River of Bones

by Taylor Anderson

  Silva shrugged noncommittally. “You know, stuff. Kind of a thumpin’, groanin’ sound. Might just be this old ship settlin’.”

  “No,” Risa agreed unhappily, “I hear something too, now thaat you mention it.”

  Horn’s eyes widened. “Grik?”

  “Could be,” Silva said. “Hey, maybe they’re tryin’ to put the sneak on us?”

  “Then it’s a good sneak,” Lawrence retorted. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Me either,” Horn objected, “and it’s the middle of the goddamn night. Grik don’t attack at night!”

  Silva rolled his good eye. “You know better than that. And what if the reason you don’t hear nothin’ is because your ears ain’t as screwed-up as mine? Think how stupid that’d make you feel.” He looked at Major Gutfeld. “Whaddaya say, Simy? You got those fun new mortar rounds we ain’t got to use yet. Let’s have a show.”

  “Whaat’s going on?” came Chack’s voice from the darkness aft, and their commander, accompanied by Major Cook, moved to join them.

  Horn nodded at Silva. “This knucklehead thinks there’s Grik out on the water, sneaking up on us in the smoke.”

  Chack looked at Risa, then at Gutfeld. “Whaat do you think?”

  “He could be right,” Risa said. “I hear something too.”

  Gutfeld shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it can’t hurt to check.”

  Chack seemed to consider, his tail slashing back and forth. Finally, he nodded. “Very well. Loft some staar shells. At worst, as I heard Chief Sil-vaa say, it’ll give us a show.”

  “Aye, sir,” Gutfeld agreed, and limped slightly aft, then up on the remains of the deckhouse where the funnel once stood, calling for his forward mortar section to ready its weapons. “Stand by to fire four illumination rounds,” he ordered.

  “Commence firing when ready,” Chack called. After several moments there came two deep, metallic toonks. Seconds later, two more. Four bright flashes blossomed high over the wreckage-strewn river, yellow-orange bursting charges replaced by rapidly brightening red-orange flares that drifted lazily north under little parachutes and foggy sparks. They were dazzling enough to hurt the eyes, even through the low-hanging smoke, but interesting as the new star shells were, all eyes were quickly drawn to the water around them.

  “Holy shit!” yelped Gunny Horn, instinctively snatching the heavy Browning automatic rifle from where it stood against the bulkhead. He’d been lugging the precious BAR as his personal weapon since he came aboard and never went far without it. Any sense of security it gave him now was probably transitory, because it looked like the entire river between them and the wreck-choked bend was alive with giant, crawling bugs, glowing a bloody, neon red. But they weren’t bugs; they were galleys—hundreds of them—all filled with Grik. Countless more were behind them, picking their way through the sunken ships, and there was something else. . . .

  “Cruisers!” Risa shouted. “There’s at least one tryin’ to squeeze through! Probably more!”

  “Staand to!” Chack roared. “All haands, maan your baattle stations! Commence firing to repel boarders!” He spun to Abel Cook and saw the terror reflected on his young, smooth face. “Prepare the close-in defense weapon Chief Sil-vaa devised, on the double—but haave a care!” he cautioned.

  Cook shook his head and determination scoured the fear away. “Aye, aye, Colonel!” He rushed purposefully aft.

  Just then, through the smoke lying heavy on the water between them and the half-mile distant southern shore, dozens—scores—of yellow-red flashes rippled in the gloom, blossoming in the night, spewing their own dense clouds of smoke.

  “Guns!” Silva stated simply, almost admiringly. “They laid down a smoke screen to sneak a buncha damn cannons on our flanks!” Even as he finished speaking, heavy shot started slamming the ship. Many of Gutfeld’s Marines and Chack’s Raiders had been resting near their positions, but there was a great deal of tumult as other ’Cats, men, and Khonashi, both human and Grik-like, poured up from the illusory security they’d chosen below, adjusting accoutrements and donning helmets as they ran. A case shot exploded overhead, scything down a group thundering up a companionway, sending screeching bodies tumbling down on others crowding the stairs. More shells exploded, most long or short, but sharp, hot iron sleeted the savaged ship.

