Weapons of choice

Slim Jim resisted the urge to pocket another handful of the small, pencil-like objects they called data sticks. He was here to learn, and to establish his bona fides as a stand-up guy.

"Come on," he said, swatting Moose on the back. "He's gonna need some help."

"But he told us to stay here," a young female sailor protested. Quite a cutie, too, thought Davidson. These guys really knew how to fit out a ship.

"Yeah, well he won't be telling nobody nothing when he gets his fucking teeth kicked in. Listen up, would you? That's a real fucking fight out there, toots. Come on, Moose."

The sound of bedlam seemed to swell. There could be no doubt that a pitched brawl was under way. Slim Jim grabbed a small crowbar and dived out through the door, with Moose close behind on his heels. The three remaining sailors, all of them from the Leyte Gulf, hesitated for just a moment before following.

Slim Jim and Moose joined a general rush toward the mess where the fight had broken out.

"Watch my back," said Davidson. "But keep an eye out for that officer, too. We don't want him getting hurt."

"Why not?" Moose asked.

"Just fucking do it, okay."

They had to step on it. The melee had spilled into the passageway, and Carver was already at the edge of the fighting. Davidson could see that he didn't have the first idea about mixing it up in a real street brawl. He was actually trying to haul a couple of guys off someone.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," muttered Slim Jim.

The confined space roared with a tribal savagery. Men and women from both ships were mixed in together, punching, biting, kicking, swinging wildly. Slim Jim saw a guy he recognized from the Astoria, one of the apes from the boiler room, turn and swing at Ensign Carver. The much smaller officer was knocked right off his feet, and slammed into a bulkhead. His attacker, a brute with arms like tree trunks, grinned and pushed him back into the wall.

Maloney, that's his name, thought Slim Jim. Stupid fucking mick.

Stoker Maloney grabbed hold of Carver's throat and pinned the ensign down. He cocked one giant fist back behind his ear, ready to drive it right through the man's head, just as Slim Jim reached him.

"Hey, asshole," Davidson called out.

Maloney smiled at Slim Jim, who raised the crowbar and whipped it down on the arm that restrained Carver. The smile disappeared as the man's bones broke with a sick, wet crack. His dark features turned gray, then white. A look of terrible confusion came into his eyes just before Slim Jim lashed him across the forehead with the heavy iron bar. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he started to slump to the floor. Moose grabbed hold of him and heaved the deadweight down the corridor. The three sailors who'd followed Davidson and Molloy out of the office nearly tripped over the body.

"You all right, sir?" asked Slim Jim.

Carver coughed twice and struggled to draw breath, finally settling on a quick nod.

"Let's break 'em down, Moose," Davidson yelled, as he swung the crowbar at yet another of his own shipmates.

Moose commenced laying in to the heaving mob with great, looping swings of his fists.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Slim Jim flinched and turned quickly at the sound of Chief Eddie Mohr's bellow.

"I might have fucking known," he growled, as Slim Jim caught his eye.

Mohr had arrived with Captain Anderson, her own chief-Conroy or Condon, or something-and a couple of those scary-looking bastards in SS outfits. They weren't toting those weird guns of theirs, but they had something just as worrying-long black sticks with a small metal prong at the end. Slim Jim's eyes bulged a little when he realized that there were sparks jumping between the prongs.

Anderson's CPO calmly touched his baton to a tall, muscular sailor off the Astoria. He jerked rigidly, as though he'd been electrocuted, then dropped to the deck, unconscious before he hit. Or maybe even dead.

The two black-clad storm troopers started zapping people at the edge of the fray. The result was the same every time. They'd go stiff as a board and then fall in a heap.

"No, don't!" Slim Jim cried in genuine fear as Mohr advanced on him. Some idiot had given him one of those things. He was getting ready to cave in the chief's skull with the crowbar when Ensign Carver laid a restraining hand on Mohr's shoulder.

"It's okay, Chief. He was helping me break up the fight."

Mohr appeared to have real trouble overcoming his momentum. He really wanted to jab Slim Jim with that electric prod. But Captain Anderson laid another hand on his arm.

"Knock it off, you jerks," she yelled. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."