by James Axler
"Susie!" the scarred girl shouted, reaching out an arm as if to help her friend.
Abagail grabbed the girl by the arm and shook her hard. "Forget the dead! Now start shooting straight unless you want to know the feel of the pirates' table under your ass!"
The girl went white with fear, but her hands moved, purging the spent flintlock, filling the pan, ramming home the shot and cloth. Cocking the hammer, she aimed, fired and started the long process all over again.
Estimating the range at 150 yards, Ryan started levering rounds at the pirates. The man in the crow's nest clutched his face and fell, spiraling to the deck.
The acne-scarred man flinched as a spoke on the wheel exploded into splinters, but he never let go and continued doggedly for the Constellation. Ryan aced three more men on the open deck, but it seemed to make no difference. Another pirate was already climbing into the crow's nest, shouting orders to the crew below.
The rest of the companions stood with blasters ready, waiting for the other ship to get closer so they could shoot.
"Ace them!" Ryan shouted, and the others cut loose, the barrage of rounds startling the pirates and chilling several.
"We need a bastard bazooka," he cursed, jacking out the spent magazine and shoving it into a pocket. Searching his belt, he found another rotary clip of five rounds and slid it into the open breech of the hot weapon.
"Satchel charge," Jak added, thumbing fresh rounds into his .357 Colt revolver.
Shotgun slung over a shoulder, Mildred did the same with her Czech-made ZKR .38 target pistol.
"Ready…fire!" Jones shouted, and the crew shot their muskets once more.
As the crew of the Constellation reloaded, only two archers on the Delta Blue unleashed arrows, then the pirates fired their longblasters. Rounds hummed by and a rope parted, but nobody was hit. However, the three-masted ship was much closer, and gaining every minute.
A sharp whistle sounded from below, and Jones stuck his head over the railing.
"We're ready!" J.B. shouted out the hatch directly below.
"Then fire!" the captain shouted, raising his face to glare at the pursuing vessel.
The Constellation shook from the volley of her cannons, dark smoke stretching across the waters. On the pirate ship, a water barrel, exploded, several pirates reeled covered with splinters and a large section of front gunwale was torn away. A pirate fell missing a leg, and was dragged to safety by his crew mates.
"Too high!" Jones shouted, slamming a fist onto the railing. The broadside had done little damage. "And use chain this time!"
"CHAIN?" Doc asked, swabbing out a hot cannon to quench any lingering sparks inside. He withdrew the wet bundle of rags and stroked in the dry rags to remove any excess moisture.
"You'll see," J.B. grunted, carefully scooping handfuls of black powder into another cannon. Jones was a crafty devil. "Load these two! We've got to conserve."
When Doc and Dean had done their jobs and retreated to a safe distance, J.B. used a piece of burning rope on the end of a pole to touch off the fuses. The three cannons roared in a neat line, the black smoke of the discharge blocking their view for a few moments. As it cleared away, the companions saw a dozen ropes dangling loose, sliced completely through by the whirling length of heavy chain spinning across the ship. A lot of men on deck were missing, and aft mast slowly cracked and toppled over into the sea, taking five men caught in the rigging along with it into a watery grave.
The pirate ship was crippled, but still moving closer.
"Again!" J.B. shouted, and the sequence was repeated. A huge tear appeared in the forward sail, and a gaping hole was punched in the side of the Delta Blue, a good ten feet above the waterline.
"By the Three Kennedys, we missed!" Doc raged, baring his teeth. "Just a tad lower and she'd be sinking like a rock!"
"Once more should do it!" Dean panted, hauling a ball to an unused cannon. It was faster to load a cold cannon then to swab out a hot one.
"With what?" J.B. cursed, casting aside the pole. "That was it for black powder. There's nothing left in the barrels. Now we go up on deck and dig in with the rest."
"I have two pounds of black powder," Doc said, patting the ammo pouch on his belt. "Any good?"
"Useless. Wouldn't get a twelve-pound ball halfway."
Dean muttered darkly and went to the nearest open hatch. Pulling out his Browning semiautomatic blaster, he aimed at the pirates.
"Dean, no!" Doc shouted in warning.
