by Brian Olsen
Bleachbeard and I grew close. Like I said, she had taken a liking to me. What can I say, protecting the multiverse keeps me in shape. She may have had thirty years on me but she was extremely fit and I kind of dug the beard. It was a fun few weeks of playing pirate by day and playing other things by night.
After a time we started hearing rumors about a new pirate crew, dressed head to toe in armor plating, who didn’t play by the usual rules. They slaughtered government men, other pirates, peaceful villagers, anyone they came across. Derelict ships were found, stripped of all useful metal. The southern coasts were living in terror of visits from the dread pirate Rivetbeard.
We followed the rumors and, in a tiny little tavern, found a survivor of Rivetbeard’s initial incursion – a member of the crew of the ship on which the control disk had first appeared. By plying the traumatized ex-pirate with grog and filling in the blanks of his terrified recollections, I managed to piece together most of Rivetbeard’s story and realized the little disk the man described was what I was after. Bleachbeard and I put together a plan to retrieve the control device and end the robot menace.
The Pirate Queen of the Adriatic broke away from our kiss. “Good work on the distraction,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “You might have mentioned the sharks when I suggested I swim over from your ship.”
“Oh, and a big strapping lad like you is afraid of a wee fish?”
She pulled me upright and swung me around behind her while drawing her cutlass. A pirate had jumped up to the upper deck with us but she deflected his blow with ease. She chopped at his neck and his head popped right off, rolling across the deck and dropping onto the lower level. The crewman dropped his sword and, arms outstretched, chased after his missing cranium.
“These are the metal beasties that are causin’ such a fuss, are they?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Don’t underestimate them, Faline.”
She tsked. “It’s Bleachbeard, dearie. I’m working. Hah!”
More pirates jumped up onto the deck, and she began dueling with all of them at once. While she covered me I dropped to my butt and began working at the rope still binding my feet together.
“Surrender, wench!” Rivetbeard cried. “Surrender and I’ll make your death a quick one!”
Bleachbeard parried a swing from one pirate while kicking another in the chest. He fell backwards, knocking two more down.
“And why would I be doin’ that?” she shouted. “Just when it’s gettin’ fun!”
Free of the rope, I jumped to my feet. “I’ve seen what I’m after,” I said to her. “It’s in the back of his head, just like that drunk pirate said. I need to get to him.”
“You do what you need to do,” she said. “We can hold these piles of junk at bay.”
“We?”
“Aye! You don’t think I’d keep all the fun to myself, do ya?”
A thud came from behind as a grappling hook dug into the top of the railing. I looked over the edge to see the dinghy that Bleachbeard had arrived in, and several members of her crew scaling the side of the Quantum of Salt. The nearest was Spicy Jack, Bleachbeard’s first mate. He had a dagger clenched between his teeth as he hand-over-handed himself up the hull. He paused a moment to give me a cheery wave before resuming climbing.
I turned back to appraise my options. The decapitated pirate had found his head, put it firmly back into place, and rejoined the fray. Bleachbeard wasn’t doing any real damage to them, just slowing them down. But they wouldn’t tire, and eventually they’d overrun her and her crew. I had to end this quickly.
Rivetbeard was screaming insults at his men for their failure to kill us. While his crew focused on Bleachbeard, I ran around the upper deck to come at him from the side. I jumped to the lower deck, intending to tackle him, but he spotted me. He dodged aside and I landed a few feet behind him.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Rivetbeard,” I said.
He laughed. “Aye, but I’m going to hurt you!”
He lunged with his sword. I stepped aside, grabbed his arm, and pulled him forward. While he was off-balance I made a grab for the small panel on the back of his head, but he recovered and pulled away from me.
“I just want to take you home!” I shouted. “Back to whatever weird sci-fi universe you come from!”
“Never!” he roared. “A pirate’s life for me!”
He swung at my midsection and I had to jump back. I punched him in the face, which was, obviously, a horrible mistake, what with his face being made of metal and all.
