Releasing the scales, Moonfeather dropped to the littered deck and rolled away from the writhing snake, seeking protective cover underneath a smashed storage locker. The moment she was clear, the last Amsterdam rocketed from the ship's battery, slamming directly into the open mouth of the heaving beast. A strident fireball removed its head completely, hot gobbets of flesh and shrapnel peppering the surviving crew members in a gloriously grisly spray. The whole tremendous length of the serpent shuddered so hard it seemed as if the ship had run aground.

Once more the laser stabbed through the quieting storm, slicing the serpent off at the prow. In limp pieces, the metabeast slid off the Esmeralda into the choppy sea, the leeches now wildly burrowing into the dying body of their former host.

Struggling to his feet, Thumbs smiled wearily. "Just like on the streets," he said. "Get stupid, get dead. Nice to know some things never change."

"A-men," said Moonfeather weakly. Thumbs shuffled over to the wreckage as the thinning gray clouds overhead gloriously parted and sweet sunlight bathed the battleground.

"Alert," said the voice of Silver over the PA, and the searing ray appeared again, dimmer in the spreading areas of sunlight. At the console, Silver recoiled as if physically struck. Shaking uncontrollably, she started to sway and Delphia rushed over to catch the woman before she fell.

"You okay?" he asked, setting her in the navigator's chair. Silver's trembling hand reached for her temple, and Delphia gently eased the cable out. As it came free, she stopped shaking and went limp.

"Whoever that weapon belongs to must have thought we still had some missiles."

Captain Villiers strode onto the promenade and raised Zeist trinoculars to his face, sweeping the ocean.

"Cap'n, waddaya see?" called out a troll bosun, bloody and battered, a broken axe in hand.

"Black shape in the water at a klick!" Villiers adjusted the focus. "A raft, no, it's a sub! Got a lot of radio antennas .. He lowered the trinoculars. "Antennas, my hoop, those are gun batteries!"

"An escort?" asked a hopeful sailor, holding a busted arm close to his chest.

"Aztlan?" asked another from the bloody crowd.

"Fragging drek, no," said Villiers, stuffing the trinoculars into their holster on the promenade. "Those're pirates, and they're coming our way!"

The beam stabbed in from the distance again, neatly taking off the Esmeralda's radio array and radar.

"That, my friends, is definitely a laser," stated Delphia. Silver was in shock. "But that's impossible in such a large-scale weapon."

"I guess someone made one possible and decided to bestow it on a gang of pirates."

"Red alert!" boomed an ensign, touching his throat as the PA system repeated his words throughout the ship. "All hands prepare to repel boarders!" Resembling badly risen zombies, the crew shuffled out to different locations, kicking dead leeches overboard and picking up dropped weapons.

"Laser guns," said Silver, still shaken. "What the frag next, two-headed moon men?"

18.

Near total darkness and a drekload of acoustical padding completely surrounded the bodies of Silver, Thumbs, Delphia, and Moonfeather. They were stuffed into a packing crate along with weapons, air canisters, food, medkits, halogen gas tanks, a hydraulic jack, and other assorted equipment. And it was jammed into this crate that they planned to get themselves aboard the pirate ship. Cargo was, after all, what the pirates were after.

"Why did the pirates save the Emmy from the snake?" whispered Silver, stuffed between Thumbs and the side of the crate. "Because they wanted the ship intact?"

"Probably," muttered Thumbs, endlessly rubbing his right forearm.

"But they've got a submarine. Why not just recover the cargo from the sea bottom?" asked Moonfeather softly. "Or is the pressure too great?"

"Squash you flatter than a pancake," Delphia said.

"I don't like hiding," grumbled Silver petulantly.

"You'd enjoy getting sold into white slavery even less," said Moonfeather. "It's better to geek yourself than be taken alive for the leatherlovers."

"So we kill with impunity," said Delphia calmly. "Lone Star may be corrupt and bastards, but they're essentially police officers. Pirates, on the other hand, are fair game."

"Natch."

"Thumbs, is that your foot in my hip or a rifle stock?" grunted Moonfeather, shifting about.

Fingers the size of dinner sausages checked. "Air tank. I'll gladly trade ya for the nice ammo box up my ass."

"Boxes have sharp corners. I'll stay with the smooth round tank, thank you."

