John Birmingham - Without warning

Her small crew, recruited in Acapulco and at a handful of trading stops at smaller, self-sufficient towns and villages on the way down to Crusoe, were all handy with weapons in one form or another, while Shah’s men, it went without saying, were utterly formidable. As she totted up the number of potential shooters in the lounge, Shah himself appeared at the main entrance and nodded silently to her. His men had the situation in hand for the moment.

The problem, as always, was the passengers – the rich, skiving dilettantes she had taken on board to fund the trip and provide her with a fig leaf of respectability when she arrived in Hawaii or Sydney, or wherever they were headed. While some of them had proved themselves not completely odious, and one or two, such as Marc Unwin, the oil broker, had even brought some of their arcane skills to bear for the benefit of all, as a group they were a bunch of fucking oxygen thieves. The trust-fund brats, Phoebe and Jason, had alienated all of the crew by treating them like staff. Indeed, Jason still sported a black eye from one of the engineers. Moorhouse, the merchant banker, had become a virtual recluse as he’d come to realise that the old world, and his fortune within it, was never coming back. As for the others, they simply made pains of themselves at every opportunity, for want of anything better to do. Well, she had a job of work for them to do now.

‘Okay,’ she said simply. ‘Pirates. Looks like we have two shiploads of them bearing down on us from the north.’

A murmur surged through the adults, while some of the youngest began a chant of ‘Piratas! Piratas!’, before Grandma Ana whacked one of them behind the ears and they all shut up quickly. Even the whackee held in his tears.

‘We had our problems with these guys before we got to Crusoe, and it looks like we’ve got them again.’

‘How?’ asked the banker. ‘How’d they find us out here?’

Fifi shrugged. ‘Somebody on the island probably dropped a dime on us. Five’ll get you ten, one of the lobster boats chugged out of port and went looking for someone who’d be interested. They couldn’t take us themselves…’

‘But they sold us out to someone who could,’ Jules finished for her.

More audible concern and a good deal of anxious muttering from the A-list passengers greeted that. Jules held up her hands to forestall any panic.

‘They could take us, if they caught us sleeping on the job. But they won’t. You have all seen these sorts of characters before. We chased them off then, we’ll do it again now. I’ve only called everyone together because this time it looks like there’s more of them, and they have a bigger, faster ship than before. It makes sense,’ she explained. ‘Things have turned to custard on the mainland. People are killing each other for a handful of beans in the big cities. In a situation like that, you will always get bandits who group together to prey on the weak… But we are not the weak.’

Fifi hoisted her large, ugly-looking Russian machine-gun to emphasise Julianne’s point. Sergeant Shah folded his massive arms and allowed his solid granite head to dip once in a nod of agreement.

‘We will try to outrun these guys,’ Jules continued. ‘One of their boats is already falling behind and the weather is closing in. That will help. They’ll have to fight a storm instead of us. But they have a second vessel that could catch ours if we have any problems, and so we need to be ready. Everyone, and I mean everyone,’ she repeated, eyeing off her American passengers, ‘will be armed and ready to repel any boarders.’

She expected objections but the statement simply dropped into a fearful silence.

‘I do not expect you to get into machete fights. You’ll lose. But we have enough small arms and ammunition to distribute among you and you will defend the boat with them. That means you will have to shoot people. Dead. This is not something you can leave to Sergeant Shah and his men – there will be too many for them to handle on their own. No offence, Mr Shah…’

Shah smiled. None taken.

‘Now, I need you to divide yourselves up into two groups: those who are familiar with firearms and those who are not. Sergeant Shah and Corporal Birendra will give the latter a quick tutorial in how to pull a trigger. That’s all we ask of you. The others will go with Fifi down to the gun lockers and arm yourselves appropriately. Do not panic. Whatever may happen, will not happen for many hours yet, possibly even a day or two. Familiarise yourself with your weapons and whatever firing station you are assigned. Learn its blind spots and weaknesses. Identify a fall-back route. And then get some rest. Watch a movie, hit the gym – whatever does it for you. If you have to fight, it’s best you’re not shagged out from running around like headless bloody chickens for half a day beforehand.’

At least some of them laughed. Nervously.

Jules took a few steps towards the group. ‘It may not come to anything,’ she said. ‘We may outrun them. We have enough fuel for six thousand miles of cruising. Enough food stocks now for a month, with some rationing. We may lose them in the storm that’s brewing up out there. But we may not.’ She paused, very briefly, taking in the effect she was having.

The faces of the older Mexican men were unreadable, their eyes like black polished stones in a dark night. The women looked much more defiant, but also fearful for the children. Some of the younger men, boys really, looked excited. Her A-listers, on the other hand, were quietly freaking out.

‘You need to understand this, most of all,’ Julianne concluded. ‘Anyone who steps onto this boat with hostile intentions will be cut down. They will be killed. And there will be no mercy shown them. Because we will receive none in return.’

‘We could let ‘em loose about seventy-five miles north of here,’ Stavros deadpanned.

Brigadier General Tusk Musso snorted softly. Yep, it would solve a few problems if he could just throw all of his prisoners into the Wave. But then what would the New York Times say? Nothing. Not now.

Goddamn, but he needed a rest.

Musso pushed the tips of his fingers under his sunglasses and rubbed at his sore, bloodshot eyes. He could feel bristle growing on his cheeks. The camp had run out of razor blades. He’d have to do something about that. They had to maintain standards.

They had run out of Kiwi boot polish as well, hard as that was to believe. Most combat boots looked as if they’d been polished with a Hershey bar, if at all. The general wore a pair of the new, now rare, suede tan Marine Corps boots. At least he didn’t have to worry about spit and polish every night.

The afternoon sun was warm, but not uncomfortably so. Nonetheless, it glinted off the steel and wire of Camp 4 with a fierceness that made the sunglasses necessary. It was quiet today. The next call to prayer was still an hour away and the prisoners’ initial excitement after the Disappearance had long since evaporated. The Israelis had made sure of that. Most of these humps were now as alone in the world as the Americans who still guarded them.

‘I don’t know what to do, George,’ he admitted to his aide.

‘Pearl wants this expedited. And that’s the extent of their instructions. Except for Susan Pileggi’s Uplift requirements, we really don’t rate as a priority anymore, and the refugee flow has slowed up anyway. God knows, some of these losers really don’t need to be here,’ he said, waving a dismissive hand back towards the imprisoned jihadis. ‘But, on the other hand, nobody’s going to thank me for releasing a couple of hundred more lunatics onto the job market. So what do we do?’