Black Atlantic

by Peter J Evans

  "The one you blasted, Dredd. It's getting up!"

  "Drokk!" He brought the Lawgiver around and the injured Warchild's blade took it in half, clear through the magazine. Shell casings scattered across the deck.

  Dredd flung the rest of the weapon aside. One of these creeps he could have handled, but two was pushing it. Time to bug out.

  He slid his daystick from its belt loop and dived at the wounded Warchild. It flailed at him, but the heart shots, while not killing it, had damaged its balance. He added to its woes by slamming the daystick into the back of its opened skull as he went past.

  The control boards were in front of him. He jumped, his hand coming down hard on the nearest board, propelling him up and sideways. The soles of his boots hit the big front window together.

  The window - decades-old plastiglass scored through by years of Black Atlantic spray, shattered out of its frame. Dredd sailed on through, turning in midair to come down feet first. He heard Vix scream his name.

  It was fifteen metres from the bridge to the deck.

  Dredd had aimed his jump perfectly, coming down in a pile of Abraxis corpses. He felt bones shattering under his boots, insect-chewed flesh tearing away, and he instantly was surrounded by a droning, blinding cloud of flies. But the rotting bodies had given him enough of a cushion to survive the fall without his thighbones being driven up through his pelvis.

  He slid down the stack of carcasses, rolled, and then jumped to his feet, batting the last of the flies away. He ran.

  Behind him, up on the bridge, he could hear the Warchild units screaming.

  "Vix!" he snapped, leaping another pile of corpses. "Update!"

  "They're not following! Grud, Dredd, I can't believe you did that!"

  "Sometimes we must call on the citizens to help us, Judge Vix." He reached the stealth-plates and ducked back around them, hunting for the ladder.

  "Even if they're dead."

  17. ELEKTRA DESCENDING

  Councillor Atia Borla had worn a breath-mask ever since the meeting in Quint's office. Every time she went up onto the bridge of her ship, she could see the boxy superstructure of the Pride of Macao just a few hulls forward. The constant breeze caused by Sargasso's passage through the ocean must have been blowing gouts of infection clear back into the Elektra Maru.

  The Elektra was a big vessel, a factory ship two hundred metres from bow to stern. In its day it had sailed the Atlantic's coastal waters, the robots in its multiple decks turning out cheap goods by the thousand. The goods might not have been very well made and the robots poorly maintained, but that didn't matter. The captain of the Elektra had been careful to shut down construction every time he strayed into anyone's territorial waters.

  Now the robots were gone and the factory units broken up for scrap. Elektra had gone out of business when Mega-City One extended its territorial margin; the journey from the dockside markets out to the legal limit was now no longer cost-effective, and that was the end of the Elektra Maru's trading days. Her captain - Borla's father - had died a broken man.

  Now his dream, his home, was about to be wiped out by plague, all because Mako Quint didn't have the guts to deal with it.

  Borla stood on the bridge of the Elektra and glared out across the deck. Last night a few of her people had gone across to the Macao and tried to close the vents off. They hadn't gone under her orders, or even with her blessing. But she hadn't exactly told them not to do it, either.

  Quint's men had put paid to that plan, however. Now most of her security details were in the brig and Borla had a shipful of angry, frightened citizens to deal with. Elektra was one of the food production units in Sargasso, her empty factories now dedicated to the gutting of fish and the growing of algae. The workers who produced the food lived on board, in container-habs on deck and converted staterooms below. Elektra Maru had a population of over five thousand and, like many vessels in Sargasso, was almost a self-contained community.

  Not, in Borla's opinion, quite self-contained enough.

  There was a knock at the bridge hatch. Borla had made it clear she didn't want to be disturbed, but it opened anyway. Fennet, one of the security men who hadn't been arrested, put his bullet-shaped head around. "Councillor?"

  "What is it, Fennet?" She motioned him to come in, and noticed that as he did so he was careful to look outside, both ways, and close the door behind him.

  "Councillor, we got a problem." Fennet was keeping his voice low. "I was talking with, well, a guy I know from The Samarkand. He knows someone who sends the skipper's reports up to centre bridge."

  "Let me guess," Borla interrupted. "Some of the reports happen to fall open before they get onto Quint's desk."

  "Gravity's a funny thing."

  Borla gave him a grim half-smile, but then remembered he wouldn't be able to see it through the breath-mask. "Okay, what did your friend have to tell you?"

  Fennet reached into his coat pocket and tugged out a folded sheet of paper. "This didn't come cheap," he warned her. "But it makes good reading."

  Borla took the paper and unfolded it, flattening the creases with the heel of her hand. The text on the page was quite dense and the copy not very good. But it only took Borla a minute or two to realise what it meant.

  "Dear grud," she whispered. "It's already off. He lied to us."

  Fennet nodded. "When you were in there, he already had this on his desk."

  Borla took a deep breath. "Right," she said, after a few seconds. "The decision's been made for us. Break out the demolition charges and let me know when they've been distributed."

  "You're going ahead?" Fennet, for all his bull-headedness and thuggish reputation, was starting to look worried. "What about the skipper?"

  "He'll never know until it's a done deal." Borla reached out and slapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, don't fall apart on me now! If we do this right, all our problems will be over in a couple of hours."

  Fennet left, shaking his head. Borla wondered if he was really the right man for the job in such troubled times, but she didn't really have that much of a choice. Still, he could always be replaced once the deed was done.

  She turned back to the view from the window and began to contemplate blasting a ship clear out of the city.

  Bane was on the bridge with Quint when Judge Vix came back across the walkway. They watched her approach, walking carefully on the swaying mesh and supporting herself with both hands on the railings.

  Bane opened the hatch for her. "How are you feeling, skull-head?" she asked.

  "Enriched," Vix replied, her voice a disinterested monotone. "I find life at sea so invigorating."

  Bane threw Quint a knowing glance and turned back to the long window.

  "Dredd's done the job," Vix continued. "He's on his way back and should be here in a few minutes. He's taken Abraxis on a starboard tack. It'll be close, but they should skate right past if we continue as we are."

  "Well," said Quint, "some good news at last."

  "Not for the Abraxis." Vix moved across the bridge, found a chair and eased down into it, wincing. "He said you'll need to stock up on bug spray."

  Bane remembered the explosive shell knocking a splintered hole through Golgotha's gunwales and found it difficult to feel sorry for the pirate city. Abraxis had been responsible for many atrocities in the past; when they attacked a vessel, the crew were normally killed in the battle or put over the side. Occasionally they set them adrift in lifeboats. On Sargasso, that was called exile, and was the worst punishment that could be meted out. On the Abraxis, it was called mercy.

  "That's what you get for stealing my salvage, drokkers," she whispered.

  "Which just leaves us the Warchild problem," Vix said quietly. She was looking out of one of the side ports. "And the plague."

  "Peyton's working on that," said Quint. "Can't say I've much faith in Mega-City Judges, but that one seems all right. He may come up with something."

  To Bane's surprise, Vix didn't offer any disparaging comments about
that at all. "And the Warchild?" she said.

  Quint was checking the navigation board, watching the operator key in the pirate city's projected course change. "I thought that was your job."

  Vix gave a bitter laugh. "My job was to keep Hellermann alive, to learn what she knew about the Warchild so we could protect ourselves if there were any more." She shifted uncomfortably in the chair, still gazing out of the porthole. "Which I completely failed to do."

  "What'll happen when you get back?" asked Bane, wondering why she was interested.

  "If," said Vix, her voice still flat and dead. "If I get back. Well, maybe my boss won't have me accidentally assassinated. But I doubt it. Lot of activity on that ship, Quint."

  Quint didn't look up. "Which ship?"

  "Elektra Maru."

  Curious, Bane walked across and joined Vix at the porthole. The Elektra Maru was portside of the bridge, and a few hulls sternwards. As Bane looked down on it, she could see figures scurrying about the deck, moving from structure to structure.

