by E. E. Knight
Post groaned and coughed. "I can taste blood," he said.
Valentine found the wound, high enough on his chest to nearly be at the shoulder. He grabbed a first-aid kit off the wall and found a compress within. He applied the dressing to the softly pulsing hole. Noticing blood on the floor, he gently lifted Post and found another hole opposite.
"Good news, Will. It went straight through."
"Watch ... out. The captain'll have the marines on you in a minute."
"Most of them won't be armed. All they'll have are whatever guns are scattered in the ship."
"Stern. He'll send men down the hatches." Post was pale with pain, but still thinking clearly enough. His bravery gave Valentine heart.
"We've blocked everything off," Ahn-Kha said from the doorway. "The Chief is welding the access hatches shut."
A Grog hooted and fired toward the T-intersection forward. The shotgun blast sounded like a grenade explosion in the confined area of the metal passageway.
They heard a clatter around the shadowed corner of the T-intersection facing the barricade. Ahn-Kha knelt behind the mattress-shielded door, the pump-action in his hands looking like a child's toy.
"Mr. Rowan?" a voice called down the hall. "It's Partridge. I've got Went and Torres with me. What's happening, sir?"
Valentine exchanged a look with Ahn-Kha, and mouthed the word marines. "I don't have time for the whole story, Party. But everything the captain said over the intercom is true. Post is with me. We are trying to take the ship."
"What're you talking to him for?" a voice said from around the right-hand corner of the intersection.
"Shut up, See-Pee. It's our officer," Valentine heard Torres growl.
"You planning on going into the Blue, sir?" Partridge continued, ignoring the byplay.
"Something like that. It's a life away from the Reapers to any man who comes with me."
"You move, and I'll shoot you down," the unknown voice from the right side of the T-intersection threatened.
"Hey, what're—," Partridge began, but the sound of shots cut him off. Valentine heard four shots in rapid succession, and the three marines appeared in the corridor, Torres and Went holding the wounded Partridge between them.
They squinted in the glare of the spotlight, holding up their free hands. Torres had a revolver in his, and Went a rifle.
"Bastards! You killed Delano!" someone yelled from around the corner as the marines approached the barricade.
Ahn-Kha plucked the wounded man over and bore him into the arms locker, and put him down next to Post. Valentine helped the other two. Torres followed Partridge, who had blood already soaking through the right side of his uniform.
"We're with you, Mr. Rowan," Went, one of Valentine's deadeyes, said once they were safely behind the mattresses again. "When we heard the announcement, Party, he said, 'Who'd you rather take orders from, Saunders or Mr. Rowan?' I grabbed my match rifle, and Torres got Corporal Grant's pistol, and came to see what was happening. That bastard Delano fired first, sir, and we shot back. Everything's dark and confused. I heard firing forward. I think everyone's shooting at each other."
"I'm glad you're here, Went. I want to be straight with you. This is not going as I planned. It's us, the Grogs, and the Chief and a few of his men. We're outnumbered about eight to one."
The corners of Went's mouth twitched back into something that, if not a smile, was at least a wry grimace. "Leastways the guns are here." He peered over the edge of the barricade. "They won't take me alive. I'm not going to get delivered in handcuffs to some Hood."
The hatch to the generator room at the bottom level of the ship opened, and the Chief's face looked up at the assembled Grogs and men. "Tight as a drum, they're going to have to blow a big hole in the ship to get at us from down here. Captain's going to have an interesting time commanding the ship without engines."
"Good work, Chief," Valentine said.
Valentine heard a commotion down the hall and sought out the location with hard ears. The captain was speaking to someone, demanding a report. Saunders did not care for the answers, he began to yell. "That's all? And you let men join them?"
"They shot Delano, sir, and he had the only gun right then."
"You've got a wrench in your hands—you should have bashed some skulls in with it. Out of my sight!"
After a moment, Valentine heard Saunders's voice raised again, this time projecting from somewhere along the starboard-side corridor.
"The attempt on the ship has failed, Rowan. You know it, and I'm sure it's starting to dawn on those deluded enough to follow you."
