The Guns of Two-Space (73 page)

Then there was a crescendo of tortured, splintering wood as
Fang
smashed into a hapless Crab Ship, sundering it in two and sinking it almost instantly. As their atmospheric clouds came together, the
Fang
s could hear the death cries of the Crabs in the shattered Ship, their screams cut short as they sank into the icy grip of two-space.

It was an insane symphony of death and destruction, a nightmare chorus of torment.

"Keep double-shotting the guns!" bellowed Mr. Barlet as the master gunner rallied his gun crews. "It's just what the bastards need up close and personal like this!" Then Barlet saw his captain striding across the deck. "A target rich environment, sir!" he shouted with a snarling, feral grin on his face. In the midst of the battle's madness the
Fang
's master gunner stood lean, dark, and hard, like a teak sword.

Melville could feel the madness surge through him like a fever. It was infectious. He could see it in the faces marred by sweat and blood, Guldur and human alike, poised over hot guns like half-naked alien demons. Even the humans seemed alien, and the Guldur looked like fiends from hell.

"I don't know if they scare the enemy," muttered Fielder as he stood on the lower quarterdeck beside Asquith, looking out at the gun crews, "but by God they scare the hell out of me!"

Above them the protective nets jerked and twitched with falling debris, flying splinters, and the occasional body. A yardarm punched through the net, gouging into the planking next to Asquith. Then a body slammed into the netting and rolled through the gap. Asquith helped catch the hapless sailor, and began to drag him to the surgeon. Amazingly the man appeared to be unharmed, his fall having been broken by the net. He staggered to his feet with a nod of thanks and scrambled back up into the tattered rigging.

"Huh," said Fielder calmly. "I guess those nets were a good idea. Chalk another one up for the captain. Dammit, he'll be insufferable if we survive this."

On the upper quarterdeck Midshipman Palmer looked down at his hands, holding the end of a shard of glowing white wood protruding from his chest. His monkey had blocked a small forest of splinters, but it couldn't stop them all, and the little creature sobbed softly as it stroked the boy's pale cheek.

It's all right,
Palmer tried to tell his monkey.
It's okay.
 

Every breath hurt, but he didn't want to stop. He found that he had grown fond of breathing in the span of his twelve brief years. It was a useful habit. He and his body didn't want to give it up.

He watched bright red bubbles gurgle out of his mouth and drop onto his hands with every breath. He could see his reflection in the bubbles, and everything seemed very precious and beautiful.

Then the bubbles stopped. He was going to miss them.

No one noticed as Palmer's monkey gave one last, shuddering sob and disappeared from three-space.

Melville dove through the aft hatch and scrambled up the rope to the upperside. Here Mr. Barlet was still striding the gundeck, but up on the quarterdeck Death was the watch officer. One lonely quartermaster stood wild-eyed at the wheel, his legs straddling the bodies of two other men who had been killed at that post.

Young Midshipman Aquinar had been wounded and evacuated, and Midshipman Palmer had taken over as quarterdeck officer. Now Palmer was dead, his legs spread before him and his back against the splintered remains of the lower quarterdeck's greenside railing. The boy had his head bowed and his hands clutched a splinter in his chest as if in prayer. A pool of blood was spreading out from his body, as a corpsman raced onto the quarterdeck and began to conduct triage amidst the bloody carnage.

Down in the hospital, Lady Elphinstone's fingers were like scarlet claws moving with blurring speed as she operated on the wounded. Her monkey was an integral part of her, as its dripping red paws passed instruments, tied off arteries, and applied pressure, all at the precise moment required, without need of asking or telling. Even as her hands ministered to one patient, her eyes were resting on the next recipient of the tender mercies of those scarlet fingers.

Mrs. Vodi and her monkey were everywhere, moving swiftly and efficiently, helping those she could, as the wounded helped each other. One sailor, his eyes bandaged and blind, was holding another patient against his shoulder, shielding and calming his friend as he groped blindly for his friend's mouth and gently separated the man's lips. His monkey held a cup of water in its two upper paws, pouring a blessed sip of water into their Shipmate's mouth.

