by James Axler
Ryan turned to the waves. “Squid, are you going to be okay?”
He nearly jumped as Squid spoke right beside him. “I am weary but well. You have saved me again.”
“When you said you would get me to shore and over the wall, I swore to myself I would get you back to the Glory.”
Squid shuddered in the shreds of moonlight. “I am only capable of imprinting on one human at a time, but my feelings for you are overwhelming me.”
“Save your heart for Doc.”
“I am an octopus. I have three hearts.”
Ryan’s teeth flashed. “Give all three to Doc, then, and hold him with all eight arms.”
Ryan had seen a working lava lamp once. Mr. Squid’s flesh glowed and glopped and pulsed like she had red and orange blobs of lava flowing in all directions beneath her flesh. “I am dangerously close to a mating frenzy!”
“Best knock that shit off. We aren’t back aboard yet.”
The light show cut off like a light switch had been thrown. “I remain mission oriented.”
“Good, let’s go see what Balls has for us.” They remounted. The gelding shook down to his bones but took up the load of mutant and octopus. They slowly made their way down the sea wall. Ryan pulled up by the warehouse. From horse height he could see Balls’s cottage and all the lights were off. He raised his longblaster as a voice spoke from the closest boathouse. “That you, Ryan?”
“Balls.” Ryan road up to the boathouse. The umiak was a dim, white shape. Balls struck a match from the prow and snuffed it out. In the brief flare Ryan saw the great canoe now had an outboard attached. Balls and the pregnant young woman from the hall were within, as well as six men in foul-weather gear and a whole lot of bundles of goods. “What gives?”
“We’re going with you.”
“You want to take a pregnant girl around the horn?”
“You’ll take a pregnant girl and a useless old man around the horn, along with six sailors who can hand and reef and a significant source of supplies you’ll be grateful for.”
Ryan glanced out into the strait and saw the occasional dull yellow knife of a searchlight. “How do we get past?”
“We paddle along the beach. The strait is a big fat mouth. Once we get out we hit the outboard and go. They’re looking for the Glory or her boats coming in, not a canoe sneaking out.”
Ryan spoke low in the dark. “Do they know about Mr. Squid?”
“I’ve told them, but they don’t believe me.”
“Tell them not to scream.”
* * *
“RYAN, YOU ARE HEREBY promoted to officer,” Miles announced. “Mr. Forgiven, mark it in the book.” Everyone above the rank of bosun was in the cabin. Thunderous applause erupted, and it was echoed above deck and in the fo’c’sle. Commander Miles nodded at Big Ian’s saber. “Hold on to that. Gypsyfair?”
The little, blind mutant came forward. Ryan felt his throat tighten as she held out a blue officer’s coat. “I hope it fits.” It did, as Ryan knew it would. He stared at himself in the captain’s mirror wearing an officer’s coat and a sword. Ryan Cawdor was the son of a baron. In this broken world he had, for a short time, been the son of privilege. Everything he had gained on the Glory had been earned.
“Hat and breeches to follow, Ryan.”
“Thank you.”
Mildred came out from the partition screening off the captain’s bed. Ryan spoke quietly. “How is he?”
“Still unconscious. No sign of infection.” Mildred had spent hours attending to the whip’s bloody wounds. “Blissfully unconscious.”
Techman Rood burst breathlessly into the cabin and held up a paper covered with translated code. “Commander!”
“More of the Sabbath’s Caesar cipher?”
“Commander, it’s from Dorian to Laird. The War Pig is out of coal. She is sailing toward the Falklands with a jury-rigged bowsprit and letting the Westerlies do the work.”
“He still hasn’t figured out we’ve deciphered his code,” Ryan mused.
“Unless he has,” Miles countered. “Then we would be sailing into the teeth of the Westerlies with him having them at his back. He goes to his engines and he can draw his own killing box. All we could do is flee west for the Africas and the unknown.”
“I destroyed their radio set. If Dorian has coal and hears nothing, he’ll turn back for the coast. If he doesn’t, there’s no way he go back tack on tack without a bowsprit. He’ll have to come in for fuel and repairs.”