A mountainous leather shrug. "Hey, never hurts to ask."

"Ssssh!" hissed Silver, placing an ear to the soft material lining the inside of the crate. "Listen. Can you hear?"

An assortment of muffled sounds followed.

"No gunfire or explosions," offered Thumbs.

"Hai," agreed Delphia. "With us gone, the rest of the crew has probably surrendered. I hear that's what most of them do when boarded by pirates."

"Feel kinda bad about not fighting," rumbled on Thumbs, scratching his chin on his knees. The whole team had gone to get Delphia and Silver immediately after Moonfeather finished off the sea serpent, and they'd headed directly for the hold. The whole point of signing on with the cargo ships was so that sooner or later they'd run into some pirates, and they'd held this plan in readiness.

Moonfeather breathed. "Our contract says we fight until reasonably unable to save the cargo, the ship, or the crew. The crew coming last."

He gave a low snarl. "Naturally. Typical corp drek. Even if El Segundo Lines was only a local company. Eh, gunsel?" Delphia disagreed. "No, it is a logical clause. Nobody but a fool would agree to fight to the death over something they don't care about."

"Talk on the Matrix says most pirates will leave the crew alive if they don't fight too hard," said Silver. "If you ruthlessly kill every crew, the next group would fight to their freaking deaths against you. Leave 'em alive-"

An interruption from outside, a heavy thump and an odd ratcheting noise. "Maybe even slip them some nuyen. And the next time, nobody fights-"

"Quiet," Delphia hissed. The noises were louder now. Though the sounds were muffled by the thick walls of their packing crate, the four could almost hear conversations. Something, or somebody banged on the side of their crate, followed by an odd mechanical noise, which stopped, then came again. Moonfeather questioningly tapped Delphia on the shoulder and he shrugged. A rumbling crash sounded from overhead along with the clatter of heavy chains.

"It's working!" whispered Silver in barely controlled excitement, "Welcome to the pirate express, when you positively, absolutely, have to get on their ship overnight." Delphia gingerly rechecked the clip in his Manhunter. Moonfeather closed her eyes and crossed her arms.

The clatter stopped for a moment. Abruptly the crate moved, halted, moved again. Then it rotated about in a circle and there came the muffled noises of creaking ropes and winches chugging. Bouncing like child's pinata, they went up, up, up, and paused. For a while they swung back and forth.

Silver ran a fingertip along the hair-thin edge of their escape hatch. Not a glimmer of outside light showed around the trap door in the side of the crate. The seal was perfect. Shouts came, more chains, and they began to descend. More ropes and chains. Next a steady rumbling noise, then silence.

"Are we in the submarine?" asked Thumbs as softly as he could.

"Moonfeather?" asked Delphia, shaking her.

Roused from her nap, Moonfeather yawned. "What? Are we there?"

"Please go and see."

Mumbling an affirmative, she took a deep breath and went very still.

Moonfeather stepped out of her meat body and floated amid the equipment inside the jam-packed crate. Invisible to ordinary vision, she drifted past the material boundaries of the container and emerged into a much larger area.

The floor was perforated like a grill, the walls sloped in curves, and the ceiling was an array of panels held in place by plastic togs. All of the crates from the Esmeralda marked as military chips and machine parts on the manifest were here, but none of the barrels of crude oil. Several boxes had been levered open, the plastifoam strewn about as the pirates took inventory of the booty. Only the runners' crate was untouched.

Amused, Moonfeather ran an astral digit along the huge fluorescent label: "Experimental chips. Danger. Halogen gas refrigerant packing. Do not open for inspection unless in Class Four sterile laboratory conditions." She knew experimental chips would be worth a fortune on the black market, especially to the Mafia, tongs, or yakuza, who were always desperate to get their hands on state-of-the-art booty.

"And the dumb gleebs bought it," Moonfeather smirked in satisfaction.

Curses and laughter in the outside corridor caught her attention, and she moved through the bulkheads to see a good-looking adolescent male in a flimsy robe being hauled along in chains, the nude woman chained to him meekly following. So they did take slaves.

