The Guns of Two Space: Chapter Two

Meeting Engagement: “She Opened Fire at Seven Miles”

    Now the Fang began the slow dance of death with her four consorts. It would take hours, maybe even days for this stately ballet to play out. The first encounter would be a meeting engagement, with both Ships moving straight toward each other. After that Melville planned to make a run for it, with the enemy strung out behind him in a long stern chase.

    The first Guldur Ship would be upon them soon enough, but there was time for the captain to visit every gun, place a hand on each shoulder, and call each sailor by name. He began on the upper gun deck, working counterclockwise from the quarterdeck. The guns were organized into four batteries, each under the command of an officer. The redside upper battery consisted of one 24-pounder and three 12-pounders. The first gun on the redside was a gleaming, brass 24-pounder, nicknamed Malicious Intent by its crew. Then came three black, iron 12-pounders, Bad Ju-Ju, Sue-Sue, and Deep Doo-Doo, all surrounded by their proud crews. These four guns formed the upper redside battery under the command of Midshipman Lao Tung.

    Each crew was fiercely proud of their 24-pounder’s savage spirit but they were also somewhat in awe of it, so it was reassuring to have their captain and master gunner come by to give them an encouraging word.

    As he approached the bow of the Ship Melville came to Sudden Death, a 24-pounder that was ordinarily on the greenside, but had been moved up to the bow gunport in preparation for the coming head-on battle. Moving on around to the greenside, there were Assault and Battery, the two 12-pounders in the upper greenside battery. Then there was the gap where Sudden Death had been moved from, followed by Cold Blooded Murder, another of the vicious 24-pounders. These four guns were under the command of Lt. Buckley Archer.

    Melville looked with sorrow at the spot occupied by Bad Ju-Ju, which was designed to take a 24-pounder but was currently filled with a 12-pounder. Then he looked with equal sadness at the gap that had been left when Sudden Death was moved to the bow.

    When they had captured the Fang there were eight of the brass 24-pounders aboard. Melville and his officers were amazed by the size of these guns. For centuries everyone had believed that the nature of two-space ‘technology’ limited the practical size of any Ship or gun. It was not possible to build a gun that could throw a cannon ball bigger than 12 pounds, and it was not feasible to build a Ship with a Keel any longer than their Fang. There were smaller Ships and guns, but none larger.

    These 24-pounders were the Guldur ‘secret weapon’ – a cannon with a throw weight twice as large as anything anyone had ever seen before. But the Guldur had apparently been limited in their production capacity, and on all their Ships they had left the bow and stern gunports empty, with a system of ‘tracks’ in the deck to move the guns to those positions. In an ideal world the Fang would have had four more 24-pounders, to fill the upper and lower gunports in the stern and the bow. In Melville’s mind those absent guns felt like missing teeth to a probing tongue.

    To aggravate the situation, the Sylvans on Osgil had insisted on taking two of his 24-pounders! Oh, they had paid for those guns, and paid well, in money, honor, and political support. And they had replaced them with some of the finest 12-pounders in the galaxy. But Melville still hated to see two more ‘gaps’ in his ‘teeth.’

    To say that he looked with ‘sorrow’ or ‘sadness’ at the spots where a 24-pounder should sit was not quite accurate. He did feel those emotions, but at times like this what he felt could be better described as a lust. He yearned for a full compliment of guns for his Ship like some men covet women or wealth. And if this battle turned out the way he hoped it would, soon he would have a few more 24-pounders to fill some of those gaps, and he would have a few of the Guldur Ships to contribute to the Navy of Westerness. That would teach the bastards to attack him and his Ship!

    Meanwhile, the crew of the Fang had compensated for the shortage of 24-pounders by putting 12-pounders everywhere that they would fit. The number of spots where they could put a 12-pounder was limited by the deck space taken up by their four cutters, and the long recoil on the 24-pounders combined with the tracks needed to shift those huge guns to the gunports in the bow and stern. Still there was room for two 12-pounders in each of the stern cabins, and two more on each of their upper and lower broadsides. And there were two additional 12-pounders replacing the 24-pounders taken by the Sylvans.

    The upshot of it all was that the Fang currently carried fourteen 12-pounders and six 24-pounders. On any other human, Sylvan or Dwarrowdelf Ship in the galaxy, the 12-pounders would be the primary armament. Aboard the Fang the 12-pounders took second place, a distant second, to the devastating, malignant power of the 24-pounders. Especially when they were being fired by Melville. Those damned guns were deadly... there just weren’t enough of them to satisfy their captain.

