Carnifex (31 page)

Guptillo's job wasn't to keep the magazine filled under full rate of fire; that was impossible. Rather, he and the other feeders were tasked to reload the fixed magazine after it went dry. This took considerably longer than emptying the thing did.

It could have, perhaps even should have, been a much more sophisticated system then it was. Ideally, given the rise and fall of the bow, the gun would have had an integral laser range finder and pseudo-stabilization system that allowed it to fire only when the elevation matched the sight. It didn't have anything like that. Instead, it had Clavell and the finest fire control computer in the known galaxy, the human brain.

The problem with using the brain as one's fire control computer, however, is that it is an absolute
bitch
to program.

With the first salvo of infidel shells, Lungile knew he had a chance, if not a great one. He thought he saw four short-falling shells impact and explode on the ocean's surface. At least one shell, he knew for a fact, overshot the boat. He knew it because it went right through one of the crew standing above the open-backed wheelhouse, waving his rifle around and shouting imprecations at the enemy. Apparently the pirate's body didn't create enough resistance to detonate the shell. This helped, though the body practically exploded anyway, showering the crew with blood, bone and meat, and sending one other pirate down with a chunk of rib buried in his throat.

And still the enemy boat was too far away to engage.

"Wait for the order, you bastards," Lungile shouted at his gunners.

"Clavell, you bastard, you missed!" Pedraz shouted into the intercom.

"Sorry, skipper. But hey, I bracketed it. Did you see that fucker go poof?"

Pedraz simply grunted, then said, "Hold fire until we're closer; twelve hundred meters should do."

"Aye, skipper."

"And Santiona and Panfillo, you're going to have the same problem Clavell did, the rise and fall of the bow. Hold fire till we get to eight hundred."

Lungile's eyeball was no better calibrated than Clavell's. His weapons were considerably less sophisticated. Yet, as his mother was fond of saying, "The lion runs for a meal; the antelope for his life."

He couldn't run, of course, the pitiful ancient engines of his craft would get him nowhere when pursued by such swift opponents. Unlike the antelope, however,
he
had fangs.

"Fire!"

Pedraz saw the flash of flame and the balls of smoke erupt from the pirate ship at the same time Clavell opened fire again with the 40mm.

The forty is high velocity, but not
that
high. I wonder . . . 
FUCK!

"Incoming!" Pedraz screamed, loud enough to be heard over the engines even down in the galley, just as half a dozen much larger balls of flame and smoke appeared in the air between his boat and his chosen target.

Santiona, like the other side machine gunners, scrunched down over his .41 to take any fragments on his helmet and the shoulder-reinforced
lorica
body armor. This left his legs open and unprotected but for the greaves. The greaves, moreover, didn't quite cover his bulky legs. That, of course, was where he was hit.

He felt a sort of plucking in three or four places on his legs and thought little of it until he looked down and saw his uniform rapidly reddening. Santiona felt suddenly nauseous. Then the burning began, a result of the hot bits of metal lodged in his flesh.

Shouting, "Medic!" the wounded gunner released the spade grips and sat heavily to the deck, his hands pressing to staunch the flow of blood. As soon as his rear hit he remembered his duty and also shouted, "Replacement gunner!"

The medic hustled up from a spot at the rear of the deck from which he could normally keep his eyes on all the crew in action. He stopped at the hatchway just long enough to shout down to the engine room, "Replacement gunner on Number Two!" before dashing over to render aid to Santiona.

Lungile felt a momentary rush of joy mixed with relief when he saw the half dozen RGL warheads self-detonate and then one of his enemies fall to the deck. That rush was shortlived, as the apparently wounded man was replaced almost immediately and someone else—a medic, Lungile assumed—began tended the man on deck before dragging him off.

Another reason for the short duration of the pirate's joy was that the enemy boat veered sharply to Lungile's right, slowed to about twenty knots and opened fire again. This time, at that slow speed—still twice that of his own bucket—and with the range closed and the bow no longer doing the Samba with the sea, the 40mm proved deadly. Another five round burst lanced out. This time, three of the five shells found the bow of his boat. It half disintegrated in fire and metal shards mixed with smoldering wood splinters. A dozen men screamed in pain as splinter and shard found them.

One of the shells hit very near the waterline, near enough to it, in fact, to blast a hole large enough to let the sea come pouring in. The bow lowered and the boat slowed with the increased resistance. As it lowered, still more water gushed in.

Clavell switched his fire to single shot, traversing left to right and then back again, raking the gunwales. By this time he knew that his shipmate was hit. Clavell was in no mood for the niceties. His shells smashed in the wooden bulwark, knocking pirates down like ninepins. Especially did he concentrate on those who seemed most willing to fire; for them he would sometimes donate a second shell.

After about thirty rounds of 40mm, two .41-caliber heavy machine guns, one amidships and the other near the stern, kicked in. At that point Clavell felt free to concentrate on the stern and the engine compartment. Four shots and the thing was not only dead in the water and sinking, the parts still above water were beginning to burn. Pirates, such as still could, began dropping their weapons and jumping overboard. Many of those who could not rise to jump began to pray and scream as water rose or fire spread around them.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Pedraz ordered. "Cris, hard a starboard. Let's go help
Agustin."

Lungile trod water fifty or sixty meters away from the ruin of his boat. His heart seethed with hate for the enemies that had killed his men, robbed him of his first command, and caused him to fail his father.

"I'll make you pay, infidel filth. I swear I will."

That would have to wait, however, for Lungile's next incarnation. Since the Salafis did not believe in reincarnation, it might have to wait forever. Lungile, struggling in the water, looked over to see an impossibly large shark's fin towering above the surface and veering towards him.

