Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide

by James Axler

  Ryan had not done problem-solving math in some time. He found himself enjoying the challenge. He didn’t look up as he turned an arc on his compass and drew a line against his ruler. “I kind of like it.”

  Koa grinned. “You suck, Ryan.”

  Ryan smiled and made a notation in his margin. “Teach me your way when we hit the South Cific.”

  “I will!”

  Ricky called out from the tops. “Sail!”

  Commander Miles snatched his binoculars from the case at his waist. “Where away, Mr. Ricky?”

  “Dead astern!”

  Ryan and Koa closed their chart books and rose. Miles stared through his binoculars and nodded. “Here we go.”

  Miss Loral took a knee beside the captain’s cabin’s heavily curtained skylight. “Captain, the War Pig is in sight! Dead astern!”

  Oracle’s voice went from broken rasp to thunder from the blacked-out cabin below. “Beat to quarters! Clear my cabin for action! Blaster crews to the stern chasers and fetch Mr. J.B. to the quarterdeck! Tell Gunny to release arms to all crew!”

  “Aye, Captain!”

  “Mr. Ryan, take your station at the stern!”

  The drums beat and the crew ran to their battle stations. Ryan walked to the binnacle where the Longbow blaster’s deployment case lay. He stared once more at the suspended skeletal hand. Again, Ryan found it pointing at him. His hackles rose as it slowly turned to point dead astern for the War Pig. The one-eyed man squared his shoulders and flipped up the latches on the case.

  The deployment case had come with its own comprehensive set of tools. J.B. had taken the longblaster apart to its smallest components. He’d cleaned and lubricated every part, tuned the trigger and the action, adjusted the length of pull and cheek riser to Ryan’s frame and attached the scope. The Armorer said it was Schmidt & Bender 4 x 16-50 optic from the Hungarian factory. Nothing but the variable power meant anything to Ryan, but the scope was like the longblaster. It was a thing of beauty, from a time that had made things of beauty right up until they had destroyed the world.

  Ryan hefted the weapon and flicked open the action. He pushed four of his rounds into the magazine and shot the bolt home. They had debated long and hard over their drought of ammo and the conflicting need to sight in the longblaster. They had decided on five. J.B. knew his business. They had tossed an empty barrel over the stern and decided on six hundred meters. J.B. had removed the bolt and bore sighted by eye. The problems of a gently moving deck swiftly became apparent.

  Nevertheless they had gotten barrel and glass collimated, and with J.B. spotting him, Ryan had put four out of five rounds into the barrel, and he felt secure in the fact that he had a decent six hundred yard hunting zero and could attempt to reach out further if he had to. He strode to his position at the stern rail. Spare hammocks had been sewn and filled with sand to form a revetment braced and camouflaged with barrels of seawater. Ryan hefted the Dakota T-76 and gazed through the powerful optic out over the water at his adversary.

  The War Pig was big. Her black sails and blood-red hull made her a juggernaut of gothic, naval horror. However, Ryan’s short time on the Glory had taught him a great deal about sailing. He ran scope over the War Pig strategically. Her rigging didn’t suit her. The Glory knifed though water while the War Pig lumbered. Ryan took in the single, slanted, black iron smoke stack between the mizzen and the mainmasts. The wisps of filthy black coal smoke oozing up into the sky were small. Dorian had his boilers hot, but he wasn’t using them yet.

  Oracle appeared at Ryan’s elbow. “You have some experience with black powder cannons?”

  “From both ends.”

  “Good, then as you know there will be a great deal of smoke, and given our two ships, long cannon shot is about half a mile, or a little more with good blaster crews.”

  “And our crews are better?”

  “Much, but while the balls will not penetrate the hull at that range, they can still damage sails and rigging and kill crew above deck. I can afford neither, and Dorian bears four chasers on his prow to my two in the stern. He expects to take some damage getting close enough to ravage our rigging.”

  Oracle snapped out his spyglass and watched the War Pig approach. “What young Dorian is not expecting, Mr. Ryan, is you. Your accuracy will decide much.”

