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MARTAAN 55, 621 ROMANOVAN201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCzfqM0VHSU
VTORICHNY 9, 2681 GENRICHIAN
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"SO LOWER YOUR STARSAIL AND REEF UP YOUR MIZZEN,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhkbv5AxQbn
AND UNDER MY LEE YOU WILL KEEP.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSs4qJoVJS4
LEST I DELIVER A FAST-FLOWING BLADE,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1u6JbzjD7T
BLADE,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqkeR1nwbbW
BLADE,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsiFV5KTPix
AND YOUR DEAR BODIES I EXPOSE TO THE DEEP."201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiKCCup7Z98
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WITH BROADSIDE AND BROADSIDE AND BROADSIDE THEY WENT,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJJgt5ZAlRE
FOR FULL TWO HOURS OR THREE,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy66H7crndG
TILL YVAN DRAGOMILOV GAVE TO THEM THE DEATH BLADE,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ91yi6eGcxy
THE DEATH BLADE,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1qeyqI5jpZ
THE DEATH BLADE,201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXUsQ3F3xEi
SHATTERED FROM LIFTDECK TO FORETEIR WAS SHE.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzs2yNE9cpS
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Cussing loudly, Omarov tightened the straps of his quickblades and looked up. Through interpretation of overlapping purge-fields, now merged into a shifting, colorful trifold display, he watched the unknown intruder draw closer from the direction both adventurer and darkvenger were headed. It could not have been her best point of sailing. The speed of her approach, from the hue and saturation of the distortion representing her, was almost leisurely, even added to the considerable velocities of the Romanovan and Dzendayn vessels.
No more, not yet, was to be seen. Omarov's practiced eye was used to extracting minimal perception. For a desperado, he determined, she was small, little more than a converted kipper, incapable of bearing greater armament than a dozen, medium-sized, half the strength of his adventurer, less than a quarter that of the Dzendayn. Nonetheless, he did not relish, as he might under differing circumstances, what he thought was about to happen. The approaching vessel's initial thrusts demonstrated an eerie accuracy and impossible cycling pace, which spoke to him of endless drill and considerable technical preparation. Moreover, it seemed to concentrate on his rigging, rather than, as might have been expected, reaching through the starsails to the solid target of his adventurer's hull.
Nothing about this unlooked-for assault was to be expected! Omarov, as was normal and traditional (rather, Mr. Einstein, his second mate and projectory officer), had assigned his least-skilled projectors to his least-important projectibles---and, it was ironic, those most difficult to use well---the three low-powered bow chasers situated in the cabins of the commanddeck. The corsair was still no more than an unresolvable dot against the crawling colors of the purge-field and the infinite blackness of the Deep. Yet the air was filled with smoke and the screaming of riggers as, one by one, they were blasted from their shattered spars. By the Premier's left testicle, someone out there knew how to put bow chasers to good use!
A section of one such spar, trailing loops of cabelle and shreds of starsail, fell with a mighty crash to the quarterdeck, rupturing the mesh, coming within one measure of burying Omarov beneath it. His first thought was that it must be cleared away. He turned to shout at the sailing master's mate, only to see the man's head struck off as a cabelle, pulled taut by the falling spar, snapped past him like a razor-edged whip. The headless corpse, a gruesome fountain of carmine, pitched over onto the deck. Almost of the same instant, the mesh leapt under him as the crystal core of an overlooked projectible flared and the breech exploded beneath his feet, bulging the deck upward and releasing a cloud of hissing cryogenics. Premier knew how many crewbeings that had cost! It was one of the bow chasers which, along with inferior hands, had also received the least maintenance.
Shorn of all but her foretier suite, the battered Ayvengo began wallowing dismally. Omarov was about to summon Borodin, calculating whether he might get steerageway upon her using the mizzentier stunsails and the single fore-and-aft expanse remaining on the starboard foreyard, when he glanced aft. The darkvenger was taking as bad a pounding as the Ayvengo. She, too, was remaking sail, and it was clear from the shape they assumed what she intended. With the tatters the desperado had left her, she was attempting to disengage. Thrust through with white-hot fury, Omarov forgot Borodin, strode to the rail at the break of the quarterdeck and waved to the runner.
