Starfall

by neetha Napew

  "Get those bastards!" a loud voice roared. "A case of whiskey to every man who brings me a head!"

  Less than ten feet from the water's edge, Ryan spotted a giant of a man flanked by two women manning a .30-caliber Browning Automatic Rifle. The big man handled the machine gun with ease, cradling it on one big arm while one woman kept the belts clear.

  "Get them, Brutus!" the other woman encouraged. She gripped a .357 Magnum blaster in both hands, popping off rounds in quick succession at one of the Foundation men dumping mud into a boat's gas tank.

  The Foundation man staggered when he was hit in the back of the head, then pitched into the water. Pirates swarmed out into the river, racing for their boats and water bikes.

  Ryan halted at the crest of the rise, thinking he might have a chance to reload. A bullet burned along his side, coring through his jacket, ripping through the flesh just above his hip. Warm blood trickled into his pants, bringing a fiery agony with it.

  Some of the bullets cut through the branches over the heads of the big man and the two women, tearing leaves loose. The woman feeding the ammo belts to Brutus's BAR ducked and looked back. "You stupe fuckers watch where you're—" She froze when she spotted Ryan.

  Seeing the line of pirates charging toward his position, Ryan threw himself forward, at Brutus and his women.

  Moving surprisingly fast for a big man, Brutus wheeled around, trying to bring up the BAR. He tore the ammo belt from the woman's hands.

  Desperate, trapped and in a hard place and knowing it, Ryan head-butted the big man in the face. Brutus's nose broke with a vicious snap, blood dripping from the flattened nostrils.

  Brutus roared with rage and pain, going down backward. His finger lay heavy on the trigger, and the unaimed bullets chugged into the air.

  Working quickly, Ryan slashed at the big man's blaster wrist with the panga. Flesh parted in a spray of blood. The heavy blade cleaved the ligaments to the hand, releasing the BAR.

  The ammo woman threw herself on Ryan's back, a knife flashing in her hand. Brutus grabbed at the one-eyed man with his good hand, his face a mask of blood.

  Ryan moved as quick as a mutie rattler. He jerked his arm back, smashing his elbow into the knife-wielding woman. She shrilled in agony as her cheekbone crumpled. He followed through with the panga, slashing her across both eyes, releasing the liquid cores onto her pale face.

  The other woman brought her pistol up from less than ten feet, both hands wrapped around the butt. The muzzle sight centered between her cold, hard eyes.

  Stepping into Brutus, Ryan hefted the SIG-Sauer, slam­ming its butt into the side of the big man's face. Flesh peeled back to reveal bone, covered quickly by blood. Ryan raised his arm again and levered his forearm into Brutus's sweat-soured armpit. Using sheer strength, he spun the pi­rate around as a shield just as the woman fired.

  She screamed in rage when she saw what Ryan had done, but she kept firing until the revolver emptied.

  Brutus's body shivered with the impacts of the bullets. His yells turned to sibilant hissing as the rounds perforated his lungs.

  Shoving the dead bulk from him, Ryan sheathed the panga and SIG-Sauer, then scooped up the BAR from the ground. The woman dropped her blaster and grabbed for a .22-caliber target pistol tucked in her belt at the back.

  Firing the BAR from the hip, Ryan stitched a handful of the heavy rounds across the woman's breasts, punching through her heart. He knelt and quickly attached another ammo belt from the plastic box, then turned back to the line of approaching pirates, aware of the ground pocking around him.

  He fell forward onto the ground, the BAR levered in front of him. The bipod at the barrel's end flipped out at his touch, and he squeezed the trigger, keeping it down and chewing through the belt and a half of ammo as he raked the line of pirates from left to right.

  Bodies—both dead and wounded—dropped out of the line of pirates, leaving long and frequent gaps. The charge broke before the echo of the BAR'S barrage faded away.

  Ryan threw down the weapon and ran out into the water, heading toward the flagship. He ejected the empty clip from the SIG-Sauer, pocketed it and shoved a fresh one in.

  A pirate on a water bike roared at Ryan, bringing his blaster to bear.