The boy frowned. "Why not?" he demanded. "Might get one of them."
"Firing from a cannon port would mean we are out of powder," Doc explained. "And that means we are defenseless…but are we really defenseless?"
"What's the plan?" J.B. demanded, extending the wire stock of the Uzi for better stability.
"C-4, my good man. Do we have any left?"
"Dark night, we do!" J.B. said, easing the safety back on the Uzi, and rummaging in the munitions bag hanging from his shoulder. With a cry of triumph, the Armorer extracted a grayish rectangle of what looked like oily clay. "A full block. That might be enough."
"Start cutting," Doc rumbled, going to an open hatch and triggering the LeMat in a deafening discharge. "We'll do the rest."
As J.B. got busy with a knife, Dean's face suddenly brightened in understanding, and the boy joined the silver-haired man at a portal, banging away steadily with his Browning.
THE ROW OF CANNONS on the Delta Blue thundered again, and the Constellation trembled as something slammed into her sides.
"Grapeshot!" a sailor cried, glancing over the gunwale. "Got holes in us from stem to stern."
"Above the water level?" Jones demanded, casting aside his longblaster and pulling two blasters from his belt.
"Aye, sir!"
"Then fuck it. Keep firing!"
The girl with the broken nose said, "Captain, I'm out of powder."
"Aye, sir. Me, too," another sailor added.
"Any more?" Abagail demanded, kneeling behind the gunwale to stay out of sight while she checked the powder bags of the dead. Nothing. Lots of shot and wadding, but every grain of powder had been used.
"That was it," the captain stated, cocking back the hammers of his huge pistols. "We lost too much chilling those slavers."
Another girl fired her weapon, then turned. "That was the last for me," she said. "What now?"
Abagail drew a knife and yanked the belt off a corpse, started lashing the blade to the end of her musket. "Make spears!" she shouted, tightening the strap with a vengeance.
The cannons of the Delta Blue were pulled inside the ship for loading. Knowing he had a few moments in the clear, Ryan stood and placed his shots with care, not willing to waste a single round. He had more ammo in the backpack, but not a whole lot more. He hadn't planned on any extended firelights. Again and again, the Deathlands warrior tried for the pilot, but the ace man was now hiding behind a corpse lashed to the wheel as protection. Worked, too. And the gunners working the cannons were much too well protected behind the stout oak bulkheads. Every minute, the Delta Blue was edging steadily closer to the ship. Every move made by the pilot at the wheel of the Connie was countered by the pirates. There was no escaping from the big blasters of the small ship. The pitted muzzles of the black cannons emerged once more, and Ryan ducked only moments before the twenty pounders roared a full salvo. A rain of lead pellets hit the ship, the masts rippling with a thousand tiny holes.
"Grapeshot again." Krysty scowled.
"Aye, trying to slow us down," Jones growled, raising his blasters, then lowering them again. If they had lots of powder, he would have risked a few wild shots, but not now.
"It's working," Mildred said, firing her ZKR in a two-handed grip. Wounded in the shoulder, a pirate spun about while firing his blaster and chilled one of his own crewmates.
Suddenly there was a loud crackle of blasterfire from below.
"What the fuck are they doing?" Jones screamed, tilting his head toward the noise. "Don
't they know that'll only draw the pirates in quicker?"
"Yes, they do. Wondered how long it would take them to think of it," Ryan said, shouldering the Steyr and drawing the SIG-Sauer. Short-range and silent, it was a close-quarters combat weapon, but carried more rounds and loaded faster than the longblaster.
"Think of what?" Jones barked, furious. "They've sealed our fate!"
"Saved our ass is more like it," Krysty corrected, then paused, for the first time noticing the trickle of red going down the sleeve of her jumpsuit. Testing her shoulder, she found a sore area, the fabric black with her blood. Her fingers moved, and the blood didn't spurt out from a torn artery, so it was only a flesh wound, nothing serious. Mildred could patch it later. If they lived through this.
Panga knife in one hand, blaster in the other, Ryan went behind a water barrel. Drawing a bowie knife, Krysty did the same at a yard-high coil of rope. Brandishing the shotgun and revolver, Mildred took a firing position behind a turnstile used for raising the sea anchor.
