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The Caribbean: An empty, brilliant blue sky is unboat has left the rainy gloo 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 , 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 , flanked by the loaves of her wake

The gray ship with her bleached white decks flies no flag, letting her ar theships 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 cos There are few armed vessels anymore The old navies of the world have been broken up for scrap and spare parts The great tankers, er vessels now lie in their laststones 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 hoht to cruise ships, living in cralitzy luxury of former days

As the sea is out of reach of the Kurians and their Reapers, a loose Confederation of the Waves exists, no 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 So 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&039;t let a trifling thing like the sea stand between theeance

It was the third day out, and life on the plodding Thunderbolt had already turned into routine The first light of da the Grogs hosing down and cleaning the decks They devoured theirfare ork-sharpened appetite The cook, his mate, and the officers&039; steward then cleaned up the kitchen and prepared the meals for everyone else The s on the ship, especially since they took on sowith theht quarters smell (even to noses not sharpened by the Lifeweavers) like a kennelful of ed to the bulkheads of the forell deck

With their routine duties and weapons drill done, Ahn-Kha gave thean when a pair of flying fish broke the surface, leaving furrows in the calm ocean in their dash away fros hooted until Ahn-Kha reported that his teaood to eat and how they could catch theers 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 the poles and reels Afterwards, the Grogs spent every sparelures, 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 dun to human fishermen, pulled in all they could catch It was just as well, for Grog appetites could tax the ship&039;s stores on the three-month patrol

Valentine&039;s particular responsibility was the Coastal Marines The Coastal Patrols looked on the s on the evolutionary ladder, and a short rung at that: gun-toting, useless ballast for anizing physical contests between the contests occurred each night, giving the two sides a chance to screa 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 ers, he alot these men were technically his sworn eneht have been ordered to sneak aboard the ship and plant a bo instructor to bloody shreds All the while, a long line of stormclouds on his mental horizon, cao about doing it

Valentine felt for the sailors The captain believed hied 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 soht the practice cruel: spending a watch-on-watch at the top of the old co shoved out of the way co up a hatchway improved no one Of course, the captain&039;s diste down after leaving port Valentine pointed out that their orders demanded radio silence until the pirates were dealt with, so the loss of coruain

The executive officer was even worse Wishing to e hiton out-Heroded Herod in his punishments

Valentine and Post kept their marines busy, and as far froton as the ship would allow

Valentine felt nervous, bottled up If he&039;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&039;s bottles and sniffed thealcohol stored in an old boot "Will, why do you do that to yourself?"

The two officers kept to first na to figure out why you don&039;t"

ValentinePost&039;s nose and forehead "Maybe I want to live a few , your liver will abandon ship or you&039;ll get drummed out Either way, you&039;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&039;s rotten, and you know it same as I"

Post either trusted Valentine or did not care about being turned in Either way, froan 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 o now That&039;s why I tried so hard for officer-it helped us get better housing But it all rong" He took another gulp "Not worth talking about You&039;re lucky, your wife gives you someone to live for Not sure I even want to live for me anye "She&039;s not ed"

Post looked up at hiht as well get et your allot, just toss her, plenty other officers have done it, hasn&039;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 &039;Rowan&039;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 theot a false naet it What is it then, an escape atte his voice "Dao to the wrong one, and the residents will eat you alive I mean that literally"

"I need the Thunderbolt, and I&039; to take it," Valentine said He let the words sink in for a moment Post&039;s face rippled froain to astonishinal plan was to try with a s on board," he continued "That didn&039;t work out, so I&039; to make do hat&039;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&039;d like you to join us, if you&039;ll risk it"

Post reached for the bottle and took a drink, ignoring his glass "The sun&039;s gone to your head, Dave What are you going to try to do, turn the crew? They didn&039;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&039;s in the works right now In a few more days, they&039;ll be on their way out of the KZ One of our Cats is on the inside"

"Cats?"

Valentine&039;s hypersensitive ears searched the adjoining rooeway, and he paused before continuing in his lowstory, but the Kur and the Grogs aren&039;t the only ones here froer war, and other worlds are involved The Kurians are what you ht 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 becoh I call it vampirism They&039;ve been at war ever since Way back then, the Kurians came here, and the Lifeweavers picked soht over from Kur They explained to the pri the spirit of Wolves or Bears or Lions or what have you into the warriors they chose I still don&039;t knohat they do exactly or how All I can cooing on once you close the circuit There was a hiatus lasting about six thousand years when the Lifeweavers won and Kur&039;s transportation network got closed down We turned into a civilization in the gap Then they caain to help us"

Valentine looked at Post He wondered if his lieutenant thought hiinative liar

"I&039;ve heard rumors," Post finally whispered "Weird stuff about men who can becoround Is that what you can do?"

