by James Axler
“Any chance repair Moon Runner?” Jak asked hopefully.
“Double zero on that,” Krysty answered brusquely. “So we’re going to do the only other thing we can.”
“Steal the Tiger Shark,” J.B. stated.
“Nightcreep,” Jak said, a pair of knives dropping into his waiting palms. “Fast and low.”
“Everybody else start moving down the coastline,” Ryan said, sliding off his backpack, then dropping his gunbelt. “Jak and I will handle this. We’ll meet you past the tumbledown.”
“We’ll be there, lover,” Krysty replied, glancing at the laser strapped to the litter behind the nervous horses. The animals clearly didn’t like being this close to violent death, and kept trying to shy away, only to be drawn back by loyalty to their new masters.
Stripping down to their underwear and boots, Ryan and Jak gave the clothing to Mildred for safekeeping. As the rest of the companions headed for the horses, each man carefully wrapped a handkerchief around a knife before tucking the blade between his teeth. It reduced the shine and gave a much better hold than wet steel.
Going to their bellies, the men crawled along the ground until reaching the beach, trying to keep behind a low rill of black lava. The sounds of battle got much louder.
Skirting past a nesting brood of crabs, the two companions eased into the shallows, then dived into the waves and ducked underwater. Several minutes later they resurfaced behind the Tiger Shark. The incoming tide was pushing the cumbersome barge steadily toward the shore, so the anchor chains were taut, rising from the watery depths to the main deck. Using their fingers and toes, the men crept along the slippery steel links to reach the vessel, pausing at the deadly array of pungi sticks and barbed wire before hopping over. They landed on the wooden deck with soft thuds, the noise going completely unnoticed by the sailors over the yammering fury of the big-bore rapidfires.
“How do ya like them flying fish, Jonsey-boy!” the sailor laughed, burping the weapon again, the powerful muzzle-blast slapping against his face and flapping his vest open wide like leather batwings.
Fast and low, Ryan went to the left, Jak to the right.
“Just don’t shoot his bitch, I want to moor my tug in her harbor first!” The other sailor guffawed, working the arming bolt to clear the breech before lifting the firing block. But as the sailor laid in a fresh belt of ammo, Jak stepped around the sandbag wall and neatly slit his throat from ear to ear.
Gurgling into death, the man grabbed his throat and Jak stabbed him again between the ribs, twisting the narrow blade to enlarge the hole in his lungs. Unable to draw a breath, the man slid to the deck, his mouth moving in a desperate attempt to warn his fellow guards.
As the second gunner hauled out a sawed-off shotgun, Ryan ghosted up behind the sailor, slapping a hand across his mouth, the other burying the panga in his stomach. As the curved blade went in deep, it arched around the protective rib cage and entered the heart. Going stiff, the sailor began to tremble all over, and Ryan mercifully removed the blade to slash his throat. Still shaking, the bleeding man dropped to the deck and went still.
Checking the feed on the massive rapidfire, Ryan and Jak racked the dockyard freely, trying for the troops on both sides. Two of the caged motorcycles violently exploded, and a dozen of the sailors were ruthlessly executed, shot from behind by their own blasters. As the big rapidfires cycled empty, Ryan and Jak buckled on the gunbelts of the chilled sailors, then separated again to do a fast recce of the main deck for any more crew members.
Running low and fast, Jak found a sailor sitting on a coil of rope, lazily smoking a cig. The man barely had a chance to register the presence of the nearly naked albino teenager when Jak introduced him to a pair of his leaf-bladed throwing knives and the sailor stopped smoking forever.
At the stern Ryan found a row of canoes, most of them homemade, but a couple were made of predark aluminum—dented, but still in very serviceable condition. Several of the canoes were missing, and Ryan sincerely hoped they had merely been used by the landing party. If not, this fight was a long way from over.
At the bow of the rectangular vessel, a burly sailor stood from behind a sandbag, working the bolt on a BAR longblaster. The tattoo of a single red strip adorned his bare arm, clearly displaying his rank.
“Cornelius, Mel, why’d you boys stop shooting?” the boson demanded suspiciously, starting through the maze with the surety of experience. There was nobody standing at the pair of Fifties, and he couldn’t believe that a bunch of ville boys could snipe a pair of seasoned sailors this far out at sea.
