by John F. Carr
“We know that, too. So how do we keep the garrison troops from coming after us again?”
“We send whoever the second-in-command is a message he can’t ignore.” Brodski grinned. “At the same time we arm the Docktowners with all the weapons we capture. I’ve noticed that, aside from the stunners, the firearms they have are mostly pistols of different calibers, probably stuff they brought with them. Ammo for them will be something of a problem, but in the hands of the Docktowners they can let folks defend themselves and deal with the baddies themselves.”
“We could even sell ammo…” Jane considered.
“And if the CoDo comes in, cleaning up Docktown will give their security force something to do,” added Van Damm.
“So we’re obliged to carry the war to Docktown,” said Makhno. “Ah, what the hell, you’ve got my vote.” He turned his attention to the tan light showing through the window. “Right now it’s technical midnight,” he murmured, “Cat’s Eye’s waxing and setting. That means.…” He doodled briefly in the margin of the map on the table before him. “they’ve got to get here within twenty hours, start the assault soon after, win within forty, forty-three hours after that. So, we’ve got maybe sixty hours to settle this war, Jane.”
“Why the time limit?” she asked, wiping a spot of grease off her chin.
“Because after that we’ll be into second orbit, sunset, and turned away from Cat’s Eye. Eyefall—full night for forty-plus hours, remember? No light but the moons. Even Jomo has better sense than to attack unknown territory, in the dark.”
Jane nodded slowly. “Right. So, sixty hours against…what, forty men? That means we have to kill roughly one every hour and a half.”
“Uh, right,” said Makhno. Van Damm and Brodski traded startled looks.
“Well, if we’re agreed in this, I’m for bed,” said Jane. “Coming, Leo?”
Makhno laughed, and shoved his chair back. Brodski and Van Damm looked at each other.
“Y’know, Van,” Brodski considered “we’re gonna have to start seriously courting some of the ladies around here.”
“I think,” said Van Damm, shoving his plate aside, “that as soon as Captain Makhno is out of bed, we should have him take us back to our posts on the shore.”
*
*
*
Jomo glowered at the passing island shore, scarcely noticing the grumblings of the troops on the deck behind him. Greenthorn hedges everywhere he looked: from the waterline on up for five meters at least, nothing but greenthorns. How had the pesky settler ever gotten through them?
Well, with luck maybe the settler was long gone and they could take the island cheaply. If greenthorns were the only problem, he wouldn’t complain. There were no signs of human habitation so far.
Whoa, there was something: just as they came around the southern tip of the island, where a natural jetty of rock jabbed out into the river, dividing the stream. There was a piece of pontoon-dock pulled up on shore, almost hidden under the hedge of greenthorns.
Strange. Why had the settlers done that? Expecting company, maybe?
Jomo shrugged and gave up on the minor mystery. They were coming around to the shadowy western shore of the island now, and he’d have to keep his eyes peeled if he wanted to spot anything in all these shadows.
The western shore of the island was likewise edged with greenthorns from the waterline to about five meters.
“Where can we anchor?” Jomo grumbled to the pilot. “Can’t see a motherless thing in this light”
“Best pull into the lee of the north shore,” the pilot noted. “Looks pretty steep; probably nothing’ll attack in the dark. We can wait there til sunrise. “
“Fine. Do it.” Jomo walked back to his personal cabin to get some sleep. He’d look at the map after a good rest.
“I don’t believe it,” Makhno whispered, peering down from the ledge. “The fool’s just sitting there, waiting for light. I swear, those sentries never look up. We could lob one of the mines down on the boat from here, blow it to kingdom come….”
“We might not get them all. Then all they’d have to do is reach Docktown, come back in greater numbers.”
“Okay, okay, so we wait. Damn.” Makhno eased back on the ledge until his spine touched the rock wall of the stone-fortress. “I just, don’t like the idea of letting ’em walk in here tomorrow.”
“Just remember,” said Jane, stroking his arm, “the important thing is that they never walk out again. “
“Is everybody in place?”