"Everybody take cover!" Ryan shouted, as the pirate cannons spoke again, showering them with more grapeshot. "And get away from the railing! Far away!"
Suddenly Jones understood. So that was the plan. By Davey, it might work at that! "O'Malley, Daniels, get axes up here on the double!" he ordered. Then filled his lungs with air and bellowed, "Prepare to repel boarders!"
The crew of the Constellation rushed to obey.
GORE COATED the deck of the Delta Blue, a corpse was burning by a hatchway, dropped weapons lay scattered about, pieces of the smashed gunwale and barrels everywhere. It looked as if they had already lost the battle, and not in the process of winning.
"Captain Draco!" a sailor said, saluting crisply. "The master gunner says they're firing from the cannon ports!"
Holding a bloody bandage around his belly, Draco sneered. "Out of ammo, eh? Good. Giles, cut in close. We'll seize the ship and capture the crew alive!"
Half of his shirt soaked red, Giles merely nodded, and spun the wheel rapidly. The nimble schooner angled sharply for the lumbering giant.
"Prepare to board and storm!" a bosun cried, drawing a sword and a flintlock.
USING EXTREME CARE, but moving quickly, J.B. hesitantly moved the knife blade to the quarter mark on the block, then to the third. This was a dangerous gamble. Too little and a cannon ball wouldn't penetrate the hull of the pirate ship. Too much and the cannons would burst.
Slicing the block apart, he sheathed the blade and went to the nearest cannon. Grabbing the ropes, he strained to pull the half-ton blaster away from the firing port and finally got it clear.
"Stop shooting and help me," he panted from the exertion, then knelt and shoved a stave under the carriage slide to hold it motionless.
Moving fast, Doc and Dean tucked away their blasters and ran to give the man assistance.
"Load the middle three!" J.B. ordered, fiddling with a timing pencil. "Two balls each!"
Two each? There was no time for questions, so Doc went to the left, Dean the right. Lugging iron balls, they came waddling back to see J.B. toss a block of plas-ex down the muzzle of the second cannon and move on to the third.
"Move faster!" J.B. urged them, stabbing the cube with a timing pencil and breaking it off at the shortest mark. Then he tossed the wad of plas-ex down the barrel. "We got two minutes!"
"These are solid iron, sir," Doc reminded him, lugging a dull gray ball to the mouth of the first weapon and rolling it inside.
Dean did the same thing, and as they moved to the second cannon, J.B. started pushing the first forward until its muzzle was sticking out the gun port. In moments, the three cannons were fully loaded and in position. The fighting above was louder than ever, the pirate ship only fifty yards away, and closing.
Moving to the farthest end of the deck, J.B. took refuge behind a cold cannon and removed his glasses, tucking them into his shirt pocket.
"One minute," he panted, checking his wrist chron. "Brace yourself. This is going to be loud."
Joining the Armorer at his sanctuary, Doc and Dean crouched behind the half-ton cannon, then covered their ears and opened their mouths to prevent going deaf from the concussion. None of them knew if this trick would actually work, but it was the best chance they had.
"What happens if the cannons can't contain the blast?" Dean asked.
"We die. Forty seconds," J.B. read off. "Thirty-five, thirty…"
Chapter Ten
At nightmarish speed, the two ships headed toward each other on a collision course.
On the quarterdeck, O'Malley was hurriedly tying off the wheel so he could join the defenders on the deck.
"What the fuck are ya doing?" a girl said, from the main deck, holding open the door to the captain's quarters while others hauled out an oak wardrobe and heavy wooden chairs.
"If we keep the ship on course, then all we gotta worry about is fighting," he replied over his shoulder, awkwardly climbing down to the deck. He landed on his boots and turned. "We let the Connie run free, and she might swing away and them slam back against the pirates, sinking both ships."
"So we cut the wheel loose if we're losing," she stated grimly, releasing the door as the last piece of furniture was hauled away.
Checking his weapons, O'Malley scowled at the teenager. "Too chancy," he stated. "We go to the bilge, open the petcock valves and flood the hold. No pirate son of a bitch is ever gonna walk the wood of this ship!"