"None of those," Valentine said, s to quicken my reflexes But that doesn&039;t helpin the world isn&039;t going to help me take this ship But you could"

Valentine felt relieved for so up the pretense in front of Post Having ahirated

"I&039;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&039;ll claiht to the captain Claih to live on for years, if you catch a real one"

"Post, in the KZ the &039;rest of your life&039; is whatever the Kurian in charge wants it to be In the Ozarks, you&039;re not livestock, you&039;re an individual Part of a community It&039;s not Old World, at least not in material terms But the old beliefs are there Life has value"

"So in "I&039;ve heard you folks are so hungry that inter comes, you live off the dead"

This was not the first tiainsay it rather than cite invented facts to support it "Not true I will say we don&039;t eat as well as a lot of folks in the KZ, but then we&039;re not being fattened for the slaughter, either I&039; you a way out of all this, Will A real escape-not like the bottle you&039;re using now More, a chance to fight back You&039;ll be withto smash the system"

Post picked up the nearly e way, as if it were playing some kind of tune only he could hear He shut his eyes and opened theht at Valentine

He stood up, a little unsteadily, and extended his hand "It ain&039;t going to work, Dave But maybe you won&039;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 mo 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&039;s rest, and off-duty a, reading, or just talking He smelled the men&039;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 froun lay on his bed

"I wasn&039;t planning onthe door behind hiht Thought you un you lost So youth"

He handed an autoe, 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 per"

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 hiazines of freshly loaded ammunition for the weapon "Are the bullets reliable?"

"Better than uns as you treat hiht I heard that a et a free gun, and damned if his pistol didn&039;t misfire just when he needed it"

The sandwiches arrived, accouht out of New Orleans They pulled out a htful silence,up the remnants of the soup with the ship&039;s fresh bread For the first ti 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&039;m to find a stash of old weapons I don&039;t knohat kind Then I&039;h Galveston or farther south by Mexico That&039;s the reason for the armed ship: it&039;s supposed to help at the island, and then e us on the way back There&039;s a man in Southern Texas who&039;ll take it from there"

"Why don&039;t they tell you what it is?"

"I think the danger is that if the Kurians found out about it, they&039;d either take it themselves or destroy it"

Valentine heard soeway 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 Guantanareenhouse It&039;s pretty fuckin&039; big, and I&039;ve never heard of anyone getting inland out of range of the ship&039;s guns and cohly where on the island I&039;o There&039;s soanization there who&039;ll teach us about it I knoill be bulky-that&039;s e need a ship and so many men for the job"

"There&039;s an awful lot of ifs in your plan, if you don&039;t , sir"

"I know"

"I&039; on you to run things on the ship until I return"

"Sir, you want a weapon, think about this ship She&039;s well arh men on her to shut doater traffic from Louisiana to Florida"

"Any other tiht, Will But they tellthat could really change the equation between us and the Kurians Don&039;t you think the risk is worth a chance to make a difference?"

"Some difference See 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 ; in fact, with the mental strain he was more than a little tempted to try the contents of the squared-off bottles hi new respect for Post that replaced his previous feelings of pity He ad the pretense of nor out of him and God-knehat other tor Valentine arranged for ain the arms locker with the Chief, Post, Ahn-Kha, and himself, purportedly to deters would carry in their duties The captain had suggested a brace of dusty shotguns, captured in so the weapons in question, Valentine asked that the Chief take a look at the theet a half-hour or so of privacy within the ship for aAhn-Kha&039;s bulk into the roo line of challenges before them

"We should ," Valentine began "The captain plans to head straight into the harbor they are thought to use the next ht, so I think we have to o into action and rig a shell to blow in the bridge during the fight?" the Chief suggested "The creill think the pirates just got a lucky shot, and Mr Rowan assue the explosion would do?" Post asked, sweat running fro his hands into fists and rubbing thehs 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 et both The exec will probably be at the main armament I think it&039;s better if we do it before Offer the ht," Valentine said "Freedom That&039;s a powerful persuader"

"Cut off the head, and the body will be yours," Ahn-Kha said, quoting a Grog proverb fro up one whole end of the room "We have much of the head of the ship here We reton Then we let the petty officers knoho 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 asseive 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 Jao north-they&039;ll hit Kurian territory soon enough"

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

"Can&039;t risk it until the captain and the exec disappear with the crew that want to follow the ould be on Haiti The last thing we need is hi to hunt us down"

Post shook his head "You&039;ll lose half of theh to keep this bucket ned on for sea service to get away from the Reapers You can tell by their talk, their interests They&039;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 h to say they would follow hin on to a s 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 afterlandfall at Jas, toJamaica&039;s north coast and arrive at the pirate bay with the dawn Around uard the ar the nearby hatches to the engine rooenerator room The Chief would kill the pohen this was accoo to the suns fore and aft covering the un platfore," doing whatever was necessary to keep Captain Saunders and Worthington fro 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&039;ll probably have to kill them, sir," Post predicted

"I&039;d rather not I&039;ll get a pair of handcuffs on them and toss the on how o with the," Ahn-Kha said "They will turn the crew against you, if they can"