  Lifting the SIG-Sauer, Ryan shot the man in the face from ten feet out. The water bike spun out of control, the throttle stuck even after the dead man toppled from the craft. It slammed into a nearby outboard, striking the en­gine. Both vehicles erupted in a black-and-orange explo­sion.

  Ryan slogged through the water, ignoring the heat wave that roiled over him. Twin white spumes spurted out from the rear of the flagship.

  "Dad!" Dean yelled. He maintained a low profile as he fired the Hi-Power at the pirates following Ryan into the river. "Hurry!"

  Donovan hauled himself aboard the flagship, dripping wet and slipping across the deck. J.B. stood on the flying deck, working the controls. Only one of the other Foun­dation men had made it to the vessel.

  Ryan ran as best he could, his breath burning his lungs. The river, even with the gentle current here, made the going hard. The water rose to his chest by the time he reached the flagship. He reached up and caught the built-in stepladder, then pulled himself aboard.

  Donovan emerged from belowdecks.

  "You find it?" Ryan asked.

  "It's there."

  "Hang on," J.B. roared over the twin diesels.

  Ryan nearly fell as the Armorer threw the engines to full ahead, too much weight shifting to his wounded leg. His boots, filled with water, hampered his movements, as well.

  Already mired by the weight of the space-station section aboard, the boat wallowed in the river like a mud pig on a hot day as the screws churned the water. Then it gained speed as it moved forward, rising inches as the hull hydro­planed.

  Several of the pirates made their way toward the vessel.

  Taking the brief respite to reload the Steyr, Ryan shoul­dered the rifle and started firing. He aimed for people, as well as exposed engines, creating instant havoc among the pirates.

  Bullets holed the flagship and chopped long splinters from the deck, revealing the white wood beneath. More bullets whined off the brasswork and cracked through the Plexiglas windows on the flying deck.

  Ryan reloaded and watched J.B. shove the shotgun for­ward. The Armorer fired, then grabbed for the wheel again.

  "Dean, Jak," Ryan called out.

  "Yeah, Dad," Dean answered.

  "Yeah," Jak said.

  "Hold the position here. I'm going up topside with J.B." Both youths nodded, and he crossed the deck as fast as he was able. Bullets chased him up the ladder to the flying deck.

  Once there, Ryan peered out at the harbor. Several of the pirates' vessels sat stranded in the water, put out of commission by Jak, Dean and the Foundation men. But several more of them cut through the water. Seven of the boats formed a blockade line across the narrow mouth of the harbor. The pirates aboard them opened up with their weapons, creating a sheet of bullets that slapped into the flagship in a savage tattoo.

  The remaining pieces of the Plexiglas windows on the flying bridge disintegrated, and the frame warped under the sustained assault.

  "Dark night!" J.B. said, removing his beloved fedora.

  "If your hat gets a hole in it," Ryan observed, "it'll probably be in your head, too." He took the time to reload the Steyr.

  "On the off chance it isn't," the Armorer said, "I want to keep the hat of a piece. What do you want to do with the blockade?" He kept the lever at half speed but main­tained the course toward the boats.

  "Pick the weakest point," Ryan said, "then run over them."

  "Could lose this boat," J.B. warned.

  "Stay in this harbor much longer," Ryan said, "they'll shoot it out from under us anyway. They're picking up on accuracy."

  "Noticed that. Do it now?"

  "Now." Ryan pulled the Steyr into position, staying only enough above the edge of the Plexiglas window to see his targe
ts. He kept the rifle's barrel off the frame, trying to keep it steady with his body.

  "Between the third and fourth boats?" J.B. asked.

  "Yeah." Ryan squeezed off a shot, missing the outboard engine on the third boat from the left by inches. The water spumed up a foot high. He fired again, getting closer, then waited a moment as J.B. buried the speed controls.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The sixty-foot powerboat lunged forward again, the prow lifting even higher from the river.

  Ryan fired three more times, believing he hit the out­board engine at least twice. It ruptured, catching fire in a small explosion. But the gasoline spread, pooling in the bottom of the boat and catching fire, as well. The pirates broke ranks and evacuated the boat, diving into the water.

