Shadow Fortress

by James Axler

  “Orders, sir?” Campbell asked, turning to his captain.

  “Prepare more Birds, fast,” Glassman snapped, then drew his blaster and started firing.

  Campbell spun about to see a slave going overboard and another dashing forward to grab the .50 cal, swinging it across the deck. The crew dived for cover, but nothing happened as the slave wildly yanked on levers and pulled the trigger out of sequence.

  Moving from behind the smokestack, a navvy rushed forward and slashed out with a machete, the blade cleaving the slave from shoulder to waist. Ropy guts slithered onto the deck as the dying man tried ineffectively one last time to operate the big fifty, but the complex double safety was just beyond his comprehension.

  The navvy pushed the corpse over the side and corrected the settings on the .50 cal, firing a short burst at the sky to make sure. Then he swung the massive weapon to cover the rest of the slaves and they cowered in fear.

  “Clear the deck!” Glassman ordered, rising from behind his chair. “Ace the lot of them!”

  Screaming, the slaves begged to stay on the boat. But the fifty cut loose, the heavy slugs slamming their tattered bodies past the gunwale and over the side. The slaughter was done in less than a minute, but the rebellion had bought the pirates precious time, and now cannonballs were hitting the ocean around the peteys from two directions.

  “Ahoy, the 94!” Glassman shouted, then cupped hands to his mouth, as the spray of a near miss rained down on his craft. “We’ll handle the mountains! You hit those fucking jammers, and send them to Davey!”

  But the guard boat was already in motion, the hull of PT 94 shuddering as the gears of their trannies were thrown into reverse. The steam engine bucked in response as the propellers abruptly changed rotation, and forced the craft to awkwardly turn until the bow was pointing straight at the approaching wind-jammers.

  “Full speed ahead!” Mitchum cried, a rope lashed to the captain’s chair, held tight in his hand.

  The pilot relayed the order via the speaking tube to the engine room belowdecks. In a gush of smoke, the steam engine surged with power. The petey rapidly accelerated to attack speed, the water foaming white as the bow of the nimble craft sliced across the rough water.

  “Ready all tubes!” Mitchum shouted, the wind blowing against him so hard he was forced to sit in the captain’s chair to keep from falling over. This was his first taste of a sea battle, and an almost sexual thrill was coursing through the sec man.

  Behind them, the other three peteys were sending off salvos of Firebirds at the mountain bunkers, but not one rocket was aimed at the pirate windjammers. They were Mitchum’s concern, do or die. Good, that was the way he liked it, to be his own master, answering to none.

  “Ready all!” a navvy replied, scampering along the slick deck as if the vehicle were standing still.

  “Give us the word, Skip!” another shouted.

  Skip, eh? So he had finally been accepted by the sailors. For some reason that pleased him greatly.

  “Give them hell, boys!” he bellowed, raising a clenched fist.

  Switches were thrown, nuke batteries sparked brightly and the boat lurched as the wide tube on the left side of the deck threw out a blunt-nosed cylinder, its aft propeller spinning in a blur. The torpedo hit the water and skimmed away, steadily building speed. Then the right torp was launched and the two sped away. Operated by tiny alcohol engines, the predark machines shot through the salty waves moving ever faster until they were literally flying from one wave crest to the next.

  Breaking formation, the sailing ships began to move away from one another in an effort to lessen the danger from the incoming torps. Then the surface of the ocean was peppered with cloth bags of shrapnel from the cannons on the foredeck as the pirates tried to stop the incoming weapons.

  While the petey crew hastily reloaded both tubes, Mitchum nervously watched the torps head for the enemy vessels. Lacking the guidance systems of the tiny muties inside the weapons, this was purely a matter of aim and timing. Too soon and they would pass harmlessly in front of the ships—too late and they go behind.

  “Ready all!” a sailor called, his hand on the firing lever.

  “Wait for it,” Mitchum commanded, grabbing the windshield of the low-slung wheelhouse. The wakes of the torpedoes were lost amid the rough waves, and it was impossible to see exactly where they were located.