So much for oaths
, the Xamari thought, sadly and hopelessly.

The shark slowly cruising a few feet below the water, and not very far from Lungile's scissoring legs, didn't really care about revenge or reincarnation. It did care about lunch and it did care about the invigorating aroma of blood in the water. Mostly it cared that lunch was, apparently, served.

I
love
Uhuran food
, thought the carcharodon megalodon, as it slid over onto its side to take Lungile at the waist, slicing him crudely in two and filling the water with the invigorating scent of very fresh blood.

The immigrants had served their purpose. They had bought time for the populations to be
regularized
. They could go now. According to the papers, they should have gone ten years prior.

Spain and Italy were Islamic now, except for the Vatican in the latter. And the Vatican's independence was merely formal. The imposition of
sharia
law had allowed the central and important European powers, the core of the EU, to cast those southern Latin states out. Both sides were happy enough with that, though the dethroned Pope, residing in a dank dungeon beneath Saint Peter's while awaiting his ritual burning at the stake, was
not
.

Give the people in charge their due, though; this was not to be a racist pogrom. Former Moslems who had cast off their worn shackles and joined the secular humanist majority of Europe were welcome to stay. It was only these, these wretches still resident in the cramped and filthy
banlieues
of France, or the slums of England and Germany, who had to go.

Moslem Spain and Italy would not take any. They were poor enough and growing poorer still by the day. There was no room within either of them, or both together, for the forty or fifty million disenfranchised Moslems of the central powers. Switzerland, perhaps the premier military power of the Continent, had said, "
Nein
," and massed its troops on the borders.

That left only one outlet . . . 

While French troops went to England, mostly via Calais, for the great clearing out, and English Guards regiments landed at Bremen before marching to surround the Moslem quarters of Berlin and Stuttgart and Frankfurt; German troops, a full corps of them, had rolled to Paris on a mission that the EU called, "Human Hygiene." It was believed that the troops—German, French, or British—would be as harsh as necessary only if they did not share a language with the bulk of the people they were to uproot. The Scandinavians and the Benelux had likewise exchanged troops for the same reasons.

Gendarmes waved—well, not
all
the French were
always
sorry to see the Germans roll into Paris, after all—as the grenadiers and pioneers of Second Panzer Division relieved them of responsibility for securing that portion of the electrified wire perimeter. While grenadiers climbed ladders, and others stood by their armored vehicles, the pioneers cut a portion of the wire fence for the rest to pour through.

From loudspeakers mounted atop heavy vehicles came the command, "
Kanacken . . . RAUS."

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

C.S. Lewis,
The Abolition of Man

Abdulahi was stuck in three ways. All three were exquisitely painful. In the first place, he found himself forced to pay compensation to the families of the men he had lost at sea a couple of weeks prior. In some cases this included coming up with new dowries for old wives, always an expensive proposition. Secondly, he had to deal with Lungile's bereaved mother. This was particularly bad as she had no other children. The
reason
, however, that she had no other children was that after the first she had become unpleasantly and unattractively fat. Abdulahi had never been able to bring himself to touch her again, given that he had younger and slimmer wives, concubines and slave girls to spend his time on. But now, in good conscience, he had to give her some of his . . . attention. Worst of all was that he had neither the means of retaliating against those who had so unrighteously slaughtered his men and his son, then stood by smiling as sharks took care of the survivors, nor could he even go to the world press for justice. If he did, the news that it was possible for pirates to be made to suffer so severely would have most of his followers back to farming and hauling fishing nets in no time.

He'd expected the infidel mercenaries to broadcast the news of their success. It was quite a surprise that they had not. Perhaps those for whom they worked had vetoed passing on the news. Or perhaps the mercenaries had some reasons of their own for keeping quiet. It was something to think upon.

Mustafa had promised him that it had been a fluke, that the mercenaries couldn't repeat their trick. Abdulahi had his doubts. Already he could think of a couple of ways, a couple of different tricks, that his enemies could use against him. He'd had rumors from ports and ships up and down the coast of helicopters flying in heavily armed, uniformed men to stand guard on certain ships. He'd placed those ships off limits to his followers, of course. But what of the armed men he didn't know about? What of the loss in revenues from ships he could no longer attack safely?

Dear God, what if the shipping companies paying the
Jizya
decided to pay the mercenaries for protection instead? Will I have to cut my tolls? Can I afford to cut my tolls? Will some successor rear his head if I do, and if I have to reduce the stipends to my followers?

Abdulahi shivered at the thought. In the hard world in which he had grown up and lived, the rule of the wolf held sway. If he lost his power, he would also lose his life.

I must go to Mustafa,
Abdulahi thought.
He has the ships and the trained men to handle this problem.

"
Can
we take out this enemy?" Mustafa asked of his assistant, Abdul Aziz.

"From what I've been able to gather, Prince, it will be very difficult. They have a good group of escorts and an absolutely amazing array of machine guns and anti-aircraft cannon—missiles, as well—to guard their major ship. Moreover, the pattern of their attack on Abdulahi's men suggests that the Federated States Navy is committed to assisting them, even if under the table, so to speak."

"Perhaps a submarine from heretic Farsia?" Mustafa suggested.

Abdul Aziz shook his head. "Too noisy. Even if the mercenaries lack sophisticated anti-submarine warfare capability, the FSN is the
definition
of sophisticated. For that matter, the mercenaries may not lack the capability. We simply don't know."

"Hopeless, then?"

Abdul Aziz shook his head. "No, Prince, not hopeless. But . . . very difficult. At the very least, taking out their aircraft carrier will be very, very difficult. I do have an idea."