Tale of the Thunderbolt (Page 3)

The Caribbean: An empty, brilliant blue sky is mirrored by an equally blue sea. The gunboat has left the rainy gloom of New Orleans behind her, pushing her hardened prow southeast into the Gulf under the power of her eleven-foot propeller at a steady ten knots. Diesel-electric engines provide the motive force for the propeller, giving her a throbbing, piston-driven heartbeat and sending sky-staining wisps of black carbon into the air from the central smokestack. Below the exhaust she leaves behind a trail of churned water over a mile long, flanked by the low waves of her wake.

The gray ship with her bleached white decks flies no flag, letting her armored bulk identify her, leaving the mouth of the Mississippi coasters and fishing ships scattered, parting like an antelope herd with a lion trotting through. The smaller boats fear an inspection shakedown or impressment of valuable crew. But once in the Gulf proper, only a two-mast schooner approached, and even that turned tail and put the wind to her quarter before binoculars and telescopes allowed positive identification.

The Kurian Masters of the Earth are not a sea-minded race. They avoid blue water and leave its security and commerce to their Quislings. There are few armed vessels anymore. The old navies of the world have been broken up for scrap and spare parts. The great tankers, merchant ships, and passenger vessels now lie in their last moorings, giant rolling stones come to barnacle-encrusted rest as the world fell apart. A few have been put to other uses: agricultural workers in what is left of Florida after the Great Wave that washed across it in 2022 go home from oyster beds, crab farms, and orange groves each night to cruise ships, living in cramped squalor under the last vestiges of the vessels' glitzy luxury of former days.

As the sea is out of reach of the Kurians and their Reapers, a loose Confederation of the Waves exists, nomadic oceangoing caravans of anything from a few sailing ships to hundreds, visiting land only in the most unoccupied areas for supplies. But the sea is a cruel provider. She takes her toll in lives, as well, probably more than the same number of people would suffer under the Kur. Some of these bands have turned pirate, raiding rather than trading for necessities the sea and isolated coastline cannot provide. When their depredations become too troublesome, an armed ship is sent to deal with the menace. While they have little use for it, the Kurians won't let a trifling thing like the sea stand between them and vengeance.

It was the third day out, and life on the plodding Thunderbolt had already turned into routine. The first light of dawn saw the Grogs hosing down and cleaning the decks. They devoured their morning fare with work-sharpened appetite. The cook, his mate, and the officers' steward then cleaned up the kitchen and prepared the meals for everyone else. The men tolerated the presence of the Grogs on the ship, especially since they took on so many of the petty labors, but drew the line at eating with them, or indeed sharing the same space. Grogs in tight quarters smell (even to noses not sharpened by the Lifeweavers) like a kennelful of mating ferrets, so they lived on deck in shelters rigged to the bulkheads of the forward well deck.

With their routine duties and weapons drill done, Ahn-Kha gave them leisure to fish. The rod-and-reel obsession began when a pair of flying fish broke the surface, leaving furrows in the calm ocean in their dash away from the ship.

The Grogs hooted until Ahn-Kha reported that his team wanted to know if the "sea chickens" were good to eat and how they could catch them. Both Valentine and Ahn-Kha were strangers to deep-sea fishing, so he asked around the crew until one old bluewater man, less fastidious than the rest as to who he associated with, descended to the "Grog deck" to teach them how to use the ship's store of fishing poles and reels. Afterwards, the Grogs spent every spare moment fashioning lures, rods, and reels. Valentine prevailed on the captain to slow the ship to a crawl for an hour a day, when the garbage would be dumped overboard and the Grogs, wild with excitement foreign to human fishermen, pulled in all they could catch. It was just as well, for Grog appetites could tax the ship's stores on the three-month patrol.

Valentine's particular responsibility was the Coastal Marines. The Coastal Patrols looked on the marines as only one rung above the Grogs on the evolutionary ladder, and a short rung at that: gun-toting, useless ballast for most of the trip. Valentine put the rivalry to good use, organizing physical contests between them. Races around the deck, arm-wrestling matches, and boxing contests occurred each night, giving the two sides a chance to scream their lungs out supporting their contestant and abusing the opponent. Not all the diversions were physical; singing and musical entertainment were often a spontaneous part of the after-dinner leisure hours. As Valentine stood next to the Oerlikon on the aft gun deck, listening to the music produced by an improvising group of players and singers, he almost forgot these men were technically his sworn enemies. Under different circumstances, he might have been ordered to sneak aboard the ship and plant a bomb that would blow musician, wrestler, and fishing instructor to bloody shreds. All the while, a long line of stormclouds on his mental horizon, came the worries about what he had to do and how to go about doing it.

Valentine felt for the sailors. The captain believed him- self an expert disciplinarian, when in fact his rules verged on pointless sadism. He had an elaborate system of uncomfortable punishments for the last man out of his bunk on a watch, the last man on deck for inspection, the last man in line at mess call. Since physics required someone to be last, Valentine thought the practice cruel: spending a watch-on-watch at the top of the old communications tower without food or water for being shoved out of the way coming up a hatchway improved no one. Of course, the captain's distemper was exacerbated by the ship's radio breaking down after leaving port. Valentine pointed out that their orders demanded radio silence until the pirates were dealt with, so the loss of communications made no difference, but Saunders just grumbled out his familiar "want of a nail" liturgy again.

The executive officer was even worse. Wishing to emulate his captain, thereby showing himself fit for command, Worthington out-Heroded Herod in his punishments.

Valentine and Post kept their marines busy, and as far from the eyes of Saunders and Worthington as the ship would allow.

Valentine felt nervous, bottled up. If he'd been on land, he would have quartered logs and chopped kindling, but there was no firewood to cut on a gunboat at sea. After they grabbed a quick dinner with the marines, they returned to the cabin and undressed. Valentine picked up one of his lieutenant's bottles and sniffed the mouth. It smelled like rubbing alcohol stored in an old boot. "Will, why do you do that to yourself?"

The two officers kept to first names when out of uniform.

"I'm still trying to figure out why you don't."

Valentine marked the tiny blue veins crisscrossing Post's nose and forehead. "Maybe I want to live a few more years. The way you're going, your liver will abandon ship or you'll get drummed out. Either way, you'll be finished."

