A muttered curse escaped him. If the Corsairs were coming they’d be caught without any trouble. Stu was in no shape for another chase and The Wind Ripper was in no shape to put to sea. Her mainsail was hanging in two pieces and Stu just wasn’t a good enough seaman to get her safely away with just a jib.
“Can you sew?” he asked Neil. Their one hope was for Stu to find some sort of repair kit. He figured that a sea-going ship had to have one, and he was right. Even better, there was an entire mainsail folded neat as you please stored in the engine compartment. It even had instructions.
He hauled it out into the fading daylight. “Neil. Help me. We have to cut down the old sail. Just don’t cut the lines.”
“Lines? What are the lines? Like the hem?”
Before Stu could answer, Neil fell off the ship. He hadn’t tripped as far Stu saw. He just lost his balance and over he went. Stu only shook his head and went to work, cutting away the remains of the old sail. Neil was back on board, once again soaking wet, by the time Stu was ready to string the new sail. With the instructions laid out in front of him, Stu was able to get the sail in place in only an hour. He ran it up and down to make sure there weren’t any snags.
“Looks like I’m just in time,” Gunner said as he slipped from the bushes on the side of the river. Stu looked past him, trying to pierce the heavy underbrush. “You act like you don’t trust me, Stu. I’m much wounded.”
“Sorry, but when something looks too good to be true it probably isn’t.”
Gunner leaned over and grabbed the single mooring line tied to a tree. With a single pull of his strong right arm, The Wind Ripper slid over to him. He only had to wade in up to his waist. “I swear it sounded to me like you just called me good-looking.” He found this hilarious and was still laughing as he came up the ladder. “Man, I haven’t been called good looking for ages. Remember back when I was studly, Neil?”
“I remember when you kidnapped me and Sadie. And I remember when you wanted me to fight to the death in one of your arenas.”
“Ah, the good ‘ol days. I wish we could reminisce all evening but it’s getting late. And we’re in luck. The Black Captain has hidden his fleet up one fork of the Hoquiam River.” Gunner laughed and slapped his thigh. “He’s put a dam right on the fork. Ha! He’s trapped his own fleet! What an idiot. He’s so afraid to lose it that he makes it worthless. It’s always better to go down fighting.”
Stu ran a hand through his beard. It hadn’t been stubble for days; it had gone full beard at some point when he’d been fighting for his life. “Are you saying the harbor is clear?”
He was grinning again behind his mask. “Yup. There are a few barges laying down anti-landing obstacles, but they could never catch us. So, let’s get going.”
Once more Stu felt that he was in the realm of “too good to be true.” And once more he felt he had no choice but to hope that it was true. “Alright,” he said and gestured to Gunner.
“Alright what?”
“Alright, let’s get going.”
The smile was gone. “Then let’s. What? Do you think I can pilot this thing? I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I just meant I could help. I knew Neil wouldn’t be able to do anything. Please, tell me you can pilot this thing.”
Stu nodded without any enthusiasm. He was far from an expert. It had always been Mike Gunter who had taken command, especially when they were close to shore. “I can. I can do this,” he said, looking around, trying to take stock of the boat. “Mast, sail, wheel…” The only thing he was missing was the wind. The black Corsair flag hung limp, stirred every once in a while as a stray gust found its way down from the hills. “Ok, since you’re wet, Gunner, why don’t you shove us off. Not too hard. We want the center of the river.”
The river was not fast, wide, or deep, which made it perfect for Stu to get a feel for the wheel and rudder. Still, the two miles went quick. He ran up the main and set her neutral so that the boom pointed directly at him. From there, he could turn it quickly in one direction or the other.
Just before Grays Harbor itself, was the tired-looking town of Aberdeen. Although it might’ve had its pretty parts, the area around the river was decidedly ugly with its rusting warehouses and expanses of broken cement lots. Making it more unsighting were hundreds of milling zombies.
