Blood Ocean

by Weston Ochse

  “If we die, we die,” he whispered. “Remember, Kaja—live large. Now keep it down, or the commandos’ll hear us gabbing.”

  Kavika settled in for a wait, but it turned out he didn’t have long. Within minutes he saw the first light flash from the left ship, then a second flash from the right.

  It was time.

  Just as he was pulling the flare from the knife sheath on his calf, Chito sunk the slaver ship. The grind and squeal of the old barge slipping from its moorings was impossibly loud. It startled him, and he lost his grip on the flare and watched as it fell.

  It struck the back of the commando beneath him, who immediately looked up. The man was about to shout something when his attention was caught by the events transpiring on the zeppelin.

  Two cables attaching the slaver ship to the Zeppelin snapped taut. The commandos aboard the zeppelin opened fire with all they had, but there was nothing they could do, no matter how many rounds found the ship. Chito, brother of Leilani, was bringing them down.

  Two more harpoons fired. One missed its target but wrapped around the tail of the zeppelin, and the other hit it amidships, right where the commandos had been firing. The cables were attached to the ships belonging to the People of the Sun.

  The Water Dogs had opened holes in their hulls that were too wide to repair, and the sea was pulling all three ships underwater.

  And with them came the zeppelin, drawn inexorably down. Commandos leaped out as it fell, small black specks plummeting to the sea and to the decks of nearby ships. The airship crashed into an old whaler beneath it, the one from which Sanchez Kelly had struck the first blow. The fiberglass vessel splintered and coughed gouts of flame that ate at the canopy of the airship, igniting the hydrogen spilling free from the harpoon-made holes. As it struck the ocean, the zeppelin exploded, sending flames and shards of metal flying in all directions.

  A round sizzled by Kavika. He’d temporarily forgotten about the man he’d hit with the flare.

  His attention snapped back to the man below him, who was steadying his aim as he prepared to fire another round. Then the commando’s head exploded.

  Yes—Grisha had come through!

  Kavika reached over to the manacles. Just as Sasha had promised, they were designed to be locked, but had just been closed. He glanced at his compatriots. They were ready.

  He drew the Hoe Leiomano and held it in his right hand; the bungee cord attached to his waist was held loosely in his other hand. With a warrior cry, he pushed himself out and away from Kaja. He had to time it right. The bungee strained to stop him, and at his lowest point, he was still a few feet from the deck. Just as he started to rise, he used the blade of the Hoe Leiomano to cut the bungee cord.

  Now he was among the commandos.

  They were already being shot at by Grisha and his Draganov. Most of their fire was concentrated toward the Russian, although the conning tower of the submarine was really too far away for their rifles.

  Los Tiburones had also moved closer. Led by an old friend of Lopez-Larou’s, one of her father’s old Campesinos named George Ibarra, they were firing from behind metal ship rails. The shots were mostly blind, but they were enough to keep the commandos off balance and a nuisance they couldn’t completely ignore. Even though they wore armor, a lucky shot to the head would end them.

  On the deck he rolled to his left and brought the Hoe Leiomano to bear against the closest commando. The blade slipped harmlessly off the armor of the man’s chest, but Kavika followed up with a smash of the shark teeth to his unprotected face. The man’s eyes shot wide as the detrodotoxin tore into his bloodstream.

  Kavika left him twitching on the deck.

  He was taking a step towards his next opponent when a shot took him down.

  He heard a scream from far away.

  He hoped it wasn’t his own.

  LOPEZ-LAROU SCREAMED.

  Egor had come into the conning tower with a tray of food. But instead of giving anyone anything, he’d jabbed a fork into Sasha’s ear, shoved a knife into Petr’s back, and had begun beating Grisha over the head with the metal tray.

  One minute the big man with the snake tattooed on his bald head had been polite and cordial, then next he’d become a homicidal maniac.

  Sasha lay dead, while Petr writhed on the floor, trying to remove the knife from the center of his back.