"Fetch me Mr. Stecklo right away!"
"Yes, sir!"
The boy, covered with grime and splashes of blood---the latter, to all appearances, someone else's---saluted and ran across the maindeck, avoiding death by the narrowest of margins as a huge coil of cabelle and three entangled bodies crashed to the mesh behind him. He had soiled his trousers, the captain noticed, but still functioned. So much for doubts. In a few seconds he returned with the signal officer, the man's heavy lasercom teetering upon his shoulder like an ancient bazooka, peripheral equipment draped everywhere about his person.
"Make a signal to the darkvenger, Mr. Stecklo."
Some whizzing fragment passed them at eye-blurring velocity, tearing a measure-wide section from the taffrail before volatilizing itself on the field margin. It could well have been his legs, thought Omarov.
"The desperado, sir?"
"Not the desperado! Do you think I want to surrender? I said the darkvenger. Say, 'I've placed a fission bomb aboard you under my remote control.'"
Stecklo was a short, muscular man of swarthy complexion, close-cropped hair and beard, the nose of a man half again his size, and an odd accent unheard of in civilized regions. He gave the captain an odd look.
"Send the message, Mr. Stecklo. Do it from here."
"Yes, sir." The signal officer raised the lasercom like the weapon it was at short ranges, peered into the sights, and aimed at the darkvenger, mumbling into the transducer as instructed. Finished, he looked up.
"Well done, Mr. Stecklo, now tell the coward I'll blow him up if he veers or won't give a better account of himself."
"Yes, sir."
Grudging compliance being returned, Omarov dismissed both the signal officer and the darkvenger. Looking across the wreckage-strewn maindeck, littered with mangled corpses, yet still crowded with the upright bodies of struggling men and women, he realized, with rare empathy, that it must be even more unbearable belowdecks. Smoke poured from the hatch covers and ladderwell as the projectibles upon the gundeck began to heat. Meanwhile, the desperado lumbered ever closer, unstoppable, until it was clear she intended passing between her enemies, thrusting as she came.
Having all but destroyed the Ayvengo's rigging, she concentrated upon the decks and less-protected areas of the hull. Now the accuracy and timing of the desperado's projectors could truly be appreciated. Battling vessels revolved around the axes of their masts, their projectibles requiring intervals for recharging and cooling lest they malfunction with disastrous consequences. Rotating in a conventional enough manner (it was the only thing conventional about her), the desperado fenced with the adventurer and her waste-of-space escort, as if, Omarov realized, her projectibles were personal quickblades. Not only did she match thrust for thrust as the adventurer's remaining fourteen came to bear, so that, as with a pair of dueling individuals, opposing beams annihilated one another, she seemed to anticipate the actions of her enemy, their very rhythms, blading only after they did, microseconds afterward, employing the resultant explosions as weapons in themselves, Omarov thought, trying to "walk" them backward towards the adventurer. One such secondhand detonation threw him to the deck again as the Ayvengo yawed beneath his feet, afterward groaning with him as they both recovered.
The adventurer could not keep up. Her projectors, even granting Omarov's new philosophy, lacked the needed discipline to counter this new technique. In a portion of his mind keeping track of such things, he was aware he'd lost another four projectibles. Despite the lesser number of her weapons, the desperado was getting off three thrusts to the adventurer's one, meanwhile battling the darkvenger, with her Navy crew, which did not seem to fare much better. Explosions mocked him with their salute. The brigantine rocked, pitched, rolled, and yawed about three axes at the same time, shuddering with destructive stresses she was never fashioned to endure. Smoke hid the opposing arc of the quarterdeck. Debris lay everywhere, the deckmesh sundered in a thousand places. By now, the greater part of Ayvengo's spars and rigging were overside, vaporized upon the purge-field margin or lying in a hopeless tangle upon the main- and quarterdecks. Half his crewbeings were dead or useless to him.
