monster had!”
“EEEE W W W W W!” squealed Isak, as he started jumping in circles. He’d stepped on an entirely dead tongue that had glued his shoe to the deck.
Laney shoved him forward, out of his shoe and back into the press. “This ain’t no time for ballerina tryouts, you nitwit!” he growled. Apparently he’d gotten over his own initial shock.
The weight of the attack, and possibly the unexpected violence and remorselessness of it all, not to mention the now steady hail of bullets that shredded bodies far beyond the natives’ ability to inflict any harm, backed the dwindling horde of slimy creatures up onto the fantail. They continued to resist, slashing at bayonets with their unnaturally long handclaws with an almost metallic shkink sound, but the steady fire and the bristling wall of bayonets kept those foreclaws from reaching much flesh. Russ did see one of the creatures dart its tongue out and snatch a musket right from the hands of a Marine-and then drive the bayonet through its own head when the tongue retracted. It was probably the most bizarre thing he’d ever seen, and he imagined the macabre humor of the image would stay with him the rest of his days.
From within the milling mass, a thrumming bellow arose, like the steady roar of a thousand frogs. The creatures fighting on the fantail seemed to pay it no heed, but suddenly there was firing from the direction of the lounge again! Behind them! Chapelle risked a glance, and there was Ben Mallory with about twenty Navy ’Cats armed with muskets, shooting at more of the monsters trying to clear the rail.
“Son of a bitch!” Russ murmured. “They sucked us in and tried to flank us!” He raised his voice. “Bekiaa, keep up the pressure! We got company!”
Lieutenant Bekiaa also risked a glance. “We will. Take that damn Laay-nee and a couple Marines. We can spare them here, but those things must not get between us!”
Russ pushed another stripper clip full of. 30-06 shells into his rifle’s magazine. The clip fell away and he closed the bolt. “Yeah,” he said. “C’mon, Laney!”
Together with two lightly wounded Marines, reloading as they ran, Russ and Laney sprinted around the wide cargo hatch and the big crates cradled upon it. Yellow eyes peeked over the rail in front of him and Russ fired low, between them. The eyes disappeared. As he neared, Russ saw that Ben and his reserves were doing essentially the same thing. Few of the creatures were reaching the deck, and those that did died almost instantly. Ben was firing carefully, aiming his pistol with every round, each shot pitching one of the creatures backward as soon as it showed itself.
“I thought I told you to stay out of it!” Russ said breathlessly.
“I did stay out of it,” Ben replied. “As long as possible. I decided I was perfectly happy to let you deal with these nasty frog-lizards, or whatever the hell they are.” He fired again. “It isn’t possible now. Sneaky bastards tried to come up from below! They undogged the hatches, Russ! I’ve got some guys watching them now, but it came as a hell of a surprise. I also sent half the reserves forward when I saw what they were trying to pull back here.” He shook his head. “A hell of a thing. They aren’t running either, not like Grik, and they don’t really even have weapons. God help us if the Grik ever learn to fight like this!”
“God help us tonight!” Russ replied.
Ben shook his head. “They’re about done, I think. Their scheme didn’t work, and isn’t going to. If they’re as smart as I’m afraid they are, they’ll figure that out pretty quick. Back here, we’re just killing them.”
Ben was right. A few moments later, the thrumming roar sounded again from aft, followed by another one forward. No more heads appeared over the bulwarks, and toward the fantail they heard almost continuous splashes as the creatures there suddenly jumped over the side. Ben dropped the magazine out of his Colt and pushed down on the remaining cartridges with his thumb. Taking a few loose rounds from his pocket, he refilled the magazine and shoved it back into the pistol. Only his slightly trembling fingers betrayed the fact that he’d been nervous at all. Flipping the thumb safety up, he dropped the pistol back in its holster. “It was a tough fight, Maw, but we won,” he said softly.
