Impatiently Ryan interrupted. “Most of the powder barrels were crushed by the concussion. We’re lucky they didn’t detonate and blow the ship into kindling.”
The captain felt a surge of helplessness and forced it under control. Without her cannon for protection, an attacker would simply sail in close and fire a broadside that would tear them apart.
“No luck involved. Black Harry never kept the barrels near each other for just that reason,” Jones growled, hooking thumbs into his belt. “Okay, how much we got left?”
“Roughly two hundred pounds,” J.B. said solemnly. “Mebbe a little less.”
The sailor was stunned. “Two hundred! Shitfire, man, that’s not enough to load every cannon once!” Desperate, Jones gestured at the dirty floor. “Can we salvage any of this?”
“Not mixed with all this sawdust, sea salt, blood, brains and other crap,” Krysty stated, leaning on her broom. “Be easier to make new.”
“If only we could,” the captain growled, his fists clenched.
The companions exchanged glances. J.B. started to speak, and Ryan cut him off with an abrupt hand gesture.
“Fucking black powder,” the Deathlands warrior said in a consoling manner, hoping for a reaction.
“Fucking lord baron is more like it!” Jones spit furiously. “That fat son of a bitch guards the secret like his own balls! I once heard some asshole tried to sneak on to Maturo Island to steal the formula. The lord baron tortured him to death over a full year. A year!”
“Diabolical,” Doc rumbled, clearly disgusted.
“Advertising,” Mildred retorted hotly. “He did it as a warning to others.”
“Aye, that it was. Good one, too. Not a soul has tried since.”
“And what if somebody discovered the formula and started making their own?” Krysty asked casually.
Chewing a lip, J.B. remained stoically silent. “Make your own black powder,” Jones breathed a few times before speaking. “Not worth the risk. Lord baron catch ya, it’d be the Arena.”
This the companions understood. They had often been forced to fight in gladiatorial-type games for the amusement of barons or warlords.
“Not afraid of death,” Ryan countered gruffly.
“You should be,” the captain said softly, then shuddered.
Krysty felt her hair tighten protectively. What could possibly be worse than one solid year of bloody torture?
“Chill them,” Jak stated bluntly.
The captain sneered. “Don’t ya think folks have tried? Years ago, some of the pirates and a few villes combined to send a fleet to Maturo Island. Fuckers didn’t even reach dry land before getting chilled. The lord bastard has got steel boats called Peteys that don’t need wind and move faster than eels. And fancy rapidfires like yours, only much bigger. Plus, those triple-damn Firebirds!”
“Describe it,” Ryan ordered.
Jones bristled at the command, then decided he was being a fool. The more these outlanders knew, the better they could protect the Connie.
“It’s like an arrow,” he stated, “only with flame coming outta its ass. And when it hits something hard, she blows like a keg of powder.”
“LAW rocket?” J.B. guessed.
Ryan scowled. “Mebbe, but more likely a black-powder rocket with some sort of payload. A green, mebbe.”
“Those would strike like thunderbolts from Zeus against men armed with muskets,” Mildred said, as a great feeling of weariness filled her soul. In the Deathlands, starving men fought over a can of beans. Here in the Pacific, food was plentiful, and still they fought. It was madness beyond her understanding.
“Tell me about those steel boats,” Ryan said, kneeling on the deck. He drew his knife and scratched a crude outline of a battleship in the dark wood. “Anything like this?”
Sticking a green cig into his mouth, Jones made no effort to light his smoke as he studied the picture.
“Sort of,” he said, then drew a knife and started adding to the outline. “Only not so many cannons, and they got chimneys in aft, always smoking. Only good point about the Peteys is that ya can see them coming for miles, what with all the black ash and smoke, and that frigging loud whistle.”
J.B. muttered a curse, and Ryan agreed. Peteys? Steam-powered PT boats. The killers of the first great war. Would have been better if the lord baron had a working battleship. At least they could dodge out of the way of one of those behemoths, but not the smaller, faster, patrol transport boats. Long ago in a well-stocked redoubt, Ryan had watched a predark vid of a tiny PT sinking an aircraft carrier a hundred times its size. The Constellation would never have a chance against one of those sleek war machines, no matter how bad shape it was in. There went any chance of the companions trying to steal fuel from the crafts. Best to avoid those Peteys completely.