“A gamble, when we should be sailing for the Horn.”
Oracle’s voice rasped from behind the partition. “I am curious, Mr. Ryan. What is your first inclination?”
“I say we sink the War Pig or take her.”
“Commander Miles?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Sink the War Pig, or take her.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
South Atlantic
“Ship ahoy, sir!” Ricky called.
“Thank you, Mr. Ricky!” Ryan snapped his longeyes to his eye. It still felt odd being addressed by his friends this way, but he was an officer now. The day was gray and cloudy. The Westerlies blew a bitterly cold forty miles per hour. He didn’t want to contemplate what the weather would be like when the South American continent no long sheltered them. The red and black painted War Pig was unmistakable in the murk. Ryan had calculated the most likely course the War Pig would take to bring them straight to the Falklands, without engines or a spritsail, and he had plotted the Glory’s best course for interception. His calculations were correct almost to the hour, and they had brought his ship nearly exactly behind the crippled behemoth.
A little part of Ryan’s heart that he would not show to officers, crew or his companions glowed. He was good at this. Whether the War Pig was truly out of coal or not, at least at the start of the engagement, the Glory would have the advantage. “Mr. Manrape! Inform Commander Miles we have the War Pig in sight. Douse all fires and beat to quarters!”
“Aye, sir!” Manrape roared. “You heard him!”
Ryan was not the gloating kind, but another part of him enjoyed Manrape calling him “sir.” Yerbua and Nirutam hammered their hand drums. Shouts broke out below and feet instantly pounded wood. Hardly anyone below was sleeping. The entire crew had been waiting for this fight and was eager for it.
Commander Miles limped onto the quarterdeck. He bore a Colt 1911A1, missing just about all of its finish, strapped to his good leg and he’d thrust his Japanese short sword through his blue sash. He raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and grinned at the War Pig. “Excellent plotting, Mr. Ryan.” He smiled uncharacteristically at Ryan’s full, blinding white and navy blue uniform. “You wear it well.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
The two officers on deck leaned out over the starboard rail and peered at the War Pig. They had spotted the Glory descending on them from the stern, and the Pig’s sailors swarmed like ants in the rigging, taking up and dropping sail as she desperately tried to maneuver. Fitful pulses of ashy gray smoke and then greasy black came out of her black iron smokestack.
“What do you make of that, Mr. Ryan?”
Ryan knew he guessed right. “Dorian really is out of coal. We’ve caught him flatfooted. He’s throwing wood, oil and anything else that isn’t nailed down into his fireboxes to try and heat his boilers.”
“Aye, I make it so as well.”
“If he can even half turn under power, we’re going to get the hard end of this.”
“Aye,” Miles agreed.
“I say we take him now.”
“We are agreed, Mr. Ryan. Be so kind as to do so.”
Ryan tensed internally. It was under Miles’ watchful eye, but he had just been given command of the ship. Ryan knew this was Oracle’s order
. He stepped to the binnacle and Miss Loral at the wheel behind it. He knew what he would find, but he felt goose bumps along his arms as he found the suspended skeletal hand pointing straight at him and then slowly turn to point in judgment for the War Pig. They had the weather gauge, and that meant that the Glory could choose her maneuvers at will with the wind in her sails, while the War Pig would have to wallow and tack against the wind to try to match. It was a priceless advantage in a battle between sailing ships, trumping surprise or weight of shot. If the War Pig could get her screws turning even slightly, it would be lost. One maneuver might be all they ever got.
“Miss Loral, straight in for the Pig’s tail.” Ryan rolled the dice. “Get us within one hundred meters, then hard to starboard. I want every crewman not needed to sail the ship or fire the cannons stationed to the starboard rail with a blaster.”
Loral’s eyes widened. Ryan was gambling everything on a single broadside. She flashed the wolf grin. “Aye!”
Ryan filled his lungs. “J.B., chasers when we’re in range! The blaster deck is yours! Chasers when we’re in range! When we turn to starboard, be ready to fire as she bears!”
