Sky Pirates of the Rio Grande - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"Pirates," Zenobia said.  "Fuck."  She looked around, up at the gasbag overhead.  "Can we outrun them?"

"Not a chance," Eden said.  "In this thing?  No, we could burn out the turbines and still not come close."

"No cannons," Zenobia said.  "Or powder."

"It was used as a survey ship, it didn't need them."  Eden kept her eyes on the approaching pirate ship, saw gunports opening.  "I hope they don't fire."

"They won't, they want to scare us into surrender," Zenobia said.  "Can't this ship take a few hits?"

"Not really," Eden said.  "The copper plating on these older ships is too thin to stop a modern shell."

"So one shot and we plummet?  What kind of ship is this?"  Zenobia looked like she wanted to hit something.

"An obsolete one," Eden said irritably, still watching the other ship.  "The gasbag is compartmented so that won't happen.  There are eight sections inside it."

"And how many do they have to punch open to sink us then?"

"Um, well, one.  But we would crash slowly," Eden said.

"Oh, well, that is just splendid."  Zenobia growled and stalked, drew her saber and hacked at the rail, sending wood chips jumping.  "Fuck!"

"Wait, I can almost read the ship's name," Eden said.  "Perhaps we can bargain with these pirates.  I mean, they can take whatever they want, we just want passage--"

"They can take whatever they want anyway," Zenobia said.  "And the first they will take will be your passage, you understand me?"

"But if we don't fight them, they won't have any reason to be violent," Eden said.  "We haven't done anything to them."

"Mierda, mouse.  You know nothing of pirates," Zenobia growled.  She jumped down from the afterdeck and went below, came back with a brace of pistols and a pouch full of paper cartidges.

Eden turned and stared at her.  "What are you doing?"

"Loading," Zenobia said.

"You can't mean to fight," Eden said.

"You can strip naked and spread yourself for them, I'm not going to," Zenobia started ramming shells into the pistols.

"Zenobia, I tell you, if we just surrender peacefully they'll have no reason to--"

Zenobia laughed bitterly.  "Do you think you know more about criminals than me?"

"Um, well, no."  Eden turned back to the spyglass, squinting at the ship as it drew nearer.  "I suppose not."

"Then believe me when I say those men will rape and kill us whether we fight or not.  To them, everything is theirs to take, and they will take it."  She thumbed caps into place, let the hammer down carefully and then grabbed the other pistol.  "I won't be taken again."

"Wait, I see a name on the ship," Eden said excitedly.  "It says... it says... oh dear."

"What?" Zenobia said, pulling down the ramming lever on the pistol.

"It says, uh.  It says 'spitfire'."

"Spitfire?  What's wrong with that?"

"Well, it doesn't actually say, um, 'spit'.  It says something else."

Zenobia started up, shoved Eden away from the glass.  "Shit?  It says 'shitfire'?  The Shitfire?  Cacafuego?"  She ducked down and peered through the glass.  "Son of the bitch that fucked God!"

"Zenobia!"  Eden blanched.

Zenobia straightened.  "It's Captain Belial."  She bent her head and growled, thinking.

"Belial?"  Eden knew enough to pale at the name.  "Maximilian Belial?"

"Shut up, little mouse.  I am thinking."  Zenobia chewed her lip.  She kicked the rail and shook her head.  "All right mouse, here is my plan."

"Plan?  You're going to fight them and then die!  How is that a plan?"  They both turned as a cannon boomed and a puff of smoke bloomed from the side of the pirate ship.  They both ducked as the shell exploded in midair, shrapnel rattling against the copper armor on the gasbag.

Zenobia grabbed her arm.  "You get below, into the engine room.  Shut down the engines and then hide."

"Hide?"

"Yes, hide.  I need time to negotiate with the Captain, so you hide and stay hidden."  Zenobia pushed her.  "Get gone before they are too close, or they will see you."

"But they'll kill you!"  Eden was panicking, despite how she tried not to.

"Maybe not," Zenobia said.

"You said they would r-rape and kill us both!"

"Yes, but I was thinking without this," Zenobia gestured down at herself.  "I am different now, not just an ordinary girl any longer.  I have something to offer now."

"Offer?"  Eden backed towards the stairs down to the main deck.  "What are you going to do?"

