Seas of Venus(60)

22


When he turn'd at bay in the leafy gloom,

In the emerald gloom where the brook ran deep

He heard in the distance the rollers boom,

And he saw in a vision of peaceful sleep,

In a wonderful vision of sleep. . . .

—John Davidson





"Kid!" Britten shouted as he turned his head. When the sergeant saw that Johnnie was already at his shoulder, holding a maul, anger cleared from his expression.

"Right!" he said. "Hit it! Right here!"

Britten tapped a thick finger on the curved hook of his pry-bar. The point was deep in one of the eight slots across the breech threads, but the strength of the sergeant's arm alone was not enough to break the deformed casing free and extract it.

Johnnie hammered the end of the bar.

"Harder! The sergeant shouted. "Put 'cher back—"

Johnnie slammed his maul into the bar, making the shaft spring back with a belling sound. The tool vibrated out of Britten's grasp, but the shell case slid loose also and rattled onto the turret floor. Foul gases curled from the case mouth. They smeared like grease when they touched solid objects.

"Bloody hell!" the sergeant muttered as he stepped backward and flopped into a pull-down seat beside the hatch. "Bloody hell."

They could feel the gear-driven vibration of one or more of the port 5.25-inch turrets rotating, but all the Holy Trinity's guns were silent. No hostile shells were falling aboard the dreadnought, either, though by this time the remaining Angel battleships should have had time to catch up with their fleeing consort.

"Now our course is right across the Ishtar Basin," the sergeant said as if idly. "That's deep water, twenty thousand feet some of it."

He glanced sidelong at Johnnie, then looked away quickly when he realized the young officer was watching him.

"You can drown in two inches," Johnnie said, answering what he thought was his companion's concern. Or be eaten by what lives in the wrong two inches.

"Naw, not that," Britten said scornfully. "I mean it's deep enough water t' hide our subs. They could come up to combat depth when the Angel screen was past and give the dreadnoughts something to think about besides us."

He looked at Johnnie. "If they was there?" he prodded.

"Sergeant . . . ," Johnnie said, trying to match the two images of the man beside him: the burly, competent veteran; and the enlisted man of moderate intelligence, who had to trust his officer superiors to balance the risks that he wouldn't understand even if they were laid out before him in meticulous detail.

"Sergeant," Johnnie continued, "we need to draw them on. Not just the Angels. The Warcocks and Flotilla Blanche besides, because if just those two have time to choose where and how they'll fight us, we lose. The Blackhorse loses. Ambushing the Angels wouldn't help."

"Except," said Britten, "it'd save our butts." The expression on the sergeant's scarred, blackened face did not appear to be anger, but neither had it any sign of compromise offered to superior rank.

"I don't think that's at the top of anybody's priority list, Sergeant," Johnnie said as cooly as he could manage.

Britten shrugged and looked at the open breeches, almost clear of smoke by now. "Naw," he said, "I don't guess it oughta be, even. But it gripes my soul to think how Cap'n Haynes'll laugh if Cookie bites the big one on this."

The squawk box in the turret roof suddenly cleared its electronic throat, then piped in an unfamiliar voice saying, "Holy Trinity, this is Angel Command. Come in, Holy Trinity, over."

"Why are they calling us?" Johnnie muttered.

He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until he glanced to his side. Sergeant Britten's eyes had widened at proof that the officers didn't know what was going on, either.

"Blackhorse Dreadnought Holy Trinity to Angel Command," rasped Uncle Dan's reply. "I hope you're calling to offer your surrender, Admiral Braun, because we don't have anything else to discuss. Over."

"Hoo, Cookie's in great form t'night!" Britten crowed. He sounded as though he had forgotten that "Cookie's" nephew sat beside him, and that the most likely result of Commander Cooke's baiting would be a sheaf of large-caliber shells.

Of course, the shells would come soon enough anyway.

"Holy Trinity," said Admiral Braun. The words were slurred as if Braun had a speech impediment, but that might be because the Angel leader was choking with anger. "You've made your point. Now it's time to talk. You're cut off from, from your fleet by overwhelming forces. We know they've abandoned you—"

"We haven't been abandoned, Braun!" Dan said, ignoring transmission lag in the knowledge that his words would step on those of the enemy commander.