"Hear hear," Post agreed, refilling his glass, his thick features under the salt-and-pepper hair taking on a red flush. "I figure you for the type to step into the shower, close the curtain, and blow your brains out with your service revolver. The system's rotten, and you know it same as I."

Post either trusted Valentine or did not care about being turned in. Either way, from their first days sharing a cabin, they began to tentatively express to each other unorthodox opinions about their Kurian masters. But neither had yet expressed it so directly.

"Did you lose someone, Will?"

"I was married once, yeah. Close to six years ago now. That's why I tried so hard for officer-it helped us get better housing. But it all went wrong." He took another gulp. "Not worth talking about. You're lucky, your wife gives you someone to live for. Not sure I even want to live for me anymore."

Valentine nerved himself for the plunge. "She's not my wife, Will. The license is forged."

Post looked up at him. "Yeah? What, you pretending for some reason? Might as well get married, that way you don't need false documents to get your allotments. If it goes wrong, just toss her, plenty other officers have done it, hasn't hurt their careers one bit."

Valentine opened the door briefly to check the corridor. He shut the door to their cabin again and sat down on the bed opposite Post. "Will, everything about me is faked. Her, my commission and service record from up north, even the name 'Rowan's not my own. My name is David Valentine."

Post turned over in his bunk, lying on his side. He put the bottle on the floor between them and took another sip from his glass. "Okay, you've got a false name. I don't get it. What is it then, an escape attempt?" Post asked, also lowering his voice. "Damn elaborate one. You'd better pick the right island-go to the wrong one, and the residents will eat you alive. I mean that literally."

"I need the Thunderbolt, and I'm going to take it," Valentine said. He let the words sink in for a moment. Post's face rippled from blank astonishment to incredulity, then back again to astonishment as the idea took hold.

"The original plan was to try with a small group of men I would bring on board," he continued. "That didn't work out, so I'm going to make do with what's already on the ship. The Chief is on our side, and so is Ahn-Kha, the Grog foreman."

"Our side? Whose side is that?" Post finally asked, his liquor-lubricated train of thought finally leaving the platform.

"Southern Command. I work for one of the Freeholds, the one in the Ozarks and Ouachitas. And I'd like you to join us, if you'll risk it."

Post reached for the bottle and took a drink, ignoring his glass. "The sun's gone to your head, Dave. What are you going to try to do, turn the crew? They didn't get, this job by being unreliable. Plus they have families back home to think about."

"The families will be taken care of," Valentine countered. "It's in the works right now. In a few more days, they'll be on their way out of the KZ. One of our Cats is on the inside."

"Cats?"

Valentine's hypersensitive ears searched the adjoining rooms and corridor. Someone moved through the passageway, and he paused before continuing in his low monotone. "It's a nickname, I guess. It's a long story, but the Kur and the Grogs aren't the only ones here from Elsewhere. Earth is part of a larger war, and other worlds are involved. The Kurians are what you might call a faction of a people called the Lifeweavers.

"Their society split thousands and thousands of years ago when the Lifeweavers on a planet called Kur discovered how to become immortal through... I call it vampirism. They've been at war ever since. Way back then, the Kurians came here, and the Lifeweavers picked some people to hunt the things brought over from Kur. They explained to the primitive men that they were placing the spirit of Wolves or Bears or Lions or what have you into the warriors they chose. I still don't know what they do exactly or how. All I can compare it to is turning on something inside you, like a light going on once you close the circuit. There was a hiatus lasting about six thousand years when the Lifeweavers won and Kur's transportation network got closed down. We turned into a civilization in the gap. Then they came back, and the Lifeweavers appeared again to help us."

Valentine looked at Post. He wondered if his lieutenant thought him a lunatic, or simply an imaginative liar.

"I've heard rumors," Post finally whispered. "Weird stuff about men who can become invisible, or breathe water, or wrestle a Reaper to the ground. Is that what you can do?"

"None of those," Valentine said, smiling. "I can see and hear better, and they did something to quicken my reflexes. But that doesn't help me with this, at least now. The best hearing in the world isn't going to help me take this ship. But you could."

Valentine felt relieved for some reason. Something had felt wrong in keeping up the pretense in front of Post. Having a man he instinctively liked believing him a tool of the Kurians grated.

"I'm not the only discontented one, just the only one that shows it. But you tell most of the men what you just told me, they'll claim they're in with you and two minutes later go straight to the captain. Claim the Terrorist Bounty. It's big enough to live on for years, if you catch a real one."

"Post, in the KZ the 'rest of your life' is whatever the Kurian in charge wants it to be. In the Ozarks, you're not livestock, you're an individual. Part of a community. It's not Old World, at least not in material terms. But the old beliefs are there. Life has value."

"Some community," Post said thickly, his rotgut kicking in. "I've heard you folks are so hungry that when winter comes, you live off the dead."

This was not the first time Valentine had heard that grisly rumor. He was happy to gainsay it rather than cite invented facts to support it. "Not true. I will say we don't eat as well as a lot of folks in the KZ, but then we're not being fattened for the slaughter, either. I'm offering you a way out of all this, Will. A real escape-not like the bottle you're using now. More, a chance to fight back. You'll be with men and women working to smash the system."

Post picked up the nearly empty bottle and looked at the mouth in a sidelong way, as if it were playing some kind of tune only he could hear. He shut his eyes and opened them again, staring straight at Valentine.

He stood up, a little unsteadily, and extended his hand. "It ain't going to work, Dave. But maybe you won't die alone."

They shook on it.

A long moment passed, and Post sat back down in his bunk. He wiped his face, turning the gesture into a long, thoughtful pull at his chin.

Valentine slipped back into his pants and shoes and left the cabin for a moment, passed the word for the officer's steward to bring some sandwiches to his cabin. He stepped out onto the afterdeck, felt the engines through the rail. The Grogs were hurrying to finish up their duties, looking forward to an evening's rest, and off-duty marines and sailors lounged around the deck, playing games of card and dice, or sitting absorbed in wood carving, reading, or just talking. He smelled the men's dinners below, the sea air, and the oily smell of the diesels.

