Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  Koa suddenly shouted. “Ship oars!”

  Ryan wondered where this authority was supposed to have come from, but the tone of Koa’s voice was clear that he was onto something. “Ship oars!”

  Koa leaned out over the oarlock and reached into the water. “Present for you, brah.”

  Ryan stared at the coconut in Koa’s hand. The three dimples stared back at him like a face. Koa smiled and found the soft one of the three with his thumb. He stabbed it with his marlinspike and shook it. “One sip.”

  Ryan took the coconut and sipped. It took every ounce of will not to drain it as every cell in his body cried out to drown the nutritional famine.

  Wipe clapped his hands. “There’s hundreds of them!”

  Ryan handed the coconut to Onetongue. The mutant sagged as coconut juice and oil coated his mouth. Ryan looked out on the water and saw scores of small brown spheres floating in the water. Koa took a sip and held it out to Hardstone disdainfully. “Not from my islands.”

  “You can tell?” Ryan asked.

  Koa looked at Ryan like he was stupe. “Maybe Tahitian. I’ve never been this far south or east on the Cific.” The Hawaiian dipped his hand into the water and wiggled his fingers contemplatively. “But the current might be right, and the wind.”

  “There’s no wind, Koa.”

  “You’re wrong, brah.”

  Ryan lifted his chin. He felt the faintest of breezes evaporating the sweat and blood on his face. “You’re way-finding.”

  “Yup.”

  “Doc,” Ryan ordered, “slip the cable to the ship. We gather every coconut we can. Manrape, use the speaking horn and tell the dinghies to do the same. Koa, I am recommending you to Commander Miles as acting navigator until proved otherwise.”

  Koa nodded. “About time.”

  * * *

  Tahiti

  THE GLORY LIMPED into harbor. She’d arrived to find the predark capital of Papeete a half moon of obsidian blast crater falling into the ocean. What remained of her once-famous black sand beaches was fused black glass that gleamed and rippled in the sunlight as Ryan’s rad counter crept upward. They sailed around the coast and found another bay. They’d been spotted from shore, and about half a hundred war canoes lay arrayed before them, blocking the entrance. Koa stood at the Jacob’s ladder in his full Hawaiian regalia. Everyone aboard wore their cleaned, best clothing, and all the officers and specialists were in uniform.

  The coconuts had been a temporary stay of execution, but the crew was still in bad shape. Ryan scanned the opposition with his longeyes. Most of the warriors were bare-chested, bore clubs and spears and were covered with tattoos. A few had single-shot blasters that looked homemade. Behind the canoe line a pair of working motor launches sat with machine blasters mounted. Like a queen surrounded by soldier ants, a massive double canoe bearing a platform formed the middle of the Tahitian line. About a dozen men in massive feathered headdresses stood in a semicircle bearing predark blasters. Standing in prominence was a regal and magnificently bare-breasted woman. She was scanning the Glory’s cannons through binoculars.

  “The Tahitians of hundreds of years ago were known to have queens and female chieftains,” Doc said.

  Miss Loral nodded. Commander Miles bullet wounds had reopened, and he was in the med in nearly as bad a shape as the captain. “Thank you, Doc. Mr. Koa?”

  Koa bellowed out across the water in Hawaiian. The Tahitians glared uncomprehendingly as a unit. One very large individual bellowed back something and pointed at Koa while pantomiming an unmistakable act of oral outrage with a war club. Laughter rippled across the canoes.

  “I don’t think they speak Hawaiian,” Manrape concluded.

  Koa folded his arms in disgust. “They don’t speak any civilized language.”

  Miss Loral quirked an eyebrow. “Didn’t Tahitians speak French before skydark?”

  Atlast spit off the side. “Last French-talker we had was that Haitian cook, Marcel. Right, Skillet?”

  The Jamaican grunted sadly. “Damn fine madeleines. Never could replicate them.”

  “Miss Loral,” Ryan asked. “With permission?”

  “Indeed, Mr. Ryan. Do something.”

  Ryan nodded at Doc.

  Doc considered. “Something like, greetings and we come in peace?”

  “That should do.”

