Warbirds of Mars: Stories of the Fight! Page 9

  Finally, he broke free of them. Branches scratched his face and tore at his flight suit, but he turned and ducked and dodged, and then he was in the clear, the trees behind, the way ahead—

  —the way ahead blocked by a sheer cliff, at least thirty feet tall, starting at the shore and extending inland as far as he could see. At the ocean it deteriorated into a jumble of huge rocks. He might be able to climb those, or swim around them, but either way would slow him down. He paused, looking for a pathway through, or a way up. Handholds. Something.

  As he did, the pirates emerged from the trees. Four of them carried guns, he saw, the rest swords.

  And he was trapped, with pirates on one side, a forbiddingly sheer rock face on the other.

  Jack put his hands up, hoping it was a universal signal. Surrender was not in his nature, but survival was. Giving up now would just mean waiting for another chance to escape.

  He didn’t like it, but he wouldn’t much like getting shot, either.

  The pirates closed in. A few were smiling. In the first wan light of day he saw gold teeth, gap-toothed grins, and one guy who wore the most menacing leer Jack had ever witnessed. All four guns were pointed his way, and a couple of guys looked like they would be thrilled to test the keenness of their blades by exposing Jack’s internal organs to the elements. Jack was starting to second-guess himself—maybe fighting would be better than surrender, after all. He’d rather die in battle than be sliced to ribbons with his hands in the air.

  If he had a weapon, he might still have a chance. He should have grabbed a downed branch while running through the trees. Maybe he could charge the pirates, kill one bare-handed and take his gun or sword.

  Gun would be better.

  He studied them carefully as they approached, spreading out to deny Jack the opportunity to run he sought.

  His best bet, he decided, was the third pirate from the left. He was a skinny guy, bandy-legged and limping, with a heavily scarred face. His right eye was missing, and his left almost buried under scar tissue. He clutched a pistol that might have dated from the last World War, which made it a marked improvement over the gun the old man had fired at him. Jack figured that he could reach the man before he even saw that he was being attacked. He might accidentally get a shot off, but it would probably go wild—Jack doubted the man could hit the ground by aiming at it.

  That settled it. He would give the guy three more steps, then rush him.

  One step.

  Two.

  And then the sea opened up and a monster emerged, all rushing water and dangling knots of seaweed.

  Only monsters didn’t usually have hatches through which a man in a United States Navy uniform could emerge, carrying a big .50-caliber machine gun, draped with cartridge belts, so Jack started to think it wasn’t a monster after all, but a—

  —a submarine, less than a hundred yards out—

  —and the man mounted the machine gun on the bridge and pointed it toward shore, and its yellow muzzle flashes were brilliant in the pre-dawn, the clanking, mechanical sound a beautiful counterpoint to distant thunder and roaring wind and crashing surf.

  The pirates danced like marionettes in the hands of a spastic puppeteer, and then dropped as if their strings had been cut, all of it in a crimson haze as the big rounds from the sub’s gun ravaged them.

  In less than two minutes, the pirates were so much meat spread out for the carrion-eaters to feast on. The smells of blood and death already wafted on the air, sharp and sweet and pungent.

  And the guy on the sub stepped out from behind the machine gun and gave a friendly wave. “Jack!” he called. “Long time no see!”

  Jack wiped rain and splashed blood from his eyes, then blinked twice.

  “Nicky?”

  “You were expecting maybe King Kong?”

  “Nicky, what the—”

  “Jack, I can’t beach this baby. You’re gonna have to do a little swimming. From the looks of you, it won’t be the first time.”

  “Yeah,” Jack called, already running toward the surf. “Hang tight, Nicky. I’ll be right there!”

  He dove into the water and swam, tired of having to do so, wishing that just once he could shed his flight suit and boots and stop making it so hard on himself. But he covered the distance rapidly, and when he reached the sub, American seamen were there to pull him aboard. Nicky had gone below, but the sailors led Jack to the bridge. When he saw his old friend, he put out a hand and the two men shook, then shared a brief, laughing embrace.

