John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

The Daniella ’s first mate explained by radio that the ship had been on its way to the Persian Gulf when it experienced engine trouble arising from a short in the ship’s electrical system. The short not only froze the engine but also the electrical controls for the ship’s gigantic anchor. It could neither move aside nor drop anchor. And it was squarely in the way of the Hermes’ Grandson. However, it expected to get its electrical system working again in short order.

The duty officer on the Hermes’ Grandson was under orders not to alter course except in emergency, since there were believed to be mines in the waters off-course. The captain would not consider this an emergency. So the Hermes’ Grandson would have to pass close to the Daniella.

The ship churned yet closer to the Daniella. And now, turned sideways relative to the SA ship, it was directly in the way. It wouldn’t be necessary to change course drastically to avoid the Daniella. They’d be a bit close together for a while. That was all. The SA duty officer swung starboard twenty degrees. The two ships slipped past each other in the dark. The Daniella was a squat black bulk against the starlight-tinged cobalt of the sea.

The duty officer of the Hermes’ Grandson, who was young and overconfident, almost forgot about the Daniella.

Torrence chewed his lip as they rode another swell. He wondered if the SA ship would slip out of reach after all. The ship was in no hurry—but the little engines on the rafts were even slower.

They’d pushed off from the Daniella while the two ships were still parallel, the guerrillas’ faces and weapons blacked, swallowed in the inky night.

Now they saw the great light-edged bulk of the enemy’s ship ahead, looming like a cliff… blinked saltwater spray out of their eyes, heard the grind of the target ship’s engines, and felt its wash slapping the rafts as they plowed toward it with painful slowness.

Torrence could just make out Steinfeld in another raft, saw him looking over his shoulder at the Daniella. The sharpshooters, with their infrared sights, should be in place by now… and the minicopter should be taking off.

Aboard the Hermes’ Grandson, the duty officer was reaching for a cup of coffee when the call came. The deck sentry, his voice crackly in the intercom speaker, was yelling something about men in rafts.

What? the duty officer asked, Did he want men in rafts, or was there someone adrift out there, in a raft?

“No, dammit, sir, there are men in rafts with…” The sentry broke off in the middle.

“What? What did you say?” the duty officer demanded. No reply.

But he got another call, from radar, about a small helicopter. “Well, where is it?”

“Directly overhead, sir.”

The duty officer punched the alarm button.

The sharpshooters had taken out three sentries, and the copter’s crew had landed on the deck, fixed four ladders to the rail, lowered them—the upper sections of the ladders adhered to the hull magnetically, but the loose bottom rungs were whipping along behind the thrust of the ship, jumping at the waterline in the trough of the wake.

Danco, at the raft’s little motor, opened the throttle, urging the raft within six feet of the ladder. It was dimly visible through darkness and spray. Torrence, rifle strapped to his back, said it for the second time that night: “Fuck it.” And jumped for the polymesh ladder.

He fell short, cold seawater closed around him, and he wished he hadn’t been too damn cool to wear a life jacket. He had a monstrously lucid image of himself lost at sea, treading water and spectacularly alone in the cold vastness with only minutes more to live before exposure and exhaustion dragged him under.

But his fingers closed over the synthetic smoothness of the rope ladder’s lower rung as it dragged in the wake, and he pulled hard, feeling as if he could feel the whole dark breadth of the sea sucking at his legs as he struggled up onto the ladder, nearly wrenching his arms from their sockets.

Then he was somehow several rungs up, clinging, gasping. He heard Steinfeld yell. He got his footing on the ladder, turned, caught the rope Willow threw him. Tied the rope to the ladder. The other end was tied to a raft. He swung over to the next ladder, caught another rope, tied another raft on… gunshots and sirens from above.

Bullets whipped up the waves and pocked the rafts in places, emptying raft compartments but not yet sinking the little crafts. Answering gunfire rattled from the Daniella as the guerrillas scrambled up the ladders. Torrence saw Karakos going up one of the ladders, all eager-beaver, damn him. He forced himself not to think about Karakos. Just keep the paranoia out of your head, you’ve got a job to do.

And he and Danco and some of the others were almost up the railing.

There was a good chance he’d get to the top—and somebody’d blow his brains out the instant he stuck his head above the railing.

He moved past the scuppers, saw the gray-painted gunwale up ahead, getting closer. Wished he could climb and get at his rifle too. Maybe the seawater hadn’t damaged his .45.

He paused just long enough to tug the pistol from his jacket and clench it in his teeth. He continued upward, expecting that any second someone above would pick him off the rope with an SMG burst. His wet clothes were raspy and heavy and cold.

He reached the rail, put one hand on it, took the gun from his mouth with the other hand, and dragged himself up.

Below the sharp electric lighting of the superstructure was an expanse of gray deck, and four sprawled bodies, and a man pulling himself along in a welter of blood. The minicopter was there, too, with bullet holes in its windshield; one of its crew was slumped, nodding his head monotonously from pain.

Torrence climbed over; hit the deck the same moment as Willow, who was coming off one of the other ladders; and ducked when he saw a muzzle flash from the corner of the cane-shaped top of a ventilation shaft. He dodged left, toward the bow, wet clothing making him move sluggishly, firing wildly with the pistol toward the muzzle flash just to keep the guy down.

Unslinging his assault rifle, Torrence reached the corner of the steel superstructure, out of the vent gunman’s line of fire. He tucked the pistol in his coat, checked his rifle, and stepped out, around the corner.

Twenty-five feet away, a man in an SA regular’s uniform, but without his shoes, stepped out of a steel hatchway, spotted Torrence coming at the same moment.

Willow was circling the guy at the vent, Danco making him duck back with rifle fire. Willow came up behind the SA regular and shot away the back of his head… as other guerrillas poured over the gunwale, hit the deck, ran for position. Lila shouting orders at her team; somewhere else Steinfeld yelling commands. Gunshots cracked and ricochets whined from metal.

The Second Alliance guy without his shoes looked scared as he fiddled with the submachine gun in his hand, trying to get the clip into it properly—and then he saw Torrence, and the scared look became terror. The guy’s crotch went dark as he wet it. Torrence hesitated, imagining himself in this guy’s place, the clip going in wrong, an enemy coming with a gun and no way to defend yourself and knowing at this range that your enemy couldn’t miss.

Don’t stop to think, idiot! And he made himself level the assault rifle at the guy—

“Wait!” the guy squeaked.

—and squeeze the trigger, the burst catching the soldier square over his heart, slamming him back against the bulkhead; he slid down the steel wall, leaving a long, vertical smear of blood like a gravemarker above him.