  Doc drew his sword from his swordstick and strode to the Jacob’s ladder. His blade gleamed like a sliver of quicksilver as he saluted the Tahitian horde. The bravado captured their attention. Doc called out in French, “Greetings, valiant warriors of Tahiti. We come in peace and friendship.” The old man flourished his sword and his hat and gave a sweeping bow.

  The effect on the Tahitians was immediate. They grinned and began to applaud. The woman on the platform seemed pleased. One of her warriors handed her a brass speaking trumpet. Her voice came back across the water in clear but accented English. “I fear you bring your war with the Sabbaths to my harbor!”

  Ryan muttered low. “Keep going, Doc,” Ryan muttered. “Be diplomatic.”

  “I fear we do, my queen! We ask not sanctuary or alliance. All we ask is fresh water to slake our thirst and fresh fruit and greenery to fight the scurvy that plagues us. We seek rope, cordage and timber for our poor, battered ship that so bravely rounded the Horn in the terrible face of the westerly winter. We ask not for charity. We have trade goods from the other side of the world and will barter fairly for all. Give us this sun above, the moon tonight and the sun tomorrow, and we shall take our battle with the Sabbath fleet out onto the high sea and away from your fair shores.”

  Miss Loral stared, then said, “You’re good.”

  The smile of the woman on the royal barge lit up the bay. “I have never heard French spoken so beautifully except in old vids. Not to mention your English! Withstanding the laws of hospitality and the wrath of the Sabbaths, I would feast you in my hall just to listen to you speak in any language!”

  Doc bowed low.

  “Bring your ship into harbor and pick your shore party, Silver Tongue. You shall be feasted! Should we come to agreement, tomorrow we shall trade. My name is Queen Tahiata.” The distance was long, but the woman clearly smirked. “And ask Prince Koa to forgive our insult! His name is known here, and while it was a generation ago and not the people of Molokai, the last time Tahitians and Hawaiians met it was not friendly.”

  Ryan turned to look at the Hawaiian. “So you really are the Prince of Molokai?”

  Koa lifted his chin imperiously. “I never denied it.”

  * * *

  RYAN GORGED ON fish and fruit. His body couldn’t get enough of the sweet pineapples and watermelon. After spending weeks against the Westerlies on salted ox and guanaco, Ryan cleaned his trencher board of parrotfish, barracuda, sea urchin, river prawns and raw red tuna marinated in coconut and lime. Suckling pigs, lobsters and breadfruit roasted in an underground pit outside. Rumor was they were almost ready. The Glory crew held their own. Strawmaker played to standing ovations. Manrape outwrestled every Tahitian warrior sent before him to the cries of the crowd. Palm wine and manioc beer flowed.

  Ryan had a better feeling about this feast than the last.

  Male and female dancers swayed and turned to the sound of the log drums. Everyone, including Ryan, wore flowers in their hair and garlands of welcome around their necks. The ville perched on a hillside on top of what had once been a small Tahitian town. The location was strategic. Mountains and winds in the opposite direction shielded her people from Papeete and its radioactive horror. Rumor was that horrors occasionally crossed the mountains or swam down the coast, looking for prey. Every home was a miniature fortress of dressed volcanic rock built to withstand gale-force winds and attacks of the déformé, human or otherwise. Tahiata’s hall had once been a church that might have been built in Doc’s time. She sat with Ryan and Doc at her right and left hand, respectively. She was a beautiful, charming woman, and though she spoke French with Doc she kept flicking glances Rya
n’s way. He could have sworn her breasts pointed at him with an aggressive, bronze will of their own. He was glad Krysty was still on the ship while they brokered a deal with the Tahitians.

  Mr. Squid was a huge hit. She’d spent nearly the entire journey around the horn in her barrel. Apparently octopods could get seasick. During that time, her arm had grown back. Once they’d reached The Doldrums she had emerged and began taking on more and more of the ship’s labors as the crew had fallen ill. It turned out she spoke French. She sat in what suspiciously looked like a cauldron. Women, children and even veteran Tahitian warriors giggled, screamed and clapped their hands whenever the octopod spoke or moved or tucked a crustacean beneath her mantle and began crunching.

