by James Axler
"Hey," Dean wheezed, appearing over the gunwale.
Lowering the sword, Ryan helped the boy on board, then removed his jacket to drape over his greasy shoulders.
"Are you hurt?" the one-eyed man asked, checking his son for any wounds.
Dean simply shook his head, too tired to speak, and with a trembling hand he held out the munitions bag.
"A-anything else to get?" he croaked in a hoarse whisper.
Taking the soaked bag, Ryan felt a sudden rush of pride for his son. "No, we're leaving now."
A wan smile. "Okay by me."
Placing the munitions bag in the stern alongside the med kit, bedrolls, backpacks and wire-rimmed glasses, Ryan went to the middle of the canoe, took the single oar and started paddling toward the trawler. They had only traveled a short distance when he heard a dull metallic clanging and recognized it as the ville warning bell. That was when he noticed the people were gone from the beach, the gate closed. Glancing quickly about, Ryan saw the other companions standing on the deck of the fishing trawler, then glanced at the waterfall flowing into the lagoon that in turn fed the harbor. The dock was empty, no smoke visible from a fire. Everything seemed fine. Even the sky was clear.
Then from around the point of the island, a squat boat came steaming into view, its deck covered with men and weapons.
"Fireblast," he cursed, and started stroking faster. "We're not going to make it, son."
"Pirates?" Dean asked weakly, looking around.
"Worse," his father replied, as another PT boat cleared the point, closely followed by several more. "It's the lord baron, and he brought the whole bastard fleet."
Chapter Sixteen
Out beyond the breakers, the PT boats came steadily around the sandy point and toward the island harbor, thick smoke pouring from their aft funnels, forming a black cloud that lay over the ocean like a death shroud.
"Nine…ten," Dean counted grimly, forcing himself to sit upright. "Hot pipe, that's a lot."
"Too many," Ryan agreed, paddling fast. Out in the open, they were easy pickings. They had to reach shore, or they didn't have a chance. Looking straight ahead at the fishing trawler, Ryan saw Krysty and the others standing still, watching and waiting. There was nothing else they could do for the moment. Then the alarm gong from the ville abruptly stopped, and he realized it was so the incoming boats wouldn't hear. Glancing over a shoulder, Ryan saw the Peteys spreading out from a tight formation, some slowing, others heading for the pass in the breakers, the water churning behind them from the spinning props. Damn things might be steam-powered, but they had real speed and were armed to the teeth. He had seen PT boats many times before, mostly just wrecks on the garage level of waterfront redoubts, but these were in fighting trim. The hulls were shiny with paint, the windshield sparkling clean.
Plus, a low wall of sandbags ringed the top deck, offering protection from snipers and shrapnel. They had to weigh a lot, but the additional tonnage didn't seem to affect the speed of the gunboats. Fat black tubes for predark torpedoes rested on either side of the stubby killers, the usual quad-.50-caliber assembly removed for a single .50-caliber machine gun. The depth charge racks were gone, replaced with small black-powder cannons, and in the middle of the ship was a honeycomb arrangement of short pipes stuffed full of sleek rockets.
"Those must be the Firebirds Jones mentioned," Dean grunted, pulling on his clothes. His skin was raw on the right side of his chest, the rest of his body greasy, and the cloth kept sticking in place and had to be pulled loose again and again. Hopefully at the next redoubt, there would be a working shower.
"If those were LAW rockets," his father said, never slowing in his work, "one ship would have enough to level the whole ville."
"Look homemade," the boy said, buttoning his shirt closed.
"Doesn't mean they aren't as deadly as a shitter full of muties," Ryan added grimly. Five of the boats were staying outside the breakers, while the rest steamed into the harbor. Point advance guard and cover guard. These sailors weren't fools.
"Want me to help row?" the boy asked.
"Hell, no. Toss a line over the side," Ryan growled, his hand slipping off the oar from the slippery blood. "Make it look like we're fishing, not trying to get away."
"Yes, sir," Dean said, and fumbled with some twine, tossing a loose strand over the side and gazing expectantly into the calm water.
Not far away, the chilled shark floated belly up, schools of tiny fish and the big eel taking bites from the fresh carcass.
THREE OF THE Peteys cut their motors in the middle of the harbor, as PT 264 and its escort went straight for the dock.
