Something hit the side of the ship with a resounding thump. A slight sideways motion rocked the Thunderbolt, barely enough to make a man unsteady on his feet. Had they run aground, or drifted into a reef? A second later, Valentine heard firing from above.
Valentine looked up at Ahn-Kha. The Grog's hornlike ears were twisting this way and that, listening to the confused clamour from above. Valentine recognized the sound of voices shouting, almost cheering together, intermixed with the gunfire. He and Ahn-Kha exchanged questioning looks.
"It has to be the pirates," Valentine said.
"Aww, shit, just what we need," Went said, his voice sounding strangely pitched owing to a set of improvised noseplugs.
Valentine hopped up to join Ahn-Kha. "You're exactly right, Went. It is just what we need. Men!" Valentine said, raising his voice and calling down to the Chief and his men below. "Let's make some noise. Yell for help, everyone!"
They all looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Valentine took a choking breath. "Heeeeelp!" he howled down the corridor.
Torres and Went began shouting, as well as the Chief and his men in the engine room. Valentine yelled until he saw spots in front of his eyes, taking unpleasantly deep breaths of smoke-tainted air. Ahn-Kha outdid all the men, bellowing loudly enough to rattle cups in the galley. Ahn-Kha's Grogs joined in, beating metal tools against the pipes and walls, adding a metallic clamor to their combined voices.
He held up a hand for silence. "Kill the spotlight," he ordered. Torres turned the switch at the back of the lamp, incautiously putting his hand on the light's housing and burning himself. Torres swore.
"Quiet there," Valentine said, listening to footsteps in the corridor. Two sailors came around one end of the intersection, a marine from the other, holding their hands up.
"Don't shoot Captain Rowan!" the marine, a corporal named Hurst, begged.
"Mr. Rowan, we're giving up to you here," a CP petty officer added.
"Okay, come forward. Keep your hands in view, men," Valentine said, nauseated from the burnt-tire smell. "What's happened up top?"
"Dunno for sure, sir," Hurst reported. "The exec had me watching the engine-room escape hatch, in case y'all came up that way. All of a sudden we got small-caliber fire. Sweeping bad, sir. There was a ship alongside, and a boat, too, come up in the dark while everyone was busy. Nilovitch got hit, couldn't do anything for him, so we came below. Had to jump over the smoke fire they had going, heard a lot of shouting and shooting behind me. Figured it was a good chance to throw in with y'all. Then we saw these two," he said, gesturing to the Thunderbolt sailors.
"My David," Ahn-Kha said, but Valentine was already reacting. Lights appeared from the T-intersection.
"Get over here, men," Valentine said, and he and Went helped them get over the barricade as Ahn-Kha pointed the machine gun down the passageway.
"In there," Valentine ordered, indicating the hallway behind the barricade leading to the aft storage lockers. "Torres, keep an eye on them."
He heard voices coming from the two joining corridors. "Musta been back here," one of the voices said. A few shots still sounded from forward.
"Hello?" Valentine called down the hall. "If you're looking for the people yelling for help, you found them."
The voices hushed. