The Ill-mannered Door (humorous sci-fi)

40.1: Now Boarding

By the time I had rounded up the king and he had selected some of his most trusted sailors to accompany us, Derek had the rest of the boarders organized and ready.

To the outside observer, like Derek and I, there was little visible difference between the men that were loyal to the king and the queen's men. The men themselves knew each other on sight and would probably have little trouble telling friend from foe in the coming fight, but it would be quite impossible for us. Given that Derek had a powerful rifle that he planned to use to tip the battle in our favor, being able to tell the difference was of the utmost importance. So, at Derek's orders, the men had fetched as much red cloth as could be found and ripped it into strips. These strips had then been tied around the bicep of each man to prevent as much friendly fire as possible.

Then came the tense moments of waiting for the Bounty to finally overtake the Esmerelda. We didn't have long to wait. The helmsman knew his business and expertly guided us right alongside the queen's ship. I looked across to see that her men were expecting us with weapons drawn.

Just as our men moved to throw the grappling hooks across, the Esmerelda suddenly dropped several meters below us and a glance over the side revealed that she was continuing to fall away.

Derek cursed and ran to the silver cube. Without any word of warning, we began to free fall and my stomach lurched as I lost my footing. I was thankful that I wasn't the only one. Looking around, I saw that several of our boarders, experienced sailors all, were picking themselves up off the deck and looking a bit green around the gills.

The experience was much like what I would expect for someone in a lift after its cable had snapped, but it was effective, and we quickly caught up with the Esmerelda as she was rapidly running out of altitude with which to work.

Derek shouted at the boarders, "Get ready to throw the grappling hooks!"

The men hefted their hooks and began to swing them, and when the queen's ship rose up to meet us and Derek saw her masts rise into view, he shouted, "Throw!"

The hooks flew, the ropes trailing behind as they crossed the gap between the two large sailing vessels. The Esmerelda had been just a bit lower when they threw, so the hooks plunged downward a few meters to strike the deck of the rising ship. Some came free as the queen's ship tried to rise above us, but most found purchase on the opposing ship's gunwale. The sailors holding the ropes went into action, straining mightily to lash the two ships together, while Derek managed to adjust our own upward motion to match that of the other ship. Despite the best efforts of the queen's men, the two ships were now bound.

"Go! Go! Go!" Derek shouted at the boarders and they sprang quickly into action, quite literally, as they jumped over to the deck of the queen's ship.

The battle was joined.

I must admit at this point that I was honestly not ready for what I saw. Yes, I had seen boarding in movies where men like Errol Flynn danced about sword fighting, but that in no way prepared me for what really happened. The sheer, up close brutality of it frankly staggered me. Witnessing the real effects of one of our boarders leaping across and burying his hand axe deep in the shoulder of an enemy sailor waiting to run him through was simply too much for me to take. Just like that, a wave of lightheadedness rolled over me, and I stumbled and vomited violently upon the deck. I had seen some terrible things in my life and faced my share of angry college students, but this was just a wee bit outside my usual bailiwick.

On my hands and knees, listening to the brutal clash and screams of the men as they fought, there came the sound of Derek's rifle firing. He had taken up position on the upper deck of the Bounty and was picking off the queen's men. The effect was quite devastating, but it didn't last long.

As I looked over the bloody scene across the way, our men looked to be mixed with the queen's men to such a degree that Derek was having problems picking his targets. He rapidly came down the ladder from the upper deck and screamed at me, "Come on, Thomas, get up! Barry, take him and your men and follow me across! Let's go!"

With that, Derek dashed the short distance to the side of the ship and leapt across, bashing one man to the deck with the butt of his rifle as he landed.

I stood up and turned toward the king. His faithful servant Higgins stood trembling at his side, looking like a hunted animal, eyes darting back and forth as he took in the brutal battle only scant meters away. Higgins, perhaps infinitely more wise than the rest of us, had seen enough. He suddenly screamed and ran into the king's cabin, slamming the door shut behind him with a bang.

The king, to his credit, remained on deck but looked about as scared and green as I likely did at that moment. I could see in his eyes that he didn't want to cross to the queen's ship any more than I did, but there was nothing for it. We simply had to. Derek was depending on us to take care of the bomb, and I wasn't going to let him down.

Taking the king's hand, I shouted over the noise of the battle, "Let's go, we have to get to the bomb!"

He visibly balked, but I was having none of it and somehow found the strength at that moment to physically drag his rather ample shape behind me, his sailors surrounding us with weapons drawn as we went.

You may fault the king and me for a lack of bravery if you like, but his men were top-notch and committed to getting us safely through the ongoing melee.

So, the king with no visible weapon whatsoever, and me, armed with nothing more than a baseball bat from someplace called Louisville, jumped the small gap with these men to the Esmerelda.