  “Jack, you old son of a gun, I should’ve known you’d be in the thick of things. You should have seen him,” he said to a lieutenant. “Surrounded by pirates about to split him open from stem to stern.”

  “Thanks for the helping hand,” Jack said. “In the nick of time. Or is that the Nicky of time?”

  “We do what we can,” Nicky said. “Anyhow, you’re safe now.”

  “The pirate ship is just up the coast a little ways,” Jack said. “Think we should take care of her while we’re here?”

  Nicky’s face turned serious. He had aged since Jack had seen him last. Of course, it had been almost a decade; Jack was older, too. Nicky had lost weight, his cheeks hollowing, his eyes receding. His hair was still dark and worn on the shaggy side, and his crooked smile was as charming as ever. “No time, brother,” he said. “Anyway, the Chinese are on our side.”

  “But the pirates prey on the Chinese.”

  “This is China, Jack. It’s complicated here. You’re right, they do. But they also fight against the Japs and the Martians. It’s a matter of weighing the considerations, and on balance, they’re an asset. Anyhow, we’ve got to limp over to Taiwan, put this baby in dry-dock for a few days. We’re struggling, here.”

  Jack bit back his disappointment. He’d hoped to see a torpedo blow that junk into kindling. But the sub was Nicky’s boat, and he made the calls. “One more thing,” he said. “How’d you know where to find me?”

  “This is China,” Nicky said again. “Word travels fast here. You just got to know how to listen.”

  Nicky and Jack sat in chairs outside a restaurant overlooking the docks, at which Jack had eaten for what seemed the first time in days. The city of Keelung reared up behind them, noisy and bustling and smelling like the world’s biggest fish market. From their seats, they could see the submarine in its graving dock, Chinese workers swarming over it to repair damage Nicky said had been inflicted by Martian spacecraft. Docked nearby was a beautiful, sleek yacht called the Domina, cream colored and modern. “That’s a beauty,” Nicky said, following Jack’s gaze.

  “Sure is.”

  “Should I have let you meet its owner?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That belongs to the Dragon’s Daughter.”

  “But…her pirates were in an old junk. Looked like an antique.”

  “Good enough for them, but not for her,” Nicky said. “She prefers to cruise in style.”

  “You know her?”

  “I know of her. Like I said, this is China. If you keep your ear to the ground you hear everything.”

  “Tell me what’s going on here, Nicky? What’s the deal on that scientist?”

  “He’s a goner, I’m afraid. The Martians sank his ride, and we couldn’t get there in time to help.” He nodded toward the damaged submarine. “Took some lumps trying, though.”

  “That’s where they hit you?”

  “Yeah. We got there a little late, and they really gave us what for. Lucky we got out at all.”

  “I’m glad you did, Nicky.”

  “So anyway, Jack,” Nicky said, “what’s the haps with you guys? I feel like I’ve been out of touch, way down here on my boat. What’s HQ got cooking?”

  “You get all the dispatches, don’t you?”

  “Far from it. It’s like we don’t exist. I know what’s going on in China, but not in DC or any of the other free territories.”

  “Well, you know,” Jack said. “We’re fighti
ng the fight. Taking it to ‘em every chance we get. They’ve got us outgunned, but maybe that’ll change.”

  “Change how?” Nicky was leaning forward in his seat. Something about his manner, the expectation in his eyes, the way his lips were parted in almost sexual anticipation, his posture, made Jack hesitate. He remembered how Nicky’s cable had come—not through official channels, but hand-carried by a guy Jack had never met, representing an agency so secret that he couldn’t check on the guy’s bona fides. It had all been very cloak-and-dagger, but at the same time, Jack didn’t have any reason to suspect it wasn’t on the up-and-up.

  “Come on, Jack, give,” Nicky said. “Sounds like there’s something big in the works.”

  Jack shrugged. “Need to know, Nicky,” he said. “If I need to know, someone will tell me. Same goes for you, I’m sure.”

