It was during moments like this, while watching AEgir’s children dance in the sea, that Scott truly felt AEgir’s presence. Sailors held that AEgir ruled this wet realm in God’s stead, protecting the good while his wife used her nets to catch the unwary or the unlucky or the careless. All the while his nine daughters would bear and keep watch over all his ferocious grandchildren.
Many of the officers were devout Christian Huguenots, but no sailor could spend his life on these treacherous waters without believing in AEgir and his evil wife. Sailors on Haven needed a personal god they could speak with; one who would provide solace against the awesome powers of the sea.
The Huguenotic Council would like to pronounce the sailors pagans, he thought. They had never pressed the point as long as the admiralty was willing to make them pray to God at mass. Wisely the Council treated the sailor’s devotion to AEgir as if it were some childish superstition that one truly believed. While officers were indoctrinated into being devout Huguenots in low school by the monastic order, many found a new faith in AEgir after their first real storm.
Scott was explaining all this to a skeptical Miss Lockman in the Pearl’s wardroom when he was interrupted by a messenger. He felt a flash of irritation: it had been pleasant to have her attention. . . .
“Gentlemen,” the rating said with barely repressed excitement, “the lookout has spotted several masts on the horizon.”
Mr. Campbell nodded. “Keep sail for Shark’s Teeth. We should be about twenty nautical miles away. Order the signal men to inform Duty. Mr. Harper, prepare your Marines below and see that the men we selected are on the main deck with the lights lowered. Distribute the Sauron weapons to those men. Mr. Brindle, make sure that the correct signal is sent to the enemy ship and have Miss Lockman tell you which ships hold what items. Then pass on a silent call to general quarters.”
In the fading light of the Haven sunset the crew busily prepared for the rendezvous with the Sauron cargo ship; the beautiful sunset was wasted on them. Patricia Lockman had time to enjoy the brief respite before the coming storm of battle.
As she gazed out at the horizon and saw the silhouetted enemy ships, Patricia realized it was the same image her people had seen just before the Sauron attack. The ferocity and deliberate violence of the attack had taken her island by surprise. The resistance of the Voortrekker mercenaries was smashed within minutes. Also surprising was the restraint the Saurons had shown after their victory and the ease with which they had turned brilliant men mindless with fear.
Now these new actors in the same deadly play were preparing to bring those men back and save their work. Would the end result be much different for her people? She thought not. The Scandians might use different semantics and act more politely, but in the end her people were finished. Only a few fishermen and farmers would roam the hallways of the University now.
Yet, these fair-haired Scandians were not all bad. Patricia felt something akin to remorse as she listened to the sailors sing their Scandian battle songs. She worried, too, for the young man next to her, who tried to fill a new role as officer and to hide the fear all sane men felt in the face of battle. Like a clumsy puppy, he had wormed his way into her affections; not that she could let him know that--not now, when he would make more out of it than she could afford to allow.
Her new life had started with her capture by the Saurons. The University had been sacked, the town burned, her family dead or in hiding, her people enslaved or scattered. These Scandians offered a new home, but she wasn’t sure there was a place for her-- a woman who knew her own mind. It had been hard enough for her to attain her position even in liberal Stanjord. Certainly, this was no time to let herself become involved with a man who accepted his society’s view that women were mere chattel.
No, she would hold her emotions in check as she had done most of her life. Maybe her knowledge and mind would purchase the freedom and respect she deserved.
The largest of the Scandian sailors, wearing Sauron uniforms, strode about the Pearl’s main deck posing as the enemy; only their sea legs gave them away, but hopefully the enemy would not notice. Not even a direct order could make a Triumvirate sailor walk like a lubber. Meanwhile, the Pearl signaled to Duty with bull’s-eye lanterns in the stern.
As they entered Shark’s Tooth Bay, Patricia Lockman pointed to a brig with green dragons emblazoned on its sails. “That’s the ship that took our scholars and engineers! I remember those sails.”
Scott thanked her for her help and ordered the seamen to escort her below deck. Meanwhile, T.M.S. Duty lurked at the horizon’s edge awaiting a signal rocket from the Pearl to bring her hurtling down.