She nodded, then jerked and slumped to the deck, blood gushing from the hideous wound in her throat. O'Malley knelt by her side, trying to think of a way to staunch the hole when the teen gurgled meaningless sounds, violently trembled and went still.
"Calm waters and safe harbors, little one," O'Malley said softly as he took her knife and duck-foot blaster. The pilot tucked them into his belt and raced to join the rest of the crew at the starboard gunwale.
Now less than thirty yards from the deck of the Delta Blue, pirates irregularly fired at the Connie while a dozen men stood twirling grappling hooks around in circles above their heads at the end of long ropes. The coldhearts looked eager, almost excited, but none of them spoke or laughed or shouted. The rigging was full of men with knives in their teeth, a scarred man with a marled eye was shouting orders and the ugly pilot stood defiant at his post, safe behind the bullet-riddled corpse lashed to the wheel.
On the Constellation, the companions were crouched below the gunwale, along with anybody else who had a loaded blaster. The rest of the mixed crew frantically moved things to form a barricade across the deck, tables, water barrels, lifeboats, spare sails, anything that could offer any protection. Even the girls knew that the fighting had to remain on the main deck, or else the ship was lost. Here they had room to maneuver. In the tight confines of the hold, they would be easily captured.
Holding her makeshift spear, Abagail made sure she still had the extra knife in her boot. She still hurt, fore and aft, from the gang rape by the slavers, and had no intention of ever being captured alive again. One quick slice to the right side of her neck where that big vein was, and she'd be aced in less than a minute. Most of the other girls were also carrying spare knives, and quite a few of the men, too. Their expressions were even fiercer than those of the girls.
"On my mark, now!" Ryan barked, and the companions stood, firing their weapons in volley.
The decks of the vessels were almost level, the Connie riding low with her heavy load of cargo. The range was thirty yards, and the fusillade of rounds caught the pirates by surprise. Jak's big-bore .357 threw thunder at the coldhearts, the hollowpoint rounds ripping away chunks of the other ship's railing. A pirate screamed, his hand missing fingers, and another spun away with most of his face gone.
Her red hair tightly coiled at her nape, Krysty shot her Smith & Wesson in a two-handed grip, the .38 revolver clearing the gunwale of pirates as they ducked for cover. Only a few stood to fight back, one pirate raising a flintlock and firing, but the weapon only fizzled, the pan improperly
filled. Krysty caught him in the shoulder, and he dropped the blaster.
The ships were twenty yards away, the distance narrowing fast.
Archers released a flight of arrows, but nobody was hit. Aiming and firing as fast as he could, Ryan chilled three of them before the rest dived for cover. A sailor on the Constellation threw an ax that only reached halfway before falling into the water.
Pumping and shooting, Mildred cut loose with the shotgun, aiming at the men in the rigging. Several fell and dropped to the deck; one only made it halfway before getting tangled in the ropes and dangling helplessly by a foot. But there were a lot more remaining, and even as she slid fresh cartridges into the blaster, more coldhearts raced out of a hatchway—big men armed with axes and swords. The boarding party.
Slapping in a fresh clip, Ryan emptied the SIG-Sauer at the fresh troops, concentrating on head shots. Even if he didn't get a clean chill, at least they'd be partially blinded by the blood in their eyes. Jak went for the captain with the weird eye, Mildred fanned the rigging again, Krysty concentrated on the pirates lining the railing.
Casting aside his musket, a man turned and ran from the rapidly firing blasters of the companions. That seemed to rattle the rest, but then the captain cut down the coward with a sword slash to the belly. Screaming in agony, the pirate tried to hold in his slippery intestines, and failed miserably, dying as his guts spilled onto the deck through his fingers. Nobody else broke ranks.
Suddenly the Delta Blue was too close, the heavily armed schooner gliding sideways toward the lumbering Constellation.
"Here they come!" Captain Jones shouted, wrapping an arm around the damaged mast for support.
In a strident crunch of smashing wood, the vessels violently slammed together, knocking everyone not braced sprawling to the deck. Loose items skittered underfoot, planks splintered and rigging snapped, the ropes flailing about like living whips.
