Parrill’s face grew red and she looked down at her glass. “I’m sorry, but you did ask.”
“Thank you, Parrill,” Alexis said. “It’s good we know where we stand with this ‘Commodore’ Skanes, after all, and that we’re all in agreement that she has no true authority over Mongoose.”
“You’ve decided our destination, then, sir?” Villar asked with a smile.
Alexis nodded. “Yes. Something Captain Malcomson mentioned when he dismissed our ‘poaching’ as being of no concern. He said that there were some places he could only take a prize or two, as all the other ships would scatter and there was no time to take more — then they’d return once he was known to leave the area. This has made me think that the captains involved in this may take the ‘private’ business too much to heart. We all might do better to concentrate on those areas where the shipping is, rather than spreading thin in an effort to not step on one another’s toes.”
Hacking frowned. “That sounds rather the opposite of what that Skanes has ordered.”
Alexis met his gaze levelly.
“Why, yes, it does, doesn’t it?”
Thirty-Five
Enclave’s landing field was as cold as always, but Alexis chose to wait outside the large doors.
The wind was up, whipping what little snow there was about in flurries and funnels, and more of it kicked up by the antigrav fields and engines of those boats setting down or taking off.
Villar and Parrill were with her. She’d left Hacking aboard Mongoose and come down herself to meet Malcomson after her repeated signals that she wished to speak to him had gone rebuffed.
“I've bin a’ship a month an' we'll gab when I've sat in a pub a while.”
Then he’d cut signal and refused her calls for the remainder of Delight’s approach to Enclave.
She couldn’t blame him, she supposed, as she’d granted liberty to Mongoose’s crew, as well. The port watch was down even now, and up to who knew what.
Still, her own crew was on edge for more than the time a’space. They’d not taken a single prize on the way from Carina — barely sighted one, and Alexis was anxious to speak to Malcomson about her idea to pair their two ships. Her crew, at least, badly needed a prize, and it would be either pair with Malcomson or hunt the systems “assigned” to him or one of the other ships even without the Delight.
Otherwise, the muttering of her crew might turn to more.
Already there was talk of ill-luck falling on the ship for this or that act. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on what to do about it — from the more amusing notions that they must begin spinning the ship end for end, clockwise, three times at the end of each watch, to the more disturbing view that the women aboard had brought on the ill-luck. Both of those were rare, thankfully, though Alexis was near to putting one man in-atmosphere for the latter — she did note, with some amusement, that his views did not extend to leaving a comfortable berth and seeking a new ship himself.
Then there was Creasy, as there seemed to always be, and his talk that —
“There, sir,” Villar said, voice heavily muffled by his coat, collar turned up and his head lowered so as to breathe into it.
Alexis followed where he was pointing — well, shrugging, as he kept his hands in his pockets and sort of gestured as best he could with an elbow before clapping that back tightly to his side.
The Delight’s boat came into clearer view and set down lightly on the field fifty meters or so from the hatch in a fresh flurry of blown snow. The ramp was lowering before the snow cleared and Malcomson was first down. His size, great beard, and fur cloak making him both recognizable, even through the blowing snow, and seeming like some mythical beast out of frozen legends.
He reached the bottom of the ramp, caught sight of Alexis already moving toward him, and shook his head.
His voice bellowed and cut through even the gusts of Enclave’s winds.
“Not a bluddy word, lass, ‘til I’ve a hot pie and a cold pint before me and half of each within, y’understand?”
Alexis shouted back to be heard. “It’s important!”
Malcomson was close enough to be heard easier, even over the wind, but still bellowed. “Priorities, lass! Pints and pies and priorities!”
“I’d think profit was a priority!” Alexis yelled back.
Malcomson scowled. “Dinnae speak to me o’ profit this trip! We’ve three prizes in tow, but the lads —”
He was interrupted at this point as the settlement’s hatch opened and figures rushed out, all screaming and bellowing at the top of their lungs. Dozens, in a thick stream which broke around the group of four officers only to rejoin on the other side.
