Simon Hawke - The Nautilus Sanction

“But if you were to bring back ships,” said Land, “like Drakov’s ships travel through time, so could yours! You could-”

“We could, but it wouldn’t do much good,” said Finn. “Those ships would still have to find the Nautilus. The sub marine is well-armed and difficult to detect. At first sign of pursuit, it could escape to another time. Remember that the Nautilus, the Valkyrie, Drakov and all his men can travel through time independently. They can all escape to his secret base and without knowing where it is or in which time period, there’s no way we could follow.”

“Is there nothing we can do?” said Land. “If we can’t act and if we have no weapons, then we’re helpless!”

“Maybe not, Ned,” Lucas said. “But we need to know more before we can act. When we began this, we thought it was just a matter of destroying the submarine, which is difficult enough. We need to know the full extent of Drakov’s power. We need to know his plans. He knows we can’t afford to try anything until we know where his base is. And when he takes us there, his guard will be up. But he may be overconfident. The thing to do now is find Martingale and make him tell us what is going on.”

“How do you know you can trust him?” Land said.

“I don’t,” said Lucas. “I’m still worried about that graft patch he gave me. If it was a listening device, we’ll know soon enough. I’ve got a lot of questions for Mr. Barry Martingale. If this is all part of a ruse by Drakov, I want to know before we reach his base.”

They continued down the path, through the village, toward the boats. In the distance, they could still hear the sounds of revelry on the beach by Lafitte’s house, but now the chirping of the crickets by the sides of the path was louder. As they neared the boats, still louder sounds reached them. Gunshots and men shouting. The sounds not of festivity, but of fighting.

“Come on!” said Lucas, breaking into a run.

The docks were the scene of a pitched battle. Terrified blacks ran past them, others cowered in the boats, still others lay dead among white bodies on the dock. Out on the water, several boats rowing out to the Valkyrie were being attacked by about ten pirogues, and the sounds of the blacks screaming and the shots fired back and forth carried across the bay. On the dock, Martingale was in the thick of it. He had emptied both his pistols and was flailing away with his sword, keeping a small group of men at bay. He was holding one in front of him, as a shield, his arm clamped tightly around the man’s throat. The man he held was dead, shot several times by his own compatriots in an effort to shoot Martingale, who kept swinging the body around, trying to interpose it between himself and his attackers, able to do so only because he was on a narrow section of dock that would not allow him to be surrounded. Even so, he had been shot. They could see him bleeding from a crease in his scalp and there was blood on his exposed shoulder. It would be all over for him in another moment.

One of his attackers had gone into the water and swam out to the end of the dock, climbing up on it so he could get behind Martingale. Andre pulled out her knife and let fly. The blade whizzed past Martingale’s left ear, missing him by inches, and embedded itself to the hilt in the swimmer’s chest. He cried out and fell back into the water. Ned and Finn drew their swords and ran forward to help Martingale. As Andre charged the men who were attempting to shoot him down, Lucas threw his own dagger, wounding one of them in the shoulder. Then Andre was on them and Lucas followed on her heels, turning the tide of the fight.

The odds had evened out now. Land knocked one man into the water, charging him as he reloaded. Finn disarmed one man, ran another through with his sword and, seeing reinforcements arrive, Martingale dropped the corpse he had been using as a shield and joined them on the offensive. He fought in a style the pirates had never encountered before, saber-fencing combined with martial arts. They were no match for trained commandos and, now that they no longer outnumbered their intended victim, they took flight.

Martingale took a deep breath as he watched them running off down the beach into the darkness. “Thanks,” he said. “I thought I’d bought it for sure.”

“See you’ve used a katana at one time,” said Finn, remarking on his style with the sword. “What happened?”

Out on the water, the pirogues had seized the boats and were now pulling toward the Valkyrie, intent on boarding her.

“Gambi’s men,” said Martingale, ripping a section of cloth from the shirt of one of the dead men and using it to stanch the flow of blood from his shoulder. “They came at me so fast I didn’t have a chance.”

“Here, sit down,” said Lucas. “Let me see that wound.”

“I’ll live,” said Martingale. “I’ve had lots worse. Lucky for me those clowns couldn’t shoot straight. Watch this, they’re in for one hell of a surprise in those pirogues.”

As the canoes drew closer to the Valkyrie, keeping spread out to minimize the effects of cannon fire if the ship opened up on them, there seemed to be no resistance from the ship. Then a sharp, bright beam of coherent light lanced out from the bow of the Valkyrie and hit one of the canoes. A second later, it was followed by a blast of white hot plasma as the auto-pulser, locked in by the laser-tracking circuit, systematically began to pick off the pirogues. One boat became awash in searing light, then it was gone, leaving nothing but smoke and some residual flaming plasma burning out upon the surface of the water. The screams of Gambi’s men echoed across the bay; the remaining pirogues turned and pulled for their lives, but nothing could save them.

“If Gambi’s lucky, he died out there,” said Martingale. “Quicker and cleaner than what Lafitte will do to him if he survived. Guess he saw an opportunity to seize a ship and a nice cargo of slaves, to boot. Too bad he picked the wrong ship.”

“That bullet’s going to have to come out,” said Lucas, examining Martingale’s shoulder. “I can’t do it here.”

“We’ll go out to the ship,” said Martingale. “There are medical supplies aboard. Besides, someone’s got to go out and get that boatload of blacks. It’s drifting.”

One of the other boats containing slaves had been hit by the auto-pulser from the ship. The remaining boat was slowly being carried away by the current, the blacks aboard howling in fear, not knowing what to do.

They helped Martingale into a boat and rowed out after the slaves. Martingale cursed. “We lost several men. Maybe von Kampf, too. Drakov’s going to be furious. Our own fault. We should have been more careful, knowing Gambi was around.”

“What are the slaves for?” Finn said. “Damn it, Martingale, you’d better start leveling with us right now.”

“Same thing slaves have always been for,” Martingale said. “Cheap labor. Drakov needs them at the base.”

“Where is the base?” said Lucas.

“Small island off the coast of Papua, New Guinea, in the early 19th century,” said Martingale. “Visitors are discouraged by the slaves Drakov buys from Lafitte. The area is known for having cannibals and even though Drakov’s slaves aren’t, they play the part real well.”

“If you’ve known where it is all along, why haven’t you done anything?” said Finn. “Why hasn’t the Underground reported it to us?”

“It’s not that simple,” Martingale said. “The timing must be right. The Doctor will explain it all.”

“That’s another thing,” said Lucas. “Who is the doctor?”

“His name is Dr. Robert Darkness,” Martingale said. “He’s the inventor of the warp grenade.”

Martingale sat on the edge of the table while Lucas bandaged him. Two men stood guard on the deck of the Valkyrie while Count Grigori von Kampf, who had been slightly wounded in the battle of the boats, led the others in a search for the slaves who had escaped during the fight. Martingale had been wounded in several places. Two bullets had been lodged in his body and he had sustained several sword cuts, but he carried on as though such injuries were a part of his daily routine. While Lucas worked, only an occasional grimace or grunt from Martingale gave evidence of his feeling any pain.