1633

There was no pain, not really. That was shock, a distant corner of his brain observed, since he no longer had a left foot. That has to hurt like hell, that isolated corner thought almost calmly, but he couldn't feel a thing. He raised his head, looking for the rest of his crew, then looked away instantly. There was nothing he could do for Larry or Bjorn, and that same dispassionate observer in his brain told him that if he didn't act quickly, there wouldn't be anything anyone could do for him, either.

His hands moved as if they belonged to someone else, unbuckling his belt, wrapping it around his calf, yanking it as tight as it would go. It wasn't much of a tourniquet, but it was the best he could do… and at least it slowed the bleeding some.

The Outlaw's engines were still bellowing their fury, and he felt the boat lurch through yet another unguided turn. That part of his brain which continued stubbornly to function wondered why it hadn't capsized or collided with something yet, but he didn't have time to worry about that, either. The shore was out there somewhere, and if he ran into it at this speed…

He dragged himself across the blood-smeared cockpit on his belly, trying not to think about Larry or Bjorn while he did so. It seemed to take an eternity, but finally he reached Larry's broken seat. He felt a tiny stab of gratitude that the roundshot which had killed his friend had also thrown Larry's mangled body out of the way. He didn't know if he could have made himself move it to get at the wheel.

He clawed himself upright, forcing himself somehow up onto his remaining foot, and bent to peer through the blast shield view slit.

He'd taken just a little bit too long to reach the wheel, he realized almost calmly in the seconds he had left.

***

Hans banked sharply, fighting to keep the Outlaw in sight as it looped and wove through yet another impossible, writhing turn. He was lower now, trying desperately to see, and he thought he saw someone moving in the cockpit. But he couldn't be sure, and his teeth ground together as the speedboat turned yet again.

The white fiberglass arrowhead trailed spray and foam as it settled briefly onto its new course, and Hans heard his own voice crying out in useless protest as he realized what was going to happen.

More Danish guns were firing now-firing more in desperation than in vengeance. They shrouded the morning in smoke and muzzle flashes, pocked the surface of Wismar Bay with white waterspouts all around the Outlaw, but now the speedboat seemed to lead a charmed life. It charged through the waterspouts, ignoring the Danes' frantic efforts to destroy it.

But then again, it didn't need the Danes. It had its own howling engines, and those engines were its executioners. A three-and-a-half-ton sledgehammer loaded with over a hundred gallons of gasoline and twenty-four eight-inch rockets smashed into an eight-hundred-ton, fifty-eight-gun warship at something in excess of seventy miles an hour.

Vadgaard felt his elation turn to horror as the American ship collided with the Johannes Ingvardt. He'd realized at once that his desperate broadside had managed somehow to score a hit, despite his target's incredible speed. He'd also realized that only blind luck had made that possible, and he'd watched in disbelief as the American's wake twisted and knotted like a berserk serpent writhing in its death agony, obviously with a dead man at the helm.

But then it turned one last time and hurled itself into the very center of his squadron like some arrowhead of vengeance upon its killers. Johannes Ingvardt's frantic effort to repeat Christiania's lucky hit failed, and then both ships vanished in yet another explosion that sent fresh wreckage arcing into the smoke-sick heavens.

The explosion seemed to rip Hans' heart from his body. He stared down at the rising smoke cloud where two of the up-time brothers who had saved his life-and his family's-had ended their own lives, and something snarled inside him.

There. That was the ship. The one whose fire had first crippled the Outlaw and sent it into the weaving dance to its own death.

He banked around, then dropped the nose and lined it up on his brothers' killer.

Vadgaard never knew what prompted him to tear his eyes from Johannes Ingvardt's death. Perhaps it was no more than instinct. Or perhaps it was something else. It didn't really matter.

He looked up to see the flying machine headed directly toward Christiania. There was something about it, about the straight, unwavering line of its course, that suddenly told him he'd been wrong about how harmless it might be.

There was no way he could possibly elevate Christiania's guns high enough to engage a flying target, but his ship, too, was loaded with infantry destined for Wismar, and he bellowed frantic orders.