Chief Warrant Officer Dobrescu had been one of DeGlopper's shuttle pilots, a relatively safe job that had gone badly wrong. But in a previous life, he had been a Raider Commando medic, a person trained not only to stabilize a combat casualty, but to repair one if necessary. His accidental inclusion on the trip had been, literally, a lifesaver. A factor he was sometimes at pains to point out, not to mention complain about.
"I want you to prepare to receive casualties. If there are none, or if they're limited, I'll want your input on our little find here."
"Yes, Sir," the medic replied. "Of course, I'm a shuttle pilot, not a xenobiologist, but it looks like a col fish to me. And that's my professional opinion."
* * *
"It's a col fish," Captain T'Sool said. Ima Hooker's captain rubbed his horns, then clapped his hands. "It's impossible, but may the White Lady damn me if it isn't one."
One of the Hooker's sailor's held up a dripping bag in both truehands. The oil-filled sac was common to the col fish, part of its buoyancy system. But in normal-sized ones, the sac was the size of the last joint of a human thumb and filled with what, to Mardukans, was a deadly poison. As it had turned out, that oil was possibly the only substance on the planet that the Marines' nanites packs could convert into the numerous lipid-based vitamins and amino acids the planet's food lacked.
"Well," Kosutic said. "At least we've got plenty of feed for the civan. And that's enough col oil to keep us for quite a while," she added, gazing at an oil sac that was at least a meter across.
"It's still a net zero," Pahner growled. "We lost an entire ship getting it, along with half of its crew, damned near a platoon of infantry, and three more Marines. I don't like losing troops."
"Neither do I," Kosutic agreed. "And this trip says it all. His Putridness' hand has certainly been over us the whole time."
"What just happened?" Eleanora O'Casey asked, as she climbed up through the main hatch to the deck.
* * *
The prince's chief of staff was the only remaining "civilian" caught on the planet with him. Although none of the shuttle pilots had been as prepared for the conditions here as the Marines, they'd at least had some background in rough conditions survival and a basic military nanite pack. But prior to the crash landing of the shuttles on the backside of the planet, the chief of staff had never set foot outside a city, and her nanites - such as they were - were designed for a nice, safe, civilized environment.
The "adventure" had had some benefits for her. She was in the best shape she'd ever been in her life. But her stomach, never the most robust, had not taken the journey well. And it was taking the voyage aboard ship even worse. Now the short brunette turned her head from side to side, counting masts.
"Aren't we missing one ship?" she asked.
"Not quite yet," Pahner said dryly. "But it won't be long now." He pointed over the side, to where Sea Skimmer's shattered hull was beginning its final plunge. "We've discovered what ate the other expeditions," he added.
O'Casey walked to the side of the gently rocking schooner, and her eyes widened.
"Ooooooh!" she gasped, and quickly ran to the far rail, where she wouldn't get anything on the Mardukans butchering the vast fish.
"Well, I guess she won't be coming to dinner," Kosutic observed with a shake of her head.
* * *
"I guess this stuff gets tougher as it gets older."
Julian bounced the tines of his fork off of the slab of col fish on his plate to emphasize his point.
There'd been no more attacks on the ship, and soundings indicated that the area in which Sea Skimmer had been ambushed was a seamount. Dobrescu theorized that a line of such seamounts might be the haunt of the gigantic col fish. If he was right, it might be a possible to create an industry to harvest the species, once its habits were better understood. The profit would certainly be worth it, if it didn't involve losing a ship every time.
"It probably does," the medic agreed now. "Not that anyone in K'Vaern's Cove ever saw a col fish this big to give us any sort of meter stick." He rolled the head-sized opalescent pearl back and forth on the table, and the bright, omnipresent cloud-light of Marduk made it seem to float above the surface.
"On the other hand, this thing seems to be identical to the ones from the smaller fish," he went on, rapping the pearl with a knuckle. "It's a hell of a lot bigger, of course, and it has more layers. There's a bone directly under it that's layered as well, and I'd suspect from the markings that the layers indicate its age. And these things must grow fast as hell, too. If I've figured out how to calculate its age properly, this fish was less than five times as old as the ones we ate in K'Vaern's Cove."