"We're ready to wreck the engines, Captain, if we come to believe that," Valentine called back.
"You're a dead man, Rowan, and so's your pet drunk. But I'm offering an amnesty to whoever turns you in. I'll hush all this up. Like it never happened, long as they frog-march you and Post out."
Valentine looked over his shoulder; Torres and Went were both looking at him. He read doubt in their expressions, but whether it was doubt in him or doubt in the captain's promise he could not say. He slowly placed his gun on the floor, butt end pointed at the marines. 'Takers?" Valentine asked softly.
Went blanched, but Torres just smiled and shook his head. Partridge groaned something from his position on the floor of the arms locker.
"What was that?" Valentine asked Torres, who knelt beside the wounded man.
"'Tell Captain Saunders to go fuck himself,'" Torres repeated for the wounded man.
Valentine picked up his gun. "We put it to a vote, Captain, and it's unanimous: Go fuck yourself."
"You'll all bleed, you renegade bastards," the captain swore.
"Tell me, sir," Valentine shouted back. "What happened to the last captain that failed in a mission because of a mutiny? I heard Kurians ordered—"
"By Kur, Rowan, I'll make it so hot for you, you'll wish you were in hell. I'll keelhaul you. You'll beg me to let you die, renegade!"
Torres disappeared into the arms locker and returned, scooting up toward Valentine with something in his hand. Valentine recognized the can-shaped object as one of the ship's grenades. "Play much pool, Mr. Rowan?" Torres asked, putting two fingers into the ring atop the explosive.
"Not my game, Torres," Valentine whispered back.
"Can I try a two-bumper shot?"
"Be my guest."
Torres pulled the pin and listened for the hiss. Valentine saw a thin wisp of smoke appear from the central fixture that held the fuse. The marine stood and, with a left-handed sidearm throw, sent the grenade spinning down the corridor, whirling like a gyroscope toward the voice of the captain. Valentine kept his head up long enough to see it bounce off the bullet-marked wall at the crossbar of the T-intersection and heard it hit again somewhere in the corridor corner leading to the starboard passageway.
There was just enough time before the explosion for cries of "Grenade!" and "Look out!" to be heard, before an orange flash lit up the corridor.
As the ringing noise faded from their ears, Valentine felt the sweat running down the skin over his spine.
"About time for the captain to try something really stupid," Valentine predicted grimly, hearing voices yell back and forth from both sides of the intersection. He hated the thought of what was coming.
The captain obliged him. The loyal sailors and marines of the Thunderbolt tried to take the barricade with a rush. One of the machine guns from the upper deck appeared around the portside corner and began firing blindly toward the barricade. Valentine and Torres knelt behind the mattress-reinforced door, while the others took cover in rooms off the main passageway. Valentine heard the bullets hitting the door with a chunking sound, but the mattresses slowed down even the large-caliber shells enough so they failed to do more than dig into the solid wood.
When the gun's belt ran out, the corridor filled with screaming attackers trying to rush the barricade under the cover of a few pistols in the front ranks. The spotlight lit them up with unearthly clarity, ghos
tly faces white and straining. Ahn-Kha lifted the machine gun Post had dragged with him, and firing from his shoulder swept the corridor, cutting down the attackers running at them two abreast. Valentine added short bursts from his own gun. They flung the men down into bloody heaps well before the hopeless attack reached the barricade. A pair of men dodged into the dark laundry room, only to be hurled out again by shotgun blasts from Ahn-Kha's Grogs waiting within.
The charge was bloody but brief, and when it was over, Valentine counted eleven dead and wounded heaped in the corridor, lying in a thin lake of spilled blood under spattered walls. Only their blood penetrated the barricade, seeping in under the mattresses and door, until its odor overwhelmed even the cordite in the air.
Valentine sank to his knees, reloading. "Last thing I wanted. This is not what I wanted," he heard himself saying over and over again, waltzing on the edge of hysteria.
Ahn-Kha placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Steady now, my David," the huge Grog said. "Better them than us."
A figure arose from the bloody heap in the corridor, pushed up by an arm and his one good leg. The marine tried to take a step back toward the intersection when he slipped on the slick red liquid pooled on the floor, falling full on his injured leg with an agonized scream.
