Standing, Krysty pulled a gren from her bearskin coat, pulled the pin and threw the bomb. Even with the converging vectors of the two vessels, it fell short and exploded underwater just as PT 264 went over the spot.
“Too far,” she cursed, her hair moving wildly.
Giving an extra inch of wind sheer, Ryan fired once again, and the windshield of the Petey shattered, the three men clutching their faces and reeling about. With nobody at the helm, the boat veered off into the open sea, just as the pod gushed flame and a salvo of Firebirds was launched. The companions opened fire, but the rockets were pointing in the wrong direction and streaked off to the horizon to splash harmlessly into the sea.
“They seem to be out of rockets!” Doc reported, his hands busily reloading the LeMat.
“But they’re still with us!” J.B. added from the smashed wheelhouse.
The Petey was struggling back on course, its side cannons booming while the fifty chattered steadily. Bullets hit the sandbag wall and one spanged off the flue of the boiler, just before a five-pound cannonball hit the water only yards behind them.
“They got our range!” Mildred cursed, going into marksman stance and quickly firing her ZKR. It was too far away to tell if the .38 rounds hit anything, but the Petey neither slowed nor swerved.
Levering in a fresh 7.62 mm round, Ryan swept the enemy deck with his scope, but the sec men had learned their lesson and were constantly moving about, even the pilot. Fireblast! No way he could hit any of them under these conditions, and the Steyr simply lacked the raw power to do any damage to the big boat itself. Wait, that wasn’t true.
“Change direction!” Ryan ordered, standing and sliding the longblaster over a shoulder. “Keep the bastards right behind us!”
“Do my best!” the Armorer answered, fighting the vibrating helm. “But this thing doesn’t like going straight!”
“How’s it going up there?” Dean shouted through the speaking tube. “We’re low on wood. Should I stop feeding the boiler?”
“Throw in every scrap!” J.B. shouted at the tube, forcing the sword to tilt. The engraved steel bent under his harsh ministrations, but the yoke slowly followed and straightened out the Spanish blade. “Chairs, blankets, anything you can find that burns!”
“Done!” the boy’s voice answered.
Going to the port cannon, Ryan found only wadding and shot, the kegs of black powder gone. The starboard cannon was out of wadding, but still had three small kegs of powder. Kinnison kept his troops well armed. Good.
Prying off a lid, Ryan drew the SIG-Sauer and shot a hole in the flat wood, then wiggled it back into place and pounded it tight with his fist. He did the same to the next two, and Jak handed him the munitions bags. Ryan rummaged around and pulled out a thick coil of plastic yellow rope. He held out a good yard length of the primacord, and Jak cut it with a leaf-shaped knife. Ryan then stuffed the fuse into the hole. The second keg got a two-foot fuse, the third even shorter.
Krysty and Doc maintained cover fire while the men hauled the kegs to the side of the boat where the sandbags had been removed.
Mildred was already there with her butane lighter ready.
“On my signal,” Ryan said, going to the stern and placing the barrel of the Steyr on the wet sandbags. Through the scope, he found the Petey easy enough and mentally marked his targets.
“Now!” he shouted, placing a ringer on the trigger.
Quickly Mildred lit the long fuse, and Jak heaved the keg overboard. As it bobbed away on the wash of their vessel, the primacord sizzled brightly, then slowed, started to burn really fast, then abruptly slowed to only glow, before sizzling again.
“That not norm,” Jak growled.
“Being submerged for a day must have ruined its composition,” Mildred added, raising a forearm to hold off her wild tangle of beaded plaits. “Damn things might explode at any time!”
“Even better!” Ryan grunted. “Give them the rest!”
The next two were lit and tossed into the sea.
“What purpose does this serve?” Doc rumbled. “Those will never damage our pursuers. They are much too easy to avoid.”