Tale of The Thunderbolt

by E. E. Knight

  The compartment above opened onto the deck from doors on either side of the ship, and Valentine led his men to the door opposite from the side of the grinding collision. If he could just get them out in the open as an organized team, rather than as frightened individuals, the ship might stand a chance. The deck door on the collision side swung open, and the men brought up their guns.

  "Wait!" Valentine rasped, holding the flat of the blade of the machete against the man behind him. "It's Owens."

  A sailor made it in and slammed the door shut behind. "They're everywhere-we have to get below," he said.

  "You'll come with us," he said to the unstrung man. "Bellows and Gomez, Owens goes between you two. C'mon, the rest of you."

  They burst onto the port side of the ship, running for the stairs to the bridge. Shots and piercing Reaper screams filled the night. As Valentine hit the first step, a caped figure appeared at the top of the stairs.

  "Shoot it!" Valentine shouted, throwing himself down on the stairs so the men would have a clear view.

  The Reaper lunged. Shotgun blasts flashed blue-white. Even the awesome strength in the Reaper's pounce was no match for buckshot at close range, and the wounded tiling cried out as it was blown back. It recovered and vaulted over the rail to drop to the deck, but Torres swiveled the mouth of his shotgun and blew it into the darkness.

  It splashed into the water, and Valentine ascended the stairs. He ducked without thinking, and heard the whoof of a Reaper's hand cut the air where his head had been. Valentine lashed back up, driving the quickwood pike-point in his hand up like a striking cobra. It caught the Reaper under the arm and drove through fabric built to stop bullets but not an old-fashioned point. Valentine felt sticky fluid hit his hand, and he got out from under the wound.

  "Marines," he called down at the men and across the ship. His team was leaning over the rail to shoot at the Reaper that had blown into the sea; he had to keep them going to the bridge. He ran up the rest of the stairs. The wounded Reaper stood up, its jaws open in painful spasm as it clawed at the quickwood point buried in its armpit. It lost its balance and sagged against the upper deck rail.

  Valentine paid it no more attention. Another Reaper, its back turned to him, tore away the metal door to the bridge, peeling it like a painter removing wallpaper.

  "Aim for the face," Valentine said to the men who joined him on the upper deck. The Reaper whirled. Valentine heard screams and shooting from the stairs below. Torres, just behind him, fired at the Reaper at the door, throwing it against the bridge-cabin. Valentine circled as the others continued to shoot, pumping round after round into the thrashing creature.

  He took a good grip on the machete and gathered himself.

  The men stopped shooting, hurrying to reload. He dashed forward like a cricket-bowler, catching it in the throat with the heavy blade. The head did not come off, but he damaged the nerve trunks and vertebrae enough for it to go limp. It continued to snap at him with gleaming jaws, its yellow eyes dimming.

  The wound closed over the blade.

  Valentine left the machete wedged in its neck and went to the rail to look at the gangway below. The Kurian death machine at the back of his men had taken its toll in the seconds it took him to deal with the other. Twisted bodies and pieces of bodies lay on the deck. Three survivors fired pistols as it advanced. The Reaper used Owen's corpse as a shield. Valentine vaulted over the rail and landed behind it.

  It ignored his presence, continuing forward toward the marines. Valentine lashed out with a foot, catching it in the small of the back, but he might as well have kicked the Thunderbolt. He took his other pike-point in both hands and drove it between the thing's shoulder blades.

  The point struck near enough to the Reaper's heart to stiffen it instantly. The Reaper arched its back, its whole body bending like a bow, and hit the deck, still clutching Owen's bullet riddled body.

  He was out of quickwood and had no time to look for the other pike-point among the bodies. "Everyone to the bridge," he said.

  Irish hauled the Reaper out of the way of the damaged door. Valentine heard the welcome pounding of the Oerlikon from aft; Post must have gotten it into action. He went to the starboard rail and looked over the side. Kurian sailors were taking cover as the Oerlikon's fire moved up and down the deck of the submarine. Valentine saw a strange, thin smokestack at the rear of the ship. A snorkel on a submarine? Perhaps that was how it had crept up so close to the Thunderbolt without being seen. A quick rise to the surface, Reapers ready at the hatches, and all there would be to do was leap on board, an easy matter for the superhuman avatars.