Brodski glanced meaningfully at his radio. “That’s what they said. So now we wait.” He stretched out behind the log and pulled his hat down over his eyes.
In the dim light of the moons, Captain Feinberg crept softly across the deck of The Last Resort. It was dark, it was late, the sentries were nodding off at their stations, and he’d never have a better chance to escape than this. Just a few more steps to the gunwales, then over the side, then—
Then the zap of a stunner ripped out of the silence. Feinberg jumped, jerked, and flopped to the deck. Jomo, smothering a yawn, strolled out of the shadows. The sentries straightened up and did their best to look as if they’d been giving Feinberg only enough lead to condemn himself. Jomo favored them with barely a sneer. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Feinberg’s body.
“Pick up that garbage, he said. “And throw it over the side.”
The sentries paused for only a moment, then hastened to comply.
Feinberg’s body hit the water with a loud splash, floated a moment, then turned over and sank. A brief flurry of bubbles marked his fall.
Jomo slung the stunner back on his shoulder and strolled back to his air-mattress on the ship’s stern, never once looking back. The sentries watched him go, none of them daring to mention that they’d just lost the boat’s single experienced pilot.
“Goddamn-it, gimme a hand here” Brodski panted, limping behind the others. “Got a damn bad leg.”
“Can’t wait for you,” Van Damm retorted from somewhere up ahead among the trees.
“We’ll be there when they come,” agreed Muda, pattering along after Van Damm quick and sure as a goat among the thick foliage, for all that she was bent nearly double under the weight of her own gun and ammo and the swimming gear too.
“Here, lemme help.” Joan MacDonald shifted the ballast-weights on her back, took Brodski by one arm across her shoulders, and half-carried him through the screen of trees.
Brodski bit his lip, used his cane as much as he could, and didn’t complain.
Benny Donato worked his wrench under a blanket-shrouded light, tightening the seal-bolt to the last turn. “It’s ready,” he puffed. “That makes two of them. I have them set for fifteen minutes before dawn.” He turned off the flashlight and crawled out from under the blanket, grumbling about the dangers and inconveniences of bomb-making, and why this couldn’t have been finished in his nice comfortable shop in the fort.
“You get the packing tight enough, Benny?” Falstaff cut in on him. “I’d hate to have them leak.’
“Any tighter and I’d break the case.”
“Then let’s get them down to the customers.”
“Easy for you to say. These damned things are heavy.” Falstaff wasn’t the quietest person moving in the dark, and Donato was little better, but they didn’t have to travel far. Mary Harp met them with a soft whistle, and guided them to where the rope stretched down to the river. They bent and unloaded their packages and tied them onto the rope. Another whistle toward the water, and the men turned to hurry back through the trees, their mission accomplished.
“Let us know if you don’t get the mines to them in an hour,” Donato tossed to Mary, looking at his watch. “I hope I don’t have to take those fool things apart again. That’d be a real bitch.”
“Don’t worry so much,” Falstaff panted, tugging at his arm. “We have other work to do. I’ve got confidence in those two and the women with them.
�
��Well, maybe…” Donato grumped. “But cross your fingers about those mines.”
From under the greenthorns on the east bank of the river, Brodski and Van Damm peered out with their optics, studying the sleeping ship.
“Hmm, looks all right, Ski. Your plan better work.”
“It will. Besides, what else do you have to do on a cold morning like this?” Brodski said, rubbing Blue Tree sap on his exposed body.
“Look up an Island woman and promise to protect her for the rest of her life.”
“I never believed you were that much of a politician. You ready to swim?”
“Ja.” Van Damm glanced at the dark water, and shivered. “It ain’t gonna get no warmer. Let’s go.”
Brodski gave two tugs on the line, and both men walked gingerly into the water. The bags of rocks that hung from their belts held their feet on the bottom, and the river’s current was negligible at this point. As the water crept over their heads, they held up the plastic tubes that would allow them to breathe. Aside from the cold, the work was easy so far.
