by C. B. Ash
“Aye!” The young man replied, wide-eyed, as Nash screamed, then laughed maniacally while his form began to twist. Quickly, the seaman started frantically sawing through the ropes on his wrists.
Hunter knelt next to Thorias. The doctor was out cold. Anthony took a deep breath, then quickly hauled the doctor up, turning him around. Hefting the unconscious Welshman up, Hunter placed him across his shoulders and hurried down the hallway towards the infirmary.
Meanwhile, Black Jack had not sat idly in the infirmary while the fight raged in the corridor. Once Hunter had stepped outside the room, John – using the broken desk next to him – had succeeded in pulling himself carefully upright to a standing position. While the myriad of aches and pains from countless bruises subsided, he steadied himself. Carefully, he walked over to one of the nearby cabinets.
Searching about provided him with nothing more than two clean scalpels, some broken bottles that once held antiseptic, and some gauze. With a tired sigh, he went to work trying to disentangle himself from the diabolical bomb on his chest with the scalpels. His first attempt resulted in both a modest jolt of electricity that shook him like a rag doll, and a single audible tick from the pocket watch when John’s grip on the scalpel slipped.
Clark shook his head to clear it, then scowled at the vest. “I’ll not let a bit of brass and powder get the best o’ me!” he swore, then resumed tinkering with the dangerous device.
Between distractions from the gunshots in the corridor beyond, and sweat from John's own hands, he succeeded in advancing the pocket watch's second hand a total of fifteen seconds. This was in addition to the fourteen other attempts, when he had jolted himself with a mildly painful shock before Hunter ran into the room.
“When you’re done toying with the lethal explosives,” Hunter said in a rasping voice, “it’s time we took our leave of this dance.”
Hunter’s abrupt re-appearance caused John’s hand to slip again. He yelped as the vest jolted him once more. Clark coughed, and shook his head slightly before turning towards Hunter. Black Jack’s bruised and bloody face was a garish mask. He glanced at the unconscious doctor through his one unswollen eye. “Oi, the doctor couldn’t handle the fun?”
“You might say it went to his head,” Hunter replied. “Step lively. We’ve a Fomorian in mid-change out here. We need to get that thing off of you and off this ship, but we’ll need a safer place to work at it.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” John replied, immediately tossing the blades aside, then hurrying for the door as quickly as his added weight would allow. “Only place I can think is the main deck. Either someone’ll get their knickers in a knot and shoot us dead, or they’ll actually find a way to get this off of me.”
The trio raced down the corridor away from Brin Nash who screeched in pain as his form stretched with bone-crunching agony, muscles forcibly growing, reshaping his body into much more than he was. Beyond Nash, the sailors, now free of their bonds, carried Clark out of sight, shutting the hatch behind them. No sooner had the lock echoed into place, Hunter turned in the opposite direction, running towards the open hatch.
Once at the doorway, Hunter sidestepped through, mindful of his unconscious burden. John followed a moment after. He glanced down the hallway, then around them as he slammed the hatch shut.
“Where’s the young miss?” He asked curiously as he slid the steel latch into place.
“They took her,” Hunter said flatly, adjusting the position of his burden as he hurried for a nearby set of stairs, “along with the notes on the Hellgate elixir.”
John’s cocky attitude faded rapidly as he ran after Anthony. “They make it off ship?”
“Not yet,” Hunter replied once he reached the bottom of the stairs.
Between the two of them, they climbed the ladder, reaching the main deck as Moira, Krumer and O’Fallon emerged from another hatch a few feet away.
“Cap’n!” Moira exclaimed with a look of relief. Unlike Hunter, his crew had their weapons on them. He suspected they had paid a visit to the Intrepid’s quartermaster.
“They’ve taken Angela,” Hunter said quickly, “and a formula for the elixir.” The captain shifted the weight of his burden across his shoulders so he could point at John. “Moira, get that thing off of Clark. Has any of you seen anyone come through yet with the girl?”
“I’ve got the doctor,” Krumer immediately raced over and relieved Hunter of his burden, gently laying the unconscious Dr. Llwellyn out on the deck. “Spirit’s willing, I’ll have him back to his overly proper self in no time.”