    Melville was intimately aware of the fact that they could all be killed. The slightest error or misjudgment on his part could mean that his friends and his Ship – all the people who looked to him for survival and existence – would die horrible deaths. They were all, all his responsibility. Not just them, but their families and their nation depended upon him. And that responsibility weighed heavily upon his soul at moments like this, for he had learned to love his crew with a deep devotion of a type and intensity that few men could ever comprehend.

    At moments like this the sentiment that a man has for a woman, even for his wife, paled in comparison to this love.

    They were a family that had been forged in blood and flames, in tears and death, in victory and sorrow. Shakespeare had said it well, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” And sisters. His job was to protect his brothers and sisters, his family.

    He had seen them die. He had led them to their deaths and they had trusted and obeyed him to the end. He had held them in his arms as they died...

    The desire to protect them, prepare them, lead them, and equip them, to the utmost of his ability, was a burning need within him. A lust, a yearning.

    As the battle approached Melville ached for the resources that would help them to survive in battle, like a drowning man craves air. He would fight and struggle and do absolutely anything, up to the limits of his honor, and his duty to his higher authority, in order to get the resources that his Ship and his people needed to survive. And that meant more of those damned, deadly, rabid, magnificent, vicious, wonderful, savage 24-pounders.

    So Melville heaved a sigh as he looked at the spots where a 24-pounder could go, and then he stepped into the captain’s cabin, where all of his possessions had been neatly stowed and two 12-pounders were pointed out of the Fang’s stern. Both the upper and lower stern cabins had been stripped of internal partitions and furniture so that the two 12-pounders in each cabin could be manned without obstruction. These two guns had been named Mike and Ike by their crews, who stood proudly by as their captain greeted and spoke with each of them. For administrative purposes they were considered to be part of Lt. Archer’s battery, but their position here made it difficult for Archer to properly supervise the guns. So McAndrews, the captain’s steward, assumed supervisory responsibility for these two guns and their crews.

    Under ordinary circumstances the gun crews slept and ate around their guns. The guns were their home, their turf, their little piece of the Ship. But the upper stern cabin was the captain’s sleeping room and office, and the lower cabin was taken up by their hospital. So these crews could only be with their guns when the Ship was cleared for action. Normally the captain’s steward kept the cannons neatly covered with tidy drop cloths, using them as a kind of combination sideboard and credenza. Thus it was McAndrews who spent the most time with these guns and it was only proper that he should have some degree of responsibility for them.

    Throughout his inspection tour Melville was like a mother duck followed by a row of ducklings. Immediately behind him was Mr. Barlet, the Ship’s master gunner. As they came to each battery, the battery commander fell in behind Mr. Barlet. And then behind them came Melville’s coxswain, Ulrich, and his Sylvan bodyguard, Grenoble, subtly jostling each other for position.

    This was a line of deadly, dangerous ducklings indeed, and when it came to laying and firing the big guns, Mr. Barlet was the deadliest of them all. The crafty warrant officer was as black as a gun barrel and just as hard, with a true genius for long-range gunnery. When Melville first met the man he had been ramrod stiff. But since then Barlet had learned to relax with his captain, confident in his position and his mastery of the guns. And now he had a relaxed attitude that belied his deadly competence.

    Finishing his tour of the upper gun deck, Melville moved to the hatch and went down the ladder to the hold with Barlet, Ulrich and Grenoble following along behind him. (On land this inclined ladder would have been called a staircase, but no such creature existed aboard a Ship.) As he went below decks the pull of gravity was greater with each step downward, and the sweet crisp air of two-space was replaced with the stuffy warm smell of confined humanity. At the bottom he was on the deck just inches above the plane of Flatland, where the gravity was approximately one and a half times that of Earth. The 1.5 gees pulled at him as he moved toward the hatch to the “lower” half of the Ship.

    On his way he stopped, dropped to one knee, and placed a hand on the Keel that ran the length of the Ship, like a large, glowing white log extending down the center of the deck from bow to stern. Through this physical contact he asked his Ship, <<Are you ready, my friend?>>

    <<Y E S! W E K I L L N O W!>> As always, the telepathic response filled him with deep kinship, as you would feel when you patted a large, powerful, and much beloved dog. The feeling filled to overflowing the gap in his soul that mankind has always reserved for his dog companions. This was combined with a faintly alien undertone of eagerness and battle lust that thrilled him to his soul.