  Egor had ignored her, taking her for the beaten med patient she really was. That had been his mistake. Her scream had been out of surprise, but what she did next came from the heart.

  She pulled the knife from Petr’s back; it was stuck deep and she was still weak, so it took two pulls. When it came free, she raised it and plunged it into Egor’s back. He stiffened and stopped beating on Grisha, who fell to the floor, his face a bloody mess. The metal tray gripped in Egor’s right hand was unrecognizable. But instead of going down, he turned slowly to face her.

  She backed against the hatch, but it had closed behind her. She didn’t have the time or strength to open it. She was weaponless as he came at her.

  Petr reached out and grabbed Egor’s foot, and the man fell into her, driving all the air out of her stomach. Breathless and ready to vomit from the pain, she couldn’t help but go down with him.

  She brought her right arm up to ward him off—her left arm trapped along her side—but he was too heavy. His face was mere inches from hers. She did the only thing she could do, opening her mouth and biting into his cheek, gnashing her teeth together as hard as she could.

  He roared like a wounded bull and jerked his head upwards. The movement tore his skin and she came away with an oval of meat. She spat it out right before he brought his head down onto hers, creating a galaxy of shooting stars in her head.

  He raised and lowered his head again.

  Gone were the stars, replaced by a storm of dark, murky pain.

  She felt something pressing into her left hand. It was slick and metallic. It took her a moment to figure out what it was.

  “You fucking bitch. Stab me, will you?”

  So blinded by the pain was she that his words were like liquid, moving with a tide of hurt that seemed to grow and grow and grow.

  “I’ll teach you to fuck with me.”

  She felt her clothes ripping.

  She wanted to shout, to tell him to stop. But her brain couldn’t find her mouth.

  Suddenly her left hand found enough space to move. She pulled and it came free. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she rammed it into the first piece of flesh she found. The body on her stiffened, then went slack.

  Soon she realized that she was the only one breathing.

  When her vision returned, the face of the monster was mere inches from her own. Protruding from his eye was the fork Petr had passed her. The monster’s other eye was open, mad, and dead.

  She tried to move, but his weight was impossible. She pushed against him. She tried to pry him off with her hands. She tried to move her legs. There was nothing she could do. He was just... too... heavy.

  Tears of frustration fell onto her face as she began to beat against his back with her fists.

  HIS LEFT LEG burned from the trail of the bullet. It had stitched a line across the side of his left thigh. He was lucky it hadn’t hit the bone; as it was, the impact had spun him and knocked him to the deck.

  Kavika rolled several feet to his left, then checked the direction the bullet had come from. He watched as Bane buried the blade of his Hoe Leiomano into the side of a commando’s neck. They locked eyes a moment, then a string of bullets stitched across Bane’s front, crimson blotches marring the oil-slicked surface of his skin. He danced backwards and fell to the deck.

  Kavika counted seven commandos and three Pali Boys left on their feet, if he included himself, and Ivanov. The Russian was sticking close to Jacques. At first the odds didn’t look in their favor, but it was becoming clear that the commandos were running out of ammunition, as they began to toss away their weapons. The Pali Boys had caught a break, than
ks to Ku for his intervention. Now the interlopers would have to fight the old fashioned way.

  Even as he got to his feet, the seven commandos were gathering into a protective pocket on one end of the barge, dragging a pair of wounded Pali Boys with them.

  Kavika called out to his remaining two Pali Boys. “Kai! Keoki! Left and right. Look for an opening.”

  The two men swung out. Kavika flexed his fingers on the Hoe Leiomano and strode down the middle of the barge.

  “Jacques Chiroc!” he challenged. “Come and fight me.”

  He could see the commando leader in the center of his men. By all appearances, he had no intention of coming out. Instead, one of his men separated from the group and took up a fighting stance.

  Kavika approached him and said, “One chance. Run now or die.”