It was well into the third watch by the time they drew abreast of the brig. Many of the sailors were now dressed as raggedly as the corsairs had been.
Scott used the horn to signal the Pearl’s “need” to come alongside the brig, whose name--the Green Dragon--could clearly be seen. It appeared that the small Sauron fleet had not fared much better than the Pearl during the recent storm. All five ships, two of which were being towed, were just entering the bay. Mr. Campbell positioned his prize ship to come in off the port side of the Green Dragon, placing it to the far side of the other entering ships, which included a small frigate.
As far as Breedmaster Brehman was concerned, the schooner Shining Pearl justified her name the moment she hove into view. He had thought her lost, and with her the best of the breeders, and--almost as importantly--a major part of the grain and gunpowder that were vital to the return voyage. Brehman had not relished the prospect of lingering in these waters after his business was done merely to replenish supplies; some of the local cattle were entirely too adept at warfare.
Now perhaps this expedition would be able to return to the Citadel some of the fruits he had promised the First Soldier and the members of the War Council. With the Pearl he now had six of his original ten ships, and while two needed repairs, including masts, none were serious enough that they couldn’t be completed by the end of the next Truenight.
Soon his fleet would be safe behind the bay’s appropriately named reefs and the island fortress’ guns.
Those merchants who had so gladly taken our gold had better be there as well, he thought grimly. While all had been warned of the penalties of double-crossing a Sauron officer, they also knew they were half a world away from the heart of Sauron power, the Citadel. Unfortunately, here Sauron might was more legend than reality. Brehman fully intended to turn that around.
The Breedmaster lifted a spyglass to his eye and examined the schooner; she appeared to be in relatively good shape. His Soldiers were on deck and the cattle were in the riggings. He watched as the Pearl approached, sailing to the opposite side of the Green Dragon. Something about the schooner made him uneasy; he began to search the ship for anything out of place.
Lines were being readied for casting and there was nothing obviously out of place or character. The cattle appeared to be the brigand’s usual disheveled crew. Yet, something still struck him as wrong.
Why are they sailing for the brig? he asked himself.
Suddenly it dawned on him. The schooner’s crew was too disciplined. The sails, while still showing signs of recent damage, were placed with too much care, and the men worked them with Sauron diligence rather than the desultory manner typical of most brigand crews. As the schooner’s path drew it closer, another definitive fact pressed itself upon his consciousness. Those were not his Saurons!
The Green Dragon’s watch made only a cursory check of the Pearl when she signaled to come alongside. Lines had already been cast and were being set when an alarm rang out from the flagship. Marines and Saurons came storming out of the holds of both ships. The Scandia Marines were out because they were no longer lying in wait, the Saurons because of their native speed; they seemed to have only one pace--a run.
The fight was fast and vicious. The Marines worked their bolt-action rifles as quickly as possible; those in hiding had already killed one and wounded
two of the half-squad of Saurons that had bolted out of the hold. A Sauron Gatling gun rattled and several sailors dropped from the rigging.
Scott quickly lit the fuse on the green-colored rocket, firing it straight into the air. Its signal charge blew with a bright green flash that the captain could easily spot.
Meanwhile, the orders Scott had given the gunner’s mates were being carried out. Two openings cut in the aft castle were uncovered, and two of the guns brought over from the Duty’s blew apart the Sauron Gatling gun, killing one Sauron and knocking another to the deck.
Although a third were dead and half the rest were wounded, the Sauron’s rapid fire was decimating the Pearl’s crew. Half a dozen sailors, two Marines, and a gunner’s mate dropped before the gun crews could reload with grapeshot. He watched in horror as a well-aimed Sauron shot took out the back of Lieutenant Harper’s head.
I’m in charge! What do I do now? Calm down, breathe slowly. He quickly regained his equilibrium. He nodded when the remaining gunner’s mate told him the guns were primed and loaded.
“Fire!’ Scott shouted.
A living wave of metal cleared the Green Dragon’s main deck of Saurons and corsairs. The Marine sharpshooter in the crow’s nest quickly dispatched the only Sauron who made it as far as the hatch with a shot to the head.
