Marines-“pick up a couple of lanterns, but don’t point them aft until I give the word. Also, no one is to fire without orders. Understood? ”
There were nods, and the Marines hefted the lanterns almost casually. Bekiaa noted that one was shaking just a little. “Mr… ah, Moe?” she asked. No one knew what Moe’s real name was-least of all Moe. Before Silva started calling him that, he’d simply been known as “the Hunter.”
Moe nodded.
“Now!” Bekiaa said.
The Marines pointed the directional lanterns aft, and the first thing Bekiaa saw was a swarm of bright yellow eyes that not only reflected the light but almost seemed to intensify it. There was a collective shriek that sounded like the big circular saw at the Baalkpan shipyard hitting a knot, and slim, webbed, almost grotesquely clawed hands moved to protect the brilliant eyes. The whole aft part of the ship was working with the things! She couldn’t see much, but they were shaped like a cross between the huge monster they’d killed the day before and some kind of furless, slimy-skinned Grik! They weren’t as large as Grik-they didn’t seem quite as big as she was-but they’d gathered with sufficient stealth that clearly even Moe hadn’t caught on for a while.
“What do we do, Lieuten-aant?” a Marine nervously asked.
“Hold your fire!” The things had recoiled from the light and for the moment just stood there, blinking huge eyelids. Her own vision was clearing a little. The sudden glare of the lanterns and the even brighter yellow orbs had left afterimages swimming through her sight. Like Grik, she concluded, but not. Webbed feet and hands; a longer, slimmer tail with something like a fin down its back. Their coloring was dark, with lighter splotches, and they weren’t as heavily muscled as Grik. Their handclaws were even longer, as she’d first observed, but their teeth not as wicked.
“What are we going to do?” the Marine demanded again.
“I don’t know!” Bekiaa almost shouted. The creatures stirred at her harsh voice, but didn’t advance.
“I think, of a sudden, they not know either,” Moe said.
Bekiaa took a deep breath and advanced a single step. “Hello,” she said, hoping her voice was firm but nonthreatening. The creatures babbled excitedly among themselves in a croaking, grunting gibberish, punctuated with high-pitched exclamations.
“Maker!” Bekiaa hissed. “I wish Mister Braad-furd was here!”
The door behind them opened suddenly, and Dean Laney came out, groggy eyed, already fumbling with his belt. Apparently he’d been awakened by a call of nature. Noticing that the guard was all silent and standing, he looked aft at the scene illuminated by the lantern. “Jumpin’ Jesus!” he practically squealed as he pulled his “new”. 45 from his pocket.
“No, Laay-nee!” Bekiaa yelled.
“Help!” Laney screeched over his shoulder, at the lounge. “There’s Grik-toads takin’ over the ship!”
“No!” Bekiaa screamed again, just as Laney began firing as fast as he could pull the trigger.
Lieutenant Bekiaa-Sab-At was a veteran of fierce fighting; she had to be to have become a Marine officer. She’d never led before, however, beyond an NCO level. She’d never been “in charge.” Still, she knew Captain Chapelle would back her up regardless of her decision, and she couldn’t possibly screw things up any worse than Laney had just done. Over the next eternally long split seconds, she contemplated several alternatives. With Laney’s shots, several of the creatures fell writhing on the deck and quite a few others simply leaped over the side in panic. Most seemed stunned. A few crouched and advanced purposefully, either armed just with their amazingly long, curved claws or clutching a stone or jagged piece of bone.
Feeling the heft of the musket in her hands, she was sorely tempted to shoot Laney down, or at least bayonet him… a little. She’d established that the creatures could communicate among themselves, and she might have been able to make some kind of nonviolent contact with them. If they saw her kill or wound the one who’d harmed some of them, the… opportunity… she’d sensed might be restored. That was a serious gamble. It was obvious the creatures had come to kill them. Only discovery and the bright lights had given them pause. Maybe a hasty defensive formation, strengthened by the others as they awakened and emerged from the lounge would work? Perhaps the creatures would respect the threat and the reluctance to harm more of them implied by that? Impossible. That would leave the work group backed up against the superstructure with dwindling options. There was no telling how many of the things there were, how many more might come, the longer this confrontation lasted. If they could climb the hull-how did they do that?-they could climb amidships too, and drop on them from above.