  “Goddamn lizards!” Silva bellowed, dropping behind the dented armor plate near the closest machine gun, while its two-’Cat crew ripped the cover off and inserted a belt. “Who said they could have explodin’ shells? That ain’t fair!”

  Chack, Horn, Lawrence, and Risa had quickly joined Silva under cover. Now Chack spoke to his sister. “Take charge here,” he told her. “I’ll send as much firepower for-waard as I can. We must keep them from gaining a foothold! Make it hot enough that they’ll prefer to circle around and approach from aaft.” His eyes flicked to Silva. “Then Major Cook can try your latest contrivaance—and may the Maker protect us!”

  The first mass of galleys was almost on them—it had been that close, the surprise nearly total—yet Santy Cat’s defenders were starting to respond, flailing them with fire from Allin-Silva breechloaders and stuttering Blitzerbug SMGs. Another star shell thumped in the air, joined by mortar bombs from all the sections as they came up. Steamy explosions convulsed the river, tossing galleys on their sides or shattering them in the middle. Grik spilled out, swirling away and sinking, their shrieks tearing the night. The nearby machine gun yammered, throwing geysers of water—then splinters and flesh—into the air. Others joined in, and then they were all almost deafened by the blast of a 5.5″ gun just below, ranging for the first distant cruiser. Lawrence was carefully, methodically, firing shot after shot from his Allin-Silva, probably accounting for two or more Grik with each 450-grain, .50-caliber bullet he sent. That was something he’d learned from Silva, whose “big sumbitches line up; little sumbitches bunch up” mantra always implied it was a waste to kill just one Grik when your bullet could punch through two. Risa hadn’t fired yet but had her Blitzer up, peering around, trying to judge the flow of the assault and see where it might land the heaviest. All the while, musket balls smacked and spattered against the iron armor.

  “Get yer idiot head down, wilya?” Silva scolded her.

  Risa ignored him, but finally fired a long burst and then dropped down, her face bleeding from cuts caused by flying bullet fragments. “It’s haard to tell—there’s so maany of ’em!—but the attaack seems to be maassing here, right in front of us.”

  Chack nodded and turned. Keeping low, he started to trot away. “Where’re you going?” Gunny Horn called after him.

  “To send more troops, as I said,” he replied. “And to the comm shaack while the aaeri-al still stands, so we can get word of this attaack to Cap-i-taan Reddy.” He blinked something Horn didn’t catch. “I caan imagine little he can do to hurry his advaance, but he needs to know whaat’s haappening—and we’ll need all the air he can give us, if we live till dawn.”

  “Makes sense,” Silva said philosophically, sliding his massive “Doom Stomper” over the plating and taking aim at the Grik on the steering oars of a distant galley. He fired, and the heavy recoil rolled him back. Flipping the breech open, he inserted another monstrous, one-inch round and took aim again. “Ha!” he exclaimed. His first shot had killed both oarsmen, and the galley, still churning forward at full speed, slammed into another, slicing it in half. He chose another target and fired again, the thunderous report almost rivaling the 5.5″ from where they were. Horn slid his BAR over the armor, blinked, then blasted a much closer target, spraying twenty rounds of .30-06 into the boarders huddled at its bow. They jerked and danced, falling in the water or sprawling on the splintered deck. Dropping his magazine, he slammed in another.

  Silva fired again, causing Horn to jerk. “Quit playing with that damn toy!” he shouted. “There’s Grik right over the damn side, straight down!” />
  “Grenades!” Risa yelled as more troops rushed to join them, some falling and skidding on the deck as shrapnel or Grik musket balls slashed at them.

  “Always tryin’ to smush my fun,” Silva moped, but relented, gently setting his beloved weapon aside and unslinging the Thompson SMG from its usual place across his back. Popping up, he sprayed another galley, his arc of brass glittering in the dying flare. “More star shells!” he shouted.

  The cannon on the bank rippled another salvo and the wreck reeled, people screamed, and Silva started tossing grenades over the side from a satchel someone handed him. Bloody columns of spume rose to drench them. “What a shit storm,” he grumped, risking his good eye for a peek over the plating. Two of the 5.5″s were firing now, and they’d hit the cruiser picking its way through the wrecks fairly hard. It was afire forward, but still moving. Soon it would be clear—and more would likely come. “Lizards really caught us with our pants down this time. Wonder what they’ll do next?”

