by James Axler
Thorpe looked south. Dust was rising off the old Trans-Canada. Thorpe closed his eyes. So it was to be a one-two blow. The Queen had knocked him to his knees, and now came the land attack to slit his throat. Thorpe opened his eyes and checked the loads in his scatterblasters. He had a long, over-and-under trap gun for when things got social, and a side-by-side that had been sawed down into a handblaster for when things got intimate. “Grizz, gather every man who can walk and point a blaster on this side of the canal. We make our stand at the North tower.”
“Yes, Captain.” Grizz ran off to rally the men.
Thorpe watched as motorcycles and war wags began to fill the horizon. He watched with some surprise as three broke from the formation in a wedge. One of them bore a white flag. Thorpe stood his ground as bison horns called behind him and his men scrambled into some kind of battle order. Grizz ran back up with a pirate flag and six men. The coldheart delegation approached and ground to a halt.
The most powerful baron in Ontario and the pirate king of the Lakes regarded each other. They knew each other only by reputation. A flesh-headed mutant flanked Mace Henning along with some mini-Mace of a bastard son. Thorpe noted the silver voyageur the robed mutant wore. Mace’s offspring wore one, too, and everyone in Ontario knew what that meant. Thorpe regarded Mace Henning noncommittally. “Mace.”
“Thorpe,” Mace replied. He looked around at the shattered locks and the smoke rising into the sky. “Bad day?”
“Had better,” Thorpe admitted. He looked up at his adversary. Mace Henning looked every inch a powerful baron. Thorpe knew he didn’t look like much up close. It was guts, determination and brains that had gotten him where he was. He scanned the line of motorcycles and offroad wags. “You don’t have the men to take me, Mace. Not even on a day like today.”
“Mebbe, mebbe not, but win or lose it’ll eat up every bit of what you got left.” Mace acted as though it was a matter of little import. “You’ll be finished regardless.”
Thorpe knew the truth when he heard it. “Well, me and you could talk a walk down to the shore, Mace. Settle it personal like.”
Mace threw back his head and laughed. “Fire, thunder and fallout! I always heard you had sand!”
Mace Henning was right. Thorpe had sand, and he was also correct that Thorpe was having a bad day. “What do you want, Mace?”
The baron loomed over Thorpe, but he winked in a conspiratorial fashion. “I want a coal-black ear, a man’s right eye and a redheaded slut I heard tell about. I want Captain McKenzie and the Queen under my thumb. I want those iron wags. I want the entire convoy. I want Cyrielle Toulalan tamed and preggers. I want Yoann Toulalan dyin’ slow in my fire. I want Baron Luc Toulalan to die from the grief of it all, and I want Val-d’Or.”
“There’s no end to wanting things, Mace,” Thorpe observed.
“True enough,” Mace agreed. “So what I need is a partner.”
“Never heard you were the partnering kind.”
“Well, now, that’s true enough, but I been thinking. Heard of some megabarons down in the Deathlands. Never comes to no good. Their power only extends as far as they can send their sec men, and here in the north the good weather is too short to send sec men far or get anything real done. I’m thinking it’s going to take a confederation of industrious, far-sighted men to run things. Men like you and me.”
Thorpe chewed the word over. “Confederation.”
“I’m the most powerful baron in Ontario. You’re the pirate king of the Lakes. That’s a good start. Smart men will flock to that. Practical men bend to it. The Soo Locks is wealth. Soo Locks is power. But you’re gonna need help to rebuild that great big gate of yours, and help to hold on to it.”
“And you want…?” Thorpe prompted.
“The Queen ran your locks, Thorpe.”
The pirate’s face tightened. “Noticed.”
“The Queen ran your locks late summer. With a convoy aboard. Heading west. A convoy all the way from Val-d’Or, French territory, with genuine predark armored wags and more shiny new blasters than the shore has sand. Where’d they get those, do you think?”
“Dunno.”
“Where do you think they’re headed so late in the season?”
“Dunno.”
“What do you think they’re after, risking so much?”
“Dunno.”
“Doesn’t that make you a mite curious?”
“A mite,” Thorpe admitted.