“Did I mention that the Captain is pulling out all the stops,” Gunner remarked. “He’s securing one flank with the undead. And look, you can just see the east fork of the Hoquiam River.” The boundary between Hoquiam and Aberdeen was a two-hundred-foot wide river, or at least it had been a river. Now it was two-hundred feet of bog, greasy black pools, and mud deep enough to trap a zombie. Already there were a few dozen forlorn-looking zombies stuck up to their hips in the sucking quagmire.
Nothing was going to make it across.
Stu was caught staring when a north wind heeled the front of The Wind Ripper to the left. He fought her back, ordering Gunner to swing the boom around. When he did, the wind leaned the boat over, tilting the deck and sending Neil rolling. He would’ve gone into the water again if Gunner hadn’t snagged him by the back of his shirt.
Neil watched glumly as one of his purple Crocs slid into the water. “You’re better off without them,” Gunner told him. “What kind of Corsair wears purple crocs?”
“The comfortable kind of Corsair,” Neil said.
“Can you even feel your feet anymore?” Gunner asked. Neil looked down and tried to wiggle his toes; they only twitched. “It’s a bitch, but I think you have bigger things to worry about.” He helped Neil to the stairs and told him to sit on them and not to move.
Stu was glad that Neil listened. He was having more trouble than he expected trying to keep the boat aimed straight down the center of the harbor. She wanted to pull southward which he supposed was better than pulling to the right toward the Corsair hideout in the town of Hoquiam.
There were six long barges along the waterfront of the town. “What are they doing? Are they pushing cars into the water?”
Gunner sniffed loudly. “Yes, sir. The harbor isn’t very deep. The Captain is cutting off another avenue of attack. On the other side of the town is the west fork of the Hoquiam River, which is now double in size. The Queen is going to have to come down from the north. And that’s also bounded by the Hoquiam River. The Captain is going to make her attack on a very narrow front and that spells trouble. She can’t afford too many casualties, not with her soldiers.”
“I wonder if they’ll fight at all,” Stu said.
“If I know her, she’ll get them to fight and I’m sure she has her own tricks up her sleeve. And…what’s with the boat? You see the shore is getting closer, don’t you?”
For every hundred yards forward, they were sliding thirty to the south. “I see it. There’s a current that’s running in that direction. I can’t seem to break out of it and I really don’t want to have to come about.” The current ran southwest, while the wind was coming straight south—nature was doing its best to send them right onto the muddy shores.
“You’re going to have to do something,” Gunner warned. He leaned over the rail. “I can see the bottom. We’re going to hit and soon.”
Stu cursed and then swung The Wind Ripper into the wind. They tacked sluggishly northeast and gained only fifty yards. When they came back around, they shot like an arrow but again angled toward shore.
“Do it again,” Gunner said, again leaning over.
Stu was about to when Neil suddenly stood up. “I think I see a boat. Is that a boat or a cloud?” He was pointing west where the clouds had become violently dark. Framed against them was a little triangle of white. It was so small that it could only be one boat, captained by one man. No one but Mike Gunter would ever consider taking a dinky boat like the Calypso out in a storm like that.
Chapter 52
Fears of assassins fell away as Jillybean gazed with hungry eagerness towards the distant ship. It was a black ship with black sails, and it had once be
longed to her. The hunger was so great that it defied her usual cerebral inquisitiveness. All she knew was that she wanted that ship badly. She felt like a lioness eyeing a tender newborn gazelle. Had she analyzed her feelings, she would have realized that she was feeling the hunter’s instinct coming alive inside her for the first time in her life.
The same hunger seemed to have infected the entire crew and was strong enough to meld them into one body, one force. The Queen’s Revenge fairly flew across the water as her sailors worked in a building harmony.
At first, the Corsair ship made few moves and seemed content to slip along with just her black mainsail flying and a white feather of foam at her bow. Even in the dark, there was no way she could miss the great white ship bearing down on her and yet, for a time she seemed unconcerned. Just long enough for Jillybean to grow uneasy, fearing a trap.
Then, like magic, out popped her genoa and, a minute later, what looked like a third sail in front. The boat leapt ahead, moving unexpectedly fast.
