“Oh no, you’re mine now. You’ll go where I go, and obey my every order, or die ten times worse than your last owner! Get me?”
Dumbly she nodded, cowering behind her supple hands.
“Get on the boat,” Brandon snapped. “And you’ll show me what that fancy tongue of yours can really do tonight in my bunk. Then the rest of the crew, too, if it amuses me!”
Limping, the girl awkwardly climbed onto the PT boat, the laughing sailors roughly shoving her out of the way as they loosened the mooring lines and got ready to leave. Sec men of the lord baron rarely stayed on shore. The risk of getting aced in a night-creep by the locals was too great.
Cowering in the corner of the angled wheelhouse, the slave watched carefully as the norms got their wood-burning vessel under way and started steaming away from shore.
Receding into the distance, a conflagration raged freely on the jungle hillside, while a much smaller blaze licked fiery tongues skyward from the middle of the ville.
“Finally I’m going home,” she whispered softly, luxuriating in speaking again. “And the lord baron will pay.”
A passing sec man snapped his head toward her, and she opened her dress to display her golden breasts. He smirked and went back to coiling the ropes, already thinking of what he’d do to the mutie if he got the chance.
For a moment there, the sailor could have sworn she said something, but that was impossible. Muties were too dumb for talk. It had to have been the wind. Yeah, that was it. Just the wind. Dumb slut.
GROWING DARKNESS covered the calm sea, broken only by the faint silvery moonlight and the dim yellow light of fish-oil lanterns on the sinking ship. The Delta Blue had quickly and quietly gone to her grave, the cold sea consuming the wild blaze raging over the shattered pirate ship. Slowly sinking, the victorious Constellation was alone in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by a bobbing corona of wreckage and bodies.
Knowing their valiant ship was doomed, the crew had blocked the holes in her hull with the sacks of dried fish to slow the rushing water, then chopped holes in the opposite side of the ship to make her sink level and buy them precious minutes to gather supplies. Unfortunately it was soon discovered that most of the lifeboats used to build the barricade had been badly damaged in the firelight. Lolling belly up, the skiffs were half-submerged already. A fight had ensued over one of the intact lifeboats, and fresh blood swirled in the deepening water.
Far away from the others, the companions were at the broken bow of the ship guarding a small skiff piled with their backpacks. At the tiller, Ryan stood holding a lantern salvaged from the quarterdeck. Mildred did the same at the bow, covering the skiff in a nimbus of light. Over the side of the skiff, the splintered planks of the Connie were barely visible below the inch of water covering the main deck. On their other side was the stygian sea, stretching to the stars on the horizon, and countless miles deep. With every tiny wave, the bottom of their boat scraped against the planks and became a little more buoyant.
“Where the hell is he?” J.B. demanded, squinting into the growing darkness.
“Shoulda gone with,” Jak stated, frowning.
“He’s taking way too long,” Ryan said, placing aside his Steyr and drawing his hand cannon. “Must be trouble. Give me a lantern, I’ll go find him.”
“No, wait. There he is!” Krysty cried in obvious relief, pointing into the murky gloom.
At first only a vague shape, Dean suddenly came into view, sloshing through the ankle-deep water covering the deck. A canvas pack over his shoulder, the youth paused, then carefully skirted the invisible hole in the unseen deck.
“Found it,” Dean said, tossing his backpack of ammo into the lifeboat. “Give me another minute and I’ll grab some more food from the galley.”
“No time. Get in,” his father said, grabbing the boy by the collar and bodily hauling him into the lifeboat. “Got to make some distance or we’ll get caught in the undertow when the Connie goes under.”