Then she spied a familiar box full of cans on a shelf. Jamaican Mountain Blue fine ground, her coffee! All of it! The utter and complete bastards. The pirates would pay for that transgression. She drifted about a bit, looked here and there, making a few mental notes. When satisfied, she returned to the crate and stepped back in, slipping into her meat body as if donning some comfortable old clothes.

Moonfeather opened her eyes. "Guards everywhere doing inventory," she announced. "They took some prisoners and stole my fragging coffee."

Delphia slid on his sunglasses and looked at her directly in the dark. "All of it? Good. Something for us to drink in celebration after we're done."

"Coffee?" said Thumbs. "I love real coffee. Haven't had any since I was a kid. Where'd it come from?"

Moonfeather smiled at him. "Surprise!"

"Ouch!" said Silver, testing her blackjack by swatting it onto her hand.

"Ouch?" asked Thumbs in concern.

"Ah . . . splinter," replied Silver.

"In a macroplas crate?"

"Tell me about the exits," said Delphia.

Moonfeather pulled a small pocket secretary from a bag at her waist. She unfolded the palm-sized flatscreen and started doodling on the luminescent display. "Main door . .. sorry, main hatchway is over here. Side, port, no, starboard, aw, drek. The right-side door is here by the hoist controls. Small personal storage lockers over here. Equipment and hoists etcetera, over here. They have the crates and macroplas containers laid out in nice neat rows, lashed down tight. Very tidy for wavejockeys who eat their own young."

"Arms?"

"Every guard has a holstered pistol and a cybergun."

"All of them?"

"Yes."

"Motherfragger. Everybody be careful if one of them tries to raise his hands in surrender. Any vidcams?"

"Two. Opposite corners."

"Excellent. Silver?"

Reaching above her head, Silver found a small valve, eased off the lock, and gave the handle a quarter turn.

The cargo-hold hatchway, a half-meter thickness of layered metals and duraplas, undogged with an oily series of clangs, and swung open ponderously upon counter-weighted hinges. Billowing clouds of blue-gray mist filled the cargo hold, masking everything.

"Bloody hell," cursed the First Mate bitterly. "Must be the halogen gas coolant. That experimental box musta sprung a leak!"

"Aye, First," agreed Cargo Guard, chewing a bit of seasoned soybeef like a plug of tobacco. "Ta captain will be furious less we plug it. Prototype chips could be our biggest haul ever!"

"Don't I know it, squint," she growled. "If it goes wrong, you'll take the fall."

The Chief Guard said nothing, but gestured to the younger crewman standing aft the big door. The newbie nodded at his section chief. "Should we go topside and vent this stuff, sir?"

"No need," answered First Mate. "Come on, bring a number nine patch kit and some duct tape. That'll fix bugger all." Hands outstretched to feel her way, she shuffled into the cool swirling clouds, carefully placing one foot ahead of the other. "Halogen won't kill you, 'less ya breathe a lot of it for a long time. We'll be done in tick."

She disappeared from view into the mist, and as the others found the requested items, they carefully joined her.

"Whaddaya mean, fifteen?" demanded Captain suspiciously.

"We keep sending people down into the hold, but they don't come out," repeated Chief Cargo Guard. "We even used SCUBA and they still don't come back."

"An' it took you this long to tell me?" Captain roared, spittle flying from his bearded mouth.

Chief Guard did not flinch or wipe his face. "Did our best to fix it without bothering you, sir."

"First concurred with the plan, sir," added Spanner, the pockets of his greasy coveralls bulging with tools and chip-readers.

Captain growled at the news.

"Maybe it's poison gas," suggested Sonar. Massive headphones covered his ears and a cord ran from his console to the datajack in his temple.

Everybody shivered. Poison gas was the oldest death for submariners, and the most feared. Bust a wall at the big depths and the pressure killed you before you even knew it. Slam! You're pate. Fast and painless. They all knew the horror stories from World War Two back in the pre-Awakened days. Those old boats used nickel-lead batteries for power when they were under, and didn't have reserve air to feed their massive diesel motors. If the hull got a leak and sea water hit the plates, it formed chlorine gas and whole crews died in screaming agony, skin bleached white as ghosts.

"Shut up, Sonar," snapped Captain, and the man flinched. "Second, close all internal hatches!"

"Aye, sir!"

Captain assumed his chair near the map table. "We're going to vent that hold now! Emergency stop!"