  There was still fighting forward. Valentine heard the Grogs screaming and a gunshot or two from the rear. "Torres, take two men and cover the men at the Oerlikon from here. They'll go for that if they get organized. Who had the other pike-point?"

  "Hurst, sir. He's dead below," Torres said. "I'll check-"

  "No, everyone stay together up here."

  The bridge door opened, and Carrasca stood at the portal, a shotgun at her shoulder. "What is it?"

  "Kurians, on the Sharkfin. They tried to board us. Too greedy. They could have just put a big limpet mine against the side and sunk us. But Saunders wants his ship back."

  "What do we do about the Reapers still on board?" Carrasca said. "The Chief says there's some of them hammering at the engine room door. They'll get through."

  "Tell the Chief to pour it on. Let's get to the wheel," Valentine said.

  They went to the bridge, lit by a single red bulb over the map table. The instrument lights had long since gone out and never been replaced.

  Valentine saw the sub making off, gathering speed as it ran. Post's Oerlikon bursts riddled the stern as it sought safety beneath the waves, explosions and smoke flying from the impact of the thirty-millimeter shells.

  "We've got to get to the main gun. What a target! The Oerlikon is tearing it up," Carrasca said.

  "He's just scratching its back-the real vitals are under water. We can still get them. The prow's reinforced, you know. Icebreaker."

  "Jesu," Carrasca said. "If we get enough speed ..." She went to the engine room squawk. "Chief, everything she's got. Maximum revolutions!"

  "Aye aye, sir," the Chief crackled back. "Do something about those bastards on the other side of the bulkhead- they're tearing the rivets out."

  "You want the wheel?" Carrasca said to Valentine.

  "You're the better helmsman."

  Carrasca took the ship into a gentle turn, letting her gain momentum.

  "Ramming speed, Hortator," Valentine said.

  A Grog lept up to the bridge window, howling in fear. A pale arm plucked it back down. Valentine heard a thud on the roof and more shots from outside.

  "What's that?" the Chief said. "I-"

  Carrasca hit the collision alarm again as the Thunderbolt knifed through the water. She aimed for the conning tower but didn't hit it square; at the last moment the submarine must have known what was coming and turned away. The impact threw Carrasca against the wheel. Valentine hung onto the instrument panel. The Reaper on the roof of the bridge fell forward into the cannon mount.

  The Thunderbolt ran up and over the submarine, to the sound of tortured metal breaking up. Valentine saw the stern of the sub burst from the water like a breaching whale.

  "Madre de Dios, snapped in two!" Carrasca said.

  The Reaper on the gun deck jumped from the side of the ship, plummeting into the water by the crippled sub, perhaps summoned to the aid of its Master Kurian in its final need. Valentine had one more thing to do. He took Carrasca's shotgun and went to the door.

  "Stay here, and keep the doors locked. The Reapers'll be disoriented-they won't work together once their Masters are dead, but they're still dangerous. Wild animals in a trap: all confusion and pain."

  Valentine glanced down to the Grog deck, but saw no sign of Ahn-Kha or his Grogs. Just bodies. Grogs, Jamaicans, and the Thunderbolt's sailors were strewn in broken pieces eve
rywhere on the deck like mannequins run over by a tractor-trailer, under blood-splashed quickwood branches. He ignored the gruesome tableau and went to the starboard arms locker, where he retrieved out one of the aged machine guns. He placed a belt into the receiver and hefted the weight. It was a more suitable weapon for Ahn-Kha, or a tripod, but it would have to do.

  Another Reaper, its form misshapen by a missing leg, jumped from the stern into the water. Valentine moved forward, down to the Grog deck, and then up to the bow. He leaned over and winced at the damage to the front of the ship. Hopefully just her forward compartment was flooding. The ship could absorb this kind of damage and still proceed under her own power, were she fresh from the dockyard. Was she still sound enough to float?

  The submarine was gone. All that remained of her on the surface was a fuel-oil slick, spreading across the water like a bloodstain at a murder site. And debris. And bodies. Swimming men struggled to stay afloat amidst the floating wreckage.