  “Like I said, I’m the forgotten man down here. I’m not even sure who’s running things anymore. I mean for real, not the figureheads but the guys in the trenches who really call the shots.”

  “I’m just a soldier, Nicky,” Jack said. He took a sip of tea. It was like drinking something out of his grandma’s spice cabinet. Didn’t anybody drink coffee around here? “I go where they tell me.”

  “You gotta know more than me, brother. Rumors, gossip, anything.”

  “What can I say? We shoot at the Martians and they shoot at us.”

  “Jack, it’s me. It’s Nicky.”

  “I know, Nick. There’s just, I don’t know, not much to say. It’s a war, that’s all.”

  Nicky scraped his chair back suddenly and rose to his feet. “Okay, Jack. I gotcha. Listen, I got to go check on some stuff in town. See you at the boat later?”

  “You know it, Nicky. And thanks again for helping me out of that jam.”

  Nicky extended his hand and took Jack’s in a firm grasp. “Hey, that’s what friends are for, right?”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  Jack waited until Nicky had disappeared into the crowds, then headed back to the submarine. The conversation had given him the willies, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. He hoped maybe he could learn something on the sub.

  The dock workers who scrambled over the boat, welding and scraping and painting, were all Chinese. Jack found three American seamen sitting cross-legged in the shade of a tree, enjoying Chinese beer. “I didn’t bring a bottle,” he said. “But I’ll grab some of that shade, if you don’t mind.”

  “Grab some ground, boss,” one of the seamen said. He was a red-haired guy who hadn’t shaved in a week or two. Hardly regulation, but Jack knew those regs sometimes went by the wayside during extended combat missions. One of the other guys was black, and the third was a skinny but muscular fellow with a farmer’s face.

  “You that fella we picked up before? On the beach?” the black one asked.

  “That’s right. Nicky—Captain Hawkins—and I go way back. We grew up together. It’s been a long time, though. You know how sometimes you think you know somebody, then you don’t?”

  “What was he like in school?” the farmer asked.

  “Competitive,” Jack replied. “Always trying to outdo me and everyone else.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  “It meant he was always looking to play an angle,” Jack went on. “Always on the hunt for some advantage. You never know how far you can trust a guy like that.”

  The sailors met one another’s gazes, then looked away. Jack knew he was on to something. How to press it was the question. “I don’t mean to say that there’s anything off about him. I mean, we all work for the same side, right?”

  “Yeah,” the redheaded seaman said. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Conversation died for a couple of minutes. Finally, the farmer started talking about a baseball game he remembered from before the war, and Jack excused himself while they talked about sports.

  That hadn’t gone like he’d hoped.

  Jack walked around, looking at the sub, at the Domina, and at the general layout of the dock area. Chinese merchants tried to sell him things—strips of meat he didn’t recognize, drinks that smelled like hair tonic, and even a live monkey, on one occasion. A scrawny, one-legged beggar followed him for half a block, and Jack was glad, for a change, that he didn’t understand Chinese, because the guy’s patter sounded pretty convincing and if he’d known what the man was saying, he might have given some money. As it was, he didn’t have any Chinese coin. He had just a few bucks American zipped into one of his pockets, so he did his best to ignore the man. He passed an ornate building that he thought at first must be a temple, until he saw the young ladies in slit skirts and sheer tops trying to entice him inside.

  Circling back around toward the submarine, he saw the red-headed seaman, heading his way, gaze shifting this way and that as if searching for something. When the guy spotted him, he broke out into a bashful grin. “Hey, boss,” he said as he approached.

  “I didn’t catch your name before,” Jack said. “I’m Jack Paris.”

  “Charlie Higgins,” the seaman said.

  “Good to meet you.”

  “Likewise, Mr. Paris.”

  “Jack.”

  “Okay, Jack. Anyways, I was looking for you.”

  “For me? Why?”

  “What you said back there. About Captain Hawkins.”

  “Yeah?”