  "They're up to something," muttered Vix. She straightened a little; this had caught her interest, Bane could see. "You can tell by the way they're moving."

  "Skipper?" Bane beckoned Quint over. "She's right, sir. You should have a look at this."

  Quint's size meant that he couldn't use the same porthole as the two women, so he went to the next one along. He watched for about half a minute then turned and went quickly back to the comms board.

  Bane saw him pull the microphone from the board so violently it almost came off. "Councillor Borla!" he roared.

  There was a pause, and a hiss of static. Finally a woman's voice, hard and clipped, sounded over the speakers.

  "Don't try to stop us, Quint. We're capable of defending ourselves!"

  "Borla, this is insanity!"

  "Don't lecture me on insanity, skipper!" the voice snarled. "You kept the facts from us! The plague was already off the Macao when we were in your office, and you've done nothing to stop it."

  "That's not true and you know it. We've got people working on a cure right now, but this is not the answer! Borla, you know what will happen!"

  "What will happen is that we won't be around to watch you die of plague, Skipper Quint!"

  The line went dead. Quint stayed where he was for a moment, breathing hard. Then he turned to his comms officer.

  "Get me Dredd."

  Dredd was only a few minutes away from the Sargasso when the call came in. After the cityship's customary hiss of interference - the ancient comms system tracking down his frequency, he had learned - Quint's booming voice emerged over his helmet speakers. "Dredd, we've got a situation."

  "Now there's a switch."

  "One of the sternward vessels is trying to blast free by blowing her links and backing out of the city."

  "Let me guess: they reckon they'll be better off on their own." Dredd had heard that story before, too. Religious maniacs leading their followers into the Cursed Earth for a "better life." Whole blocks trying to declare independence. It always ended in disaster, no matter how it was played.

  "They're more likely to tear the city apart. Dredd, I've got Jennig and all the skipper's men I can muster on their way, but I'd like you there as well."

  "Voice of authority?"

  "Element of surprise."

  Dredd could think of worse things to be. "I'm on my way. Quint, I need to speak with Vix."

  There was a moment's pause. "Sir, this isn't our fight."

  "It will be if those idiots break Sargasso in half. Do you have access to Larson's Lawgiver?"

  "I can get it."

  "Disable the SD charge and send it down with Bane to meet me at the harbour. Mine suffered a failure."

  As Seawasp jetted back into Sargasso's harbour, alert sirens began to howl out across the cityship. Dredd took the little boat in fast, flipped it around and slammed it against the side of the dock.

  Bane was waiting for him, carrying something heavy wrapped in a piece of tarpaulin. "Special delivery."

  Dredd took it from her and unwrapped the package. Larson's Lawgiver nestled inside, indicators already glowing on the ammo select. "I'd stand back," Dredd grated. "Wouldn't put it entirely beyond Vix to not disable the SD as much as she could..."

  Thankfully, the SJS-Judge had followed his orders properly - the gun didn't blow his hand off. He wouldn't be able to use the voice-select until he had properly reset the on-board computer. To be honest, he didn't like using another Judge's gun, but he figured the Elektra Maru situation might be slightly beyond a boot knife and a daystick.

  Bane showed him the quickest way up. Once he was on the deck it was easy to find his way to the Elektra Maru. He just followed the sound of the gunfire.

  The crew of the rogue ship had obviously stashed some weapons away and were using them to keep the skipper's men back while they planted their charges. Dredd was interested to see that most of the gunfire was being aimed high, as if those firing were trying to keep casualties to a minimum. It was a laudable sentiment, and one encountered all too seldom back in the Meg, but it would mean nothing if the Elektra tore free and left Sargasso in tatters behind it.

  Philo Jennig was on the Mystere, the vessel directly starboard of the Elektra. Dredd spotted him taking cover behind a vent funnel, and slid to a halt next to him. "Skipper said you might need some back-up."