  Ryan settled into his firing position. His shooting mat consisted of three blankets, and without a bipod his shooting rest was a pile of sandbags. A four-inch crack between two barrels formed his shooting slit. The magnification of his scope gave him a narrow view and also magnified the rise and fall of the Glory’s stern. Adding in the rise and fall of the War Pig, it was like trying to take an accurate shot while riding a seesaw with the target riding another one half a mile away. Ryan started counting seconds and noting when his crosshairs and the quarterdeck of the War Pig coincided.

  J.B. was sprawled on the deck next to Ryan, peering through the spotter slit with the Glory’s best pair of binoculars. “I make it 600 meters. Gunny thinks they’ll close to five hundred before firing. What do you think?”

  Ryan would have loved to shave another hundred meters off his shot. Then again, once the cannons started firing, both his and the enemy’s smoke would start obscuring everything. Ryan scanned the enemy ship. The garb of the War Pig’s crew ranged from bare-chested men in sarongs to leathers to predark plundered garments to homespun tunics with a great deal of mismatching in between. All wore a red and black sash around their waist so they could differentiate friend from foe when it went hand to hand. Many had painted their faces for battle, and many of those were in red and black motif. Ryan looked for officers. They were mostly differentiated by their use of optics. A number of such clustered around the bow chasers looking through scopes, spyglasses and binoculars.

  “Pick one you like, J.B.”

  “They’re all ugly.”

  The one-eyed man chose a lanky man with shoulder-length black hair and some sort of double ivory baton in his sash. “J.B., start counting.”

  “One, two, three, four...” J.B.’s count was in perfect roll with the ship. “One, two, three, four... One, two—”

  Ryan squeezed the Longbow’s trigger. The .338 Lapua Magnum round generated a brutal recoil. Across the water, brains, bone splinters and blood erupted from the popped skull.

  J.B. shook his head admiringly. “That shined!”

  Ryan grimaced and worked his bolt. “I was aiming for the man next to him, and I was aiming at his chest.”

  * * *

  “SNIPER!” THE FIRST MATE tackled Dorian as the third mate collapsed mostly headless to the deck. Dorian was reckless and bloodthirsty, but he was also the veteran of many a sea battle. “Nance!”

  Nance was a small man, pot-bellied and weak looking with graying curls and watery blue eyes. He looked ridiculous in war paint. Nevertheless, few men laid and fired cannons with his skill. “Aye, Captain!”

  “Fire all chasers!” Nance’s roar was out of all relation to his size.

  The two stern chasers on the foredeck bucked backward on their carriages as the blastermen clapped fuses to the touchholes. A second later the two cannons belowdecks bellowed in answer and thick, obscuring smoke filled the air. No one cheered, and Dorian knew nothing had hit. What he’d wanted more than anything was the smoke. The cannon crews swabbed, reloaded and ran the cannons forward. Dorian dimly heard the Glory’s stern chasers boom in response.

  Dorian retreated, shouting orders. “Ji-Hoon!”

  Ji-Hoon, one of Emmanuel Sabbath’s Korean secs, ran forward. He carried a vintage M-16 with a grenade launcher, and he wore an ROK army flak jacket over his homespun. “Yes, Captain! I—” Ji-Hoon flew backward as if a huge invisible fist had dealt him a crushing blow to the chest. He hit the deck, and blood flooded out of him like an opened spigot.

  “Nance!” Dorian screamed. “Nance, I want—”

  Nance almost levitated. He went up on one tiptoe as he exploded from back and belly. His torso twisted 180 degrees a
round his blasted-out spine, and he sprawled to the boards.

  Dorian’s vision went red to match his hull. “Wepa! Smyke! Nubskull! Bring the master blaster forward!”

  The first mate shouted in protest, “Captain, your father said—”

  “Bring it forward! Chasers! Fire by crew! I don’t care about hits—just keep firing and keep us obscured! Engines! Full ahead!”

  The blaster crew trundled forward the masterblaster.

  The deck throbbed beneath Dorian’s feet as the engines went to full steam.

  The weapon consisted of a carriage, a heavy wooden stem with a U-shaped brass cradle and eight long black iron barrels slaved to a crank handle and an ammo hopper. The three-man team ran the weapon up against the taffrail. The wheels were hinged, and they kicked them out to form the feet of a tripod. Wepa settled behind the crank handle and sight. Nub ripped open ammo boxes while Smyke poured them into the hopper.

