by James Axler
A man in the crow's nest pointed to the south, Captain Draco bellowed orders, Lieutenant Giles cleaned his ax blade on a sleeve and the Delta Blue swiftly headed for its next victim.
Back on the shore, the soaked sentries lay in the warm sunlight to dry and to bask in their good fortune of being on watch when the treasure ship had sailed by their atoll. Soon the talk of the tired men became peppered with yawns, and gradually they drifted into a light sleep.
A slow hour passed, then two, and finally the slave sitting by the campfire dared to move. Rising from his kneeling position, he quietly went to a nearby tree. Brushing away some sand, he uncovered a flat piece of shale. Lifting it carefully, he exposed a shallow hole filled with a canvas bag. Untying the stiff twine that held the bag closed, he pulled out a double-barreled flintlock, plus a screw-top jar of shot and powder. Tears started to run down his face as he loaded the ungainly blaster and slid the two pieces of used flint into the receivers. It had taken him weeks to sharpen the worn rocks by rubbing them with a broken piece of granite stolen from the bilge of the pirate ship, but it had been worth the effort. The flint was perfectly shaped, twin stone daggers.
Standing erect for the first time in months, he painfully limped over to a pit in the ground. The smell was horrible, stomach twisting, but he refused to retch and wake the sleeping men. There was only one way off this island, and he would never have another chance.
"Honey?" he whispered, his throat scraped raw by the first words spoken in months. The masters didn't like chatty property, and his back bore the scars of their displeasure.
From within the reeking depths of the sewage pit, a mutilated thing turned its ruined face to the open sky, and in a barely audible voice, croaked a plea for death. The masters also didn't tolerate escape attempts, and there were many punishments hellishly worse than simple rape and torture.
The tears started anew as he lowered the blaster and cocked back the first hammer. "With all of my love, wife," he murmured, then fired. The voice from the pit stopped begging instantly.
On the beach, the sentries jumped erect, weapons at the ready.
"What the fuck was that?"
"Over there!"
Quickly the slave turned the blaster around, cocked the second hammer and placed the hot barrel into his mouth. It tasted bitter and metallic, and he thought briefly of the first day he saw his beloved wife. Then he pulled the trigger.
As his head exploded, the sentries stopped in their tracks.
"How the fuck are we gonna explain this to Draco?" the younger sec man shouted furiously. "That captain is going to lash us for days over letting two slaves escape. With a blaster yet!"
"Aye, Giles will do us personally," the older man said, his face a grim mask. "Only one explanation I can think of that might work. A slim chance, but all there is."
"Yeah?" the other asked hopefully. "What is it?"
"That I was patrolling the island when you fell asleep and let the slave steal a blaster."
"What?" the teenager shouted. "Gonna blame it on me?"
"No choice," the older man said in a flat voice, and slashed out with his knife. Gushing blood, the teenager reeled backward, his head almost completely severed from his body. Clutching at his neck, the dying youth stumbled about, then slipped and fell, tumbling into the spring, the red spreading out until tinting the entire pool.
"Sorry, my son." The man sighed, sheathing the blade. "But it was you or me."
Only yards away, the bound slave hanging from a tree branch began to shake, convulsing as he wildly thrashed in his bonds. For the hundredth time, he mentally relived that terrible night when he sold his own brother and his wife into slavery to purchase a blaster—only to also be taken into chains by the laughing pirates.
Silently the traitor began to cry as he realized nobody with a blaster was ever coming to set him free, and he would pay for that cowardly crime forever.
Chapter Nine
"Mr. Daniels! Steady as she goes," Captain Jones shouted from the main deck, through cupped hands.
Never releasing the wheel, Daniels nodded. "Aye, sir! Steady on course!"
"Follow this heading for another fifty miles. Then go ten degrees due east."
Startled, the sailor stared through the spokes of the wheel. "Fifty miles, sir?"
"We're heading for the river. Only way we're going to get our Connie back home."
Daniels swallowed hard. "Aye, skipper. Fifty it be."