  Valentine spotted one odd shape, a long thin tentacle with a heavy membrane attached. A Kurian, forgetting to disguise himself in his distress. Valentine loosed a burst into the struggling form. He swung the smoking barrel to the next swimmer, an oil-coated man in white, and killed him with another burst. A heavy form floated on a life preserver, perhaps dead, perhaps faking it. Valentine could not make out the features for certain, but the hair looked as though it might belong to Captain Saunders. He fired a burst into the body, which twitched at the impact of the bullets before disappearing under the oil. Another swimmer burst through the oil, taking a deep gasp of air, having miraculously escaped the sinking sub. Valentine shot him before he could draw his second breath.

  The gun grew hot, and he had to slow his rate of fire. The brass casings dropped onto the deck, and hundreds lay at his feet when a hand touched his shoulder.

  "It's over, my David," came a familiar bass.

  "Oh, dear God," Post added, looking at the casings scattered on the deck. Valentine met his lieutenant's gaze, looking for understanding. Instead he saw disgust. Post could see only pitiful figures in the wreckage being murdered for no reason. Several Kurians had to have been on board the submarine for that many Reapers to attack at once, and it would be easy for one of them to pose as a sailor. As long as the Kurians lived, the Reapers that might still be on board the Thunderbolt could kill, plant a bomb, or otherwise sabotage the ship. He could no more risk a Kurian deciding to achieve a Pyrrhic victory by destroying the Thunderbolt that he could have let Alistar live back in New Orleans.

  Valentine tossed the gun to the deck and left the bow. Ahn-Kha trailed him. Valentine was thankful for his comrade's silence. Ahn-Kha would listen and give his opinion sometime in the future, but now there was too much to do. He did not look over his shoulder to see Post, but he heard him unload the gun and pick it up.

  "How many of your Grogs are left?" Valentine said.

  "A hand-and-two." Ahn-Kha had forgotten himself in the crisis and used Golden One phraseology for six. "It was desperate, even with the crossbows and the quickwood. There were many of them. We hunted the last of them from the stern with the pikes. When we wounded one in the leg with a pike, it managed to tear its own limb off and escape. They've learned to fear wounds from these weapons."

  "So the ship is clear? Will she be able to continue?" They descended to the Grog-deck.

  "I do not know. That is for the captain and the Chief to say. I was thrown off my feet by the collision, but I was be-lowdecks and saw no water. She does not seem to sink."

  "Mr. Post," Valentine said when Post joined them on the well deck. "We have to get the guns manned and ready while we're motionless. The submarine wasn't the only ship the Santo Domingans had. You'll be in charge of that. But leave me enough for a party to search the ship. Ahn-Kha with his crossbow, a couple of pike men, men with shotguns, four should do it. We'll look for any of our people who are wounded, of course, but we have to be ready for a fight. A Reaper or two may still be holed up somewhere on board. We'll check every corner big enough to hold a dog. Once we know the ship is safe, the Chief can go to work and see if she'll be able to move again.

  "After that, we'll clean up the dead, and the ship. I don't want everyone walking over bloodstains for the rest of the trip. Any questions?"

  Post shook his head. "No, sir. I think they already pulled up a sailor from the submarine portside, sir. Shall I shoot him, just in case?"

  Valentine ignored the rebuke. "Let me talk to him."

  The sailor was a Cuban by birth, but his mother had been taken to Santo Domingo when she and her family were captured in a raid. He sat by the entryway, trembling and wet from head to toe, with a blanket around his narrow shoulders. Valentine's Spanish wasn't up to the dialect, so Car-rasca translated his story.

  "I served on the Sharkfin four cruises, as a mechanic. I had just been called forward to get gas masks, because the damage from your gun was filling the engine room with smoke, when the collision came. Some of the men tried to get out through the old torpedo room, but those doors long since quit working. I made it out through the forward deck hatch-" Carrasca quit translating when the submariner howled in pain as Valentine grabbed his wrist and twisted it, dropping the wretch to his knees. The prisoner was human. A Kurian's disguise would have flickered.

  "Val, stop!" Carrasca said. "He's just telling us what happened to him."

  "I'm making sure he is who he says he is. Tell him I apologize. See if he'd like to join up with us-we could use him."

