“Aye, sir!”
“Where’s Nabb?” she asked. “Have you seen Dockett?”
“Quarterdeck, sir!” she was told in a voice she was certain quavered at the thought she might ask the man to accompany her.
Alexis headed aft again, but up instead of down in the companionway, meeting Nabb and Dockett on their own way down.
“Been lookin’ for you, sir,” Dockett began. “Thought you’d gone t’take the quarter —”
“There’s no time,” Alexis interrupted him. She passed on her orders and the situation.
“Aye, sir,” Dockett said. “All our lads’re on the main decks still, save those we took t’quarterdeck thinkin’ you’d gone there first.”
“See to clearing those off the main decks, Mister Dockett,” Alexis said, “and set men to freeing Mongoose from this deathtrap.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Nabb, with me to the quarterdeck.”
“Aye, sir — the lad’s with the surgeon. He’ll be all right.”
Alexis had a moment’s relief that the lad, Aiden, had not been too badly hurt by the shot he’d taken, but then hurried on — he’d have no chance to recover from his injury if they didn’t get Mongoose away.
The quarterdeck was still aired, but there was little time wasted by its inhabitants in getting their vacsuit helmets on once Alexis passed the word of what was happening.
The two captive pirates and pair of Mongoose’s crew left there, followed Nabb and Alexis up onto Roebuck’s hull, then across to Mongoose.
The last of the lines holding the two ships together were already cut, and most of Mongoose’s foremast as well, caught up as it was in Roebuck’s rigging.
They passed the stub of it, a pair of spacers with their gas torches climbing down from the cut, even as Dockett was gesturing others to rig one topmast spar to it so they’d have a bit of sail to spread there for the task of working away from Roebuck, and a second to push against the frigate’s hull and shove Mongoose away.
Alexis left him to it. The bosun knew what was needed. She caught sight of Delaine near the mainmast, setting men to angle what sail they could, and left him to his work as well, only grateful to know he was off Roebuck and safe …
No, not safe yet.
Her vacsuit helmet came off as she entered her own quarterdeck and she thought she might be sweating more now than during the boarding or her fight with Ness — those had been mostly personal danger, while now her entire crew and ship could be destroyed at any instant.
“Charge the sails, Layland!” she called.
“Aye, sir!”
There were still crews on the mainmast, cutting away either Roebuck’s rigging or their own where the two were tangled, but they could continue while they started to pull away.
Mongoose’s particle projectors fired and sails, what there were of them, sparkled azure shot with white lightning.
Dockett had those on the foremast pull the makeshift yard and the bit of jib he’d rigged there was about to catch the winds right, while Delaine had crews of men to haul on lines and cut away those sails so hopelessly entangled with Roebuck still that they were doing more harm than good.
Mongoose’s hull groaned and creaked, her mainmast strained.
“Off, Layland, then on — rock her away — get a bit of rhythm going.”
“Aye, sir.”
Glowing followed by dark, Layland worked the projectors, alternating between a charge which would let them catch the wind and darkness which left them attached to Roebuck where the two hulls had ground together.
Off and on, the men on the sails alternating as well, between hauling the full sails about to taking in their slack so that the next charge wouldn’t snap lines or pull them from their grasp.
Slowly, too slowly for Alexis’ comfort, the two ships parted. Men stretched out on the mainmast yards to cut what tangled lines remained, and then Mongoose was free.
Free, but not yet safe.
“Douse the main and let the fore — what there is of it — bring us around!” Alexis ordered.
Finally, Mongoose moved away from Roebuck. Slowly at first, her bow ponderously coming about with so little foremast and sail to work with, then enough of a roll to bring the main into play and she moved faster.
The other ships were still engaged, though Fang appeared to have taken her first target and moved on to assist one of their merchantmen with another.
“Roll ship, Layland,” Alexis ordered. “Put her keel to Roebuck. Creasy — pass the word to those on the hull to come topside and not face that frigate! We’re still too near for my liking!”
