Now the Navy men were alone. The last humans in the world. A plague had swept through the island ville ten winters ago, killing half the population and every woman. Even the babes. For over ten long years, the surviving men had lived in the towering pile of metal. He knew some of his crew found relief doing things the Manifest didn’t approve. But if it kept them quiet, so be it. In life, some poor bastard was always the barrelboy.
A smudge of smoke on the western horizon caught his attention, and the whitehair walked to the telescope to train the instrument in that direction. The focus was poor, one lens replaced by a lens from a pair of eyeglasses, but he managed to achieve a kind of clarity. The smoke wasn’t the plume of a seagoing vessel heading their way. There was just some sort of fire on the mainland. But under the magnification of the scope, he noticed something moving on the water, moving against the current. How could that be?
At first, he couldn’t believe his eyes, thinking madness had finally claimed his mind. But the longer he watched, the more convinced he became that this real. Not a delusion brought on by loneliness and advanced age.
“Women!” the commodore cackled as he adjusted the focus of his telescope. Two tiny rafts were coming this way, and two of the occupants were clearly women, a redhead and a black woman. “Those are women!”
The commodore trembled slightly as the memory of his last woman filled his entire body, the softness of her skin, the weight of a breast in the palm of his hand, the feel of a nipple as it hardened with desire, the scent of her moist passion, the delicious heat as he slid inside.
Then he noticed their position. By the blood of the captain, the rafts were hundreds of yards past the island and dangerously close to the currents’.
Quickly shuffling across the tilted floor of the battleship, the old man tugged repeatedly on a tasseled cord and a bell rang loudly, the peels echoing slightly as they reverberated down the metal hallway of the military ship.
“General quarters!” the whitehair shouted over the bell. “We have company a port beam!”
“Company?” said a big man appearing at the bottom of the angled ladder. Bare chested, he was covered with homemade tattoos, and a machete hung at his right hip. “Who left the island without permission, sir?”
“Nobody, bosun! It’s new folks! Fellow survivors!”
Trying to hide a smile, the man looked skeptically at the whitehair. “Been having a nip of the brew again, have we, sir?”
“It’s true, you ass!” the commodore yelled. “Outlanders are here, and two are women. Live women!”
The bosun recoiled. “It’s a lie.”
“No, mate, it’s true! See for yourself!”
Bounding up the stairs, he rushed to the telescope and soon found the pair of rafts to the west of the island. “By the coast gods,” he cursed. “It’s a bunch of people, and some are women, and they’re near the damn currents! They’ll be swept away and killed!”
The commodore stomped a foot. “I know, you fool! Send the last working longboat, use every drop of juice! But get those women. We must have them alive!”
“Women,” the bosun repeated, rubbing a sweaty hand on his thigh. “Aye, we’ll get them, sir, and chill anybody who dares to try to stop us!”
WATCHING AS THE JUNKYARD island receded into the distance, the companions started to relax when the side of a huge oil tanker split apart as colossal doors spread wide. Filling the interior was a full-size dockyard. Oil lanterns hung in clusters, boxes and crates were stacked before warehouses and swarms of men worked with winches and cranes. Then from the shadows, two sleek speedboats darted into view, skipping across the waves at incredible velocities.
“Triple red!” Ryan shouted, keeping a grip on the helm and drawing his hand blaster. With a thumb, he flicked off the safety.
Prepared for possible trouble, the companions leveled their weapons and dropped into firing positions, tracking the incoming ships.
Dean dropped the clip in his Browning Hi-Power to check the load, then slammed it back in again, jacking the slide. “They might be friendly,” he ventured hopefully.