"How can that be?" Roger asked while he sawed at the tough flesh. He wasn't particularly hungry, and the meat was both oily and unpleasantly fishy, unlike the normally dry and "white" col fish. But he'd learned that you just ate. You never knew if there would be worse tomorrow. "This thing was at least a hundred times that size!"
"More like forty or fifty, Your Highness," Despreaux corrected. She and Julian were relatively junior, but both of them had become a regular part of the command conferences. Julian by dint of his background in intelligence, and Despreaux because she kept Roger calm. Of course, her background in communications and tactics helped.
"The layers indicated massive growth spurts," Dobrescu said with a shrug, "but the genetic material is identical. These things could interbreed with the K'Vaern's Cove variety; ergo they're the same species. I suspect that studying these things' life-history would be difficult. At a guess, they probably breed inshore, or even in freshwater. Then, as they grow, they begin jockeying for territories. If they get the territory of a larger version, they grow very fast to 'fill' the territory." He paused and rolled the pearl again. "I also suspect that if we went back through this area, we wouldn't run into another specimen this large. But there would still be some damned big col fish around."
"And in a few years...." Pahner said with a nod. "By the way, Your Highness, nice shot."
"Excuse me?" Roger gave the fish another stab, then gave up. He wasn't the first, by any means.
The heavyset red and black striped beast in the corner knew its cue. Roger had picked the pet up quite by accident at the village of D'Nal Cord many months before. The lizard-like creatures fulfilled the role of dogs among Court's people, although Roger had seen no sign of any similar species elsewhere on their travels.
Now Dogzard stood up and gave a vertebrae-popping stretch that extended her practically from one end of the compartment to the other. Being the only scavenger in a group that had blasted its way through endless carnivore-infested jungles had been good for the former "runt," and if she ever returned to her village, she would be double the size of any of the ones which had stayed behind.
Now she flipped out her tongue and regarded Roger's plate carefully as it came towards her. After a brief moment verifying that, yes, this was food and, yes, she was permitted to have it, her head snapped forward in one of its lightning fast strikes, and the chunk of meat disappeared from the plate.
Satisfied that that was all for now, she returned to the corner to await the next meal. Or to fight. Whichever.
"There was a good solid crack on that vertebra," Dobrescu replied for Pahner in response to Roger's question. "One of the reasons, at least, that it didn't come back at that ship was your shot."
He flicked his own lump of fish towards the prince's pet. The chunk of meat never came within a meter of the deck before it disappeared.
"There was also a fist-sized hole through the roof of its mouth," the warrant officer continued, and raised an eyebrow in question as he glanced at the junior Mardukan at the foot of the table.
Fain was desperately trying to figure out the tableware. He'd tried watching Honal, Rastar, Chim Pri, and Cord, but that wasn't much help. The Mardukan officers had never quite mastered the knife and fork, either, and Roger's asi -- technically, a slave, although Fain rather doubted that anyone would e
ver make the mistake of treating D'Nal Cord as anyone's menial -- refused to use them at all.
In Cord's case, at least, Fain suspected, the refusal was mostly a pose. The old Mardukan shaman took considerable pains to maintain his identity as a primitive tribesman, but it was obvious to the Diaspran that the asi was more than a match for any Water Priest he'd ever met. In the others' case, the captain was less certain. Honal had hacked off a chunk of the rubbery meat and was gnawing on it, while Rastar and Pri had lifted slightly larger chunks and were doing much the same. The human ability to hold the meat down with a fork and cut off small pieces was apparently beyond them.
Now, trapped by the medic's implied question, Krindi cleared his throat and nodded in a human gesture many of the mercenaries had picked up.
"That would be Erkum," he said. "At least one shot, perhaps more. It was very ... confused on board, of course."
"Not so confused that you lost your head," Pahner noted, and took a sip of water. "You had everyone with a weapon fire a volley. I doubt most of the Marines would have kept control of their units that well."
