by Jamie Hawke
“Shut up and…” Not even bothering to finish, she grabbed his hand and slid it into her pants, but from there he got the message. Standing so that it looked from below like they were simply holding each other and keeping a lookout, him behind her, he continued to move his hand down there until he felt her smooth hair, then her wet pussy. He traced the line between her legs, teased her, and then spread the lips so that he could feel how wet she was. A gasp showed she was enjoying it, and soon he was alternating between fingering her and massaging her clit, until finally she gripped the rails and let out a high-pitched moan that, luckily, he was pretty sure the wind carried away from earshot below.
She turned to him and kissed him, tongue showing her passion, and then said, “When we’re able to, you’re going to get the best fuck you’ve ever had. I promise you that.”
He gulped, wishing it could happen at that moment but knowing that would be tough. They’d definitely be seen, and likely fall overboard in the process. So instead, he took her back for the kiss, feeling her body pressing hard against his cock, and then released her.
“I can’t wait,” he said, mind reeling with all the sex he was apparently going to get if he lived through this fight.
That was, unfortunately, a big if as far as he was concerned.
Climbing down was twice as tricky as climbing up, but soon he made it. Esmerelda decided to stay up there, hair whipping about as she stood in her element. Frank watched her for a moment, then laughed. The things this woman made him do. He was definitely becoming someone he never would’ve recognized a few days prior. His college roommate certainly wouldn’t.
“She’s something,” Milly said, finding him and motioning for him to follow her below deck, where they found the other two fidgeting with safeties on pistols and checking the feel of them to get a sense of how it would be going into combat.
“Careful,” Frank said.
“Says the guy who’d never been in a fight until we found him,” Mary replied with a scoff.
“I’ve been in a fight,” he countered. “Just… it was in third grade. One punch and it was over.”
“Close enough,” she said with a humored laugh and went back to it.
“She have you finger her?” Milly asked.
“What?” Frank turned to her, confused. “How…?”
Milly chuckled. “Had me do the same thing, after her last love interest didn’t work out. We’re all about free loving, in case you didn’t guess.”
He glanced over at Keisha, awed at the sight of her. She’d gotten ready for battle in a way he hadn’t seen before—with lines of white war paint forming patterns on her skin, rubbed through her braided and pulled back hair. She held double-ended knife in one hand that looked quite formidable.
Standing there after what he’d just done, he was almost ashamed. But she was looking at him seductively. Did the thought of him having just done that somehow turn her on? As much as he started to think he knew these ladies, sometimes he had to remind himself that it hadn’t been much time at all, and he still had a lot to learn. Not just sexually, of course, as much as that had been an early area of their mutual exploration. The idea of getting to know them more truly excited him. He had never considered any of his girlfriends to be serious relationships, and here he was with what kind of amounted to a growing serious situation, but with more than one lady. He wasn’t sure if that really meant four yet, as Mary seemed more involved sexually than emotionally, while Keisha was kind of the opposite.
It wasn’t too long, sailing and conversing like this, when they heard the shouts from above and quickly darted up to see what was happening.
Enemy ships had seen them coming and moved to intercept, but there were only two of them on this side of the island. When the rebel ships closed the distance and opened fire with their new rifles, the enemy was close enough together for the shots to hit and do their damage. Cannon took out one ship, while the other lost control with no one to steer it and ran aground.
Rebel pirates filled the rowboats and made for shore, and were charging over sandy dunes and into the jungle before any sort of alarm could be heard. By the time they reached the far edge of the jungle that gave them a view of the fort, night had fallen. Frank used his awareness skill to see how many men were in the fort, and guessing about forty, signaled to Teddy with his hands.
Teddy nodded, motioning for his team to move out in separate directions. Yes, they had over forty men, but they were going up against a fort, complete with walls and armed guards. A group of them started for the hill to the left, which would work as a location to lay down fire as another group made the assault head-on. With the upgraded weapons, even if only level one, they still had the advantage.
Waiting until the other team was in position in the hills, Frank cursed the fact that he had to take a piss. He glanced around at these pirates, all kneeling there and looking so disciplined, unlike anything he would’ve thought growing up. Pirates were supposed to be the type that charged in shooting at the sky, throwing explosives randomly. This group, while dressed like pirates, reminded him more of the Marines about to take a beach.
Then again, many of them had been sailors in the Navy before this, so it made sense, to a degree. How they were all looking so kickass while being drunk and all was still hard to process.
“There it is,” Ox said from Teddy’s other side.
Teddy looked around at his fighters as if about to make a speech. “Kill ‘em all,” was all he said, and then they were up, charging, and Frank almost got left behind if not for a tap on his ass as Milly charged past.
He had his rifle in both hands, sword swinging at his side, and his breaths started coming in ragged gasps. Fuck, this was outside of his comfort zone.
Shots came from his left and he hoped friendly fire didn’t get him, considering how inexperienced with these weapons the pirates were, but it was only a matter of minutes before the enemy started falling from the walls. Some rebels scaled the walls, others taking to the star-like outer walls to get positions for shooting, and then there was a roar as hand-to-hand fighting broke out within.
