“Why not leave the islands?” Krysty asked, her green eyes wide with curiosity.
“Currents fight ya,” Jones stated. “Can’t get more than a hundred miles past the last island before ya gotta turn back.”
Then the short man hawked and spit, his right hand making some sort of a symbol in the air. “Besides, there be muties in the deeps that can swallow a whole ship, masts and all.”
“Balderdash,” Doc rumbled in disbelief. Every sailor throughout recorded history told tales of behemoths from the sea that ate ships. None of the stories were true. Then he recalled the double-boned spider from the gateway island.
“What do they look like?” he asked anxiously, suddenly very aware that less than a foot of wooden planks was all that stood between the companions and the cold blue sea.
“Captain!” a sailor interrupted from above.
Everybody looked upward to see an anxious face staring down at them from the partially covered hole in the deck.
“Report!” Jones barked, getting off his knees.
“There’s a ship on the horizon coming our way!”
The captain frowned. “In these waters? What heading?”
“East, southeast!”
“Nuke me!” Jones spit, and pulled out his blaster to check the load. Then he took off at a run. “Everybody topside!”
Grabbing their own blasters, the companions rushed to the main deck. Most of the crew was lining the starboard railing, squinting into the horizon.
“Due west!” a bald man shouted while pointing. “Three-masted schooner!”
Going to the gunwale, Jones placed a varnished bamboo tube to his eye, pulling a smaller length of tube from out of the big one. J.B. stood alongside the man and pulled out his brass Navy telescope. The designs were almost identical.
“Can’t focus,” Jones said, extending the makeshift scope to its full length.
“Got her!” J.B. announced out of the side of his mouth. “Big ship, lots of cannon.” He lowered the scope. “The gun hatches are open. They’re ready to shoot.”
“Any flag flying?”
“None. Name on the bow is Delta Blue.”
“Pirates,” a sailor growled hatefully, and pulled a flintlock from his belt. “Stinking coldhearts.”
“Can we outrun them?” Mildred asked, clutching the railing with both hands. Both of the ships were bobbing on the waves, and the sight was making her a little nauseous.
Irritably Jones lowered his bamboo scope and compacted it with a slap. “Run? Impossible! We’re bigger and fully laden. They have three sails to our one. They’ll reach pistol range in short order, and then they’ll board and storm us.”
“Aren’t they going to use their cannons?” Dean asked.
“Don’t want to sink us, lad. They want the ship, its cargo and us in chains. Cannons be the thing they use if we try to escape.”
“Go faster,” Jak said, aiming his .357 Magnum at the enemy vessel, but held off firing. The range was too great for his revolver. “Dump cargo.”
“That would take hours. They’ll reach us in only minutes.”
Abagail put a hand on Jones’s shoulder, and he covered her hand with his.
“I’ll scuttle the Connie and take us all to go see Davey before I ever go back in chains,” he muttered in a voice of ice.
“Give me liberty, or give me death,” Doc said softly.
Suddenly the pirate vessel veered to the south to bring it broadside to the Constellation, and a line of flashes dotted its side.
“Down!” Ryan shouted, and hit the deck.
Everybody went prone, and a heartbeat later iron balls whistled over the deck.
“That was a warning shot,” Jones fumed, standing again. “The shifters think we’ll try to bargain or plead our way out.”
He turned to the companions. “Okay, outlanders, time to find out if you’re any good.”
Without a word Ryan slid the Steyr rifle off his shoulder. Working the bolt, he focused the cross of the scope on the other ship and swept the deck, looking for targets. Through the hatches he saw gunners busy with the cannons. On deck, sailors raced about with nets and leg irons. Standing on the quarterdeck was a man with a gun belt draped over his chest like a bandolier. Behind the wheel was a big ugly man, an ax tucked into his belt. Either could be the captain.