Midshipman Aquinar had returned from sick bay, and once again he stood beside his captain on the upper quarterdeck. A gaping splinter wound in his thigh had been hastily bandaged and he had limped back to his duty station. The tiny middie looked over at the pool of blood where Palmer had died and gulped. The blood was slowly congealing, and part of it was being absorbed by the Moss.

Aquinar had seen Ship-to-Ship combat before but he had never been seriously wounded, and he had
never
seen anything like this glowing horde of Ships. The volley of fire from the enemy gunboats was raining all around them. As they drew in close, the Crabs were able to fire with swivel guns that were mounted all around their Ships. In the face of the oncoming swarm of Ships, the hail of incoming fire, and the psychological shock of his recent wound, the tiny middie found himself unconsciously shifting to place his captain between himself and the enemy.

Westminster and Valandil still fired calmly and steadily from the rail, causing horrific confusion in the tight-packed enemy fleet as they picked off Crab quartermasters with deadly efficiency. Often, with the quartermaster suddenly slumped over the wheel, a Ship would veer off course and foul several other Ships. "By God, sir," Westminster laughed, "young Aquinar has the right idea!"

The rest of the quarterdeck joined in the laughter at the middie's expense, and, red-faced, Aquinar stepped out from behind his captain to face the oncoming swarm. Melville laughed with the rest and put a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Signal from the Pier, sir," said Midshipman Aquinar, happy to find a distraction from his faux pas
.
"'All Ships will attack enemy soon. How can we assist until then?'"

How can they assist?
thought Melville, looking across at the signal flags flying from the Pier. There really was nothing they
could
do until the fleet got its act together and sallied out. But you had to give Middlemuss credit for asking. "Here," said Melville with a laugh as he jotted a short message on the slate, "tell them this. You'll have to spell it out. I don't think any of that is in the code book!"

"Yes sir!" The boy laughed, and promptly limped over to send thirteen flags, each representing one letter, up the halyard.

"Sir! Response from the
Fang
!" said Admiral Middlemuss' signal lieutenant.

"Well?" snapped the harassed admiral.

"Um, sir, it says, 'SEND MORE CRABS'!?"

"Ha! Melville, you magnificent bastard!" shouted the admiral. "If we both live through this day, I'm going to make you
wish
the Crabs had won!"

The
Fang
was like an angry, drunken sailor, charging into a bar fight with a feral grin and clenched teeth, wanting only to inflict pain and oblivious to any damage taken. Hope was not an ally today. But desperation and bloodlust were firmly on their side.

The Crabs were close enough now that the
Fang
's 24-pounder cannonballs were blasting through the enemy Ships and damaging the Ships beyond them. It helped, but
damn
, there were still so many of them.

The bow guns were now fully engaged as well, taking care of the fastest craft that were trying to block their course. After they rammed the one Ship that played chicken with them, the Crabs hadn't tried that trick again, but still they raced to get ahead of the
Fang
and then spin around to gift her bows with one of those damned 18-pound balls.

I bet those 18-pounders would fit right into our broadside like they were made for it, if we could capture a few,
Melville thought idly as he calmly walked the gundeck.

The bow gun spat out its double-shotted rage at a Ship that had mistakenly zigged when it should have zagged. In this kind of furball, an error like that was something that didn't happen more than once—it tended to be permanently fatal.

The Ship literally exploded with the impact of two 24-pound balls at close range, throwing the mast and sail high into the air, and shattering the hull—and incidentally the crew—into shards of wood, ichor, and chitin that rained down upon
Fang
's gun crews as they sailed forward.

The glowing white sail on the Crab Ship's upperside spread out and flew directly into the upper bow of the
Fang
, wrapping itself around the hull and decking, forcing the gun crew and damage control party to hack and yank at the sail, throwing the pieces onto the deck and over the side.

