Tale of the Thunderbolt (10 page)

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.