When he returned to the cabin, Post had his footlocker open and was unwrapping a burnished steel pistol from a terry-cloth rag. A matching gun lay on his bed.

"I wasn't planning on moving this minute," Valentine said, shutting the door behind him.

"Hope not. I'm too drunk to shoot straight. Thought you might want something to replace that .44 wheelgun you lost. Some mementos of my bright and shining youth."

He handed an automatic to Valentine. Its straightforward lines and large, businesslike grip made it instantly identifiable. "A Colt 1911 model?"

"One of the variants. Got a .45 shell that should stop just about anyone, good and permanent. Bought this pair fresh out of Officers' Training."

Valentine tested the slide. The weapon was in fine condition.

"Take one, Dave. It shoots faster than that revolver ever could."

"Happy to," Valentine said. Post also presented him with magazines of freshly loaded ammunition for the weapon. "Are the bullets reliable?"

"Better than most," Post said. "Not service issue-they come from a gunsmith in the old town. He's a good man, as long as you treat him right. I heard that a major went out one time, threw his weight around to get a free gun, and damned if his pistol didn't misfire just when he needed it."

The sandwiches arrived, accompanied by a gumbo soup made of the scraps of the fresh meats brought out of New Orleans. They pulled out a mini-desk between their bunks and ate in thoughtful silence, mopping up the remnants of the soup with the ship's fresh bread. For the first time since Valentine started eating with Post, his lieutenant did not wash down his meal with half the contents of one of the iodine-colored bottles.

"Can you tell me what you need the ship for?" Post asked.

Valentine had committed himself, and if he could trust Post with his life, he could trust him with the few details that he knew. Ahn-Kha would take over if he were killed, but if by chance both of them-

"I'm to find a stash of old weapons. I don't know what kind. Then I'm supposed to get them back, either going through Galveston or farther south by Mexico. That's the reason for the armed ship: it's supposed to help at the island, and then make sure nothing can challenge us on the way back. There's a man in Southern Texas who'll take it from there."

"Why don't they tell you what it is?"

"I think the danger is that if the Kurians found out about it, they'd either take it themselves or destroy it."

Valentine heard someone in the passageway outside, and held up his hand for silence.

"Where is it?" Post asked after Valentine had dropped his hand.

"Haiti."

"Haiti?" Post choked. "Jesus, I figured it was the old naval base at Guantanamo. Sir, Haiti's hell's own greenhouse. It's pretty fuckin' big, and I've never heard of anyone getting inland out of range of the ship's guns and coming back to tell about it."

"I know roughly where on the island I'm supposed to go. There's some kind of traitor in the Kurian organization there who'll teach us about it. I know it will be bulky-that's why we need a ship and so many men for the job."

"There's an awful lot of ifs in your plan, if you don't mind me saying, sir."

"I know."

"I'm not asking you to follow me inland. I was counting on you to run things on the ship until I return."

"Sir, you want a weapon, think about this ship. She's well armored, carries a good-size gun, and you could put enough men on her to shut down water traffic from Louisiana to Florida."

"Any other time you'd be right, Will. But they tell me that whatever is waiting on Haiti is something that could really change the equation between us and the Kurians. Don't you think the risk is worth a chance to make a difference?"

"Some difference. Seems to me, the difference will be the one between being alive and being dead. Not that I really care," he added. To his credit, Valentine thought, he did not sound convinced of the last.

From that dinner on, Valentine did not see Post take another drink. His lieutenant suffered unvoiced agonies in silence, driving himself to keep up an appearance of stability in front of others, only to flee to the head or the cabin when the shaking in his hands got to be too much for him. Valentine never asked him to quit drinking; in fact, with the mental strain he was more than a little tempted to try the contents of the squared-off bottles himself after retiring at night. Valentine found a growing new respect for Post that replaced his previous feelings of pity. He admired his lieutenant for keeping the pretense of normality despite the torrents of sweat pouring out of him and God-knew-what other torments to his body.

The next evening Valentine arranged for a meeting in the arms locker with the Chief, Post, Ahn-Kha, and himself, purportedly to determine which weapons Ahn-Kha's Grogs would carry in their duties. The captain had suggested a brace of dusty shotguns, captured in some action long ago and forgotten. After viewing the weapons in question, Valentine asked that the Chief take a look at them and see if the ship's machine shop could bring them back to usability. Thus the conspirators were able to get a half-hour or so of privacy within the ship for a meeting of their group. Squeezing Ahn-Kha's bulk into the room proved to be only the first difficulty in a long line of challenges before them.

"We should make landfall off Jamaica tomorrow afternoon or early evening," Valentine began. "The captain plans to head straight into the harbor they are thought to use the next morning. God knows what might happen in the fight, so I think we have to move before then."

"How about we go into action and rig a shell to blow in the bridge during the fight?" the Chief suggested. "The crew will think the pirates just got a lucky shot, and Mr. Rowan assumes command. Looks legit."

"Who knows what damage the explosion would do?" Post asked, sweat running from his hairline under the hot work-lamp. The marine was balling his hands into fists and rubbing them against his thighs under the weapon-strewn table.

"Maybe we go aground. So much for the Thunderbolt. I doubt the pirates would fix her up and take her to Haiti to oblige us."

"Yes, and we might not get both. The exec will probably be at the main armament. I think it's better if we do it before. Offer the men an alternative to the fight," Valentine said. "Freedom. That's a powerful persuader."

"Cut off the head, and the body will be yours," Ahn-Kha said, quoting a Grog proverb from his place, squeezed between the rifle racks filling up one whole end of the room. "We have much of the head of the ship here. We remove the captain and Worthington. Then we let the petty officers know who is in charge. They will do as they are told."

"Ahn-Kha is right as far as the captain and exec go," Valentine agreed. "But I want to give everyone else a real choice. We assemble the crew and give each man the option: join us, or be put off the ship in a boat with food, water, even weapons. They can take their chances on Jamaica or try to sail for the coast. All they have to do is go north-they'll hit Kurian territory soon enough."

"Will you tell them why you need the ship?" the Chief asked.

"Can't risk it until the captain and the exec disappear with the crew that want to follow them. I have no idea how long we would be on Haiti. The last thing we need is him trying to hunt us down."