  Wepa flew backward, flapping his arms like a ruptured pigeon. The chasers fired and the fog of war once more covered the prow. Dorian leaped behind his pride and joy and grabbed the crank handle. “Range, First Mate!”

  “I make it five hundred meters! The sniper is behind the barrels at the stern rail!”

  Dorian saw Glory’s stern chasers puff smoke. He ignored the rustle and moan of a cannon ball passing very nearby and began cranking his firing handle. The Gatling gun erupted into life like a minor thunder god rapidly clapping his hands.

  * * *

  “DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!” Ryan roared. He hugged the deck as the water barrels surrounding his sandbags geysered seawater and the sand bag in front of his face bulged as a bullet passed through. Screams erupted in the rigging and a second later Movies and Born fell ruptured and broken to the deck like rotten fruit from the branch. Seconds later Ryan heard glass shattering as the Gatling tore through stern windows and swept the captain’s cabin and the chaser blaster crews. Screams erupted below, but both chasers fired back. Powder smoke filled the air. The War Pig’s prow blasters fired, and Ryan heard the whoosh and saw smoke pulse as a cannon ball zipped overhead but apparently didn’t connect with anything. The Gatling stopped for a moment to wait for the smoke to clear.

  Ryan jumped up with his longblaster and ran.

  “Mr. Ryan!” Oracle raged. “Stand your station!” The captain’s hand went to his blaster as Ryan headed for the mizzenmast. The one-eyed man awkwardly began to climb up the ratline while holding more than thirteen pounds of blaster.

  He shouted back over his shoulder. “Captain, keep all nonessential crew belowdecks! Keep the stern chasers firing no matter what!” Ryan reached the hatchway into the mizzentop and a pale, scarred hand grabbed him and helped pull him up onto the platform. Jak grinned as he hugged the blood-spattered and bullet-chewed wood for dear life. “Hey.”

  The topmen white-knuckled spars and platforms and waited for the Gatling to buzzsaw through them again. Ryan saw the strobing flash across the water as the Gatling opened fire again. Luck was with him. The blasterman believed he had cleared the tops of hostiles and was concentrating his fire on the captain’s cabin and the chasers within. Black smoke belched from the War Pig’s smoke stack. Her yards dripped with men raising every inch of sail the prevailing winds would take. The War Pig’s cannon fired in unison as she sprinted for the kill. Cannon balls tore through the mizzen topsail and the main and foresails ahead. Only one of Glory’s stern chasers responded.

  “Jak,” Ryan said, “I need a shoulder.”

  Jak nodded stoically.

  Ryan laid the Longbow over his human rifle rest. Jak covered his ears with his palms against the 170-decibel Armageddon to come. Ryan leaned into Jak as he scanned for his target through the smoke.

  Ryan watched his view whip up and down with the roll of the ship. Up in the top of the mizzen it was magnified like a game of crack-the-whip. His shot would be nearly impossible. “Fire...blast...”

  Mr. Squid revealed himself, uncamouflaged, next to Ryan and Jak in the mizzentop. “I have an idea.”

  “Make it fast!” Ryan snarled.

  Mr. Squid shot four of his arms out to the corners of the mizzentop and stiffened them. Two more of Mr. Squid’s arms brought up a pair of binoculars. Ryan and Jak exchanged looks as Mr. Squid’s ocular muscles shoved his eyes closer together to meet them while the tips of his arms adjusted the focus. He wrapped another arm around the mizzenmast as an anchor. Ryan flinched as Mr. Squid wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him into a cold, wet firing position similar to the one that Ryan had taken with Jak. Mr. Squid’s last arm snaked around the barrel of the Longbow and laid it across the top of his head.

  Ryan took a prone sniper position atop Mr. Squid. A rare grin creased his face as he looked through his optic. Mr. Squid was watching the War Pig through binoculars. His arms pulsed and contracted in time with the roll of both the Pig and the Glory. There was no longer any need to count.

  Mr. Squid had turned himself into a stabilized blaster mount.