  The one-eyed man yelled a warning to Jak, Dean and the Foundation men, sending them to cover, then he dou­bled over and butted into the padded console of the vessel himself.

  The impact screamed as Fiberglas slammed against Fiberglas and shuddered through the sixty-foot powerboat. The collision also hammered Ryan against the console. De­spite the padding, the wind left his lungs, and his face smashed into something hard and unyielding. He tasted blood, felt a tooth loose in its socket.

  Then they shot past the blockade.

  Looking back, Ryan saw the twisted wreckage of two boats in their wake, one of them in flames. The other boats in the blockade created a trap for the remaining craft trying to get out of the harbor.

  Donovan joined Ryan and J.B. on the flying deck. "We didn't put as many of them down as we'd hoped," the Foundation man said.

  "Mebbe we got enough," Ryan replied. "We'll see how things go up ahead." The trap with the six machine-gun-outfitted boats waited around the second lazy curve of the river.

  For now they had the jump on the pirates, and the sixty-foot powerboat had more speed than Ryan had hoped. He retreated down the ladder to the stern to help defend against the front line of the pursuing pirates.

  GLANCING AHEAD as they rounded the second curve of the S, Ryan saw the tattered green shirt flying from an oar on the east side of the river. He lifted the Steyr and fired off three rounds, signaling the shore teams to get the first phase of the trap ready.

  Ryan had chosen the spot when he'd first seen it. Leafy trees hung low, out over the river, providing plenty of cover for anyone coming from the north against the current. Three of the boats occupied either side of the river, their motors running.

  After the sixty-foot powerboat rushed through the area, a span of fishing net lifted in the water. The net held re­mote-controlled plas-ex packs J.B. had put together from supplies the Foundation people had back at the dam site. One of the Foundation sec men in the six boats held the remote control in case Ryan and the others hadn't made it back out.

  The first pirate water bike hit the net and instantly got tangled up. It flipped end over end, spilling the rider into the river. Two more rammed into the net, as well, with the same results. The fourth water bike managed to curve away in an effort that left a white roil of water in a semicircle that washed through the fishing net.

  The first boat crashed through the net, tearing it free, pulling it along.

  "Open fire!" Ryan roared. Even though the range wasn't the best, and the uneven jarring of the flagship's deck made marksmanship impossible, they laid down a heavy firezone, burning through ammo. The noise of the attack, with the gunshots rolling over the flat planes of the river, covered the sounds of the machine guns mounted on the Foundation powerboats when they started firing.

  Caught in a vicious cross fire between the .50-caliber machine guns, the pirate boats became confused, bumping into one another. Even more confusion ripped through their ranks when the remote-controlled plas-ex blew.

  Giant spumes of white water twisted high into the air over the group of pirates with enough explosive force to twist the water into a brief tsunami. Several of the craft turned over or submerged. Three of the boats and two of the water bikes were caught outright and destroyed in the string of explosions that went off in a prolonged sequence.

  Before they recovered, the six Foundation powerboats sped on either side of them. The big .50-caliber machine guns opened fire in sustained bursts. The heavy bullets raked the pirates' craft, ripping them to shreds.

  The six boats with Ryan's team engaged the stalled at­tack effort and continued the blistering .50-caliber fire. A secondary wave of explosions erupted as the smaller pack­ages J.B. had constructed blew, even more damaging than the first. The first wave of explosions had scattered the secondary ones in a wide circumference, some of them landing in the pirate boats.

  "That's worked out well," Donovan said to Ryan, shout­ing to be heard above the carnage.

  "Hasn't stopped all of them," Ryan pointed out.

  And it was true. Though the river was filled and bottle-necked by stricken boats and water bikes, the pirates were already working to get through the area.

  "It'll take them a while to get their courage up," Ryan said.

  "But they'll follow us?" Donovan asked.

  "No doubt about that. You took the space-station section back and killed a lot of them. If Barbarossa is as interested in building his private navy as you say he is, he can't afford to take this kind of beating without getting his pound of flesh back."

  Donovan glanced back at the twisted wrecks and the roil­ing water of the Jefferson River. "Used up a lot of our stashed plas-ex. Going to have to hump a fresh load in from the Foundation."