Post shook his head. "You'll lose half of them. Maybe more. We might not be left with enough to keep this bucket moving."

"I think a lot of them signed on for sea service to get away from the Reapers. You can tell by their talk, their interests. They're free spirits, not conscripts."

They hashed out the rest of the plan while working on the shotguns. They decided they would let a few subordinates they felt could be trusted know about the plan at the last minute. Post felt that he knew two marines well enough to say they would follow him, and the Chief insisted that his engine-room crew would sign on to a man. Ahn-Kha said the Grogs would do as he ordered; few of the humans on board could even make themselves understood to the creatures beyond simple instructions.

They would take the ship in the dark after making landfall at Jamaica. The captain planned, as soon as he got his bearings, to move east along Jamaica's north coast and arrive at the pirate bay with the dawn. Around midnight, Ahn-Kha would go below and guard the arms locker with his Grogs, also controlling the nearby hatches to the engine room and generator room. The Chief would kill the power when this was accomplished. Post and the marines he hoped to recruit would go to the small store of "ready arms" on deck, and mount machine guns fore and aft covering the main decks from the gun platforms. It would be Valentine's job to take the bridge," doing whatever was necessary to keep Captain Saunders and Worthington from issuing any orders. With that accomplished, Valentine would assemble all hands on the deck and offer them their choice.

There was some dispute over what to do with the captain and the executive officer.

"You'll probably have to kill them, sir," Post predicted.

"I'd rather not. I'll get a pair of handcuffs on them and toss them in the motor launch. Or the lifeboat, depending on how many of the crew decide to go with them."

"It will come to killing," Ahn-Kha said. "They will turn the crew against you, if they can."

"Handcuffs and gags, then. I don't want their blood on our hands unless it is a matter of us or them."

Valentine spent the next day lost in his duties, so much so that he did not go up on deck as they caught their first sight of the blue Jamaican coast. In preparation for the next morning's activities, which he hoped would never be carried out, he and his NCOs attached reflective tape to the backs of their green-and-black camouflage battle-dress. Someone joked that Irish, a Coastal Marine corporal in their complement, should form his into the shape of a bull's-eye, sincehe'd managed to get himself shot four times in the course of his duties, and even Post laughed. At the midday meal, Ahn-Kha and the marines held an informal meeting in the crew's mess, where they went over the destruction the Thunderbolt was to visit on the pirates. Saunders hoped to reach the harbor before midnight.

His imagination continued to get the better of him as the afternoon wore on. It seemed the entire ship crackled with electricity, so tense were the men and their officers in anticipation of the fight tomorrow.

"I hope the Chief is doing better than I am," Post reported, joining Valentine at sunset at the ship's starboard rail. They watched the thickly forested slopes of Jamaica slide by like a rolling backdrop in a stage play. Post still trembled, and his shirt was soaked with sweat, but his face seemed more animated and his eyes brighter. "I tried sounding out a few of the men, but I chickened out at the last moment. I just couldn't bring myself to say what we're planning, the moment didn't seem right. I kept thinking about a Hood at my throat, got so as I could almost feel teeth. About all I was able to do was warn them to be ready for anything. Sorry, Dave."

Valentine shrugged. 'Too late to worry. I talked to Ahn-Kha and the Chief-we're going to switch the time to twenty-two hundred. The men are supposed to be assembled an hour later, ready to climb into the boats for the landing. That way Ahn-Kha leading his Grogs to the arms locker won't seem so unusual-they're supposed to go ashore first anyway."

They forced themselves to act normally at dinner with the men. Valentine sat with one group he called his "deadeyes," the four best marksmen in the culled company. Post ate with the noncommissioned officers at the other long table in the galley. Though he had no appetite, Valentine forced himself to eat mouthful after mouthful of the traditional preaction steak and eggs. The beef was stringy and tough, but even the Thunderbolt's indifferent cook's mate could not ruin the eggs. Valentine forced himself to have seconds on the latter, washing it down with glassfuls of faintly orange-tasting sweetened water that he guessed to be some concoction trying to pass as orange juice. He joked with the men, listening to service stories and telling a few of his own, like me time a supply officer fed an entire harem of young women in the loft of a marine warehouse, which grew into a thriving bordello over the years. When caught by a visiting inspector, he argued that pimping a whorehouse fell under his duties, since one of his official responsibilities was listed on bis duty sheet as "recreation procurement officer."

With dinner finished, the marines broke off to leave the galley to the sailors, and Valentine retired to his shared cabin.

He looked around the close, bare room. A single locker held all his clothes, and a footlocker, the rest of his belongings. He spent an hour in a long shower and shave, and changed into his heavy cotton battle-dress. The combat fatigues, acquired from a tailor in Mobile when he first entered the Coastal Marines, were a tiger-stripe mix of black and dark green, spotted here and there with blotches of dark gray. Heavy pockets hung like saddlebags from the side of each thigh on the pants, but the short officers' tunic held only insignia and an expanding map pocket and a pencil-holder on one sleeve. He unlocked his chest and began to take out his equipment. He laced up his boots, traditional black service models, the leather softened and oiled by a year's wear and care. His final wardrobe item was a nylon equipment vest with heavy bullet-stopping pads slipped into the liner and compass, flares, first-aid kit, matches, and whistle distributed amongst the pockets. Post's .45 pistol went to his hip holster. He sank a machete into the sheath strapped across his back hanging over two canteens. Finally, he extracted the one item he brought out of the Ozarks, his old Soviet Russian PPD model submachine gun with the drum clip. It was a heavy-barreled, formidable-looking gun, restored by an old friend and given to him the summer he became a Cat three years ago.

Slinging the gun and drawing comfort from its familiar weight, he made a slow circuit of the Thunderbolt's central superstructure. Ahn-Kha had the Grogs gathered on the well deck, talking to them. The Golden One looked up at Valentine and cocked his ears up and forward, giving his broad head the momentary aspect of a bull: his friend's equivalent of a thumbs-up. The gesture went to Valentine's nerves like a fast-acting sedative. He looked out at the nearly empty aft decks and turned the last corner on the rectangular walkway. Post stood at the foot of one of the stairways going up to the bridge deck, idling next to the arms locker holding the machine gun for the forward mount.