“Well, I’m curious, too. So I think I’m just going to go west and have me a boo. Take whatever they’re after along with everything they already got.”
“And you want my help.”
Mace shrugged. “Be mighty neighborly, as a fellow confederate.”
“Confederation,” Thorpe repeated. “With you as First Man?”
“First among equals,” Thorpe corrected. “But you get your locks rebuilt, I’ll send men to help and see you get supplies to last the winter. Then you’ll have me as an ally come spring. The day you don’t like the arrangement, we can always take that walk down to the shore you were talking about.”
Thorpe trusted Mace Henning about as far as he could drop him from the top of the lock. He had absolute trust in Henning’s cunning and ambition. “What happens I refuse?”
“What happens?” Mace put his hands to his chest in mock hurt. “Why, nothing. I got no beef with you. Me? I’m a busy man. I got places to go and things to do before the freeze. I’ll just be waggin’ on my way and wish you luck.” Mace’s eyes went hard, and he leaned in close so that only the two of them could hear. “Good luck next spring, Thorpe. Good luck with Jon Hard-knife, the Nations, McKenzie, Poncet, and every other ville on the Lakes that wants to settle your hash once and for all for making them pay the toll.”
Mace turned back to his assembled horde and cut a circle overhead with his hand. “Rev ’em up boys! We’re out of here!”
Thorpe spoke through clenched teeth. “What do you need, Mace?”
Mace leaned in again. “Well, now, I need every wag you got and every man you can put on them. I need every canoe you got. A lot of my bikes can ride double. I’ll want your men riding, and I want every last drop of fuel you got. It’s gonna be a long, hard haul to catch the Queen. Wouldn’t mind you coming along, yourself, frankly. You got a sense of tactics.”
“You gonna chase ’em? This late in the season?” Thorpe couldn’t figure it. “Mace, you don’t know where they’re headed. You don’t even know where they’re gonna make landfall. We could end up at the Lake of the Woods, a thousand klicks from home and nothing to show for it but our dangles in our hands, and them shriveling fast in the freeze.”
Mace Henning laughed again. “Never knew you were a poet, Thorpe.”
The pirate wasn’t amused. “Mebbe you best ride on, Mace.”
Mace ignored the suggestion. “Tag, show our kingly confederate.”
The robed mutant came forward and opened a green metal case.
Thorpe peered at the contents. It was a radio. Thorpe couldn’t read, so the word “Diefenbunker,” among others printed on the components meant nothing to him, but he recognized the Maple Leaf and the dark green color. The radio was military issue, predark, and looked absolutely cherry. Kind of like the LAVs that had shattered his locks.
The enormity of it struck Thorpe like a hammer. “Fire, thunder and fallout…”
Baron Mace Henning spoke very quietly. “Tell you what I know, Thorpe. I know that Yoann Toulalan is in bad shape and his sister gave command of the whole shebang to a one-eyed Deathlander named Ryan. I know some, particularly Six and some of his closest, ain’t happy with the arrangement. I know every wag they got and their blasters by heart. By tonight I’ll know the condition of the Queen and her casualties. And I guarantee it, I’ll know ex
actly where they intend to make landfall, long before they make it.” Mace smiled sweetly. It was a travesty on his face. “What else do you need to see things my way, Thorpe? A blow job?”
Thorpe turned his head and stared westward toward the Superior. Rage slowly kindled within him for the Queen and everyone on it. “Nah, Mace. Revenge’ll do for now.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ryan eased his blaster out of its holster. They’d had four days of smooth sailing, and it had become his habit to rise just before dawn, walk the decks and take in the clean air over the lakes and watch the sun rise. The chunk-chunk of the Queen’s boilers vibrated through the soles of his boots. Ryan stood silent in the crepuscular gloom of the lower deck and stared at his LAV. The engine compartment was open. Seriah had been working on it. It didn’t need much in the way of work, but she insisted on checking the LAVs daily. Her beloved lot in life was to keep ancient, endlessly rebuilt combustion engines running. For a wrench the pristine diesels of the two LAVs were Holy Grails. She couldn’t keep her hands off them, when she wasn’t busy putting her hands on Jak.