    <<Yes,>> he replied, <<we’ll teach those bastards a lesson they will never forget.>>

    <<P L A N?>>

    Then Melville told Fang the plan. The plan was good, but his past successes had lead Melville to expect more of himself. Most men would do what they could and say it was ‘good enough.’ But he was not satisfied with that. The question that he always asked himself – and his officers and his Ship – was, “Could anything more be done? What more can we do?” So Melville and Fang worked and gamed out the coming battle, refining bits and pieces of strategy and tactics between them, communicating in a realm beyond words

    <<Y E S!>> concluded Fang afterward with wolf-like joy. <<G O O D P L A N!!>>

    Melville gave one last pat to the Keel, to his Ship, his friend, then he stood up and – with a tiny “Eep!” of joy from his monkey – dove headfirst into the open hatchway beside the Keel. As his body cleared the plane of two-space what was ‘up’ became ‘down’ and he was upright and pulling himself out of the hatch, on the other side of the galaxy, with 1.5 gees tugging at him. Then he moved up the ladder to the one standard gravity of the lowerside gun deck.

    As he came onto the deck Gunny Von Rito fell in beside Mr. Barlet, with Ulrich and Grenoble again filling in the rear. This part of the Ship was almost an exact replica of the one he had just left. In fact, it would have been easy to get mixed-up as to whether you were on the upper or lower side (which could be confusing and even deadly during combat or precision maneuvers) except that the sailors of two-space had two things helping to keep them oriented. One was the fact that the constellations were completely different, with the Netted Stars hanging above the upperside in stunning splendor, and the magnificent pinwheel of Andromedia floating above the lowerside. But this was not always easy to spot through the array of yards, spars and canvas sails that were usually spread above the Ship.

    The other way to tell that this was the ‘lower’ side of the Ship was the railing. On the upper deck the redside was on the right, or starboard side of the Ship, and the greenside was on the left or port. The railing on both side was painted the appropriate color, one of the few places on the entire Ship where the wood was covered with paint rather than the vital, life giving Moss. On the lower deck this was reversed. Thus, in two-space, you never talked about turning the Ship to the left or right, or port or starboard. You always turned to the green or redside.

    Stepping up out of the hatch on the lower gun deck, Melville turned aft to the nearest guns, located on the greenside, and moved around the deck counterclockwise. Gunny Von Rito and Mr. Barlet were old friends and Shipmates who had weathered many battles together with their captain, but they were still like mother hens in their concern that something might be amiss with their gun crews. Melville was not out to play ‘gotcha’ with his seasoned old master gunner and his gunnery sergeant, but it was his job to spot anything that might be even remotely awry with their preparation for the coming battle. In the end, though, he found only a competent, eager group of warriors, in a state of splendid readiness.

    The aftmost gun on the greenside was a 24-pounder nicknamed simply, Rabid, which could have applied to any of those big brass guns. Then came three 12-pounders, Larry, Moe, and Curly. These four guns were the lower greenside battery, under the command of Lt. Jarad Crater.

    At the bow gunport was a 24-pounder named Cuddles, a particularly nasty piece of work, even for these guns. Naming this gun ‘Cuddles’ might have seemed incongruous, or perhaps an attempt at reverse or understated humor, until you understood that Cuddles was the name of the Fang’s alpha male cat. Cuddles (the cat) was the most malignant, vicious, feral creature on the Ship. He was the alpha male in a long line of raping, incestuous, violent creatures. Many sailors liked cats, and some scorned them, but everyone feared Cuddles. And Cuddles’ namesake, jutting out the lower bow gunport like a great brass phallus, lived up to that spirit.

    Moving on around, Melville and the inspection party came to two 12-pounders, named Hugs and Kisses, then the gap where Cuddles went when it was part of the broadside, followed by their last 24-Pounder, Prudence. Prudence was named after the wife of that crew’s gun captain, McGowly, and the entire crew swore that Prudence (the wife) was to wives what Cuddles (the cat) was to cats. These four guns were under the command of Midshipman Abdyl Faisal.

    Then Melville popped into the lower stern cabin, where Monk and Ham, the two final 12-pounders, lay waiting. Usually this stern cabin was their hospital, but when the Ship was cleared for action the medical personnel shifted into the lower hold, and the guns were pointed out the stern gunports.

