The Guns of Two-Space Read online

  For Asquith it was a magical transformation from chaos to order. For the Fang it was a daily ritual that had been performed countless times in the past. But this time, once again, it was for real.

  The guns were run out with great thunderous, squealing thumps, bulkheads were knocked down, and the decks were cleared for action. On both the upper and lower gundecks the usual clutter of cargo pallets, cages for livestock and poultry, and everything that could be disassembled was struck down into the hold, so that (with the exception of the Ship's boats) there should be a clean sweep fore and aft. Scuttle-butts full of fresh drinking water were centrally located with dippers hanging from them.

  All hands were at their action stations. Ordinarily that would mean that the watch below would need to be roused, but they were already up for captain's rounds and then most of them stayed to watch the pistol match on the lower deck.

  Actually it was no longer quite appropriate to speak of them all as "hands." They were not all human. Many of them were Guldur and, strictly speaking, they were... "paws." Then there was a small handful of the reptilian, semi-aquatic Stolsh, who might technically be considered "claws."

  The Guldur on the Ships attacking them had hateful Goblan "ticks" on their backs, working together with the Guldur pack masters to drive them into dark paths and evil purposes. The Guldur in the Fang's crew had been liberated from their ticks and pack masters when the Fang was boarded and captured. They were now trusted Shipmates and proud veterans of famous battles at the approach to Ambergris and the siege of Ai.

  At some point in the distant past an ancient Ur species had seeded the galaxy with genetically similar stock. The Guldur were canine derived and were useless in the rigging. On Guldur Ships a cloud of Goblan (who appeared to be derived from baboons) did all the work in the upper rigging, but anywhere that a Guldur could put his hindpaws on a stable deck they served the Fang with distinction.

  Up in the rigging a crew of crack Sylvan topmen stood easy. These expert sailors were a gift of the Osgil High King, in thanks for the Fang's service to the Sylvans and the Stolsh during the Guldur invasion of that part of their spiral arm. As you got higher up in the rigging the pull of gravity got less and less. The Sylvans were natives of vast forests on low-gravity worlds, and they were natural topmen, capable of supernatural acrobatic feats in the low-gravity fields high up in the rigging.

  Besides the Guldur, the Sylvans, and a few Stolsh, the only other nonhuman member of their crew was Lt. Broadax, the Dwarrowdelf commander of their marine detachment. And then there were the monkeys. The monkeys. Their secret weapon. Their force multiplier. A secret weapon so secret, that even they didn't know how in the hell the critters reproduced!

  The monkeys had adopted them on an alien world, and it was quickly discovered that the eight-legged beasties could block bullets. In combat the monkeys carried a wooden belaying pin, which they constantly waved around with amazing strength and speed in a seemingly bizarre, aimless fashion. After the battle the belaying pins were often found to be riddled and encrusted with blocked and deflected musket balls, and each wide-eyed crewman would sit down with "his" monkey and try to find some special treat to give to the little creature, some favorite place to scratch it, as they cooed, "Goood monkey. Niiice monkey."

  Every crew member and all of the dogs had a monkey, and each monkey now held a belaying pin. Since each monkey "bonded" and became almost permanently attached to only one individual, be it man, Guldur, Sylvan, or dog, it didn't need a name. Soon it was thought of as an extension of that personality and it became "the captain's monkey" or "Broadax's monkey." Even the "bearer" of the monkey began to see it as a part of himself, therefore he tended to not even think of it at all, secure in its constant presence.

  And so a crew of human, Guldur, Sylvan, Stolsh, Dwarrowdelf, monkeys, sentient alien cannons, and a feral, sentient Ship all stood ready for combat.

  On the upper quarterdeck Lt. Broadax stood beside Melville. She had a cigar clinched in her teeth and her monkey, perched atop her helmet, also clutched a lit cigar in one upper hand and a belaying pin in the other. The monkey was taking periodic puffs off the cigar while flailing the belaying pin in intricate figure-eight and cloverleaf patterns with such speed and power that it hummed and whistled as it sliced through the air. Broadax's people had evolved on high-gravity worlds and her heredity combined with her uniform and her nasty habit to make her a short, squat, bearded, red cloud of toxic cigar smoke.