Teddy and Ox strolled up, the gate opening for them, and walked right in, stabbing enemy pirates as they went. Meanwhile, Frank was taking full advantage of his reticle to shoot enemies that might threaten the two, or any of his ladies. He spun to take out a pirate as a shot went off, and he knew he hadn’t moved in time. It hit and a strange green light shimmered before cracking away like a layer of plastic that vanished as it fell.
His first reaction was to think he was going insane, his second was that it had been the shield he’d upgraded, and he’d better take this pirate out before another shot came.
A squeeze of the trigger and the man was down, Frank up and running to join his ladies within.
“You’re missing all the fun,” Milly said as she rammed a cutlass into a pirate’s skull, then turned and punched another so that he fell right into the path of Mary’s pistol. A good shot and he was down too.
“Glad to see you saved at least one for me,” Frank said, lifting his rifle to take out a pirate who had just appeared from the doorway behind Milly.
She turned to see the man fall, then grinned Frank’s way. “Points for style.”
“I’ll take it,” he said, and kept on with them, charging in and up until he was on the roof and was able to pick off the surviving enemy one by one. He spun, searching for his next target, using his awareness to try and find red dots that indicated the enemy, but found none.
A cheer rose up from the rebel pirates as they held up guns and threw corpses out over the walls. The fort was theirs.
18
Teddy strolled along the fort’s northern wall, the victor of this endeavor. He stood tall and proud, overlooking the city in the distance. From here fires were visible within the huge walls, built up like they’d surely never been depicted in the history books Frank had read. They could even hear a distant shouting.
“Prepare to take the city
,” Teddy said.
“We need to hold out here, regroup, reload—”
“No time, lad,” Teddy shouted, hand stroking his coarse, black beard. “We take them before alarms give them a chance to fully prepare their defense, or we don’t take them at all!”
He thrust his hand forward, giving the signal. Frank cursed, watching the pirates storm out of the very fort that could protect them, running straight at the city walls. They weren’t even able to hit the outer fortification, however, as about thirty paces out turrets appeared, weapons the like of which these people had surely never seen, and which Frank had only glimpsed before in games like Borderlands. What the fuck? he thought as the whirring started and then bullets exploded all around them.
Pirates fell in groups, body parts flying as fifty-cal rounds hit, and then Teddy was swearing, shooting at random until finally Ox took a shot and was sent stumbling back.
“Retreat!” Teddy said, his voice hoarse as he went to help his friend, kneeling as the giant of a man lost balance. He managed to get him up off the ground, holding him under the shoulder, and shouted, “RETREAT! Back to the fort!”
It was over before it really started. Mass panic surrounded Frank as pirates he’d come to recognize fell before the advancing enemy. His side was on the run, and all Frank could think about was that they shouldn’t have gone yet, that they should’ve listened to him.
Then a shot went off and Milly stumbled, and he was back in the zone. Aiming his version of a sniper rifle, he took out the pirate who’d shot her, then charged forward to help her up.
Maybe he hadn’t pushed hard enough, maybe he should’ve insisted they stay at the fort and regroup. Or perhaps it was beyond his control. All that mattered now, though, was that he ensured as many of his companions—his ladies or not—lived to fight another day.
Charging back to the fort, Frank found himself sprinting, diving behind small dunes to return fire as others on his side rushed past, and then he’d be up again and running. Repeating this, he was able to help hold off the advancing enemy—and when Keisha and Milly saw him doing this, they joined in. Esmerelda didn’t quite get the hang of the ducking for cover part, or she thought she had to be seen as brave, so kept standing and trying to lead a new charge from time to time. The darkness gave them an advantage, but it was a clear night and not as black as Frank would’ve preferred. As foolish as it was, at least her strategy allowed for Frank and the others to not get shot and gave them targets, as the enemy was trying to take out Esmerelda.
He wasn’t sure if she was lucky or blessed, but either way, she made it out of there, and when the rest of her pirates were halfway to the fort, she too joined the retreat.
As powerful as the city walls were, out here Teddy’s army had the advantage, thanks to the weapons Frank had crafted. He aimed with his green line and took out a pirate, then turned to see he was at the fort. Keisha provided cover fire while he charged, then he did the same for her from a window while she ran to join him.
Only then did he realize his reticle was blinking, notifying him that he’d just gone up to level five. Hell yeah! He imagined the levels would be harder to attain from here, so he would have to be strategic about awarding the skill points. Not like he had time at the moment.
He scanned the area and found Milly, injured but not badly. She would need medical attention to ensure the wound in her arm—a small, clean hole—didn’t get infected, but otherwise seemed fine. She was tough, insisting she could go on and keep fighting.
As they regrouped, Frank found Teddy in the planning room and pulled him aside. “We need to think bigger than this.”
“You have bigger, show me.”
“I—I’m thinking. Nothing yet.” Frank considered Teddy for a long moment, then leaned over the map, looking him square in the eye. “Can I trust you?”
“Trust me?” Teddy looked offended but then let out a boisterous laugh. “Many may say that no, you can’t. But you and me, inseparable, and I’m with you here as I’ll always be.”