"Thank you, Sir." Fain rubbed a horn. "But from what I've seen, I will politely disagree. Certainly, you and Prince Roger kept control of yours."
"No, I didn't," Roger said. He reached for the pitcher of water and poured himself another glass. "I should have been giving orders, not shooting myself. But I got angry. Those were good troops."
"Hmmm." Kosutic frowned. "I don't know, Your Highness. Let the cobbler stick to his last, as it were." The slight frown became a smile. "I have to admit that having you with a weapon in your hand never seems to be a bad idea."
Pahner smiled at the chuckles around the table, then nodded.
"Whether His Highness should've been shooting or ordering, we need to find a berth for Captain Fain. The infantry side was already short, so I'm just going to consolidate your personnel into a combined company. We lost Turkol on the Sea Skimmer along with your boys, so we need a replacement vice Captain Yair, who will be promoted to major and take Bes' place. Initially, I'm going to attach you to His Highness as a sort of aide de camp. The bulk of your company's survivors are already aboard the Hooker. We'll work them into the rest of her detachment, and giving you a little experience with the 'staff' will give you a chance to see how things run. Hopefully, we'll have you fully on board by the time we land. Clear?"
"Yes, Sir." Fain kept his face placid, but seeing "his" company lose its identity was not pleasant, however necessary its survivors' absorption might be. "One question..."
"Yes, you can hang onto Pol," Roger said with a very Mardukan grunt of laughter.
"Please do," Captain Yair endorsed. "You're the only one who can handle him."
"We don't know how many more of these things there might be," Pahner continued in a "that's settled" tone of voice, and gestured at the pearl Dobrescu was still fondling. "Or any damned thing else about threats along the way. But we've found out we can kill them, at least. Any suggestions about how to keep them from doing this again?"
"Mount a cannon at the rear. Maybe a couple," Fain said without thinking, then stopped when everyone looked at him.
"Go on," Roger said, nodding. "Although I think I know where you're going."
"Keep them loaded," Fain continued. "Ready to fire, with a crew to man them at all times. When it surfaces, fire. You have about a second and a half from when they appear to when you have to shoot."
"You'd have to have somebody being very vigilant on a continuous basis." Julian shook his head. "Then you'd have to make sure the powder didn't get wet and misfire. I don't think we have the technical capability to do that without modifications we'd need a shipyard to carry out."
"But a defense at the rear...." Roger rubbed a fingertip on the table, obviously intrigued by the notion. Then a sudden, wicked grin lit his somber face like a rising sun. "Who says it has to be a local cannon?" he demanded.
"Ouch!" Kosutic laughed. "You've got an evil mind, Your Highness."
"Of course!" Julian's eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. "Set up a plasma cannon on manjack mode. If something disturbs the sensor area: Blam!"
"Bead," Pahner corrected. Julian looked at him, and the captain waggled one hand palm-down above the table. "Those things get too close for a plasma cannon. We'd torch the ship."
"Yeah, you're right." Julian nodded. "I'll get it set up," he said, then wiped his mouth and looked unenthusiastically down at the chunk of meat still sitting on his plate. "You want me to break out some rations?" he asked in a decidedly hopeful voice.
"No." Pahner shook his head. "We need to eat what we've got. Until we know how long this journey is going to be, we need to conserve. He paused and took a breath. "And we also need to shut down the radios. We're getting close enough to the ports that we have to worry about radio bounce. They're low-intercept, but if the port has any notion that we're here, we're in the deep."
"So how do we communicate between the ships, Sir?" Despreaux asked. The sergeant had been particularly quiet all evening, but she was one of the two NCOs in charge of maintaining communications. With Julian setting up the weapons, it was her job to plan a jury-rigged replacement com net for the flotilla's units.
"Com lasers, flags, guns, flashing lights," Pahner said. "I don't care. But no radios."
"Yes, Sir," Despreaux said, making a note on her toot. "So we can use our tac-lights, for example?"