  Jennig shook his head. "No offence, Dredd, but this is beyond back-up. We haven't got the men."

  "Maybe I can appeal to their better judgement."

  Dredd broke cover and sprinted towards the edge of the deck. There was a group of the Elektra's crew there, mostly wearing the blue coveralls of food workers. They were planting demolition charges around a structure there - one of the giant linking braces that held their ship to the next. Dredd could see other groups doing the same, working around the bridges and walkways. Some of the upper level ramps and walkways had already been severed.

  This had gone far enough. He dropped his helmet mike and set the volume to maximum.

  "Elektra Maru," he bellowed.

  All activity aboard the food ship ceased, as Dredd's amplified tones blasted out across the deck.

  "Elektra Maru, I am the Law! Drop those demo charges and step away. If you do not comply, there will be trouble!"

  For a moment, it almost looked as if it would work. Several of the blue-clad workers did exactly as they were told, setting their charges down and moving back.

  Others among them, however, were not so sensible. Dredd saw one man raise a half-empty bottle of spirit and fling it over the deck at him. "You can't shoot us all, Judge!"

  Dredd snapped a round through the man's kneecap and watched him sprawl, howling. "Want a bet?"

  But the spell had already been broken. A low murmur of anger was already rippling along the vessel. And out of the corner of his eye, Dredd saw something raised towards him.

  He tried to bring the Lawgiver around, but it was already too late.

  There was a snapping explosion and a hiss of cable. He saw the missile for a split second before it hit, just enough time to twist out of the way, but it had opened at the tip into a wide dish. It took him in the right arm, knocked him back with massive force and slammed him into a hab wall. It stuck.

  The missile was a magnetic harpoon, a larger version of the docking projectiles on Seawasp. Dredd's arm was crushed against the hab wall as the magoon tried to reach the metal. His armoured elbow-pad had saved his bones from being shattered, but he was trapped and he couldn't get his Lawgiver around.

  The magoon hummed with power. Its batteries could keep him there for a week.

  Dredd dropped his free hand down to his boot and pulled the knife free. The broad, serrated edge slipped into a seam between two panels on the magoon's shaft, and with a savage twist Dredd had the thing open. He raised the knife and stabbed it down into a maze of exposed wiring.

  There was a fizzing whine and the magoon fell away. Dredd whipped the Lawgiver around and put a
bullet through a man who was aiming a second one at him, then headshot another who was arming a charge. "Jennig!" he roared, racing towards the Elektra. "Open fire! Drive them away from those charges!"

  Elektra Maru's deck began to come apart, kicking up in clouds of splinters as spit gun fire raked across it. Blue-clad workers fell back, dead or injured or blinded by splinters, it no longer mattered.

  He had to keep those charges from being set off.

  Up on the Elektra's bridge, Atia Borla could see the Mega-City Judge belting across the Mystere towards her ship. Dredd jumped, leaping the gap between the two vessels, landing easily on the deck. Her workers were already scattering.

  If she didn't act now, everything would be ruined. She'd be in the brig when the plague came for her.

  Before having the demo charges handed out, she'd switched them all to remote control. She hoped to set them all off when they were all in place and everyone was under cover, but that wasn't to be. She hoped history would forgive her for the sacrifices she was about to make.

  The remote had a cover protecting the single button. She flipped the cover up and pressed the key.

  Brilliant flashes erupted around the Elektra Maru.

  A couple went off on the deck, where her people had dropped the explosives, and sent great clouds of splinters into the air. The rest detonated where they had been set, making bridges fly apart and the great braces near the prow shatter and collapse in on themselves. In a single second, nearly every link between the Elektra Maru and her neighbour ships turned to fire and whirling shrapnel.

  One of the braces hadn't had its charges set properly. Dredd had shot the men there.

  The deck was covered in dead and injured mutants, those shot by the skippers men and the many, many more who had been too close to the exploding demo charges. But the ship was free.

  "Back us out," she told her helmsman. "Nudge the sternward vessels aside. If they've any wits at all they'll let us go."