"Can I try a two-bumper shot?"
"Be my guest."
Torres pulled the pin and listened for the hiss. Valentine saw a thin wisp of smoke appear from the central fixture that held the fuse. The marine stood and, with a left-handed sidearm throw, sent the grenade spinning down the corridor, whirling like a gyroscope toward the voice of the captain. Valentine kept his head up long enough to see it bounce off the bullet-marked wall at the crossbar of the T-intersection and heard it hit again somewhere in the corridor corner leading to the starboard passageway.
There was just enough time before the explosion for cries of "Grenade!" and "Look out!" to be heard, before an orange flash lit up the corridor.
As the ringing noise faded from their ears, Valentine felt the sweat running down the skin over his spine.
"About time for the captain to try something really stupid," Valentine predicted grimly, hearing voices yell back and forth from both sides of the intersection. He hated the thought of what was coming.
The captain obliged him. The loyal sailors and marines of the Thunderbolt tried to take the barricade with a rush. One of the machine guns from the upper deck appeared around the portside corner and began firing blindly toward the barricade. Valentine and Torres knelt behind the mattress-reinforced door, while the others took cover in rooms off the main passageway. Valentine heard the bullets hitting the door with a chunking sound, but the mattresses slowed down even the large-caliber shells enough so they failed to do more than dig into the solid wood.
When the gun's belt ran out, the corridor filled with screaming attackers trying to rush the barricade under the cover of a few pistols in the front ranks. The spotlight lit them up with unearthly clarity, ghostly faces white and straining. Ahn-Kha lifted the machine gun Post had dragged with him, and firing from his shoulder swept the corridor, cutting down the attackers running at them two abreast. Valentine added short bursts from his own gun. They flung the men down into bloody heaps well before the hopeless attack reached the barricade. A pair of men dodged into the dark laundry room, only to be hurled out again by shotgun blasts from Ahn-Kha's Grogs waiting within.
The charge was bloody but brief, and when it was over, Valentine counted eleven dead and wounded heaped in the corridor, lying in a thin lake of spilled blood under spattered walls. Only their blood penetrated the barricade, seeping in under the mattresses and door, until its odor overwhelmed even the cordite in the air.
Valentine sank to his knees, reloading. "Last thing I wanted. This is not what I wanted," he heard himself saying over and over again, waltzing on the edge of hysteria.
Ahn-Kha placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Steady now, my David," the huge Grog said. "Better them than us."
A figure arose from the bloody heap in the corridor, pushed up by an arm and his one good leg. The marine tried to take a step back toward the intersection when he slipped on the slick red liquid pooled on the floor, falling full on his injured leg with an agonized scream.
"Would you help Cal before he bleeds to death?" Valentine shouted down the corridor.
"You won't shoot?"
"No, for God's sake. Get him, would you?" Torres added.
The tacit truce allowed a pair of sailors to pull the wounded men away around the corridor. Ahn-Kha placed a new belt in his machine gun, closing the receiver with a determined slam.
"Partridge died," Went reported. "Sorry, Mr. Rowan. And I think Mr. Post is in shock."
Valentine crawled into the locker and felt Post's pulse. It was weak but steady, his breathing shallow.
A half-familiar burning smell tickled Valentine's nostrils. He looked up at the ceiling, where smoke began to flow from an air-supply vent. He moved to the hatch to the engine room. "Chief, looks like they're burning something in the ventilators, can you do anything about it?"
"Yeah, I noticed," the Chief called back. "I'm turning off the fans now. The access to the smokestack is welded shut- otherwise, I could shunt it out of there. It'll get smoky, especially if they burn something in the stairways, too."
"How about reversing the fans?"
"We'd have to rewire them. We're just going to have to cough for a while, I think."
The squawk box crackled to life. "Last chance, men," the captain's voice gloated. "We've got some fires going in the ventilators, and we'll be dropping bits of fender tire on for good measure. It's going to get unpleasant down there in a few minutes, if not lethal. Anyone who comes to their senses will get mercy. Too much has happened for it to get covered up now, but I'll do what I can."
"Why can't you shut him up, Chief?" Went yelled as Torres solemnly laid his tunic over Partridge's head.
"It's on an emergency battery up on the bridge. I could cut the wires, I suppose-"
Ahn-Kha wrinkled his nose. "Disgusting."
Valentine began to cough at the harsh smell of burning rubber filling the room, causing his eyes to water.
"Try this," the Chief said, passing Valentine a damp rag.
Valentine imitated the Chief and his men by tying the cloth over his mouth and nose. He did not notice a difference.
Eyes watering in the noxious burning-rubber smell, Valentine tried to come up with a plan. If all else failed, it was his duty to at least deprive the Kurians of the Thunderbolt. He could have the Chief open the scuttle to the ocean, and let the sea take the ship and his mission with her. Perhaps he and Ahn-Kha could even survive the swim to the Jamaican shore....