James Axler - Iron Rage

Not even Ryan Cawdor.

To the right of the entrance, at the bridge’s rear, was a hatch leading to the deck below. Just short of it lay a body. At one time it had been human, but now it was hard to tell. It seemed to have been blown open, with entrails scattered on the deck. A string of intestine was draped over a chart table lying on its side. The chill was still smoldering.

“I had just gone below,” Avery said over his shoulder. He was now helping the dazed captain hold her stump upright while Mildred tied it off properly. “Edna was headed down right behind me.”

“She had to have taken the brunt of the blast,” Nataly said. “She never had a chance. Poor woman.”

Another salvo landed around the vessel. From the sounds they made, Ryan gathered the Poteetville ironclads were firing a mix of solid shot and explosive shells. Probably whatever was closest to hand.

Ryan stepped up alongside Nataly and began pistoning the butt-plate of his Steyr into what remained of the windscreen. Even damaged as it was, the tough polymer resisted his jackhammer blows. But he managed to pop it out of its framework.

Nataly nodded her thanks as she straightened, showing a quick flash of teeth, bright white against her horror mask of a face.

“What about you?” he asked.

“I was right beside the captain,” she said through gritted teeth. “The blast didn’t do much to me. I thought I was chilled for sure.”

Seeing that both the tall, thin woman and Mildred both had their respective situations well in hand, Ryan went back outside. He found Krysty sitting up against the remains of the cabin’s front wall, while J.B. tried to daub the blood and soot from her face with a wet rag.

She was awake, and she smiled as her emerald green eyes met his.

“You were worried,” she said. “That’s sweet.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. She was clearly still dazed.

He looked around. The Mississippi Queen had already swung its bow past due west and was continuing to turn back south. In the process it had moved most of the way to that shore. Most of the barge was visible to port behind the tug.

Suddenly the rest of the companions were gathered around. “How’s Krysty?” Ricky asked. “ Nuestra Señora , please let her be okay!”

“I’ll be fine,” Krysty said, more in the tone of voice of a person agreeing with someone who had just said something she didn’t really understand than as an actual affirmation.

“What are you all doing here?” Ryan demanded of the boy, Jak and Doc.

The old man shot his cuffs with elaborate unconcern. “There seems to be a dearth of jobs for us to do at the moment.”

A shattering sound erupted from aft of the cabin. Pieces of the roof flew off in a big gout of smoke. Yellow flames began to flick just above the jagged edges of the bulkhead.

“Dark night!” J.B. exclaimed, as voices began shouting in alarm. “It must’ve set bedding on fire.”

“We’ve got a job now,” Ryan said grimly. “We’ll man the hoses and try to get the fire out. J.B., help me carry Krysty into the cabin.”

“Just leave me here, lover,” Krysty said. She still sounded out of it, but was clearly pulling her blast-scattered wits back together. “Be as safe here as anywhere.”

“No way,” Ryan said, gathering her in his arms for the briefest of hugs, then pulling her away from the bulkhead so he could hoist her by the shoulders while J.B. lifted her feet. “It’s at least some protection. Better than none.”

“You know what old line about lightning not striking twice in the same place?” Krysty asked, her head lolling. “It’s not true. Lots of times lightning hits the same place a dozen times in the blink of an eye.”

“I know that,” he said. “Stay with me.”

He managed not to say, You’re starting to sound like Doc . Although it probably wouldn’t have mattered because the old man had already led the two youngest members of the team back to where several of the crew were unrolling canvas hoses to fight the flames.

Inside, Mildred was letting Trace Conoyer lower her arm, gingerly, to see if the pressure bandage she had taped over the wound would hold. The dirty-rag tourniquet had already been removed and discarded.

Myron Conoyer and Arliss Moriarty hunched over the captain. Avery hovered in the background, uncertain as to how to help.

The captain had already recovered her senses.

“Go tend the engines, Myron,” she ordered in an almost normal voice. “We need to keep them on full power, and we can’t have them blow up on us.”

“But—”

“If you think Mildred would do as good a job taking care of the Diesels as you would, by all means swap places with her. But somebody needs to be down with those engines, and not just Maggie. She’s ace, but doesn’t have a third of your chops.”

Myron bobbed his balding head. “Aye-aye, uh, Captain.” He turned and hurried back below, shaking his head at the sad mess that was all that remained of Edna.

Ryan and J.B. had settled Krysty on the floor, as clear as they could of the still slightly smoking Edna, the captain, and—most important, in Ryan’s view—the helmswoman’s feet. He had folded his long black coat and propped her head up against it. Her hair lay limply across it, as if eager to give up the fight.

“Thank you, lover,” she said as he kissed her cheek and straightened. “I’ll be back on my feet before you know it.”

“Not before I tell you you’re ready,” Mildred said sternly, not even looking around from examining the captain’s dressing.

“Let’s go, J.B.” Ryan jerked his chin to the door. Though the Queen sported powered pumps, at times like this they used hand pumps to allow the engines to devote full power to driving the vessel and her burden. From the way the deck shuddered beneath his feet, he knew that Myron had followed his wife’s initial order to redline them and keep them there, regardless.

Ryan approved. His own team worked that way: if he told them to do something that pushed the envelope, or even seemed flat crazy—and their own judgment told them it might actually be worth a try—they did it. And they usually pulled it off.

“Ryan.” Trace’s voice rasped as if she’d been gargling lye. “Stay. If you will.”

That latter part was one of the shipboard niceties the captain liked to maintain, and Ryan knew it. He turned back. Aboard the Queen , she was his boss. And in this case what she was calling him back from was adding the strength of his back and arms to saving her ship.

“I need you…to advise me,” she said. “We’ve had more than one run-in with people who want this cargo, and I’ve seen that you know something about tactics.”

“You’re the authority on ship-handling,” he said. “I can’t pretend to know nuke about it.”

“We put our…heads together, then,” she said, managing a wan smile.

She was triple tough, there was no question. When her ship and crew were on the line, she would do her job and die doing it. For their part, the crew knew it, and responded accordingly.

Even Ryan and his people knew that. Good, honest bosses were hard to come by.

“I’m fresh out of ideas, now,” he admitted, as another volley came rushing in with a hurricane sound.

He felt a tremor beneath his feet, accompanied by a thunderous bang from astern. Immediately voices began screaming, “Fire! Fire on the barge!”

A moment later, Suzan Kenn appeared in the door, her gray-shot brown hair in more than the usual disarray.

“A shell hit the barge right where the lumber meets the cloth bales, Captain!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “She started burning like Billy Jesus right off the mark. The only hope we’ve got of dousing the blaze is turning on the power to the pumps.”