From other data in the files, they learned that Atlantic Security had investigated every isle and cove from Bermuda to the equator. But IronHell remained elusive. The pirates ruthlessly sank search parties almost as soon as the vessels left dock, proving they had plenty of chummers on the inside feeding them info. Cargo ships were sometimes hit, sometimes not. But they seemed to specialize in hitting military craft, sending them straight to Davy. Rumor had them working with new experimental equipment, nova-hot stuff that had never seen the light of day. Sailors called it the return of Atlantis, but then again, Thumbs knew sailors spent too much time in the sun and not enough time on land.

Outside the old hull, he could hear the wind and waves getting rough again, but Thumbs felt his stomach accept the condition without qualm. Thank Ghu. And half their job was done. They knew what IronHell was. Delphia had called the Johnson and left him a telecom message. Now all that remained was finding something the Gunderson Corporation, Atlantic Security, Lone Star, and every independent shipping line operating in this ocean couldn't locate. Where the frag IronHell was.

The team had decided they needed to go straight to the source if they were ever going to find the truth. They began to hang out at the dockside hiring halls, and had landed work as security. This was their third trip in as many weeks, but they hadn't seen a whisker of anything vaguely pirate. The Esmeralda's cargo had seemed plenty hot enough, but maybe they'd get luckier on their next trip.

Silver found the others sitting in a corner of the galley picking at their food. Delphia was in the usual natty suit with tie and soft brim hat, while Moonfeather was in a cut-off jumpsuit that hugged every curve tightly.

Sullen sailors, mostly grizzled norms and tattooed orks, sat at other, more distant tables, talking in low voices about what sailors always have since time immemorial: how much they hated their jobs, and then, once they got to shore how soon they could get back out to sea again.

"You'd think El Segundo Lines would feed their security personnel better than this swill," said Delphia, removing the napkin from his shirt collar and placing it over the food on his plate like a death shroud. "Bah. Swill is a compliment."

"I'm sure they do," said Moonfeather, gnawing on a strip of baco-flav soyjerky. "But don't forget, Handsome, we're lowly mercs. Neither corp nor captain give two dreks about us till the hammer falls. The crew thinks ballast is more important than us."

"The laborer is worthy of his pay," said Delphia, wiping his hands and moustache clean on a pocket handkerchief.

"Bulldrek. Why do you think there's only the four of us for a ship this size? The only reason we're-here is to help keep the insurance premiums low, that's all." She stopped her attempts to consume the undamaged strip of soymeat in her grip. "Maybe I'll sew some of this into the lining of my duster as armor."

Delphia gave a dry laugh. "Good idea. Ought to stop a nine-millimeter easy, but I don't think anything short of a missile could breach the pancakes."

"Broke a tooth on a waffle."

"Hai, the pay is pitiful, and the food wretched." Delphia shoved the plate of fish stew aside. "Three miserable weeks at sea and no sign of pirates. The Esmeralda's haul should have attracted their attention by now." He glanced out a nearby porthole. The weather had been growing steadily worse ever since the freighter had departed the coastal waters of Africa and begun steaming for Rio de Janiero, then back home.

Home? he thought, taking a sip of his kaf. And since when had Miami become home to him?

"Who knows what they're looking for these days," Moonfeather said, studying his face. "Nuyen for your thoughts."

Delphia shook his head. "Almost tastes like the real thing. Incredible."

"Should. It is."

He paused, the deliciously fragrant brown liquid moving back and forth from the motion of the ship. "Beg pardon?"

"It's from the private stock I brought on board." Moonfeather gestured behind her. "I bribe what they laughingly call the cook on this floating grease lump with a cup a day to make it special just for you and I."

Turning about, Moonfeather stared across the room and shook a wrist, her bracelets jingling softly. In the galley, the fat ork in a stained apron and ridiculous hat stopped smearing soylard on a sizzling grill already thick with it to look up abruptly and smile innocently toward her. "I also threatened to turn him into a toad if he crossed me."

Delphia took another sip, watching her closely. "None for Silver or Thumbs?"

"Frag 'em," she purred leaning closer, nearly popping out of the tiger-stripe leotard under her jumpsuit, her cascade of curly red hair framing a lustful grin.

"And how can a simple sprawl shaman afford real coffee?" he inquired softly. Enjoying the view.