By gradual increment, the desperado's thrusting diminished. At the moment of the final blow (delivered by stern chasers as well manned and aimed as her other armament) a stunned and battered Omarov leaned on a few remaining vertical fragments of the maindeck railing, thankful she had passed from between her reeling victims, and out of range. Even if she renewed the attack, it would take her a long while to reverse course and catch up with them. She surprised him again by putting off auxiliaries. Suppressing a whimper of frustration, Omarov half crawled to what was left of the taffrail at the Ayvengo's circumference---even less than the inner rail he had just quit--- leaving in his wake a faint blood track he didn't notice until he glanced backwards, seeing for the first time that he'd taken a sizable fragment of metalloid and plastic in the heavy meat between his left knee and groin. It glistened where it had fused, and he saw a trace of smoke. Had the trajectile struck a femoral artery, maybe no more than three lines away, he would never have seen it at all. He focused his attention aft.
The desperado had hove to, training her stern chasers upon her crippled victim, protecting the flock of lesser predators she released. Large for the auxiliaries of a caravel, and a full dozen in number rather than the usual six (he wondered where her captain stowed the extras), each bore a small projectible which it employed to good effect as, oblivious to the tachyon wind, the miniature fleet steamed towards adventurer and darkvenger.
A shout arose on the maindeck. "All hands! Prepare to repel boarders! Projectors to the boat and lift hatches!" The command was not quite legal, the captain being alive on deck, mostly unhurt. Still, the Ayvengo's projectibles would be of little or no further use. Omarov let it pass. On the maindeck, First Officer Popov, having done with shouting, threaded his way through mountains of entwined wreckage to the break of the quarterdeck. "Captain Omarov?"
Fingering the control in his pocket, Omarov was attempting to imagine some way----maybe some clever lie to draw that accursed corsair closer---in which the bomb secreted aboard the darkvenger might turn this pitiable situation to his advantage. He looked down at his first officer. Popov was tall, thin as a stickman, possessed of wiry strength and (it seemed to the more sedentary captain) an unnatural degree of energy. The skin of his cheeks stretched tight over the bones. It was clear that he longed to continue fighting to the bitter end. "Yes, Mr. Popov?"
"They will be here any moment. Permission to distribute small arms, sir?" Putin thought it through. One practice he had not seen fit to alter was that the arms locker would open only to his fingerprint. If anything happened to him, the crew would be defenseless, but that was their problem. He would not suffer another mutiny. Only his officers had quickblades, and he wasn't happy about that.
"I think not, Mr. Popov. My poor valiant crewbeings have suffered miserably enough. I think, instead, I'll see whether we can buy these cuntspawns off." Putin could see the man, unhappy with the decision, yet perform the same mental calculation he himself had earlier completed. The idea might work! Ayvengo's holds were filled to the hatches with cargo purchased only for appearance, never meant to reach its purported destination, Kvadratriok. "Ask Mr. Stecklo to signal the darkvenger. They are to offer no resistance."
"Yes, sir."
Standing with feet spread, hands behind him, as if nothing were more amiss than earlier this morning, Omarov looked about him. The sailing master, Bibilov, was demonstrating all the efficiency which the captain had come, in so brief a time, to rely upon. Sufficient headway was maintained by use of mast, spars, and rigging, along with the few remnants of starsail left to the Ayvengo, that she still might boast of something resembling gravity upon her riven decks. Omarov hated to think of the broken, tangled mess floating free. Only minutes before, it had born his brand-new adventurer through the Deep upon rainbow-colored wings. The desperado's auxiliaries had left parties at the repulsorlift and taken up station----this much he saw for himself---outboard the mizzentier, projectibles trained upon maindeck and quarterdeck. Not far away, the darkvenger was being afforded similar treatment. She had drifted close enough that he watched as a pile of debris upon her maindeck erupted, whether in warning or for some real or imagined transgression he could not discern, at a thrust from one of the gunboats standing watch.
"On your lives throw down your weapons, each and every one of you!" cried an amplified voice from one of the nearby lesser vessels. "Stand where you are!"
Still at parade-rest, Omarov could hear an increasing racket below as bandits from the desperado climbed forward within the Ayvengo's hull, driving projectors, helpers, and all others belowdecks before them. Soon the entire complement was gathered upon the maindeck under the watchful eye of the auxiliaries, and the boarders made their appearance. Omarov was shocked, counting barely more than half a dozen, each clad in a vacuum suit and equipped with a plain, utilitarian pair of quickblades. Ignoring the captain (except to relieve him, with rough efficiency, of his weapons), 3 of them climbed to the quarterdeck, spacing themselves about the elevated structure, the better to guard their captives.
