Outlanders 28 mad gods w.., p.7
Outlanders 28 Mad God's Wrath, page 7
Flame washed the deck of the barge, acrid smoke boiling up from it darkened the sky. "Grant," he said. "Baptiste! Are you all right?"
He did not receive a response from the Commtact and cold fingers of dread knotted in his chest. Treading water, he inched out from the sheltering shadow cast by the prow of the boat, scanning the sky for the Death- bird. He couldn't hear the sound of its vanes or the engines over the fierce crackle of the fire aboard the barge.
Staying close to the hulls of the wrecks, Kane swam out into the ship graveyard, working his way warily, cursing the oppressive heat and the brilliant sunlight. He heard the strong thrum of the engines and the chop of whirling blades as the Deathbird hovered over a nearby derelict. It fired a strafing burst, then moved on. He could only hope the pilot was hunting for Brigid and Grant and not just him If they were being sought, it meant they still lived.
BRIGID RACED across the deck of the barge, the rattling of the chain gun filling her ears. She reached the stern and hazarded a swift look behind her. She saw Kane leaping overboard and realized he had the right idea, since the chopper had evidently chosen to pursue only one of them—him.
She crouched at the side, not able to see Grant because of the canvas-covered crates. Activating her Commtact, she said, "Kane, you need to—"
The ripping whoosh of a missile lancing from the Deathbird's launch tube reminded her she had more immediate concerns and galvanized her into motion. She dived over the side, plunging into the sea, dragged down by the weight of Grant's Sin Eater, her Copperhead and handgun at her belt. She felt and heard the missile barrage impact against the barge.
She stroked deep, opening her eyes despite the salty sting. The water was clear, the sun shone bright and her visibility was unimpaired. The Sin Eater was an encumbrance, so she had no choice but to let it go. She watched it spiral lazily down toward the bottom, a stream of bubbles rising in its wake.
The shadow of the hovering gunship momentarily blotted out the sunlight. She stroked steadily toward a collection of derelicts, squeezing between those positioned closely together. A couple rubbed hull to hull and she swam under those.
Only when her lungs began to ache intolerably did Brigid decide to surface. She came up slowly near a floating cluster of jetsam, parting her hair and pushing it away from her face. She tried raising Kane and Grant on the Commtacts, then she simply shouted their names. She received no response by either means, and she wondered briefly if immersion in seawater had caused the Commtacts to malfunction.
Moving to the clot of debris, she climbed atop a floating timber, carefully stood, then sprang from that to a capsized boat and over more solidly packed jetsam. Although Brigid had spent most of her life as an academic involved in scholarly pursuits, she possessed a natural, inborn agility and surefootedness. She managed to keep her balance on logs that bobbed and rolled, selecting with keen precision which piece of driftage appeared to be the most likely to support her weight.
As she gained a heavy timber, the thrumming-of the Deathbird's engines and the whickering of its vanes suddenly increased in volume. Brigid instantly dropped into the water, taking a breath and ducking under the timber. She heard the chopper's minigun strafe the immediate area and could feel the timber tremble as slugs slammed into it.
She dived deep, noting the comet streaks of bubbles marking the trail of .50-caliber bullets plowing beneath the surface. Stroking determinedly for the hulk of a nearby sloop, Brigid's ears registered the sudden cessation of gunfire and engine noise.
When she reached the sloop, she surfaced, pressing against the waterlogged hull timbers. She looked around, but did not see the Deathbird hovering over the graveyard of seagoing vessels. It was a marvel that even a vestige of the marina remained, so it must have been a huge, sprawling place two centuries before. During the nukecaust, bombs known as "earthshakers" had been triggered, seeded months before by submarines along the fault and fracture lines of the Pacific Ocean. ICBMs had pounded the Cascades from western Canada down to California. The concentrated destructive force had ripped that part of the coastline to pieces.
