The Guns of Two-Space (16 page)

On the lowerside, at the same instant, Broadax was doing the same thing. The bow guns above and below belched out their terrible load of death, scattering the Guldur defenders who tried to make a stand at the rail. Then the gun crews left their reeking charges, grabbed the loaded, double-barreled muskets standing in ready-racks beside their guns, and threw themselves into the fray.

The huge blast of grapeshot from the cannons was devastating, painting the deck red and sending a grisly fountain of blood and limbs into the air. But the real harm was done by the volley of individually aimed fire from the marines' double-barreled, rifled muskets. The grapeshot was junk mail, addressed to "occupant." The musket balls were first-class mail, hand delivered and personally addressed to each individual defender. This kind of precision rifle fire was a much better method of getting the message out, and the message was: "Your breathing privileges have now been revoked."

After the initial volley the
Fang
s stormed aboard the Guldur Ship in a wave of cold steel.

On the lowerside Broadax led the way as her marines slammed into the enemy with an audible crash. The clang of steel on steel sounded like a cartload of scrap iron being dumped into a pit. This was accompanied by a roar of terror, anger, and desperation from both sides, then the awful slaughterhouse thud of steel on flesh, and the groans and piercing screams of the wounded and dying.

Broadax clenched her cigar in her teeth. Her ax sliced through the enemy in great swaths of blood and gore, and her monkey gibbered with joy. Dwakins was on her left, and she did her best to keep the young marine alive.

Dwakins was dazed and confused by the noise and the violent movement all around him. There was a loose liquid feeling in his guts, and his testicles were crawling up to meet it. In ordinary life there was usually too much going on for him to keep track of it all. In the midst of this din and confusion he didn't have a chance. He had fired both barrels of his musket when the lieutenant told him to, then he leapt across with the others and now there was a big, yellow dog in front of him, about to stab him with a bayonet.

Suddenly Dwakins' vision narrows and nothing else in the universe matters except for the one creature in front of him. His sense of sound goes away and the world becomes deathly quiet.

Dwakins was dumb, but his body was of ancient lineage and wise in the ways of survival. When you are profoundly frightened your brain will normally shut out all senses except one, and you will only receive data from whatever sense the brain thinks is most important for survival. Usually the one sense that is most essential is vision, and that is often further limited by tunnel vision, cutting out all distracting, peripheral sights.

This powerful, ancient survival mechanism did exactly what it was supposed to do in Dwakins' body and mind. The sensory overload and confusion left him. His brain tuned out all input except for the sight of the individual who was about to kill him, and his body took action to survive.

He thrusts his musket forward with the strength and speed of desperation, slamming his bayonet to the hilt in the Gudlur's chest. Dwakins' thick, black hair flies forward with the force of the blow, momentarily blocking his vision. He has a fleeting, distracting thought about his corporal, who had been telling him to get a haircut, but somehow there was never enough time. With his vision blocked and useless, the survival computer that is his brain choses to turn on his body's tactile sensations. Suddenly he is conscious that the force of his bayonet thrust makes his hands ache like an ax blow that unexpectedly hits a rock. For a brief instant that shocked feeling in his hands, combined with a sickening, grating feeling as the blade crunches through bone, is the only sensory input that enters into the meager mental universe that is Private Dwakins' brain.

Then his hair settles down, his vision returns, and Dwakins looks at the creature he has stabbed. The doggie's face is a mask of cringing confusion and dismay. Its eyes are wide, its ears are back, and its head is cocked to one side. His old farm dogs looked just like that when they were being punished. Then it looked down at the bayonet hilt and the musket protruding from its chest, and a look of ineffable despair comes over its face as it drops its own weapon and wraps both hands around Dwakins' musket barrel, almost as though it is clasping its hands in prayer.

In a flash of insight, Dwakins realizes that the primary reason he is alive is because this doggie was even
more
confused and scared than he is. Dwakins is struck with a great sadness as he realizes that he might have just killed one of the few creatures who is more stupid and frightened than he is.
 

Everything up to this point takes only a few heartbeats to transpire, but the effects of slow-motion time make it seem like forever. In this same, stop-action daze, Dwakins' eye is caught by movement above him, and he realizes that the doggie's tick is about to bring its short sword down upon his unprotected skull.