  The commando had a stiletto in one hand, and by the way he held it, it was clear he knew how to use it. “I should give you the same choice.” The commando’s accent was similar to Jacques. He cut an intricate pattern through the air, raising his other hand to defend himself.

  Kavika recognized him as the one who had killed the Pali Boys who’d been previously marked. It was his knife that had gone into the necks of Mano and the others.

  When they were separated by ten feet, Kavika took three quick steps, feinted and watched as the other’s armor-plated forearm came up to block the blade. But Kavika let the blade slide past and instead grazed the unprotected hand with the shark teeth. Then he backed away.

  “Is that all?” the commando asked. “You barely—” His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell backward to the deck. His legs rattled for a moment, then stilled.

  There were now six commandos left.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, Jacques!”

  “GET YOUR ASSES out here and help us,” Jacques screamed into his headset. He listened for a moment as he watched his man go down, then added, “And bring every fucking gun you have.”

  “You better ask them to hurry. Kavika looks pissed,” Ivanov said, standing behind Jacques.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, Jacques!”

  The Pali Boy was death incarnate. The intelligence provided about these Hawaiian stuntmen had been severally lacking. Likewise, the information about the group that lived below the water had been almost non-existent. He now regretted killing Abe so quickly. He should have kept the incompetent leader alive so he could see what a tremendous failure he had wrought, including the loss of one of the Monsignor’s zeppelins, which was akin to the loss of a national treasure.

  “Come out and fight me,” chided the Pali Boy.

  “They have something on those weapons,” the man next to him said.

  “Don’t you think I realize that? Just don’t let them touch you and you’ll be okay. Now get out there and hurt the boy.”

  The commando looked at him with horror-filled eyes. It was a sad thing when his men lost their courage. He’d never seen it happen to his own men before, but he’d witnessed it in his enemies often enough.

  He pushed the commando. “I said get out there, soldier!”

  The commando reluctantly marched out of the protective circle, which closed behind him. Although it was clear by his features that he didn’t want to get anywhere near the Pali Boy, he was too professional not to obey an order.

  It was over just as quickly. It looked as if the Pali Boy just walked up, kicked the commando on the top of one knee, then raked his weapon across the back of the commando’s neck, causing him to fall down and die.

  “You want me to fight you, then put down that weapon of yours.”

  “This old thing?” Kavika said. “We call it a Hoe Leiomano. It’s a weapon we’ve been using for a thousand years.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “The poison from a Takifugu.”

  “And what is a Takifugu?”

  “It’s a type of pufferfish. Very deadly. Nasty spines.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little unfair?”

  “You weren’t saying that when your machine guns had bullets.”

  “Touché.” He glanced at the Pali Boys he’d brought with him. One had already died, but the other was still alive, if barely. “Do you want your comrade? There’s one still alive here.”

  “I do. Let him come to me and I promise not to kill you with the Hoe Leiomano.”

  “I’m not thinking that’s the best deal I can have.”

  “Trust me,” the Pali Boy said. “It’s the only deal you are going to get.”

  Jacques earpiece crackled. He listened for a moment, then smiled. It looked like the Real People had finally found their balls and were coming out to fight.

  “You should have offered me a better deal,” Jacques said.

  IVANOV SUDDENLY MADE his move. “Run, Kavika!” He snapped a garrote over Jaques’ head and snapped it tight around his neck. The commando leader’s hands shot to his throat, clawing at the garrote, but he couldn’t get his fingers under it.

  “You killed my friends. You made me help you. Fucking frog.”

  He wrenched backwards. He’d done something terrible partnering with the Real People, but maybe this would make up for a little of it.

  His smile vanished as pain exploded in his stomach, opening a hole as wide and deep as the whole wide ocean. He glanced down. Jacques had stabbed him, his hand still on the blade. Ivanov felt his hands weakening.

  Jacques pulled free of the garrote and coughed. He turned to face Ivanov, who’d begun to stagger. “For that, I will kill every last man of yours and sink your fucking submarine to the bottom of the sea.” He pulled out the stiletto, then shoved it under the Russian’s sternum. Life left Ivanov’s dull gray eyes.

