Iron Rage by James Axler Read Free Book Online

of the cabin when the fire was out.
    His friends found places to flake out on the deck or railing, as did the regular crew they’d been helping: Jake Lewis, tall and saturnine, Avery Telsco, Suzan Kenn,the cheerful bear of a South Plains Indian, Santee, a medium-sized dude named Abner MacReedy, who looked way too much like a rabbit, although he wasn’t particularly shy or skittish, and finally Arliss Moriarty, leaning back against an intact wall of the cabin smoking a corncob pipe. For some reason that gave Mildred the uncontrollable giggles every time she looked at him.
    Jak, meanwhile, scrambled back onto the cabin roof. Unable to engage in his usual wide-ranging scouting, he settled for perching up there like a pelican, keeping watch at all hours of the day or night. He even slept up there. Aside from the fore and aft ends, both to portside, where shells had struck, the roof seemed pretty sound structurally. Ryan declined to worry about it. Jak of all people knew how to be careful where he put his feet, and not venture out on anything that wouldn’t support his slight weight. And anyway, it was his stupe neck.
    â€œBy the Three Kennedys!” Doc exclaimed.
    He had been squatting on his long, skinny shanks, facing aft. All that was visible behind the tug was churning green water. Arliss and his red-haired crony, Sean O’Reilly, who was back helping Myron and Maggie nurse the engines as usual, had cut the barge loose at what Trace Conoyer judged the optimum moment.
    By that time it was fiercely ablaze from one end to the other. Enough so that Ryan could feel the heat beating off it as he helped work the pumps. Had the wind not been blowing the sparks away from the Queen , they might well have set the tug alight too.
    Now Doc drew himself up to his considerable heightand flung out a long arm to point dramatically over the taffrail.
    â€œThe blackguards have found a way around the burning hulk, and are emerging from the smoke!”
    J.B., who was sitting just aft of the cabin near a boat hung in davits with his back to the stern, barely tipped his head back and turned it to glance over his shoulder.
    â€œNothing shaken, Doc,” he said.
    Ryan was surprised that J.B. could see over the stern, as short as he was. But the Armorer was the last person in their group to say more than he knew. “We knew it was going to happen sooner or later. They’re way out of range now, anyway.”
    â€œTheir frigates can’t keep up with us now,” Arliss said. No longer weighed down by the massive barge and her currently burning-to-nuke-shit cargo, the tubby little tug was making surprising time downriver. “They’re slow and handle like pigs, with all that armor. Unarmored patrol boats likely can’t catch us, even.”
    That last bit of information was delivered with a note of unmistakable pride in his voice.
    He shook his grizzled head.
    â€œIt’s lucky we got off as light as we did,” he said. “Except for poor Edna. We’re lucky, and that’s a fact.”
    â€œCount no man lucky before his death,” Jake said.
    Arliss put his hands on his hips and stuck his elbows out to the sides. “Well, aren’t you Captain Gloom ’n’ Doom? What, are you taking lessons from Nataly now?”
    â€œIt’s an old Viking saying. From my Viking grandmother, Freya.”
    â€œShe weren’t no Viking.”
    â€œYou didn’t want to tell her that.”
    â€œWhere are we going, anyway?” Ricky asked.
    â€œCaptain says she means to head back up the Yazoo,” Arliss said. “From there we’ll play it by ear.”
    â€œSo we’re basically in the clear?” The youth sounded relieved.
    Krysty lifted her head and gave him a wan grin.
    â€œDon’t ever say that, Ricky,” she said teasingly. “It’s only tempting fate.”
    â€œShips ahead!” Jak cried out from above. “War boats!”

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