* * *
J.B. LEANED PERILOUSLY out of the number-one starboard chaser blaster port as the blaster crew reloaded. Spray atomized upward and misted his glasses as the Glory cut through the South Atlantic like a knife with the wind behind her. DontGo seized his belt. J.B. accepted the support and took in his opponent. The War Pig was an ocean-going horror, a behemoth with modifications that included two blaster decks to the Glory’s one, but the monster was lumbering like a horse half mired in mud. Smoke puffed from the monster’s stern. J.B. saw the gray streak of the cannon ball that rustled past the Glory six meters to his left.
The crew missed Gunny, but the artilleryman and weaponsmith had trained his people well and they admired J.B.’s competence and style. The Pig had four stern chasers to the Glory’s two. The Pig was now reduced to one. The battle plan was simple. If the Glory exchanged broadsides with the Pig, she was most likely doomed. Ryan was attempting to give J.B. a shot at raking fire.
With the weather gauge, Ryan would attempt to turn the Glory’s full broadside at the Pig’s stern. The stern was less heavily built than the prow or the sides, and there was a chance the cannonballs would rip through the Pig from stern to stem. The Glory had doused all fires. Dorian was stoking his boiler, which was dangerous in the extreme for a wooden ship. J.B. would attempt to put all eight of his shots up the Pig’s ass. The stern was a much smaller target, and that was why Ryan was bringing the Glory in dangerously close.
Dorian knew exactly what was happening. His crewmen surged to fill the stern rail and the smashed-out windows of Dorian’s cabin. Blasterfire erupted from the stern of the Pig and from the sharpshooters in the tops. DontGo yanked J.B. back inside as bullets hit the Glory like hail. “Fucking unfriendly,” Skillet opined.
Ryan roared from the top deck. “Two hundred meters, J.B.!”
“Blaster captains!” J.B. called. “Light fuse!” The blaster captains squatted over the fuse baskets and struck sulfur matches well away from the powder and set the coiled fuses to smolder. The Glory had nearly a full complement, but far too many of the crew were still lubbers. They were going to fire from starboard, so J.B. had run the Mapuche, Kelpers and gauchos to port. Veterans would fire the first volley.
“One hundred fifty!”
“Starboard crews!” J.B. bellowed. “Run out the blasters!”
J.B. watched as his crews yanked on the ropes and tackles and the cannons rumbled forward. These were not the narrow, long-range chasers meant to take away spars or rigging. These cannons were squat beasts of short range and large caliber and looked like black iron, hostile beer kegs. They were smashers.
“Miss Loral!” Ryan ordered. Hard to starboard! Blaster men, fire!”
Miss Loral turned the ship. They had a nearly perfect strong wind behind them and the Glory pivoted in the water like a dancer. On deck every crewman not required to steer the ship or fire the cannons stood and began unloading their blasters into the Pig’s stern in suppressive fire. Shell casings fell past the blaster ports and tinkled off the cannon muzzles like brass rain.
“J.B.!” Ryan called. “Fire as she bears!”
J.B. crouched at the starboard number one cannon as the stern of the Pig swung into view. A lucky shot sparked off the cannon, and Yerbua screamed and fell back. Cannon number one coincided with the Pig. “Fire!” DontGo clapped fuse, and the cannon bucked backward like a mule as it belched smoke and fire. “All crews! Fire as they bear!”
Cannon two boomed and shot back on its rails. Cannons three, four and five fired in rapid succession followed by six, seven and eight in a slow series of detonations. “Reload!”
The crews swabbed out the cannon and rammed in powder and shot. Smoke obscured everything, but the wind was quickly shredding it. J.B. barely heard Ryan’s order thanks to his ringing ears.
“Drop sail!”