Valentine squeezed past and gave him a nod. "Ready?" Valentine asked.

"Getting there. Sure makes you feel alive, doesn't it. Like the whole world's been turned up. Sounds, smells, everything. I never noticed all the waves before. A million of them-"

"Just take it easy, Will. Wait for me to go up the stairs- then get the gun. You checked it, right?"

"Yes, it's fine."

"Just a few minutes longer. Ahn-Kha's still talking to his team. They haven't gone below yet."

Post gripped the rail, the tendons in his forearms rising up under his tan skin. "You know why my wife lit out, Rowan-er, Dave?"

"I might be able to guess. The system?"

"The system," Post said. "She and I had a difference of opinion about it. She left. I eventually came round to her side, but only after her stuff had two years' worth of dust on it."

Post looked out at the ocean and the sinking moon. Valentine thought he saw the man's lower lip tremble.

Valentine leaned over, knocked his shoulder against Post's. "One way or another, you'll be clear of it soon."

"First, got to get rid of this shit," Post said, tearing off his tunic. Buttons flew, clattering to the deck and falling with barely audible plops into the ocean. Post stood in his stained undershirt for a moment, as if coming to a decision. He wadded up his uniform coat and fed it to the all-consuming sea.

"If I'm going to buy it, I don't want to go in their colors."

"I'll get you a different one when we get back to free soil, if you'd like," Valentine said. "Just try to live to claim it. I hope the exec doesn't come down those stairs and see you like that. He might have a few questions about your tunic."

"I'll pick him up and send him to look for it. He's a bottom-feeder if there ever was one.

"Could you do me a favor, Dave? If I don't make it, maybe you can look up Gail in the Free Territory. She would have headed that way-it's an easier trip than going across Texas. She's probably using her maiden name, Gail Stark. Tell her... just tell her about this."

"Can do, Will."

"Thanks, sir."

"See you at lights out."

"Good luck, Dave," Post said, offering his hand.

Valentine shook it and went forward to look down at the well deck. It was empty. Ahn-Kha and his Grogs were already on their way to the arms locker and engine room. A nervous thrill sparked up his spine, bristling the hair at the back of his neck.

He chambered the first round in his gun and lightly ascended the stairs to the open deck just behind the wheel-house. As his head broke the level of the upper deck, he listened with "hard ears" to voices from the bridge.

"And when is this supposed to happen?" the captain said from somewhere on the bridge.

"Early in the morning, sir. The ship's power will be cut off, and that's when they'll take the ship," Valentine heard a high-pitched voice say.

"It makes no sense," Worthington's voice exclaimed.

"They will be ashore by then, Grogs and marines, and Rowan will be with them."

"Can't argue it, there's something afoot, that's for certain," Saunders said. "Damn, there always was something about Rowan I didn't like. Haven't I said so time and again, Lieutenant?"

Worthington changed the subject. "I've already alerted the master-at-arms," he said. "I didn't know which marines to trust. Dortmund is bringing an armed guard up now, and he's-"

Valentine's worries cleared, as they always did when planning gave way to doing. All his questions were gone: it had become a matter of killing everyone on the bridge, and somehow holding the wheelhouse and upper deck through the coming confusion. The moon had disappeared below the horizon, leaving the ship lit only by the stars and its few running lights.

"Halt!" Valentine heard a voice boom from the bottom of the staircase. "Unsling your weapon, sir, and don't touch anything but the sling."

He turned to see Dortmund, three sailors lined up behind him, pistols pointed up at him. While he had been concentrating on the bridge, Dortmund had reached the bottom of the stairs without Valentine noticing. Valentine thanked God that Dortmund hadn't shot first and questioned later. He obeyed the instructions, going so far as to crouch to put the gun on the stair below his feet, and readied himself for a leap-

-when the loud, deadly rattle of a machine gun roared from behind the sailors, filling the night with noise. Dortmund's men fell forward, jerking spasmodically as if swept off their feet by an electrified broom. The hard plinking sound of bullets ricocheting off metal stairs and walls punctuated the sound of the slugs tearing through flesh, a noise that reminded some part of Valentine's mind of eggs thrown against a wall. The four-petal blossom of the machine-gun's muzzle flare lit Post's snarling features as he fired the support weapon from his hip, using a thick leather strap to help him wield it.

One sailor went overboard with a cry; the others fell at the bottom of the stairs.

Valentine retrieved his own gun before they hit the deck. Blood had been shed, and his hopes of a simple seizure of the ship were cut down as brutally as Dortmund and his henchmen. He peeked over the edge of the deck above, only to be met by a burst of bullets that zipped out to sea past his ear. Worthington was no fool; he had armed himself before going to the captain. Valentine had to get down to Ahn-Kha and his Grogs, so he would at least have a nucleus of armed men to command.

The lights died, and Valentine felt a change in the ship's motion. The Chief had level-headedly proceeded with the plan upon hearing the firing above.

Valentine backed down the stairs and joined Post, where his lieutenant covered the starboard side walkway from the base of the stairs.

"What the hell happened?" Post said. "Where did Dortmund come from?"

"One of the ship's boys overheard something and went to the exec. We've got to get to the Grogs."

The ship's public-address system squealed into static-filled life. "All hands, all hands, this is the captain speaking . . . ."

Valentine grabbed Post by the arm and pulled him into the stairwell leading into the bowels of the ship, almost jerking him out of his shoes with the force of his movement. Two shots rang out from the top of the stairway, cutting the air where they stood seconds ago, as Saunders's voice continued.

"... Captain Rowan of the Marines, Lieutenant Post, the Grogs, and an unknown number of others are attempting to mutiny. They are to be shot on sight. All hands to the aft deck, all hands to the aft deck."

"Make a hole, damn it! Make a hole!" Valentine barked, exiting the stairway with Post in tow, waving his submachine gun to accentuate the threat as they pushed back sailors popping like magical rabbits into the narrow passageway. Somewhere around the T-junction corner ahead he heard Ahn-Kha's bellow, barking out orders in the Grog patois. The captain's voice continued to issue orders over the PA, including one to the dead Dortmund to report to the Oerlikon. An emergency light bathed the corridor in harsh shadows. Valentine turned a corner and caught sight of a knot of Grogs standing behind a small, bright spotlight pointed down the corridor. He shielded his eyes.