Frank reconsidered this path, but he’d already committed himself. It was now or never. “I have something to tell you. But… you might want to sit down.”
Teddy frowned at him, arms crossed. Waiting.
“Fine, don’t sit then. But here it is—I come not so much from a land ‘far away,’ as a land far in the future.”
“I fail t’ understand.” Teddy looked more annoyed now.
“Look.” Frank pulled out his compass to show him the various symbols. “It… somehow brought me here.” From there, Frank went on to explain what he’d learned about the compass and how it worked, just as he’d done with the ladies. When it was done, he stared up at the pirate, hoping the man had more faith than the ladies had when they’d first heard it all.
“What does it all mean?” Teddy stared at Frank with newfound respect.
“In part, it works as a cipher, I think?” Frank paused, looking over his work. “Not that I’ve made sense of it yet.”
“How so?” Teddy asked.
“Take this one, for example,” Frank said, pointing out the symbols he’d found earlier and explaining how he’d deciphered them using coordinates on a map. The one the compass displayed had the same symbols, so Teddy could see it too. “Rose stems from Stone and Hammer.”
“Wait, that can’t be right.” Teddy looked from Frank to the map, eyes wide. “Check it again.”
“No, it’s correct. I’m… fairly certain.”
“Well, then you’d be interested to know that Stone and Hammer is the name of a port where many of us take refuge. It was built after the Pirate King came into power, and hidden from him. Only a few of us know how to find it. I happen to be one of those few.”
“So this is a map to the port?” Frank asked.
Teddy shook his head. “I’ve never seen a map like that. Problem is, I know these shores, and the shores on this map don’t match. Someone must have gotten it wrong…”
“And this rose thing?” Frank asked.
“Ah, Rosalind,” Teddy said, a far-off look taking over. “She controls the Stone and Hammer. They say she comes from a distant land, as well, and is something of a prophetess. She’s very good with the healing arts, at least.” Teddy pulled back the collar of his shirt to show Frank the long scar on his chest. “She stitched this wound, but first poured a concoction on it to kill the tiny demons that had infected it. I thought she might be insane at first, and I was angry because her concoction hurt like hell. But it seemed to help. The wound healed much faster than I would have expected, and she tended to me daily, replacing bandages and applying some magic ointment to help me heal.”
Frank was impressed, and suddenly had a strong urge to go visit this Rosalind and see what she was really all about.
“If we make it out of here, we’re going to see her,” Frank said. “I need to see this Stone and Hammer.”
Teddy smiled and nodded, showing he understood, but only said, “I’ll send word of our intent, ensure we don’t have our heads blown off as soon as we come within range.”
“And now?”
Teddy handed him a flask, “It’s time to drink and hope a miracle brings us out of this mess.”
“I’m going to pass on that,” Frank replied. “Need my wits about me.”
“Whatever you say,” Teddy replied, glancing at the compass and taking a long swig.
Frank excused himself and returned to find the ladies together, Mary fussing over Milly, but otherwise all ready for action and glad to see him in one piece.
“You surviving?” Esmerelda asked.
“I think we can defend this place,” he replied.
As he said it, though, someone shouted, “Incoming!”
The fort rocked at the sound of an explosion, and Frank was the first to lead the charge over to the stairs and up to the battlements. He never could’ve expected this—raiders were swooping in on massive gliders that shot out rounds as they dove. Some threw explosives, and at least one a gren
ade which never should have existed in this time. They overcame the fort walls, some landing on the roof, some in the courtyard within.
Everything he’d thought about being able to hold the fort was quickly falling apart. The pirates on his side opened up with their advanced rifles and pistols, but even as it started to seem they had a chance, a terrible, loud grinding noise sounded, incoming. It was unlike anything Frank imagined these men and women had ever heard before, but he recognized it—a motor, propellers. He ducked as a shot took out a chunk of stone nearby, then aimed and fired, dropping an enemy pirate. Then he turned and looked up at the sky, seeing what he’d feared—a fucking fighter plane! It was a grayish green with a white star on blue with red, and as he stared he flashed back to this game he’d played that was all based on World War II, starting to recall this exact plane. It was a Grumman F4F Wildcat!
Even though he’d already been damn sure the Pirate King had traveled through time, he had no idea how the man had arrived with a fighter plane. Or maybe he’d actually built it with the help of the compass? Either way, seeing it here was overwhelming.
A line of bullets sprayed the fort, more men falling, and then the screaming started. It was a panicked rout as pirates scrambled to be done with the fort, very few bothering to stay and listen to Teddy as he shouted for them to rally, to fire back. He was actually right—with the weapons they had, they stood a chance.
But the pirates weren’t ready for this, not by a long shot.
And so it was that, for the second time that night, as the moon’s silvery light cast a spooky glow over the fort and the dying rebels, Teddy had to give the command to retreat. Frank stuck with his ladies, providing cover fire for the other pirates to go first. When they reached the tree line, Frank and his team ran, too.
“We make it to the ships, we get out of here as fast as possible,” Keisha said as the roaring of the plane circling around grew louder.
“If we can make it without the plane taking down the ships…” Frank started.
“Keyword there is if” Milly said, aiming into the sky and firing with one of her pistols.