J.B. felt the ship slow beneath his feet. Ryan had liked what he saw. He was willing to risk stopping the ship to let J.B. finish it. J.B. peered over cannon number one as the smoke cleared away. The War Pig was in horrible shape. The captain’s cabin resembled a shattered, smoking, empty cabinet. Two of her stern chasers lay smashed from their carriages on their sides. The other two had fallen into the sea. The eight twenty-two pound iron balls had gone bouncing and caroming forward through the ship. Smoke poured out a number of her blaster ports. Best of all, her black smokestack leaned at a terrible angle to port. J.B.’s blaster crews worked their aiming screws and handspikes to utilize what little traverse the cannons had to aim. “Fire at will!” J.B. shouted.
The cannons fired out of order as the crews took the time to aim from their relative positions. J.B. watched as one cannon ball and then another plunged into the War Pig’s guts. Metal screamed and tore and the smokestack suddenly dropped six feet belowdecks. Glowing embers and ash from the boilers erupted like a volcano and fell back to the decks. A cannon jumped from her starboard side in a wave of fire like it was abandoning ship as a powder keg exploded. Glory’s three and four fired nearly simultaneously and smoke obscured J.B.’s vision, but he saw the orange pulses of explosions through it. The blaster crews raced to reload, lay their cannons and fire.
Manrape bellowed down the main hatch. “Cease fire!”
“Cease fire!” J.B.’s blaster crews finished reloading and running out but held fire. J.B. leaned out the number one cannon porthole, and what he saw would give even a hardened veteran of the Deathlands pause. The War Pig was dying. Black powder explosions kept detonating amid decks, blowing out through portholes and up through hatches. Fire burned up top and was reaching into the rigging. Pure white steam geysered out of a hole in the Pig’s side like a giant teakettle from her ruptured boiler and made her whistle and scream like a stuck pig. Fire-charred and steam-broiled men threw themselves overboard, seeking the embrace of the cold Lantic waters. Others were blasted out onto the sea involuntarily, bodily or in bits by the explosions. More and more were jumping overboard as all hands began to abandon ship. It was an ugly choice. The waters churned with fins, strange humped shapes and tentacles as those below overcame their normal fear of large ships, explosions and each other and rose to the smell of blood to feed at the surface.
“All crews! Run the cannons back in!”
Hardstone cleared his throat. “Begging Gunny’s pardon.”
“Hardstone?”
“I’d keep the cannons run out.”
“Why?”
“In case something really big rises up, like.”
J.B. considered the gray waters now with lit fires above, stained with blood on the surface, and the black depths beneath.
“Starboard crews belay that! Stay on station! Port crews run out the cannons! Sharp eyes on the water all around!”
>
Ricky called out from the tops. “Boat in the water!”
* * *
RYAN SNAPPED HIS longeyes shut. The dinghy wasn’t making a run for it. The two men aboard sculled hard and fast and took a long way around the War Pig as she burned to the waterline and the predators fed. They headed straight for the Glory. Ryan took in the two sailors. They were big. One was a hunchbacked black man and the other blonde and bearded. Ryan assumed he was still in command of the Glory until he was told differently. “Hold fire!”
The two sailors rowed up and stopped smartly before the Jacob’s ladder. Ryan stared down at them coldly. The black man had strange yellow eyes like a wolf’s. Far more disturbing was the pair of yellow eyes staring out of the pink lobe on the side of his skull. Ryan recognized the tattooing on the blond man’s exposed neck and wrists. He was Viking Cult from the Great Lakes. “You’re a long way from home, Son of Odin.”
“I wanted to go someplace warm.” The man grinned into the fiercely cold Westerlies lashing his hair. “Now look at me.”
Ryan liked the man but did not show it on his face. “What do you want?”
“To take ship.”
“You came to claim our captain.”
The black man reached down and yanked up a tarp. Dorian Sabbath lay in the bottom of the boat bloody and bruised but still living. “Claim ours.”
Ryan considered the prize before him. “You’d betray your captain?”
The Viking spit. “I was press-ganged.”
The black man nodded. “So were we.”
“I hear Oracle isn’t the pressing or the whipping kind,” the Viking continued. “I hear he’s also short of sailors.”
“You can hand, sail and reef?”
“I’m Smyke, formerly ranked bos’n on the War Pig.”