Following the shore line until they felt the distance knots in the rope, they pulled their heads clear of the water and looked downstream. Against the dark bulk of The Last Resort, they could see the binnacle-light in the chart-house. Nobody was moving on deck.
Brodski patted his way along the rope toward his pre-assigned position. “Hell of a mess,” he muttered. “Me, a mud Marine, playing frogman!”
“Ribbit, ribbit,” Van Damm grumbled back. “I like this no better than you. Cold water, no proper gear and painted blue to boot”
“Let’s get on with it,” Brodski whispered through his chattering teeth.
They waded silently downstream until the bow of The Last Resort loomed above them. They patted over the rough wood surface, hunting for the proper spot.
Brodski moved down the hull until he felt the warm water of the engine’s cooling exhaust. Now, just five arm-lengths more, he considered. He could be a little long in his measurement, but too short would be disastrous. He gave the hull an extra forearm-length for luck and pressed the flat of the mine against the side of the fishing boat. He counted to ten, waiting for the glue to set, and again added a little more for luck.
Done. Brodski walked slowly toward the stem, waited for a forty-second eternity until a touch on his right arm—and another on his right bun—announced that Van Damm had reached him. With another signal-tap, they half-swam/half-walked toward the agreed-upon point around the downstream hook of the island. The deepening mud told them when they’d reached it, whereupon they headed towards shore. Neither of them spoke another word until they were up against the greenthorn hedge on Jane’s Island.
“Did yours stick?” Van Damm asked, scraping water off his skin.
“On time, and like advertised. How about yours?”
“I thought I was going to have to piss on it to make it work!” Van Damm snapped with almost enough emphasis to make it noticeable five meters away.
“Well, just so long as it stuck. Let’s move.”
Unmindful of the scratches, they lifted the mass of the natural barbed wire and crawled under it.
“The towels should be on our right.”
“Ribbet!” challenged a voice ahead of them. “How high’s the water?”
‘Knee deep!” replied Brodski, in his best frog voice.
“Knee deep,” Van Damm echoed, right behind him.
“How do you manage to keep that Afrikaner accent on a frog croak?” Brodski asked.
“N-natural talent,” Van Damm replied through clacking teeth.
A feminine giggle answered them. Soft footsteps pattered down to the hedge.
Van Damm and Brodski traded invisible grins in the dark.
They were greeted with warm towels—and warm female arms, and a kiss each (who can prove anything the dark?), and were led uphill.
“Heroes’ welcome,” Van Damm muttered.
“Patience, Van. It gets better”
When they reached what seemed to rival the inside of a cow for darkness, Jane’s voice asked, “Did you do it?”
“If we didn’t, it’s the devil to pay with the cook out to lunch!” Brodski replied. “One thing’s, going for us though; if one mine falls off, it’s liable to do more damage than one on the hull. They’re in damned shallow water.”
“Good. I mentioned the tradition of the divers’ return, didn’t I?”
“Right here,” came Makhno’s voice, followed by the sound of liquid pouring into cups. “Divers’ return, or death to us all,” he said, lifting his glass.
As whiskey, it was piss-poor; as simple blood-warmer, it was right on target. Brodski and Van Damm gulped it gratefully.
After dressing, they shook hands. “I’ll see you when it’s over, Van, “said Brodski.
“Ja, you’ll owe me drinks if this doesn’t work.”
“And I’ll pay up, if either of us is still alive.”
They parted company in the dark, and went their separate ways.
It was just before sunrise when the charges went off.
They blew a large hole in the forward hold of The Last Resort, and one in the aft net stowage. With one hole to port and one to starboard, she sank quickly and on an even keel—leaving only the wheel-house above water.
Of the troops aboard, half a dozen were knocked into the water by the initial blast. The rest, including the two deckhands, stayed long enough to realize that The Last Resort was sinking fast—then grabbed gear they could reach, and slid off into the chilly water.