O’Fallon shook his head, handed Hunter a pistol, then began checking the bullets in his own recently acquired revolver. “Not a hair nor hide, Cap’n.”
Hunter clasped the Scotsman on the shoulder, “good. That means we might have made it in time. You check fore, I’ll check aft. He has to come up at some point.”
“Aye!” Conrad nodded in agreement before each ran off across the deck.
With a concerned glance at Thorias’ limp form, Moira rushed over to John, who was standing very still, his face white as a sheet. “It’s just started to tick on its own,” he whispered, as if the device could overhear him.
Moira gave Clark a confused look, “How do ya mean ‘just started’?”
Black Jack gestured frantically at the glass encased pocket watch. “Last time it moved was when I was trying to cut myself out. But then it only ticked once, then stopped. I legged it up here, and it starts ticking all on its own.”
“Probably loosened somethin’ with all ya running about,” Moira replied with a thoughtful frown, “let's take a look.”
The lady blacksmith’s eyes widened as she peered closely at the device. She cracked her knuckles with a grin. “Oh, aren’t you a sweet thing?” She whispered.
“Are you going to dance with it, or shut it down?” John asked earnestly. Something buzzed once inside the lead crystal box on the top.
“Hush,” Moira waved a hand at Clark, giving him a sour glance, “I’m havin’ a private moment with a fine example of ingenuity, do ya mind?”
“Oh, well then,” John replied sarcastically. “I’ll just stop my faffing and just be standin’ here … until the bomb goes off and gives us all a good whack in the head!”
Moira ignored the man, roughly spinning him around while she took a better look at the device. Quickly, she stalked over and grabbed an opti-telegraphic from a sailor’s hands and smashed it on the deck.
“Hey!” He protested.
“I’ll owe ya a new one!” Moira replied as she snatched up a handful of wires and springs, then raced back to a bewildered and nervous John Clark.
“What’re ya about?” John demanded. Moira roughly spun him around again, rapidly tying off wires from one side of the harness to the other. After a moment, she stopped to check her work. An insane array of excess wires crisscrossed John’s chest, then culminated to a pair of wires trailing across the deck behind him. Moira glanced up at Clark, her hands hovering near a particular set situated near the bottom of the containers. “So I bet it gives ya quite a spark when yankin’ on the wires?”
“Only once or …” John started to say before Moira yanked the pair of wires in opposite directions.
The moment the wires snapped free, electricity erupted from the broken ends like a geyser. Clark yelped in alarm as the electricity cracked and popped with a quick flash of static, then was gone.
John staggered backwards in shock, tripping over his own feet and falling backwards onto the deck into a sitting position. He frantically patted himself down, despite his shaking hands. Finally he shot a glare at Moira.
“Oi!” He rasped. “What was that for?”
Quickly, Moira hauled the explosives off of Black Jack, who was still glaring at the blacksmith.
“I’ve a little black book o’ irritatin’ people,” Moira said sternly as she gently lay the vest down, “an' yer in it! Besides, it wasn’t a big battery, just a little one. Just enough to giv
e ya a shock so ya won’t take the vest off and later ignite the powder. If ya had just grit ya teeth, ya could’a got it undone, ya big wanker.”
“Oh, like it's so easy for you,” Clark grumbled irritably.
“It was,” Moira replied with a smug grin. “Now, not that I care much, but why were ya all trussed up like that?”
“They thought I had that bloody damned formula,” Clark replied, rubbing a sore shoulder.
“They who?” Moira asked.
Suddenly, the hatch to below decks exploded upwards, ripped from its hinges. The disfigured piece of metal sailed up, ripping through the lower end of a sail, then back down, narrowly missing a pair of sailors who had just emerged on deck five yards away from Moira and Clark towards the bow of the ship.
Out of the ruined hatchway, the misshapen figure of Brin Nash crawled free into the cold, cloudy light of day. Eyes a bloodshot red, his uniform in torn rags, and his face a mask of raw, slobbering rage, he was the veritable picture of a nightmare come to life.
A few feet away, the roar of a pistol accompanied a man’s scream of pain as another fully altered Fomorian threw a sailor through a door and onto the deck. The misshapen Fomorian emerged from the hatchway. Slung over his shoulder, trapped in his tight grip was Angela, still entangled in the rags of her dress and a wool blanket.