    As with the upper stern cabin, these gun crews did not usually have the opportunity to sleep and eat around their guns, and it was difficult to have one of the battery commanders supervise them from the gun deck. In this case it was Ulrich who had supervisory command. Whenever the stern guns had to fight, whenever there was a target behind them, Melville’s coxswain and his steward, Ulrich and McAndrews, had to drop their other responsibilities in order to provide supervision for these guns. Which was just fine with Melville. Those two were a couple of burdens, a pair of albatrosses around his neck, and he was happy for any additional responsibilities that gave him some relief from their sometimes overbearing attentions.

    With his inspection complete, satisfied that his Ship was in a state of complete readiness, Melville went forward to Cuddles and prepared to engage the enemy.

    “Mr. Barlet,” the captain said, turning to his master gunner, you can take charge of the upper gun deck. I’ll fire the first shot from here, then pop up to join you in the upper bow to fire the next shot. We will not fire until the enemy fires at us. I’ll have Lady Elphinstone, Brother Theo, Valandil, Westminster, Asquith, and Lt. Broadax with me as witnesses that we did not fire the first shot. When we get to Earth I want there to be absolutely no doubt that that the Guldur started this battle.”

    “Aye, sir,” Barlet replied with a scowl on his ebon face. “I hate to give ‘em the advantage, but if the curs follow their standard doctrine – and when did they ever do otherwise? – they’ll start firing as soon they think there is a chance of hitting us. Then we’ll have a hell of a surprise for them.”

    “Aye, Guns. Aye,” said Melville with a confident grin and a slow nod. “For them doctrine is almost a religion, but for us doctrine is your starting point — and then you improvise! So they’ll be out to slow us down enough for their friends to come gang up on us. They’ll want to knock down our sails and rigging, but I’ll be aiming to punch a ball into their Keel. We’ll be going for the kill on this one. So be ready for me to come join you right after Cuddles here says her piece.”

    “Aye, sir,” Barlet said with a salute as he departed.

    Melville returned the salute and turned to his coxswain. “Ulrich, get me Elphinstone, Brother Theo, Valandil, Westminster, Asquith, and Broadax, asap. And the first officer and the sailing master as well.”

    “Aye, sir! Da skurgeon, da pursker, da rangersk, da earthwurm, da marine el tee, da firsk osskifer, and da skailin’ masker, cumin’ up!”

    Cuthbert Asquith XVIII was standing beside Lt. Fielder on the lower quarterdeck. His tension was almost unbearable as the captain completed the inspection tour and the Fang began to approach the first Guldur Ship.

    The crew members were using this time to rotate into the ‘heads’ where they could drop their body waste into two-space. Even veteran warriors were experiencing the ‘stress diarrhea’ that almost always happened before combat, and they knew to take this opportunity. Otherwise, in the heat of battle it would turn into explosive stress diarrhea.

    Asquith could not tolerate the long, companionable silences that were so common among the crew. He had to talk, and so he turned to Fielder. “I guess everyone must be eager to put all that practice at shooting to work now. Ready for more death-defying feats, eh?” he asked.

    “You mean more not so death-defying feats,” scowled the first officer. “We’ve lost a lot of good men in our past battles and more will die today. Sometimes death won’t be defied. Let me put it this way. Take out a $50 gold piece.”

    The bewildered earthling put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a gold coin.

    “You got one?” Fielder continued grimly. “Good, good. Now let's make a bet. If I win, I get to keep all your money. If you win, you get to keep it. You like that bet?”

    “No, no. I... I don’t think so.”

    “Well, that is a gunfight. And that is combat. You risk everything, and you don't win anything. You just get to keep what you have. You can’t win an extra life, and you might lose the only one you have.”

    Asquith was turning white with fear and Fielder was beginning to feel just a tiny bit better, so he continued in this vein. “I don't care what flavor of gun you have. I don't care how well trained you are. There is always a chance you will lose everything. That is combat. So avoid it, at all costs. But if you can’t avoid it, then by God you better be good. And as warriors – sailors, marines, rangers – it is, unfortunately, our job to go in harm’s way, and we would be very, very foolish warriors if we were not ready for the moment of truth. In the end, the steely confidence that comes with training, and a firm willingness to blow your potential opponent’s brains into a fine pink mist will hopefully serve as a sufficient deterrent.”