Ryan could hear a voice coming out of the engine compartment.
Not actually from the engine compartment itself, but with the engine hatches open Ryan could dimly hear a voice inside the LAV’s crew cabin. He recognized Six’s baritone. The big man was inside and he was speaking French. Ryan grabbed an outer storage cleat and soundlessly climbed to the top of the LAV. He waited a moment and listened, but Six kept right on speaking French. The Deathlands warrior grabbed the handle of the commander’s hatch and flung it open. “Help you, Six?”
“Merde!” Six just about jumped out the commander’s seat. He was wearing the com headset and his hands leaped off the console. One hand went beneath his coat but stopped as he sagged with recognition. “Sacre Bleu, Ryan! If I had hair, it would be white!”
Ryan’s eye didn’t blink. His SIG-Sauer wasn’t quite pointing down the hatch. “What are you doing in my wag, Six?”
“What do you mean, your wag?” Six blustered. “You’re part of the convoy! You don’t—”
“It’s mine. Me and my friends. We own it,” Ryan reiterated. “What are you doing in it without my say-so?”
Six regained his stony cool. “I feared the radio in the engineering wag might be damaged.”
“Damaged how?”
Six regained his usual scowl. “I’m not sure I like your tone, Ryan.”
“Not sure I give a glowing night shit what you like or don’t like, Six, but I asked you a question.”
“Very well.” Six’s voice was scathing. “In my experience, most electrical devices don’t respond well to being splashed with boiling soap. We were having some malfunctions.”
Ryan had to give him that one. “Yeah?”
“The keyboard of the engineering LAV’s onboard computer was damaged,” Six continued. “We replaced it with a spare we took from the Diefenbunker. Much of the radio’s console was splattered, as well, and, as you know, your vehicle has become the central hub of all of our tactical radio communications.”
“Little late for it.”
Six’s scowl was ferocious even for him. “I have many responsibilities. After the battle my responsibilities were to see to my people. Now that we approach land I must make sure of the convoy. I checked to see that the engineering LAV’s radio can still send. It seems fine. Now I am seeing if it can receive as well as still act as a relay hub, as this LAV does. If it didn’t, I would replace it with the spare we took from the Diefenbunker.”
“And?” Ryan asked.
“It functions flawlessly.”
“Good to know.”
Six flicked the radio switches off and slammed the button for the LAV’s ramp with his palm. “Good night, Ryan.” Six unfolded his great frame from the commander’s seat and stalked out of the LAV to disappear in the darkness between the lines of convoy wags.
“Good morning,” Ryan muttered after him.
The one-eyed man slid down the hatch. The radio didn’t appear to have been tampered with. He ran a quick check, everything seemed to be in place. Ryan buttoned up the LAV and went to the wheelhouse. McKenzie and Doc sat drinking hawberry-brandy with a chessboard between them on the chart table. Doc appeared to be winning handily. Mr. Smythe stood behind the wheel. McKenzie looked up with a smile. “Ryan, you’re just in time! We passed Isle Royale a quarter of an hour ago. The sun rises soon. The entrance to Thunder Bay is guarded by the cliff wall of Cape Thunder on the mainland and Pie Island. They are something to see.”
“You say Thunder Bay got hit?”
“Someone dropped fire on it, not bad like the rads that rained on the Michigan villes, but bad enough that no one much goes there.” The captain smiled craftily. “I dropped a few hints in a few places that if I made the Soo Locks I would make landfall in Nipigon Bay. The baron of Red Rock is less of a bastard than some I know. He’ll be disappointed when I don’t show. But if Mace Henning is there waiting, you’ll be about a 120 klicks west of him with a good head start. Plus, fifty klicks out of Thunder Bay, the Trans-Canada splits in two again for another four hundred. Even if Mace gets wind you leap-frogged him, he’s going to have to choose one or the other. Even if he chooses right, you run hard for Manitoba and I’m betting he never catches you.”
“And the rads?” Ryan asked.
“Bad enough that no one lives there, but I won’t be at port any longer than it takes you to roll off, and you’re just passing through. Keep your wags buttoned up and don’t stop for anything until you’ve left Mount McKay and the Thunderbirds in your dust.”