Tidal waves had swept inward and, pummeled by earthquakes and volcanic activity, millions of square miles of California had sunk beneath the waves. When it was over, the Cific coast was barely twenty miles from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
After a century, the sea had retreated somewhat, leaving islands in its wake where most of the land mass had once been. Many of the islands were the high points of old California, or regions that became more elevated with the shifting of the tectonic plates. The islands were now known as the Western Isles.
The term was a catch-all to describe a region in the Cific ocean of old and new land masses. The tectonic shifts triggered by the nukecaust dropped most of California south of the San Andreas Fault into the sea. The New Edo island chain was part of that region.
After waiting nearly a minute without hearing or seeing the Deathbird, Brigid pulled herself out of the water and through a jagged rent in the side of the sloop. She found herself standing thigh-deep inside a stateroom, its floor tilted at a thirty-degree angle. She took the opportunity to catch her breath, drinking in great lungfuls of oxygen.
Suddenly the whine of the gunship's engine penetrated the interior of her shelter like the buzz of a gigantic, furious insect. The shadow it cast floated right beside the schooner. She stepped back from the opening in the hull, but obviously the pilot knew she was inside. She doubted he would waste time raking the ship with machine-gun fire, not when an incendiary missile would turn her bolt-hole into a crematorium.
Brigid sloshed across the cabin to the door, but one glance showed her rust-eaten hinges and a warped frame. It would probably take a missile to open it. She turned to the decaying bulkhead, holding her Copperhead at hip level. Pressing down the trigger, she stitched a human-size oval into the wall. Little gouts of soggy, rotten wood mushroomed up like a series of miniature explosions. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she saw the light peeping in from the outside suddenly blotted out by a black shape.
Without decreasing her finger pressure on the trigger, she whipped the flame-blooming bore of her sub-gun toward it, hearing the clang and whine of ricochets.
Ceasing fire, Brigid tucked her chin against her shoulder and sprang forward, hurling her entire weight against the bulkhead. The bullet perforations broke away and the section burst outward in a scattering of waterlogged fragments.
Before she struck the water, the Deathbird spit out a missile and with an earsplitting, teeth-jarring crack! the warhead erupted with a flash of orange flame and black smoke in the cabin she had just occupied. The concussion slapped her sideways and flipped her into midair like a poker chip. She smashed into the water on her back, forcing the air from her lungs. Her mouth reflexively opened as she gagged for breath, and water gushed down her throat, into her nose and trickled through her sinus passages. Dazed, she felt the hellish heat of the incendiary compounds wash over her and she clawed at the water to get away from it.
A distant part of her realized that diving was a mistake since she hadn't taken a breath. She tried to stroke back to the surface. She had no idea in which direction it lay. There seemed to be nothing but blackness all around her, a chill, engulfing blackness. Over two years before she had nearly drowned in the Irish Sea, and since that day, she had developed a morbid fear, almost a phobia, of dying by water.
Brigid kicked furiously, praying she wasn't stroking for the bottom of the graveyard of ships.
Chapter 6
Grant and Kane shared almost as many differences as similarities. However both men possessed one particular personality trait so strongly they were almost twins—they hated being chased.
His heart pumping hard, Grant sprinted across the deck of the barge. He felt a surge of angry revulsion at being forced into the role of prey yet again. His many years as a Magistrate had accustomed him to being the hunter, not the hunted, even if a fellow Mag was hunting him.
As he bounded toward the aft section of the boat, Grant heard the vanes whipping the air and the engine sounds growing louder with every passing instant. He risked a backward glance. The helicopter was barely thirty feet behind him, perhaps only fifteen feet above the deck.
Flickering spear points of yellow flame danced briefly just beneath the chopper's prow. There came a rattling roar and .50-caliber bullets knocked up great gouts of planking behind him. Grant sprinted in a left-to-right zig zag. A rocket exploded against the deck and the concussive force lifted him like a child's toy and sent him cartwheeling over the side.
