“Ready…fire!” Jones shouted, and the crew shot their muskets once more.
As the crew of the Constellation reloaded, only two archers on the Delta Blue unleashed arrows, then the pirates fired their longblasters. Rounds hummed by and a rope parted, but nobody was hit. However, the three-masted ship was much closer, and gaining every minute.
A sharp whistle sounded from below, and Jones stuck his head over the railing.
“We’re ready!” J.B. shouted out the hatch directly below.
“Then fire!” the captain shouted, raising his face to glare at the pursuing vessel.
The Constellation shook from the volley of her cannons, dark smoke stretching across the waters. On the pirate ship, a water barrel, exploded, several pirates reeled covered with splinters and a large section of front gunwale was torn away. A pirate fell missing a leg, and was dragged to safety by his crew mates.
“Too high!” Jones shouted, slamming a fist onto the railing. The broadside had done little damage. “And use chain this time!”
“CHAIN?” Doc asked, swabbing out a hot cannon to quench any lingering sparks inside. He withdrew the wet bundle of rags and stroked in the dry rags to remove any excess moisture.
“You’ll see,” J.B. grunted, carefully scooping handfuls of black powder into another cannon. Jones was a crafty devil. “Load these two! We’ve got to conserve.”
When Doc and Dean had done their jobs and retreated to a safe distance, J.B. used a piece of burning rope on the end of a pole to touch off the fuses. The three cannons roared in a neat line, the black smoke of the discharge blocking their view for a few moments. As it cleared away, the companions saw a dozen ropes dangling loose, sliced completely through by the whirling length of heavy chain spinning across the ship. A lot of men on deck were missing, and aft mast slowly cracked and toppled over into the sea, taking five men caught in the rigging along with it into a watery grave.
The pirate ship was crippled, but still moving closer.
“Again!” J.B. shouted, and the sequence was repeated. A huge tear appeared in the forward sail, and a gaping hole was punched in the side of the Delta Blue, a good ten feet above the waterline.
“By the Three Kennedys, we missed!” Doc raged, baring his teeth. “Just a tad lower and she’d be sinking like a rock!”
“Once more should do it!” Dean panted, hauling a ball to an unused cannon. It was faster to load a cold cannon then to swab out a hot one.
“With what?” J.B. cursed, casting aside the pole. “That was it for black powder. There’s nothing left in the barrels. Now we go up on deck and dig in with the rest.”
“I have two pounds of black powder,” Doc said, patting the ammo pouch on his belt. “Any good?”
“Useless. Wouldn’t get a twelve-pound ball halfway.”
Dean muttered darkly and went to the nearest open hatch. Pulling out his Browning semiautomatic blaster, he aimed at the pirates.
“Dean, no!” Doc shouted in warning.
The boy frowned. “Why not?” he demanded. “Might get one of them.”
“Firing from a cannon port would mean we are out of powder,” Doc explained. “And that means we are defenseless…but are we really defenseless?”
“What’s the plan?” J.B. demanded, extending the wire stock of the Uzi for better stability.
“C-4, my good man. Do we have any left?”
“Dark night, we do!” J.B. said, easing the safety back on the Uzi, and rummaging in the munitions bag hanging from his shoulder. With a cry of triumph, the Armorer extracted a grayish rectangle of what looked like oily clay. “A full block. That might be enough.”
“Start cutting,” Doc rumbled, going to an open hatch and triggering the LeMat in a deafening discharge. “We’ll do the rest.”
As J.B. got busy with a knife, Dean’s face suddenly brightened in understanding, and the boy joined the silver-haired man at a portal, banging away steadily with his Browning.
THE ROW OF CANNONS on the Delta Blue thundered again, and the Constellation trembled as something slammed into her sides.
“Grapeshot!” a sailor cried, glancing over the gunwale. “Got holes in us from stem to stern.”