The water was choppy around the island, the natural banks of the landmass reaching out to sea and almost completing a circle. The entry into the harbor was tight, barely twenty feet across, and made even smaller by the piles of concrete and brick from pre-dark ruins, along with the occasional smashed wreck of a submerged vessel. Some were rotting wood, others rusting hulks of exploded metal, and a small handful were space-age polymers, still as clean and bright as the day they had come from the injection molding.
Stout bunkers stood on either side of the harbor’s passage, their sloping concrete walls proof to primitive cannonballs and musket rounds. Grim sec men stood guard within, oily M-16 rifles slung over then-shoulders. A rectangular metal box rose in their midst, its honeycombed interior jammed with sleek fat tubes, their pointed tips barely protruding into view.
As the PT boat slowed to enter the pass, a lieutenant walked into view and raised a closed fist. Standing on the bridge of the fighting ship, a tall man with black hair copied the motion, then snapped the fist to his chest, then slashed an open palm down to his side.
“Let them pass!” the lieutenant shouted to the men inside the bunker, then faced the other structure and tapped the stock of his longblaster with two fingers spread wide. The sec men across the water nodded in understanding, and went back inside their bunker and out of the ocean spray.
The predark military craft slid through the passageway, its aft funnels blowing black smoke into the air, the heavy beat of its engines audible over the crashing of the waves. The tall officer on the deck glanced at the guards in passing, then turned his back to them as the boat reached open water again, and increased its speed.
“Think he found them?” a sec man asked around the dangling cig in his mouth. The smoke was greenish, like the tobacco, but he drew in the pungent fumes with obvious pleasure.
The lieutenant took the kelp cig and pulled a deep drag himself before giving it back.
“Don’t really care,” the officer muttered, buttoning his heavy coat a little tighter. “I was hoping the shitter would die this time.”
The deck throbbing beneath his polished boots as the PT boat moved easily into the vast calm harbor, Lieutenant Craig Brandon closely studied the defensive bunkers hidden along the curving shore, and noted the bolstered blasters of the muscular fisherman working the nets of a small trawler. A stone castle stood on a distant mountaintop, its imposing array of Firebird rockets undetectable in the manicured gardens, the beachfront dock busy with ships and men. Everything seemed in order, which slightly displeased the officer. As the sec chief for Baron Kinnison, it was his job to always make sure no pirate fleet or attacking armada could break through and reach the baron. Perfection bothered the man, and he made a mental note to offer some of the slaves a full pardon from the saltpeter mines if they would attack the island ville. He’d take them out to sea, give the fools some blasters and knives, and watch how his sec men handled the assault. It would be interesting. And if the slaves decided to try to run, well, that would be a good test of the weapons and crew on board FT 264. For every slave who escaped alive, the whole crew would receive ten lashes. For every slave aced, and their blaster recovered, an hour in the gaudy house. Private level.
“Fuel,” Brandon said to the man at the wheel.
Both hands on the till, the sec man checked a gauge set amid the predark control panel. Most of the gauges and dials didn’t work, but the important ones did: engine temperature, engine pressure, speed and compass. What else did a sailor need?
“Ain’t touched a drop, sir,” the pilot reported crisply. “Only used wood the whole trip.”
Already knowing the answer, Brandon grunted in acknowledgment. He just liked to keep the men alert. Coal oil gave the boilers twice the heat of wood, which translated as twice the pressure and speed. However, wood was cheap and squeezing shale for the few precious drops of oil was a long and slow process. He was determined to never waste a single ounce.