Dwakins' monkey tries to stop the blow with a despairing "
Eeek!"
but the tiny creature is still small and immature, and the blow is too powerful for it to block. Dwakins only has enough time to look into the Goblan's malignant red eyes and think,
Oh-Gawd-I'm-gonna-die!
before Lt. Broadax's ax comes up from his right, in a great, sweeping, backhanded, upstroke that enters underneath the tick's armpit, slicing off its left arm, shoulder, and head, and launching them up into the air in a red rocket of arterial blood. The blow is so fast that even in slow-motion time it seems like a blur.
 

Then the Guldur drops backward. Dwakins' bare feet slip on the blood-slicked deck, and he falls on top of his foe. The doggie's body slams back on the deck, and the bayonet protruding from its back is driven back out of its chest, falling beside them. They are both on the deck, embracing like lovers as Dwakins reaches out and strokes the Guldur's head. His foe looks up at him with stunned, shocked, hurt, puppy eyes.

Dwakins whispers, with tears in his eyes, "Nice doggie. Good doggie."

Out of the corner of her eye Lt. Broadax saw Dwakins make one good lunge and sink his bayonet into one of the enemy. Then she saw the cur's tick take a cut at Dwakins, and she decapitated the critter with one casual backhand swipe of her ax. She took note of the fact that Dwakins slipped and fell, then she lost sight of him as Lance Corporal Jarvis stepped over his body and shifted right to fill in the gap.

Dwakins' panic-induced response resulted in tunnel vision and auditory exclusion in the young private, but Broadax's reaction to combat was completely different. She was conscious of everything around her, she heard all the sounds, and she was prepared to give commands or assistance as needed. Dwakins was a charging lion, completely unaware of anything but its prey. Broadax was a veteran wolf, hearing every member of the pack
and
the prey, conscious of all that was happening, and ready to contribute to the team effort.

To Broadax's right were Corporal Kobbsven and Gunny Von Rito. The massive Kobbsven bore a mighty, two-handed claymore, and Von Rito had only an ancient K-bar fighting knife in his hand. The two of them formed a deadly, long-range/short-range team that had been perfected in many past battles.

The
Fang
s all had their monkeys perched on their backs, usually clinging with six legs and swinging a wooden belaying pin with the other two. They used these wooden clubs with supernatural speed to block enemy sword blows and bayonet thrusts, and even incoming bullets.

Immediately behind Broadax was Corporal Petrico, their armorer and crack pistol shot, carrying four double-barreled pistols stuffed into his belt, and six more in two specially made bandoleers that formed a big X draping across his narrow chest. Petrico was using his pistols with great care and precision to help the individuals in the front rank. The marines' monkeys tended to block the shots and blows that were aimed at their hosts' head and shoulders, so Petrico focused on those who were shooting or thrusting from below. With a carefully aimed snapshot and a cry of, "Take
that
, chew pocker!" he placed a bullet between the eyes of a Guldur who was kneeling down and about to fire a musket up into Kobbs' stomach. Then, with another cry of, "And
that
, chew pocker!" he put another bullet into a dismounted tick who was scurrying around on the deck, trying to reach in and hamstring Lt. Broadax.

The rest of the marines formed a phalanx beside and behind these lead elements, and together they chewed through the enemy like a ripsaw through soft wood. They quickly swept around the dismounted enemy bow gun and dispatched the enemy who were trying to use it as cover.

The dog-like Guldur stood on two legs, and wore only a leather harness of crossed chest straps and belt to hang their ammunition and equipment on. Most of them held muskets in their forepaws and all of them had a vicious Goblan tick on their backs. The
Fang
s had learned to like and trust the Guldur prisoners who had joined their crew. In fact, many of the
Fang
's doggies were participating in this boarding operation. But not a single one of their malignant, spiteful ticks had permitted themselves to be captured.

These filthy creatures each wielded a short sword with deadly efficiency, howling and screeching like baboons as they sat perched atop each cur's shoulders. It was generally believed that the ticks exerted some kind of mind control over their hosts, and between them and the Guldur packmasters, the average cur seemed to have no real control over its own destiny. Thus it was with particular pleasure that the marines who were not in the front ranks used their muskets to pick off the ticks. Without their ticks the Guldur were notably less deadly and determined.

