Iron Rage. James Axler

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       Chapter Three

      “What the nuke did you do?” Trace Conoyer called.

      Ryan looked around to see the captain striding toward him from the cabin on her long, jeans-clad legs.

      Her tone of voice had demanded a response, but it wasn’t hostile or challenging.

      “I left Nataly at the helm,” she said. “How did you make those New Vick frigates sheer off?”

      “Frigates?” J.B. echoed.

      “New Vick?” Ryan asked.

      “They like to call them that. They’re just glorified blasterboats and muster two, three cannon. Four, five at max. But they are ironclad. They’re part of the fleet the barony of New Vickville has been building for a generation now.”

      The barge began to obscure Ryan’s view of the so-called frigates. The cloud of brown-tinged white smoke told him that the fire there wasn’t serious.

      “I sent Moriarty and a damage control party aft to put out the fire,” the captain said. “I sent the white-haired kid and Doc along. It was obvious they weren’t going to have anything to shoot at, and they seemed antsy for something to do. Got the kid perched up top of the cabin, keeping eyes skinned for trouble from landward. He’s still at it. He’s a strange one.”

      “That he is,” Ryan agreed, although Jak was no longer a kid. Then again, he was slighter and smaller than Ricky Morales, who was a kid. It was a natural mistake.

      “Were those boys shooting at your tow barge, for some reason?” J.B. asked.

      Trace shook her head. “They weren’t aiming for anything in particular.”

      “Must be triple-bad shots,” J.B. said. He had slung his Uzi and now took his glasses off to polish them with a handkerchief.

      The captain shrugged. “Mebbe. But those cannon aren’t anywhere near accurate at that range. They’re smoothbores. Usually four-pounders, in boats like those. Six for the broadside cannon, mebbe.”

      J.B. nodded. That was his lingo, even if charcoal-burning cannon without rifling were pretty far out on the fringe for him.

      Krysty and Mildred approached them from around the starboard side of the cabin.

      “No injuries, Captain,” the shorter woman reported. “That was some lousy shooting, thankfully.”

      “Any orders for us, Captain?” Krysty asked.

      “Stand ready if you’re needed.”

      The statuesque redhead gave her lover a wink as he straightened from the rail. He kept his blaster in hand, just to be sure.

      “So what’s the deal with this barony of New Vick?” J.B. asked. He settled his wire-rimmed spectacles back in place. Behind them Ryan could see a gleam in his eyes. “Why are they building up a fleet?”

      “They’re in an arms race with Poteetville,” Trace replied.

      “Captain.”

      “What have you got for me, Edna?” the captain asked.

      This time it was Edna Huang who was approaching from astern. A short, bespectacled Asian woman who inexplicably liked to wear her shiny black hair all wound into circular pigtails, she was the Mississippi Queen’s chief purser.

      “Arliss reports the fire is controlled and he’ll soon have it out,” Edna said. “There’s no sign of structural damage to the barge that he can find.”

      “Ace on the line,” the captain said.

      The purser seemed less than happy at the very news she brought.

      “What’s eating at you?” Trace asked.

      “There’s not much damage to the textiles, ma’am. But there’s still some. We may need to write off as much as ten percent, adding in for smoke damage.”

      “It’s the cost of doing business on the river,” the captain said.

      “Baron Teddy’s not going to be triple pleased.”

      “You leave him to me. He knows how the world works today.”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      “Now run along and send up Avery.”

      “Already here, Captain.”

      Avery Telsco, the Queen’s chief shipwright, was a long, lanky black dude with short dreadlocks. He wore a monocle, of all the nuking things, screwed into his right eye. Although having seen him work repairing the ship and fighting off the ever-present danger of rot in her wooden meat and bones, Ryan gathered it wasn’t wholly an affectation. He did make use of it on detail work and inspecting for damage.

      “Ace. Report.”

      “The shot that hit us just busted a chunk of rail all to nuke. Mebbe ten feet. I can have it fixed in twenty minutes with a spare spar from stores. Or, if you’d care to send a boat ashore we could cut down a sapling—”

      “Nuke, СКАЧАТЬ