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fixedly at the spot, he saw what had drawn his attention to the spot.
"Cap! Off here, just left of the lava. Those lights moved
!"
"Could be just an illusion with all the heat and distance," Brazil responded,
not terribly concerned. "Or it might well be another ship. There's a lot out
here, you know."
"Yeah, well, I been lookin' at it, and those lights are sure not illusions and
they're on somethin' pretty big movin' our way."
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Brazil looked over at where Gus was already staring, and after a minute or so
he saw them, too. "Yeah, Gus. They're running lights for sure. Something
pretty big, I'd say. I can't make out much in the dark, though. There's a
storm moving almost parallel over there. If it kicks up some light-ning, you
might be able to tell what it is."
"You want me to douse our running lights?" Gus asked him worriedly. "You never
know."
"Maybe. Hold on a minute and try to make sure it's heading for us and not just
coming out and going some-where else. The sea-lanes we're on here run mostly
south-east to northwest. If he's legitimate and coming from that direction, he
should turn parallel to us in a little bit and head off in the opposite
direction. I
don't like it, though. What's a ship doing that close to those islands?
They're marked as too active and dangerous for landings on the charts."
"He's comin' on toward us!
Whoops!
There was a big flash. Couldn't make out much, though, but it sure looked like
a big bunch of smoke. Man! He's comin' on fast and steady! He can't be a
sailboat and move like that, can he? I mean, the wind's against him, right?
Yeah! There's an-other flash. Still can't make out the ship, but that's a
steamer all right!"
"Douse the running lights, Gus, quick as you can! I think we're in trouble!"
The sudden rise in Brazil's adrenaline roused Terry, who got up, watched Gus
put out the lights so that the ship fell into total darkness, and immediately
looked around for the danger she was already directly sensing.
She went through a whole series of spectrum shifts until she spotted the
oncoming vessel, and inside of it
she sensed danger in numbers beyond theirs by quite a bit. There were a lot of
creatures on that ship, and all seemed to be of one mind, to catch and board
this ship and take them.
A whole range of actions came into her mind, but none of them were useful. She
could make it very hard for them to see, or notice, both her mate and herself,
but they would still take the ship and sooner or later they would certainly
have a means of detecting them. And there were so many of them.
There was a sound like thunder off toward the oncoming lights, and suddenly
the sea seemed to explode just forward and off to the left of the tiny sailing
ship.
Brazil spun the wheel and then began taking down sail, using the levers and
pulleys nearby.
"What the hell you doin', Cap! You're headin' right for 'em!" Gus cried.
"We won't be for long, but they had our course and speed damned good there,
and I needed to throw them off in the dark. They've got no radar here."
"Yeah, well, they don't need radar at this distance! I mean, we must be
blockin' off the undersea light show just like they are to us by now!"
Brazil cursed under his breath. He hadn't thought of that! And those guys were
surely using just that technique on them. They were used to these waters; he
was not.
He took a deep breath, then shouted, "Okay, then, we're gonna have to open
range and sail where they can't do that!" as he put out full sail and turned
for maximum wind.
"Hey! Them dark places could be islands, Cap!" Gus pointed out. "And you're
gonna go right into the edge of that storm, too!"
"Just what I want to do!" he yelled back as a second shot landed forward and
just to the right. "Damn!
Straddled us with two shots at two kilometers! Those boys are good
!"
They were making very good speed, getting up to fifteen, maybe twenty knots,
but they were no match for the steamer still closing on them, particularly
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considering the angle.
A third shot landed perhaps twenty meters ahead of their bow, and its message
was very, very clear.
They could hit them any time they felt like it.
They were past the undersea fairyland lights, though, at least, and it was
still water at this point. Suddenly, with very loud splats like buckshot
falling on the deck, the rain swept over them.
The captain of the patrol boat knew exactly what his quarry was doing, and,
worse, with the storm and the dark-ness, he actually risked losing them now
that he had them cold. He couldn't wait and take that chance; there were too
many reefs and shallows in there for him to follow closely with his craft. "If
you can still get it, fire to hit!" he com-manded, and the gun crew, also very
experienced, made mental calculations, slightly adjusted the forward cannon,
waited for a possible last sighting with a lightning flash, and fired a blast.
The shot struck the little sailing ship almost in the stern, and all three
aboard were thrown to the deck as their world lurched and shook. One of the
smaller masts came loose and dangled, caught in its own rigging.
"Everybody okay?" Brazil shouted in the fury of the wind and rain and thunder.
"Yeah! Terry almost fell on top of me!" Gus called back. "You?"
Brazil got back up, grabbed the madly spinning wheel, and found that it was
spinning freely. "Damn! They took out my rudder!" He looked up at the sails
and saw the dan-gling mast hanging precariously, fouling lines, heard the slow
rip of canvas, and knew instantly that there was no hope of steering by sail
alone.
He made his way to the other two. "I hear breakers not far off, that way!" he
pointed, a position perhaps half a kilometer away in the darkness from their
current position and what looked to be a good three or more kilometers from
where the lava flow should be. "We're gonna have to abandon ship and swim for
it!
The quicker the better, too! We could go down like a shot in this sea if
enough water gets in the hole in the stern or we hit a reef!"
"Okay! I'll make it! How about if we split up, we ren-dezvous this side of the
lava near the beach?" Gus sug-gested. "Hey! You want to throw over the raft?"
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