  The Santo Domingan sailor seemed willing. Through Carrasca, he relayed why.

  "The White Captain of the north, he was a madman. He convinced the Kur that if they got this ship, they could take over all the islands south of here. He promoted men he trusted, and to gain his trust they had to treat us badly. We worked like mad and were still punished. I had planned to swim away the first chance I could get, let the Haitians castrate me and use me as a slave in the fields. At least I would live."

  "What about this last trip? Who was on board?" "Seigneurs from the Samanae Peninsula. They had their eye on the lands west of Cape Haitian, and with this boat they could have ruled the coast. I had no love for them, I am glad they are dead."

  Valentine silently commended the dead Saunders for his final throw of the dice. With the right men under him, he would have been able to snatch the Thunderbolt away from the Hispaniolan Kurians in the manner Valentine took it away from the rulers of New Orleans. A man of strange contradictions. Long ago he had quit asking himself why so many talented men chose to devote themselves to serving the enemies of their blood.

  After the ship had been searched and re-searched, Valentine returned to his cabin, feeling an itchy bum from the Reaper-blood. He'd wiped it off quickly enough, but needed a thorough cleansing with pumice.

  Post was rinsing his mouth out with baking soda in their cabin. Ahn-Kha had moved forward with the ship's remaining Grogs.

  "Do you want to talk about it?" Valentine asked, scrubbing hard and working up a lather.

  Post did him the courtesy of not playing dumb.

  "Sir, you've pulled this whole thing, the ship, the quick-wood, the Jamaicans and the Haitians together like a... like a magic trick, something out of nothing. I respect you for that. I'm not sure I can serve under you anymore. When we get to Texas, it's good-bye."

  "It's what happened at the bow?"

  Post nodded. "I can't stop thinking about the bodies in the water, sir. When you got those Santo Domingans away from their plantations, I thought that you pretty much walked on water. Woulda died for you then, if it meant accomplishing something you were trying to achieve. Never thought I'd want to die for anything or anyone. Maybe to get away from them, but not for anything."

  It took Valentine a moment to regain his equilibrium. "You shouldn't have to die for anyone. Least of all me. Risking your life, weighing it against what you are trying to do-it's something any man does."

  "Any man worth the iron in his blood."

  "
But you feel differently now."

  Post waited a moment, but Valentine made no gesture to hurry him. The words would come when his lieutenant was ready.

  "If your idea of the right thing to do is machine-gunning sailors who've had their ship sunk from under them, I want no part of it. You can cite precedents all you want, wrong is wrong."

  "I had to make sure all the Kurians were dead. For all we knew, there was a Reaper squatting in the magazine with a hand grenade, just in case the Thunderbolt got the upper hand in the fight. If a Kurian has his puppet pull the pin and hug a couple of shells in his arms with the grenade under its chin, it's going to do it. Sometimes it is just as dangerous to beat the Kurians as it is to run from them. They'd rather destroy than let another own something that was theirs. The Reapers were clawing through to the Chief in the stern. I had to disorganize them, quickly, and that's the only way I had to do it.

  "Remember, Post, they were serving the enemy. That's war."

  Post shook his head. "I was serving the enemy. As soon as you gave me a chance, I switched. I bet a lot of those sailors would have done the same as that fellow we pulled out of the water. When you were shooting them, it was like you were shooting me."

  "I understand. But I don't know how I'm going to get along without you. But go with my friendship. Shake on it?"

  His lieutenant pursed his lips, then took his hand. "Could be you have what it takes for the kind of war this is and I don't. Sorry, Val, but I can't see death like that again. I'm afraid I'd shoot you, or myself, or maybe both."

  "Drop it, Will. Serving our side's different from working for the Kurians. I'll give you your choice, and wish you well when the Thunderbolt sails away. One thing, though: even if I did the wrong thing, the quickwood has a better chance of getting back to Southern Command if you come with it. Having it could turn things around, make a difference in a lot of innocent lives being saved. What happened at the bow was wrong, I'll grant you. But weigh it on the right scale. How wrong is it when a Reaper takes a six-year-old girl, because the Kurian running the show wants a different-flavored aura?"