“Yow!” I shook my fingers out. Now both of my hands were injured.
“Hah!” Rivetbeard stabbed at my stomach. I pulled the same trick again, dodging aside and yanking on his arm, but he was ready for me. He planted his feet and pulled back. My head crashed into his and I saw stars.
I put my hands on his shoulders and let myself fall backwards to the deck, pulling him with me. I put a foot on his stomach and flipped him up and over. He landed on the deck with a crash. I jumped to my feet and squatted on him before he could right himself.
He was facing me, but I grabbed his head and twisted it to the side. He bucked underneath me but had no leverage. My aching fingers pried at the panel.
“No!” he roared. I heard terror in his modulated voice. “No, no, no!”
“SQUAWK!”
Ironbeak hit my temple like a cannonball. It knocked me off Rivetbeard and my head hit the deck. I threw up my hands, expecting the pirate to be on me.
He wasn’t. He was running away.
The upper and lower decks were in chaos. Swords clanged against swords and the occasional pistol shot rang out. Bleachbeard’s crew were better fighters than the robots, but didn’t have the advantage of being able to reattach their severed limbs. Eventually the robots would wear them down.
“Squawk!” Ironbeak was bouncing up and down on the deck, its wings damaged from hitting me. It pecked at my thigh, drawing blood.
“Oh, you little...” I picked it up. It flapped in my hand, trying to get away, so I tore off one of its metal wings and threw the bird overboard. There was a satisfying splash.
“Ironbeak!” Rivetbeard had paused and looked back. As I got to my feet, he gave a very unpiratical shriek and started running again. He had a hobbling gait, what with his peg leg, but he managed to move pretty quickly.
I must have really terrified him, I thought. I started to feel a little guilty about trying to end this existence he had made for himself, but then I remembered all his victims and put my feelings aside.
He reached a cargo net attached to the mainmast and started to climb. Far above was the crow’s nest, where he could wait out the battle at his leisure until his men had killed me, Bleachbeard, and her crew.
I shoved Ironbeak’s wing into my pocket and bolted after him. “Bleachbeard!” I shouted. “I need a hand!”
She started fighting her way through the crowd to reach me while I climbed the net in pursuit of the robot captain. Rivetbeard looked down at me, swore, then started climbing faster.
A robot grabbed my leg. I kicked him off me and continued climbing. The net shook beneath me, then shook again as Bleachbeard began to climb as well.
Rivetbeard reached the top of the cargo net and jumped for the mast. He caught the narrow ladder that ran up its length, then, hanging on by his hook, drew his cutlass. He began to hack at the rope supporting the cargo net.
“No, you don’t,” Bleachbeard said.
I flinched as a shot flew past my head. It struck Rivetbeard in the arm and he dropped his sword, which fell to the deck far below. He cursed again, then resumed climbing.
I picked up the pace. I reached the top of the net and transferred to the mast. Above me, partially obscured by the shadow of the ship’s large sail, I saw Rivetbeard disappear into the crow’s nest. I scrambled up the ladder as quickly as I could – he was weaponless, but I didn’t want to give him time to prepare for me.
The crow’s nes
t was just a large barrel. The ladder ended in a hole cut into the bottom. When I was almost at the top, I flipped myself around to the other side of the mast, hugging it to grip the ends of the wooden rungs.
“Hah!” Rivetbeard’s hooked arm swiped down from the hole to the place where he thought I’d be. He flailed around for a moment, trying in vain to find me.
Bleachbeard, who was below, just out of his reach, shot up a few more rungs and grabbed his arm, using her weight to pin him down against the floor of the crow’s nest.
I reached up and grabbed the outside of the barrel. I found a knot and got my hand in it, then pulled myself up until I could grab the top. I hauled myself up and over and landed on Rivetbeard’s back.
“No!” he shouted, struggling.
“Hurry, Jed!” Bleachbeard cried. “My crew, they’re losing! Spicy Jack is about to be split down the middle!”
