six with her blaster as they approached the armed crowd surrounding the water barrel. The octopod’s head was at the bottom, and its arms roiled like a snake mating ball at the surface. No one wanted to get close to it.
“Get Gallondrunk!” Sweet Marie shouted. “He’ll pin that squid in the barrel stem to stern with that walrus lance of his! Then we chop it up proper!”
This suggestion was met with great enthusiasm.
“Belay that!” Oracle ordered. The crew parted before him. “Mr. Manrape, I want a section of grating lashed to the top of that barrel. Put a guard on it. And get Boiler and Skillet out of the med and into the galley. They’ve been nursing their wounds long enough.”
Manrape looked quizzical for the first time in Ryan’s experience. “Aye, Captain.”
“That beast is a hundred kilos if it’s an ounce, and our stores are spoiling. We need meat if we are going to make it across the ’Quator.”
The crew seemed pleased with the idea, and men and women began whispering about calamari and the delights of Brazil.
Oracle turned back for the quarterdeck. “And Mr. Forgiven could use some fresh ink. Speaking of which, Purser, rate Mr. Ryan ordinary seaman.”
J.B. worked. The good ship Glory was short on blasters. The majority of the weapons in the armory were typical, home-rolled, break-open, single-shot longblasters and pistols. The Glory had standardized on .45 caliber, and they had molds and enough lead to make thousands of bullets, and they could fire black powder or smokeless with equal facility. They punched primers out of predark coins that could be found anywhere.
Cases were the main problem. They had no machinery on board to extrude scavenged brass or aluminum. Smithy had to do it by hand. They were saving and reloading old cases, and by the buckets of split cases at J.B.’s feet some had been reused far too many times than was safe. The sharpshooters in the tops had assiduously cared for predark hunting longblasters of .308 and 30-06 caliber. Reloading them was even more problematic. A number of the crew had personally acquired arms taken as booty or acquired otherwise, which were stored in the blaster room, but most of those had but a handful of shells left to them after the last battle.
What they also had was several crates of blasters in various states of disrepair that were beyond Gunny’s knowledge or ability to fix. They kept those to sell for their parts in ports of call. J.B. liked Gunny, and Gunny liked him. They were men of similar minds. Unfortunately, what Gunny most understood was black powder and muzzle-loading cannons. Between him and Smithy, they could produce the simple springs, hinges and screws to keep the primitive blasters serviceable. The gas systems, trigger groups and bolt assemblies of predark semi-automatic blasters and assault weapons were beyond their skill.
They were not beyond J.B.’s.
The Armorer had disassembled every last waste weapon, made a list of things he felt Smithy could handle, requisitioned his tool kit and gone to work. If J.B. hadn’t liked Gunny already as a brother armorer, the fact that Gunny didn’t pull rank but instead watched with awe, asked intelligent questions and eagerly helped in whatever capacity he could won J.B.’s admiration. J.B. finally rose from the worktable and nearly hit his head on the low deck beam above. He sat back down and checked his chron. They had been at it for eleven hours straight. He and Gunny had cannibalized ten broken and corroded AKs and produced two that might function through another battle or two, though they only had enough ammo for slightly less than a mag each. Six M-16s had produced one working longblaster. Strangely enough they had nearly a case of 5.56 mm ammo but only one serviceable magazine. Several scatterguns and a few handblasters were now also in temporary working order.
Gunny shook his head in delight at the bonanza of working blasters. “Oh, that shines, J.B.!”
The Armorer stretched. He sighed as he felt familiar strong hands start to knead his shoulders. Mildred spoke low from behind him. “Hey.”
He looked up and smiled at her. “Hey.”
“How’s it going?”
“Did some good work today.”
Mildred smiled indulgently at the gleaming weapons. “I can see that.”
“How’s it in the med?” J.B. asked. He’d heard the screaming all through the night.
Mildred’s face went tight. “Doc was right. The octopods were poisonous. Whatever Bonesaw’s using for antivenin might work on snakes, but no one bit last night lived. We lost fifteen. The sucker wounds were ugly and prolific. Ryan’s covered with them, but none are deep and none are going septic.”
“How you and Bonesaw getting along?”
“Well, first off, the ship’s healer is named Bonesaw. That tells you something right there.”
“Bad?”
Mildred made a grudging noise. “He can plug a bullet hole. His sewing isn’t bad, and he’s actually pretty good at setting bones. Those octopus arms snapped a few. He’s got some interesting herbals going on, but...”
J.B. knew Mildred well. “But that’s not what’s bothering you.”
“Bonesaw knows I’m more than just a healer.”
Gunny smirked. “Everyone does.”
J.B. knew everyone knew too. One of the problems the companions had was that just about any group they met who learned of Mildred’s talents were reluctant to let her go, some violently so. “You got a little bossy about the wounded up top.”
“Yeah, well there’s this Hippocratic Oath thing of mine, J.B. Just isn’t made for this brave new world of yours.”
“How’s Jak, Ricky?”
Mildred made a face. “Jak’s fine.”
J.B. let out a long breath. “Ricky?”
Mildred’s face twisted into an expression the Armorer was genuinely afraid of. “Bad enough the ship’s healer’s name is Bonesaw! But the bosun’s name is Manrape. J.B., the kid’s ass is on the line and you better do something!”
J.B. looked Gunny in the eye. He hated asking for favors, but he asked now. “Ricky’s an armorer, not as good as me but better than you, and he’s an accomplished machinist. This ship needs him.”
“And he’s becoming an able top man,” Gunny replied. “He can do all three wearing a dress.”
J.B. stopped just short of reaching for the closest loaded blaster. “I can steal ten blasters while you’re cleaning your monocle. I’ll cut Manrape to shreds.”
“And you can’t imagine what will be done to you, but you can imagine Mildred weeping while she watches.”
“You’d let that happen?”
“You’ve seen Manrape. Have you known anyone so fast? Anyone so strong? He is a demigod among us and a demon in battle.”
J.B. had met several demigods and demons, self-professed and otherwise. Manrape was admittedly something of a juggernaut
“This ship is in trouble, matey. When the final battle comes, we’ll need him more than you and all your lot put together.” Gunny looked away. “Sacrifices have to be made, mebbe.”
Mildred pleaded. “J.B.!”
“The officers, do they keep their weapons separate?”
Gunny nodded. “Aye, they do.”
“Tell the captain I want to strip, clean, polish and tune every one of them, and tell him I need to requisition Ricky for it while you and I go over the cannons.”
“Aye.” Gunny chewed at his mustache. “I can do that. It will just prolong