Bekiaa, Isak, and Bekiaa’s remaining Marines slowly, carefully, worked their way back across the corpse- strewn deck. Only now, in the light of more lanterns, could Russ see that nearly all of them were at least lightly wounded. God, he thought, I hope Those damn Things’ claws aren’t poisonous!
“Double the guard for the remainder of the night,” Russ said. “No wounded, though. If you even got a scratch, get it looked at now. Pass the word.” He sighed. “First priority tomorrow is getting the generator up and running; power every bulb on this bucket we can get to light up! We need to send a message to Tolson too. Tell them we need reinforcements and the rest of our salvage crew…” He paused. “But what if those slimy devils gang up on the barges? Hell. Lieutenant Monk’ll be in charge of the next bunch. He’ll have to make sure they’re ready for anything, that’s all.”
“What about the wounded, Cap-i-taan Chaapelle?” Bekiaa asked.
“I already said I want them looked at,” Russ repeated tiredly.
“No, I mean the ‘enemy’ wounded.”
“Maybe somebody ought’a throw some water on ’em,” Gilbert said, looking at the half dozen “frog-lizards” gasping in the meager shade offered by one of the crates. “They’re gonna dry out like a smushed toad in the road.”
Isak shrugged. “Let ’em. Nasty bastards!” Isak was missing a patch from his scruffy beard on the left side of his face, courtesy of one of the sticky tongues the night before. He also had a bandage around his left hand where a couple of claws had “barely” touched him. He hadn’t even felt the “scratch,” but it nearly severed two of the tendons in his hand. A little polta paste and the company corpsman, or “corpscat”-whatever-had absolutely, positively assured him he’d be okay. Maybe. Twenty-odd Marines had worse injuries, and three had died. Two of the dead would be burnt in the Lemurian way. One would be buried, the “Navy” way, per his dying wish. All their names would be added to the growing tablet monument on the parade ground in Baalkpan. The dead frog-lizards had been thrown over the side.
“What’re you two doin’ here?” Laney snarled. “I been lookin’ all over for ya. We gotta raise steam today and check for leaks.”
“You ain’t my boss no more, Laney,” Isak declared. “Lieutenant Monk’s over all of us. Far as I’m concerned, until he gets here-today, I hope-we’re on ‘official terms’ only. I don’t even gotta talk to you ’cept in the line o’ dooty.”
“This is duty, you moron. Cap’n Chapelle’s orders. ’Sides, we’re all still snipes, and I’m King Snipe… unless you want to strike for the job.”
Isak took a step back. Laney probably had a hundred pounds on him. “I ain’t goin’ down there where them tongue-grabbin’ buggers can get me,” he insisted. He held up his hand. “And besides, my best flipper’s wounded.”
“Since when are you left-handed? Don’t worry about it. A squad o’ Marines has already been below, checking stuff out.” He grinned savagely. “Found some more crates of them tommy guns too. Anyway, all the frog-lizards is gone-and there weren’t none in the fireroom anyway.”
They heard a splash near the “prisoners” and turned to see that someone else had had the same idea as Gilbert. Chapelle, Bekiaa, Jannik, Moe, and Sammy were standing near the dripping prisoners. Mallory was there too, but keeping his distance. Probably under orders. He had his pistol out, though.
“Oh, well,” Isak sighed. “Since I ain’t gonna get to watch them bastards desiccate, I might as well get some work done.”
“Now what?” Bekiaa asked.
“You said you got the ‘feeling’ you might have communicated with them last night. Somehow. What made you think that?”
“I don’t know if I ‘thought’ it, really,” Bekiaa replied. Her tail twitched irritation, but from her blinks Chapelle knew she was irritated with herself. “Whatever it was, the feeling was gone as soon as Laay-nee started shooting.”
“Shooting make no difference,” Moe said. “They come to kill, not talk. No can talk. They come all over ship. Even we talk to these”-he indicated the area aft where his group had fought-“we not talk to others… ah… for- ord.”
“He’s right,” Chapelle said. “Maybe you startled them, or even got the group aft wondering a little, but they
