“Would you go back to Bainbridge?” she asked, leaning on her crutches. “It will be a long swim and you can bet the farm that the Corsairs will take more than a few potshots at you. Oh yeah, it’ll be a turkey shoot for them. That’s how they get their kicks. And what if you make do it back to the island? You know you’ll only be trapped there…until the walls come down, that is.”
“We don’t have to go back to the island,” Joe Collins said, piping up from somewhere in the crowd. “We could go north. Everyone talks about Alaska. They say they don’t have zombies up there on account of the snow.”
Jillybean shook her head and snorted. “Has the snow ever stopped them here? I crossed the Rockies and there were zombies at 20,000 feet. They were trudging through the snow like it was nothing. And when you leave on this journey, do you plan on leaving all of your wounded friends behind?” She squatted down next to Wayne French and squinted in at his wound.
His lips were pulled back in a frightened grimace. “Don’t let them leave me. I can’t feel my legs, but…but I can get better. Don’t leave me, okay?”
She gave him a wink. “I won’t and neither will they because they’re going to see that they don’t stand a chance unless they take a stand right here and right now.” When she looked up at them, no one would look at her. In their hearts, they knew she was right.
Debbie Meredith was on the verge of tears. “But they’ll be ready for us this time. And…and we’re out-numbered; two to one at least. And think what’ll happen if they turn that rocket on us. Jillybean, we can’t.”
Paul Daniels had two holes in him now and was more subdued than Emily had ever seen him. “I think Debbie’s right. Who’s going to lead this attack? You can’t, Jillybean. I can’t. I can barely walk. Without Gunner or someone else stepping up, any attack will falter and we’ll end up in even worse shape than we are now.”
Emily knew he was right. She cast a guilty look at her unconscious father. He had never been one to retreat. He had always found a way. Except this time. This time he had lost. His body and his soldiers had failed him. Maybe she had as well. Taking a deep breath, she pushed forward until she was in the center of the clearing. “You all heard Jillybean. We can’t leave the wounded behind and there’s nowhere to go. That being said, we can’t attack unless we have a better plan.” She turned to the bald-headed girl. “Do you have one? Is there some way out of this?”
“Maybe.” Jillybean turned her hard gaze on the crowd and added: “If you actually fight.” There was an uproar of indignation. She let it go on for half a minute before she raised her hands. “Really? You say you fought as hard as you could? All of you? I sincerely doubt that.” She pointed at her own face. “This is what fighting as hard as you can looks like. And look at Gunner. Look at what he did for you. Look at his pain!”
This shocked them into silence.
“But I’m not asking any of you to go that far,” she said. “I’m asking that you fight hard, trust me, and obey my orders without a moment’s hesitation. If you can do that, we can win.”
“How are we supposed to trust a crazy woman,” someone in the crowd asked. “You got like, seventy personalities. I bet one is working for the Corsairs.”
Jillybean actually smiled at this. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe one of them is. The other sixty-nine of us want to see them dead.”
“What about the rocket launcher?” Debbie asked again. “They could be targeting us right now.” Everyone turned to look at the launcher which had a missile sitting on it.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about those rockets. I didn’t build them to be used against personnel.” This caused a new uproar and new accusations of insanity and treason. She laughed at it all, looking crazier in the process. “Yes, I admit I made the bombs. I did so because I knew there was a chance I’d be standing right here under these exact circumstances.”
When considering the possibility, she’d put it at less than ten percent. The likelier options involved coming back to Emily and Gunner dead or captured, Deanna assassinated or in prison, and the Bainbridge “army” trapped on the island. The rockets had always been for show. They would’ve needed expert aiming to strike at the base of the wall, the only place they could really do the right damage. Hitting the base could take down the wall, hitting the top only made a mess.
Emily was the only one excited by the admission. “You made them, so you know their weakness, right?”
