Avast, page 2
Robert drew back on the trigger; felt the powerful kick of the black powder’s explosion in the chamber as the room filled with smoke and thunder as the shot rang out. His ears just barely picked up the sound of Gadrick’s own gun cocking, and as soon as he fired, he used the burst of smoke to conceal him as he turned and pulled the girl to the right side of the doorway.
Sure enough, a second shot rang out only a moment later, the load bursting through a window on the other side of the room.
His ears were still ringing from the double discharges, probably would be for an hour or so. But he was already loading his second shot, and could hear Gadrick doing the same.
“This won’t play out well,” he shouted. Whistles were sounding in the streets outside. “Hear that? Minutes more, and we’ll be up to our poop decks in the brass!”
“Y’think I likes this?” Gadrick’s voice bellowed back at him from behind the kitchen table. “Between the moldy potato bread, the foot rot and those damned Losties, y’think this is a life any of us wanted?”
Robert sighed. His Master Gunner did have a good point. “Doesn’t mean you can just take what you like, Gadrick. These are people, too!”
“They’re damn sheep!” the other man yelled back. “They make it, we take it – that’s the way it is, there’s no other way of it.”
Robert could hear the volume and tone of Gadrick’s voice changing; he was moving around in there. Going to make it hard to get a shot off if I don’t know where he is, he thought ruefully. “I only had two rules, you shitheel – beg pardon, ma’am – no killing lest you had to, and no raping. None!”
He peered around the corner just in time to take a glancing blow across the face from a cast iron frying pan. He could hear something crunching under the impact, and distantly felt the floor rise up to strike him across the back of his head. A warm rush of blood covered his eyes and face. It felt for a moment like his skull was opened to the world.
A boot came down hard on his shoulder, pushing him all the way prone. Blood was in his eyes, and he couldn’t see; but he felt death’s hand reaching through the nighttime ocean breezes and the smell of old beer.
Didn’t someone tell me I’d die on the floor of a bar? I guess I’ll have to let them know they were right.
“Last time you give me an order, Four Eyes,” the man above him chuckled. Then a hammer was drawn back, and a final explosion tore open Robert’s chest and blasted him into nothingness.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
…he tapped the X button on his controller, and waited through the uploading screen. His fingers twitched. So what if he’d been playing all evening, he could always call in sick tomorrow. It’s not like they had a shortage of IT support personnel or anything.
The page flashed, concussions and flak from the opposing assault shaking the controller and buzzing in his headphones. He held down the jump button and jerked his thumb to the left, moving his character behind a section of wall that was still standing. “I need some cover fire over here!” he barked into the mouthpiece.
Moments later, another of the gold team stood out from their bunker in full auto, laying out a swatch of destruction while another of their team launched a round of grenades into the enemies’ position.
He laughed, getting his character back on his feet and running to the location where the opposing flag would re-spawn.
“We got you, Captain!” the voices cheered over the speakers. “Grab it and haul ass!”
The flag appeared just as he entered the room, but so did one of the Green team, wielding a military shotgun.
The spray went wide, only dropping his shield bar by a fraction; he rolled low and came up beside his opponent, raking him across the temple with the butt of his rifle. As the enemy stumbled, Robert drew his service knife and pulled the blade quickly across the man’s neck.
The screen flashed and the body dropped to the floor. Robert paused just long enough to teabag the poor schmuck before holstering the knife and picking up the flag.
“Coming out!” he yelled into the mike. “Get ready!”
He made it five running steps, and the laughter was still fresh on his lips when the ground erupted beneath him.
Mother fu... They’ve got a tank!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Hold still, young man, hold still.”
Arms held him down, and a woman’s voice spoke to him in soothing tones. “Relax, there you go, just relax, and you’ll be fine.”
Robert tried to breathe, but it was a struggle, as if someone were sitting across his chest.
“Breathe easy, lad,” another voice said, encouragingly. “Have you patched up presently.”
He at last was able to pry his eyes open – they were gummed up and stung from the sticky blood which still coated them, and the world around him was blurry.
My glasses! He realized. He tried to lift his arms, but they were held fast to his sides.
“My - - ,” he said aloud, but he could only take short breaths before he could continue, “- - glasses…”
A large fuzzy person-shaped outline whose hands were on Robert’s chest turned an indistinct blob of a head to another fuzzy outline that knelt beside him. “It’s okay, you can let go of his arm, this young man understands that we’re helping him.”
The other person released their grip on Robert’s left hand and he lifted it with some discomfort to his face. The goggles were still there, but the lenses were gone; only a few jagged bits remained in the frames, and he winced as one of them drew blood.
“Okay, Miriam, why don’t you get those off the boy’s face, he’s only going to cut himself up again.”
A third figure – Miriam, he supposed – reached down and carefully slid the goggles off his head, her fingers returning to his face to gingerly pluck away the lingering bits of glass and to daub away the blood with a wet cloth.
He blinked, his eyes straining to peer through the haze even as his mind struggled to resist the realization that, at long last, he was blind, here. “How…long…?”