“Aye, sir!”
Mongoose rolled to place her thicker keel toward the other ship, and Alexis had a moment to wonder if Ness had truly set a timer, or if the damage to the console had turned it off, before Roebuck disappeared in a blast that made Mongoose buck and twist despite the distance.
Alexis closed her eyes. There were men from both the pirates and Mongoose still aboard that ship, most dead and fallen to the deck or floating free where the antigrav had failed, but some would be the injured — unconscious or too hurt to be differentiated from the dead. She’d condemned those to their fate and they were gone now, but to have waited even a moment more —
Mattingly rushed onto the quarterdeck, out of breath and his face red. Alexis had very nearly forgot about the senior captain and ostensible commodore. His hair was damp with sweat and his vacsuit was covered in a mix of blood and suit sealant, either his own or others’.
Wide eyes took in the navigation plot, then he relaxed, took a deep breath, and smoothed his hair, then joined her at the plot.
“One oughtn’t look away for a moment when you’re involved, eh, Carew? I was in the midst of that fight, jolly good fun, then seeing to the prisoners squared away, when next there’s a full tide of men streaming back aboard and I’m jammed up the arse-end of your hold. Like a bloody box puzzle to get out — ‘a step to your left, if you please, sir, and I’ll move up,’ eh?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I should have sent for you, but —”
“Any closer and we’d be a part of that,” Mattingly said, pointing to the fading, shrinking ball of plasma that had once been Roebuck. “Fight your ship, Carew, always fight your ship. Leave those with a flag to worry about their fleets and such — speaking of which —”
Mattingly peered at the navigation plot, but it quickly became apparent that there’d be no ordering about of the fleet necessary. One after another, their other ships were signaling victory over the pirates as the light from the former Roebuck came to them and made it clear their flagship frigate and leader were no more.
“Well, that’s that,” Mattingly said.
Fifty-Six
“Let your fate be a lesson
To all who'd harm our lads.
Let your howls fill their ears,
And turn them from that path.”
Mattingly gave the pirates, those who’d surrendered and accepted pardon, one of the merchant ships, stripped of guns, both ship’s and personal, and packed to the gills with nearly four times the men she could comfortably hold. Each had nothing but the clothes on his back and a note in hand for whatever his share of the bounties Alexis had offered was … that and their last memories of Erzurum.
They had instructions to sail for New London — trailing Mongoose and the other ships if they liked, but in no way a part of the returning fleet — and make their own way from there.
With the bounties, Alexis hoped most would see their way clear to living lives on the right side of the law, though she suspected many would not. While the bounties were, in most cases, enough to set the bloody pirates up for life, some would have theirs disappear in a burst of drink and depravity.
Given the amounts in hand and the toll of the sheer amount of drink and depravity they could buy, even some few of those would find themselves set for what short life they had left.
Old Blackbourne was, for once and a marvel, somber as
he prepared to board the last boat for that waiting merchantman, and the only boat Mattingly allowed the pirates to take with them. The rest, those that wouldn’t go with the freed spacers, being given to the people of Erzurum.
The very last of the nearly twelve hundred pirates hung over the previous days and nights were being cut down from the gallows, and Blackbourne and the others who’d accepted pardon had been there to witness each and every one. At Mattingly’s insistence they’d been put on the field and forced to watch “Your very own fates, save for the grace of Queen Annalise through her emissary!” Mattingly barked at them.
“Some won’t listen or learn,” he’d whispered to Alexis, standing ramrod straight and staring at the ten gallows as the first pirates were made ready to drop. “Hard men, born to it and with a taste — but others will and might come, someday, to make amends for whatever it is they did while running with Ness.”
Alexis kept her own face impassive as the first sentences were read out and the pirates danced at the ends of ropes. There was a gunshot from across the field where those awaiting their fate were held — not the first and not the last — as one or more tried to break from the group and run for Erzurum’s wilderness.