The wind ruffling his hair, Lieutenant Brandon stood in the wheelhouse of PT 264 and studied the harbor. Everything looked peaceful enough, father and son fishing to the right, couple of windjammer trawlers at the dock, maybe a dozen canoes on the shore. There were a lot of sec men on the brick wall of the ville, but nobody was waving, and the gate was closed. At least the alarm gong wasn't sounding, so there couldn't be anything really wrong.
"Look there, sir," Sergeant Thor said, pointing. "At the end of the dock."
Brandon did, and frowned. As always, a couple of lanterns were hung at the end of the pier, to light the arrival of ships and give them sufficient warning not to crash into the dock. But one was draped with kelp. At night the light would be a bright green, visible for miles.
"Another bastard traitor," Brandon muttered, clenching a fist. "Kinnison only wanted the flash, nothing more."
"And now, sir?" the sergeant asked, trying not to move his face too much. On the long trip here, he had received his tattoo of rank, and the hundreds of needle stabs across his features still hurt, throbbing painfully through the night. Only the nimble tongue and young flesh of the silent slave helped him get to sleep at night. Brandon had already agreed to sell her to him. The price was high, ten blasters, but well worth it. She was the hottest slut he had ever had. Just amazing.
"This the second time we've been here and found traitors," the lieutenant said through clenched teeth. "The children go into chains, and we chill everybody else."
"Even the local baron?"
"Him first."
"Yes, sir." Thor grinned, checking the longblaster at his side.
STANDING QUIETLY in the hatchway leading to the lower deck, the slave said nothing and turned away so she could smile. Excellent. Let the norms chill one another. The fewer the better. As soon as the Peteys reached shore, she would dive overboard and swim for the jungle. She knew the formula for black powder, plus a lot of other weapons tech, and when the people faced norm soldiers again, they would be on equal footing.
"Half reverse," the pilot said into the speaking tube, and the boat noticeably slowed its approach to the dock. "Quarter speed…full reverse! All stop." The motors cut, and the Petey drifted into the slip like fingers into a glove. It bumped once against the wag tires edging the wood pylons and stopped as the bow softly crunched against the clean sandy beach.
While the crew attached the mooring lines, Thor worked the bolt on his longblaster and Brandon strode onto the dock. His clothing was amazingly clean, the white shirt and pants almost spotless, and had no patches. The shirt was unbuttoned halfway down, exposing a hairy muscular chest covered with ritual scars in a graduated delta pattern. A black leather belt was draped loosely across his wide chest in the manner of a bandolier, the loops full of shiny brass cartridges, and a huge revolver jutted from the holster.
Tucking his thumbs into the belt, Brandon checked the derringer hidden behind the buckle and bumped his left boot against the sandbags to make sure his stiletto was in place. Fine.
"Ahoy, Cold Harbor ville!" he shouted through cupped hands. "Open your gate and bring me Baron Langford at once! By order of the lord baron!"
There was no response from the people moving on the brick wall. Were they loading cannons? Impossible. Nobody would dare to shoot at the sec chief from Maturo Island!
"Last chance!" the lieuten
ant shouted.
Again, nothing.
"Master gunner!" he said over a shoulder. "Launch a Firebird. That'll get their attention."
Puffing a green cigar, the grizzled man removed it to blow a smoke ring. "Into?" he asked.
"Over. This time."
"Aye, aye, skipper."
Going to the launch pod, a sailor touched a loose fuse with the glowing tip of the seaweed stogie. It sizzled briefly, then the Firebird in the nest shook and leaped away on a spray of flame and smoke. The people on the wall gasped, and went out of sight. Only a few remained.
"Langford is dead!" a ville sec man shouted back.
"Bullshit!" Brandon shouted over the waves on the beach. "Bring him to me right now, or I'll blast that wall apart. Ya got ten seconds!"
Hastily a dozen voices shouted it was the truth, more pleading for clemency.
"What do you know, some stud aced the monster of Cold Harbor," Brandon said, addressing the crew of both PT boats at the dock. "Must be one big son of a bitch. Thor, ace the man as soon as we know who he is. Don't want to have to fight anything that sent Langford into the ground."