  Suddenly, the ocean jumped a hundred feet in front of the first pirate vessel, the water rising high in a steamy geyser. The pirates cheered the hit. Then the second windjammer broke apart as a strident fireball formed amidships, timbers flying everywhere as the sea poured in through the gaping hole in the hull. Immediately, the craft began to list and the crew started leaping off the deck, fighting the breakers and the waves in an effort to reach the shore.

  Turning away from their sinking sister, the other windjammers brought their main guns to bear on the lone PT boat, firing salvo after salvo. A round shot across the deck, the wind of its passing knocking down sailors. Another clipped the smokestack, the glancing blow leaving a crimping dent and causing the steel flue to ring deafeningly, flakes of paint shaking off the vibrating metal.

  “Full stop!” Mitchum shouted, and the anchor was dropped as the aft propellers were disengaged. Then as the boat slowed its progress, the sec chief quickly added, “Release the fish!”

  The last two torpedoes were launched, both traveling for the first sailing ship. Both of the vessels opened fire with their cannons to smash the machines, the black smoke of the rapid discharges covering the sea battle like winter fog.

  “Now, while they can’t see, launch the Firebirds!” Mitchum commanded.

  “How many, Skip?” a sailor asked, lifting a torch of greasy rags and lighting it from an alcohol lantern kept burning for just that purpose.

  “All of them!”

  Startled, the navvy blinked, then smiled. “Aye, aye, sir!”

  Shouting a battle cry, the gun crew rushed to the pod, locked it into position and lit the line of fuses before backing away. Even as an explosion came from the other side of the smoke barrier, the rockets began streaking away to disappear into the gloom.

  Masked by the acrid cloud, Mitchum could only hear explosions, and the sounds of splintering wood. Cannons roared almost without stopping, then more explosions. An unnerving silence covered the sea, broken only by the sound of the waves lapping against the aluminum hull of the modified PT boat.

  Mitchum rushed to the stern of the boat, his new blaster in hand and ready. His crew assumed firing positions along the gunwale, a shirtless sailor covered with tattoos manning the .50 cal. The four torpedoes and six Firebirds were all that had been allotted to the lord baron’s gunboat. Instead of saving each weapon for a point-blank chill as he had been told to do, Mitchum instead gambled on a two-step barrage of high explosives. If it worked, the island would be defenseless once the mountain bunkers were taken out, and they could do that with sec men on foot if necessary. Then landing the Hummers with their .30-cal machine guns would be easy. But if even one windjammer sailed through the thinning smoke, the peteys would have only handcannons and longblasters to defend themselves from the thundering black-powder cannons, and that meant retreating to Cascade. Days would be lost rearming the crafts—valuable time the pirates could use amassing ships and digging in for the next attack.

  “There she is!” a navvy cried out, as the bow of a windjammer sailed out of the swirling fumes.

  Yet even as they started shooting, the rest of the vessel came quietly into view. The hull was on fire, the mast gone, the deadly cannons tumbling from the broken hull to splash into the water. There was no sign of the second sailing ship.

  “She’s dead!” the bosun cried, firing a burst from the fifty in celebration.

  “Belay that mutie shit!” Mitchum ordered, holstering his piece. “Pilot, get us some distance before her magazine of powder blows!”

  “Aye, sir!” the man answered and shouted directions down the speaking t
ube.

  The steam whistle keened once to balance the boiler pressure as the petey swung about and headed back to the others.

  Returning to the landing area, Mitchum grunted in approval as his pilot expertly eased PT 94 alongside Glassman’s boat. Most of the Firebirds were gone, and the windshield of the vessel was missing, the deck littered with glittering shards, but it seemed otherwise intact.

  “Well?” the captain demanded, glancing up from a conversation with the pilot.

  “Aced the lot of them,” Mitchum gloated, then jerked his chin at the distant mountains. “What about the bunkers?”

  “Nothing from them since our last flight,” Glassman said, rubbing his arm. A piece of glass from the smashed windshield had gone through his upper arm. The wound was minor, but hurt like a son of a bitch every time he moved. Easing his hand into a pocket, he forced the arm to relax and the pain diminished.

  “We’re out of slaves,” Mitchum said with meaning.

  Releasing his arm, Glassman glared hatefully at the shore and its invisible barrier.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “I know.”