"Would you help Cal before he bleeds to death?" Valentine shouted down the corridor.
"You won't shoot?"
"No, for God's sake. Get him, would you?" Torres added.
The tacit truce allowed a pair of sailors to pull the wounded men away around the corridor. Ahn-Kha placed a new belt in his machine gun, closing the receiver with a determined slam.
"Partridge died," Went reported. "Sorry, Mr. Rowan. And I think Mr. Post is in shock."
Valentine crawled into the locker and felt Post's pulse. It was weak but steady, his breathing shallow.
A half-familiar burning smell tickled Valentine's nostrils. He looked up at the ceiling, where smoke began to flow from an air-supply vent. He moved to the hatch to the engine room. "Chief, looks like they're burning something in the ventilators, can you do anything about it?"
"Yeah, I noticed," the Chief called back. "I'm turning off the fans now. The access to the smokestack is welded shut— otherwise, I could shunt it out of there. It'll get smoky, especially if they burn something in the stairways, too."
"How about reversing the fans?"
"We'd have to rewire them. We're just going to have to cough for a while, I think."
The squawk box crackled to life. "Last chance, men," the captain's voice gloated. "We've got some fires going in the ventilators, and we'll be dropping bits of fender tire on for good measure. It's going to get unpleasant down there in a few minutes, if not lethal. Anyone who comes to their senses will get mercy. Too much has happened for it to get covered up now, but I'll do what I can."
"Why can't you shut him up, Chief?" Went yelled as Torres solemnly laid his tunic over Partridge's head.
"It's on an emergency battery up on the bridge. I could cut the wires, I suppose—"
Ahn-Kha wrinkled his nose. "Disgusting."
Valentine began to cough at the harsh smell of burning rubber filling the room, causing his eyes to water.
"Try this," the Chief said, passing Valentine a damp rag.
Valentine imitated the Chief and his men by tying the cloth over his mouth and nose. He did not notice a difference.
Eyes watering in the noxious burning-rubber smell, Valentine tried to come up with a plan. If all else failed, it was his duty to at least deprive the Kurians of the Thunderbolt. He could have the Chief open the scuttle to the ocean, and let the sea take the ship and his mission with her. Perhaps he and Ahn-Kha could even survive the swim to the Jamaican shore....
Something hit the side of the ship with a resounding thump. A slight sideways motion rocked the Thunderbolt, barely enough to make a man unsteady on his feet. Had they run aground, or drifted into a reef? A second later, Valentine heard firing from above.
Valentine looked up at Ahn-Kha. The Grog's hornlike ears were twisting this way and that, listening to the confused clamour from above. Valentine recognized the sound of voices shouting, almost cheering together, intermixed with the gunfire. He and Ahn-Kha exchanged questioning looks.
"It has to be the pirates," Valentine said.
"Aww, shit, just what we need," Went said, his voice sounding strangely pitched owing to a set of improvised noseplugs.
Valentine hopped up to join Ahn-Kha. "You're exactly right, Went. It is just what we need. Men!" Valentine said, raising his voice and calling down to the Chief and his men below. "Let's make some noise. Yell for help, everyone!"
They all looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Valentine took a choking breath. "Heeeeelp!" he howled down the corridor.
Torres and Went began shouting, as well as the Chief and his men in the engine room. Valentine yelled until he saw spots in front of his eyes, taking unpleasantly deep breaths of smoke-tainted air. Ahn-Kha outdid all the men, bellowing loudly enough to rattle cups in the galley. Ahn-Kha's Grogs joined in, beating metal tools against the pipes and walls, adding a metallic clamor to their combined voices.
He held up a hand for silence. "Kill the spotlight," he ordered. Torres turned the switch at the back of the lamp, incautiously putting his hand on the light's housing and burning himself. Torres swore.
"Quiet there," Valentine said, listening to footsteps in the corridor. Two sailors came around one end of the intersection, a marine from the other, holding their hands up.
"Don't shoot Captain Rowan!" the marine, a corporal named Hurst, begged.
