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Valentine stood on the prow of Cottonmouth Four, daring the tracers to intersect on him. Cottonmouth Two pushed a little ahead of Four on a turn, wetting him with spray, before Captain Coalfield opened her full out.
According to Pellwell, the ratbits had done their job and fixed the lines to each of the rudders. From there, they swam back to the boom. He'd warmed their tiny little bodies, hugging them tight while they chittered and gave him little thumbs-up gestures.
The Delta trailed soggy hulks like a puppy with tin cans tied to its tail. Its prow swerved this way and that under the drag. Catamarans were not famous for their ability to tow.
He could tell the river sailors were nervous at their guns. Coalfield was busy directing the boats, especially deciding on the key moment for the fire tug to get under way, so it was up to him to do something colorful.
He clambered up onto the slick cabin roof at the front of the racing boat and took hold of the fore anchor line.
"Hiy hiy hiy-yup!" Valentine hallooed to the line of boats, closing fast on the Delta. Not that they could hear him.
Some feral part of him lost itself in the yelling. If he yelled, he didn't think about the second stream of tracers emerging from the Delta, or the third, or what would happen in the next few seconds once the radar control on the guns corrected for wind and temperature.
Here it comes ...
Two streams converged, fast, ready to tear him and Cottonmouth Two into scrap, blood, and food for the catfish and gars.
Flowers of bullet-torn water closed on Cottonmouth Two as though a phantom horse approached. All Valentine could do was howl defiance, hanging on as Captain Coalfield worked his throttles to dart out of the way.
The streams lifted from the water, passed overhead with the low susurration of torn air.
Valentine forced himself to believe his eyes. The Delta lurched; one of the boom boats it was towing was hung up.
With the beast pinioned, Valentine played his floating trump card.
The fire tug motored forward, shielded by barges piled high with rusting containers full of sand. The Golden Ones had labored through the night, while Valentine was occupied on the river, filling the containers with tree limbs, driftwood, brush, rocks, anything that might stop or deflect a bullet once it punched through the thin side of the shipping container.
The Delta managed to get one gun pointed at the approaching hulk. A stream of fire lit up the glimmering dawn.
From across the water, Valentine heard the buzz-saw sound of bullets striking the containers.
But still the tug pushed on, absorbing the punishment of the cannon fire. All around it, river combat raged as the smaller craft tore each other to pieces with machine-gun fire. Valentine saw blood splattered on windscreens, dead men lolling at their guns, debris, dust, and splinters kicked up by bullets tearing through boat superstructure. Without the support of the big catamaran, Cottonmouth was winning, as two of the River Patrol boats had gone to the aid of the Delta.
It closed, and the fire nozzles started. The first few seconds of flow came limp and desultory, little more than a drinking fountain. Then the water went bright white, and arced up into the air over the barrier of container ships.
Three mighty jets of water fell across the Delta, with such force it pushed even the triple-hull of the catamaran over into a list.
The Delta crabbed sideways, pushed into the shallow banks and riverside snags.
Valentine saw two crewmen, caught on deck, swept overboard by the torrent.
The barge with its single container full of Grogs pushed forward, smaller boats whizzing around protectively.
It sidled up to the Delta under the arc of water, an oddly festive maneuver.
The fire tug shifted the flow of water, rather than cutting it off and having a few hundred gallons dropped on the boarders, knocking them down and interfering with their footing.
The boarders threw lines up and grapples fell across the rails of the catamaran. The barges were of such a height that the necks were nearly equal, and the handpicked Golden Ones and Gray Ones were more than equal to the task of bridging the gap with leap and grasp.
They splashed through the water still pouring off the decks and seized the guns. With the guns under control, the Delta was defanged. They could round up the remaining crew in a few minutes of blows.
Valentine watched figures drop over the side, chancing the Doublebloods on the Illinois shore over the fury of the Golden Ones.
They learned from captured crew members that the Delta had been rushed upriver by the Georgia Control. Somehow they'd learned of the approaching reinforcements for Western Kentucky, and decided to stop them weeks short of the target, in overland terms.
Coalfield was all too happy to transfer command of Cottonmouth to the big catamaran.
"Let's give it a new name," Valentine said.