As the boson turned into the gunnery station, Jak rose behind him and swung a barge pole oar as hard as he could. The stout pine cracked across the back of the boson’s head, and the sailor dropped to the deck. Whipping out a knife, Jak began cutting the man’s clothing into strips, then using them to securely bind and gag the sailor. The youth had decided that an officer might know important details about the strange craft that could come in useful later. If not, well, there was always the ever-patient sea just a few feet away.
Discovering a companionway leading to the lower level, Ryan paused to remove the cartridges from the sawed-off blaster, then toss it onto the next level. Hushed voices gasped at the sight, and a hand darted out to grab the weapon. Ryan fired twice, blowing off some fingers, then the SIG-Sauer jammed.
“He’s out! Get ’im!” a sailor bellowed, and five big men brandishing machetes and clubs boiled out of the shadows.
Kicking the first man in the teeth with his combat boot, Ryan sent the man flying backward into the others, and they went tumbling back down the stairs in a wild tangle of limbs and curses.
Struggling to stand, a plump female sailor hauled a zip gun from a pocket and pulled back the rubber band to fire. Instantly, Ryan threw the panga. The weapon spun sideways through the air like a buzzsaw and buried itself into her left breast.
Shrieking in pain, the sailor still fired at Ryan, and he felt his wet shorts jerk at the passage of a tiny .22-caliber bullet. Fireblast, the bitch was good! Too bastard good! he thought. Flinging himself down the stairs, Ryan scraped his belly along the wooden steps to grab her ankles and jerk hard. With a cry, she went over, and Ryan grabbed the empty sawed-off from the deck to swat her hard across the face. Blood and teeth hit the wall, and the zip gun skittered away, loose brass cascading from a pocket.
Ignoring the weapon, Ryan laid into the pile of cursing sailors like a Viking berserker, breaking arms and smashing in heads with the sawed-off until the double-barrel was dripping with gore.
An alabaster hand grabbed his arm in a grip of steel and Ryan furiously turned to see Jak standing close.
“They aced,” the teen said simply. “Which way engine room?”
It took a few moments for the red haze of battle to clear from his mind, then Ryan stiffly wiped the sawed-off clean on the shirt of a corpse and thumbed in some cartridges. Then he recovered the SIG-Sauer and worked the slide to eject the dud brass.
“This way,” Ryan growled, his throat tight from the rush of adrenaline. Since the onslaught of adulthood, a young Ryan Cawdor had come to accept the fact that someday his wild temper would put him in the dirt. Thank fully, it wasn’t this day. There was still a lot to do before the Tiger Shark was under their control.
Heading down the corridor the sailors had come from, the two companions noted this level was made of riveted steel. Genuine predark stuff, and lovingly scraped to a surgical cleanliness by the crew. But then, this was their home, and only stickies used their nest as a lavatory and a nursery.
Reaching a wooden door, Ryan kicked it open and ducked. Wearing a greasy apron, a sailor waiting inside fired a crossbow, the arrow shattering against the iron wall. Stroking the trigger of the SIG-Sauer, Ryan shot the cook in the forehead, then moved on, having no time to waste watching the man expire.
Jak took the next room, finding only an interrupted meal of fish stew, and Ryan the one after that, which proved to be the barracks, or w
hatever it was called on a ship—row upon row of empty beds, each with a footlocker at the bottom and a gunrack at the top.
“Nice digs,” Jak admitted grudgingly, noting the prevalence of good boots, soap and canned goods. Whatever else could be said about the captain of the vessel, he treated his crew like kin. Unfortunately that made the bastard even more dangerous, as the crew would willingly fight to the death for the man.
“I think this is their flagship,” Ryan answered, then paused as a closet door started to slowly open. Firing twice, Ryan saw the copper-jacketed rounds punch clean through the thin wood. There came a muffled cry of pain, and then a sailor fell out, his sawed-off discharging into a bed. The mattress exploded and a geyser of fluff and feathers filled the air, the blizzard swirling madly.
Snatching a feather on the fly, Jak tucked it behind his ear as they grimly continued their hurried sweep of the vessel.