  Behind Melville was his coxswain and bodyguard, Ulrich. Ulrich's monkey emitted the same surly viciousness as its host and in addition to a belaying pin it was flipping a short dagger in the air.

  Next to Ulrich was Melville's Sylvan bodyguard, Grenoble. Grenoble's new monkey was still young, holding a belaying pin in its two top hands while clinging to the Sylvan's shoulder with the remaining six hands. Grenoble kept looking askance at his monkey, not at all sure what to make of this creature that had appeared mysteriously and now seemed permanently attached to him.

  A quartermaster and two mates stood at the wheel. Behind them was Hargis, Melville's clerk, standing by to time and record the battle. The remaining members of the quarterdeck crew were young Midshipman Hayl, a marine guard, and a Ship's boy standing by to serve as a runner.

  On the lower quarterdeck Fielder was in charge, complete with his own quartermaster team, a clerk's mate, a marine guard, and a midshipman. If anything happened to Melville, Fielder would assume command.

  High up in the rigging the Sylvan topmen stood beside crack human topmen, with pistol and sword at their hips, ready to adjust sails, repel boarders, or attack into the enemy rigging. On the upperside old Hans stood with the topmen. On the lowerside the bosun did the same. Marine sharpshooters manned the crow's nests. Gathered aft and beside the upper quarterdeck, Lt. Broadax's marines served as a ready reserve. In the same location on the lowerside Brother Theo and a handful of purser's mates stood with the two rangers, forming an additional reserve.

  Their medical personnel had moved down into the hold. An operating table, consisting of sea chests lashed together and covered with tightly drawn sailcloth, was centrally located beneath an expanse of radiant white ceiling. In one well illuminated corner of the room was a much feared device known as "the Rack," consisting mostly of braces and leather-covered chains, designed to hold writhing, pain-wracked patients in various positions during operations. Dressings and coil after coil of bandages sat beside a grim array of saws, retractors, scalpels, forceps, trephines, catlings, and other mysterious torture devices.

  Lady Elphinstone and Mrs. Vodi both wore freshly laundered white linen caps, sleeves, and aprons over their startlingly different buttercup-yellow and drab black dresses. More aprons were neatly folded and stacked close at hand, so they could quickly change aprons to avoid transferring infection from one surgery to the next. Elphinstone had her long blond braids pinned up and Vodi's gray hair was in its usual bun. Buckets and swabs waited in the corner, full of antiseptic and water to swab the decks when they became bloody, sand to spread on the slick wet decks, and ominous empty buckets to hold amputated limbs and body parts.

  The cats had all gathered in the hospital, curled up in corners, peering out from beneath bunks, or sitting at Elphinstone and Vodi's feet, grumbling and mewling plaintively about the inconvenience of it all. They were making it clear that they were unhappy with the situation, and they were ready to take their complaints to the management, thankyewverymuch. Meow.

  Doc Etzen and Doc Brun, their two corpsmen, stood at the upper and lower hatches with their aid bags, ready to provide triage, immediate lifesaving medical attention, and to direct the evacuation of the wounded.

  Roxy, the one-eyed old cook, stood by with her mates, ready to refresh the scuttlebutts and to act as litter-bearers. And old Roxy was a hell of a shot with a pistol and sudden death with her meat cleaver if push came to shove.

  Deep in the hold the carpenter and his mates formed a damage-control party, standing by to provide r
epairs to the precious Keel, brace up structural damage, or to sally up and assist Hans or the bosun with repairs to masts, yards, and spars.

  In the rigging, on the quarterdeck, in the surgery, and in the hold, all was ready. But the battle would be won or lost by the guns and their crews. They were the deadly, destructive arm of the complex compound organism that was their Ship. The success or failure of the guns would mean the difference between continued life... or a cold, painful, lonely death, with their frozen lifeless corpses floating forever through interstellar vacuum.

  Captain Melville had developed a strategy that played to the strengths of the Fang and her crew. And their great advantage, their edge over any potential opponent, was the tremendous accuracy of their 24-pounders when Melville was personally aiming the guns.

