BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)

Domville was stunned but already leading the charge back up the stairs, roaring for the others to follow him.

By God, Pia thought, the man needs a cutlass.

They burst onto the bridge. Captain Gepfner raised his pistol and was shot a dozen times before he could so much as twitch. He was dead when he hit the deck.

The other officers raised their hands and yelled, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

Pia found herself panting, heart pounding, face-to-face with something …someone …unlike anything she had ever seen before. The body was too wide, the number of legs all wrong, and the head, that two-faced head . . .

“No reason to shoot,” Charles Armstrong said.

“I’ve talked to the surviving Morgenstein twin,” Pia said, panting. “There’s every reason to shoot.”

“We are not armed. We are in your power,” Charles said, placating.

“Who is in charge on this bridge?” Domville demanded.

“I suppose I am.” The second mate actually raised his hand, like a schoolboy.

“Then get this ship headed away from land, back into international waters,” Domville ordered him.

“I can’t sir. The helm is not responding.”

“What? Nonsense. Put this ship about this instant!” “Sir, the helm is locked out. All controls are locked out. The captain did it, sir. It’s all computer-controlled. He locked it out when he realized we wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

Every eye looked toward the bow. Off to the left there was a very strange sight: Sleeping Beauty’s Castle rising in spotlights peeked up from Disneyland Hong Kong. All around the ship was a series of small green islands like lumps of bread dough waiting to rise. Directly ahead, what looked to be waterfront warehouses and blocks of residential skyscrapers. Ahead and to the right a veritable wall of skyscrapers, twinkling now, some limned in neon, loomed over swarms of cargo ships, tankers, cruise liners and smaller craft cutting phosphorescing wakes in the water.

Already the small craft were scattering as the Doll Ship plowed on at a relentless fourteen knots.

There were now two Hong Kong Police vessels racing to intercept, but both were relatively small patrol boats. A larger Chinese ship kept its distance, but Domville saw them unlimbering a deck gun.

“All engines stop!”

“Sir, as I said, we are locked out!”

“Then we’ll go to engineering. Sergeant, you’ll stay here with Ms Valquist. You two, and you, mister,” he said, indicating the baffled and increasingly worried second mate, “you are with me and if you hesitate in the slightest I will have you shot.”

They ran from the room.

“It looks as if we’ll run straight into the harbor,” Benjamin said. “I wonder what happens to the natural gas tanks when that happens.”

“Do you have a way to stop this ship?” Pia demanded.

“The only one who could seems to be dead.” Charles waved an arm at the dead Captain Gepfner.

“The admiral will find a way,” Valquist said, projecting confidence she didn’t feel.

“I devoutly hope so,” Charles said.

“There will be quite an international contest to see who gets to try you two first. I hope the Chinese win. Unlike my country, or Britain, they still have a death penalty.”

To her amazement, Charles laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re mere passengers aboard this vessel. You’ll find nothing proving that we own this ship or hire its crew.”

“You think your lawyers and your money will protect you? You’ll be tried for a thousand different felonies. Kidnapping, torture, murder. You’re monsters.”

“Don’t call us that,” Benjamin said, twisting his mouth into a brutal snarl.

“None of the people on this ship will testify in your courts,” Charles said smugly. “You’ll find they are absolutely loyal. They are happy, and we are the source of their happiness. We’ll produce a hundred witnesses to every one of yours.”