Giving the man a casual salute, Jones walked past the mainsail and tugged on the ropes to make sure they were properly secured. Then he went to the cargo hatch to check that the lid was bolted tight. It was a four-deck drop from the main deck into the hold where they stored cargo, and he didn't want some damn fool peeking in for a look and getting chilled.
Satisfied for the moment, Jones went past the winches to the ragged hole in the ship's deck. Dressed in loose clothing, Abagail was directing the women to nail down strips of old tarpaulin across the opening, sealing it closed. The work was progressing nicely, so Jones saw no reason to interfere. Some skippers wanted to watch over everything like a chicken on an egg, which Jones though was triple stupe. Train sailors to only do as they were told, and in a real emergency they'd pause before acting and maybe sink the ship. Slaves and bootlickers should have no part in a crew. It took brains and balls to sail the seas. Jones paused, and mentally changed that to brains and heart.
Going to the farthest point away from their work, he looked down at the lower level of the ship. Smashed debris covered the gun deck, busted slats and bits of canvas everywhere. Working with brooms and shovels, Ryan and his friends were busy clearing away the trash, tossing the odd body part out the gun hatches and into the sea. Even their healer was helping.
"Ahoy, gun deck!" he shouted over the steady creaking of the pounding of the hammers. A ship was never silent, any more than a ville full of people. "What's your status!"
Hefting a shovel full of miscellaneous wreckage, Ryan glanced directly upward at the man. "Bad," he bellowed in reply. "Best come down and see!"
Jones frowned. That wasn't what he had wanted to hear. Going to the nearest hatchway, the captain followed the companionway to the gun deck, nearly breaking his neck when he tripped on a missing step. Working his trapped boot loose, he stomped through an open hatchway in sour humor. Twisted remains of iron hinges in the jamb still supported broken bits of planks. It had to have been a hell of a blast.
"What's the problem?" he demanded gruffly, glancing around. "The cannons look fine."
"Made of solid cast iron, of course they're undamaged," J.B. agreed, stepping out of a firing troth. "Need thermite to harm these blasters. And we got plenty of cannonballs, and rope for fuse."
Impatiently Ryan interrupted. "Most of the powder barrels were crushed by the concussion. We're lucky they didn't detonate and blow the ship into kindling."
The captain felt a surge of helplessness and forced it under control. Without her cannon for protection, an attacker would simply sail in close and fire a broadside that would tear them apart.
"No luck involved. Black Harry never kept the barrels near each other for just that reason," Jones growled, hooking thumbs into his belt. "Okay, how much we got left?"
"Roughly two hundred pounds," J.B. said solemnly. "Mebbe a little less."
The sailor was stunned. "Two hundred! Shitfire, man, that's not enough to load every cannon once!" Desperate, Jones gestured at the dirty floor. "Can we salvage any of this?"
"Not mixed with all this sawdust, sea salt, blood, brains and other crap," Krysty stated, leaning on her broom. "Be easier to make new."
"If only we could," the captain growled, his fists clenched.
The companions exchanged glances. J.B. started to speak, and Ryan cut him off with an abrupt hand gesture.
"Fucking black powder," the Deathlands warrior said in a consoling manner, hoping for a reaction.
"Fucking lord baron is more like it!" Jones spit furiously. "That fat son o
f a bitch guards the secret like his own balls! I once heard some asshole tried to sneak on to Maturo Island to steal the formula. The lord baron tortured him to death over a full year. A year!"
"Diabolical," Doc rumbled, clearly disgusted.
"Advertising," Mildred retorted hotly. "He did it as a warning to others."
"Aye, that it was. Good one, too. Not a soul has tried since."
"And what if somebody discovered the formula and started making their own?" Krysty asked casually.
Chewing a lip, J.B. remained stoically silent. "Make your own black powder," Jones breathed a few times before speaking. "Not worth the risk. Lord baron catch ya, it'd be the Arena."
This the companions understood. They had often been forced to fight in gladiatorial-type games for the amusement of barons or warlords.
"Not afraid of death," Ryan countered gruffly.
"You should be," the captain said softly, then shuddered.
Krysty felt her hair tighten protectively. What could possibly be worse than one solid year of bloody torture?