  Gunpowder would only smolder in two-space. To make a pistol, a musket, or a cannon "fire" a projectile you had to place a specially designed Keel charge at the base of the barrel, which protruded out from the back of the barrel like a glowing white nipple. A musket ball or cannonball was rammed down the muzzle, and at the breech end of the barrel it lodged against the Keel charge. Two-space weapons didn't have or need a normal trigger. When the firer made physical contact with the "nipple" of the Keel charge it generated a pulse of directed energy that blasted the projectile down the barrel. The Keel charge could be used repeatedly, and it actually got better with time.

  The Keel charges on the guns were small versions of the large Keel that ran the length of the Ship and gave them the ability to exist in two-space. Like all Keels they had a coat of glowing white Moss on them and the Moss was sentient. Not only was the Ship alive, but the pistols, muskets, and cannons in two-space also had a degree of intelligence. The firer could actually use the innate intellect of the gun to help direct the bullet or cannonball toward its target. Over time the gun captain and the gun became a team, developing a high degree of accuracy, like a horse and rider, or a hunting dog and a hunter learning to work together, forming a synergy, a gestalt that was greater than the sum of the parts.

  The bigger the gun, the greater the intelligence. Pistols and muskets were barely sentient, sending an empathic "purr" of pleasure and eagerness to the person who fired them. The 12-pound cannons were like puppies, sending a telepathic, dog-like yelp of fierce delight that registered clearly in the firer's mind. But the 24-pounders were something else entirely. Melville and his crew had boarded and captured the Fang, complete with her cannon. Later, when they were the ones manning the 24-pounders in combat, they were stunned by the bloodlust that emanated from these huge cannons when they were fired. A bloodlust that was a distant echo of the savage spirit of the Ship herself.

  In one critical battle Melville had learned how to harness the savage malevolence of the cannon with the deadly computing power of the Ship. This was a technique that the Guldur had never developed, and the Fangs had gone out of their way to keep it a secret.

  With few exceptions, only a Ship's captain was in true telepathic contact with his Ship. Melville had learned, almost by accident, how to use this telepathic contact with Fang, while firing the 24-pounders, to make a supernaturally accurate and deadly combination. In essence the young captain became a human circuit, an organic relay, between his Ship and the cannon, guiding, directing, and channeling the alien, malignant spirits of both the gun and the Ship into a fell, fey, and phenomenally accurate killing team.

  In one way they were like a horse, a dog, and a rider, all telepathically linked into a deadly killing team. From another perspective, Melville, his Ship, and his 24-pounders could be viewed as a human, an alien AI, and a sentient alien gun, all acting as one, in a fierce, feral totality of extraordinarily accurate death and destruction.

  Thus, the accuracy and power of the their 24-pounders when the captain was directing them gave the Fang a tremendous advantage in combat. Their other major strength was their ability in a boarding action. Melville's tactical creativity and leadership skills, his crew's ferocity and combat experience, his subordinate leaders' experience and competence, and their enemy's persistent inflexibility, all combined to give them an edge in a boarding operation. So, at close quarters Melville preferred boarding to battering, and at a distance he preferred the fine-work of exact, very carefully aimed gunfire. His crew knew this, and they prepared carefully for either eventuality.

  The scene was the same on both the upper and lower main decks. The members of the gun crews were at their cannons, each man (or Guldur or Stolsh) in a place he knew intimately well, each with his own particular handspike, crow, ram, bed, quoin, and train tackle all neatly at hand.

  Swords and pistols were in racks close to hand. Each gun crew was ready to swing into close combat at an instant's notice, acting as an organized squad under the command of their gun captain, either to repel boarders or to form a boarding party.

  A supply of carefully selected and inspected roundshot, canister and grape was standing by in the shot garlands beside each gun. The precision cannon fire that their captain intended to use required a glass-smooth roundshot, and the shot was always rusting, or it had small clumps of packing grease still on it. The job of chipping, cleaning and polishing the round shot was like cleaning a kitchen or sharpening a knife. It was a job that was never really completed, and now the gun crews were dedicating their attention to this task with renewed vigor.