    Fielder’s brand of misery did love companionship, and the first officer continued with a grim smile. “This time deterrence didn’t work. The enemy is attacking, and we don’t have any choice except to fight. So we fight. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to keep our lives. Maybe. But if you are not lucky you could be smashed into a bloody mass by a cannon ball, or blown out into Flatland where you’ll bounce once and then pop into interstellar space, to die a horrible death in the cold, airless vacuum.”

    Asquith looked like he was ready to vomit with fear and nausea, but Fielder was feeling quite a bit better. In the midst of his gloom, seeing someone who was even more frightened than himself always created a small sunbeam of satisfaction that was completely undimmed by any sense of shame.

    Just then Ulrich came and stood at the foot of the ladder leading up to the quarterdeck. “Cap’kin says firsk osskifer an’ da earthwurm ta repork ta him in da lower bow. Sir.” Then he sketched what might generously be considered a salute as he turned to get the others that the captain had sent for.

    “Well,” said Fielder, not bothering to return a salute to Ulrich’s rapidly departing back, “it looks like you’ll have a front row seat for all the ‘fun,’ eh?”

    “Shipmates,” Melville began, “I’ve brought you here as witnesses that we did not start this battle. We will not fire until they fire at us, and if they do not fire we’ll be perfectly content to go on about our business. If they fire – and I don’t think they came out here just to give us a big wet kiss – then I would like to have you on hand to bear witness. An esteemed Earth ambassador,” this was said with a respectful, open handed gesture to Asquith, and the captain’s demeanor coupled with his exaggeration of Asquith’s position seemed to make the little man stand a bit taller and prouder, “a widely respected Sylvan surgeon,” this was said with a slight bow toward Lady Elphinstone, and she nodded back with solemn dignity and perhaps a twinkle of humor in her eyes, “a man of the cloth,” to which Brother Theo, their purser, gave a dignified nod with just a hint of self mockery in it, “two members of the Regiment of Rangers, one of them a Sylvan,” the two rangers nodded with wry grins, “and a lieutenant of marines who is also a Dwarrowdelf,” to which Broadax pulled her lips back to expose her teeth and then took a long drag on her cigar, “will all be able to testify that we did not fire first. And I don’t think that there is anyone on Earth or all of Westerness who would dare to call you all liars.”

    There were nods and confirmations all around on this point, which was reinforced by the solemn nods of the monkeys that sat on their shoulders. Only Asquith did not have a monkey, and his repeated gulps and nods made up for the deficiency. Then Melville turned to his first officer and sailing master. “Mr. Hans, you will take over the upper quarterdeck. Lt. Fielder, you have the conn from the lower quarterdeck. Assuming that they fire, I plan to bore straight into them and sink them long before we have to pass, but if they’re still afloat when we meet them, then let us attempt to pass with our redside facing them.”

    Fielder and Hans nodded, and then Melville continued. “Very well, any questions? No? Then if my witnesses will please stand in the fo'csul here, and Lt. Fielder and Mr. Hans report to your stations, I think it is about time to expect some incoming mail from our Guldur neighbors. God bless you all, my friends, and may God bless our Ship and our endeavors.”

    “Amen,” said Brother Theo.

    “Aye,” replied Broadax. “An’ God damn them Guldur bastards.”

    “Amen to that,” drawled Westminster with a nod and a wink as Melville got into position to fire Cuddles.

    The 24-pounders were the Guldur secret weapon, but the Guldur had not figured out how to fire these guns with any accuracy. With any pistol, rifle or 12-pounder in two-space, you fired the gun by sighting it, and then touching the glowing Keel charge at the base of the weapon when you were ready to fire. When you touched the weapon off, you were actually in empathic contact with the Keel, and a good marksman learned how to ‘tell’ the gun where to shoot, in addition to physically aiming the barrel in the conventional manner. To aim a 12-pounder you stood well to the side of the gun and leaned forward to aim down the barrel, in an awkward, hunched over position, so that when you touched the Keel charge the gun would not hit you as it recoiled violently.

    The 24-pounders were so huge that you could not aim and fire them without being crushed by the recoil. The Guldur dealt with this problem by sighting down the barrel, getting the gun aimed at the target, then stepping back and touching the Keel charge at the base of the barrel. The problem was that this lost a lot of the accuracy. As their master gunner, Mr. Barlet, put it, “You’re always firing from old data when you shoot that way. And you can’t ‘guide’ the shot home, you can’t ‘tell’ the gun where to shoot. I just don’t know how else to put it, but the bottom line is that the Guldur are only getting about half the potential accuracy from the guns.”