“Thunderbirds?”
“Keep your wags buttoned up,” McKenzie repeated. “Once you’ve left Mace and Mount McKay behind you, far as I know there ain’t no one or nothing with the juice to take on a convoy as big or powerful as yours. Our problems are all behind us.”
“Behind us!” The door to the bridge flung open and Mr. Timms’s giant frame filled the door. “Behind us! Behind us!”
The Queen was a roll-on/roll-off as Mildred had explained. It had a ramp on both ends and thus had a bridge at both ends, as well. Both bridges had a crow’s nest constructed atop them each with a machine blaster. The stern nest had failed to inform them of any peril behind. McKenzie heaved his bulk up the iron ladder to the revetment above. Ryan and everyone else on the bridge swarmed up after him and looked aft.
Dozens of war canoes were paddling furiously toward the Queen.
McKenzie swore a blue streak. “Bastards! They must have been waiting off Isle Royale!” He reached out and began slamming the alarm bell as he roared. “Blasters and pikes! Prepare to repel borders!”
Everyone piled back down the ladder. “Mr. Smythe! Hard to starboard! Bring the LAV’s cannon to bear!”
“Yes, Captain!” Mr. Smythe spun the wheel hard over.
Ryan hit his com unit. “J.B!”
J.B. was already on it. Ryan watched as J.B. flew up the stairs to the promenade favoring his wounded leg. He waved his hat at the bridge and disappeared up the ramp into the LAV. Blasterfire began to crack on the rear promenade and the back rails. The Queen slowly turned to bring her heavy weapons to bear. Ryan knew they weren’t going to make it. The convoy’s machine blasters had been taken from the Queen and remounted on the vehicles in preparation for debarking. Canoes sliced through the water. Men who weren’t paddling were returning fire. As they closed, Ryan could make out the vests and scalp locks of pirates. It looked as though Thorpe was hitting them with every man he had left. Other men in the canoes wore the riding leathers of Mace’s coldhearts. They were nearly on top of the Queen, and she was presenting herself broadside to the attack.
The battle was going to go hand to hand.
Ryan unslung his Scout and stalked to the door of the wheelhouse. McKenzie
barked his ugly laugh. “Stick around, Ryan. You’ll want to watch this. Mr. Smythe!”
The first mate went to a heavy iron switch box with a pair of levers made of brass and wood. He took a pair of cables that fed through the floor of the wheelhouse and connected them to the leads and tightened them down with brass wing nuts. Mr. Smythe threw one lever and the box hummed. “Power to the switch, Captain.”
McKenzie strode to the starboard window. The canoes were less than a few dozen yards away. “Wait for it…”
“On your order, Captain,” Smythe replied.
Ryan saw it. “The storm fencing, slung from the rails.”
Mr. Smythe grinned ferociously. “Captain’s got ten thousand volts of juice straight from the boilers to the fencing. There’s things bigger than the lampreys in these lakes, and they need occasional discouragement.”
Doc drew his LeMat. “They are upon us.”
Canoes bumped the side of the Queen, and pirate and coldheart hands and bare feet clawed into the fencing.
McKenzie had his short sword in hand and he slashed it down decisively. “Now, Mr. Smythe!”
The first mate clacked the lever over and a spark shot off the switch box leads. The boarders kept climbing. McKenzie roared in indignation. “Rad-blast your eyes, Mr. Smythe! Now!”
Smythe slammed the lever back and forth like a man priming a pump. “We don’t have juice!”
“The boilers are on full!”
Smythe shook his head at the sparking switch box. “We have juice to the switch, but it’s not going to the fence! We’ve lost the connection.”
Ryan walked to the door. The storm fencing was no longer a deterrent. In fact it was a ready-made boarding ladder encircling the entire ship. The LAVs couldn’t help them. The catapults were useless at this range. The ships electric fence had failed. Ryan hung his Scout longblaster on a peg and put a SIG-Sauer in his left hand and his panga in his right. He heard Doc unsheath his blade and fall into step behind him.
“At my back, Doc.”