Malcomson, Alexis, Villar, and Parrill stood frozen while the wild, ululating group passed around them, then turned to watch.
Malcomson’s men were ten or so meters from their boat, thirty from Alexis. They didn’t stay frozen like the officers did, but immediately reacted, rushing the oncoming group with cries of “Delights!” the war cry of their ship.
It was only as the two groups met that Alexis recognized the cry of the attacking group. Perhaps she’d missed it because it was so drawn out. Perhaps because of the winds howling about her head. Perhaps only because she couldn’t believe it and didn’t want to.
“Booooooooooots!”
Alexis shook her head as the two crews met with fists and feet flailing to strike the other. Bodies fell entangled to the snow-covered ice and rolled about until they were so covered in the white crystals that there was no telling them apart. Red spattered the white landing field as noses and lips were crushed. Shouts of pain and outrage began replacing the war cries, but were soon drowned out by renewed efforts from both sides.
Alexis sighed.
“Bloody Creasy.”
Malcomson spun from the fight and glared at Alexis.
“What’s this then, lass? Word come from home while I were away? Are we feuding, us?”
Alexis shook her head. “No, it’s —”
She wasn’t at all certain how one could explain Creasy and his ideas, nor how they seemed to infect the crew like some sort of plague of idiocy and delusion. She was certain Creasy’s thoughts, dim though they be, were behind this, though. His talk of displeased spirits from their not defending the vile creature’s dubious honor in the face of the Delights’ taunts were certainly the source of this.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “Mister Villar, Miss Parrill, get our lads under some sort of control, will you?”
Before the pair could move off to do so, though, Malcomson bellowed again.
He turned to glance at the fighting spacers then back to Alexis, his face twisted in an odd combination of anger and anticipation.
Alexis barely had time to recognize the slight shifting of his feet before his fist lashed out and he bellowed, “Delights!”
For a moment, she was somehow outside the hull. Without her vacsuit, curiously, yet not lacking for air — or, perhaps, the gravity generators had failed and she was floating within her quarters. Yes, that must be it — she’d been sleeping and something had happened to the gravity, allowing her to float free of her cot. That was the only thing that would explain why she was in the air with no memory of how she’d got there.
Then her body slammed to the ice and snow, driving the breath from her and spoiling her thoughts.
Hands helped her to sit, then to kneel, then to stand. She was grateful for that, as she thought she might have fallen without all those hands on her upper arms supporting her as she swayed. The shouting she could do without, though, as her head hurt.
Well, not so much her head as her face. The left side seemed to have doubled in size and was throbbing with her every heartbeat.
She blinked, trying to clear her vision, which didn’t, then raised a hand to tentatively touch her face. She was relieved to find that her nose still protruded what felt like the appropriate distance — she’d been a bit worried from the pain that she might find she now
looked like one of those little flat-faced dogs the women on Noveau Paris all fawned over.
Her hand did come away wet and sticky, though — and red, she noted as her vision did clear and she could see once more.
She swayed to the left, back to the right, steadied by Villar and Parrill to either side, then managed to find a bit of equilibrium again.
Malcomson stood before her, fists raised and scowling.
“One blow? I dinnae ken, lass, how y’ever made —”
Alexis shrugged off her officers’ hands. Her mouth widened in a grin even as her eyes narrowed, then she lunged at Malcomson.
For the three steps it took to reach him, she felt free. Free from restraints of command, free from the restraints of propriety, free from cares about anything but the foe before her and bringing him down. It was as though all of her frustrations and cares — from Skanes and Hind, to somehow managing Creasy’s delusions, to the myriad tasks of commanding Mongoose, to her worries about Delaine which preyed every moment at the edges of her thoughts, to, even, her growing certainty that her place was in darkspace and not bound to Dalthus, no matter how she did love her home, and how ever would she tell her grandfather that?