There was still return fire from the Dragons rigging, but her blood-stained deck was littered with the dead and the dying. The Marines fired at anything moving on the deck and in the rigging. Scott noted that almost half of his original command was either dead or severely wounded. He wished he could have used the burnweed like last time, but the captain had forbidden it for fear of injuring the professors and engineers in the Dragon’s hold.
Now having seen Saurons in close action Scott doubted they would have won the first round without the element of surprise. He looked up at a sailors shout to see the Sauron flagship steering directly for the Pearl. He felt as if a black cloud had just dropped over him, and struggled to lift it. He remembered one of Lieutenant Tryker’s maxims: “Action, any action, is preferable to inaction.”
Scott took out his spyglass and scanned the horizon for Duty. The frigate was closing with the Sauron flagship, but it was too soon to tell whether it would be in time to save the Pearl from a devastating broadside. Regardless, it was his duty to secure the Green Dragon and arrange the transfer of prisoners onto his ship.
As Scott put his spyglass down he noted with satisfaction that the other Sauron ships were quickly fleeing the bay; one had even gone so far as to cut a derelict adrift.
Scott put himself and the surviving Marine lieutenant in charge of the boarding parties. There were still shots ringing out despite the carnage on the Dragon’s deck, so Scott ordered the guns, now mounted on the Pearl’s rails, and grenades from the Marines to silence all enemy fire.
The deck of the Dragon was quickly turned into an inferno of smoke, flying splinters and shrapnel. When all enemy fire had ceased, Scott--under covering fire from the captured enemy Gatling guns--ordered his crew to board the Green Dragon. Using boarding planks that had been concealed in the fallen rigging, the Scandians spanned the water between them and the brig.
One of the Marines slipped and fell into the frothing sea, only to disappear in a red vortex as river jacks attracted by the battle’s blood fed.
The remaining Marines rushed the main deck, while Scott led the crew’s riflemen to take the quarterdeck. The wreckage and carnage was belied when a Sauron rose out of a pile of dead bodies and hacked two men instantly to death with a cutlass. Scott, with his pistol, and two riflemen, shot the Sauron a dozen times before he fell back to the deck unmoving. One of the sailors quickly bent over and sliced his throat with a flaying knife, and was quickly joined by the others who did the same to any Sauron body they encountered.
The Marines found a sniper in the rigging and poured rifle fire into his position. The enemy fought with chilling ferocity, holding their positions until blown to ribbons. Scott wondered how long they would survive against the Sauron flagship if the Duty did not arrive on time. Well, they wouldn’t. Best hope the Duty made a timely appearance.
Though Scott was unaware, Duty had already saved them.
Breedmaster Brehman was furious. The Saurons were at great risk in this new medium of warfare. They needed sailors of their own. Brehman decided he would take the best of the pirate captains and mates for teachers back at Rajamann Base.
Now as his flagship approached the battling ships, a mate called out, “Sail ahoy!” Brehman looked up to see a large frigate flying the colors of iron, silver, and gold heading straight for the flagship. Though it was still a distance off, Brehman quickly ordered a change of course. “Head into the bay,” he told the captain. “They will attempt to board us. We must protect the turbine at all costs. Soldiers to arms!”
Gaining entrance to the brig’s hold was slow and difficult. It appeared that while half the Sauron squad had fought on deck, the other half remained below. The Saurons waited in the lower compartments where only two or three men could enter at a time. The Scandians didn’t dare use grenades for fear of killing the scholars in the hold, or damaging the hull. Fortunately, the Saurons--for reasons of their own--held to the same course.
Scott would have liked to have locked down the lower decks until the Duty came to assist, but the captain’s orders had been clear. They were to free the prisoners lest the Saurons in desperation or revenge killed them before the Scandians could release them from the hold.