Passing a porthole, Ryan briefly looked outside. He could see that the fight was still raging on the dock, and nobody seemed to be coming their way yet. But it was only a matter of time before the sailors figured out what was happening and came boiling back to regain their ship. Sec men polished their blasters in the night, cavalry riders curried their horses daily, and Mildred claimed that predark pilots actually named their jet-fighters, but sailors were just plain insane about their damn boats. The feeling was more than simple dedication to the craft that was their home, hearth and harbor. It was something else, something deeper, a sort of primordial bond that couldn’t be explained to anybody but another sailor.
Past the barracks was an elaborately carved wooden door, with the word “Captain” correctly spelled. Checking the latch, Ryan was surprised to find it unlocked. Moving to the side, he fired the SIG-Sauer and blew the latch apart. As the door swung open, there came a deafening roar as a sawed-off scattergun fired. The blast of lead pellets hammered into the opposite wall and ricocheted off the iron to painfully pepper the two men from behind.
“Prick!” Jak snarled, touching his throat, his finger coming away streaked with blood.
“Don’t go in!” Ryan ordered, looking over the sumptuous furniture, colorful tapestries and well-stocked liquor cabinet. The bedchamber resembled something from a gaudy house, not a fighting ship, and the one-eyed man was suddenly convinced that the entire room was a trap for invaders.
Hauling out his own sawed-off, Ryan put a pair of 12-gauge cartridges into the place, and sure enough a dozen assorted traps sprang into operation, blades slashing out, another hidden blaster firing in return, and a section of the ceiling slamming down to reveal it was a foot-thick of solid steel. The impact made the entire passageway shake.
“Shit, not trust Carlton if he tell water wet,” Jak stated. He hawked to spit, then swallowed instead, not sure of even that minor an affront would set off another trap. Possibly an explosion powerful enough to breach the iron walls.
The passageway ended at a set of double doors, each marked with a carved wooden plaque, one displaying a vagina and the other a puckered asshole. Ryan and Jak almost smiled at that. Obviously these were here for any newbies unable to read. But anybody smarter than a mutie could figure out what these signs meant.
Going to the Out door, Ryan wiggled in the panga and pried it aside. The room beyond was full of machinery, diesel engines, pumps, generators, fuel tanks and a scrawny sailor standing in a pool of darkness, holding an ax. Startled by the unexpected infusion of light, she almost dropped the deadly weapon, then snarled and swung the blade.
Quickly stepping back, Ryan shoved the exit door for ward and the blade slammed deep into the wood. Hauling the door open, he yanked the ax handle out of the grip of the sailor and she retreated into the shadows, muttering and cursing.
Kicking open the entrance, Jak started to shoot into the gloom, but then paused. A single ricochet in here could blow the whole damn barge out of the water, with them inside.
Unexpectedly the sailor lurched into view, swinging a wrench like a club. Jak hesitated shooting her for a split second and she knocked away the Colt Python, the blaster hitting the deck and sliding underneath a loudly thumping bilge pump.
“Come here, mutie-boy,” she snarled, swinging the wrench with expert ease. “I’m going do you proper!”
Yanking open the exit, Ryan extended the sawed-off, but withheld firing for the same reason the teenager had. However, the sailor flinched at the sight of the blaster, and Jak used the distraction to bury a pair of knives into her throat.
Drowning in her own blood, the sailor staggered, man aging to yank out one of the blades. Now the blood spurted away in high arches even faster than before. Sagging to the deck, she clumsily threw the knife back. Expecting that, Jak sidestepped the crude attack and recovered the Colt to put a round into her temple. The sailor jerked at the arrival of the .357 Magnum round, then never moved again.
While Jak dragged the corpse out of the way, Ryan hurried straight to diesel engines. They seemed in perfect working condition, everything clean and polished to a dull sheen. The deck was corkboard in some areas, obviously protection from slipping on grease spills. Buckets of sand hung near every fuel pump, and several pegboards were situated around the room, each tool hanging neatly inside a painted silhouette.
Rapping a knuckle against the fuel tanks, Jak was pleasantly surprised to find them nearly full. There was enough juice here for the companions to ride the barge all the way to the Alaskan redoubt, if they cared to.
Going to a set of predark controls, Ryan saw the old labels had been replaced with simple wood carvings to explain the function of each switch. Mentally thanking Carlton, the man turned on one of the diesel engines, then activated an electric winch and started hauling up the anchor.
As the wet chains started rattling through a hole in the metal ceiling, Ryan turned on the other two diesels, while Jak opened the fuel valves all the way.
“All right, let’s go topside,” Ryan commanded, striding for the exit. “I’ll take the wheel, and you get one of those bastard Fifties working!”
The albino teen nodded. The easy part of jacking the ship was over. Now things were going to get bloody.
Chapter Nineteen
“Sir! Captain!” a sailor cried, safely hidden on the lee side of the burning Moon Runner.
Crouching behind a concrete pylon, Carlton turned to stare in annoyance at the man. “What is it?” he replied gruffly, fumbling to reload his blaster. So far, everything had gone according to plan. That bastard Jones and his witch had taken refuge in the tunnel and had barricaded themselves inside behind a wall of the dead. It was a triple-clever tactic that was going to backfire on them if they escaped. Win or lose, Jones and his witch got chilled this day. It was all arranged. “Sir, the Tiger has broken free of her anchor!” the sailor yelled, pointing with a tattoo-covered arm.
“Impossible!” Carlton bellowed, spinning. But it was true, the barge was rapidly heading up the coastline. Then the captain noticed the churning wake behind the vessel and realized that all three of the diesel engines had to be running at full power.
“You feeb! It hasn’t broken free,” First Officer Godderstein roared. “Our nuking ship is being jacked!”
“But we left twenty crew on board,” a boson snarled, angrily standing to try to see through the haze. The instant he broke cover, a blaster sounded from inside the tunnel and the boson staggered, his shoulder gushing blood. Dropping his blaster on the dock, the sailor foolishly tried to reclaim the weapon. An arrow lanced from the tunnel to slam into his ear. Flipping sideways, the boson splashed into the lagoon, a billowing stain rapidly spreading around the sinking body.
“You three, behind the hut!” Captain Carlton snapped, looking at the men directly. “Take a couple of those bikes and race to the west. Try to reach the water fall and sneak back on board the Tiger!”
“You two, Smith and Mackewitz,” Godderstein add ed, sliding a fresh clip into his rapidfire and working the arming bolt. “Head east, in case they try for Sealton vi
lle!”
“Handel, take a canoe and head back to port,” Carlton added. “Break out the rockets and bring back the whole damn fleet!”
“What, all fifteen, Skipper?” the man asked, lowering a massive crossbow.
“Every fragging thing we’ve got that floats!” Godderstein roared, standing and firing his M-16 rapidfire in a long burst. The rounds hit something inside the dark tunnel with meaty smacks, but there weren’t any answering cries of pain.
Holstering their blasters, the sailors grimly nodded, then took off at a run. Immediately a flurry of arrows streaked from the mouth of the tunnel, chilling one of the men. The others got out of range and separated to their assigned tasks.
Not willing to depend entirely upon his crew, as loyal as the members were, the captain closed his eyes and reached out with his mind to sweep the vicinity for any remaining animals that might help in the pitched battle. Almost everything in the area was either useless, like the hutch of coneys in a stand of trees over the hill, or already chilled. But then the captain sensed something else, infinitely larger and more dangerous, and he slowly smiled in grim satisfaction. Oh yes, those would do just fine.
STILL RAGING, the fight at the lagoon was starting to slow a little, mostly because everybody was beginning to run low on ammunition. Knives and arrows were replacing lead, and each side was looting the dead for any spare rounds. Smack in the middle of everything, the Moon Runner was gradually sinking into the lagoon, a fire still raging inside the engine room, the dark smoke covering the dockyard like a ghostly pall.
With the help of the big rapidfires on the Tiger Shark, Captain Carlton and his sailors had used their canoes to gain control of the dockyard and hut. Cut off from their bikes, the baron, his wife and their sec men had fallen back into the tunnel, only to discover it was blocked solid just fifty yards inside the cliff. Effectively trapped, Jones had his people build a protective wall across the mouth of the tunnel from their own dead, which Lady Veronica had the sec men reinforce with a mound of rocks and dirt scooped up by hand from the floor or scraped off the walls. The first corpse used had been that of the newly promoted sec chief Zane Southerland.
