Then, seeing the rags in which the pirates on this ship were clad, she realized the truth. Like most Vanberts, Helga tended to think of “Islanders” and “pirates” as synonymous terms. But the truth was more complicated.
The Islanders could be separated into at least four distinct groups. There was the actual Kingdom of the Isles, ruled over by Casull the IV from his capital on the island of Chalice. Or, as he officially styled himself: “King Casull IV, Lord of the Isles, Supreme Autocrat, Chosen of the Sun God and Lemare of the Sea.” Leaving aside the rhetorical flourish of the rest, the term autocrat was accurate enough. Except that the power of the King of the Isles, as great as it undoubtedly was, also had the historical characteristic of transience. Islander politics were even more notorious for treachery, double-dealing and palace revolts than the Confederacy’s.
Then, there was—had been, rather—the smaller-scale but similar realm of Vase. The island of Vase, because it was located quite some distance from the main archipelago, had traditionally enjoyed independent status. Until Casull conquered it the year before, it had been ruled by the so-called Director of Vase. It had been in that old pirate chief’s hareem that Helga had spent the most unpleasant year of her life, after she’d been sold by the pirates who captured her. The Director had been delighted to obtain a high-ranked member of the Vanbert aristocracy for one of his concubines. Even if, in practice, he hadn’t been able to do much to enjoy his prize.
She grimaced, as a sudden image came back to her. A fat belly, heaving and covered with sweat, almost crushing her; and an old man’s peevish voice, cursing her because he couldn’t get an erection. He’d slapped her, that night, hard enough to leave bruises on her cheeks for days thereafter.
The ugly memory was blown away by another volley from Trae’s guns. She was startled to realize that not more than a quarter of a minute had elapsed since the first. Trae really had trained his men well.
And he was using them intelligently, Helga thought. Trae had kept back half of his twenty two-man teams, having apparently decided that maintaining a good rate of fire was more important than the size of the volleys themselves. Now, as his teams switched places—one squad firing loaded and ready guns while the other picked up their second set of weapons—his decision proved itself. The second volley slammed into the side of the pirate ship before the cloud of smoke from the first had been dissipated by the slight breeze.
Confusion, she could remember her father telling her, is an even better weapon against an enemy than casualties. The pirates, she realized, had not had time to make sense out of what was happening to them before yet another volley ripped into their ranks.
Because of the smoke, she couldn’t really see the casualties which were being inflicted by Trae’s guns. But judging from the volume of the screams coming from amidships of the enemy vessel, as well as the dismay on the faces of those pirates she could see on the stern and bow—they weren’t gloating over their projected rapine now, the stinking bastards—she thought the guns were tearing the enemy like a pack of predators tears a cornered greatbeast.
The unwanted image of a rapist’s fat belly was replaced by another. The more slender waists of would-be rapists, sitting on benches, screaming as they stared at their shattered hip bones and ruptured intestines. Helga had seen what those lead bullets would do to a heavy pig, shot at close range. The thin planks of the pirate ship wouldn’t slow them down much more than paper. If anything, she thought, the splinters the bullets would produce punching through the walls would simply double the casualties. And if pieces of broken wood sent sailing by four-ounce lead balls wouldn’t do quite as much damage as the bullets themselves, they would do more than enough to put most of the men they struck half out of the action by the time the marines stormed aboard. “Half out of the action,” against experienced Confederate infantrymen, was pretty much a euphemism for dead meat.