“They don’t have a weakness,” Jillybean said, a thin smile spreading across her battered features. “On the other hand, the Black Captain has many. To start with, he doesn’t trust his own captains, and that’s why he made me put in a master override code for all of the rockets.”
“What’s that mean?” Emily asked.
Jillybean slid a little black device that looked like a radio from her coat pocket. “It means he’s about to have a bad morning.” She thumbed the switch.
Chapter 37
San Francisco Bay
Jenn had been wrong about Mike and his plans. He’d sailed from Alcatraz without an overall strategy for victory. He was not a great thinker and when he did come up with brilliant ideas they generally struck him out of the blue and he was as surprised as anyone. That morning, he had sailed north with two goals: stop whatever invasion the Corsairs were planning next, and gain the weather gauge so that when the time came to do something, he would be able to strike first.
Having slashed through the Corsairs, he had given up the weather gauge and now the only edge he had over his enemies was that they had been thrown into wild confusion by the sudden onslaught. Many of the Corsairs were groping blindly in the smoke, while others were using it to hide in. There were even minor clashes in the smoke and the growing dark as the Corsairs had trouble identifying each other.
Mike hoped to add to the confusion by doing the one thing the Corsairs probably did not expect, and that was to attack a second time.
The men on board the gleaming white Queen’s Revenge exchanged looks after the signals had been run up the forward mast. On one hand, they didn’t like being left out of the attack, and on the other, they were secretly relieved not to be part of a suicide mission. Mike wasn’t going in full force, which would be dangerous enough since the Corsairs still held a commanding advantage in numbers. No, he was only calling for his fourteen black ships to attack.
“Before you rejoin the rest of the fleet, get as close as you dare to the smoke,” Mike instructed the nearest sailor, “and lay out three more barrels as fast as you can.” Although the sailor nodded quick enough, his eyes were large and wet. It surprised Mike to think that the man was afraid. If the Guardians ever felt fear, they kept it hidden as a point of pride. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you making me captain?” the Guardian asked in a low voice.
So, that’s it, Mike thought. The Guardian had probably faced death on a daily basis for the last ten years and it was something he could handle because of the strength of his faith. But now he was being asked to be responsible for the lives of so many others and that was another thing altogether. It was terrifying.
Mike understood the fear in the young Guardian better than anyone. The list of people who had died because of his decisions kept growing and growing. And with each death, the weight of responsibility increased. Not three feet away was Ren Finnemore’s cooling corpse. She had been his choice for captain and look where that mistake had gotten her.
That’s how Mike looked upon each death. They were proof that he had made a mistake somewhere along the line. Should he have turned earlier? Should he have committed to attacking the catamaran right off the bat? Was there a better strategy that would have given the Queen a perfectly bloodless victory?
Being captain meant owning every single death. It took a special kind of ego to step forward and want that terrible responsibility. This man didn’t seem cursed with that sort of ego.
“Choose your own captain,” Mike told the men around him. “Whoever it is, I want the Revenge w
ith the other ships in seven minutes. And I want the trap ready to go ASAP. When we come out of the smoke, I want it sprung like that.” He snapped his fingers.
The sailor nodded as Mike stripped off his coat and kicked off his shoes. The cold air hit him like a slap in the face, but he didn’t care. They didn’t have time for niceties. They had been out of the smoke for all of two minutes and he wanted his fourteen ships back in before anyone could figure out what he was doing.
He paused at the top of the rail and glanced back at the sailor. “Just make sure it’s us before you give the word.”
A second later, Mike dove into the freezing water, turned on his side and began to kick to intercept the fourteen ex-Corsair ships that were heading back. As soon as he got on board, he would trim that number to twelve. Two of the ships had black Corsair hulls, but were sailing under white Guardian silks. They would give away the game and maybe be the ruin of Mike’s little fleet. Their only chance was to get in quick, strike hard and get away as fast as they could.