"Ahn-Kha, it's me and Post! Cut that light for a second."

The two men hustled toward the improvised barricade.

A pistol fired from the darkness behind them, and Post grunted. He sagged against Valentine, who turned and fired up the passageway. Ahn-Kha leapt forward with apish agility, blocked the floodlight with his bulk, and put his mammoth arm around Post's chest. The machine-gun clattered to the steel floor, but Post gripped the strap as Ahn-Kha dragged him backwards. Valentine backed down the corridor, but whoever fired stayed safely around the corner of the intersection at the end of the hall.

He reached the Grogs outside the arms locker. Ahn-Kha had improvised a barricade of mattresses and a wooden door, which the muscular Grogs still worked to construct as they shifted a beam to let them pass. Ahn-Kha carried Post into the arms locker and gently stretched him out onto the floor. Valentine knelt beside his lieutenant, who had blood staining the undershirt across his chest.

Post groaned and coughed. "I can taste blood," he said.

Valentine found the wound, high enough on his chest to nearly be at the shoulder. He grabbed a first-aid kit off the wall and found a compress within. He applied the dressing to the softly pulsing hole. Noticing blood on the floor, he gently lifted Post and found another hole opposite.

"Good news, Will. It went straight through."

"Watch ... out. The captain'll have the marines on you in a minute."

"Most of them won't be armed. All they'll have are whatever guns are scattered in the ship."

"Stern. He'll send men down the hatches." Post was pale with pain, but still thinking clearly enough. His bravery gave Valentine heart.

"We've blocked everything off," Ahn-Kha said from the doorway. "The Chief is welding the access hatches shut."

A Grog hooted and fired toward the T-intersection forward. The shotgun blast sounded like a grenade explosion in the confined area of the metal passageway.

They heard a clatter around the shadowed corner of the T-intersection facing the barricade. Ahn-Kha knelt behind the mattress-shielded door, the pump-action in his hands looking like a child's toy.

"Mr. Rowan?" a voice called down the hall. "It's Partridge. I've got Went and Torres with me. What's happening, sir?"

Valentine exchanged a look with Ahn-Kha, and mouthed the word marines. "I don't have time for the whole story, Party. But everything the captain said over the intercom is true. Post is with me. We are trying to take the ship."

"What're you talking to him for?" a voice said from around the right-hand corner of the intersection.

"Shut up, See-Pee. It's our officer," Valentine heard Torres growl.

"You planning on going into the Blue, sir?" Partridge continued, ignoring the byplay.

"Something like that. It's a life away from the Reapers to any man who comes with me."

"You move, and I'll shoot you down," the unknown voice from the right side of the T-intersection threatened.

"Hey, what're-," Partridge began, but the sound of shots cut him off. Valentine heard four shots in rapid succession, and the three marines appeared in the corridor, Torres and Went holding the wounded Partridge between them.

They squinted in the glare of the spotlight, holding up their free hands. Torres had a revolver in his, and Went a rifle.

"Bastards! You killed Delano!" someone yelled from around the corner as the marines approached the barricade.

Ahn-Kha plucked the wounded man over and bore him into the arms locker, and put him down next to Post. Valentine helped the other two. Torres followed Partridge, who had blood already soaking through the right side of his uniform.

"We're with you, Mr. Rowan," Went, one of Valentine's deadeyes, said once they were safely behind the mattresses again. "When we heard the announcement, Party, he said, 'Who'd you rather take orders from, Saunders or Mr. Rowan?' I grabbed my match rifle, and Torres got Corporal Grant's pistol, and came to see what was happening. That bastard Delano fired first, sir, and we shot back. Everything's dark and confused. I heard firing forward. I think everyone's shooting at each other."

"I'm glad you're here, Went. I want to be straight with you. This is not going as I planned. It's us, the Grogs, and the Chief and a few of his men. We're outnumbered about eight to one."

The corners of Went's mouth twitched back into something that, if not a smile, was at least a wry grimace. "Leastways the guns are here." He peered over the edge of the barricade. "They won't take me alive. I'm not going to get delivered in handcuffs to some Hood."

The hatch to the generator room at the bottom level of the ship opened, and the Chief's face looked up at the assembled Grogs and men. "Tight as a drum, they're going to have to blow a big hole in the ship to get at us from down here. Captain's going to have an interesting time commanding the ship without engines."

"Good work, Chief," Valentine said.

Valentine heard a commotion down the hall and sought out the location with hard ears. The captain was speaking to someone, demanding a report. Saunders did not care for the answers, he began to yell. "That's all? And you let men join them?"

"They shot Delano, sir, and he had the only gun right then."

"You've got a wrench in your hands-you should have bashed some skulls in with it. Out of my sight!"

After a moment, Valentine heard Saunders's voice raised again, this time projecting from somewhere along the starboard-side corridor.

"The attempt on the ship has failed, Rowan. You know it, and I'm sure it's starting to dawn on those deluded enough to follow you."

"We're ready to wreck the engines, Captain, if we come to believe that," Valentine called back.

"You're a dead man, Rowan, and so's your pet drunk. But I'm offering an amnesty to whoever turns you in. I'll hush all this up. Like it never happened, long as they frog-march you and Post out."

Valentine looked over his shoulder; Torres and Went were both looking at him. He read doubt in their expressions, but whether it was doubt in him or doubt in the captain's promise he could not say. He slowly placed his gun on the floor, butt end pointed at the marines. 'Takers?" Valentine asked softly.

Went blanched, but Torres just smiled and shook his head. Partridge groaned something from his position on the floor of the arms locker.

"What was that?" Valentine asked Torres, who knelt beside the wounded man.

"'Tell Captain Saunders to go fuck himself,'" Torres repeated for the wounded man.

Valentine picked up his gun. "We put it to a vote, Captain, and it's unanimous: Go fuck yourself."

"You'll all bleed, you renegade bastards," the captain swore.

"Tell me, sir," Valentine shouted back. "What happened to the last captain that failed in a mission because of a mutiny? I heard Kurians ordered-"

"By Kur, Rowan, I'll make it so hot for you, you'll wish you were in hell. I'll keelhaul you. You'll beg me to let you die, renegade!"