"Yes." Pahner paused again and slipped in a strip of bisti root while he thought. "In addition, the sailors in K'Vaern's Cove reported that piracy is not an unknown thing on Marduk. Now, why am I not surprised?"
Most of the group chuckled again. Practically every step of the journey had been contested by local warlords, barbarians, or bandits. It would have been a massive shock to their systems if it turned out these waters were any different.
"When we approach the far continent, we'll need to keep a sharp lookout for encroaching ships," Pahner continued. "And for these fish. And for anything else that doesn't look right."
"And His Dark Majesty only knows what's going to come next," Kosutic agreed with a smile.
Chapter Four
"Land ho!"
The lookout's cry rang out only two days after the attack by the giant col. No one was really surprised by it, though. The evidence of an approaching landfall had been there for at least a day -- a thin gray smoke on the horizon, and a golden alpineglow before dawn.
Julian swarmed up the ratlines to Hooker's fore topmast crosstrees with an agility which might have seemed at odds with his determinedly anti-seaman attitude. He took his glasses with him. They were considerably better than his helmet visor's built-in zoom function, and he spent several minutes beside the Mardukan seaman already perched there, studying the distant land. Then he zoomed the glasses back in and slid back down to the deck.
"Active volcano, sure enough," he reported to Pahner. "The island looks deserted, but there's another in the chain just coming over the horizon."
Pahner consulted his toot and nodded. "It doesn't appear on the map," he said, "but at this resolution, it wouldn't."
"But there is a line of mountains on the eastern verge of the continent," Roger pointed out, projecting a hologram from his pad. He pointed at the light-sculpture mountains for emphasis. "They could be volcanic in nature. Which would probably make this a southern extension of that chain."
"Hullo, the deck!" the lookout still at the crosstrees called. "Nother to the south! We're sailing between them."
None of the islands were visible from deck-level, yet, but Captain T'Sool, more accustomed to the shallow, relatively confined waters of the K'Vaernian Sea than the endless expanse of the open ocean, looked nervous.
"I'm not sure I like this," he said. "We could hit shoals anytime."
"Possibly," Roger conceded, with a glance at the azure water over the side. "It's more likely that we're still over a subduction trench or the deep water around one. Water tends to be deep right up to the edge of volcanic formation
s. I'm actually glad to see our first landfall be volcanoes, actually. You might want to slow the flotilla and get some depth lines working, though."
"What are these 'volcanoes' you keep speaking of?" T'Sool asked. Roger checked his toot and realized that it had used the Terran word because there was no local equivalent.
"Have you ever heard of smoking mountains?" he asked.
"No," the seaman said dubiously.
"Well, you're in for a treat."
* * *
"Why does smoke come from the mountain?" Fain asked in awe.
The flotilla had slowed as it approached the chain, and now it proceeded cautiously between two of the islands. The one to the south was wreathed in thick, leafy emerald-green foliage that made it look like a verdant paradise. Of course, as the Marines had learned the hard way, it was more likely to be a verdant hell, Mardukan jungles being what they were.
The island to the north, however, was simply a black hunk of basalt, rising out of the blue waters. It's stark, uncompromising lines made it look bigger than it actually was, and the top -- the only portion formed into anything resembling a traditional cone -- trailed a gentle plume of ash and steam.
"I could tell you," Julian replied with a grimace. "But you'd have to believe me rather than your religion."
Fain thought about that. So far, he'd found nothing that directly contradicted the doctrines of the Lord of Water. On the other hand, the dozens of belief systems he and the other infantry had encountered since leaving Diaspra had already indicated to him that the gospel of the priests of Water was not, perhaps, fundamentally correct. While there was no question that the priests understood the science of hydraulics, it might be that their overall understanding of the world was less precise.
"Go ahead," he said with a handclap of resignation. Then he chuckled. "Do your worst!"
Julian smiled in response and gestured at the vast expanse of water stretched out around the flotilla.
"The first thing you have to accept is that the priests' description of the world as a rock floating in eternal, endless waters isn't correct."