  “Who cares ’hat they do,” Lawrence said. “Us gotta kill they, herd they apht.”

  “Sure thing, little buddy,” Silva agreed. “Don’t wanna miss that fun.” Suddenly, he groped for the familiar shape of Petey around his neck, but the reptile was gone—as usual. He caught himself hoping the little twerp found a safe place to hide.

  The pressure was building and galleys bumped against the hull. Grapnels would come next, and the fighting would get very close indeed. At least the cannon onshore had stopped for the moment, but surely only to prevent hitting their own warriors, possibly disrupting the assault. And, apparently, there was plenty of pressure to go around. Dennis couldn’t tell if they’d actually herded any Grik, but a bright orange glare lit the night from aft with a hungry, rushing whoosh! Silva looked and watched as burning fuel oil spurted from a pair of the wands he’d made, arcing out and playing across dozens of galleys stacked against Santy Cat’s flank. Grik writhed and screeched in the roiling flames, withering like moths over a campfire. The galleys took fire, and the grapnels they’d flung were quickly cut away. Burning ships drifted downstream, entangling others and setting them alight as well. “Looky there!” Silva hooted gleefully. “It worked!” He’d been pretty sure it would, but was a little worried his cobbled-together flamethrowers would work too well, or they’d have trouble getting the pump engines running in time. Apparently not. A rapid clanging, hammering sound diverted his attention and interrupted his celebration as more grapnels fell on their position.

  “We need one o’ those hoses up here,” Risa shouted at him. Dennis only shook his head. Near the bow, the current might keep burning galleys pressed against them, and that might be bad. Then again, things were getting bad, anyway. . . .

  Marines and Raiders hacked the ropes, but there were too many to get them all before the first Grik started topping the armor on the stanchions, toothy mouths gaping wide in the middle of cries lost in the roaring tumult. One of the machine gunners was physically jerked over the side, and another Grik hopped aboard in his place. Silva took a step back and stitched the beast with a three-round burst that shattered its neck and head. There was more rapid weapons fire as Blitzers joined in, their stutter punctuated by the boom of buckshot from Allin-Silva shotguns. But Grik were piling aboard quickly now, some with muskets with fixed bayonets, others with old-style sickle-shaped swords and wickedly barbed spears, all of which were more than sufficiently lethal for the kind of fight shaping up.

  Calmly, Silva slung his Thompson and drew his 1911 Colt and 1917 Navy cutlass. He knew without looking that Risa, Horn, and Lawrence would all be there beside him. He did note that most of the other defenders had likewise taken up close-quarters weapons or fixed bayonets. “All right, you fuzzy, lizardy bastards!” he roared. “Let’s cut a rug!”

  USNRS Salissa

  0300

  Matthew Reddy was buried in a desperate dream featuring the river he’d finally reached. The problem was, it wasn’t really a river but a great, monstrous funnel deeper than the Wall of Trees was high. Far deeper than that. It was deeper than the terrible sea, and it was made entirely of bones. Worse, everything he cared about—Walker, all her people, even Sandra—was perched precariously on the rim of the funnel, teetering, tipping, almost falling in. And the only thing keeping the ship that way seemed to be the bones themselves, moving, shifting, jutting upward and snapping against the tired iron hull, pressing just long enough to keep it steady. Yet every now and then the funnel demanded a sacrifice and he was forced to choose who’d next venture in. He didn’t know they were adding their bones to its structure—he didn’t want to know—but, then again, somehow he did. And he was pretty sure whose bones were shattering themselves to keep his ship, his people, his wife, safe. But it wasn’t for him. It couldn’t possibly be for him. . . . Could it? He shuddered and railed against that thought in his sleep. If he really believed he, his hubris, his arrogance, was what was feeding the funnel, he’d gladly make the sacrifice it really wanted and jump in the bottomless hole himself. How gladly he’d do that probably horrified him most of all. . . .

  The popping, banging of the bones against the hull became a banging on the door of the stateroom he was sharing with his wife, and he opened his eyes in the dark. He couldn’t have been asleep for long, just long enough for the dream to start, and he groggily rolled off the sleeping cushions onto the floor and stood. He was slightly disoriented, wondering where his new hammock was and how he’d fallen out without hurting himself. But the deck wasn’t steel and the hammock wasn’t there. “Just a minute,” he murmured, finally remembering where he was, then added, “Who’s there?”