Her smile vanished. "Stole it."

"O-hio," greeted Silver, sliding into place between them. "Figured out how to cut the soup yet?"

Moving as if made of glass, Thumbs eased himself down into the fourth chair, making the cheap steel creak ominously. "This place never have a troll on board before?" he griped. "Hey, shaman. Thanks for the herbal stuff. It helped a lot."

"Null perspiration," said Moonfeather, flipping curls off one shoulder. "Catch a bullet for me in a brawl and we're even."

"Ha! I'd rather bed a rabid swamp gator."

"Granite."

A tick. Two ticks. "Catch a bullet where?"

"Anyway, we were just talking about the ..." Silver tapped her head meaningfully. "You know, and we're wondering if there's any way to know who's got one before it goes off?"

Thumbs nudged Moonfeather. "Can't you look astrally inside their heads to see if they got one?"

"Possibly. The problem is if they're only adding and not replacing."

"How about some kind of truth spell?" probed Delphia. She snorted. "If we take one alive and I can mind proble him, sure. But that won't make the bomb not go off or disarm it or even give us any info. The power of the spell might just make his head pop, and personally I don't want to be that close when one does."

His stomach rumbling, Thumbs looked at Silver. "So much for secretly hypnotizing a pirate to get him to spill the chips." Then he looked over at Delphia's covered plate and pointed. "You gonna eat that?"

"The fish stew?" Delphia recoiled askance. "No. Please. Help yourself. Enjoy."

"Thanx." Thumbs removed the napkin with a flourish and starting making serious inroads into the greasy concoction.

"I see your appetite is back," said Silver dryly.

"Yar," he mumbled, mouth full of seaweed and bones. "Starved."

"It's part metacrab."

"Hey, axe da cook," slurped Thumbs. "I dunno wats in it."

The ship pitched and a heavy wave crashed over a porthole, throwing the window open and water streaming in to flood the deck. Cursing and grumbling, sailors rushed to force the porthole closed. As the salt water rushed to the walls and down the causeway stairs, the deck inadvertently became clean in several areas.

"It's painted blue," said Moonfeather in wonder.

Then an alarm sounded down the corridor, to be repeated all over the ship in echoing repetition. "Red alert," warbled the decrepit PA system. "Storm at force five levels. Repeat. Force five levels. All hands to battle stations."

Scrambling in every direction, the crew tossed aside beers and card games to grab weapons from wooden wall lockers and rush up the causeway for the higher decks.

"Time to earn your ride, lubbers," said First Officer O'Shanassey, a grizzled woman with missing teeth and no direct knowledge of soap. She thrust a large canvas bag at them.

Thumbs dropped his spoon and spread the salt-stiff canvas wide. "Jesus, Buddha, and Zeus!" he swallowed. "It's fulla grenades!"

"Are we to slay the storm for you, madam?" asked Delphia emotionlessly, sipping his coffee.

"We didn't hire ya for ballast," O'Shanassey snorted. "Well, maybe the troll."

"Stuff it, breeder," he rumbled dangerously, pineapple in hand.

"Scare me later, stud," said the norm, working a tobacco wad. "We got real probs. Sonar's going crazy. Big storms like these occasionally drive them from the depths into the higher regions. And then all fragging hell breaks loose. We gotta be prepared, just in case."

"In case of what?" asked Silver pointedly.

"Pirates?" asked Moonfeather excitedly, twisting an onyx ring about her index finger.

"Ha! We should be so lucky," said O'Shanassey, flinching from another crashing wave. "Don'tcha know what a storm can bring up in these shallows?"

"Shallows?" scoffed Delphia. "The ocean is over a thousand meters deep out here. More in some areas."

Silver lifted a grenade from the bag, inspecting it. "Gods, UCAS military, high-explosive, anti-personnel."

"Worth a fortune on the streets," confirmed O'Shanassey. "So don't lose one overboard. Or it's ya hoop."

A bellow sounded outside, overwhelming the fury of the squall. The noise seemed to summon thunder, and the storm increased in power to near deafening proportions.

"What the motherfragging heck was that?" asked Thumbs, cyberblades poking out from his forearm as he raced over to the nearest porthole.