Broadax was both prima donna and chaperone in a red dance of death, leading by example and exhorting others on, slaying and slaying as she grinned that cheerful grin you see in skulls. The combined effect of the marines' attack was devastating and totally demoralizing, and the enemy fell like wheat before the reaper. Lt. Broadax's boarding party quickly reached the enemy's lowerside quarterdeck. Her marines were barely able to keep up with Broadax, who was a living, breathing avatar of death and dismemberment as her ax swirled through the foe in great red swaths.

In a matter of minutes the marines stood panting upon the enemy's lower quarterdeck. The remaining Guldur, profoundly daunted by the gore encrusted Broadax and with their ticks picked off by riflemen, threw down their weapons and cringed at her feet.

"We surrrenderr! We submrit!" cried out the Guldur's remaining petty officer. "You arrre a mighty warrriorrr. Therrre is no shrame in surrrenderrring to you!"

There was a chorus of whimpers of agreement from among the Guldur as they looked up at Lt. Broadax, and then from among the phalanx of marine bayonets, an anonymous voice called out, "Damned right! And that's jist our womenfolk!"

"We ain't got time fer this, dammit!" shouted Broadax. "Third squad, leave a guard and the rest of ye start bustin' through the hatches to secure the Ship's Keel and make sure the mutts don' scuttle the Ship. Then ever'one move up and help with the battle on the upperside! Move out, ye bastards! Move!"

On the upperside Melville took the point, with a sword in his right hand and a double-barreled pistol in his left. Westminster and Valandil were at his flanks, armed with sword and pistol. The two rangers also each had a double-barreled musket slung over his back. They had all left their scabbards behind. Their lives would not depend upon being able to sheath their blades aboard the enemy Ship, and the scabbard might trip them up and throw them beneath an enemy blade in the midst of battle.

Westminster's dog, Cinder, stood close beside her master, panting with doggie glee at the prospect of the coming combat. The captain's dog, Boye, was huddling hesitantly between Cinder and Melville, constantly looking to his dam and his master for reassurance. Boye's monkey waved a belaying pin uncertainly as it clung to the dog's neck.

Grenoble stood behind the captain with a broad-bladed spear in his hands and a brace of pistols holstered on his hips. The Sylvan bodyguard was a hereditary guardian of warrior leaders. He knew that in battle a commander often had to lead from the front, but the tall Sylvan was trained to thrust his spear over, around, and even under his captain in order protect him in battle. Ordinarily Ulrich, the captain's coxswain, would be there as well, but Melville had given him another mission.

Brother Theo, the Ship's purser, also stood behind the captain with a pistol in each hand. Behind Theo was a small cluster of midshipmen with pistols. The middies' primary duty was to hand a steady supply of fresh pistols to Brother Theo, and to fire their own pistols in extreme emergencies. The midshipmen also had a few of the precious, rare, and hideously expensive, Keel-charge "concussion grenades." Melville hoped they could hold these in reserve, but if the attack got bogged down he wouldn't hesitate to use them.

More of the Ship's dogs were immediately behind the front line, mixed in with Ship's boys who were carrying razor-sharp knives in their fists. And each of
them
had a monkey with a belaying pin. The boys and the dogs—and their monkeys—fought the battle down low, scrambling among the legs, biting and hamstringing the enemy. It was hard to say if the boys or the dogs were anticipating the battle with greater glee.

Their offensive line was set up to attack the enemy low (the boys and dogs with their monkeys), middle (the majority of the assaulters and their monkeys), and high. The "high" component consisted of their topmen with their monkeys. They were led by the elite Sylvan sailors (and
their
monkeys), who were attacking from the
Fang
's rigging into the still intact upperside rigging of the Guldur Ship. The canine-derived Guldur were poor hands at operating in this realm, so they depended upon great swarms of Goblan to do any work that did not involve having both hindpaws planted firmly on the deck. The Sylvans were masters of maneuver and battle in the low gravity that existed up in the rigging, and they were confident in their ability to sweep away the Goblan who were still alive in the upper regions.