"Handcuffs and gags, then I don&039;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 ht their first sight of the blue Ja&039;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 cae battle-dress Someone joked that Irish, a Coastal Marine corporal in their complement, should form his into the shape of a bull&039;s-eye, sincehe&039;d et himself shot four tihed At thein the crew&039;s mess, where they went over the destruction the Thunderbolt was to visit on the pirates Saunders hoped to reach the harbor before et the better of him as the afternoon wore on It seemed the entire ship crackled with electricity, so tense were the ht to better than I a Valentine at sunset at the ship&039;s starboard rail They watched the thickly forested slopes of Jae play Post still trembled, and his shirt was soaked with sweat, but his face see out a few of the men, but I chickened out at the last, theabout a Hood at ot so as I could almost feel teeth About all I was able to do arn the Sorry, Dave"

Valentine shrugged &039;Too late to worry I talked to Ahn-Kha and the Chief-we&039;re going to switch the time to twenty-two hundred The men are supposed to be assembled an hour later, ready to cli his Grogs to the arms locker won&039;t seeo ashore first anyway"

They forced themselves to act norroup he called his "deadeyes," the four best marksmen in the culled company Post ate with the noncoalley Though he had no appetite, Valentine forced himself to eat mouthful after s The beef was stringy and tough, but even the Thunderbolt&039;s indifferent cook&039;s s Valentine forced hilassfuls of faintly orange-tasting sweetened water that he guessed to be soe juice He joked with thea few of his own, likeworew into a thriving bordello over the years When caught by a visiting inspector, he argued that pi 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 alley to the sailors, and Valentine retired to his shared cabin

He looked around the close, bare roole 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 coues, acquired from a tailor in Mobile when he first entered the Coastal Marines, were a tiger-stripe reen, spotted here and there with blotches of dark gray Heavy pockets hung like saddlebags froh on the pants, but the short officers&039; 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&039;s wear and care His final wardrobe ite pads slipped into the liner and compass, flares, first-aid kit, st the pockets Post&039;s 45 pistol went to his hip holster He sank aover two canteens Finally, he extracted the one iteht out of the Ozarks, his old Soviet Russian PPD un with the druun, restored by an old friend and given to hio

Slinging the gun and drawing coht, he made a slow circuit of the Thunderbolt&039;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&039;s equivalent of a thuesture went to Valentine&039;s nerves like a fast-acting sedative He looked out at the nearly eular ay Post stood at the foot of one of the stairways going up to the bridge deck, idling next to the arun for the forward ave hi there Sure makes you feel alive, doesn&039;t it Like the whole world&039;s been turned up Sounds, s I never noticed all the waves before A million of theo up the stairs- then get the gun You checked it, right?"

"Yes, it&039;s fine"

"Just a fewto his tearipped the rail, the tendons in his forear up under his tan skin "You knohy ht 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&039; worth of dust on it"

Post looked out at the ocean and the sinking ht he saw the man&039;s lower lip tremble

Valentine leaned over, knocked his shoulder against Post&039;s "One way or another, you&039;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 ato a decision He wadded up his unifor sea

"If I&039;o in their colors"

"I&039;ll get you a different one e get back to free soil, if you&039;d like," Valentine said "Just try to live to claim it I hope the exec doesn&039;t coht have a few questions about your tunic"

"I&039;ll pick him up and send him to look for it He&039;s a bottom-feeder if there ever was one

"Could you do me a favor, Dave? If I don&039;t make it, maybe you can look up Gail in the Free Territory She would have headed that way-it&039;s an easier trip than going across Texas She&039;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 es were already on their way to the arine roo the hair at the back of his neck

He chahtly 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 froe

"And when is this supposed to happen?" the captain said fro, sir The ship&039;s poill be cut off, and that&039;s when they&039;ll take the ship," Valentine heard a high-pitched voice say

"It ton&039;s voice exclais and marines, and Roill be with the afoot, that&039;s for certain," Saunders said "Da about Rowan I didn&039;t like Haven&039;t I said so tied the subject "I&039;ve already alerted the master-at-arms," he said "I didn&039;t knohich uard up now, and he&039;s-"

Valentine&039;s worries cleared, as they always did when planning gave way to doing All his questions were gone: it had becoe, and so confusion Thethe ship lit only by the stars and its few running lights

"Halt!" Valentine heard a voice boo your weapon, sir, and don&039;t touch anything but the sling"

He turned to see Dortmund, three sailors lined up behind hi on the bridge, Dortmund had reached the botto Valentine thanked God that Dortmund hadn&039;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 ht with noise Dort spasmodically as if swept off their feet by an electrified broo off s tearing through flesh, a noise that reainst a wall The four-petal blossoun&039;sfeatures as he fired the support weapon fro a thick leather strap to help him wield it

One sailor went overboard with a cry; the others fell at the bottoun 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 Dorte 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 aret down to Ahn-Kha and his Grogs, so he would at least have a nucleus of arhts died, and Valentine felt a change in the ship&039;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 ay from the base of the stairs