Everything disappeared into the simple, clear, and, somehow, clean desire to pummel Malcomson into the ice-covered surface of Enclave.
Three steps.
With the first step she exulted as the weight of all those cares lifted.
With the second step she drew breath for her own cry — though she’d be damned if she’d stoop to that vile creature’s name, not that it had one, truly, for she’d not accept the crew’s naming of it … ever. But she did have a ship she loved.
“Mongoose!”
With the third step she reached Malcomson.
Thirty-Six
The pub was loud, raucous, and filled to overflowing, with spacers in every seat and nearly every bit of standing room available. The servers and pubtenders rushed about, sliding through openings in the crowd that existed for only a moment’s time, in an effort to place a glass or mug before every spacer in a timely manner. They’d seen enough bruised and battered crews to know that the line between another pint and another brawl was measured in dry seconds.
As it became clearer that the two crews were only interested in drinking for the moment, the staff closed off the hatches that opened onto the casino floor, meaning that the crews of Mongoose and Delight comprised the entire clientele and that they’d not disturb those wishing to game. It seemed an act the publican was not entirely unfamiliar with.
Alexis eased herself into her chair, wincing. Her head felt three times its normal size, and not from the result of any drink. Her left ear was swollen and she couldn’t hear through it — which was a blessing, honestly, as some of the spacers were singing — and did offer a certain symmetry, she supposed, to her right eye which she couldn’t see out of at all. Her jaw ached and her lips and nose were as swollen as her ear. A full accounting of what was scraped, battered, bruised, or aching would take far longer and far more attention than she could spare. At least nothing was broken, she thought — though her left pinkie was stuck in an odd bend that should, if she were not so dulled in thought, disturb her.
She felt wonderful.
There’s something to be said for draping one’s frustrations over another and battering the bloody piss out of him.
The singing grew louder, though not any better, and she glanced that way. Dockett and Little Mal were in full voice, one arm each raising a mug while the other was around the other’s shoulders. They swayed together, giving voice to one of the lewder shanties in the bosun’s repertoire — the lyrics not made any more respectable by the lisp through Little Mal’s newly missing teeth nor the hollow, foghorn effect of Dockett’s taped and cotton-stuffed nose.
She raised her glass, dribbled as much wine as she could through her swollen lips, and wiped at what had made it to her chin, then grinned across the table at Malcomson who’d just done the same with his beer.
If a grin on her battered face looked half as frightening as one did on his, it was a wonder the serving folk hadn’t run screaming from the pub already.
Villar and Parrill, similarly battered, rejoined the table, having valiantly fought their way through the crowd to bring back another round.
“Och, but yer a game bunch, you trì,” Malcomson bellowed. “Nigh had me fer a moment!”
He slid his chair to the side to offer Parrill a bit more room as she sat and winced, bringing a hand to his side, which brought a wince from him, and his opposite hand to his shoulder.
Alexis was rather proud of that, for she suspected it was her hanging on his arm by the elbow and kicking at his ribs which had caused both hurts. That he’d subsequently plucked her from his side and hurled her nearly over his ship’s boat — or so it felt at the time she slammed into the hull and slid to the ice — wasn’t in it.
At the end of the fight, it was only Malcomson left standing, which, he charitably allowed, made the whole dust up a draw.
The rest of both crews were left prostrate on the ice and snow, either unconscious or too exhausted to do more than roll about nudging their foes. Villar and Parrill ended things grasping Malcomson’s calves and weakly punching at his ankles in their attempt to bring him down, and Alexis herself was still crawling her way back from her third — she thought, though it might have been more as things did blur together — trip to the side of Delight’s boat.
Enclave’s Patrol did them the courtesy of dragging them all inside before they froze to death, then left them to make their own way to the nearest infirmary — or pub, as they’d chosen, knowing that any proper spacers’ pub would have the necessaries for most of their hurts.
It was good to know, she supposed, that the Patrol didn’t seem to care if they beat each other senseless out on the landing field where they couldn’t damage any citizen’s property with their antics.