<> came from
Fang
—a feeling of surprise too great for words, focused on the pieces of sailcloth that the crew had thrown on the deck. Melville moved forward and picked up a piece and realized why the sails glowed.

The damned things are covered in Moss! No wonder they glow. Hell, this must be why they're so damned fast!

<> sent
Fang
. <

Melville was in total agreement with that assessment, but, <> he told his Ship.

<>

<> Melville agreed as the crewmen finally succeeded in clearing the sail that was fouling his bow gun.

"Belay that!" called Melville to a sailor who was about to cast a glowing white bundle of sailcloth overboard. "Just throw those sails on the deck there. And keep up the good work." he added, to encourage the confused young crewman. "We're giving them hell!"

"Aye, sir!"

Yeah,
thought Melville,
we're giving them hell, but we're taking it too.
The good news was that the Crabs were terrible shots—probably because their royalty was gone and they were acting in a kind of collective berserker rage. And the
Fang
was still making good headway with only one gun—a 12-pounder—knocked out of play. But,
damn!
, the butcher's bill was stacking up with a few of the gun crews at 50% manning. Plus the sails and rigging were shot to hell, and several masts were shattered and barely standing. If this kept up, it was only a matter of time before the
Fang
went down.

Ah well,
thought Melville.
"One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name."
 

HewhocommandstheFleet was enraged and confused. Half his Fleet had left the battle and he could not get them to return. Already they were far enough away that he did not sense them in the Hivemind. Worst of all, his Royalty, his glorious, dangerous, beloved Princess, Shewhomustbeobeyed, was dead! And this large lump of dead sail, this RoyalslayerShip had killed her. And it wouldn't stop!

He chewed the head off of another one of his groomers and sucked its brains out meditatively.

If we cannot kill them because of their cannon,
thought HewhocommandstheFleet,
then we must board them. They will have to stop firing the cannons to fight us, and we can close and kill them with our Ships!

His skill in sending commands to the Hivemind was slowly improving, and he shared his vengeful thoughts with his hive brothers.

It was needful now for a Ship to close with the hated RoyalslayerShip. To grapple them and board them. Then the Royalslayers must stop their cannons to fight! And when the cannons stop they will die!

The Hivemind was in agreement with the plan.

In their single-minded, collective, obsessive concentration on avenging their Royalty, none of theFleet realized that by focusing on the one Ship, they neglected to think about the fleet fast approaching from the Pier area. After all, they could only do one thing at a time. And their Guldur allies had promised that these humans were easy meat, unused to fighting, and would run... like this offal!

"What in all the silly Sylvan hells are these oversized appetizers doing now?" Even though Asquith was right next to him, Lt. Fielder had to almost shout to be heard over the cannons' roar, the cracking muskets, the crash of falling, rending wood, and the cries of wounded men.

Asquith looked in the direction of the first officer's gaze. One Crab Ship was pulling ahead of its companions, aiming itself at the
Fang
's greenside rear quarter. The little Ship was now so close that its hull was essentially below the
Fang
's guns.

"Lt. Broadax!" yelled Fielder to the marine commander, who had been going back and forth between the marine detachments on the upper and lower sides, like an anxious child hopping from foot to foot. "It looks like the Crabs will try to board, so you get your wish! Standby to repel boarders!

"Gunny Von Rito!" Fielder continued. "Tell the gun crews to be alert to any other Crab Ships who try to board us. Pass the word to the upperside.
Dammit all
, don't let those pockers get that close again, and
don't
let them reinforce this boarder!"

The harassed gunny looked up in exasperation. "Aye, sir!" was all he said as he continued to direct the fire of the lowerside guns.

As Fielder was bellowing his commands, Broadax scrambled up to the quarterdeck and hopped onto the taffrail, perched like some hideous red gargoyle, looking over at the oncoming Ship.

The
Fang
's guns couldn't depress enough to hit the approaching gunboat's hull, but they had shattered the enemy's mast. Still, the enemy Ship had considerable momentum and
Fang
was moving so slowly now that the Crabs were going to be able to grapple.