes slowed and her vision narrowed as blackness closed in.
When she broke the surface, she opened her mouth to take in sweet tasting air, nearly dropping the knife again. She almost let it fall, but made a last moment fumbling save, nearly cutting herself on the razor-sharp edge. She transferred the knife from the limp grip of her right hand back to her mouth, nearly cutting herself again.
She fought to control her breathing, to keep from drawing the killer’s attention, but her lungs overrode her desire for control and dragged oxygen noisily into her body. There was no immediate sign of the attacker. Locating the ladder, she swam to it and clung there. When she’d recovered some, she drew her body from the water.
She’d heard Max’s warnings of dangers that lurked beneath the water, but she’d assumed he was exaggerating. Looking up at her arm on the ladder rung above her, she could see he had not been. Another creature from the lock had found its way up her sleeve and latched onto her arm. It looked like a thick sheet of clear plastic. She might have assumed that it was indeed a sheet of plastic, if not for the blood she could clearly see being sucked from her arm and into the transparent beast.
She peeled the creature off of her arm and dropped it back into the water. The shiny white body suit covering her arm was slicked red with blood, from a hundred tiny holes that had perforated the suit as well as her flesh. She ran her fingers over her arm, wiping some of the blood away and revealing the stark whiteness of the suit. The holes disappeared. Surprised by this she quickly smoothed over the rest of the perforated sleeve.
The lock was still slowly filling with water and she had to continue moving up the ladder to avoid being re-submerged.
Slowly she climbed the ladder, keeping just ahead of the water’s upward creep. When she was high enough to see over the wreck of their ship, she paused her ascent. Its mast was splintered, and the deck was shattered at the stern. Over it she could see Max, with Doozer in full vibration mode hovering protectively over him, ready for attackers. She couldn’t tell if Max was breathing. Blood dripped from his mouth and he didn’t move.
Snow’s face burned hot with anger and she surged up the ladder. Her weight seemed as nothing on this low gravity world, her legs only served to slow her, so she let them swing below and relied on the quick movements of her arms to pull her to the top.
When she neared the landing, she slowed and carefully peeked between the wooden levers that connected the controls to the bottom of the lock. Seeing no one, she slowly raised her head to get a better view.
She heard the man before she saw him, and she froze. He yelled out something in a language she didn’t understand and in an accent that was new to her. He yelled again. It didn’t sound like an unfriendly tone, and it didn’t seem to be directed at her.
She dared a better look and saw the man that was yelling. He stood down from the wall on a floating dock and facing away from her. He wore a long black coat with a bulky rifle slung low on his back and an elegant, rigid-looking top hat on his head, made from what appeared to be furry crab shell. A large vessel was approaching, with crates strapped to its deck. Another man, dressed boot to neck in bright but dirty orange, stood on deck amongst the crates and threw a line to the killer on shore. The man in orange seemed unaware that the man on the dock was both armed and evil.
The armed and evil man with the killer hat dutifully tied up the vessels bow line, while the man in orange hopped off and tied up the stern. Once finished, the man in orange approached the killer.
With his hand out to shake in greeting, the crewman asked, “What was that sound? Has the lock been damaged?” He spoke English, his tone worried.
“It is perfectly fine,” said the killer with an accent that Snow was only just able to understand.
He took the orange man’s hand and shook it. Without warning, their hands still clasped, the killer pushed the man backwards and off balance before pulling him forward again and jamming his fist into the crewman’s throat. The killer let go of the man in orange allowing the surprised worker to clutch helplessly at his own throat, futilely attempting to draw breath. The killer stepped behind the crewman. He grabbed his head with one arm, his shoulder with the other, and twisted. There was a sickening crack and the crewman went limp. The killer supported the man’s weight and dragged him to the edge of the dock where he slid the body soundlessly into the water.
Snow’s heart was pounding. Her mind too, thumped in beat with her heart as thoughts flashed through it. Another man murdered, right in front of her, and she had done nothing to stop it. She thought of Max lying on the yellow boat below, possibly dead. Her mind cleared. The only way out was through this killer. She was ready to kill him now. But she forced herself to wait. He would go onto the boat now, to find other victims.