  Tahiata watched the proceedings benevolently. “I have made a decision, Mr. Ryan.”

  “What’s that, Great Tahiata?”

  “I shall let you and your ship stay in harbor for as long as you wish. You and your crew shall be treated as guests. You shall be well feasted, and we will allow time for your sick to heal and to make repairs on your ship. For rope, timber and canvas we shall trade fair.”

  It was far more than Ryan had any right to ask or expect. He waited for the rub. “You’re generous.”

  “You will be wanting to recruit warriors and sailors.”

  Ryan nodded. “We’ve got just once chance against Sabbath and his daughter. They want to take the Glory, not sink her. So we get to hammer away at them with our cannons, while they fire at our spars and masts to try and slow us. In the end, the battle will be decided by lead, steel and wood.”

  “You’ll find no shortage of volunteers. Of the many diseases on these islands, one of the strongest is island fever. All volunteers shall have right of return if wished after, say, two years of service?”

  “If we survive, the Glory will most likely head back to the Caribbean. But all volunteers signed to the book will have the right to take service with another ship after that time or take their leave whenever we are in your waters, even if that’s sooner than two years. Standard shares of spoil and trade will be based on earned rank.”

  “Agreed.”

  “What else?”

  “The moon is right. Tonight, Prince Koa will give me a son and his people shall acknowledge him a prince.”

  Koa strangled on his beer.

  “Should he fail, his failure shall be known throughout the Cific.”

  Ryan nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Should you win, and the Lady Evil survives, you shall bring her back here, with her cannons and what stores you do not absolutely require. You will give me one of your officers and enough sailors to train a crew for me.”

  “Should we survive, agreed.”

  Tahiata lifted her chin. “But?”

  “But if we’re going to win, we’re going to need blasters.”

  “We have a terrible shortage of those in our islands. I can give you none, other than what any volunteer brings with him, and those will be few.”

  J.B. stared at Tahiata shrewdly. “I see that you have a fair number of blacksmithed blasters.” He lifted a chin at the royal guards. “How are you keeping your predark steel running?”

  “We have the remnants of a machine shop.”

  “Mr. Ryan?” J.B. asked.

  “Yes, Gunny?”

  “Permission to bring Ricky and Techman Rood ashore.”

  * * *

  IT WAS A SPACE dear to J.B.’s heart. It stank of oil, metal and sweat. Far too much of it was taken up by the ville blacksmith’s forge, but they had a few working machines. J.B. grunted. Most had large, double, iron-mongered crank wheels that had to be turned by a pair of large and likely ville lads. They were far weaker than originally designed and could only be used to make small, light parts. Worse still, they were using coconut oil for lubrication and leather and fabric for their running belts. However, some of their basic functions were there. Ricky walked among the few machines. All had seen extensive jury-rigging. A few in the back were hulks that had been cannibalized.

  Rood stared at them thoughtfully. This aspect of tech was slightly out of his purview, but he saw the problem and he saw his role in it. “I got a couple barrels of wiring and cables in decent condition in the orlop. I can rewire most of these. We’ll bring in the generator Mr. Ryan found in South America. We’re low on fuel, though. We’re going to have to burn local alcohol. Probably ruin it.”

  J.B. nodded thoughtfully. “We run it till it blows.”

  Ricky ran his hands over the machines, admiring or scowling at the modifications, depending. “We can bring in the two bicycle generators to supplement the hand cranks for the light stuff. Save the jenny for the bolt assemblies. Those’ll be the tricky part. If we get enough willing participants, a lot of it can be done by hand.”

  Rood glanced at the admirable pile of salvaged iron, steel, aluminum and other metal pieces of all descriptions filling most of the small warehouse section. “I don’t see how a few dozen or even a few hundred crude single-shot muskets are going to turn the tide when we have ships boarding us port and starboard.”

  J.B. looked over at the ville’s blacksmith, Manua, and his two hulking sons, Manuarii and Nohoarii. The trio stared back eagerly. They didn’t speak English, but one look at J.B. told them they were going to be in for a profitable learning experience.

  “We’re not going to make single shooters.”

  Ricky and Rood both looked at him.