He plunged headlong into the water, struggling to maintain his grip on the big Barrett. Its thirty-five- pound weight dragged at his arms, threatening to pull him under like a stone. He kicked furiously, wincing at the complaints from the areas of his body where Baron Beausoliel had tortured him with an infrasound wand only a few weeks before. Blinking the stinging brine from his eyes, he watched as the black helicopter whirled, ascended and zoomed away.
Turning onto his back, rifle held crossways across his chest, Grant kicked away from the blazing barge, praying the dancing wall of fire and the corkscrewing clouds of smoke would mask his threshing movements from the Deathbird's pilot. As he kicked furiously, he saw the gunship swoop down some yards away, the multiple barrels of the minigun flickering with fire.
A storm of .50-caliber slugs punched a cross-stitch pattern in the hull of a half-sunken derelict. Grant wondered whom he was shooting at—Brigid or Kane—then the Bird moved on.
He reached a fishing trawler. Despite how clumsy it looked compared to some of the more modern craft, it floated surprisingly high in the water, supported by the wood of its hull. Although pieces had fallen out of it and the wheelhouse lacked a roof, it was a miracle the ship floated at all.
Grant experienced a little trouble boarding the craft, burdened by sodden clothes, water-filled boots and the rifle. As he clambered onto its deck he noticed traces of paint in spots not directly exposed to the sun and guessed an excellent paint and sealer had been ap plied to the boat right before the nukecaust. That had probably helped it survive so long, relatively intact.
Boots squishing loudly, water streaming from his clothes, Grant crossed the canted deck to the wheelhouse and crouched in the shadow it cast. Within seconds he heard the ominous thump of the gunship's rotor blades.
Grant assumed the pilot was still searching for targets, and his hands tightened around the Barrett at the notion he might be the last one the Bird sought. Carefully he inched his way to the corner of the wheelhouse and peered around. He glimpsed the aircraft bank leisurely to starboard, then a pair of rockets streaked smoking from both stub wings. Before the first two struck, another pair of missiles burst from the pods.
Fiery yellow-red eruptions and mushrooming billows of smoke rose among the collection of derelicts. The thunder of the detonations compressed his eardrums. For a moment the air itself seemed to ignite as columns of flame flashed among the hulks. The minigun started hammering again, the streams of slugs pounding through rotten, water-soaked wood at a thousand rounds per minute.
Clenching his teeth so hard his jaw muscles began to ache, Grant grasped the Deathbird pilot's strategy. He no longer cared about bringing any of the three of them to Baron Snakefish—or any part of them, for that matter. He intended to keep up the barrage on the ruins of the marina until nothing was left but a few bits of charred flotsam.
Grant checked the action of the Barrett, but he knew the only sure way to ascertain if the rifle had been damaged by its immersion in seawater was to fire off a round. He hazarded a quick glance to fix the position of the black chopper, then he rolled from cover, crab-walking until he reached the point he wanted.
The Deathbird hovered only twenty-five yards away, less than half that in altitude. The cockpit presented only a one-quarter view to Grant, so a clean shot at the pilot wasn't an option. He centered the Barrett's sights on the tail boom assembly and squeezed the trigger.
The report was an ear-knocking boom, and the recoil slammed him backward on the slick, slanted surface of the trawler's deck. He saw Hinders of metal fly away from an exhaust cowling and the helicopter side-slipped violently.
The chopper veered to starboard, the overstressed engine whining. It rotated in the air until the foreport faced Grant. He put the scope's crosshairs over the outline of the pilot and growled, "Thanks, asshole."
His finger constricted on the trigger and the firing pin struck with an impotent click on the empty chamber. His belly turning a cold flip-flop, Grant realized a fresh round had not been cycled automatically from the box magazine. He also knew the Deathbird's pilot wouldn't permit him the time to manually recycle the weapon.
The black chopper arrowed toward him, but Grant stood his ground, too angry to run or to jump overboard. The minigun's barrels flickered with fire. The lines of impact scampered across the surface of the sea, intersected with the hull of the trawler and flung wood chips and splinters in all directions.
