Iron Rage by James Axler Read Free Book Online Page A

Five
    â€œIt’s the New Vick fleet!” Arliss exclaimed. “And they got their big tubs with ’em!”
    Krysty climbed to her feet in alarm. Without even looking, Ryan stood up beside her and reached an arm to steady her.
    Ryan gazed south, along the length of the cabin. Out beyond the prow of the Mississippi Queen a V of five blasterboats was steaming toward them with little mustaches of water by their bows. He knew that meant they were driving hard, although the slow but strong Sippi current’s flowing against them slowed them.
    Behind the blasterboats came the main New Vickville fleet, darkened by the long shadows that stretched from the low bluffs on the west bank of the big river. It was still well beyond blaster range, but the ironclad ships looked huge, like a distant range of mountains.
    â€œFireblast,” Ryan said, almost conversationally. Another person might have taken it for resignation. Another man saying it under the circumstances might have meant it that way.
    But not Ryan. Krysty knew that his tone meant he had already accepted the situation—and begun to plot how to beat it and survive, as he had a thousand times before.
    â€œBlasterboats have already cut us off from the Yazoo,” he said.
    â€œAnd the big boats are squatting right in the river mouth,” said Jake, who among other duties was an assistant navigator, though pretty much every member of the Queen ’s crew could do pretty much everyone else’s job.
    Krysty and her friends were exceptions, of course, although they were willing hands. All had been aboard ships a number of times. They did what they could and nobody complained. When it came to fighting, it was the river-boaters who were second string.
    And she already knew that it would come to fighting. Because if the patrol boats or heavy ironclads didn’t sink them with their blasters, they would wind up having to seek shelter somewhere in the deceptively green, rad- and mutie-haunted countryside around them.
    Plus it always came down to fighting, sooner or later. These were the Deathlands.
    Ryan was already half carrying her forward at a good clip. Several of the crew raced on ahead, maneuvering carefully past to avoid jostling the pair. They were on good terms, along with being nominally on the same side, but none of the Queen ’s complement was eager to cross any of the newcomers. Least of all their tall, one-eyed wolf of a leader. Or his woman.
    The rest of the companions followed Ryan and Krysty. They were never eager to race toward danger, at least when that wasn’t called for. Except Jak, who scampered forward along the cabin roof like a white two-legged squirrel.
    On the bridge Trace Conoyer was standing determinedly on her own, next to the wheel, where Nataly was still piloting the boat. The captain’s right arm had been safety-pinned to the captain’s shirt to discourage her from waving it around. Mildred hovered next to her, watching her like an anxious mother. “They’ve opened fire,” Nataly said in her flat voice. She never seemed excited.
    A waterspout blew up out of the river right in front of them. Droplets struck Krysty in the face, without much force.
    â€œSteady as she goes,” the captain said. She shouted into a speaking tube down to the engine room to maintain full speed.
    â€œBut, Captain,” Nataly said. For the first time her voice betrayed emotion. She sounded worried now. “We’re heading right into their cannon!”
    â€œPoteetville patrol boats aren’t that much farther behind us,” J.B. called from the open door. The door-slam sound of the shot that had produced the splash hit Krysty’s ears.
    â€œSteady as she goes,” Conoyer repeated. She was leaning forward, gripping the lower sill of the now-vacant front port with her left hand so hard her knuckles whitened. “On my word, turn her hard aport, smartly as you can.”
    The mate glanced