A ragged volley from forward cinched her decision. Mere seconds after Laney’s shots, they were coming over the bow as well. It no longer really mattered what difference Laney’s shots had made, if any. The expedition to recover Santa Catalina now had an enemy all its own.
“Marines!” she shouted. “Pre-sent! Take care not to hit the crates,” she reminded them. The first attackers, still visible in the light of the lanterns that had hastily been set on the deck, were only a few strides away. “Fire!” Tongues of flame stabbed out from the muskets and the building charge shattered under the onslaught of eight loads of “buck and ball” and a sudden cloud of choking smoke. Bodies flopped on the deck and writhed and thudded with spastic, distinct, fishlike sounds. An eerie groan swept through the attackers and more splashes were heard as others abandoned the fight. “Mister Laay-nee, get back inside,” Bekiaa ordered. “No one is to come out in ones and twos. They must form squads of at least six or more and come out together. Everyone at once would be nice. Send squads to relieve the forward guard as well. We cannot let them inside.” Forgetting Laney, she turned back to the front.
“Reload!”
“What the hell’s going on out there?” Chapelle demanded when Laney staggered, wide-eyed, back into the lounge. Lanterns were being lit and Marines and Navy salvage workers were snatching weapons and clambering for the door.
“Monsters!” Laney declared. “Slimy, toadlike, Grik-lookin’ bastards! There must be thousands of ’em!” They heard muffled firing from forward. “Oh, yeah, that ’Cat Marine said to send help to the other guards. They’re attackin’ all over the ship!” Amazingly, the big man seemed close to panic. “God a’mighty, all I wanted was a whiz over the side!”
Isak and Gilbert appeared, grimly holding two of the long, heavy Krags they always bitched about, and Ben had his pistol and an ’03 Springfield.
“You, Gilbert, go forward with Jannik-Fas and two squads of Marines.” Russ said. “They may need your help with a repeating rifle.” Another volley crashed outside, punctuated by weird cries. “Isak, you come with me and the rest of the Marines.”
“What about me?” Ben asked angrily.
“You stay out of it, hear? This whole trip’s for nothing if you get yourself killed! Know anybody else that can fly a P-40? You stay back with the rest of the Navy ’Cats. Send a runner forward with Gilbert. You’ll have to send reserves wherever they’re needed.”
“Goddamn it, Russ!”
“Just do as you’re told, flyboy.” Chapelle grinned. “Everybody knows you got plenty of guts. You can break your neck later in an airplane, and it’s none of my business. Right now you’re my responsibility!” He looked around. There were about seventeen with him, not counting Isak and Laney. Laney had an ’03 now, bayonet fixed. “Let’s go!”
They poured out the door yelling like fiends, just as Bekiaa, Moe, and the four remaining outside Marines charged, bloody bayonets lowered. Russ and his reinforcements flowed around her, firing independently as soon as their front was clear. Russ immediately saw that there weren’t “thousands” of the bizarre creatures, as Laney said, but there were more than a hundred. Quite a few lay dead, and a steady trickle of the remainder was jumping over the side, but a cohesive mass was still fighting determinedly, even in the face of their assault. If they were similar to Grik in other ways, they apparently didn’t panic en masse.
Russ fired his Springfield, careful of his shots in the dark with the precious ammunition. One of the creatures he’d thought was dead suddenly latched onto his foot with a long, sticky tongue, and he shook his leg violently as a primal revulsion coursed through him. He stabbed down with his bayonet, pinning the thing’s head to the deck, and finally managed to pry his foot free.
“Watch out for their damn tongues!” he warned, perhaps a little shrilly. “They’re just like the one that big