    So Barlet designed something that was the Fang’s ultimate weapon. They built a platform that went up and partially over the gun. The gun captain laid on this platform and sighted down the barrel, so that when he touched the top of the Keel charge it recoiled harmlessly beneath him. This truly was a ‘secret’ weapon. The gunner’s platforms had been struck down in the hold whenever they were in port, and the crew all understood the necessity of keeping this a secret from the Guldur.

    By using this platform the Fang’s gunners could fire their 24-pounders with a degree of accuracy that the Guldur never dreamed was possible. But the guns were even more accurate when the master gunner, Mr. Darren Barlet, fired them.

    The 12-pounders had the intelligence of puppies and the 24-pounders were as smart as wolves – rabid wolves. Whether puppies or wolves, Mr. Barlet was their pack master, their alpha male, and they obeyed him. His men joked admiringly that they could lay him on a gun carriage and put a cannonball in his mouth, and he would command it to seek the enemy. The ball wouldn’t dare disobey. In essence, that was exactly what he did, commanding the cannon to hit and making it obey, just as a good dog handler would command his dog.

    When the captain fired the 24-pounders he placed one hand on the white, Moss-covered platform and the other hand touched off the Keel charge in the cannon, completing a circuit with his Ship to form a devastating, three-part ‘totality’ of death and destruction that completely transcended anything that even Mr. Barlet could achieve. Barlet may have been the ‘pack master’ but Melville was the ‘husband’ of the Ship herself, the only one with intimate relations, and when the Ship was channeled through Melville into the guns, it was like some two-space demigod was telling the guns where to fire. No mere mortal could ever match that ferocious precision.

    Now Melville lay over Cuddles, ready to fire while her crew stood patiently by, prepared to reload and bring the gun back into battery. The gunport was off center, leaving the fo’c’sle (the area in the very point of the bow) free for the witnesses, who were all watching carefully, taking their responsibility seriously. Asquith tried to take his cue from the individuals around him. He felt that it was important not to embarrass himself among these people. In particular, he found himself concerned about making a good impression on the beautiful, alien, Lady Elphinstone, standing so regally in her yellow dress. Out of kindness to the men who might soon be under her knife, she had left her starched white apron and cap in the hospital. No man wanted to disgrace himself before a beautiful woman, and Asquith found himself rising to new levels of self control and restraint.

    Although two-space was perfectly flat, it did tend to have an effect which gave the illusion of a curved surface – perhaps because the pull of gravity bent the light waves. Thus there was a real horizon, and distant objects could be over the horizon and out of sight, just like on a planet.

    From the upper and lower sides of the Fang the view of the enemy Ships had been the same. At first the upper sails of the four approaching Ships were seen by lookouts from atop the mainmast. By the time Melville and Fielder had finished their discussion on the quarterdeck, the tactical situation had changed enough to be visible from the deck. The oncoming Guldur Ship’s hull could now be clearly seen from the Fang’s main deck, while the two Ships closing in from their flanks had nearly all of their sails visible. Due to the Fang’s superior speed they were actually pulling away from the fourth Ship, which was directly to their rear and could not be seen from the deck.

    For Melville it seemed like an age as he lay over the great gun. It was a long, drawn-out moment of unmoving crystal clarity, almost like a painting. The enemy Ship framed in the gunport, a thing of breathtaking beauty beneath a pyramid of sails. The barebacked sailors crouching beside the gun with handspikes, their gun captain concentrating grim-faced beside them. The white glow of the Ship’s exposed wood illuminating everything with sparkling beauty. And above all the beautiful purity of the stars and galaxies that hung above them, contrasted by the deep royal blue of two-space beneath them.

    Then they saw the approaching Guldur Ship fire a shot from the lower bow gunport. Above them the ball made a series of popping sounds as it cut a perfect round hole through their spritsailtopsail, foresail, mainsail, and mizzensail, severing some of the rigging on the way.

    “No one hit!” cried the bosun from the rigging. “We’re already making repairs!”

    From the upper quarterdeck a report was called down to Fielder through the voice tubes, and he relayed it to the captain in the bow. “They fired and missed completely on the upperside!”

    Melville nodded and looked at his assembled witnesses. “My friends, do we have a consensus that they have fired, and that our response from this point on will be in self defense?”