The water was dreadfully cold, numbingly so, which for Mike and his throbbing arm was a good thing. The pain of his wound quickly faded into the background of his approaching hypothermia and he was able to use the arm just enough to put himself in position to be picked up by the Harbinger as she glided up. Hands lifted him aboard and a blanket was hung from his dripping shoulders.
“I want a smoker and two torpedoes ready to go,” he ordered as soon as he could catch his breath. “And I want those ships with the white sails to go back with the rest of the fleet.”
“Sir?” a young Guardian asked. His cross lay on his armored chest, looking like it was burning from the inside as it reflected the last of the day’s light. “We only have the one torpedo. We didn’t get two.”
Mike had forgotten how low they were on munitions. Only a few ships had been given a second torpedo. “Right. Then just the one, and the smoker. Let’s get that main squared away. Two points to port. You! Off the rail. If you’re part of the second watch I want you down below. Hey, let’s go with that main!” The Harbinger had dropped its mainsail when the ship slowed to pick him up and now he was eager to get moving back into the safety of the smoke.
Safety was a laughable word and yet, if the Corsairs broke free of the cloud just then, Mike could very much lose the war in the next few minutes. His tiny fleet would be trapped against the rocky shores of Angel Island, where they would be caught in a crossfire. Mike was already dangerously close to the island as he pointed the Harbinger northeast, hoping to get as far upwind as he could. They were so close in fact that bullets started winging at the twelve-boat formation.
As if they were only buzzing flies, the flying lead went ignored. “Just stay in there for a little longer,” he whispered, looking back and forth from the line of smoke roiling over the water, and the eleven ships behind him struggling to keep up. They weren’t holding to a perfect line and that was okay with Mike. Speed meant everything.
“Come on, a little longer.” He wasn’t the only one mumbling to himself. As they got closer and closer to the wall of smoke, most of the men could be heard praying.
Knowing that in a minute he would be back in the lion’s den with a bunch of pissed-off lions, Mike was glad for their prayers. He stood in a puddle of bay water and held his breath, watching along the line of smoke for the first sign of a Corsair ship.
Then the smoke swept over the bow and his world shrank around him. “Light the stern lantern,” he ordered in soft whisper. Things were strangely quiet in the smoke. There were sounds—sails rustling, guns being loaded, bodies being thrown into the cold water—but it was all muted and secretive. There was also a sensation that something was about to happen. It almost felt as if the Corsairs knew he was coming and had set their own trap.
I’m being crazy, he thought as he paced to the front of the boat, straining to see any sign of his enemies. They were out there, yes, but there was no way they could’ve formed up in the smoke. There was no way a trap could have been prepared so quickly…or so he told himself. “Eyes open people. I want to hear it the moment anything is seen. Remember, fire on the pause. When we hit the down roll, that’s when you shoot.”
There was one problem, there was nothing to shoot at.
“What the hell?” Mike said, under his breath. Doubt began to flood in. Had he gone too far up wind? Or not far enough? Should he keep to his course or angle south? Was he blundering into a trap? Should he turn around and rethink the entire thing?
He checked the second-hand on his watch and waited until two minutes had passed before ordering the Harbinger to turn up into the wind. The maneuver killed its forward momentum.
“Change to the green light.” It was the signal for the fleet to turn south and begin the attack. Attacking what remained to be seen. The lantern man hesitated after putting on his green filter. Because of the smoke and the radical turn, he was confused as to which way to shine the lantern.
Mike spun him around and pointed him to the southeast. Mike could have been blindfolded and would know which way he was pointed. He knew the shifting current beneath him and the wind out of the north. He knew where Alcatraz was and where Jenn was standing on the roof of the prison fretting about him now that he had ducked back into the smoke. He could feel Angel Island looming off to his front left.
And he knew the Corsairs were somewhere south of him. The attack had left them shocked and perhaps a little shy. They would have trimmed their sails and would be drifting, listening, waiting for the smoke barrels to fizzle out. They wouldn’t be taking chances trying to rip out of there when a five minute wait would clear up the tactical picture.