Kannstadt stood to her other side, face as still as hers and Mattingly’s. He had a brief discussion with the Hanoverese senior captain, then turned to them.
“We will watch five, I think, Kapitän Mattingly?” the Hanoverese officer asked. “And then retire?”
“Yes,” Mattingly nodded. “Turn the supervision over to some junior for the rest.”
There were plenty of volunteers from among Erzurum’s former slaves to oversee the hanging of the pirates.
The trials had been … concise and en masse, but Alexis had no doubt about their fairness, at least. There were no innocents on Erzurum or with Ness’ fleet to be caught up in the mess by mistake. They’d freed and pardoned any of the crews of the newly taken ships from the pirates’ last cruise, but all others who’d not accepted the pardon were complicit in their fellows’ acts.
The more senior captains from New London, the French, and Hannover had formed the tribunals and quickly passed sentence on the lot, which announcement filled the tiny port town with Erzurum’s natives, come to watch their former overlords hang. Which had then presented them with the problem of keeping those former slave-owning natives from being slaughtered themselves by the freed spacers of the three navies.
Only Mattingly’s announcement, echoed by the French and Hanoverese commanders, that the punishment for any spacer taking action against the natives of Erzurum would be exile on Erzurum when the fleet left, kept the peace. There was not a spacer of the fleets who hated his former captives more than he wished to see the back of this world and get home.
Those crowds of natives had dispersed back to their other towns and farms after the first day, though — even a well-deserved hanging can only entertain for so long.
She wasn’t quite certain why she’d come to see this last boat of pirates, and Blackbourne, off — he was a rogue, and a scoundrel, and had been with Ness’ group so long that he’d certainly done a host of despicable things, the total of which could never be redeemed, but, oddly, she found she liked the man.
“Well, witch-woman, Old Blackbourne’s away,” Blackbourne said.
“If ever you return to piracy, Blackbourne, I’ll see you hang as your fellows did,” Alexis said.
Blackbourne grimaced. “Ah, why’d y’put a geas like that on Old Blackbourne?”
“I mean it, man. You’ve a black heart, but you’d best spend the rest of your days scrubbing it clean.”
The pardoned pirate took a little hop off Erzurum’s field to land on the boat’s ramp, as though he didn’t wish to have himself touching both at once.
“Away, away, lass,” he said, smiling now, “for Old Blackbourne’s a touch of the Sight more than yer own witchy-ways, so geas for geas, lass.” He met Alexis’ eyes. “You’ll be busier with more’n how Old Blackbourne spends his days all the rest o’ yourn.”
“Fair enough,” Alexis said.
Blackbourne took a deep breath, then, quite unexpectedly, extended his hand. “It were fair dealin’ y’gave Old Blackbourne,” he said.
Alexis took the offered hand, torn a bit between liking the rogue and wondering at how much blood had stained that hand over the years — still, she’d not have taken Erzurum without his aid. “And you in turn.”
Blackbourne smiled and skipped up the boat’s ramp, keying it to close as he entered the boat, but not before his voice drifted down to her.
“Watch yerself, witch-woman!”
There were more freed spacers than would fit aboard their ships, even for the relatively short sail to Enclave, where they’d decided to go first, it having representatives from the French Republic, Hannover, and New London all in one place, though Alexis hoped there was a proper consul from New London arrived, for Wheeley wouldn’t do at all now that she knew he was involved with Ness and the pirates.
Mattingly determined to remain on Erzurum with those left behind, both to maintain order and reassure them they’d not be forgotten again.
“Send word to New London that we’re here and request transport, but little else,” Mattingly told her. “Save the full report for when we all sail into Penduli.” He glanced around the landing field where those who’d been unlucky in the draw and would remain for the next ships gathered to see their more fortunate fellows off. “You’ll want all these voices heard before there’s a board of inquiry empaneled on this.”
“Aye, sir,” Alexis said. “Thank you.”
“Even success should be presented in the best of lights, Carew, especially when you’ve bent the rules to get there.”