One of a remaining three---they had brought a prisoner, as well, not wearing a suit---was a giant who strode forward with a smaller companion, and something alien which moved yet looked like a cemetery tombstone swathed in kevlar. Flanked by the others, the giant addressed Omarov.
"You realize, do you not, Captain, that if you had only issued weapons to your crew, you might have stood a chance. We're that short-handed, having taken ten prizes---no, this makes a round dozen, doesn't it? ---this past month."
His human companion nodded, and of a sudden raised, not one of the pair of quickblades he affected, but a blue-black metallic object, made a squeezing motion which did not involve his thumb, and squeezed again. With each squeeze, the object unleashed an ear-splitting blast, while pale fire blossomed from its end. Whatever the weapon was, it sufficed, for a hideous dual scream aloft was followed by an even more terrible crash on the deck at Omarov's feet. Two of his riggers had worked their way out upon the dorsal mizzenyard, purposing to leap onto the quarterdeck, only to be seen--and bladed in some way---by the smaller of the man-shaped marauders. The larger reached up with a big hand, seized the crest of his flexible helmet, pulled it off his face, and left it dangling on his chest.
"You!" Omarov discovered to his utter amazement that he was looking up into the broad, ironic countenance of his former first officer, Dracul Putin. Omaraov didn't speak further, for he was staring at another sight beyond the giant. As well as it had been hidden, integrated with the structure of the darkvenger's mast while she was undergoing minor repairs about Romanova, his bomb had been found. It dangled from the hand of Putin's helmeted companion.
The prisoner they had with them, a dark, sullen young man in the uniform of a Dzendayn naval lieutenant, Omarov guessed was the darkvenger's captain. Several epaulinettes which had held the quickblade along his forearm had been torn away in an act of confiscating his badge of rank and personal weapon. Omarov was about to offer him commiseration, until....
"You misbegotten mutant spawn of an ugly she-goat!" The lieutenant launched himself across the deck in a murderous attack on Omarov's person. He raised his hands to fend off the defeated officer, not before he felt the man's fingers closing about his windpipe, nails sinking into the vulnerable flesh of his throat. He was only dimly aware of the shouting and pushing which started up around him. Gasping, he felt cartilage begin to give with a noise that was sickening in itself, and sank to his knees, violet sparks beginning to dance before his eye, his field of vision growing blacker by the second. Desperate, he struggled like an animal, prying at the lieutenant's hold, but the younger man had lapsed into berserk oblivion, and Omarov's strength was ebbing. Of a sudden, he felt the hands relax, the lieutenant torn away from him. He fell down, retching, aware that Putin had pulled his attacker off and flung him halfway across the quarterdeck to the taffrail.
"I warned you." It was a new voice, level and quiet. Omarov looked up as Putin's companion raised a forearm and let go with his quickblade. The lieutenant's anger-ravaged face puckered. His skull burst, spilling blood and brains across the deck. Designator still lit, the quickblade swung around to Omarov, lingered over his scarred face, and fell away.
Putin chuckled. "It will not be that easy, Captain. Others wish to have it elsewise, but the fact is you lead a charmed life. Instead of coming to the prolonged, painful end you well deserve, you're merely to be set adrift again."
Still kneeling, Omarov trembled, his metal-ended braids standing away from his head as he contemplated the horrors of his first such voyage and the humiliation which would be the certain consequence of the second. "Kill me!"
Putin grinned. "No." He turned, winked at his companions, and grinned at Omarov. "This time, you are to be spared to carry a message from my master to the rulers of the Cosmopolity, whom he has lately sworn to inconvenience. A formal declaration of defiance, or, if you prefer, of war."
"What of my adventurer?"
"His adventurer, now. We will see to her jury-rigging directly and send her to where she'll be refitted and added to his fleet."
"You would place a prize crew aboard my starship?"