The light was pointed and all of three seconds later, the newly christened Mary Magdalene, made her turn south. The Nazareth followed so closely that her bowsprit scraped the stern of the Magdalene. All the trailing ships were so close it looked like a train.
Mike waited until the last had passed before letting the wind push the Harbinger’s head around to the south. He ordered full sail, but checked her speed by slewing left and right in a zigzag. It wasn’t long before the first gunshot rang out. It was one shot followed by a storm of explosions that did not let up for a second.
Mike’s helmsman began to turn straight for the sound of battle, but Mike kept him in check, still going back and forth. Even as the gunfire started to recede, Mike held to his odd course. It was not until a huge shadow passed between them and the battle that he change direction—but not towards the fight.
He swung away to the east for a hundred yards and then came flashing across the water at a dangerous speed, considering nothing could be seen fifteen feet ahead of them. The helmsman held the wheel in a white-knuckled grip, ready to spin it as fast as he could in any direction his mad captain ordered. The man could barely see the mast ten feet in front of him and was running on pure faith.
“Hard to port!” Mike cried, moments later. Then, “Back to neutral!” The orders were based on instinct and they did not fail Mike. Out of the smoke came the Corsair boat that had passed them. Fifty-two feet of hate, manned by a dozen hardened sailors, all of who were on the starboard rail as their ship came rushing up to the last ship in Mike’s fleet.
The Corsairs hesitated seeing that it was a black ship on their port side. Mike didn’t. “Fire as she bears,” he said, with cold hate in his heart. The Harbinger dipped low and seven guns roared out, raking across the short distance. The survivors spun and fired high, and as they did the men on Mike’s last boat began firing as well. In seconds, the deck of the Corsair ship ran with blood.
“Now the hull,” Mike said. It was riddled along the waterline and was left sinking. As the men reloaded, Mike again swung out to port and found himself in a swarm of black ships. Some were running from the battle, some were racing towards it, and some were just sitting on the water “making repairs” as they were quick to tell anyone who looked at them cross-eyed.
Mike didn’t slow to ask. In the middle of all that, the smoke
was his only ally, and he had to trust that the prayers of his Guardians were being answered as he cut through the mass. Ahead he spied a big, two-masted, fifty-six footer and he sped up, once more coming on it from the left, a direction that wasn’t expected since all the firing was coming from the right. And again, he caught a dozen men hanging on the rail facing the wrong way.
“On the down roll!” Mike called out.
“Hold on,” the helmsmen hissed, pointing to their left where another ship had appeared out of the smoke.
Thankfully, no one fired. “I need seven men to the port rail,” Mike called down into the galley. Two men had been killed and one injured in the earlier fight, and only four men answered the call. Mike grabbed the helmsman’s M4 and ran to the port side rail.
The idea of fighting both sides of the ship simultaneously was enough to make even the Guardians nervous. One of them let out an odd titter and asked, “Are we really going to do this?”
“Yep,” Mike said, and shouldered the rifle. The simple move sent a screech of pain through his left arm, but he ignored it as best he could. Now was not the time to appear weak. He aimed at a rifleman who was squinting through the smoke and looking right at him. Mike saw his eyes go wide right before he fired. After that, the small details fell away and all he saw were black shapes filling his sights.
He fired and fired with an alarming tunnel vision that didn’t even take proximity into account. He was still firing when the two ships crashed into each other. A dead man was piloting the Corsair ship. He had been hit right off the bat in the first hail of bullets and no one had noticed. Now the shooting was point blank. Those Corsairs who were still alive were cowering in the stairwell leading down to the galley and shooting without looking.
“Kick it away!” Mike cried. As men jumped to the rail, Mike darted to where the lantern sat by the wheel. It was an oil lantern and still burning brightly, and when he heaved it across to the Corsair ship, the oil went right up, lighting the gathering night and giving the black smoke a sick yellow hue.
Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained Page 44