“How long you been shot?” the older, male voice asked. “Not five, six minutes since we got here. Saw your friend scamper off, looked only a bit better off than you.”
“Trail of blood, leads off towards the docks,” another voice offered.
“And fore you think of it,” the first man cautioned, giving Robert’s chest a gentle pat that sent an ache down both arms, “I think you’ll agree that you’re in no shape to follow. Best take it as a loss and be grateful; if he’d been a steadier shot, you wouldn’t be here no how.”
Steadier shot? Gadrick? But he…never missed. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. I should be dead. Why am I not dead? The word “respawn” fluttered back to his mind, but he ignored it until it went away. As he lay there, he could hear the cannon fire from the harbor towers, and the return fire from the Monkey’s Duffle. He’d lived with those cannons for so long now, they were like the cries of his children. With each shot launched from the harbor’s big guns, he paused, listening intently for the associated splash.
The old man was a bit clearer in focus now. “So, lad, tell me this: suren you’re anxious about them cannon shots aimed at that vessel making her way out t’sea, I can see it plain enough on your face. But,” he added, drawing his face nearer to Robert’s, “are you hoping she’s sunk, or are you hoping she’s free?”
Robert took a slow breath. “I….I don’t know,” he confessed.
The old man nodded, patting Robert, former Captain of the pirate ship Monkey’s Duffle on the shoulder. “You and me both.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Full recovery took a few weeks, but eventually Robert was back again among the living, and got commissioned into the harbormaster’s duty roster. His experience as Captain proved invaluable to helping the town set up a more rigid defensive plan for the town.
At first, he’d felt conflicted by the requests they made of him; but logic prevailed. After all, they’d saved his life, and, as it turned out, they were a good people: hard working, friendly and generous. The reluctance he’d initially felt – as if he’d been betraying his ship and crew – were quickly replaced by the guilt for his years of pillaging and resultant fear he’d no doubt had a hand with instilling into the hearts of its townspeople. And each night, with the setting of the sun, he found himself looking out into the dying embers of each period of daylight, for any sign of top sails coming their way.
Without his glasses, he’d feared he would be effectively useless, but as it turned out the smith – a jovial behemoth of a man, named Daniels – was also quite adept at fashioning glass into the lenses they used for their spyglasses. By the time Robert was back on his feet, Daniels had already created a replacement pair for him. The material was a bit imperfect, and his right lens wasn’t quite strong enough, giving him headaches if he used them for too long. But headaches were a fair sight better than functional blindness, and a price he was all too willing to pay.
Additionally, the same Miriam who had stood by him while the old doctor had treated him remained beside Robert through his convalescence, caring for him until he was fully restored. When their friendship turned into something more was a hard question to answer, however. They had struck up a romance during his time under her care, and their relationship already had the town abuzz with talk of a spring wedding.
And so it was that when the Monkey’s Duffle returned to port, her former Captain Robert found that he now had something worth fighting for.
He had been leaving Miriam’s house and his lips were still tingling with the memory of her kisses when movement from the bay drew his eyes. Robert had to cover his right eye so he could get a decent look at it, and caught just a faint impression of a dark shadow within the blackness that hung over the water.
“Damned fools,” he shook his head as he broke into a run towards the harbor guard terminal. The ship had just passed the Shadow’s Fangs, giving them perhaps five minutes until they reached the docks. Still plenty of time. He smiled, skidding to a stop inside the barracks.
One of the watchmen spun about as he entered. “Captain Robert!” he exclaimed. “It’s a ship, sure enough – is it the Duffle?”
He’d initially resisted the men calling him by his former title – “a Captain needs must by definition own a ship,” as they well knew – but eventually he had relented. Truth be told, he still thought of the Duffle as his. God willing, she’ll be mine again.
“It’s her, right enough,” he said, reaching out for the spyglass. He trained it in on the bay, looking for where he knew she must be. Movement – shadows within shadows – confirmed it. “A fresh coat of pitch, but that’s her. Go alert the militia chief and tell him to send out a team to hold the dock once their teams are ashore.”
“Aye, sir,” the young man replied, rushing off to obey. Another solider came in as soon as the lad had left.
“Captain Robert, orders?” It was Mitchell, who he’d been training with in a more covert style of armed combat.
“Get your team, Lieutenant Mitchell, and meet me west of the docks, station red.” Robert smiled. “We have a ship to take.”
His smile was met by a snap salute. “Aye, sir,” Mitchell responded, “Right away.”
Robert pulled on a tactical vest; something he’d been working on with Daniels, which involved keeping everything he might need for defensive purposes in a secure rigging he could get to easily. He also pulled a dark cloth mask over his face, as well as dark gloves so that his skin wouldn’t stand out against the rest of the shadows. Then he ran quietly down to the docks, and took up his position in time to see the Monkey’s Duffle slip silently up to the docks.
Mitchell and his team pulled up a moment later and they huddled in the shadowed alcove of what they had labeled station red. Several locations of defensive positioning had been indicated across the surrounding locale of the town, from the base of the forest up the hill and around to the water’s edge in both directions. It allowed them to allocate soldiers to a precise and defensible position quickly and efficiently.