Jomo, after a final furious look at the sinking boat, was last to leave. He found the water shallow enough that he could wade, holding his stunner over his head. He shouted at the others to do likewise, keep those precious enforcers dry, but wasn’t sure they heard.
The water ended at a bare rock cliff-face, too steep to climb, especially in the dark.
There was no help for it; the survivors had to wade along the cliff until they came to easier land. Jomo bellowed and chivied them to the left, recalling that the land had sloped sooner toward the east side of the island.
The Simbas groggily complied, wading through the cold, swift-running water. One of The Last Resort’s deck-hands tried to sneak off to the right, and Jomo shot him. The rest of the survivors picked up their pace, trying to see rather than feel their way along the steep shore in the dim light. At length the water grew shallower, and the outline of vegetation smeared above the greenthorn.
The survivors clambered up the narrow beach of stones and started pushing into the greenthorn hedge just as Byers’ Star peeped over the horizon, silhouetting them against the background of the gleaming river.
Directly ahead of them, half a dozen women stood up behind the greenthorn hedge and fired at them, from less than five meters away, with shotguns.
At least six of the Simbas went down in the first volley, and the second came an instant later. The survivors turned and ran, a few back out into the water, the rest to the left along the narrow pebble-beach. Gunfire followed them.
The Simbas, some of them bleeding profusely, ran into the river and started screaming. The River Jacks had found them…there was a flurry in the water where the “fish” fed. The worrying of the bodies pulled them into deeper water.
Two men raised empty arms and shouted promises to surrender. Jomo, cursing, shot both of them. A shotgun blast tore the ground beside him, narrowly missing his foot. He dropped and rolled under the nearest cover—which was the greenthorn hedge. From where he lay among the thorns, he couldn’t see if anyone else followed his example.
On the other side of the hedge he heard a woman’s voice snap: “They’re running down the east bank! Come on over and help us pick ’em off!” Another female voice replied, distant and staticky from a radio: “Soon as we can, Lou. Keep after ’em til then.”
Two ideas occurred to Jomo just then: that this island just might be the rumored Land of Women, and that he’d best keep quiet until those shotgun-toting slits
ran past him on the other side of the hedge. He muffled his breathing and lay very still.
Jomo, hearing the battle run past him, peered under the hedge. He couldn’t see anyone through the thick and thorny foliage, but he did note that the hedge was mostly horizontal branches.
He poked experimentally with his stunner barrel, and saw that the branches lifted easily. Damn, this was his way out! He lifted the branch, crawled under it, and came out on the other side of the hedge. Beside the hedge lay a path.
Jomo followed it, going uphill, away from the armed women and the running battle, keeping low. As he ran, he could hear the sounds of his Simbas being slaughtered. Never mind them; all he could think about was finding cover, some safe place to rest. He was cold, wet, and more frightened than he’d been in years. If this was the legendary Land of Women, he no longer wanted any part of it. Damn-it, they didn’t fight fair!
The last of the Simbas were quickly picked off by the mercs or the women with them. One or two tried the river but the “Jacks” made a quick and messy finish to them.
Jomo studied the greenthorn hedge crossing his path—and the path leading right into it. He poked at the hedge with his boot and a whole section of it lifted. He smiled bitterly, and crawled under the hedge.
A quick look showed the path went further uphill. He chose to follow it, move further away from the shore and all those hunting bitches. There was better cover in this forest, anyway.
The path let him out in a planted field whose crops grew taller than his head. It promised good cover; he started to sneak through it.
He was less than five yards into the field when he noticed the odor and shape of the leaves. He stopped, stared, then burst out laughing.
“It’s Ganja! Growing here on Haven…”
Then he realized that euph-leaf wasn’t a local herb at all. It was nothing but good old marijuana, grass, hemp—growing right here on an island full of women, and from what the sat-map had showed him, there were plenty of cultivated fields around here, maybe most of them growing hemp. What a prize!