  “Diania,” came the urgent reply. “I hate tae wake ye, but ye’re needed at once!”

  “Come in, Diania,” Sandra said, rising as well. Her voice husky, resigned.

  “Now, wait a minute . . .” Matt objected. All he had on were his shorts.

  “Diania will have a light,” Sandra said, ever practical. “You’ll need it to dress.” Big Sal had electric lights in many critical areas, but they’d never been installed in her living quarters.

  Quickly throwing on his clothes in the light of the lamp while Diania carefully avoided his eye and helped Sandra dress, Matt dashed to Keje’s conference room, or Great Hall, just down the passageway.

  Keje was already seated at his large, ornate dining table, but he wasn’t there to eat. There was a great bustle of coming and going, and two successive waves of messengers left thick pages of Lemurian paper piled in front of him. Keje grunted at the last, then looked up at Matt’s approach. “Hot tea,” he called to his steward. In the absence of Courtney’s coffee, hot tea had a growing following. Matt even preferred it to the prospect of returning to monkey joe.

  Tikker crashed through the door, followed immediately by Captain Atlaan-Fas and Commander Sandy Newman. Atlaan was basically Keje’s flag captain, and Sandy was his XO. Sandra and Diania followed at a more dignified pace, and Keje stood, blinking apologetically at Sandra, then turned to Matt.

  “The Grik have launched a major aassault on Saanta Caatalina,” he informed them, blinking brief but deep anxiety. It was enough for them to see how worried he was, however, quickly substantiated by his bleak, almost formal statement. “Col-nol Chack has sent thaat the Third Maa-rines, and his Raiders, are fully engaged by shore baatteries, gaalley-borne waarri-ors, and an unknown number of Grik cruisers.”

  “Cruisers?” Matt snapped, briskly massaging the bridge of his nose.

  “Thaat is the report,” Keje confirmed. “The aar-tillery numbers perhaaps a hundred pieces, initially revealed on the south baank of the river, supporting the first assault. More are on the north baank now. All must’ve been moved up under cover of darkness, perhaaps over sever-aal nights, and the smoke Chack reported earlier was probably made to screen the enemy’s final prepaar-ations.”

  Matt nodded bitterly, wondering if all their own careful preparations had
already gone up in smoke. “How bad?” he asked.

  Keje took a long breath, held it, then blew it out. “The Grik have gained Saanta Caatalina’s decks in sever-aal places and the fighting has turned quite desperate. Col-nol Chack believes the attaack might prove to be . . . overwhelming.”

  “What are we doing about it?” Sandra asked.

  Keje suddenly blinked furiously and his tail transformed into a whipping cobra flailing the air behind his stool. Somehow, he kept his voice under control when he replied. “Tassanna—Arracca—has launched the few planes she retained aboard, configured for ground attaack.” He straightened. “For reasons I will touch on in a moment, those planes were told not to return to Arracca, but to fly to the new air-field to re-aarm and refuel. Ben Maallory is already pre-paaring a strike with other planes already at the air-field.” He nodded at Tikker. “I summoned my own COFO for advice on what else might be done.” He looked directly at Matt, his large rust-colored eyes rock steady. “But regarding Arracca, I specifically refused Commodore Tassanna’s request to move her ship upriver to support Saanta Caatalina—again. Shortly after, all communications with Arracca were lost.” He glanced down at his hands and realized they were clasping each other in front of him. He abruptly put them behind his back. “I strongly suspect Commodore Tassanna has . . . disre-gaarded my orders.”

  Matt nodded. “She’s been upriver before, while we were lollygagging around between Zanzibar and Grik City. She thinks she has a better handle on what’s going on than we do. Maybe she does.”

  “She doesn’t,” Keje insisted. “The Grik will be expecting her this time. Waiting for her.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Well . . . what did you expect her to do?” Sandra demanded, glaring at Keje first, then Matt. “You’re the ones, both of you, who showed her what to do in situations like this!”

  “Whaat are you taalking about? We never showed her to disobey orders!” Keje denied.