The killer did as she suspected. He hopped up onto the deck of the cargo vessel without so much as a glance behind him and approached the ship’s bridge. He opened the hatch and stepped inside. Snow slipped up over the wall of the lock and crept towards the ship. She pulled herself up and onto the side of the ship and dashed lightly over the deck to take cover behind a stack of wooden crates. When she heard an angry voice from the bridge she quickly glanced around the crate and then, seeing it was clear, rushed to the bridge’s hatch. Too late, the deafening bark of the killer’s rifle echoed through the bridge sounding the death of the angry voice’s owner. The killer paused only long enough to cycle a new round into the chamber of his odd rifle, he must have seen movement on the stern right behind the bridge because he moved quickly out the hatch there with his weapon raised. Snow followed quickly on his heels, confident the killer would be as deaf as she was right now. Another shot rang out. It was clear from the reaction of the killer, that he had missed. With no time to cycle his firearm, he raised its butt and charged forward.
Snow dashed forward
, blade raised high in her right hand and chose the place in the killer’s back she was going to place it.
The crew member facing the killer stumbled backwards, tripping over a carefully coiled line and fell to the floor, saving his life for the moment. He saw Snow and by the look on his face, he mistook her for an ally of the killer.
The killer saw the look too, but he knew better. Stepping sideways he swung his rifle around and straight at Snow. She stopped short, avoiding the bulk of the swing, but the rifle caught her hand and knocked the blade to the deck. It slid along the ship’s deck, stopping in another coil of rope. The crew member scrambled to his feet and fled from the melee, disappearing around the edge of the bridge.
Snow responded to the loss of her blade by kicking out with her leg, sending it into the killer’s right arm and relieving him of his rifle which fell clattering to the deck. She followed up with a haymaker, but he ducked her attack, and she missed completely.
“Who are you?” His question had a misplaced tone of curiosity.
Not waiting for an answer, he punched out hard, hitting Snow square in the chest, forcing her back.
“You have a very strange look. Do you come from the Valleys?” His accent was new.
Snow shrugged off the pain and bounced back into the fray. Relying on muscle memory she hadn’t known she possessed, she jabbed forward repeatedly, forcing him to dodge back and putting him off balance. After several jabs he ducked again, and she swung hard with a right hook connecting with his cheek. He rolled backwards, landing upright, though several feet away.
“I have heard that Valley women are quite exotic. I did not know that they were so… pale. I think this is the word… pale… yes?” he asked.
They circled each other, each seeking an advantage. Snow got the feeling that he was holding back, confident, in control. She took that information and accepted that he might be right. She tried to picture where the blade had fallen behind her. She moved in to strike, leaving herself open to another hit to the body.
The killer did not let her down and sent her flying in the direction of the coil of rope with a kick to the side.
“These fighting moves that you use. This is boxing, yes? Boxing is excellent fighting moves, yes, very good. If you avoid grapple, then is very good,” he said.
Closing quickly, he leapt bodily upon her. She sent a kick hard into his ribs as he came down on her, but he managed to close and grapple her anyway. She scrambled for the blade with her right hand while she desperately tried to hold him off with her left.
“You are strong,” he said matter-of-factly, though there was the sound of effort in his voice, as he was failing to wrestle her left arm down with his right arm.
He was, unfortunately, having more success throttling her with his left hand, taking full advantage of his freakishly long Grailliyn limbs.
“And your hair is very… different. I will perhaps visit the Valley one day. It must be very interesting place.”
Snow tried to hook his head with her legs, but he was prepared for it and gave her nothing to snag onto. She twisted her head and looked for the blade. It was there, right where she thought it would be. Her fingers reached out and wrapped around the handle. She swung her arm forward and slashed at the arm that was trying to strangle her. The massive wound she was expecting did not materialize, though it was sufficient to force him to retreat. He rolled backwards to a standing position. His arm sported a nasty cut, but it oozed, rather than spurted his blood as she had intended.
She glanced at the blade. It was broken. Its edge was now but a stub, only a small half inch length of blade remained. She danced forward slashing wildly with the broken blade. He was wary of the knife but, much to Snow’s annoyance, he kept his composure. There was something else, though, he was not as confident. Not as certain he would prevail. Snow was putting it together. She was stronger than he was. If she hadn’t been so fixated on the knife, she might have simply overpowered him. She surged forward again, feinting with the blade then kicking hard with her leg.
He took the hit in the gut and folded forward as she slashed again with the knife. He recovered and moved away from the blade, giving it a wide berth, but opening himself up to her follow up left hook. He spun around, rolling with the impact and her foot caught him again, this time in the upper chest. His feet briefly left the ground as he sailed backwards, stopping only when he impacted with a crate on the ship’s deck. Snow strode forward confidently. She planted her left foot and swung her right one around and into the killer’s face.
But his face wasn’t there anymore. He’d ducked and slid forward. As he rolled by her, he gracefully took the knife from her hand and came to a stand a few feet behind her. He slipped back, out of immediate arm’s reach, and paused to adjust the broken blade in his hand. Then he pressed his own attack.