Torres disappeared into the arms locker and returned, scooting up toward Valentine with something in his hand. Valentine recognized the can-shaped object as one of the ship's grenades. "Play much pool, Mr. Rowan?" Torres asked, putting two fingers into the ring atop the explosive.

"Not my game, Torres," Valentine whispered back.

"Can I try a two-bumper shot?"

"Be my guest."

Torres pulled the pin and listened for the hiss. Valentine saw a thin wisp of smoke appear from the central fixture that held the fuse. The marine stood and, with a left-handed sidearm throw, sent the grenade spinning down the corridor, whirling like a gyroscope toward the voice of the captain. Valentine kept his head up long enough to see it bounce off the bullet-marked wall at the crossbar of the T-intersection and heard it hit again somewhere in the corridor corner leading to the starboard passageway.

There was just enough time before the explosion for cries of "Grenade!" and "Look out!" to be heard, before an orange flash lit up the corridor.

As the ringing noise faded from their ears, Valentine felt the sweat running down the skin over his spine.

"About time for the captain to try something really stupid," Valentine predicted grimly, hearing voices yell back and forth from both sides of the intersection. He hated the thought of what was coming.

The captain obliged him. The loyal sailors and marines of the Thunderbolt tried to take the barricade with a rush. One of the machine guns from the upper deck appeared around the portside corner and began firing blindly toward the barricade. Valentine and Torres knelt behind the mattress-reinforced door, while the others took cover in rooms off the main passageway. Valentine heard the bullets hitting the door with a chunking sound, but the mattresses slowed down even the large-caliber shells enough so they failed to do more than dig into the solid wood.

When the gun's belt ran out, the corridor filled with screaming attackers trying to rush the barricade under the cover of a few pistols in the front ranks. The spotlight lit them up with unearthly clarity, ghostly faces white and straining. Ahn-Kha lifted the machine gun Post had dragged with him, and firing from his shoulder swept the corridor, cutting down the attackers running at them two abreast. Valentine added short bursts from his own gun. They flung the men down into bloody heaps well before the hopeless attack reached the barricade. A pair of men dodged into the dark laundry room, only to be hurled out again by shotgun blasts from Ahn-Kha's Grogs waiting within.

The charge was bloody but brief, and when it was over, Valentine counted eleven dead and wounded heaped in the corridor, lying in a thin lake of spilled blood under spattered walls. Only their blood penetrated the barricade, seeping in under the mattresses and door, until its odor overwhelmed even the cordite in the air.

Valentine sank to his knees, reloading. "Last thing I wanted. This is not what I wanted," he heard himself saying over and over again, waltzing on the edge of hysteria.

Ahn-Kha placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Steady now, my David," the huge Grog said. "Better them than us."

A figure arose from the bloody heap in the corridor, pushed up by an arm and his one good leg. The marine tried to take a step back toward the intersection when he slipped on the slick red liquid pooled on the floor, falling full on his injured leg with an agonized scream.

"Would you help Cal before he bleeds to death?" Valentine shouted down the corridor.

"You won't shoot?"

"No, for God's sake. Get him, would you?" Torres added.

The tacit truce allowed a pair of sailors to pull the wounded men away around the corridor. Ahn-Kha placed a new belt in his machine gun, closing the receiver with a determined slam.

"Partridge died," Went reported. "Sorry, Mr. Rowan. And I think Mr. Post is in shock."

Valentine crawled into the locker and felt Post's pulse. It was weak but steady, his breathing shallow.

A half-familiar burning smell tickled Valentine's nostrils. He looked up at the ceiling, where smoke began to flow from an air-supply vent. He moved to the hatch to the engine room. "Chief, looks like they're burning something in the ventilators, can you do anything about it?"

"Yeah, I noticed," the Chief called back. "I'm turning off the fans now. The access to the smokestack is welded shut- otherwise, I could shunt it out of there. It'll get smoky, especially if they burn something in the stairways, too."

"How about reversing the fans?"

"We'd have to rewire them. We're just going to have to cough for a while, I think."

The squawk box crackled to life. "Last chance, men," the captain's voice gloated. "We've got some fires going in the ventilators, and we'll be dropping bits of fender tire on for good measure. It's going to get unpleasant down there in a few minutes, if not lethal. Anyone who comes to their senses will get mercy. Too much has happened for it to get covered up now, but I'll do what I can."

"Why can't you shut him up, Chief?" Went yelled as Torres solemnly laid his tunic over Partridge's head.

"It's on an emergency battery up on the bridge. I could cut the wires, I suppose-"

Ahn-Kha wrinkled his nose. "Disgusting."

Valentine began to cough at the harsh smell of burning rubber filling the room, causing his eyes to water.

"Try this," the Chief said, passing Valentine a damp rag.

Valentine imitated the Chief and his men by tying the cloth over his mouth and nose. He did not notice a difference.

Eyes watering in the noxious burning-rubber smell, Valentine tried to come up with a plan. If all else failed, it was his duty to at least deprive the Kurians of the Thunderbolt. He could have the Chief open the scuttle to the ocean, and let the sea take the ship and his mission with her. Perhaps he and Ahn-Kha could even survive the swim to the Jamaican shore....

Something hit the side of the ship with a resounding thump. A slight sideways motion rocked the Thunderbolt, barely enough to make a man unsteady on his feet. Had they run aground, or drifted into a reef? A second later, Valentine heard firing from above.

Valentine looked up at Ahn-Kha. The Grog's hornlike ears were twisting this way and that, listening to the confused clamour from above. Valentine recognized the sound of voices shouting, almost cheering together, intermixed with the gunfire. He and Ahn-Kha exchanged questioning looks.

"It has to be the pirates," Valentine said.

"Aww, shit, just what we need," Went said, his voice sounding strangely pitched owing to a set of improvised noseplugs.

Valentine hopped up to join Ahn-Kha. "You're exactly right, Went. It is just what we need. Men!" Valentine said, raising his voice and calling down to the Chief and his men below. "Let's make some noise. Yell for help, everyone!"

They all looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Valentine took a choking breath. "Heeeeelp!" he howled down the corridor.