"Chill them," Jak stated bluntly.
The captain sneered. "Don't ya think folks have tried? Years ago, some of the pirates and a few villes combined to send a fleet to Maturo Island. Fuckers didn't even reach dry land before getting chilled. The lord bastard has got steel boats called Peteys that don't need wind and move faster than eels. And fancy rapidfires like yours, only much bigger. Plus, those triple-damn Firebirds!"
"Describe it," Ryan ordered.
Jones bristled at the command, then decided he was being a fool. The more these outlanders knew, the better they could protect the Connie.
"It's like an arrow," he stated, "only with flame coming outta its ass. And when it hits something hard, she blows like a keg of powder."
"LAW rocket?" J.B. guessed.
Ryan scowled. "Mebbe, but more likely a black-powder rocket with some sort of payload. A green, mebbe."
"Those would strike like thunderbolts from Zeus against men armed with muskets," Mildred said, as a great feeling of weariness filled her soul. In the Deathlands, starving men fought over a can of beans. Here in the Pacific, food was plentiful, and still they fought. It was madness beyond her understanding.
"Tell me about those steel boats," Ryan said, kneeling on the deck. He drew his knife and scratched a crude outline of a battleship in the dark wood. "Anything like this?"
Sticking a green cig into his mouth, Jones made no effort to light his smoke as he studied the picture.
"Sort of," he said, then drew a knife and started adding to the outline. "Only not so many cannons, and they got chimneys in aft, always smoking. Only good point about the Peteys is that ya can see them coming for miles, what with all the black ash and smoke, and that frigging loud whistle."
J.B. muttered a curse, and Ryan agreed. Peteys? Steam-powered PT boats. The killers of the first great war. Would have been better if the lord baron had a working battleship. At least they could dodge out of the way of one of those behemoths, but not the smaller, faster, patrol transport boats. Long ago in a well-stocked redoubt, Ryan had watched a predark vid of a tiny PT sinking an aircraft carrier a hundred times its size. The Constellation would never have a chance against one of those sleek war machines, no matter how bad shape it was in. There went any chance of the companions trying to steal fuel from the crafts. Best to avoid those Peteys completely.
"Why not leave the islands?" Krysty asked, her green eyes wide with curiosity.
"Currents fight ya," Jones stated. "Can't get more than a hundred miles past the last island before ya gotta turn back."
Then the short man hawked and spit, his right hand making some sort of a symbol in the air. "Besides, there be muties in the deeps that can swallow a whole ship, masts and all."
"Balderdash," Doc rumbled in disbelief. Every sailor throughout recorded history told tales of behemoths from the sea that ate ships. None of the stories were true. Then he recalled the double-boned spider from the gateway island.
"What do they look like?" he asked anxiously, suddenly very aware that less than a foot of wooden planks was all that stood between the companions and the cold blue sea.
"Captain!" a sailor interrupted from above.
Everybody looked upward to see an anxious face staring down at them from the partially covered hole in the deck.
"Report!" Jones barked, getting off his knees.
"There's a ship on the horizon coming our way!"
The captain frowned. "In these waters? What heading?"
"East, southeast!"
"Nuke me!" Jones spit, and pulled out his blaster to check the load. Then he took off at a run. "Everybody topside!"
Grabbing their own blasters, the companions rushed to the main deck. Most of the crew was lining the starboard railing, squinting into the horizon.
"Due west!" a bald man shouted while pointing. "Three-masted schooner!"
Going to the gunwale, Jones placed a varnished bamboo tube to his eye, pulling a smaller length of tube from out of the big one. J.B. stood alongside the man and pulled out his brass Navy telescope. The designs were almost identical.
"Can't focus," Jones said, extending the makeshift scope to its full length.
"Got her!" J.B. announced out of the side of his mouth. "Big ship, lots of cannon." He lowered the scope. "The gun hatches are open. They're ready to shoot."
"Any flag flying?"
"None. Name on the bow is Delta Blue."
"Pirates," a sailor growled hatefully, and pulled a flintlock from his belt. "Stinking coldhearts."
"Can we outrun them?" Mildred asked, clutching the railing with both hands. Both of the ships were bobbing on the waves, and the sight was making her a little nauseous.
Irritably Jones lowered his bamboo scope and compacted it with a slap. "Run? Impossible! We're bigger and fully laden. They have three sails to our one. They'll reach pistol range in short order, and then they'll board and storm us."
"Aren't they going to use their cannons?" Dean asked.
"Don't want to sink us, lad. They want the ship, its cargo and us in chains. Cannons be the thing they use if we try to escape."
"Go faster," Jak said, aiming his .357 Magnum at the enemy vessel, but held off firing. The range was too great for his revolver. "Dump cargo."
"That would take hours. They'll reach us in only minutes."
Abagail put a hand on Jones's shoulder, and he covered her hand with his.
"I'll scuttle the Connie and take us all to go see Davey before I ever go back in chains," he muttered in a voice of ice.
"Give me liberty, or give me death," Doc said softly.
Suddenly the pirate vessel veered to the south to bring it broadside to the Constellation, and a line of flashes dotted its side.
"Down!" Ryan shouted, and hit the deck.
Everybody went prone, and a heartbeat later iron balls whistled over the deck.
"That was a warning shot," Jones fumed, standing again. "The shifters think we'll try to bargain or plead our way out."
He turned to the companions. "Okay, outlanders, time to find out if you're any good."
Without a word Ryan slid the Steyr rifle off his shoulder. Working the bolt, he focused the cross of the scope on the other ship and swept the deck, looking for targets. Through the hatches he saw gunners busy with the cannons. On deck, sailors raced about with nets and leg irons. Standing on the quarterdeck was a man with a gun belt draped over his chest like a bandolier. Behind the wheel was a big ugly man, an ax tucked into his belt. Either could be the captain.
Ryan chose the man with the blaster. Gauging the crosswinds, he began to sway with the movement of the ships, then laid the crosshairs of the longblaster on the man's face, shifted his aim into the wind and below, then fired.
The report echoed between the ships, skipping across the waves, and the target doubled over, clutching his gut. Ryan fired again, and the man at the wheel lurched backwards, spraying blood into the air.
&nbs
p; Out of control, the ship swung with the wind, and veered away from the Constellation just as the pirate cannons bellowed again. The balls splashed harmlessly into the ocean.
The mixed crew of the Constellation shouted in victory and waved their weapons. Two hundred yards away on the pirate ship, the men shouted in anger and waved their weapons.
"Now they know we mean business," Jones said, obviously pleased. "Okay, swabs, prime your blasters and grab a blade! You there, master gunner, give me six cannons with solid shot on my command. No more and sooner! Aim to hit amidships! Only got ten shots, gotta make every one count. Get going!"
"On my way!" J.B. said, tossing Mildred the shotgun. She made the catch and he took off at a run. "Doc, Dean, with me!" The adult and teen followed close behind.
Grimly Mildred slid a fresh cartridge from the loops on the shoulder strap and fed it into the belly of the S&W M-4000. Not buckshot, but the stainless-steel slivers called flechettes. Just let the pirates get close, and they'd think they stepped into a meat grinder.
"Ready on the deck… aim…mind the pan flash…fire!" Jones bellowed, and a dozen sailors discharged their flintlock muskets. Puffs of smoke on the enemy ship showed where the .75 miniballs impacted, but not a pirate fell.
In response, a flight of arrows from the Delta Blue arched into the sky, then plummeted to hit all over the Constellation, mostly only punching holes in the taut sails.
Then Ryan shot again, and a lantern shattered, starting a small fire. The archers rushed to extinguish the blaze.
"Good shot," Jones said, pouring black powder into his musket.
Ryan said nothing and jacked a fresh round into his weapon.
The pirate cannons bellowed flame and smoke, and another volley of cannonballs whistled over the deck. But much lower. Caught loading her blaster, the busty redhead gave half a scream as she was hit directly in the stomach. Blood vomited from mouth, and both arms and legs broke off from the brutal collision. The torso went sliding across the deck, leaving a crimson wake and went over the side of the ship.
