“Above the water level?” Jones demanded, casting aside his longblaster and pulling two blasters from his belt.
“Aye, sir!”
“Then fuck it. Keep firing!”
The girl with the broken nose said, “Captain, I’m out of powder.”
“Aye, sir. Me, too,” another sailor added.
“Any more?” Abagail demanded, kneeling behind the gunwale to stay out of sight while she checked the powder bags of the dead. Nothing. Lots of shot and wadding, but every grain of powder had been used.
“That was it,” the captain stated, cocking back the hammers of his huge pistols. “We lost too much chilling those slavers.”
Another girl fired her weapon, then turned. “That was the last for me,” she said. “What now?”
Abagail drew a knife and yanked the belt off a corpse, started lashing the blade to the end of her musket. “Make spears!” she shouted, tightening the strap with a vengeance.
The cannons of the Delta Blue were pulled inside the ship for loading. Knowing he had a few moments in the clear, Ryan stood and placed his shots with care, not willing to waste a single round. He had more ammo in the backpack, but not a whole lot more. He hadn’t planned on any extended firelights. Again and again, the Deathlands warrior tried for the pilot, but the ace man was now hiding behind a corpse lashed to the wheel as protection. Worked, too. And the gunners working the cannons were much too well protected behind the stout oak bulkheads. Every minute, the Delta Blue was edging steadily closer to the ship. Every move made by the pilot at the wheel of the Connie was countered by the pirates. There was no escaping from the big blasters of the small ship. The pitted muzzles of the black cannons emerged once more, and Ryan ducked only moments before the twenty pounders roared a full salvo. A rain of lead pellets hit the ship, the masts rippling with a thousand tiny holes.
“Grapeshot again.” Krysty scowled.
“Aye, trying to slow us down,” Jones growled, raising his blasters, then lowering them again. If they had lots of powder, he would have risked a few wild shots, but not now.
“It’s working,” Mildred said, firing her ZKR in a two-handed grip. Wounded in the shoulder, a pirate spun about while firing his blaster and chilled one of his own crewmates.
Suddenly there was a loud crackle of blasterfire from below.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Jones screamed, tilting his head toward the noise. “Don’t they know that’ll only draw the pirates in quicker?”
“Yes, they do. Wondered how long it would take them to think of it,” Ryan said, shouldering the Steyr and drawing the SIG-Sauer. Short-range and silent, it was a close-quarters combat weapon, but carried more rounds and loaded faster than the longblaster.
“Think of what?” Jones barked, furious. “They’ve sealed our fate!”
“Saved our ass is more like it,” Krysty corrected, then paused, for the first time noticing the trickle of red going down the sleeve of her jumpsuit. Testing her shoulder, she found a sore area, the fabric black with her blood. Her fingers moved, and the blood didn’t spurt out from a torn artery, so it was only a flesh wound, nothing serious. Mildred could patch it later. If they lived through this.
Panga knife in one hand, blaster in the other, Ryan went behind a water barrel. Drawing a bowie knife, Krysty did the same at a yard-high coil of rope. Brandishing the shotgun and revolver, Mildred took a firing position behind a turnstile used for raising the sea anchor.
“Everybody take cover!” Ryan shouted, as the pirate cannons spoke again, showering them with more grapeshot. “And get away from the railing! Far away!”
Suddenly Jones understood. So that was the plan. By Davey, it might work at that! “O’Malley, Daniels, get axes up here on the double!” he ordered. Then filled his lungs with air and bellowed, “Prepare to repel boarders!”
The crew of the Constellation rushed to obey.
GORE COATED the deck of the Delta Blue, a corpse was burning by a hatchway, dropped weapons lay scattered about, pieces of the smashed gunwale and barrels everywhere. It looked as if they had already lost the battle, and not in the process of winning.