SNOW CRASH

A second zodiac whips past them on the other side, closer than the last one. Vie and Fisheye both hold their fire. They hear it orbiting them, swinging back around the way it came.

“Those two boats are getting together out there,” Vic says. “They got two more of them. A total of four. They’re talking.”

“We’ve been reconned,” Eliot says, “and they’re planning their tactics. The next time is for real.”

A second later, two fantastically loud blasts sound from the rear of the yacht, where Eliot is, accompanied by brief flashes of light. Hiro turns around to see a body collapsing to the deck. It’s not Eliot. Eliot is crouching there holding his oversized halibut shooter.

Hiro runs back, looks at the dead swimmer in the dim light scattering off the clouds, He’s naked except for a thick coating of black grease and a belt with a gun and a knife in it. He’s still holding onto the rope that he used to’pull himself onboard. The rope is attached to a grappling hook that has caught in the jagged, broken fiberglass on one side of the yacht.

“Third wave is coming a little early,” Eliot says, his voice high and shaky. He’s trying so hard to sound cool that it has the opposite effect. “Hiro, this gun’s got three rounds left in it, and I’m saving the last one for you if any more of these motherfuckers get on board.”

“Sorry,” Hiro says. He draws the short wakizäshi. He would feel better if he could carry his nine in the other hand, but he needs one hand free to steady himself and keep from falling overboard. I-ic makes a quick circuit of the yacht, looking for more grappling hooks, and actually finds one on the other side, hooked into one of the railing stanchions, a taut rope trailing out behind it into the sea.

Correction: It’s a taut cable, His sword won’t cut it. And the tension on the rope is such that he can’t get it unhooked from the stanchion.

As he’s squatting there playing with the grappling hook, a greasy hand rises up out of the water and grabs his wrist. Another hand gropes for Hiro’s other hand and grabs the sword instead.

Hiro yanks the weapon free, feeling it do damage, and hoyCSth wakizashi point first into the place between those two hands lust as someone is sinking his teeth into Hiro’s crotch. But Hiro s