Fifty-Seven
Their arrival at Enclave was rather like a planetary assault.
Though the French and Hanoverese had no real quarrel with Wheeley, nor desire to create an incident in the ostensibly shared system, those captains nevertheless made transition with Mongoose at the L1 point and made for orbits over their respective territories. They broadcast very nearly the same message Mongoose did, that all ships in-system were to heave-to for inspection and not interfere with the New London force arriving. It was made easier by the fact that there were no naval ships from any nation in-system, only merchants who wanted nothing more than to go unnoticed.
The other New London captains deferred to Alexis as well, despite any misgivings or irritation that might have caused, on Mattingly’s order — that she intended to assault the New London port and take New London’s acting and de facto consul up for hanging might have made it easier for them to swallow. They could simply say they were following orders. For Alexis’ part, she felt she was already so far into a rather foul-smelling pool that a bit more couldn’t matter, and she dearly wished to see Wheeley get what he deserved.
Mongoose’s boats put down, full to groaning with her original boat crew and freed spacers from Erzurum, fitter now for a fortnight and more’s feeding on the ship’s stores enroute.
The ramp lowered and Alexis was first off, uniform coat tight against the cold wind that shrieked across the ice-covered field.
The men on guard at the hatch were Wheeley’s, she had no doubt, as he’d taken over so much of Enclave from his lair deep in the casino. She strode up to the hatch, Delaine, Nabb, and Dockett at her side.
“Open in the Queen’s name!” she demanded.
“Bugger off!” came over the speakers. “Who’re you, then?”
“Captain Alexis Carew, HMS Mongoose, commanding — now open the bloody hatch!”
“Ain’t no such thing! I ‘member you — yer that skinny bint off a privateer. Yer writ ain’t got no —”
Alexis stood aside from the hatch, the others with her hurriedly did the same and she nodded back toward the boat where a ship’s gun had been rolled down the ramp immediately after she’d exited.
“Bloody —” was all the speaker had time to say before the gun fired.
The bits of the hatch that weren’t vaporized or blown inward by the shot creaked and swayed against what was left of their supports.
Alexis pulled a pistol from her belt and rushed through, splashing through the ankle-deep water melted from the ice walls of the corridor by the shot.
Following, like a great wave crashing through that water, came three cramped boatloads of spacers anxious to get a bit more of their own.
“Mongoose!”
A casino, Alexis found, was not greatly difficult to assault, yet was, somehow, immensely satisfying.
The common folk of Enclave, much like anywhere else, had the sense to take to their homes and hunker down at the first sign of trouble, clearing the corridors leading to Wheeley’s casino.
Likewise, her lads had orders to harm none who didn’t stand in their way and — though they didn’t really need to be told, bearing the scars of Erzurum themselves — to treat any of the casino staff with the earrings marking them as slaves gently. Those would be sent out to a makeshift surgical center where the explosives could be removed from their necks.
Wheeley’s security forces, on the other hand, were simply overwhelmed. Those who drew weapons received the same in kind, with greater numbers and power, while those who tried to block the first wave were knocked aside or down. The wisest simply widened their eyes at the approaching horde of spacers, some again wearing their Erzurum lizard skins as a sort of symbol, and ran.
Once through the casino’s hatches, her lads spread out and Alexis slowed to watch.
She’d expected them to make for the cages and the coin stored there, but many seemed more interested in tables and machines. Blades came down to shatter gambling table tops, machines were overturned, kicked, and knocked to pieces. It was as though the spacers were taking out their frustration at every bad bit of luck they’d had in a game of chance on the casino itself.
Still, she was gratified to see that the lads were heeding her words that the staff not be harmed. The merchant spacers who’d been gambling when the chaos started quickly joined in, though most of those would find their tactic of looting the tables where actual checks were used not so profitable as they might have wished. Alexis doubted the next owner of any gambling establishment on Enclave would honor Wheeley’s checks.
The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6) Page 36