  Legs splayed to stay properly balanced on the gently pitching deck, Mitchum crossed his arms and studied the rocky beach. Blue crabs covered the corpses sprawled on the sand, sharp pincers ripping the flesh from their bones. There was a glowing rad crater to the left of the shallow river, the body of the chilled girl about a hundred feet to the right of the waterway. If there was a safe trail into the valley, he would guess it’d be just to the right of the river.

  “Only one way to find out,” Mitchum said aloud. He was so close to Ryan, there was no way he’d stop now. Not even to save his own life. “Pilot, head for shore and drop me off.”

  “Sir?” the pilot gasped, releasing the till. “You can’t do that. You’re the captain! Send a mate, or the barrel girl we got in the bilge.”

  Damn, he’d forgotten all about her. “Get the slut,” Mitchum commanded.

  In short order, the woman was dragged to the deck and the colonel explained the situation. She was to swim to the shore at just that spot, or they’d bloody her up and drag her alive behind the petey until sharks arrived—then they would cut her loose.

  Nodding dumbly, the bruised woman jumped into the water and swam to the shore. Rising from the gentle waves, she slowly walked along the right bank of the shallow river with her wet rags billowing in the wind. Twice she stumbled, the sharp coral in the sand cutting her feet. Each instance, she dared to glance backward and saw the longblasters tracking her every move. With little choice in the matter, she continued onward until reaching the bushes. She had done it! Walked past the beach! Then she darted into the greenery just as a flintlock spoke. The miniball ripped away a handful of green leaves, but she was already gone.

  “She made it!” a navvy cried, and more took up the cheer.

  “All boats, land the Hummers!” Glassman shouted, sliding a longblaster over a shoulder and taking the binocs.

  “Pilot, the boat is yours until I return. Stay a hundred feet offshore, and if any pirate ships arrive, you haul ass and come back at moonrise. We’ll swim out to meet you. Got that?”

  “Aye, Skipper,” the man said, then trying to curry favor added, “Wish I was going with you!”

  Strapping an extra ammo belt around his waist, Glassman glanced at the navvy. “Then you’re an idiot,” the captain said simply, and walked to the aft of the boat straightening his weapons.

  With only some minor maneuvering, the PT boats sidled up the shore and reached the shallows. The wind was blowing their black exhaust into the trees, but Mitchum heard no coughing from hidden snipers as a result. Good.

  Lowering anchors, each craft then dropped a heavy sheet-iron tailgate onto the shore. Releasing the chains holding the Hummers in place, the sec man started the war wags, while the navvies tossed in bags of ammo, grens and the small portable Firebirds. Wary of the lolling deck, the sailors drove the Hummers down the inclined metal into the shoals and then successfully onto the beach. The navvies and sec men followed next, and soon the lord baron’s men were assembled on the rocky beach.

  As the PT boats raised anchors and moved away, a flurry of blasterfire crackled from the mountainside. The gunnery mates of the peteys promptly responded with their .50 cals, the stuttering machine guns sending a hellstorm of flying lead at the unseen defenders.

  “The pirates are ready for us,” Mitchum stated, taking the passenger seat in the front of a wag. A box of grens was on the floor between his legs, the loaded revolver in his grip, the other hand holding a small hand ax to repel boarders.

  “Nuke them,” Glassman grunted, doing approximately the same. He knew this was going to be a bloody fight, but the prize waiting in victory was worth any risk. A ville of his own! “Okay, lads, let’s get the bastards!”

  “No prisoners!” Campbell added, waving a long-blaster.

  With their engines revving, the armored war wags rumbled into the jungle, smashing the plants out of the way.

  “Death to the pirates!” a sec man yelled, then sat back in his seat with an arrow through his neck.

  Without any hesitation, the rest of the men cut loose with their weapons, blasters ablaze in every direction, ruthlessly chilling anything that dared to move.

  “PIRATES?” Lord Baron Kinnison said, glancing up from his breakfast.

  “Yes, my lord,” the chief of the palace guards said with a salute. “Captain Glassman has found the home ville of the pirates and wishes reinforcements immediately.”

