Carnifex

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Nothing for it but to go for the glory, he thought.

'Cris,' the skipper shouted to his XO, 'get astern and be prepared to man Turco's gun. You'll know when.'

'What are ya gonna do, Skipper?'

'Diekplous,' Pedraz shouted, as Frances scurried astern. Then he said into his microphone, 'Clavell, bring your gun to bear ninety degrees to port. Guys, we're gonna turn and go right in between them. Fire as you bear.'

* * *

Both One's and Two's crews, and especially the gunners, laughed maniacally as they pursued the fleeing infidel boat. It had been all too rare, in this war, to see the enemy actually turn and run on the battlefield. Such moments were to be savored. Especially were they to be savored when the time available for such savoring was destined to be very short.

* * *

Sweating profusely, heart pounding fit to burst from his chest, Clavell huddled behind his gun shield, eye pressed firmly to his sight. Beside him, Guptillo held on for dear life against the turn he was pretty sure the skipper was about to make.

'If you ever made a good shot, Jose, make one now,' Guptillo said.

Eye still to his sight, Clavell couldn't answer by nod. Instead, he stuck one thumb in the air.

Suddenly, the boat slowed and began to turn to port. Clavell cranked the gun down to compensate, never moving his eye from his sight. Sea passed in his view, then more sea, then more . . . then . . .

Kawhamkawhamkawhamkawhamkawham. Clavell depressed the trigger on the forty as the veer of the boat brought it into view and almost aligned. Downrange, his first shell missed, bursting in the water. His second missed as well. But he held true to his aim and trusted the movement of the ship to align the target perfectly. Shells three through five, rewarding his faith, found their target, smashing the front of Two like so much kindling. Enemy sailors, and pieces of sailors, went flying in all directions. Others aboard Two, those further astern, continued to fire after only a brief, shocked pause.

'And now we charge. Banzai, motherfuckers!' Pedraz shouted over the rising roar of the engines, the crash of the cannon, and the cloth-ripping hum of his machine guns.

The Trinidad spurted ahead, her machine gunners, plus Guptillo and Clavell, trading what amounted to mutual automatic broadsides with the Ikhwan fighters of One and those remaining aboard Two. Sailors on both sides went down, some suddenly and silently, others with curses and screams. The armor worn by Pedraz's crew helped, but at this range, perhaps one hundred meters, it didn't help much. And the greaves didn't cover the back of the sailors' legs at all.

Astern, Frances leapt to his feet, almost losing his footing to Turco's wet blood, and grabbed the spade grips of the .41-caliber tribarrel. From across the water, he and an Ikhwan gunner from Two stared at each other for what might have been the longest nanosecond in human history.

'Motherfucker!' Frances exclaimed as he deftly swung the tribarrel to bear on the machine gunner. Before the gun was on target, his finger was already depressing the trigger, causing the electrically driven barrels to spin and the gun to spit out its eighteen hundred rounds per minute. While the mujahad's bullets went wide, Frances' swath of fire cut right across his target, from left hip to right ribs, slicing—though by no means neatly—the Ikhwan gunner in two, spilling his intestines to the deck.

* * *

Pedraz looked around his half ruined boat and his mostly ruined crew. Men shrieked in agony on the deck, with the boat's sole medic frantically going from one to the other, desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood here, relieve pain there.

Behind the Trinidad, One and Two lay smoking and dead in the water. Two was plainly sinking, though it was taking its time about it.

If I had more time  . . .

Time was about up, however, and Pedraz knew what he had to do. 'Clavell, cease fire,' he said, gunning the engine and twisting the boat away. It made a tight turn, then headed off away from the Hoogaboom and slightly towards the carrier.

Picking up his microphone, Pedraz broadcast, 'Agustin, this is Trinidad. Get the hell away from the freighter. Don't argue. Just do it.'

BdL Dos Lindas

Kurita had stationed himself beside the one serviceable forty-millimeter gun on the carrier's stern port quarter. To either side of him, twenty-millimeter cannon and forty-one caliber machine guns churned futily at the oncoming scow. And the forty does no good either. For that matter, the pounding isn't doing my head much good. No help for that, though.

He watched a small and gallant patrol boat, the Trinidad, he thought, trading fire with, then turn and run right in between two patrol boats. Glorious, thought Kurita, In the best naval tradition. Brave boys. Bravo. Banzai.

Kurita watched as the PTF, smoking and clearly hurt, pulled away and began to retreat. No shame in that, my friends, he thought. You must save whatever you can of this fleet. We here are, after all, just dead men now.

No matter for me, of course. I've been dead since I failed my emperor. But it's a shame about the others.

Kurita watched a Finch swoop down to lay a barrage of rockets on the top of the freighter. They seemed to have no effect at all, except to cause a missile to be launched upward at the Finch. Then Kurita remembered something old and sacred. I wonder if . . . but, no, there's no way to suggest it to you.

Kurita looked out and saw a most remarkable thing. The small patrol boat he thought was the Trinidad turned and almost stopped, as about half a dozen men began to assemble on the rear deck.

* * *

'I . . . can't . . . go . . . into the water, skipper. With this blood . . . the sharks will come . . . for me. I can't.'

'All right, Santiona,' Pedraz agreed.

'You'll need a back up, Chief,' Frances said. And that's, rightfully, my place.'

Pedraz had intended to make his last ride alone. It was frustrating and infuriating that more than half his never-sufficiently- to-be-damned, mutinous crew wouldn't go along.

'See, it's like this, Chief,' Frances explained, with a casual shrug. 'That ship is probably loaded with explosives. This wasn't a minor effort, here, after all, so I figure two, maybe three thousand tons. Nobody who gets off has much of a prayer of surviving that, if it goes off. So . . . all the same, I'd rather not jump ship. It wouldn't do any good anyway. Besides, like Santiona said, we put wounded into the water we'll have sharks all over everyone.'

But still, Pedraz wanted to save something. He looked at the youngest crewman, and nearly the only one unhurt who could be spared. That youngest was a nice kid named Miguel Quijana. Quijana, like the others, wore helmet, body armor, and over that a life vest.

Pedraz grabbed the seaman by the shoulders and said, 'Stay as much on the surface as possible. Watch carefully; when we hit you'll have a few moments between when the first wave of concussion passes under water and the debris starts falling. Remember, the concussion under water will be worse. Don't get under water until you can feel that wave of concussion pass. Then get under fast. Good luck, son.'

With that, Pedraz turned the boy around to face the stern and, placing a boot on his rear end, shoved him off into the sea.

'For the rest of you, Battle Stations! Banzai, motherfuckers!'

* * *

Nobody left the boat, Kurita could see, except for one man deliberately booted off, probably by the captain. And then the boat began to move forward, picking up speed at an amazing rate.

Another man might not have understood. Yet Kurita understood perfectly and immediately. Divine wind. Kamikaze.

He tapped the leader of the forty-millimeter crew and said, 'Go and warn the other gunners on this side, you and your crew. Get the hell behind cover. Now!'

Then, as soon as that crew had sped off, Kurita drew himself to attention, saluted the Trinidad with his sword, and began, softly and in an old man's reedy voice, to sing Kimigayo—

' . . . Until pebbles

Turn