Sword in his right hand and revolver in his left, Scott led a detachment of sailors into the lower decks. Below the decks the sailors were reduced to pistols, cutlasses, and hand axes. The small party entered the crew’s mess deck ready for anything, or so they thought. Suddenly the room exploded, Saurons coming in from everywhere. Before he had time to think, Scott was parrying an axe blow with his sword while being backed into a bulkhead. He would have died there had a sailor not sliced the Sauron’s forearm to the bone with his cutlass. This diversion gave Scott time enough to aim his revolver and fire into the Sauron’s face.
Even at point-blank range, it took three rounds to kill the giant Sauron and three sailors to pull him off the young officer. While dying, the Sauron killed the sailor who had saved Scott, smashing the man’s ribs with a blow from his slashed arm. Wounded men screamed; the Saurons died as they fought, in eerie silence.
Scott picked himself up to find out that a third of his men were dead or wounded; yet only two Saurons, both slashed almost beyond recognition, were accounted for. Before he had time to digest the implications of this, a loud explosion and a crash of timbers sounded from the brig’s galley where the Marines had gone. Immediately, another wave of Saurons barreled into the cabin. The survivors of Scott’s boarding party threw up tables and chairs as a makeshift barricade, while two Marines entered from another corridor firing shotguns at the wave of steel-and-iron-hard flesh charging them.
A Sauron lost a hand, stared at the stump for a moment; as Scott watched, the bleeding stopped, and the Soldier returned to the fight without changing expression. The heavy iron-copper smell of blood filled the room below the powder reek.
The three Saurons, including the one-armed Soldier, were up and over the small barricade before Scott heard the second blast of shotgun fire. One Sauron head disappeared in an explosion of red, but the other two slammed into the Scandian defenders.
His sword broken and his revolver long empty and forgotten, Scott fumbled for a boat hook one dead sailor had used as an improvised spear. He brought the boat hook to bear on the one-armed Sauron; the Sauron used a broken axe handle to knock the boat hook away, almost wrenching Scott’s arms out of their sockets in the process.
Unharmed, the Sauron rose up--shaking off a sailor’s pistol shot--to crush Scott. Scott set the base of the boat hook in the joint of the deck and bulkhead and waited for the crushing charge. The Sauron, who up close appeared to have lost one side of his face as well as an arm, impaled h
imself on the boat hook. Only by AEgir’s grace did the shaft hold his great weight. Scott tried to roll to the left, but the hook was torn out of his hands as the Sauron smashed Scott into the deck.
Trapped as he was, Scott could not avoid the Sauron’s iron hands as they clasped his neck. As the world began to blacken, Scott hazily saw a Marine strike the Sauron with a hand axe. . . .
Scott woke up groggily to learn they had taken the brig, although there were several Saurons still loose under battened hatches in the lower decks. According to the captain they would stay there until the ship reached port; Scott saw no reason to disagree. Not when he had barely enough able seamen to sail the Pearl. Of the original thirty-two man prize crew, only seven--including Scott--were fit for active duty.
Of the Sauron dead they could account for only four bodies; although Scott himself could swear to having seen three times that number killed or mortally wounded. He was now convinced they would have never taken the ship had there been a full squad; it was only the Saurons’ unfamiliarity with sea warfare that had given them their own limited successes. It appeared there was more truth than fiction to the old legends.
When Scott reached the quarterdeck, he could see the Sauron flagship playing a game of cat and mouse with Duty in and out and behind the volcanic rocks that gave the bay its name. He watched as the flagship tried to lure the Duty within range of the island s batteries, mindful of the fact they were both of the same draft.
A number of ships had foundered or wrecked themselves upon the uncharted rocks and shallows of Shark’s Tooth Bay during its infamous history. The river jacks and sea dragons who dwelled in its waters made certain that few survivors of the many shipwrecks ever made it to shore. It was a safe haven only to the foolhardy and the criminal.
Scott watched through the ship’s most powerful spyglass as the two frigates closed. Captain Lloyd had forced the Sauron flagship close enough to the shallows that the pirate ship had almost no room to maneuver. Shots were fired from the pirate fortress at the top of the cliffs, but their range was well short of the Duty, and at this point fell dangerously close to the Sauron ship. The firing stopped when a ball punctured one of the flagship’s sails.
War World III: Sauron Dominion Page 15