"Don't go near the ports," warned O'Shanassey, taking a step after him. "They can see yaz outline and likes to bite da glass."

"Who?" asked Delphia, tensing his hand as he rose. Smooth and silent, the Manhunter was back in its accustomed spot.

Another roar, louder than before, and accompanied by the sound of machine-gun fire and dull explosions from the aft and starboard.

"Snakes," replied the sailor, making the sign of the cross as fresh sweat stained her dirty uniform. "Big'uns."

16.

Ignoring the howling storm and noisy commotion outside his plush cabin, Attila relaxed in the softly vibrating leather chair, allowing the mechanical massage to augment the one he was receiving in the flesh. He was naked save for an untied silk dressing gown, which dangled loosely off his wiry frame. Attila was sipping champagne from a crystal goblet and smoking a fine Havana cigar, the picture of contentment. Kneeling between his open thighs was a young Angola girl, bound with the chains of her slave auction. Her long black hair visually, but not audibly, hid the fact that she too was engaged in an act very similar to smoking.

A frantic knock came at the cabin door, and then the portal slammed open, a frightened engineer from below decks too fragging busy to be either shocked, or titillated, by the carnal scene.

"Sea serpents attacking the ship!" he cried, tossing a chatter-gun and a belt of mixed ammo on the carpeted deck. "All passengers to the foredeck to help defend the Emmy!"

The slave slowed her ministrations. But Attila only chuckled and refilled his glass. "Nothing to do with us, little flower," he sighed, drawing the smoke of the pungent cigar deep into his lungs and then letting it out slowly. "I paid for a first class cabin, and that means they fight for me. Not vice versa." He lowered the goblet, offering her a sip of cool wine, then pushed her head back to its earlier position. "Continue." Meekly, the girl did as commanded, her chains rattling as she shifted to a more comfortable position.

Ah, life was good. The credsticks he'd stolen from the deaders at the old ork's doss had carried a small fortune in them. A fortune! As expected, the Overtown stickshyster offered him only a tenth of the nuyen shown. So Wesley displayed a few of the handguns he'd also acquired while a trusted gutterchum waddled in hoisting the Vindicator minicannon. Suddenly, the price was raised to half.

After paying off his omae, Wesley bought toff rags and split for Africa. Leaving town was a necessary move, and Africa was the most faraway place he knew. In Casablanca, he officially became Attila Abelovzsky, a Hungarian arms dealer, and managed to auction off the rest of the weapons, including the Vindicator, to some paramilitary suits in the Congo really hungry for top-string bangbangs. Oddly, the data chips he'd found around the apartment brought an even greater price from an Arab sheik than all the guns combined. Weird.

Now Attila was rolling in wealth, a fragging mil in the Cayman Island banks, eighty-five kay on his personal stick, and a confirmed chip dealer. He knew a good thing when he found it. Smuggling guns was crudcreds compared to boosting industrial chips. Some serious nuyen spread about on the streets of Addis Ababa gave him names to contact in Angola. A deal was quickly cut with some slaves, surprisingly easy too, and here he was sailing to Brazil in style, the little lovely at his feet carrying his next million surgically implanted inside her collapsed left lung. After the stolen Chinese chips were extracted in Rio, he'd sell her to the local snuff jockeys, then see what Seattle had to offer in way of fun and biz. That was the place to be these days. Yar, life was almost too fragging wonderful to believe. And he was supposed to worry about some snake? Ha!

Howls, screams, and explosions sounded constantly above the growing noise of the storm. Who was attacking, and more importantly, who was winning, was completely unknown. Privately, the female servicing the boy fumed in rage over the cowardice of the idiot. If the situation was so bad topside that they were recruiting the fragging passengers, then their own lives might depend on one extra gun in the fight! Of all the buyers at the auction, why did she have the bad luck to be bought by this motherless gleeb?

Not soon enough would they be off this bucket and then she'd be able to cut this fool's throat, establishing herself in society as a woman of means with a mountain of nuyen from the hot chips tucked inside her. A fine dinner, a good wine, a massage, a lot of the kinky sex he liked so much and afterward the exhausted boy would fall asleep without setting the security system on her collar and never awaken again. It was how she'd gotten out of jail, and what better way to escape the death sentence and the magistrates than to be smuggled off the island using somebody else's nuyen and connections?