  Higgins was anxious. They started walking, heading away from the waterfront and deeper into the city. Cooking smells wafted from open windows, and the streets were thick with noise and color. The sailor looked mostly at the ground as he spoke. “I get the idea that you’re an upright guy.”

  “I try to be,” Jack said.

  “Your buddy used to be.”

  “Nicky?”

  “He was a great sub captain,” Higgins continued. “But this damn war’s dragged on so long. I think it’s changed him.”

  “Changed how?”

  “I don’t know, boss. All that time in a steel tube underwater? It’d screw with anybody’s head.”

  “Even yours?”

  “Mine especially. But I still know what side I’m fighting for.”

  “Nicky doesn’t?”

  “I’m not always so sure. I mean, yeah, we’ll shoot at the Martians or a Jap destroyer. But we’ll also shoot at a Chinese one. More that, lately.”

  “Can you tell the difference from down there?”

  “Sure.”

  “Does he say why, then?”

  “Used to be, people would ask him. Then it turned out that everybody who did ended up missing or dead. Now, sometimes I think he doesn’t have any side but his own. If he’s taking orders from anyone, I can’t tell.”

  “But you guys stay with him?”

  Higgins shrugged. “He says he’s following orders from the brass. He says everything he does is to help the war effort. I don’t know if I believe it, but it’s hard to talk to the other guys, y’know? Only takes one person to brand you a traitor or worse.”

  “Why talk to me?”

  “I just got a feeling about you. Plus, y’know, I’ve heard of you. Anybody who’s heard about you knows you’re on the up-and-up.”

  Jack wasn’t sure how to feel about that. His work with the Martian Killers was supposed to be secret. But Nicky would just say, “It’s China,” and the military had its unofficial channels of information—one guy told another who told somebody else. “Thanks, I guess,” he said.

  “Just how it is,” Higgins said. “Anyways, I don’t mean to speak out of turn or anything. I get that you guys are friends. I’m just saying, if you can tell me something that’ll make me feel better about the captain, that’d be great.”

  “Charlie,” Jack said, “I wish I could.”

  Jack took a long walk around the city, trying to clear his head. By the time he returned to the docks, night was falling. Lights flickered on all around, and fires burned on street corners and in alleyways. The smell of fish was everywhere, drifting in
off the sea and being prepared in every imaginable way.

  He knew Nicky had expected him earlier, but he was having a hard time figuring out how to proceed. He had fond memories of him, mostly, and he didn’t want to think his old friend had turned. Approaching the sub, he still had not reached any conclusions. He would wait and see, try to determine whether Nicky still fought on the right side or not. He owed the sub captain that much, at least—an open mind, the benefit of the doubt.

  But if he found out for sure that Nicky was working with the Martians or their human allies, then all the warm feelings he’d ever had for the man would vanish in an instant.

  He saw Nicky before Nicky saw him. His old friend was standing with a pair of sailors, both burly guys Jack hadn’t seen before, in the shadows of a building, some distance from the submarine. They spoke in quiet tones, and noise from the docks drowned out their words. But the racket also meant they didn’t hear Jack nearing them. He started to say something, realized they’d be deaf to it, and decided to wait until he was closer.

  But as he walked closer, he heard their words before he was able to utter his own.

  “Do you want it messy?” one of the other seamen asked. “I mean, like an example? Or should he just go away?”

  “Away is fine,” Nicky said. “Nobody ever has to know what happened to him. I used to like his mom. She was a looker, for an older broad. I’d hate for her to have to hear what happened to him. Better if he just disappears.”

  Jack moved closer to the building, around the corner and out of sight.

  “You can count on us,” the other guy said. He had a voice like a file on steel, loud and rasping. He was a good eight inches taller than Jack, and he would have to turn sideways to get his shoulders through a doorway. The other seaman was almost his size, and thicker through the chest. “We can make it hurt if you want.”

  “A little pain is okay,” Nicky said. “I got a feeling when he realizes it was me who sent you, he’ll be hurting anyway. On the inside. That’s the kind that really gets to you.”