"I am going to try and keep you safe, little mouse," Zenobia turned away and faced the approaching ship.  "I am going to join a pirate crew."

---

The Shitfire drew alongside with predatory slowness, and Zenobia watched closely from her place of concealment behind the stairway.  She noted how the ship angled in from behind, keeping out of the line of fire of any theoretical guns until the last moment, when the ship swung in close and the hulls thudded together.  An order shouted and a dozen heavy grapples flew over the rail, thudded down into the wooden deck and bit deep.  She heard winches crank and lash the two ships tight together, and then planks were thrown down and pirates came flooding over the rail.

Zenobia had not seen many pirates before, mostly bandits, but they looked more or less the same except that the pirates looked cleaner, free from the curse of road dust.  They still wore hats and bandannas to keep their hair back and crammed as many pistols and knives into their belts and sashes as possible.  Every one came over the side gripping a weapon in each hand - usually a gun in one and a knife or hatchet in the other.  A few carried naval cutlasses, but not that many.

She kept her grip on her bared saber and loaded Colt and waited for them to crowd the deck.  She needed them to spread out here, so that when she made her move they couldn't just shoot her down from the rail.  She needed them to surround her.

A dozen of them climbed aboard, then twenty.  They came close enough to see her and she stepped out before she could be cornered, springing out into the middle of them.  She left her jacket open, baring her breasts and belly, letting them get a look at her.  They backed away, weapons ready but unwilling to just shoot down a nice pair of tits, as she'd hoped.

She heard a rapid clicking of pistols being cocked, some oaths.  Zenobia held up her saber and leveled it at them, but kept her pistol down at her side - cocked but not pointed.  She shook her hair back like a mane.  "Who's captain here?"

The men who faced her were every color from sunburned white to coal black, and the one who stepped forward was very dark, handsome but not kind.  He was broad as a horse and had pinprick scars on his face - a Haitian, maybe.  He sneered, jabbed his pistol at her.

"Who is this, now?  You want to be givin' yourself up to us.  You be good, and maybe we don' kill you."  He played tough and plainly was, but his gaze flicked over her uneasily - he wasn't sure what she was.

She gave him a long, slow smile, ignoring everyone else.  "You're not the captain.  I want to see your captain, and I want him now."

The sailor's eyes flicked to the side, giving her all the time she needed to turn and deal with the men rushing her from the flanks.  Four of them came at her with ropes and hands clutching for her.  They saw enough they liked to want her alive.

She turned and lunged without looking first, so fast they had no time to react.  Her saber hissed out and caught a man just below his armpit, sliced through him clean as a carving knife through a steak.  Blood came spurting out and painted every man within ten feet as the sailor fell back, his chest gaping open and half-severed.

Zenobia continued the motion and kicked the body aside, brought up the pistol and slammed it down on top of the next man's head.  Blood shot out of his nose and one eye came loose and hung down on his face.  He crumpled so fast it was as if he'd been stepped on.

Men shouted, jumping back, wiping blood from their eyes.  The other two men hung back and the Haitian drew down on her with his pistol, fired too fast and the shot went wide.  Zenobia let out a low growl and pounced, her blade flicked out and struck sparks as she slapped his gun from his hand.  She turned left and caught another man coming at her with a long knife, smashed the barrel of her gun into the side of his head and flipped him over backward.

The pirates were getting over their shock, groping for their weapons and trying to get a clean shot at her past their shipmates.  The Haitian drew his cutlass and she kicked him in the belly, hooked her left arm around his neck when he doubled over.

She hauled him up in front of her for a shield as a dozen guns pointed at her.  She laid the edge of her sword against his neck and turned so there was no shot past him.  He was bigger than she was, broad enough to make a good shield.  He struggled and she squeezed his neck, pulled at him and felt his feet come up off the deck.  She didn't know her own strength, and was gratified to see fear in their eyes as they faced her.

"As I said," she laughed, her growl guttering in her chest like grinding gears.  "I wish to see your captain."

The crowd parted and a man stepped through.  He was tall and had once been darkly handsome, but now a savage scar tore across the left side of his face from brow to jaw, twisting his lip into a perpetual snarl.  An eyepatch covered the place where his eye had been, and his remaining eye was hard and black as obsidian.  Black hair was gathered loosely behind his neck, and his facial hair was trimmed fastidiously into a short beard and devilish set of whiskers.  His olive skin was browned and weathered by many years in wind and sun.