    There was a chorus of ayes, a “Damned right!” from Broadax, a solemn nod from Lady Elphinstone, and a gulp and a nod from Asquith. Then Melville looked down the barrel of his gun and said quietly, “Then you’d all best be off to your duty stations. Oh, and Brother Theo, please ask the first officer to note it in the log: the enemy has fired upon us, and we are returning fire in self defense. Mind the recoil as you leave.” His monkey clung to his shoulder and stretched its neck out so that it could also look down the barrel.

    Asquith started to wander into the recoil of the gun but the gun captain quickly shuttled him to the side with a few tut-tuts. “Ol’ Cuddles’l smash ya like a bug if ya was to go over there, sir.”

    The young captain felt his heart pounding against his breastbone like a hammer. Sweat trickled down his back, but his mouth was bone dry. His hands were cold and clammy, as his body shut down the blood flow to the outer layer of muscles in anticipation of taking damage. This was known as vasoconstriction, and it was the body’s method of preventing blood loss. But it also caused loss of fine motor control since the muscles weren’t getting blood, and Melville began taking deep, controlled breaths to get it under control. He knew from experience that once the battle started he’d be fine, but the anticipation was hell and his combat breathing was the tool to get it under control.

    Melville gazed along the barrel. The elevation was right, that had been carefully calculated ahead of time, but to point it true he made tiny jerks of his head to the men with the crow on one side and the handspike on the other. With these tiny, last minute corrections complete, Melville kept his left hand in contact with the Moss on the platform, let out his breath in a sigh, and reached down lovingly, caressingly with his right hand to stroke the Keel charge of the long brass 24-pounder.

    <<Yes!>> Cuddles cried out in his mind and then, “Cha-DOOM!!” the gun roared as Cuddles screamed <<SmashDie!!>> in his head and the instantly recoiling gun shot inboard beneath him. A flashing stab came from the gun combined with a concussion, the shriek of the deadly recoil, and a harsh smell of ozone in the air as though they were discharging lightning bolts, all accompanied by a copper taste in the mouth.

    Melville and the gun’s crew were scarcely aware of the enormous ringing crack, the flash of light and the stink of ozone. Auditory exclusion shut out the sound of the shot, just as a hunter shuts out the sound of his shot when he drops a deer, and all the other violent manifestations were taken for granted. They rammed home a new ball and wad, and then ran the piece out again with a squeal like some huge hog going to it’s death and ending with a satisfying thump as the gun came into battery. The crew’s motions, though extremely rapid, precise and powerful, were so automatic that most of them had time to see the flight of their ball and the fountain of wood as it smashed a gaping hole low in the enemy’s bow.

    Melville paused just long enough to see the ball hit and then, accompanied by a chorus of cheers, he rolled off the platform, landed like a cat and departed without a word. With his monkey clinging tightly to his back, he trotted to the hatch, slid down the ladder into the hold and landed with flexed knees in the 1.5 gees. He stepped quickly to the hatch that led to the upperside, dove head first into the open hatch, went up the ladder, and in a matter of seconds he had gone from the lowerside bow to the upperside bow, where Sudden Death lay waiting for him.

    Again he mounted the platform and took aim, with his monkey craning to look down the barrel as well. Again the huge brass cannon screamed, <<Yes!>> “Cha-DOOM!!” <<KillHurt!!>> And again a hole was smashed into the enemy’s bow and a cheer rose up from the Fangs and their monkeys. And once again auditory exclusion shut out the sound of the shot. But he could not shut out the vicious, savage scream of the gun in his brain. It made his mind ring like a bell. It made his soul ring with a fierce, feral, angry, alien yearning for death and destruction.

    Both above and below, a hole was already smashed in the bow of the enemy’s Ship. If he could put one of the 24-pound balls through that hole and into the enemy’s Keel, the Ship and everyone aboard her would die almost instantly. Almost. There would be a few seconds as the horrible certainty of their fate sunk in.

    Of course, the same thing could happen to them. Melville and his crew, his friends, his family could also die. He had not asked for this battle. The enemy had sought him. They had hunted him down and they planned to kill him and his brothers. It was kill or be killed, and Melville was determined that it would not be him or his friends who died this day. Not this day.

    Almost without thought he found himself back on the lower gundeck, lying atop Cuddles. <<Yes!>> “Cha-DOOM!!” <<SmashDie!!>> the gun screamed in his ears and his brain. The gun crew’s initial nervousness was gone now, replaced by a sort of wild-eyed joy as they grinned at each other like children. This was not another drill. It was real, and they were firing in earnest at a real enemy. In that brief moment the crew, the Ship, her guns and her captain became one entity, one creature, focused with absolute, single-minded intensity upon the destruction of their foe.

