Carnifex

warships almost upon you. Our friends say they are fast, partly armored and well armed with cannon and machine guns. They say the boats are from the infidel mercenaries.'

It was still an even and calm voice that answered, 'Then we will run, Father, and if we cannot escape we will sell our lives as dearly as possible.'

The boy's mother had never been a favorite, but Abdulahi had always had a soft spot in his heart for the boy, himself. So brave and forthright he was, so full of fire was his heart. I will miss this boy. I will . . . 

'My son . . . ' and the father's voice choked with emotion and pain, ' . . . if you must die then, yes, die like men.'

'Il hamdu l'illah, Father; we shall if we must.'

* * *

In CIC, aboard the Ironsides, a sailor huddled over a screen and watching a real time image from a military satellite. He whispered a curse and announced, 'They're turning for home.'

The captain looked at the ops board and answered, 'They're probably too slow to escape but they might get in close enough to swim for it.'

'Wouldn't matter, Cap'n,' his ops officer said. 'If those legion boys catch 'em in the water they'll kill 'em anyway.'

'War crime?'

'No, sir. In this one type of case the international law enforcement model makes perfect sense. It really is a law enforcement problem and the law says, 'kill 'em,' skipper. Fleeing Felon Rule, it's called.'

The captain nodded. 'Call the Trinidad. Give them the code word for we've been made and give them the pirate's new course.'

* * *

'A stern chase is a long chase,' Lungile whispered to himself. 'But when one boat is four times faster it isn't long enough.'

His own boat had begun life as a sport fisher, back when Xamar had actually had tourism. As such, it had a flying bridge and a climbable mast above it. Lungile stood atop that mast, gripping the ladder with one hand and surplus Volgan binoculars with the other. Through the binoculars, pressed tight to his eyes, Lungile searched for his pursuers. He'd caught glimpses of them, each one closer, when waves happened to have lifted both boats simultaneously. The mercenaries boats looked . . . Lungile searched for the right word . . .

'Like sharks,' he decided, 'like predators.'

Lungile turned away from his pursuers toward the distant beckoning coast and safety. There was no real chance of making it unless he could somehow drive off both of the enemy craft. But to fight them . . .

'Hard left,' he shouted to the helmsman.

* * *

Lower, with no flying bridge, Pedraz saw the smoke from the badly-maintained diesels before ever he saw the smoke's source.

'XO, take the wheel,' he ordered, backing off and pulling out a set of binocular that hung hard by.

Immediately his assistant, Cristobal Frances, flashed black eyes and answered, 'Aye, aye, skipper.' Frances was huge, towering above his captain. His long arms reached out as he right-stepped to take the wheel seamlessly.

Pedraz raised the binos to his eyes, swept the horizon until catching sight of the smoke, and looked down from that. The smoke grew thicker but the boat was not visible. He waited, keeping the glasses fixed at the lowest part of the column of smoke . . . he waited . . . he waited . . . he . . .

'They've decided to risk a fight,' he announced. 'Radio! Get on the horn to Agustin and Dos Lindas. Tell them the pirates are ready and waiting, arms in their hands. Agustin is to stand off at .41-caliber range and engage the two to starboard. We will take on the port pirate ourselves before going to join Agustin.'

'XO?'

'Aye, skipper.'

'I want to go straight in to about six hundred meters then cut sharp a- port.'

'Roger, skipper.'

Pedraz flicked a switch on the headphones he wore, in common with the 40mm crew, uncomfortably under his helmet. 'Main gun?'

'Aye, skipper,' Clavell answered.

'You may open fire on your own hook when the target is visible and in effective range. Forward port and starboard Heavy Machine Guns?'

'Port here, Chief,' answered Panfillo.

'Esteban here, skipper.'

'I don't expect you to actually hit anything until we're within two thousand, so hold you fire until then.'

'Aye, aye, skipper.'

'Aye.'

* * *

The rocket grenade launchers, or RGLs, were the older version. They could reach out to eleven hundred meters; the rocket motor would drive them that far, but the integral fuse self-detonated them at just over nine hundred. They could hit a target the size of a tank at three hundred, but would generally miss at four. A larger target, something like the eighty-two-foot length of a patrol boat like the Trinidad or Agustin, they could, at least conceivably, hit at something like six hundred.

It didn't really matter that the RGLs weren't very likely to hit. They were the best the pirates had and so they had to try.

Lungile pushed and cuffed his RGL gunners, four of them to the forward

deck where the backblast wouldn't endanger the ship or the other crewmen, the other two to the rear. He ordered the two to the stern to load fragmentation rounds. These were forty-millimeter, rather than seventy, and might, he thought, extend the practical range of the shells as the fragments reached forward in a cone after the shells exploded. Other crew, armed with rifles and light machine guns, he put to lining the gunwales on the side he was presenting to the enemy.

They'll never close to where we have a decent chance of a hit, thought Lungile. Best to try for the longer shots, then. At the speed they look like they're making, that would be . . . mmm . . . maybe two minutes. We'll wait . . . 

Then Lungile saw the flashing flame and the puffs of smoke from the forward deck of the infidel boat.

* * *

The 40mm, L56 gun was not so much a lightweight as a miniature heavyweight. In the other version, the longer and higher velocity version purchased for the Dos Lindas, it fired up to four-hundred-and-fifty, eight-hundred-and-seventy gram shells per minute from a one hundred and one round magazine. On the patrol boats the Legion had mounted the lighter weight, simpler, slower firing, and frankly obsolescent, land version. This had only a forty-three round magazine but, on the plus side, the weight and recoil were not enough to capsize the boat. The crews thought this was a pretty good tradeoff.

Guptillo's job wasn't to keep the magazine filled under full rate of fire; that was impossible. Rather, he and the other feeders were tasked to reload the fixed magazine after it went dry. This took considerably longer than emptying the thing did.

It could have, perhaps even should have, been a much more sophisticated system then it was. Ideally, given the rise and fall of the bow, the gun would have had an integral laser range finder and pseudo-stabilization system that allowed it to fire only when the elevation matched the sight. It didn't have anything like that. Instead, it had Clavell and the finest fire control computer in the known galaxy, the human brain.

The problem with using the brain as one's fire control computer, however, is that it is an absolute bitch to program.

* * *

With the first salvo of infidel shells, Lungile knew he had a chance, if not a great one. He thought he saw four short-falling shells impact and explode on the ocean's surface. At least one shell, he knew for a fact, overshot the boat. He knew it because it went right through one of the crew standing above the open-backed wheelhouse, waving his rifle around and shouting imprecations at the enemy. Apparently the pirate's body didn't create enough resistance to detonate the shell. This helped, though the body practically exploded anyway, showering the crew with blood, bone and meat, and sending one other pirate down with a chunk of rib buried in his throat.

And still the enemy boat was too far away to engage.

'Wait for the order, you bastards,' Lungile shouted at his gunners.

* * *

'Clavell, you bastard, you missed!' Pedraz shouted into the intercom.

'Sorry, skipper. But hey, I bracketed it. Did you see that fucker go poof?'

Pedraz simply grunted, then said, 'Hold fire until we're closer; twelve hundred meters should do.'

'Aye, skipper.'

'And Santiona and Panfillo, you're going to have the same problem Clavell did, the rise and fall of the bow. Hold fire till we get to eight hundred.'