Carnifex

18/8/468 AC, Al Qamra, Nicobar Straits

It might as well have been night for the little bit the crew of the boat could see. Somewhere overhead the sun shone; they could see it there, a dim circle of something that was a little bit lighter than the smoke and ash that filled the air. Below, sonar listened attentively but fruitlessly. When the smoke was this thick, all traffic in the Straits simply stopped and dropped anchor. Then all passive sonar could hear was the sound of waves slapping the shore and the hulls of the becalmed shipping. And those sounds came from everywhere.

To Jaquie, the waves slapping the hull were not relaxing, as they might have been in a different place on a different kind of world. They were just a reminder that she and her shipmates were blind, blinder, in fact, than any bat.

So, while Marta dozed below, Jaquie walked the deck with a 9mm Pound submachine gun. Nothing was going to hurt her lover, not if she could help it. Nothing was . . .

What was that?

* * *

Liang Dao had had about enough. Did he care for the spread of Salafism? Not a chance; quite the opposite. Did he want to subordinate his people to some would-be sultan? No way. Did he want to get in, or take part in, a war with some people who had proven altogether too willing to take massive reprisals against anyone interfering with shipping?

Brother, my mother didn't give birth to any fools. I'm out of here.

So Liang Dao had done the only sensible thing when the other pirates had gotten together to attack the fleet patrolling the Nicobar Straits; he'd told his people to pack up and be ready to move at a moment's notice. They'd done it, too. They wanted no more to do with Salafism, or being on the blunt end of a reprisal, than Liang Dao did.

Not that Liang Dao or his people had any problem with piracy. They'd been pirates for millennia, and on two different planets.

But you've got to get away with it or it just doesn't pay. And those fucking round-eye bastard mercenaries won't let you get away with it. I shudder to think of what that fleet the Salafis failed to sink is going to do when it gets back.

Looking around his boat, a good-sized junk bearing nearly one hundred and fifty of Liang Dao's closest friend and relatives, he did shudder. He remembered seeing the classis—though he didn't know that was its name—pass by his coastal village months ago. The assembly had radiated menace. Had the Salafis succeeded in crushing it Liang Dao would have shed no tears. As was?

We've got to get the hell out of here. Unfortunately, we don't really have the funds to settle anyplace decent. Now if we could only pick off a small freighter or maybe some fat yacht . . .

Hey, what's that?

* * *

Jaquie crouched down and jacked the bolt on her Pound SMG. Something had nudged the side of Qamra. Driftwood? Maybe. Wreckage from the classis? Possibly.

Then again, maybe not, either.

Still keeping low, and keeping her back to the wheelhouse, Jackie moved toward the bow. At the edge of the wheelhouse, she peered into the smoke and thought she saw a man, possibly two of them, neither much more distinct than shadows, climbing aboard Qamra. She thought she saw a weapon in the hands of one of the boarders. As she raised her Pound to engage she heard another sound, coming from behind. She recognized the footsteps. If she hadn't, she'd probably not have turned and seen Marta, coming along the deck.

"Hon, dammit, what the hell—?"

A shout in a language, followed by the clear sound of a bolt being thrown home, propelled Jaquie instinctively to protect the one thing she cared about more than anything else in this world or the next. Pound forgotten, Jaquie launched herself at Marta to force her to the deck.

From up at the bow, someone fired a long burst.

* * *

Liang Dao was always nervous on a ship hijacking. You just never knew what might be waiting. And since those mercenaries had showed up, the risks had gone through the roof. Indeed, but for dire need he'd probably had left the yacht alone. And he could see the name of the thing, painted on the bow, in English and Arabic. You could bet some oil sheik would have armed guards.

Still, the wives and kids and cousins and aunts and uncles need to eat.

With a heart heavily thumping in his chest, Liang Dao jacked the bolt of his Samsonov and eased himself over the side and onto the boat. He landed, cat-footed, on the other vessel's deck and peered into the haze.

He saw something big, certainly a lot bigger than he was. The creature said something in a woman's voice but in a language he didn't under stand. He refrained from firing, because it was a woman, despite the huge size.

And then something jumped out from what he thought was the wheelhouse. By instinct, Liang Dao pointed and fired.

* * *

Marta's lorica had seemed heavier than normal when she put it on to go on deck to find Jaquie.

"That stupid bitch," she said aloud and angrily when she discovered Jaquie had doubled the plates in the front and back by using her own. She stormed out of the cabin and onto the deck to find and slap some sense into her lover.

After checking the stern, fruitlessly, she began to walk briskly toward the bow. She spotted Jaquie crouched by the front of the wheelhouse and asked, "Hon, dammit, what the hell . . . "

She didn't get another word out before Jaquie lunged at her. Toward the bow someone fired a long burst. Marta felt one bullet impact on her doubled chest protection, and heard two more whine overhead. Three others made a different sound. Jaqui's lunge struck her but the smaller girl impacted loosely, like a bag of skin and bones. It was still enough to knock her from her feet.

Marta felt Jaquie's body laying atop her, then smelt the iron-coppery blood her love spilt onto the deck in a torrent. Screaming, she grabbed the first weapon her hand came upon, Jaquie's already cocked Pound. Still laying on her back, head toward the stern, Marta pointed the thing toward her feet and the ship's bow, and pulled the trigger. She held that trigger pull until the bolt clicked back. She held it even after two splashes indicated she'd hit all the targets there were to hit.

The ship immediately broke into pandemonium, with klaxons ringing and the sound of booted feet running on deck. Up ahead, a single mount 40mm began to arise from the deck with a whine.

With the Pound empty, and the assailants gone, Marta bent over Jaquie's limp body, unwilling to believe what had just happened. Her fingers dabbed at the blood. "Please don't be dead . . . . please?" Marta begged of the corpse. "You were the only good and decent and clean thing in my life. Please be okay?" .

And then she raised her head to the sky and screamed an inarticulate shriek like a lost soul descending into Hades. A couple of crewmen or Cazadors, she neither knew nor cared which, bent to help her.

"Don't touch me!"

Leaving the body behind, Marta arose to her feet and walked up to the 40mm. By that time, two other crewmen were manning it. She tore them off and tossed them to the deck, taking the gunner's seat herself. She knew how to use the gun; she'd seen it done often enough.

A sudden gust of wind parted the smoke, revealing to Marta scores of people crowding a ramshackle junk. She didn't see them as people, however, neither the men nor the women . . . nor the children. Marta pressed a foot pedal to swing the gun around to aim at the other ship's bow. Her handles allowed her to bring the sights and barrel down.

In the wheelhouse, Chu asked, "Should we stop her?"

Rodriguez, who was one of those that had tried to lift Marta from the corpse, just shook his head, slowly.

From the junk, from the people upon it, there arose a great moan of despair as the 40mm began to fire, starting at the bow and sweeping down the length of the thing. Nor did Marta stop until the magazine ran dry.

She left no survivors.