than his testicles. Then he walked to a spot just around the corner from the open hatch from which the party sounds emanated. Eeyore took from one of the pouches he carried two of the Russian hand grenades-RGOs- provided by Victor's cache.
He straightened the pins of each then, holding one in each hand with his thumbs over the spoons, he took the rings in the index fingers of the opposite hands. He pulled his hands apart, taking the rings with them. Walking to stand next to the hatch, Antoniewicz released the spoon held down by his right thumb, hearing the snap of the striker and cap. He began to count-'one thousand. . . . two thousand'-as he bent over and bowled the grenade into the room. 'Three thousand.' He flipped the grenade in his left hand into his right, releasing the spoon in the process. He almost immediately hurled the grenade at the far wall. One of the RGO's nicer features was that it had an impact detonation ability, which was armed about a second after releasing the spoon.
Both grenades went off within less than a quarter second of each other, shaking the walls and setting the partiers to screaming with shock and the agony of jagged wounds. In that enclosed space even the fragments that missed were likely to bounce off the steel walls until they buried themselves in something soft. By the time those went off, he had two more armed. These, too, he donated to the party, even while people screamed from the first salvo. Then he gripped the last one he intended to use, pulled the pin, and sailed it in through the opening.
Eeyore pulled the submachine gun from its position across his back and pushed the muzzle through the open hatchway. He used the steel wall for as much cover as it would provide. Only a few men were standing, and those seemed stunned. For the rest, Hmmm . . . fewer of them than I expected. He fired at them, in turn-brrrp . . . brrrp . . . brrrp . . . brrrp-until all went down dead or wounded. Most of them seemed as much offended as surprised. Given the nature of the ammunition he was using, it was a fairly safe bet that even the wounded would soon be dead. Frangible was some nasty shit.
'Come quick! Come quick! Come quick!' Eeyore shouted into the radio. 'I'm heading to the bridge.'
The exterior steps on the port side of the superstructure led halfway up before terminating at a landing. From the landing, a hatchway led inward. Men, about a half dozen of them, were pouring from the doors into the central hallway that ran the breadth of the superstructure. They jabbered excitedly, some of them loading rifles in the process.
Time for another grenade, Antoniewicz thought. He reached into the pouch, then pulled one grenade out, pulled the pin, released the spoon, and counted one second before tossing the thing inward and downward. It exploded before he could quite withdraw his arm. Eeyore gasped with the pain as at least one piece of hot metal penetrating the skin of his forearm, lodging in the muscle below.
'Motherfucker!'
He turned into the hatchway and ran down the corridor, firing two to three round bursts into each of the people therein. Their arms tended to flop around as they lost muscle control, even as the frangible bullets broke up inside their bodies. Halfway across was an opening. Upwards from that ran another set of ladders. Next to the base of those steps was what had to be the radio room.
Eeyore shot the crewman laying on the deck in the radio room once more, to make sure. The crewman was laying face down, feet toward the floor, as if he'd been racing for the radio room when the grenade went off.
The former SEAL changed magazines and fired enough rounds into the three radios as to be very certain they were dead. Then, with sounds of something like organization with a heavy admixture of anger growing below and outside, he raced up the central stairway to the bridge.
Antoniewicz reached the top just as one of the crew reached out in an attempt to close and dog the hatch. Eeyore fired at the crewman, a long burst of seven rounds, causing the man's chest to ripple and pulsate under the assault, even as the ammunition broke apart upon entering his chest cavity to expand outward and ruin all the organs inside. Eeyore stepped over the body and found another man inside, this one reaching for a rifle.
Antoniewicz aimed and pulled the trigger again, only to be rewarded with a very disappointing nothing. No time to reload, he threw the submachine gun at the crewman, causing the latter to duck behind the bridge's control station. As he was ducking, Eeyore launched himself across the deck, his right hand reaching for his knife. He found it, pulled it, and thrust it generally forward as the crewman re-emerged from his shelter, trying to line up his Kalashnikov.
Antoniewicz couldn't get the knife lined up in time. Instead, he collided with the crewman, knocking both of them to the deck and causing both to lose their grip on their weapons. They rolled over each other for a few turns, with the crewman emerging on top and reaching for Eeyore's throat. The former SEAL batted away that questing grip, and then drove his knee upward into the crewman's groin. The crewman's eyes widened, even as he gasped with the pain.
Putting both hands together to form a flesh and bone hammer, Eeyore batted the crewman on the side of his head, sending him flying off to the side. Eeyore caught a glimpse of his lost knife (he'd completely forgotten about the pistol for the moment) and lunged for it. His hand wrapped around the hilt just as the crewman decided that a little gonad agony was a small price to pay for retaining those gonads. The dripping wound on Antoniewicz's arm flared anew with pain when the crewman grasped his wrist and twisted.
Eeyore formed one hand into a fist and struck the crewman on the ear. Then he twisted his other wrist, pain be damned, and freed the knife. With one hand over his insulted ear and the other outthrust, the crewman begged, 'La, min fadlak, la.'
'I don't speak Arabic,' Antoniewicz said as he feinted first for the crewman's face, then brought the knife down and around and, point first, stuck it into the crewman's stomach. Blood welled out and a scream escaped the crewman's throat. Eeyore ripped downward with the knife, then twisting inside the crewman's body, ripped upward again, effectively eviscerating the man. The scream tapered off into a moan. Then sound, except for that from some terminal thrashing, ceased.
Leaving the knife where it was, Eeyore stood and glanced around quickly. Now he remembered the pistol at his waist and drew it, but there was no one else to engage. He bent to pick up his submachine gun and reloaded it from one of the magazines in his vest. Taking a firing position to one side of the control panel, he placed his last grenade in front of him and called to the Bastard in a false southern accent, 'Y'all come a-runnin', now, y'hear?'
If I could kill the lights the NVGs would give me a considerable advantage. He looked around the bridge for a main light switch or power switch for the entire ship. He found something, a button, and pushed it. The light duly went out on the bridge, except for some faintly glowing red emergency lights. A quick glance out the broad, side to side, windows that faced forward told him that only the running lights were showing on the ship, forward. Best I can do.
As Antoniewicz waited, as calmly as one could under the circumstances, for the enemy to make their move, he wondered, How the fuck did we get ourselves into this?.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