  Ryan ignored the Gatling. He could chill its crew, but more men would jump in to turn the crank and he only had six bullets left. The War Pig fired her four chasers in broadside again. Cannonballs tore through the Glory’s canvas, but luckily neither masts nor spars were hit. Nevertheless, the holes in the sails created a wind-dumping sieve. The Glory was slowing as the War Pig surged forward.

  Ryan grimaced and waited for the smoke to clear.

  Squid’s siphon hissed with strain. “Fire, Ryan. I am losing strength.”

  The one-eyed man caught sight of his target as the War Pig’s smoke shredded around her forward progress. “Hold on, Squid!”

  Ryan fired and his bullet tore a hole in the deck a foot from the target. He worked his bolt.

  “I am dehydrating,” Mr. Squid stated.

  Ryan fired. His bullet sparked off the iron of the War Pig’s starboard chaser.

  Mr. Squid shuddered and stabilized. “Ryan, I cannot maintain this.”

  Ryan fired. His bullet ripped wood inches from his target.

  Squid’s skin color started turning from wet gray to ash.

  Ryan saw the Gatling blaster yank his weapon up to aim at the mizzentop. He could see one of the officers shouting as he realized Ryan was shooting for the powder kegs. He grabbed the cask of gunpowder by the port chaser, pressed it over his head and with effort charged the taffrail and threw the powder into the sea. Ryan swung his scope to starboard. A huge man in red and black seized the starboard chaser powder cask and pressed it over his head with ease. Ryan pulled the Longbow’s trigger. Ryan’s .338 Lapua Magnum bullet hit the cask of black powder at more than 3,000 feet per second.

  The bow of the War Pig disappeared in a thunderous black and orange pulse.

  The bowsprit snapped like a stick and took the spritsail, the jib and the fore staysail with it. The Gatling had been abandoned, but the weapon went sky high in pieces. The deck chasers followed the shattered, sloping deck and fell into the sea. The fallen sails formed a sea anchor as they were swept into the bow wake. They yanked the War Pig around as her screws propelled against them. The Glory’s remaining stern chaser fired and punched a hole through the Pig’s side at the water line and a ragged cheer went up.

  Squid collapsed like jelly beneath Ryan. The one-eyed man did a pushup off the cephalopod. “Squid!”

  “Ryan,” Mr. Squid said, turning as white as Jak. “I am hurting.”

  Oracle’s rasp rose to a roar. “Commander Miles, all top men aloft! Every inch of sail she’ll take! Get us out of here! Due south! Wounded to the med and dead to the orlop!”

  Miles began shouting orders.

  “Commander!” Ryan used his battle voice. “Mr. Squid is in distress! A hammock to lower him down! Fresh water in the barrel and a tankard of sea water run up!” Ryan looked down. Miles was flat on his back covered with blood. “Miss Loral!”

  “You heard him!” the first mate snarled. “Whichever son of gaudy whore lets the captain’s subaqueous specialist die will
sleep the night in his barrel and every day after until final nukecaust with the fishes!”

  Manrape rocketed a monkey’s paw with a line attached to it unerringly up into the mizzen top. Ryan caught it, ran it over the rail and tossed it back down. He hauled up a stoop of seawater and clapped it to Squid’s siphon. Squid suckled at it weakly. “Another!”

  Mr. Squid “drank” three tankards of seawater while a hammock was run up.

  “Squid?” Ryan said. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Mr. Squid lay flattened against the mizzentop. His color was a little better. Squid’s siphon wheezed in a tiny voice. “I want Doc...”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Ryan, I got it! Koa shoved his book on top of Ryan’s. “Check it, brah! Gonna show the captain!” Ryan frowned at the interruption of his calculations but checked Koa’s. Ryan nodded. They roughly matched his own from three days ago.

  Koa was insufferably pleased. He shoved out his fist and extended his thumb and little finger. “Da kine, brah!”

  Ryan regarded Koa’s fingers. The “horns” in various configurations could mean several things in the Deathlands, but Koa seemed so happy Ryan was thinking it was some kind of South Cific Island thing that might not be bad. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks! What’re you working on?”

  Ryan frowned at his own chart. “I was on some islands in the North Lantic a while back. Trying to see if I could raise them.”

  “Nice?” Koa asked.

  “Half the people were vampires, half were their blood slaves.”