I found the panel in the back of his head. Rather than pry at it with my fingers, I took out Ironbeak’s wing and slid the thin metal under the panel’s edge. It popped open, revealing a nest of wires and blinking lights. At the center was a little silver disk, about the size of a quarter. I grabbed it and tore it free.
The lights went out. Rivetbeard stopped thrashing.
Below, the sounds of fighting ceased.
I stood and looked over the edge of the crow’s nest. The robots were falling to pieces. Without their captain’s control, they were nothing but hunks of iron.
Rivetbeard moved, and I spun around, ready to fight, but it was just Bleachbeard, pushing his inert body out of her way so she could climb into the crow’s nest.
“Sure and that was a close one!” she said. “Is it done?”
I held up the control disk. “It’s done.”
She grinned. “Then come here, boy, and give the Pirate Queen her reward!”
She grabbed me about the waist again and pulled me to her, kissing me fiercely. Her beard was soft against my chin.
After a moment, I pulled away, a little breathless. “I suppose we should climb down and see if everyone’s all right?”
“Climb?” She laughed. “And why would we do that?”
“Well...how else are we going to get down?”
“Honestly, Jed,” she said, shaking her head. “Have you learned nothing about style in all these weeks with me?”
She climbed over the side of the crow’s nest, with me hurrying after. She pulled me tight against her side, drew her sword, and jumped.
We fell a few feet, then hit the sail as it billowed out from the mast. She plunged her cutlass into the woven fabric, tearing it. We plummeted rapidly, kept from fatal velocity only by the resistance as her sword ripped its way down the sail.
Bleachbeard whooped with joy. The wind beat against my face and I joined her, screaming in delight.
An instant later the sword cut through the bottom of the sail and we dropped the last few feet to the deck, to the cheers of Bleachbeard’s waiting crew.
Bleachbeard laughed. “I’ve always wanted to do that!”
My smile froze. “You’ve never done that before?”
“What, and ruin a perfectly good sail?”
Our laughter was cut short by the echoing boom of a cannonball. In the distance, two ships were caught in combat. Grappling hooks shot out from one to the other, and planks were laid between them for boarding.
“It’s Patchybeard!” Bleachbeard shouted. “That dog! Taking advantage of my skeleton crew to plunder my hold! To the dinghy, men! He’ll not get away with this treachery!”
Her crew cheered and headed back to their smaller vessel. She started after them, then saw that I wasn’t following and stopped.
“Ah,” she said. “Time for you to be going, I take it?”
“It is,” I replied. I held up the disk again. “Can’t risk this touching anything metal. Rivetbeard could be reborn and we’d have to do it all over again.”
She smiled. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me. Will you ever be back this way, Jed Ryland?”
“Maybe. Time will tell.”
“It always does. I suppose now I’ll get to see that disappearing act you told me about?”
I nodded. “Just watch this. And thanks for everything, Bleachbeard, Pirate Queen of the Adriatic.”
She swung her cutlass in a quick salute. “And my thanks to you, Jed Ryland. You were the best Captain’s Consort a pirate queen could ask for.”
I clenched the control disk in my fist and ran. I bolted for the edge of the ship, where the men were disappearing down the side. I vaulted over the railing, over their heads, into the open air.
I had one moment to take in their astonished gasps, and Bleachbeard’s throaty laughter. Then, before I could hit the water, I punched a hole in the universe and vanished.
Two
I reappeared in a Mission Transit Room back at the Crossroads. I was in mid-jump and slightly higher up than I thought would be. I landed and tried to run out my momentum but the floor beneath my feet was soft and springy and I lost my balance, tumbling ass over elbow until I crashed into the similarly padded wall.
I sat up and grinned at the observation window, which was set high in the opposite wall. “Almost stuck that landing!”
The woman watching me from above shook her head. She leaned forward, her weary Eastern European accent sounding from a speaker beneath the window. “Agent Ryland, are dere any universes left vhich you haven’t had to escape from at top speed?”