“Yep, that’s the Skater,” Leney said, binoculars stuck to his face. He sounded disappointed. “It’s hard to see in the dark, but I think Noonan just put out his flying jib. She’s going to be tough to catch and Noonan knows it.”
Skater was one of the three boats that had stolen away the night before. If it had wanted to put a hundred miles between it and Jillybean’s fleet it could have. Instead, it had been lurking in the dark. “He’s keeping tabs on us,” Jillybean said. “We need to sink her.”
“We have to catch her first,” Leney replied. “She’s the fastest ship in the fleet.”
“She was the fastest ship,” Troy Holt interjected. “The Star of…I mean the Queen’s Revenge is faster. If you ease her a point over to port we’ll pick up at least a knot.” Silence greeted this and no one moved a muscle to do as he suggested. He waved a calloused hand. “Do what you will. I only did my training on board her is all. Her keel is deeper than you’d think and at this angle, it’s causing some drag.”
Jillybean said, “Do it.”
Leney sighed and carried out the order. The Queen’s Revenge didn’t exactly spring forward. However, she did slowly gather speed until it felt like she was running downhill. In response, Noonan turned the Skater slightly away; she was sailing her fastest and still the white ship was closing. He began to hoist a series of colored lights from her main.
“What do they mean?” Jillybean asked Wet-neck the signal man. He had a book of laminated cards set on his lap and a hooded lantern in his hand.
“I don’t know, your Highness. I don’t recognize this pattern. You see, the initial light tells you which code is going to be used. But look. He started with purple.” He showed her the page marked with a purple tab. “Yellow, green, red, yellow would mean: starboard, retreat, starboard, come about. You may not know sailing lingo, but let me tell you, that’s gibberish.”
“It could mean we’re running into an ambush,” a nearby sailor warned.
He was roundly shushed. It was like suggesting that water was wet. The idea had crossed all their minds long before and every pair of binoculars on board was being trained outward.
The only person who hadn’t shushed him was Jillybean who had thought it was Ernest speaking.
“I think they’re telling their friends to run,” she said. “And I think he was trying to draw us away earlier. It’s what I would’ve done. How soon will we be in range?”
“At this rate, five minutes maybe,” Leney told her.
She had a squad of riflemen brought up and just as they began to settle into firing position, the Skater made a sharp turn, putting the wind on their port beam and doubling back. It was a Hail Mary move made by a desperate captain who knew his ship was overmatched. The Queen’s Revenge spun faster and Jillybean enjoyed that lioness sensation again as they ate up the distance with amazing speed. She was about to order her men to start shooting when bright flames suddenly lit up the night.
The Skater was on fire, her sails turning from black to brilliant orange in seconds. By the light of the flames they could see that her deck was empty when it should have been crowded with men rushing around fighting the inferno. Next, a popping sound drifted softly across the night water.
“What is that?” Leney asked.
“Gunfire,” Jillybean said, as the cold November wind suddenly stole to her heart and froze it. The sound of the guns were muffled and, oddly, weren’t accompanied by the hissing sound of bullets whizzing by. It could only mean that the Corsairs were killing themselves.
Do something! Eve raged. Shoot, damn it! Fire a torpedo. What are you waiting for? This is our kill. The chase had got her blood flowing hot and now no death would be satisfying unless it was her own hand that directed it.
“No, Eve. It would be a waste of ammo,” Jillybean told her, oblivious to the sailors around her nudging each other. “We’ll get our chance to kill. Trust me.” The next few minutes passed in silence as the guns gradually stopped. Soon there was only the crackle of flame and even that died away to nothing as the boat burned down to the waterline and sank. It went fast.
Leney ghosted the Queen’s Revenge around the spot where the boat went down. All that was left of the Skater was a reeking grey smoke that hung just over the water. Men drew back from it as if it were cursed or poisonous.
Although her sailors had been hell-bent on killing everyone on board the Skater, the mass suicide cast a strange pall over them that could be described as unexpected despair wrapped in doubt. The pall was felt deepest by the Queen who understood better than anyone what had just happened.