  He watched the old submarine commander fall.

  THE DECK OF the barge opened once more, this time releasing a host of Real People. They wore their usual flannel shirts and jeans, and carried rifles, gaff hooks, and clubs. The cavalry had finally arrived.

  Kavika shouted for the other two Pali Boys to watch themselves before hitting the deck.

  No sooner had the Real People filled the space, than war-cries sounded from behind them. They turned towards the noise.

  Like spiders descending on silken strands, the rest of the Pali Boys leaped off the tops of the skyscraper ships. The sight was magical, sixty of them flying with arms outstretched, gripping blow guns in their fists. The bungee cords began to draw tight, slowing them until they were hardly moving, when they brought their blowguns to their mouths and fired the darts dipped in Lion Fish toxin.

  The Real People screamed and slapped at the needles as they struck, dropping to the deck, writhing in agony.

  About half of the Real People went down in the first attack.

  The Pali Boys were jerked back upwards. They reloaded when they were at the top of their trip, then fell back down again to finish their enemy off.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Jacques whispered hoarsely.

  “Pali Boys—do you even know what that stands for, you murdering ass?” Kavika yelled. He glimpsed the flare lying on the deck several feet away. He ran over and grabbed it, removed the lid and fixed it to the base, then aimed it at Jacques. “Now let my boy go.”

  Jacques’s eyes flashed wide and crazy mad. “You’ll not have him.” He pulled the stiletto free from Ivanov’s chest, then plunged it into the Pali Boy at his feet.

  Kavika’s jaw dropped. “Why did you do that? You can’t survive—we’ve won!”

  “It won’t be sweet victory,” Jacques said with miserable intensity.

  Kavika shook his head. Spite—he’d never understood it. It certainly wasn’t the Hawaiian way.

  He hammered the end of the flare with the blade of his Hoe Leiomano. A red star cluster shot free and exploded into the faces of Jacques and his men, and the oil-slicked Pali Boys caught fire beneath them. Those who could ran and fell off the side of the barge; those who couldn’t, including Jacques, became pillars of fire, scr
eaming their rage even as the fire ravaged their lungs.

  After that, the battle was over. The Real People had no heart to carry one. They threw down their weapons.

  The Pali Boys on the bungees cheered.

  Los Tiburones cheered.

  The Corpers carried on throwing themselves into the lagoon in their happy, trippy night.

  And Kavika gave a prayer to Ku. He gave a prayer to Mother Kapo. He gave a prayer to Pele. Then he prayed for the dead Pali Boys.

  Kai ran to him. “We did it!”

  Kavika nodded. They had.

  “What about Kaja and the others?”

  “Why don’t you get them down? I think they’ve been up there long enough.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  THE DAYS AFTER The Uprising, as it came to be called, were filled with cleanup, burials and recriminations.

  Those that were left of the Real People found sanctuary aboard the Freedom Ship. Their holdings were forfeit. After much debate from the leaders of all the factions, it was decided that the Hawaiians would be given one of the skyscraper ships, while the other went to the surviving Koreans, who’d been plucked from the water after the sinking of their own ship, swearing that only a few of their people had been cannibals.

  The flat barge in front of the tall ships would be used as a community meeting place. The floating city had never had one before, which had gone a long way to keeping the groups fractured and isolated. It was agreed that there would be a market there, for selling and trading. In short order, a barter system started to displace the old chit system. More than a few citizens were more than a little relieved.

  The Water Dogs resumed their domination of the sea, although citizens were once again allowed to fish directly from their own vessels.

  Lopez-Larou became leader of Los Tiburones. In the aftermath of The Uprising, it was her people’s medical knowledge, and that of the remaining Russians, that had kept many from dying of infection and their wounds. As such, she promised to provide weekly medical assistance at the central market on the barge.