  J.B. looked at the tools and materials he had to work with and imagined the battle they had to win. It all came together in his mind in glowing detail. “Gentlemen, we’re going to manufacture the worst blasters ever made.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Aboard the Glory

  Ryan stared at the worst weapon he had ever seen in his life. He had spent the week eating, taking morning and afternoon saber fencing lessons from Doc and assisting with the refitting of the ship. J.B. and his machinist entourage had arrived, requesting a viewing on the quarterdeck.

  J. B. Dix was a master armorer, possibly the best left on the broken planet. He handed Ryan a travesty of the armorer’s art. The weapon seemed to mostly consist of a sheet metal tube with a stub of barrel sticking out of it. It had no stock. The pistol grip was a five-inch piece of pipe. The trigger had no guard. The weapon’s sights consisted of a small blob of solder on the muzzle for indexing. The mag stuck out horizontally to the left and seemed to have been press fitted from old predark soup cans. It had spots of rust, and none of the weapon’s parts had any finish. The few discernible moving parts were beaded with oil and grease. Nothing seemed to hold it together other than stamping and pins.

  Ryan hefted the stubby, ugly, ungainly, unbalanced, rattletrap thing and shook his head at J.B. “Tell me it’s better than it looks.”

  Ricky stopped short of puffing out his chest in pride. “It’s worse than it looks!”

  Rood mopped his grease-smeared brow and nodded. Manua and his sons grinned happily.

  J.B. seemed strangely proud of his work as he rattled off its tidal wave of shortcomings. “That barrel’s soft iron. It’ll start tearing apart and disintegrating after a dozen or so rounds. Speaking of rounds, they’re all black powder. On full-auto, and that’s the only way it fires, fouling’ll occur almost instantly. The only lubricant we have is coconut oil. It’ll start burning right quick. Between the black powder fouling and the burning oil, you’ll be lucky to fire off even one mag without a catastrophic jam.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Ricky and I agreed—no time to rifle the barrels. They’re as smooth as a shotgun.”

  “So accuracy will be...?”

  “Hitting a man-sized target beyond twenty-five meters will be genuinely problematic.” The Armorer grinned. “We won’t discuss the state of the springs.”

  Ryan saw a silver lining in J.B.’s, Ricky’s and Rood’s proud faces. “So why are you nuked assholes smiling?”

  Ricky bounced up and down on his toes. “We have a
hundred of them.”

  J.B. lifted his chin at the weapon in Ryan’s hand. “When the ships clash, every man will get off at least one burst, from one to twenty rounds. Then every man uses his personal or issue blaster, then it goes hand to hand.”

  Ryan held out the weapon like an unwieldy pistol and sighted over the barrel. J.B. had delivered the goods. When the Ironman and the Lady Evil came alongside and boarded, J.B. will give the crew of the Glory one brutal, unreliable, spitting distance opportunity to try to even the odds before the battle went hand to hand.

  Mr. Squid stood on the quarterdeck. Her golden eyes examined the weapon. “Gunny, I would like to requisition four of them for the battle.”

  J.B. considered his table of organization and allocations. “You ever fired a blaster before?”

  “No, but from what I understand of your submachine guns and the nature of the battle before us, I believe that will be of little consequence. All that will matter is concentrated fire.”

  “You can’t just jerk a trigger, Squid.”

  “From what little I know of firearms, you squeeze the trigger rather than jerking or pulling it.” Mr. Squid held up four arms and their tips all began sinuously making individual sailor’s knots. “I have some understanding of controlled contractions.”

  Koa laughed. “This I want to see!”

  As the commander on deck, Ryan had to keep the smile off his face. “Gunny, bring your weapons aboard and pick your fire teams. Subaqueous Specialist Squid to be issued four prebattle. Mr. Rood?”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Send the signal.”

  * * *

  RYAN STOOD NAKED except for his eye patch and the SIG in his hand beneath the Tahitian moon and watched the gentle, bioluminescent tide. Krysty lay on a blanket just inside the tree line. Ryan had learned that Tahitians made love by the beach all the time but always just out of sight of the surf and always with a blaster or spear near to hand. He felt the breeze play across his skin. It was a beautiful, tropical night.