Snow fell back, around the side of the bridge and into a small field of wooden crates that was the main deck of the ship. She dodged in and out of the crates, widely spaced to balance the half-loaded ship and paused behind one of them to assess. Her ears were still ringing from the gun shots and she could hear nothing. She took a look around the crate and saw nothing on the other side.
She felt rather than heard his movement behind her and spun to find him standing there, rifle at the ready. She had a moment to curse herself for having forgotten about the weapon before the projectile struck. Polymer tethered stones wrapped around his neck till they made a loud crack as they stopped suddenly against his head. Snow paused long enough to find the source of the stones, Max, standing at the top of the lock’s ladder.
Placing her left foot firmly, Snow kicked out with the right, placing her stone toed boot squarely between the killer’s legs. She followed up with a knee to the face. One more kick sent him over the edge of the ship, and into the water with a splash. Without pausing to look down, she untethered a nearby crate, hoisted its substantial weight above her head, and brought it to the edge of the ship. Staggering, she looked down for her target. He was flailing feebly in the water.
Snow adjusted her position and then called out, “Hey! Murderer!”
The killer looked up in time to see the crate close with his face.
Chapter 31
Though its tough hull was undamaged, their vessel’s mast and rigging, and much of its deck was shattered or broken. Max and Snow quickly gathered what they could from the stricken vessel and moved to the killer’s boat, which was essentially a bigger, bio-engineered version of Max’s Garg-snail shell boat, having been shaped by its designers to improve upon nature.
When they’d looked for the killer’s body, they found none, and were left to hope it had been taken by something in the water. Max told Snow, and himself, that he would be surprised if the killer hadn’t been scavenged by canal monsters. The cargo vessel’s remaining crewman was also nowhere to be seen, but for various reasons, Max expected he’d run off through the brush to the north. They did not stick around to look for him.
Max piloted the boat slowly out of the lock and along the upper canal onwards to their destination of New York. The breeze was light, and so their progress was slow, but soon enough they had left the lock behind.
The boat contained a few items of interest. The killer did not seem to have much of his own on board, a bag held spare clothing, a small digester, and munitions consisting of a pistol, ammunition for the pistol, and a small satchel of fist-sized bombs. The bombs were not unlike those used by a certain cartoon coyote whose movies had cycled through the theaters a few years previous. The bomb had a round, ceramic body with a looped string threaded through a hole in its top.
Some of Max’s body was not bruised from the hard landing, but most of him ached, and his head felt fuzzy. Still, he counted himself lucky to have suffered nothing more serious. Snow too was bruised, but she’d not been broken. Doozer was worse off than either of them, having lost a leg in the blast. But he did still have the other nine and didn’t appear particularly bothered by the missing limb. Short
ly after sailing from the lock, he pulled off the remaining stump of the damaged leg and ate it, perhaps just to show Max what a tough-ass little crab he was.
Together they licked their wounds and took turns trying to sleep.
Max didn’t tell Snow how terrified he had been when he woke on the yellow boat and she was gone. His memory had still been fuzzy in those first moments, but his blood, which he tasted in his mouth and could see smeared all over the yellow surface where he’d lain, filled him with foreboding. He’d leapt to the hulk of their boat and from there made his way to the top of the ladder where, he chucked some rocks to distract the killer.
Snow awoke from her sleep and sat beside him on the piloting seat. “How’s your face?”
She pulled on his lip to examine the cut in his cheek. She must have been genuinely concerned because, contrary to his expectation, that she would vigorously test the strength and elasticity of his lip, she was gentle. He didn’t have a mirror, but he was sure he looked like hell. He certainly felt like hell.
To pass the time Max instructed Snow on how to operate the pistol they’d acquired. He’d never fired one, but he had used shotguns growing up, as did all rural people living on the edge of the wilderness. The orphanage barely qualified as rural, but it did have its share of dangerous wildlife visitors from time to time.
Though much smaller than the crab blasting cannon at the farm, the plastic and ceramic pistol had the same basic operation. Along the barrel were two fixed magazines. The one on the right held the charges and the one on the left held the bullets. There were two plastic levers on top, one for each magazine. He showed her how to cycle each in order, first to load the charge, then the bullet. Modern versions had one lever that was pulled twice, allowing the mechanism to sort out the order. With this older pistol though, you could still accidentally reverse the order, jamming the weapon with two useless lumps and forcing you to take time to clear it out manually.
Starship Relic (Lost Colony Uprising Book 1) Page 15