    Because of the delay as her captain went back and forth between her guns, the Fang was firing slightly slower than her opponent, and the enemy was beginning to play havoc with their rigging. But ah, the precision, the deadly, precise placement of the Fang’s shots. As they closed with the enemy Ship its fire was like a shotgun blast in their rigging. But Melville’s fire was like a steady blows of an ax, cutting and hacking deep into the enemy’s heart.

    It was only a matter of time. It was only a question of how much damage the enemy could do to the Fang’s rigging before they died. For die they must. Die they would. And die they did.

    The Fangs all cheered as the enemy Ship began to sink. Melville had lost track of where he was and how many shots he had fired, but he felt this last, killing blow sink home.

    Above and below the plane of two-space the view was the same. First the Guldur Ship’s hull sank from view, then her mainsails, her topsails, and finally her topgallants disappeared. In the end there was only a short stub of her mainmast standing up, with a cluster of terrified Guldur and Goblan clinging to it, striving and fighting for a few last seconds of life. Then they too disappeared into the deep, cold depths of interstellar space.

    If they could have reached them the Fangs would have tried to rescue even the most despised enemy from this fate, but they were too far away. The only boats the Guldur carried were their jollyboats, and there wasn’t even time for the enemy to get those off.

    Every soul aboard the Fang shuddered to see hundreds of sentient creatures die such hideous deaths. Dying in the cold embrace of vacuum was every sailor’s fear. How did Tennyson put it? Melville thought. ‘Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.’ Tennyson was describing a woman, but those words well depicted the frigid, grand, ghastly, awesome nothingness of interstellar space, and men rightfully feared it.

    But Fang and her guns did not shudder at their enemy’s horrible death, they exulted. There was no pity in them, no empathy. And Melville shuddered anew as he felt the cold touch of those alien minds in his soul.

    Then Melville rolled off the platform and stood swaying. He put a hand on the shoulder of the man who stood beside him and hung his head, suddenly exhausted and panting with exertion.

    “A masterful piece of gunlaying, sir!” said the man with sincere appreciation and admiration, reaching over to slap the captain on the back.

    Melville turned to look at him, staring with blank eyes. Then he realized it was Cuddle’s gun captain. He was Jose Perrera. Li’l Jose. A stocky, bantam dynamo of a man, full of life and humor, with a wife and children waiting at home. Melville felt dazed and confused. Cuddles had fired the killing blow, and this man, this brother, was alive because of Melville. This man, and all his friends were alive. They were alive! And it felt good!

    Like a cleansing flood washing through his soul, Melville looked up at the stars and felt the life of his brother, Jose Perrera, beneath his hand. Melville felt this man’s happiness to be alive, to be victorious. He felt the joy of every living creature on his Ship, sent to him, transmitted to him by his Ship (his Ship, by God!) through his bare feet. For a brief instant he felt what it was like to be the Ship, in empathic contact with the whole crew. And, in turn, his Ship felt through him what it was like to be human and to rejoice in being alive. Without Fang Melville could not have felt the emotions of his crew, and without Melville Fang could not have comprehended the emotions.

    It is good to be alive the captain and his Ship told each other. And, by God, they intended to stay that way.

    As Melville stood, shaking with exhaustion and emotion, McAndrews put a mug of hot tea in his hand. All around him the gun crew was working feverishly, checking their equipment and refilling the shot garlands in preparation for the next battle. Melville smiled and nodded his thanks to McAndrew as he took a sip of tea, sweet with lots of lemon, just the way he liked it. His monkey reached out its accordion neck for a drink and he delighted in the little creature’s shudder as it sipped the hot, tart fluid. His steward was an unctuous, overbearing albatross around Melville’s neck, but, damn it, the man did have his moments.

    “Ah, sir, look what you’ve done to yer best uniform,” said McAndrews, mournfully. Melville looked at the friction burns on his pants from sliding down the ladders, and the rips where his jacket had been snagged as he rolled off the firing platforms of the guns, then he looked at McAndrews with a sigh. His steward didn’t really scold, he just slumped his shoulders and shook his head with a woebegone look on his face, as though the weight of the world had been placed on his shoulders due to his captain’s irresponsibility.

    “Ah, McAndrews. What would you do without me to fuss over?” he murmured as he took another sip of tea.