The chain gun suddenly stopped its jackhammer rhythm. The pilot realized he had fired it dry at the same time Grant did. His course and trajectory were too steep, his altitude too low to safely launch a rocket. He would fly right into the explosion.
The gunship began a whining, straining vertical ascent, and Grant, moving on impulse, cupped the butt of the Barrett rifle in his right hand and lunged forward, right beneath the chopper. He heaved the weapon straight up.
The rifle struck the main rotor blades and the crashing of steel against steel sounded like a ton of machine parts being shaken violently inside a metal drum.
Fragments of the rifle and the vanes flew off in all directions, slicing through the mast of a half-sunken schooner and skimming across the surface of the sea like a stone cast into a pond. The Deathbird's engine faltered, keened and stuttered as the pilot frantically struggled to bring the craft back under control. When the rotor blades slowed their spin, Grant glimpsed ugly notches marring the edges.
The Deathbird inscribed a wobbling course over the trawler. Grant sprinted across the deck. A hoist-and-boom-arm assembly still stood intact. He bounded toward it, leaped, his feet gaining uncertain purchase on the tilting, slick surface of the assembly. He ran up it as if it were a ramp and, using the topmost block as a springboard, launched himself from it, arms extended.
His hands slapped against and closed around the helicopter's port-side landing gear. With a whiplash motion of his body, he swung up onto the metal rail, right arm and leg hooking around the struts. He unsealed the latch and popped it open.
The pilot turned in his seat, uttered a cry of fright and struggled with the controls. He was a relatively young man with Hispanic features. He was not wearing his helmet or even his Sin Eater. The aircraft lurched, then righted itself. The Magistrate drove a fist in a straight-arm punch at Grant. His gloved hand rebounded from the crown of Grant's head. Shots of pain streaked through his skull, but the Mag howled in pain and shook his hand furiously.
"Take us down!" Grant bellowed, reaching across him for the control stick.
"Fuck you!" Snarling in exertion and fury, the Magistrate unlatched his safety harness and half slid out of his seat, punishing Grant with a flurry of punches and kicks. His eyes were wild with rage and a mounting panic. Grant had seen men react like this before— men who, when faced with the possibility of their own deaths, turned into mindless, snarling animals.
Legs hooked around the strut of the landing skid, Grant defended himself instinctively, and the pilot's feet and fists hit only his arms, elbows and shoulders. One penetrated his guard, a side-handed blow that split the corner of his lower lip. At the sudden blaze of pain, the taste of blood, Grant lunged into the cockpit and grabbed the Magistrate around the throat in a stranglehold.
The pilot gagged and clawed at his hand, trying to prize Grant's fingers from his windpipe and larynx. With every iota of his upper body strength, Grant slammed the man's head against the side ob port. Even over the rush of wind and the chopping beat of the blades, he heard the Plexiglas crunch under the force. A small network of cracks spread from the impact point.
The Magistrate didn't lose consciousness. He threw himself from side to side, trying to break Grant's death grip on his throat. His elbow struck the control stick and the helicopter yawed and went into a prolonged, stomach-turning spin. Grant was forced to release the pilot and grasp the edges of the hatch. Beneath him he glimpsed a stretch of blue water, smoke and derelicts, all wheeling crazily.
The aircraft's spiraling descent slowed and finally ceased, a bare twenty feet above the deck of the fishing trawler. The pilot had regained control and the chopper rose again, straight up as if drawn by a celestial magnet. Grant clawed himself back into the cockpit, bracing his feet against the landing skid.
"Take us down, dammit!" he shouted.
The Magistrate's polycarbonate-shod elbow came up, slamming hard into Grant's sternum. Grant lost his balance, his feet slipping from the skid. He teetered on it, trying to tip himself forward, toward the cockpit. His groping hand found the control stick and he shoved it forward.