Malcomson drained his mug, took up the fresh one Parrill set before him, and drained half of that, dabbing at swollen and split lips in a manner laughingly dainty for such a massive man. He frowned and his cheek bulged out before he opened his mouth wide and reached inside with two fingers.
There was a bit of a sodden pop as he pulled out a tooth.
Malcomson held it up for a look, a broken bit of a metal stud gleaming at the bottom, then tossed it to the table between Villar and Parrill.
“That’s the work o’ one of you,” he said, “but it's th' third in 'at place, so dinnae be too prood o’ it.”
He took a long draught again, swishing the beer about in his mouth.
“Sae whit is it ye wished tae speak aboot, lass?”
“Well, Captain Malcomson, when last we spoke — before you sent me off to your ‘suggested’ systems for Mongoose’s hunting, that is —”
Malcomson laughed. “Found any geese, did ye?”
“Next to nothing, as I’m sure you knew.”
“Allow a man his jokes, lass,” Malcomson said with a shrug. He winced again and rubbed the shoulder Alexis’ had tugged on with all her might during the fight. “Y’got yer revenge in fine fashion.”
“That’s not what —”
Alexis stopped herself. Better, perhaps, if he did think she’d planned the fight herself as payment for his sending her off chasing phantom prizes.
“Let it be a lesson to you,” she said.
“Aye, t’will,” Malcomson said, but there was a twinkle in his eye that told her she might wish to watch carefully for his next “joke.”
“In any case, you did say that you’ve sometimes encountered too many ships to take.”
Malcomson nodded. “Aye. This very cruise again — took some, but the rest scattered an’ Delight cooldnae make after ‘em.”
“How many were the rest?”
“A round dozen in line.” He frowned. “Thrice I’ve seen as mony together, too.”
That was surprising. There wasn’t so much traffic in the Barbary for so many
ships to be encountered together that many times.
“All with pirated goods?” Alexis asked.
“All pirated hulls,” Malcomson said. “Goods an’ all. An’ Ah ken whit yoo're thinkin', lass. Convoys of pirate prizes, an’ that’s no good. Means there’s a powerful lot of them bawbags out there somewhere, an’ they’re takin’ ships as they like.”
“That would take a powerful force,” Villar said. “A dozen prizes would mean a large crew.”
Malcomson nodded. “Near tois hundred men, if they’re crewed as the ones I took are. Ten or twenty men each, and nae a body who’ll tell you his home.”
“A dozen ships taken,” Alexis mused. “No, three dozen, with those you’ve seen before. Is that more piracy than the Barbary typically sees?”
“The Barbary’s reputation is somewhat misleading, from what I’ve read,” Parrill said. “While the number of ships going missing each year is significantly higher than in other areas, much of it could be writ down to natural causes — with so much space between systems and so little traffic, relative to the volume of space, a ship blown off the established lanes in a storm has much less chance of being assisted by some fellow coming along than in other sectors. Also, with fewer habitable planets, a ship in distress has less chance of finding a system to make repairs in on its own. Most of the losses, therefore, are likely attributable to that, and much of the talk of piracy could come down to nothing more than breakers — folk from the systems finding a hulk in darkspace, all its crew dead, and towing it home to make use of what they can. Piracy, true piracy, likely takes up no more than forty percent of the losses — which is still a great deal, but —”
Villar cleared his throat and Parrill broke off. She gave Villar a nod and a small smile, as though of thanks, but still hung her head and said, “I’m sorry, but you did ask.”
Malcomson stared at her for a moment.
“Aye,” he said, “mair than usual an’ mair than one band should take.”
Alexis pursed her lips. “So, a large band, larger than usual, and mair, more, than one ship — one private ship — should consider taking on, perhaps,” Alexis said. “Both the convoys, for fear of losing the prizes when they scatter, and certainly the main pirate force. If they can afford to send off two hundred men in prizes, then any one of our ships is certainly outmanned.”
Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5) Page 23