"Consider it done, sir," the sergeant said, wrapping the shoulder strap of the Weatherby .30-06 around his forearm to help steady his aim. The antique was cumbersome, heavy to carry and slow to shoot. But when one of its soft lead rounds hit, it was as if they had been struck by lightning. It didn't matter how big and strong the baron was. One shot and it was all over.
"Now open that gate!" Brandon ordered, placing his fists on his hips and radiating supreme confidence.
Suddenly a frightened face appeared on the wall. "Mercy, sir!" the sec man begged. "We had no idea the crazy bitch was making black powder! She said gunpowder. We didn't know what it was until too late!"
"Shut up, fool!" another sec man snapped, and cuffed the first across the mouth. "You on the beach! Leave, or die!"
"We're not going into chains!" another added fiercely.
Walking back a step, Brandon felt a chill run along his spine. Make. The first man said make, not try, or experiment. And now open rebellion? Shitfire, it had finally happened. Some brainboy figured out the formula. Or at least, a formula. If the proportions were wrong, it would only sizzle and not send a cannonball more than a few feet. Only one way of finding out if it worked, or was just black dirt.
"Open that bastard gate right now!" Brandon bellowed at the top of his lungs, drawing his revolver. "Or I'll level the whole ville!"
"Fuck you, spud. Death to the Lord Bastard!" a sec man shouted from the wall, pointing a flintlock and firing.
There was a hum past his head and Brandon dived for cover, as both of the .50-machine guns on the PT boats cut loose, the heavy-duty rounds raking the wall. Bricks shattered under the impact of the massive rounds, and sec men toppled from view.
Thor fired, and the sniper reeled with most of his head gone. In reply, a cannon in the wall roared, and a rain of shots harmlessly peppered the beach, churning the sand. But more sec men replaced the fallen, and a dozen longblasters started shooting, gray smoke masking the gunmen on top of the wall. The pilot of the escort boat cried out as his chest erupted in blood, and he staggered along the deck from the wheelhouse, trying to hold in his guts.
"Attack!" Brandon shouted, running for PT 264 and wildly firing his blaster at the rebels above.
"Cold Harbor free forever!" the people on the wall shouted, as a flurry of arrows hit the PTs, doing no real damage, and then another cannon stridently spoke, the water between the dock and a boat rising in a tall geyser from a near miss.
"LAND HO!" a pirate in the crow's nest shouted. "Cold Harbor due west!"
The smoky peak of the volcano came into view over the horizon as the huge windjammers raced onward, sails bursting with the wind. Quickly the rest of the jungle island rose from below the horizon. Some sort of mist was covering the ville, maybe a fog bank, but it hid the pirate fleet from the helpless landlubbers. There would be no need to wait until night. This was the perfect time to attack.
"Catch them with their pants down," Giles said eagerly, limping to the railing with the aid of a crude crutch made from a tree branch. His left leg was gone from the knee down, the stump too tender yet to strap on a wooden pegleg.
It hadn't taken Bachman long to acquire seven other ships to stage a raid on as big a prize as a full shipload of black powder. And even if the captains and crews of their sister vessels weren't seasoned fighters, eight windjammers was an armada. All counted, the fleet carried more than a hundred cannons of assorted sizes. That was almost as much as the ill-fated flotilla that had attacked Maturo Island a hundred moons ago. But this was no predark fortress armed with Firebirds and rapidfires. Just some fat fisherman with a bunch of old cannons, half of which probably didn't work.
Standing at the wheel, Captain Bachman removed his wicker hat as he sniffed the air. "Is that Petey smoke I smell?" he asked the crew at large.
"Look!" a bosun shouted, leaning far over the gunwale to point. "Must be a dozen of the things in the harbor, skipper!"
"That many?" a pirate asked, surprised. "Are they attacking the ville?"
"Looks like," another pirate growled, loosening the sword at his side. "What's going on, skipper?"
"Nuked if I know," Bachman said, studying the island through his glass. "Mebbe they didn't pay for all that black powder the Constellation was carrying and now the lord bastard wants it back, with interest."
"Or maybe Kinnison is finally building a second fortress," Red Blade growled, advancing to the railing of the quarterdeck and gripping the wood hard. "Not going to rule in secret anymore, just gonna take over, island by island."
"Always knew he'd try some day," Giles said gruffly, shifting to the motion of the vessel.
