JET V - Legacy Read Free Page B

snapped, perfunctorily dismissing the mate. With his first real-life pirate attack imminent, he wasn’t in the mood to play twenty questions.
    Once outside, the salt wind lashing at his face, he looked around until he found a suitable spot where he could lie on the deck and fire while presenting as small a target as possible, as he’d been trained. It had been seven years since his service days, and a maritime exchange was different than firing at fighters in the desert, but the basics remained the same. A gun was a gun, even on a moving platform like a ship under way, and maintaining rigid control over your reactions was still essential, regardless of the turf.
    Ari was by his side three minutes later, an excited expression on his face, and handed him two spare magazines and a pistol.
    Barry raised the neoprene-sheathed binoculars, scanned the water, and pointed into the distance. “There they are. I can just make them out. They’re definitely hostiles. Boats are bristling with guns. And it looks like they’ve got binocs, too. Shit. They’re splitting up now. Probably going to try to get one on the starboard side while the other one takes the port. Tricky bastards, I’ll grant them that. They’ll try to approach more toward the stern. That’s what all the latest reports say is the standard M.O. What’s the range?” Barry asked.
    “About nine hundred meters. I’d give it another minute and then let them have a few rounds. That should put the fear of God into them. Oh, wow. They also have RPGs. Nice.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about the grenade launchers. Those things are all but useless over a hundred yards. Two hundred would be a prayer,” Barry said.
    “You want me to move to the other side?”
    “Nah. Not yet. I have a feeling this’ll be over before it starts.”
    “I wish the cheap pricks at the company had equipped us with Barretts and scopes. This kind of sucks. There’s nothing I hate worse than a fair fight,” Ari griped.
    “The scope wouldn’t have done you much good with the seas like this. They’re bobbing around pretty good, and we’re not exactly standing still. Besides, it won’t matter. Once they hear my rifle and see the bullets shredding the water around them, they’ll back off.”
    “Be nicer if we had a .50 caliber machine gun. That would make short work out of them.”
    “Or ack-ack guns. Like the Navy. Kaboom. Party over.”
    They waited as the ship continued plowing north, their nerves hyper-tuned by the prospect of their first real engagement. Barry squinted down the barrel of his assault rifle and prepared to fire.
    “Range?”
    “Maybe six hundred, but closing fast.”
    “That’s my guess too. All right. Let’s get this show on the road.”
    The stuttering report of the AKM echoed off the topsides as Barry fired four bursts at the nearer of the two boats, breaking his promise to himself to try to avoid hitting them with the warning volley. Once he was actually trying to sight the bucking rifle on the boats, he realized that he would be lucky to get within a dozen yards of the bouncing skiff.
    Ari peered through the glasses and then swallowed hard. “They aren’t turning.”
    “Shit. Dumbasses. Well, time to open up on ’em, then…”
    “Damn. And they don’t just have AKs. Now that they’re closer, I can make out some other weapons. Looks like at least one sniper ri–”
    A rain of slugs hammered the metal around them as the lead boat opened fire, eight guns blazing on full automatic, hurling hundreds of rounds at their position. Most slammed harmlessly above and below them, but one caught Barry in the neck and ripped through the side of his throat, sending a spray of arterial blood onto Ari’s face. Barry grunted as he dropped his rifle and clutched at the wound, his eyes surprised and then panicked, his life burbling through his hand as he groped blindly for his weapon.
    “Oh, God, Barry–” Ari’s expression had changed from eagerness to horrified