Brainard snapped the main switch into place. The console displays remained dark, but the hovercraft answered her helm.
The coxswain lay moaning on the deck. "Medic!" Brainard shouted. "Medic!" The interphone wasn't working either.
The circuit breaker overloaded again with a blue flash. K67's fans continued to drive her, but the shell-frothed waves wrenched the vessel into a curve that would end on a rocky islet unless the Seatigers destroyed her first.
Brainard grabbed the circuit breaker with his left hand. He snapped the switch home and held it there. Sparks trembled and his forearm went numb. An overloaded component blew in the coxswain's station, but Brainard had control again.
He overcorrected. K67 reversed her curve as though Brainard intended a figure-8. A three-shell salvo ignited the sea along the hovercraft's previous course.
"Medic!" Brainard cried. He had no feeling on the left side of his body. His left foot thrashed a crazy jig against the cockpit bulkheads.
The sky behind them turned orange.
Brainard looked over his shoulder. Where the destroyer-leader had been, a bubble of light with sharp edges lifted five hundred feet above the horizon. Stark shadows ripped across the neighboring islands as a doughnut-shaped shockwave pushed trees away from the light.
It must have been the target's own munitions, because no torpedo warhead could wreak such destruction.
The destroyer-leader was almost two miles away. The blast made K67 skip like a flung pebble.
Leaf crawled into the cockpit, carrying the first aid kit. He wore gloves.
"Forget that!" Brainard squealed as the motorman crouched over the writhing coxswain. "Hold this breaker closed!"
K67 spewed air through dozens of holes in her skirts, but she would survive until a tender could take her aboard. K67's torpedoes had lost guidance when the system power failed, but her consort had driven in and nailed the Seatiger vessel.
Because of K44, Officer-Trainee Brainard was going to survive this night after all.
10
May 17, 382 AS. 2148 hours.
Leaf heard OT Wilding say, "That's rock, we stop here," as they struggled past a tangle of thorny, interlacing vines.
The words didn't matter to Leaf. Wilding'd been muttering nonsense for . . . a long time, a lot of stumbling steps whatever the clock time might have been. The last time Wheelwright had dressed the bamboo sores on the officer's back, they had scarlet edges and centers of yellow pus.
But they weren't any of them in shape for a dress parade. Leaf saw only blurs because of the sweat in his eyes. He didn't have the energy to wipe his face with his right cuff. The multitool filled Leaf's right hand, and his left arm helped support Wilding . . .
Who was handsome, and rich, and not a pussy after all. During bouts of fever, the officer-trainee couldn't control his tongue—but he kept his feet moving forward. Their route was mostly uphill and the rifle made a bad crutch, but Wilding didn't flop down and die the way Leaf had maybe expected.
Wilding shook himself out of the motorman's grasp. Swaying like a top about to fall over, Wilding said, "We stop here," in a voice well accustomed to giving orders.
Leaf realized he was ready to fall down himself. Fuckin' A. He rubbed his right eyesocket a little clearer on the point of his shoulder. "Fish!" he shouted to the torpedoman's back. "Get the CO. Mr Wilding wants a word."
And a hell of a bad place to stop for one, but you didn't argue with officers.
There were in a belt of thirty-foot-tall grass which defended its territory against encroaching woody plants by sawing off their stems with glassy nodules along the edges of the narrow grassblades. The competition was as dynamic as that of surf and the shoreline.
Even now in the momentary pause, glitteringly serrated blades twisted close to treat the humans with the same mindless ferocity that would greet an oak or mahogany. All that could be said in favor of going through the grass was that it was possible to cut the stuff. The tangle of thorns to the side was impassible.
Ensign Brainard stepped back from the head of the path he had cleared. His face and hands were smeared with a slick of his own sweat-diluted blood. "What is it?" he asked calmly.
Wilding opened his mouth. He swayed. Leaf reached over to catch him, but the officer-trainee crossed both palms firmly on the butt of his crutch to steady himself.
"That's rock," Wilding said. "Where the berry bush is growing." He gestured with his eyes, but he was clearly afraid that he would topple if so much as nodded his head. "We could rest there. A real rest."
Leaf looked at the tangle. The brambles were woven like a fishnet. Hundreds of small white flowers bloomed among the black stems and foliage, but nothing bigger than a man's arm could penetrate the mass.