Every normal man must be tempted
at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag,
and begin to slit throats.
-H. L. Mencken
D-106, 318 miles south of Reykjavik
The Bastard, skipping across the waves, showed no running lights whatsoever.
'I hear firing, skipper,' announced Simmons at the helm.
'Fuck ‘hear,'' said Biggus. 'You can see the motherfucking muzzle flashes.' He lifted off his Russian NVGs. 'Hell, you can see ‘em with bare eyes. Flank speed! Come alongside on the starboard. Morales!?'
'Chief!'
'Stand by on the port side gun.'
'Aye, aye.'
'Simmons,' the chief said, 'when we get in the Galloway's wake slow down to give Morales a reasonable chance to hit something. And us to hook the ladder to board.'
'Aye, Chief. You still going in first?'
'Natch.'
The sailor sighed. 'Aye, Chief.'
Eeyore felt something striking the steel deck upon which he lay, followed by muffled screams coming from below.
'Stupid bastards! Don't you realize that your own bullets will ricochet off the steel? And not stop until they hit something soft? Like you?'
There were more bodies now littering the bridge. From his prone position, it was hard to tell how many. But he thought he remembered at least six men going down. Antoniewicz still had one last grenade; he'd used the rest. He figured he'd have to use it, too, for the next rush.
And a bloody good thing you fucks don't have any, or haven't dug them out of storage if you do. Or . . . ah, shit.
In the grainy, greenish glow of his NVGs, Eeyore saw two sparking objects, approximately egg-shaped, he thought, sail up to bounce off the ceiling and then fall to the floor. He opened his mouth wide as he rolled left, back behind the control console. Then they went off in a great burst of light that immediately disappeared to be replaced by thick, dark smoke.
The console saved him from most of the shrapnel, barring what ricocheted off the other metal and found him on the rebound, but not from the concussion, which was bad enough to blow some of the windows out, pummel his eardrums, and to make him feel like he'd had every square inch of his body simultaneously pummeled with an infinity of Louisville Sluggers. To say he was stunned would have been an understatement.
But even stunned men can operate off of long-trained and conditioned autopilot. He rolled out to the right again, felt something dig into his chest, and fired a very badly aimed burst in the general direction of the ladders. He didn't know if he'd hit anything. And he couldn't hear if he had either. He rather doubted it, to the extent he was cognizant enough to doubt.
His hand released the submachine gun's grip and sought under his chest to clear it of the object pressing into him. The hand came to rest upon his last grenade.
'What the fuck? Why not?' he said, and didn't even really hear himself.
Antoniewicz grasped the grenade and rolled back behind the console. He tried sitting up to get his back against the thing but found that what that did to his head just wasn't worth it. Unsteadily he pulled the pin out and rolled back to his semi-exposed position. Quite certain that he wasn't up to throwing the thing, he slid it across the deck with as much force as he could muster. The spoon flipped off as he did.
The grenade slid for point two seconds until hitting a body from which it careened at a low angle. It then hit a dropped Kalashnikov at about the point five second mark. From the rifle it bounced, returning to approximately its previous course. After the passage of point seven seconds it hit the back wall behind the ladders leading to the bridge and bounced forward and down. It hit three steps and a couple of ankles, each about a tenth of a second apart. On the sixth step, which was about as far as the center of the assault party had reached, it had been over one point two seconds since spoon release.
Boom!
Morales began pressing the trigger of the Russian .51 caliber machine gun they'd mounted to the port side at exactly the same time Eeyore's grenade exploded. The grenade flash had the effects of illuminating a row of people ascending the ladders on the port side of the superstructure, and then causing Morales' NVGs to overload, which then left him completely in the dark even as the .51 began spitting out bullets. At the same time, the Bastard passed through the ship's wake and rocked violently. This threw off his aim so that, while he fired, he hit absolutely nothing smaller than the ship. And then the Bastard was past the point where the corner of the superstructure blocked off any possible target. He heard the shout, 'Grenade!' Almost instantly, there was another explosion aboard the Galloway and Chief Thornton and two men were hooking a ladder over the Galloway's side and scrambling up.
No sense in sticking with the machine gun anymore. Morales let it go, took off his defunct NVGs, and picked up a night vision scoped Dragunov sniper's rifle. He leaned against the Bastard's port gun tub and, putting his eye to the scope, began to scan. It was a fairly useless activity, even at this short range, as the Bastard's rocking made the chance of a hit a matter of flukes.
***
Biggus Dickus liked the Russki grenades, in principle. It's quality control at the factory that gives me the willies. Thus, he didn't even contemplate trying to cook one off. With two of his men, Rogers-known as 'Mary- Sue'-holding the bent ladder and Bland-called 'Jalapeno,' though he had not a trace of Mexican in his background- overwatching with his Russian SMG, the chief pulled the pin, kissed the grenade, released the spoon and tossed the thing onto Galloway's rear deck.
The explosion came so soon after Biggus had tossed the grenade that, Yeah, quality control at the factory left something to be desired. No fucking way I should have held that thing long enough for the impact feature to arm. I could have been holding it, cooking it off and Kaboom.
Mary-Sue, scrunched low, wasn't fazed by the blast. Besides, he assumed his chief knew what he was doing. As soon as the thing went off, he was on his feet, hooking the ladder over the gunwales, pronounced 'gunnels,' like 'tunnels,' which were the hull's uppers.
The chief had been supposed to lead, as a matter of principle. When he delayed for a moment, caught up in the conflicting emotions of very nearly having his arm blown off and relief that this had not happened, Jalapeno charged up, balancing on the balls of his feet. He jumped over the gunwales and onto the deck. He was then caught in a moment of indecision. He'd been supposed to turn left, after Biggus Dickus had turned right. Since Biggus hadn't turned right, his back would be uncovered if he turned left, per the plan. While he was caught in this moment of indecision, one of the ship's company or their terrorist passengers-probably having come rearward to look for more grenades and just having missed being caught in Biggus Dickus' explosion-saw Bland and fired a long burst. Two bullets impacted on the protective plates in his Russian body armor. Twenty-seven went high to very high. One impacted onto Jalapeno's face, killing him instantly and knocking his body against the gunwales, from whence it slid to the deck.
That brought the chief from his reveries. In fact, it brought him to a killing rage. Swearing aloud, Thornton ascended two steps, lined up his laser aiming device on the firer, and fired his own short burst, three rounds, directly into the man's chest.
'Come on, Mary-Sue,' the chief shouted as he scrambled up the ladder. The chief did turn right once he'd reached the deck, but there was nothing there to see. He took a step forward to make room for Rogers. Once he felt the SEAL touch down on the deck behind him, and satisfied that there was nothing of danger forward, he