"I am Captain Belial," he said, and she watched how the men shrank back from him, averted their eyes from his face.  He wore a long black suede captain's coat over a rich brocaded red silk shirt and a wide belt hung with two pistols, a saber, and a fistful of knives.  He folded his arms and faced her with no fear in his face.  "Who are you?"

Zenobia flung the Haitian aside carelessly, spun her pistol like a caballero and holstered it.  "I am Zenobia Maria Santiago, and I want to join your crew."

---

Captain Belial looked her up and down, pulled at his beard absently.  "You are on this ship all alone, and you are just sailing blindly to find me?"

"I stole this ship," she said boldly.  "I meant to escape, but a pirate crew sounds good enough to me.  I was a bandit before, this is better."

"Who are you escaping from?"

Zenobia held up her head.  "I escaped from the Smithsonian.  I am what they call Experimental."

"I can see that," he said, looking her over.  "Who made you?"

She showed her teeth.  "Laclos."  The murmur that went through the men was most satisfying, as was the way they edged away from her on the deck.

"One of Laclos' beast-men, then."  He pursed his lips.

She shrugged her shoulders to open her coat wider.  "Beast-woman, if you please."

"Oh I do not doubt that you shall please me very much," he said.  "But first I shall take your measure."

"Indeed?" she arched a brow as he undid his belt and handed it over to a sailor, took only his sword from among the weapons.  He unsheathed it in the sun - a long, slightly-curved saber with an eagle's head on the pommel.  He sighted down the blade at her.

"Indeed," he said.  "Draw your sword, and let us see what you are made from."

Zenobia held up her bloodied sword and flicked it, sent drops of red spattering on the deck.  "Come and try me then.  If you are lucky I won't kill you."

"Indeed," he said, and engaged as smoothly as any dancer.  He beat her blade aside, evaded her backhanded slash and flicked a button off her coat with the tip of his blade.  "If I am lucky."

Zenobia snarled and crouched, watching his every motion.  He was fast - far faster than she expected, and when he came in again she barely managed to smack his blade aside and get out of the way.  She cut down at him and he flicked it aside with a seemingly effortless turn of his blade.

"Tierce!" he said smartly.  "Riposte!" He flicked his blade in and cut another button from her coat, caught it in his hand and tossed it contemptuously aside.  She slashed at him and he stepped back out of her reach, blade ready.

Now Zenobia circled warily.  She had never been trained in the sword, for all that she had killed men with it.  She knew cut and thrust and parry, but nothing of the ancient art of it.  Here, she realized, was a devil schooled in every trick and shade of the duel, every feint and counter and a hundred other things she knew nothing about.

He was one-eyed, but that obviously troubled him little.  He darted in and she turned away, slapped his blade aside with her hand and cut at his legs.  He parried low and the force of her stroke knocked his blade out of line.  Belial shifted back but she pounced on him, dashing him off his feet with her body, rolling over with him.

She didn't see his blow, only saw stars when he cracked his pommel against her temple and slipped away from her.  Snarling, she came up on her knees and turned to find his swordpoint at the hollow of her throat.

"You are quick and so very strong," he said, barely breathing hard.  "But also crude in method, sloppy in execution, and far too aggressive."  He dug the point of his blade into her skin and she felt blood run out.  "Yield to me now."

She looked him right in the eye, showing no fear.  "Am I on your crew?"

"I shall consider it," he said, his permanent half-snarl impossible to read.  He twisted the point.  "Yield."

Zenobia licked her teeth and pondered.  She looked down at the blade that passed under her chin.  Her lips worked thoughtfully, and then she spat on it.  "No."

Then he looked angry for one single moment.  His eye flashed like steel in a dark room and he snarled for true.  "Very well then," he said, beckoning.

The other crewmen piled on top of her, bearing her down with their numbers, pinning her to the deck.  She snarled and heaved at them but there were too many, and these were not soft men, but iron-muscled and hard-fingered.  She snarled when they pulled her arms behind her.  They pulled her head back and forced a strip of leather between her teeth.  Captain Belial sheathed his sword and laughed at her then, and she heard the clangor of chains.

Continued in Chapter 10...

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