“Send your first team in, have them wait for our signal,” he told Mitchell. The lieutenant turned to three of his men and pointed towards the ship. They nodded and headed down to the closest point of the docks, and lowered themselves down into the water.
As another part of their plan, the harbor guard had also affixed a series of oil lamps at the edge of the docks – something that had not been there the last time the pirate ship had docked here – and the pirates’ shore party instantly recognized the difference. Previously, it had been possible to come straight from the far end of the dock all the way into the town before one needed risk a chance of being seen. Now, however, the flickering lamps cast a brilliance across the entire area. To get close enough to douse it would bring them out of the obscuring embrace of the night; trying to knock the lamp down would pose the risk of crashing an oil fire onto the wooden dock.
From their vantage point, Robert and company could see a few of the pirates now huddled together as they debated how to respond. Robert held up his hand to keep his people steady.
After a minute or two, one of the pirates hurried forward and awkwardly climbed the pole to try and douse the lamp. A moment later, he climbed back down and ran back to the rest of the pirates. Another few moments of discussion, and the entire band ran through the spheres of light from the two lamps and moved quickly into the town.
Mitchell tapped Robert on the shoulder, gesturing meaningfully towards the docks, but Robert shook his head. He knew they’d figure out a way to deal with the lamps; the point was to keep them night-blind as long as possible as they made their way into the town. It also bought them a few extra minutes for their other men to get into position.
The next step in their preparations had been to paint all the dock-facing buildings stark white. This allowed them to easily count the men who rushed into the town from the pirate ship. Robert counted silently, keeping track of the number of pirates, and calculating how many that should leave on the ship. It had been almost two months since they’d last been here, Robert figured, and they’d had a full crew back then. Unless they’d encountered trouble, it was unlikely that Captain Gadrick (the thought of the name alone forced Robert to swallow against the rising bile the other man conjured up) would have taken on new crew.
Another minute, and the pirates had all gone ashore; at least, all who would be going. Robert held up four fingers, indicating a rough count of how many dozen men had gone past. Mitchell, who had also been counting nodded to confirm the number. Robert grimaced; that was more pirates ashore than the militia would be expecting. On the other hand, that means less men to defend the ship.
Robert lowered his hand, pointing once more ahead and towards the ship. They moved from their place of concealment and swiftly moved towards the docks. To a man, they wore soft-soled shoes, sewn together from cured deerskin. Robert had been teaching them all to walk like the people out in the Tribe, quiet like the wind. They were fairly good, most of them. Two of the men – who were solid combatants but never did manage to master walking quietly, Robert and Mitchell waved on into the front of the line. These two, unlike the rest, wore regular leather soled boots and carried a pair of nearly empty barrels in their hands.
Robert knew Tyler Tats or someone similar would be waiting by with a team of defenders to prevent boarding. Their orders had always been; “unless you hear gunfire, the first person not carrying goods onto the ship gets a shot in the gullet.”
Two pirates waited on the docks by the hull of the ship, where the casting lines kept the ship tied off. Their attention was fixed on the two men carrying the barrels – so much so that Robert and Mitchell were able to silence them and carefully lay their unconscious bodies on the dock without making a sound.
If Tyler Tats was still manning the defensive position, that would leave a dozen men on the deck, a dozen more in the rigging in preparation for a quick departure, with a final dozen below decks to man the cannons. The first two were absolutely essential to keep the ship safe, the third was just to encourage the harbor cannons to stop firing at them as they fled.
But if his count was right, there were only a couple dozen pirates left on the ship, period. By chance, one of the cannon ports had been left open near them. Robert risked a look inside and saw…no one. He tapped Mitchell on the shoulder and pointed inside.
Mitchell tapped two of his smaller men and gestured into the porthole. They squirmed dexterously into the ship’s interior and quickly scouted the interior as they moved into position at the bottom of the stairs.
Robert gestured to the two barrel-carrying decoy men, and they quickly strode up the gangplank and onto the ship. The Captain and the Lieutenant waited below with the rest of their men in the shadows beside the hull.
Above deck, they could hear the two men with the barrels being addressed by Tyler, and Robert breathed a sigh of relief. He knew well how Tyler worked – for their plan to be successful, they needed as few surprises as possible.
The men dropped the barrels at the same time onto the main deck; loud enough to send a vibration through the ship. That had been their pre-arranged signal for Mitchell’s first team to move in; had there been any trouble, they would have set the barrels down, one at a time.
Robert put his right foot up on the bottom of the plank and was about to walk up when one of their two “barrel men” reappeared at the rail.
“Come on up, sirs, you have to see this.”
A moment later, Robert was jumping down to the deck and pulled his mask off in amazement. The only pirate on deck was Tyler Tats himself, hands in the air.
“Captain Robert!?” he exclaimed, clearly confused. “But – but - my god, I thought you were dead!”
“Respawned,” Robert said offhandedly, even though the word made as much sense to him as it did to the others. “Rather, Gadrick’s as bad at shooting as the doc was good at healing. But what happened? Where is everyone?”
