Crusade

«I doubt it hit anything vital, you fat tub of lard!» Harvey snarled back. «Don’t just stand there. Get the hose!»

Lanier waddled in the direction of the closest hose reel and Donaghey resumed his descent. The initial flash of the conflagration had diminished considerably to a steady blaze in the forward third of the boat. He could hear crackling as the wood began to burn. The heat pushed almost physically against him the lower he went and he wasn’t sure he was just imagining his skin begi

«Hurry up!» he shouted, unsure if the cook even heard him as he gasped for breath in the acrid smoke. Below him, one rung down, he could see through his slitted, watery eyes that a rope had been tied to the ship. With one hand, he reached into his shirt and retrieved a long-bladed folding knife that always hung around his neck on a braided cord. Called a sausage knife, it had a long, ski

The ship’s bell began ringing frantically in the dark, followed moments later by the general alarm. Harvey scrambled back up the side of the ship a few rungs to escape the worst of the heat and looked down at the boat. Slowly, lazily, it drifted with the current. Amid the flames he clearly saw the ruddy shape of the bronze ca

All he knew, as the flesh on his face and hands began to sear and his vision became a red, shimmering fog, was that he had to row. Nothing else in the entire world mattered anymore except for getting that crazy, stupid bomb the hell away from his ship.

He made it almost forty yards.

Captain Reddy paced the deck beside the number two torpedo mount, back and forth, his hands clenched behind his back. Occasionally he ventured near the smoke-blackened rail and stared at the water below. The angry red horizon that preceded the dawn was a singularly appropriate backdrop to the white-hot rage that burned within him. A quiet circle of destroyermen, human and Lemurian, watched him pace, and Sandra and Bradford were nearby as well, conversing in subdued tones.

On deck, trussed up like hogs, were two Aryaalans. De

Harvey Donaghey had hit one of them with a lucky shot from his pistol, causing the ’Cat to lose his oar and slowing their escape. By the time the ca

Mank-Lar had told him everything. Why not? It had been an exploit of warriors and had been commanded by his king. It was the way of things. His dishonor was not what he tried to do, but that he had failed. Rasik-Alcas might kill them for that, but even the sea folk would understand they were bound to obey their king. wouldn’t they? Mank-Lar vaguely understood that the tail-less sea folk might consider it dishonorable that King Alcas had ordered the attack in the first place, particularly since they were not at war. But that was between them and the king, was it not? He himself was just a tool, and it was pointless to deny his role. Regardless, he couldn’t escape a growing concern as he watched the brooding leader of his king’s enemy.

Larry Dowden approached his captain with care. He’d seen him this way — this intense — only once before, when Walker and Mahan made their suicidal charge against Amagi, so long ago now. It had worked, somehow, but it had also been a reckless moment and he wondered if the captain was on the verge of another one now. He opened his mouth, but hesitated, daunted by the working jaw and the icy green braziers gazing back.

«Captain,» he said quietly, «Radioman Clancy says the radio’s up.

Lieutenant Mallory requests permissiaid you wanted to begin installing the screw this morning?» Dowden prompted gently. Matt only glanced around for a moment, as if surprised the task wasn’t already under way. For the first time he noticed that almost the entire crew was present, grim-faced and angry.

«Right. I guess the men are a little distracted. Have Spanky and the Bosun light a fire under those repair parties.» Several of the men held his gaze as it passed across them. «They have their own duties to perform today,» he said in a voice that matched his eyes. «I’ll take care of this one.»

«What should we do with these two, Skipper?» Silva asked, nudging Mank-Lar hard with his shoe. Matt shrugged.

«Don’t even need to try them. They’ve admitted they’re enemy saboteurs under orders of their king. But they’re without uniforms or even the courtesy of a declaration of war. Hang them.»

«I want that little son of a bitch dead!» Matt said in a calm but eerily forceful tone. The gathering was almost identical to the one the night before, only this time it was convened directly behind the massed block of the Second Marines, flanked by Rolak’s expatriate Aryaalans and Queen Maraan’s Six Hundred. Another entire regiment of B’mbaadan infantry was added as well. Thirty heavily armed destroyermen — not all human — were in the center, anxious to spearhead the assault with fire. The Orphan Queen stood beside Matt, her eyes gleaming with a feral, joyful light.

«It could break the alliance!» Adar pleaded. «Think of the greater threat!» Sandra stood beside the Lemurian Sky Priest and nodded her agreement, but she seemed deeply troubled.

«Why? I haven’t asked any of the Homes or Guard regiments from Baalkpan to contribute to the attack.» He wore an ironic expression. «I notice none have offered, either, but if they don’t want to be in the assault, that’s fine.»

«What about the Marines? They are drawn from all our people.»

Matt looked coldly at Adar. «The Marines are mine. They’re all volunteers and they’ve volunteered for this. I ordered Chack to make sure.»

«That still does not give you the right to throw them away on this. sideshow!»

Matt’s mounting fury exploded. «I’m not throwing them away! I’m using them for what they’re for! We’ve been attacked! Suddenly and deliberately and by stealth! Believe me, my people have recent experience with that sort of thing!» His gaze lashed Keje. «We’ve been attacked!» he repeated. «And I lost a damn good man who died to save my ship. I thought you said it was ‘different’ if we were attacked? How is it different? I can’t tell yet. I assumed it meant that then you might bring yourselves to fight others of your kind. Is that it? Or is it only different if you are attacked? You’ll personally defend yourselves if you’re personally attacked? Where would you be today if Walker behaved like that?»