Torres and Went began shouting, as well as the Chief and his men in the engine room. Valentine yelled until he saw spots in front of his eyes, taking unpleasantly deep breaths of smoke-tainted air. Ahn-Kha outdid all the men, bellowing loudly enough to rattle cups in the galley. Ahn-Kha's Grogs joined in, beating metal tools against the pipes and walls, adding a metallic clamor to their combined voices.

He held up a hand for silence. "Kill the spotlight," he ordered. Torres turned the switch at the back of the lamp, incautiously putting his hand on the light's housing and burning himself. Torres swore.

"Quiet there," Valentine said, listening to footsteps in the corridor. Two sailors came around one end of the intersection, a marine from the other, holding their hands up.

"Don't shoot Captain Rowan!" the marine, a corporal named Hurst, begged.

"Mr. Rowan, we're giving up to you here," a CP petty officer added.

"Okay, come forward. Keep your hands in view, men," Valentine said, nauseated from the burnt-tire smell. "What's happened up top?"

"Dunno for sure, sir," Hurst reported. "The exec had me watching the engine-room escape hatch, in case y'all came up that way. All of a sudden we got small-caliber fire. Sweeping bad, sir. There was a ship alongside, and a boat, too, come up in the dark while everyone was busy. Nilovitch got hit, couldn't do anything for him, so we came below. Had to jump over the smoke fire they had going, heard a lot of shouting and shooting behind me. Figured it was a good chance to throw in with y'all. Then we saw these two," he said, gesturing to the Thunderbolt sailors.

"My David," Ahn-Kha said, but Valentine was already reacting. Lights appeared from the T-intersection.

"Get over here, men," Valentine said, and he and Went helped them get over the barricade as Ahn-Kha pointed the machine gun down the passageway.

"In there," Valentine ordered, indicating the hallway behind the barricade leading to the aft storage lockers. "Torres, keep an eye on them."

He heard voices coming from the two joining corridors. "Musta been back here," one of the voices said. A few shots still sounded from forward.

"Hello?" Valentine called down the hall. "If you're looking for the people yelling for help, you found them."

The voices hushed. Valentine hardened his ears, searching where his eyes could not go.

"Mebbe a trap," someone muttered around the corner.

"If it is, you can tell the commodore you avenged me. Quiet now, I need to listen," a female voice said. "Hello back," the unknown woman added, a bit more loudly. "This ship is in the hands of the Commodore's Flotilla, of Jayport, Jamaica. I offer you a chance of surrender with fair treatment. Why were you calling for help?"

The owner of the voice stepped around the corner, and all that Valentine could make out in the smoke and darkness was that she was a tall woman. An equally tall man joined her, and at a motion from her hand he opened a kerosene lantern and held it up, revealing the two of them. They both wore loose cotton shirts, cut as pullovers with deep V-necks, dark culottes topped with a sash and gunbelts, and boat sandals. She had dark hair pulled back from her face and handsome, large-eyed features showing Latin blood in her golden complexion. The man behind her was ebony-hued, eyes narrowed suspiciously as he searched the men on the barricade, a revolver in his other hand.

Valentine thought it best to match her and hopped over the barricade, though he took care to land on his good leg. "Ahn-Kha, tell your pair in the laundry not to fire. It's over."

Ahn-Kha barked something out, answered by grunts from the darkness of the laundry room. Valentine moved forward to meet the two at the intersection. She looked at the bodies, and Valentine saw her reading the story in the carnage.

"Surrender might not be the right word, but we won't trouble you."

"You in a position to cause trouble?"

"Not if you play fair by us. My name is Valentine, out of Southern Command in the Ozarks. God knows how I could prove it to you, though. Our plan was to take the ship, but"-Valentine indicated the barricade behind him-"it went rather wrong. Help us, and you'll have my thanks, and my word that we will not harm you or the Thunderbolt further."

"You are a long way from Mountain Home, Valentine," she said, showing a better knowledge of his land than he would have guessed. "My name is Carrasca, First Leftenant of the Rigel."

"What's happened to the rest of my crew?" Valentine asked.

"A few were killed. Someone from the bridge fired a machine gun into us, and more were shot off the superstructure, but most surrendered. I see your men are better armed than the rest."

"We had the arms locker and engine room, about the only thing that went right tonight. You picked a good time to board."

"Lucky for both of us. Can you clear out that mess in the corridor? I need to send men down to watch the engine room."

"Nobody is going to sink her," Valentine said.

"It is my responsibility to make sure of that. I'm sure you can understand."

Valentine stepped aside as more of the Rigel's men entered, nodding to Ahn-Kha. The Grog gripped the door of the barricade and lifted it aside. Carrasca gave orders, briefly and to the point. Valentine admired the way her men were in control, even in the confusion of a fight. Whoever these pirates were, they had a discipline different from, and superior to, the fear-inspired one that dominated the Thunderbolt.

The defenders from the barricade huddled in a silent little group in the arms locker, like children unsure of a new teacher.

Valentine decided a gesture was in order, if nothing else to preempt the orders that would soon be issued from their captors. "Can we get the fans on, Chief? Our friends here put the fires out. Let's get some air down here. Turn the power back on, and start the engines, if you please."

The Chief pushed his stunned men into their positions. "Sir, tell these islanders not to keep pointing their guns around, will you? The fingers on all these triggers are making me nervous."

Carrasca leaned over the hatch. "Bierd, have your men watch their weapons." She turned back to Valentine. "I'm sorry, but for the safety of your men, you'll be put under guard. Could you bring your men up on deck?"

The diesels coughed into life, and Valentine felt the roll of the ship change as the propellers began to bite.

"C'mon, men, up on deck. I've had enough of this air. Let's get these bodies up, too."

The sailors, marines, and Grogs started the grisly work of clearing up the corpses. Valentine picked past the remains of a burning pile of tires and rags, following Carrasca to the stairs.

The intercom buzzed to life again. "Congratulations, men," a deep voice with a singsong musical intonation announced. 'Thees is Captain Utari. D' ship is ours. Fair shares all round."

As the pirates cheered, Valentine felt the rudder turn the Thunderbolt's vital tonnage toward Jamaica.