"Mr. Rowan, we're giving up to you here," a CP petty officer added.
"Okay, come forward. Keep your hands in view, men," Valentine said, nauseated from the burnt-tire smell. "What's happened up top?"
"Dunno for sure, sir," Hurst reported. "The exec had me watching the engine-room escape hatch, in case y'all came up that way. All of a sudden we got small-caliber fire. Sweeping bad, sir. There was a ship alongside, and a boat, too, come up in the dark while everyone was busy. Nilovitch got hit, couldn't do anything for him, so we came below. Had to jump over the smoke fire they had going, heard a lot of shouting and shooting behind me. Figured it was a good chance to throw in with y'all. Then we saw these two," he said, gesturing to the Thunderbolt sailors.
"My David," Ahn-Kha said, but Valentine was already reacting. Lights appeared from the T-intersection.
"Get over here, men," Valentine said, and he and Went helped them get over the barricade as Ahn-Kha pointed the machine gun down the passageway.
"In there," Valentine ordered, indicating the hallway behind the barricade leading to the aft storage lockers. "Torres, keep an eye on them."
He heard voices coming from the two joining corridors. "Musta been back here," one of the voices said. A few shots still sounded from forward.
"Hello?" Valentine called down the hall. "If you're looking for the people yelling for help, you found them."
The voices hushed. Valentine hardened his ears, searching where his eyes could not go.
"Mebbe a trap," someone muttered around the corner.
"If it is, you can tell the commodore you avenged me. Quiet now, I need to listen," a female voice said. "Hello back," the unknown woman added, a bit more loudly. "This ship is in the hands of the Commodore's Flotilla, of Jayport, Jamaica. I offer you a chance of surrender with fair treatment. Why were you calling for help?"
The owner of the voice stepped around the corner, and all that Valentine could make out in the smoke and darkness was that she was a tall woman. An equally tall man joined her, and at a motion from her hand he opened a kerosene lantern and held it up, revealing the two of them. They both wore loose cotton shirts, cut as pullovers with deep V-necks, dark culottes topped with a sash and gunbelts, and boat sandals. She had dark hair pulled back from her face and handsome, large-eyed features showing Latin blood in her golden complexion. The man behind her was ebony-hued, eyes
narrowed suspiciously as he searched the men on the barricade, a revolver in his other hand.
Valentine thought it best to match her and hopped over the barricade, though he took care to land on his good leg. "Ahn-Kha, tell your pair in the laundry not to fire. It's over."
Ahn-Kha barked something out, answered by grunts from the darkness of the laundry room. Valentine moved forward to meet the two at the intersection. She looked at the bodies, and Valentine saw her reading the story in the carnage.
"Surrender might not be the right word, but we won't trouble you."
"You in a position to cause trouble?"
"Not if you play fair by us. My name is Valentine, out of Southern Command in the Ozarks. God knows how I could prove it to you, though. Our plan was to take the ship, but"—Valentine indicated the barricade behind him—"it went rather wrong. Help us, and you'll have my thanks, and my word that we will not harm you or the Thunderbolt further."
"You are a long way from Mountain Home, Valentine," she said, showing a better knowledge of his land than he would have guessed. "My name is Carrasca, First Leftenant of the Rigel."
"What's happened to the rest of my crew?" Valentine asked.
"A few were killed. Someone from the bridge fired a machine gun into us, and more were shot off the superstructure, but most surrendered. I see your men are better armed than the rest."
"We had the arms locker and engine room, about the only thing that went right tonight. You picked a good time to board."
"Lucky for both of us. Can you clear out that mess in the corridor? I need to send men down to watch the engine room."
"Nobody is going to sink her," Valentine said.
"It is my responsibility to make sure of that. I'm sure you can understand."
Valentine stepped aside as more of the Rigel's men entered, nodding to Ahn-Kha. The Grog gripped the door of the barricade and lifted it aside. Carrasca gave orders, briefly and to the point. Valentine admired the way her men were in control, even in the confusion of a fight. Whoever these pirates were, they had a discipline different from, and superior to, the fear-inspired one that dominated the Thunderbolt.