  Ryan showed the man a thin grin. "I think you can tell whoever runs the Foundation that it was well spent." He reloaded the Steyr, watching as the six Foundation pow­erboats pulled up alongside the flagship.

  "Going to be a big race back to the dam, isn't it, Dad?" Dean asked.

  "Yeah," Ryan said. "And even going at full speed, it's going to take over an hour to reach it." He squinted against the rising morning sun, at the sparkling water spread out over the river. He knew before the sun set again there'd be a lot more bodies piled up and waiting for the last train to the coast.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT MINUTES LATER by Ryan's chron, J.B. pi­loted the pirates' flagship into the mouth of the narrow canyon leading to the oversize cistern the Foundation peo­ple used as a base. The Armorer kept the power on full ahead, skimming across the water as the diesels pushed them toward their final destination.

  Ryan stood with difficulty on his wounded leg, which throbbed now, and had started to swell from all the damage and stress. Days were going to pass before he felt anywhere near normal again. His other wounds were dull aches.

  The pirates maintained the distance, swapping occasional shots with the Foundation boats. Donovan had lost three more men, and Dean had gotten nicked along the left thigh.

  Ryan stood now with J.B. on the flying deck. He man­aged the Steyr with greater ease. Aiming on the crest of the waves, even as fast as they came at the speed they traveled, had become easier.

  The pirates had learned to stay back, and J.B. had offered the opinion that they were assuming the role of hounds in a long and arduous chase. They intended to run the Foun­dation boats to ground and kill everyone aboard.

  When they entered the narrow canyon, the pirates strug­gled to form a single line. They also got braver, thinking the race was almost run.

  Ryan hung on to the railing and braced the Steyr against his shoulder. He fired three rounds, all of them coring the lead boat behind them. Sparks jumped from the power­boat's metal trim, and the boat pilot tried a defensive ma­neuver.

  The wake left by the flagship and the six Foundation powerboats slopped up high on the sides of the canyon. Hitting the wake wrong, already trying to overcontrol his craft, the boat pilot slammed the powerboat into the side of the canyon. The hull ripped out of her, spilling her pas­sengers into the river. They promptly got hit by the boats behind.

  Ryan glanced ahead again just as the pirate flagship roared through the canyon into the broad expanse of the cistern. He glanced along t
he top of the canyon, spotting the Foundation people on the edge around the dam. Don­ovan had judged it to be the safest place.

  J.B. only geared the throttles down at the last minute.

  Even then the flagship roared up onto the rocky ledge where the Foundation people had made their campsite.

  "Hold on!" J.B. shouted in warning.

  Ryan gripped the railing as the hull ripped out from un­der the big boat. It listed, turning over on its side. The one-eyed man forced himself to his feet, standing on the console as the boat slid sideways.

  When the flagship came to its final rest, the prow caved in where it struck a huge boulder. Ryan vaulted onto the rocky ledge in time to watch the other six powerboats race to shore, as well.

  "Get your asses over here!" Donovan roared, waving to the teams.

  Two men stayed with each boat, taking the .50-caliber machine guns loose from the side rails. The extra men from each group raced over to the pirate flagship. Men atop the dam lowered a huge fishing net with attached cargo hooks. Donovan and some of the men climbed into the sixty-footer's belowdecks with the hooks and nets, attempting to salvage the piece of space station.

  Ryan and J.B. set up a firezone, then liberated disposable LAWs they'd found inside the redoubt.

  The pirates showed up minutes later, obviously delayed by the boat Ryan had shot up. By that time, Donovan and his men had freed the space-station piece from the flagship. The Foundation man shouted up the side of the dam, and men above began hauling up the cargo net.

  "I've got the first shot," J.B. stated quietly.

  "Go," Ryan said.

  The Armorer waited only a little longer, then he fired the LAW. The 94 mm warhead sped just over the top of the cistern water and collided with the second boat back in the cluster that had spotted the rocky ledge.

  The resulting explosion took out three boats and threw a wave of fire over the others. Confusion swept the pirates ranks.

  "Get those people up the dam," Ryan ordered Donovan.