The young miss Von Patterson, despite suffering withdrawal from her use of the Fomorian elixir, had snatched up an arc lantern and was trying to hammer the bestial man in the back of the head, but with little effect.
John frowned, his look deadly serious. “Oi, they … him … them Fomorians. They’re well and good aboard the ship, like I’ve been tryin’ to warn people. An they’re as mad as a bag of ferrets over the whole affair.”
Chapter 38
Moira’s pistols were in her hands instantly, orange tongues of flame erupting towards Brin Nash. The air thundered, and bullets whined angrily like enraged bees. Nash grunted as he took both shots low and to his left, deep into the bull-like muscles of his thigh. The lunatic grimaced, instinctively clutching the bloody bullet wounds. Tripping over his feet, Nash went crashing down to the deck onto one knee.
The lady blacksmith glanced towards the Fomorian that raced away with Angela in his grasp. Moira took aim, hesitating, waiting for the right moment to fire at the young girl’s captor. Her finger closed around the trigger just as Captain Hunter accidentally stepped into her line of fire!
“Damn it!” Moira swore bitterly.
Suddenly, the sound of wood snapping apart like the crack of a pistol, sliced through the air only a few feet away!
“Leg it!” John exclaimed, getting to his feet and hauling Moira along by one arm. A broken wooden plank flew past them both.
“But … the Cap’n and Conrad!” Moira complained as she jerked her arm free with a sour look at Clark. “They’re in trouble. They’ll need a hand in getting Angela!”
Clark snorted derisively, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards Nash. “We’ve our own troubles!”
Moira glanced back and jumped in surprise. She expected to see Nash still collapsed to the deck, nursing a bloody – and useless – left leg. Unfortunately, that was not the case, as Nash slowly was slowly climbing to his feet, a mask of pain on his face. He glowered at Moira, blood running down his leg as he took a step forward.
Nash, blatantly ignoring his wounds, slammed a fist directly into the deck. The wood splintered as his hard knuckles struck the slats like an iron hammer. The surrounding section of the Intrepid’s deck buckled violently, then snapped with a pistol crack. He snarled at John and Moira, ripping a part of the deck from the ship itself and hurling it at them with all his strength.
The wooden missile whirled crazily through the air, spinning like a saw-toothed dervish. Just before the splintered wood could slice into either one of them, John tackled Moira, knocking her flat. The slats careened overhead, slamming into one of the tree-trunk like steel masts five feet behind them. Wood exploded into a cloud of splinters, with two smaller portions of the broken deck sailing away on either side of the mast.
"Bugger’s still pretty spry!” Clark growled irritably.
Moira scrambled to her feet, then glanced unbelievably at her pistols. With a glower, she jammed them into their holsters, fixing John with a hard glare. "Then I need somethin' bigger!" The lady blacksmith looked around until her eyes settled on one of the Intrepid’s lightning cannons. “Like that!” She shoved John away from her, “you go help the Cap’n. I’ll be along straight away.”
John grabbed her arm before she took more than a step. "It won't do. They'll be locked down while in port!"
Moira bit back a curse, then ducked instinctively as a barrel whirled past them on her right side. She glanced back at Nash, who reached for a secured set of barrels, the tarred rope holding them in place snapping with a pop.
“Fine then,” she replied sharply, looking around as a quartet of sailors rushed on deck, armed with rifles. “I got another way to get him off the ship. Go help Cap’n Hunter and Conrad,” Moira finished sternly. When John hesitated, she glared at him, “move, damn ya!”
“Sack-it, all ready! I’m going!” he retorted, racing across the deck towards where Captain Hunter now lay on the deck, shaking his head as if dazed.
Moira turned her attention back to Nash and the riflemen that had taken up firing positions. The rifles barked, spitting flame and lead towards Nash, although the Fomorian shrugged off the bullets like a mad bull shaking away flies. Nash grabbed another barrel and flung it at the four riflemen, scattering them as they dove aside for cover. The empty barrel shattered against the deck, showering the sailors with a cloud of deadly wooden splinters.