However, her slave masquerade must continue until they were once more ashore. With a girlish giggle, Ruby the Razor pretended lusty enthusiasm, consoling herself by imagining what she would do to the naked flesh of her master when she was free. Oh, yes, what she and her lovely, lovely straight razor would do.

Stopping at their cabin only long enough to grab their personal weapons, Silver and the others charged up the main causeway to the forecastle and burst into the bridge room of the lurching cargo ship. In dripping poncho and hat, Captain Villiers was lashed to the wheel, shouting details of their location and situation into a standard black crashbox, his shoes anchored to the deck with stout steel clips. Silver recognized it as the deadman pose. With a shock, she realized he didn't expect to succeed. Or even survive.

Industrial wipers struggled uselessly to clear the rain off the Armorlite windows of the bridge. The storm raged unabated outside, lightning flashing as waves crashed over the ship, covering the deck with foamy brine. And writhing about in the maelstrom was a dark shape barely visible through the heavy downpour, a sinuous length of muscles and scales thicker than a tree. Howling in fury, the beast coiled about madly, crushing crew members, passengers, and splintering a lifeboat as if it was made of balsa wood, not duraplas. The gunfire never stopped for a moment.

"Rock and roll," breathed Thumbs, sucking a tusk while checking the clip in the Mossberg CMDT, which he'd adopted ever since the shoot-out at Scott Gordon's doss.

"Seen worse."

"Been to Chicago lately?"

"Yar."

Something crashed into the bridge, rattling the whole structure and damaging a window, causing a spray of sparks to erupt from a console as the cold ocean water gushed in through the thin cracks. With a cry, Lieutenant O'Shanassey rushed over to the main control board just as a petty officer grabbed a mike from the console.

"Main guns, firefirefire!" shouted the bosun, and from above them a barrage of fiery darts lanced out past the colossus coiled around the bow of the struggling ship.

"Get away from there!" cursed O'Shanassey, cuffing the man aside. "It's aim, lock, fire, you fragging gleeb!" She pointed furiously at the control board. "Look! Half our missiles gone and no hits!" Snapping open the flap on her belt holster, the lieutenant pulled a handgun into view and laid a finger on the trigger. At the slight pressure, a moving red spot appeared on the bosun's face from the laser clipped under the big barrel. "Outside!"

His face went white, eyes darting to the howling thing on the foredeck. For a tick the storm parted, exposing the creature's tremendous head, diamond-shaped eyes, yellowed fangs, and the bloody legs of somebody jutting from its hellish mouth. "But, sir, I-"

The safety clicked off. "Outside or die here!"

Whimpering, the bosun forced open the side door and rushed out into the melee, the driving rain hiding him completely from view in a heartbeat. The metal door slammed shut behind him, and continued to bang until Moonfeather dogged it shut.

Streams of burning tracers dotted the darkness, highlighting the ocean beast as the phosphorus smashed against its scale hide and failed to penetrate.

"We're armed against pirates," shouted Villiers over the storm. "The Emmy doesn't stand a chance against that!"

A shrieking ork sailor stumbled past the wheelhouse, something black attached to his back. Another of the crew spun about fast and hosed the dying ork with tracers and bullets, tearing him and the black lump to bloody pieces.

"What the frag are those?" demanded Silver, checking the clip on her Seco.

"Leeches!" shouted Captain Villiers.

"They live on the snakes in the depths! Or on sharks! Anything with blood. Up here, us!"

Delphia frowned deeply. Manhunter in hand. "Apparently a meta-version of macrobdella valdriana. But the size! Never seen one larger than a meter before. These are giants!" Moonfeather gestured at the open hatchway. Her hands glowed with power, and one of the enormous leeches crawling through the opening suddenly burst into flames, then was instantly washed away by a frothing wave. "At least they're killable," she said. "Unlike big daddy out there."

Moonfeather yanked some magnesium rounds from the bandolier across her chest and began ramming shells into the pump-action Remington. She hefted the weapon onto a shoulder, but then did nothing more. She simply stood and watched the fierce struggle amid the violent storm, her eyes like slits.

"This ain't no time to get mystical!" yelled Thumbs. "Go throw a lightning bolt or a death spell or a mana dart the size of a telephone pole, but geek that crit!"