Although he was hundreds of miles away, the Black Captain had once again demonstrated his power. His men had been ordered to kill themselves rather than face her and, unbelievably, they had. What would they have revealed under torture? That her army was riddled with spies and assassins? That Nathan Kittle hadn’t been acting alone? That more attacks were being planned?
“He’s getting desperate,” she told her silent crew. “The Black Captain knows his time is about up. He knows he can’t win, and so do his people. When we sweep away the remains of his fleet and set his lair on fire, we can expect a lot more of this.”
Leney swallowed, loudly. “Yeah,” was all he said.
She had hoped for a better response.
What do you expect? You’re a monster, a child-like voice said. Jillybean jerked around; the words had come from the stairs leading down into the galley. Gun in hand, she leaned to the side, but the stairs were empty.
You know who that was, right? Ernest asked in that softly sinister way of his.
She knew. It had been her own voice. Her own little kid voice from many years ago. “I am not the monster,” Jillybean whispered. The men were staring at her. She hated their judging eyes. Who are Corsairs to judge me! she thought in rage. It took an effort to hold her gun hand in check. Eve wanted to pull the trigger and put out those hated eyes once and for all.
“Not yet,” Jillybean said under her breath. Louder, she ordered Leney to take the Queen’s Revenge north again in search of the other two ships. It was a wasted hour; they were nowhere to be seen.
With that pall of doubt just as thick, they returned to the fleet. Jillybean was dreadfully afraid she’d find more of her ships missing, certain that the loss of even a single ship would infect the entire fleet with the same sense of doom hanging over the Queen’s Revenge. Thankfully, all her ships were in position and the cold, bony, outstretched fingers of death retreated from her. “Back on our previous course, Leney. Wake me when we get to San Fran.”
As much as she wished she could sleep all the way to Grays Harbor, she had the fleet make a stop into San Francisco. She woke to the familiar sounds of screeching gulls, the clanking of buoys and the deep groan of the Golden Gate swaying in the wind. For just a moment, snuggled warm in her covers, she smiled. The sounds reminded her of sweet Jenn Lockhart, simple and easy-going Mike Gunter, and rugged Stu Currans—they were the only friends she had ever known.
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The smile did not last. The stress on her was immense and only getting worse as she heard the muttering of her crew through the thin walls of the boat. No one wanted to go on to Grays Harbor.
“It’s too cold and everyone knows the weather could turn on us at any moment.”
“I’m worried that the Black Captain is still too strong. They say he gots floating mines now. They say he gots the harbor chock full of them.”
“An’ how the hell are we supposed to get at his fleet? You know he’ll bottle them up in the damned river. With them big anchor chains there’ll be no touching them.”
“I gotta know if the Queen thinks this is all a game? We had the bible-thumpers right where we wanted them and she just let them go without even asking!”
“You know what I heard. I heard old McCartt ain’t gonna fight. And if he don’t fight, you know Steinmeyer won’t. And we all know them Santas are pussies through and through. It’ll be all on us.”
Everything Jillybean heard reinforced the urgent need to get moving as fast as she dared. Without giving a thought to the catastrophe that was her hair, she jumped up, stepped over Troy Holt, who’d been sleeping just on the other side of her door, and went on deck. There she took charge of resupplying her fleet with great stores of food, ammunition, and extra torpedoes. As an excuse to reduce the cramped conditions, she also sent nearly all of her Bay Area people ashore.
In reality, the Queen was hedging her bets. With the mounting possibility of assassination, her men growing weak in the knees, and spies whispering mutiny in every ear, she put her chance of beating the Black Captain at fifty-fifty. Normally, she was an optimist, but with Ernest slipping images of dead children floating in the bay, she began to fear losing more than she desired to win.
You should fear losing, he said, his voice growing stronger. Think of the children. Think of little Lindy Smith and Ryanne Walker. You know what will happen to them if you lose. He sent a horrifying picture into her head and their screams were so real in her ears that she turned away with a gasp. She spied Donna Polston about to board one of the launches.
Generation Z (Book 4): The Queen Unthroned Page 51