The lady blacksmith hunched behind one of the Intrepid’s masts while chewing her lip in frustration. “I’ll think of somethin’ anyway,” she muttered to herself.
Everywhere, pieces of wood from barrels, the ship itself, and other debris peppered the deck – however, none of it was useful. Nearby, a spark lantern – one of the newer varieties that was powered with a gas-voltaic battery to allow it to be easier to carry about – clattered from its bracket on the wall, bounced off an old fire axe, and rolled across the deck, spilling a light trail of electric arcs in its wake. Moira watched it roll slowly towards her, when immediately an idea struck her. She dared a quick look around the mast – Nash was busy hurling more debris at the riflemen. Moira closed her eyes, took a deep breath then bolted from cover and raced for the lantern.
The moment she left the cover of the mast, Nash spotted her. “Damnable woman!” He snarled, snatching up yet another barrel and hurling it at the lady blacksmith.
Just as her hands touched the metal loop atop the lantern’s frame, Moira glanced up at the flicker of a shadow overhead! Immediately, she dropped to the deck, ignoring the pain as she tumbled out of control. Behind her, the barrel shattered, releasing a cloud of scrap metal shavings!
The deadly cloud rained down around her as Moira covered her face with her arms. Jagged metal sliced into her clothes, cutting bloody marks in the places where the metal scraped skin. As the barrage subsided, Moira skidded to a halt on the deck, curled into a ball. Peering between her arms, she blinked at the caustic dust floating on the air. She sat up quickly and glared at the Fomorian.
“Ha! That the best ya got?” She taunted Nash with a smirk, “I barely felt it!” She scrambled to her feet and snatched up the spark lantern.
The Fomorian bared his teeth with a dangerous growl, reaching for another barrel behind him. The container rattled with the sound of more metal as he flung it at the woman.
When the barrel left Nash’s hands, Moira turned quickly on her heel, nearly tumbling to the deck. Racing over to the fire axe, she tugged it from where it was stowed, then threw herself down. The second barrel flew overhead, just missing her. Again, a cloud of sharp, jagged metal shavings erupted behind and around her, whipping through the air. No sooner had the cloud subsided, Moira grimaced as she g
ot to her feet. With both axe and lantern in hand, she turned her attention to the pipes that trailed along where the deck kissed the railing of the ship.
Meanwhile, the sailors had recovered themselves; two of their number crawling towards whatever cover they could find on the open deck despite the painful slivers of wood that were embedded in their arms and legs. Others of their number snatched up their rifles, took aim, and gave Nash what-for.
Rifles thundered, and bullets whined through the air as the acrid smoke of gunpowder plumed in a thick fog across the deck. Nash roared in pain as he finally began to feel the sting of the bullets that wounded him. However, rage propelled him forward as he reached the ragged firing line of the riflemen. The Fomorian jerked the rifle from one sailor’s hands, then hammered the brave man to the deck, leaving him battered and senseless. Nash then turned his murderous attention towards the others sailors at hand.
Suddenly, there was a loud echo as metal savagely struck metal. Nash had just slapped aside the last of the riflemen as the sound reached his ears. He tossed the rifle aside, searching for the source of the curious sound. It rang again, only this time was followed by a brief, tortured screech of metal. Nash ran across the deck towards the starboard lightning cannons that were oriented safely up and away from being pointed at the station. There he found Moira, frantically hacking at a pipe leading into the base of one of the Intrepid’s powerful artillery placements.
Nash gave an ugly, harsh laugh. The woman was cornered against the rail. She had nowhere to run to. He savored the moment, flexing his bloodied and calloused knuckles. “Foolish woman. The cannon locks aren’t there.”
Moira jerked around in surprise, wide-eyed, holding the fire axe up over her shoulder like a club. She grinned at Nash with such a predatory look, the Fomorian began to back away suspiciously.
“Oh, I know,” she replied smugly, “but the water pressure is!”
Too late, Nash realized what she meant as the woman quickly spun on her heel and lashed out with the axe, slicing down against one of the pressure valves on the water pipe. Metal struck metal, and the fist-sized turn valve snapped away, propelled outward like a cannon as the warm salt water exploded in a deadly stream!