  The petty officers, midshipmen, and officers stood out at intervals on the deck, blue-jacketed markers in the chain of command. The master gunner, Mr. Barlet, stalked the gun line on the upper deck, checking his guns and their crews. Gunny Von Rito did the same on the lower deck.

  To Asquith's uneducated eye it seemed as though the Ship had magically transformed itself in a brief instant of turmoil and motion. The commotion stopped, and suddenly there was perfect order. Assembled around their guns, spaced evenly in the rigging, and at their stations on the quarterdeck, the entire Ship was standing at the ready. Ready for battle. Ready to kill or be killed, with emphasis on the former and disdain for the latter.

  Killing was what they did, and they did it well.

  In the stern of the Ship, next to the upper quarterdeck, a red-coated marine detachment waited under the command of the huge Corporal Kobbsven. They would be the shock troops for any boarding action. Some of them were eager. Some were fearful. Many were resigned to their fate. And some were... uncertain.

  "Corp'ral," asked private Dwakins, "wat's a wreckdum?"

  Unfortunately, Dwakins had turned to the wrong person. When they were passing out brains and brawn, Kobbsven put both hands in the same bucket.

  The redoubtable Corporal Kobbsven's mustache contorted, and his single eyebrow did the work of two (and it did it admirably well) scrunching together in an intense effort at concentration. Then, after a considerable (and apparently fruitless) effort to achieve a reasonable facsimile of intelligent thought, the corporal said, "It's vat we's goin' ta do ta dem bastards. Yah, yew betcha."

  CHAPTER THE 2ND

  Meeting Engagement:

  "She Opened Fire at Seven Miles"

  On a cruiser won from an ancient foe,

  As it was in the days of long ago...

  She opened fire at seven miles—

  As ye shoot at a bobbing cork—

  And once she fired and twice she fired,

  Till the bow-gun dropped like a lily tired...

  "Ballad of the Clampherdown"

  Rudyard Kipling

  Now the Fang began the slow dance of death with her four consorts. It would take hours, maybe even days for this stately ballet to play out. The first encounter would be a meeting engagement, with both Ships moving straight toward each other. After that Melville planned to make a run for it, with the enemy strung out behind him in a long stern chase.

  The first Guldur Ship would be upon them soon enough, but there was time for the captain to visit every gun, place a hand on each shoulder, and call each sailor by name. He began on the upper gun deck, working

 
counterclockwise from the quarterdeck. The guns were organized into four batteries, each under the command of an officer. The redside upper battery consisted of one 24-pounder and three 12-pounders. The first gun on the redside was a gleaming brass 24-pounder, nicknamed Malicious Intent by its crew. Then came three black iron 12-pounders, Bad Ju-Ju, Sue-Sue, and Deep Doo-Doo, all surrounded by their proud crews. These four guns formed the upper redside battery under the command of Midshipman Lao Tung.

  Each crew was fiercely proud of their 24-pounder's savage spirit but they were also somewhat in awe of it, so it was reassuring to have their captain and master gunner come by to give them an encouraging word.

  As he approached the bow of the Ship Melville came to Sudden Death, a 24-pounder that was ordinarily on the greenside, but had been moved up to the bow gunport in preparation for the coming head-on battle. Moving on around to the greenside, there were Assault and Battery, the two 12-pounders in the upper greenside battery. Then there was the gap where Sudden Death sat when it wasn't in the bow, followed by Cold Blooded Murder, another of the vicious 24-pounders. These four guns were under the command of Lt. Buckley Archer.

  Melville looked with sorrow at the spot occupied by Bad Ju-Ju, which was designed to take a 24-pounder but was currently filled with a 12-pounder. Then he looked with equal sadness at the gap that had been left when Sudden Death was moved to the bow.

  When they had captured the Fang there were eight of the brass 24-pounders aboard. Melville and his officers were amazed by the size of these guns. For centuries everyone had believed that the nature of two-space "technology" limited the practical size of any Ship or gun. It was not possible to build a gun that could throw a cannonball bigger than twelve pounds, and it was not feasible to build a Ship with a Keel any longer than their Fang. There were smaller Ships and guns, but none larger.