  “Does he now?” Kinnison muttered, narrowing his eyes to mere slits. Clean white layers of bandages covered his humongous body; the disease oozing from his sores had not yet seeped through the new cloth wrapped around him this very morning. Over the bandages, Kinnison was wearing a loose caftan of predark cotton, woven sandals and two gun belts. Caught just once without a weapon handy, his empire had nearly toppled. Such would never happen again.

  The dining hall was empty except for the baron, his elite cadre of guards, sec men who had remained loyal to the baron during the revolution, and the chancellor. The polished cherrywood table gleamed in the candlelight from the chandelier and the alcohol lanterns in wall niches, and heaping mounds of food filled the long expanse, platters of steamed crabs, savory fried fish, fresh young squid, bowls of clams, pitchers of beer and loaves of steaming fresh bread. As a platter was emptied, pretty young serving girls appeared to replace it with another, broiled chimpanzee replacing the crab, hot buttered ears of corn in place of the chilled clams. There was enough food to feed a ville, even though it was only for the handful of men and their obese leader.

  Chained to the wall opposite the feasting people was a very skinny man, his clothes hanging loosely from his emaciated frame. The vile traitor hadn’t been fed anything but thin broth for a week, and madness was starting to appear in his fevered eyes. Under threat of castration, the prisoner was forced to watch the baron and his cohorts consume huge meals three times a day. Formerly a sec man for the lord baron, the starving wretch was the last of the rebels who had tried to seize the baron’s throne. As the very last alive, Kinnison was doing his best to prolong the man’s death for as long as possible.

  Studying the messenger, Chancellor Rochar Langford wiped his mouth on a cloth napkin, the only one at the table, and placed there solely for his use. The others made do with hands and sleeves. A small goatee was growing on his chin, but the second in command of the island fortress was still clean shaved from his navy days, when lice was a very real problem. Small scars marked his youthful face, and a gold earring hung from the stubby remains of his left lobe, the rest removed in a bar fight on a distant island ville. With his short-sleeved shirt, the tattoos on the forearms were visible to all, a striped tiger on the left and a green dragon on the right. It was something he had copied from a predark poster found in the ruins of a crumbling city. He had instantly liked the effect and had it copied, a process that meant months of pain, but was well worth the inconven
ience.

  Langford still wore the woven canvas gun belt given to him by his first captain as a reward, but the flintlock was now replaced with a huge autofire called a Desert Eagle.

  “They plan to attack an entire island with only six boats?” the chancellor asked pointedly.

  The chief guard checked the message once more. “Four, sir. At least, that is what this message says,” he reported, squinting to see the tiny lettering. The words were badly spelled, the paper old and badly wrinkled from being tied around the leg of a falcon. But there was no doubt about the contents. The pirates had been found. Incredible.

  Popping the leg of a kiwi bird into his mouth, Kinnison sucked the meat off the bone and chewed thoughtfully for a few minutes before swallowing.

  “Good for him,” Kinnison said, picking his teeth with a thumbnail. “However, the question is whether we should commit more peteys as backup.”

  “Yes!” the sec chief stated, thumping the table with a fist. “Destroy the pirates and we will rule the Thousand Islands unopposed forever!”

  “I will rule, you mean,” Kinnison muttered in a dangerous tone.

  Hastily, the pale sec man corrected his statement.

  “Lord Chancellor, what is the minimum number of vessels needed to protect Maturo Island from attack?” the baron demanded, refilling his mug from a clay pitcher. No glass was allowed on the dining-room table, nor any mirrors in the hallway. The baron never wanted to be reminded how hideous he was from the black rot consuming his acres of flesh.

  “None, sir,” Langford replied instantly. “Our batteries of Firebirds can repel any attacking force. With your return to power, we are invulnerable.”

  “From outsiders,” Kinnison stated softly, draining a cup of beer.

  The others grew sweaty at the words, but Langford ignored the reproach. “My lord, we could send messenger falcons to the rest of the fleet hunting pirates and have them converge on Forbidden Island. That would give Glassman over fifty peteys and four wind-jammers to assist his invasion. Leaving us twenty more as reserves in the harbor, plus the Firebird batteries.”