“Aye, Giles will do us personally,” the older man said, his face a grim mask. “Only one explanation I can think of that might work. A slim chance, but all there is.”
“Yeah?” the other asked hopefully. “What is it?”
“That I was patrolling the island when you fell asleep and let the slave steal a blaster.”
“What?” the teenager shouted. “Gonna blame it on me?”
“No choice,” the older man said in a flat voice, and slashed out with his knife. Gushing blood, the teenager reeled backward, his head almost completely severed from his body. Clutching at his neck, the dying youth stumbled about, then slipped and fell, tumbling into the spring, the red spreading out until tinting the entire pool.
“Sorry, my son.” The man sighed, sheathing the blade. “But it was you or me.”
Only yards away, the bound slave hanging from a tree branch began to shake, convulsing as he wildly thrashed in his bonds. For the hundredth time, he mentally relived that terrible night when he sold his own brother and his wife into slavery to purchase a blaster—only to also be taken into chains by the laughing pirates.
Silently the traitor began to cry as he realized nobody with a blaster was ever coming to set him free, and he would pay for that cowardly crime forever.
Chapter Nine
“Mr. Daniels! Steady as she goes,” Captain Jones shouted from the main deck, through cupped hands.
Never releasing the wheel, Daniels nodded. “Aye, sir! Steady on course!”
“Follow this heading for another fifty miles. Then go ten degrees due east.”
Startled, the sailor stared through the spokes of the wheel. “Fifty miles, sir?”
“We’re heading for the river. Only way we’re going to get our Connie back home.”
Daniels swallowed hard. “Aye, skipper. Fifty it be.”
Giving the man a casual salute, Jones walked past the mainsail and tugged on the ropes to make sure they were properly secured. Then he went to the cargo hatch to check that the lid was bolted tight. It was a four-deck drop from the main deck into the hold where they stored cargo, and he didn’t want some damn fool peeking in for a look and getting chilled.
Satisfied for the moment, Jones went past the winches to the ragged hole in the ship’s deck. Dressed in loose clothing, Abagail was directing the women to nail down strips of old tarpaulin across the opening, sealing it closed. The work was progressing nicely, so Jones saw no reason to interfere. Some skippers wanted to watch over everything like a chicken on an egg, which Jones though was triple stupe. Train sailors to only do as they were told, and in a real emergency they’d pause before acting and maybe sink the ship. Slaves and bootlickers should have no part in a crew. It took brains and balls to sail the seas. Jones paused, and mentally changed that to brains and heart.
Going to the farthest point away from their work, he looked down at the lower level of the ship. Smashed debris covered the gun deck, busted slats and bits of canvas everywhere. Working with brooms and shovels, Ryan and his friends were busy clearing away the trash, tossing the odd body part out the gun hatches and into the sea. Even their healer was helping.
“Ahoy, gun deck!” he shouted over the steady creaking of the pounding of the hammers. A ship was never silent, any more than a ville full of people. “What’s your status!”
Hefting a shovel full of miscellaneous wreckage, Ryan glanced directly upward at the man. “Bad,” he bellowed in reply. “Best come down and see!”
Jones frowned. That wasn’t what he had wanted to hear. Going to the nearest hatchway, the captain followed the companionway to the gun deck, nearly breaking his neck when he tripped on a missing step. Working his trapped boot loose, he stomped through an open hatchway in sour humor. Twisted remains of iron hinges in the jamb still supported broken bits of planks. It had to have been a hell of a blast.
“What’s the problem?” he demanded gruffly, glancing around. “The cannons look fine.”
“Made of solid cast iron, of course they’re undamaged,” J.B. agreed, stepping out of a firing troth. “Need thermite to harm these blasters. And we got plenty of cannonballs, and rope for fuse.”