"Yeah," another pirate added. "But we found him first."
The bosun scratched his chest. "If it's war the fat pussball wants, then let's give him some!"
"What about the other ships?"
"They'll do as they're told," Bachman stated, tucking the lens into his vest. "If they want a piece of the booty."
"Ready all blasters for a broadside!" Red Blade shouted through cupped hands. "Solid shot and chain. We'll sink them before they even know we're here!"
"Bo, what about the Firebirds?" a pirate asked, scratching his cheek with the iron hook at the end of his wrist.
"Can't hit what they can't see. The smoke from their own blasters will let us slip in and chill them all."
"Bosun, full sails!" Captain Bachman ordered. "Tack on every yard of canvas the masts will hold! We'll charge right down their throats with guns blazing!"
"Our thirty-pounders give twice the range of any other pirate!" Red Blade boasted proudly. "Blow them out of the water, we will!"
"Just as long as the outlanders are mine," Giles stated, drawing a dagger and stabbing it into the wooden railing. "Got plans for that one-eyed fucker and his bitch."
"Gonna take them a long time to die," the pirate muttered, his mind filled with demented visions of flame, blood and knives. "Oh yeah, a real long time."
IN A SPRAY of sparks, a Firebird rustled from its nest on PT 264 and streaked across the beach to slam into the ville gate. The stout barrier was blown apart in a thunderclap, a dozen voices shrieking on the other side.
A .50-caliber machine gun stuttered at the palisades of the wall, while another flight of arrows arced high into the sky and plummeted downward, hitting water and deck, but no flesh.
"Another rocket!" Brandon ordered, reloading his blaster when there was an odd whistling noise in the air. He realized what it was just in time to drop and cover his head with both arms before the barrage of cannonballs hit.
Sand jumped on the beach, geysers rose from the water, bricks exploded outward from the Cold Harbor wall, and the dock violently shattered, spraying pieces of wood in every direction. On PT 144, sec men screamed as the hail of splinters tore them apart like a shotgun blast.
"Get moving!" Brandon commanded,
scrambling aboard his own vessel. "That's the Gibraltar out there! Her thirties can tear us apart!"
Staggering along the deck, the crew was alive and undamaged, merely shaken from the terrible near miss. The hull bristled with splinters, and one man had a sliver sticking out of his arm that went completely through. Shock had him numb, and the sailor didn't even know he was wounded yet.
"Thirty-pound cannons?" the pilot gasped, even as he slipped the gears into reverse. "Davey save our ass if those hit!"
In agonizing slowness, the thumping of the engines increased and the ship started to back away from the decimated beach.
On the wall, the ville sec men cheered, and their fifteen pounders boomed again, a line of splashes dotting the water around the three vessels in the middle of the harbor. A sec man was slammed overboard. Two of the Peteys launched Firebirds that streaked past the ville and disappeared into the jungle beyond.
"They missed?" the pilot of PT 264 cried out aghast, struggling with the wheel. The rudder was stiff, something obviously damaged underwater. "How can that be?"
"It's the smoke." Brandon cursed bitterly. "The warheads can't see clearly." This was bad. Without the rockets for protection, the battle was going to get bloody fast. Speed was their only hope now. The ville had no range, the pirates were large but slow, while the Peteys could move like crazy once they got up full steam. "Pilot, give me a zigzag pattern! Don't let them track us for another hit!"
"Aye, sir!"
"Bastard pirates," Thor growled, and fired his longblaster twice at the distant windjammers. They were definitely in his range, but all of the exhaust fumes from their own engines, mixed with the discharges of the ville's cannons, made it damn near impossible to target anything. Their forces divided, looking in the wrong direction, it was a perfect time for the coldhearts to stage an ambush. The Peteys were trapped between two enemies, and the cross fire had already claimed one of their crafts. FT 144 was listing to starboard, clearly taking on water. Stationary, it was good as sunk.
Beyond the breakers, the five Peteys were already moving in a defensive pattern, crossing one another's wakes and circling back to confuse the enemy gunners. Then the pirate cannons thundered again, one ship a lot louder than the others combined. Splashes announced all misses, except for the ville. Cannonballs brutally impacted the weakening wall, smashing out chunks of masonry, men and debris flying everywhere.