"His starship, Captain. I doubt whether he'll put a crew aboard her when one is already here." Putin turned and shouted to the maindeck. "Mr. Borodin, Mr.Stecklo, Mr. Einstein, Mr. Popov, Mr. Kust! The pleasure of your company is awaited on the quarterdeck. Resume your weapons. Mr. Stecklo, may it please you, signal the boats so they're not blade for it."
A grinning 3rd officer was first to reach the quarterdeck, stopping to give the gravestone shape a good-natured thump upon its kevlar-covered top. It responded by attempting to trip him with its undercurving tail, causing him to roar with laughter. Mr. Kust was a curly-bearded individual of girth and substance, a kind of miniature of the fantastic Mr. Putin. Every opponent who had ever dismissed him lightly had come to a shocked and unpleasant end. He was followed by the first officer, the signals officer, the short, stocky projectory officer, and, to Omarov's confusion, the carpenter's mate.
The giant addressed them. "Mr. Kust commanding, you five will select those you trust among the adventurer crew. Rig her as best you can and take her you-know-where. Arrange a crew for the darkvenger. I'd suggest Bibilov to command, with Pole, Rybak, Borodin, and Einstein. Crewbeings from this ship alone, as I mistrust those Navies." He turned to Omarov. "Let those who brought her to us take her to her true destination."
"Hello the quarterdeck, look what I found!" This from a gray-haired man of great height emerging from one of the cabins about the maindeck. By one arm he held and angry and struggling young woman attired in a grimy outfit of Deepman's coveralls several sizes too big for her tiny frame.201Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1s0NOcDnO4
While the officers rearmed themselves, the attentions of the giant and his companions stayed on Omarov. Without looking down at the maindeck, Putin shouted over his shoulder. "Bring what you've found here for all of us to appreciate, if you will, Mr. Einstein."
Einstein responded with cheerful compliance. It was only when he and the young female had climbed to the quarterdeck that Putin and his companions turned. Behind the relative face mask of his helmet, the smaller of the two human figures gasped. The alien stiffened as well. His gloved hand went to something tucked into the front of the vacuum suit. He appeared, insofar as could be seen, to be staring at the girl. "You!"
Einstein let her go. She blinked and looked around at the astonishing damage wrought by Putin and his men. Several of those armed like Cossacks, guarded the Ayvengo's survivors. Not a spar or splinter of the adventurer was spared. The bleeding, broken bodies of the fallen lay everywhere. Paling, she nevertheless took a breath and stepped forth.
"Good day, sir." Clutching her borrowed clothing to her, she addressed herself to Putin, sparing an accusing glare for Omarov. "I believe I have you to thank for my freedom, and maybe my life." With a cautious eye on the alien which accompanied the brigands, she thrust out a hand which, she was happy to observe, only trembled a bit. "Your, uh, officer has told me you are to be addressed as Mr. Putin. Kindly allow me to introduce myself. I am Tris Trezleniya-Silvertou. My uncle, Flownx Trezleniya-Silvertou, is Oligarch-Advisory and Executor-General to Premier Arkivitius X of Romanova. Unless I am very much mistaken, he---my uncle---will be most generous when I am returned."
With a strange expression, Putin lifted his own hand to the level of his waist and pointed a thumb towards the smaller human, who came forward.
"I regret...," the figure in the vacuum suit told her, "...to inform you that you are suffering from a false impression, Mistress Trezleniya-Silvertou. You are by no means free to return to Romanova now, nor will you be in the foreseeable future." As Putin had, he reached to his helmet crest, pulled it away from his head, ran a hand over the heat-reddened, sweaty face of a boy in middle teens with eyes which had looked into some unspeakable depth, and shook his hair out, the while continuing to address Tris. "You have simply changed hands. You are now the property of...." He dropped the hand and pointed a finger at his chest. Only Putin knew that, between suit and skin, hung an engraved autofile on a jeweled ch ain, which the duplicitous Putin had given him before betraying him to the nonexistent mercy of the Deep. "The infamous star-raider, Yvan Dragomilov!"
He turned to Putin. "Pressed men nor women who will not sign my articles will be set free in Obrazets to self-fend. Put volunteers or officers you cannot trust through the purge-field."
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