J.B. only geared the throttles down at the last minute.
Even then the flagship roared up onto the rocky ledge where the Foundation people had made their campsite.
“Hold on!” J.B. shouted in warning.
Ryan gripped the railing as the hull ripped out from under the big boat. It listed, turning over on its side. The one-eyed man forced himself to his feet, standing on the console as the boat slid sideways.
When the flagship came to its final rest, the prow caved in where it struck a huge boulder. Ryan vaulted onto the rocky ledge in time to watch the other six powerboats race to shore, as well.
“Get your asses over here!” Donovan roared, waving to the teams.
Two men stayed with each boat, taking the .50-caliber machine guns loose from the side rails. The extra men from each group raced over to the pirate flagship. Men atop the dam lowered a huge fishing net with attached cargo hooks. Donovan and some of the men climbed into the sixty-footer’s belowdecks with the hooks and nets, attempting to salvage the piece of space station.
Ryan and J.B. set up a firezone, then liberated disposable LAWs they’d found inside the redoubt.
The pirates showed up minutes later, obviously delayed by the boat Ryan had shot up. By that time, Donovan and his men had freed the space-station piece from the flagship. The Foundation man shouted up the side of the dam, and men above began hauling up the cargo net.
“I’ve got the first shot,” J.B. stated quietly.
“Go,” Ryan said.
The Armorer waited only a little longer, then he fired the LAW. The 94 mm warhead sped just over the top of the cistern water and collided with the second boat back in the cluster that had spotted the rocky ledge.
The resulting explosion took out three boats and threw a wave of fire over the others. Confusion swept the pirates ranks.
“Get those people up the dam,” Ryan ordered Donovan.
The Foundation man and his teams wasted no time in scaling the rope ladders that had been thrown from the top of the dam. Ryan ordered Jak and Dean to go next.
Shouldering the tube-shaped weapon, Ryan fired it at the largest cluster of pirate boats he saw. The impact threw fiery remnants into the air. He didn’t wait to see any more, sprinting for the nearest rope ladder, with J.B. at his side.
As he made his way up the dam, half dragged and half climbing, he saw the pirate boats get organized again. Given how many he spotted, he knew the ones they’d seen in the small harbor earlier hadn’t been all of them. Barbarossa had evidently split his forces. Forty, maybe fifty watercraft had crowded into the cistern.
Just over halfway up the dam, Ryan told Donovan to blow the canyon walls on the other side of the cistern. The man hesitated only a moment, looking down and obviously thinking Ryan and J.B. weren’t going to make it. His voice was ripped away by the wind, but the instant detonations behind Ryan told him the command had been given.
Glancing over his shoulder, Ryan watched a mass of rock slide into the canyon that bottlenecked the cistern. In seconds, the thunderous mass blocked the canyon, sealing off the pirates who were inside from the ones who hadn’t made it Ryan knew there had to have been only a few of them who hadn’t come into the killing zone.
Less than thirty feet remained to be climbed to the top of the dam. Ryan shouted at Donovan to blow the dam.
There was no hesitation at all this time.
The dam blew in an earthshaking explosion, releasing a thundering cascade of water that leaped out into the cistern like a live thing. It surged over the pirate vessels, smashing and overturning them as if they were a child’s toys.
Without warning, a part of the wall of water draining into the cistern whipped over, giving testimony to how much pressure the dam had actually held back. The cascade nearly ripped Ryan from the rope ladder. He clung to it, his shoulder screaming, feeling the rope burn his palms as it slid through his hands.