Ship's Boy (10 page)
Authors: Phil Geusz
I looked back at the grapple, which was holding fine. Then I looked up towards
Hummingbird
, and my jaw dropped at how crowded the space between the two vessels had become. There was debris everywhere, of all sorts and description. Blown-out hatches, abandoned weapons, bits of cable, and a veritable snowstorm of ships' papers. Worst of all there were suited figures everywhere, many mutilated and some still feebly struggling to survive.
Hummingbird
herself was a near-skeletal wreck, though most of her guns were still blazing away. Which was more than could be said for
Sword’
s mounts—her huge fireballs would’ve been quite visible, had her major weapons remained in action. But…
I gulped. Yes, the navy’s engineers were very good indeed at repairing battle damage. But if
Sword
was in as pitiful a condition as my own ship, well…
None
of us would be going home. Not ever.
21
I popped my head up again to check on Sergeant Wells—he was still pinned down, but very much alive and in the fight. His flanks were at least somewhat protected by intense covering fire from
Hummingbird
. And yet…
I scowled to myself. Surely I wasn’t the only one to notice how quickly
Sword
was deteriorating. The Imperials themselves had to know her condition better than anyone. Yet, it was becoming clear, they could no longer win this battle so long as the grapple was in place. So… If I were the enemy commander, what would I be doing?
It didn’t take long at all to figure
that
out, what with my sitting where I was and staring dead aft. Which was, as near as I could figure, the best place left for the Imperials to mass for a decisive counter-attack.
This time when I tried to lift my feet against the tug of the sandals, I couldn’t manage it at all. It wasn’t just the pain—that was tough, yes, but I’d conquered it before. The problem was that I was growing weaker by the second. Which was all the better reason for me to do what had to be done and get it over with, before I became totally helpless.
So I turned off the magnets and drifted slowly towards
Sword
’s stern, easing my way from handhold to handhold and keeping an eagle-eye out for the sudden massed attack that I was certain
had
to be coming. Sure enough, when I was just a few feet short of the end of the ship a whole gaggle of suited men, many of them marines, popped suddenly into my line of sight with their jetpacks roaring away at full power. I didn’t have time to think, which was just as well. Instead I hooked my leg around the nearest stanchion, drew my blaster, and let fly without aiming just as fast I could pull the trigger.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
And three shots it was, no more and no less, because that was more than enough to empty my weapon. Indeed, the third blast was noticeably weaker than the previous two. But with them all catching the enemy drifting in the open, three were enough. Suddenly space was filled with writhing and twisted figures, all spinning in contrariwise directions as the survivors attempted desperately to evade the further rounds which they couldn’t know I was unable to fire. In mere seconds all of
Hummingbird
’s heavy guns, alerted by my oversized discharges, were blazing away at the disorganized mass with all they had.
In the end only one Imperial marine really drove home his attack on the grapple. He came gliding directly at me, blaster aimed and ready as I tried to ward him off with my now-empty weapon. My bluff failed, however. He came boring in regardless, until the hole in the end of his own weapon looked like the entrance to a tunnel. By then I understood that it really didn’t matter much whether he fired or not—I’d had it regardless. So I held my gun up steady and proud, then lined the sights up directly on the Imperial’s helmet. “
Bang!
” I whispered at the moment when I should’ve fired, and so help me if I’d had even a partial charge left I’d have killed him. Instead he grew larger and larger and larger, until I wondered if he was bluffing too. When he was almost on me I looked down at
Sword
’s hull and closed my eyes. At least I’d held up my end, I reminded myself. And maybe now James and Pedro and the rest of those who’d been so kind to me might get away.
But somehow my enemy never fired. Instead something heavy landed on my back, driving me face-down into the hull. I screamed again at the insult to my poor, suffering ears, and in turn the screaming was effort enough to make the universe first fade, and then spin away into total darkness. After that I must’ve sort of faded in and out of consciousness for a while, because I remember being tugged along at an incredible speed by a group of marines, and then my helmet being removed in what I suppose must’ve been
Sword’
s sick bay.
“…only so many Tanks to go around,” someone was saying. “And we’re going to need every one of them! There’s no way that I’m displacing a
real
person who needs intensive treatment for—”
“Shut your bloody trap!” I heard an enraged Sergeant Wells bellow. In the distance, blasters were still firing. “I don’t have to take any garbage from a goddamn Imperial just because he happens to be a doctor!”
“Sarge!” I heard my friend Percy say from somewhere nearby. “Settle down a little. We’ll get the kid taken care of; there’s no need—”
“You shut
your
mouth too, Corporal!” Sergeant Wells shouted. “If you’d seen what I saw, well…” Then there was a click, which I recognized from my brief training as a standard-issue blaster’s safety being released. “Put him in the Tank! Right now, before it’s too bloody late! He can’t have more than another minute or two.”
I finally managed to open my eyes a little; sure enough Sergeant Wells was holding a gun in his bloody, burned left hand—the right one was now missing. “I…” I tried to say. “Uh…” But of course no one ever listened to a mere Rabbit.
“All right, Sergeant,” the voice agreed. “Have it your way. But I assure that
I
won’t be the one who…”
And then a far deeper blackness than any I’d ever known before surged up from somewhere within me and carried me far, far away.
David Birkenhead’s adventures continue in Book 2: Midshipman
Available for Kindle on Amazon and in print from Legion Printing.
http://www.legion-bhm.com/publishing/
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