“Only the dull ones.”
I lay back to catch my breath, staring up at the padded ceiling. Yes, the ceiling is padded too. Sometimes I come in at an upward trajectory. I lead an interesting life.
I scratched at my left wrist. It was warm from my spanner, the device which lets me travel between universes. A spanner looks like a thin silver bracelet, worn tight around the wrist like a watchband, but it’s a whole lot more than that. It’s got three tricks it can do for me, hardwired into it by my bosses. Universe-hopping is the first and most important. I’ll get to the others later.
The woman’s voice sounded again. “Vhenever you are ready, Agent. Or shall I come to you? You vant me to bring you a blanket and tuck you in all snuggly, maybe?”
I jumped to my feet and brushed the dust of Pirate World off my backside. “Sounds delightful, Angie, but don’t trouble yourself. I’ll be right up.”
I moved to the wall and a padded door slid open. I stepped into a small booth and the door closed. I was in darkness for only a moment before a circle of light appeared about fifteen feet above me. The floor rose and I emerged into the center of Control Room Twelve.
The Control Room was abuzz with noise, as usual. Seven of the walls in the octagonal room featured large cantilevered windows, which overlooked seven identical Mission Transit Rooms. Beneath each window were large, complicated control panels, with lots of buttons and lights and handpads and viewscreens, none of which I understood in the slightest. At each console sat a Mission Supervisor, monitoring their respective allotment of universes for any sign of trouble.
I stepped off the lift and it returned to the lower level. The hole in the floor seamlessly filled in behind it.
“And how are you today, Angie?”
Angeforce Colzystan was my very favorite Mission Supervisor. She was from Earth, like me, but one on which evolution had taken a slightly different turn. Her skin and hair were both a pale green and she had a third eye in the middle of her forehead. That third eye usually wandered, darting this way and that, but in reply to my question it joined its two lower neighbors to emphasize their withering look.
“I’ll be much better once you’ve checked in, Agent,” she said. “My shift was about to end vhen you came barreling in like a crazy person.”
“All business, Angie. That’s why I love you.” I unclenched my fist and held out the control disk. “Mission accomplished.”
She squinted at the tiny object. “Dat’s it? How did you identify it?”
“Drunk pirate.”
She sniffed and took it from me. Her third eye looked me up and down, taking in my ragged appearance. “You vere dere for a few veeks, your time. You had troubles?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. I was helping out the locals.” I stretched, still a little sore.
“Agent Ryland,” she huffed, “vere you sidetracked yet again from seeking out de contaminating artifact? Ve have had dis conversation again and again...”
“Angie, Angie, Angie.” I sat down in her rolling chair, leaned back, lifted my feet, and started spinning myself around. “I needed local help to track the artifact. Besides, there was no ready power source on the planet so my spanner took a while to recharge. Why waste that time if I can pitch in and do a good deed or two?”
She sighed. “I suppose I can’t blame you. If someone vas in need of assistance...”
“Exactly. Good, simple folk oppressed by evil feudal lords, thieving robber barons, and cackling tax collectors.” I pushed off the edge of her console, giving myself another good spin. “Plus, there was this really, really attractive woman...”
Angie grabbed the back of the chair, stopping me with a jolt. “I knew it!”
I shrugged and smiled up at her. “I have a weakness for facial hair, what can I say? Thanks for logging the artifact in for me, Ange. I’m gonna hit the commissary, I’m starved.”
I jumped out of Angie’s chair and headed for the opposite wall, leaving her fuming at her console.
“I didn’t say I’d log dis in for you!”
“I owe you one!”
“More dan vun!”
Halfway across the room, I snapped my fingers and spun around.
“Oh, and it’s sentient,” I said, “so you should find it a body.”
“It’s vhat?”
“But it’s also a mass murderer, so not a very good body.”
“Agent Ryland!”
I turned away and continued walking. “Thanks again!”
“You still have to fill in your report!” she called out.
“After dinner!”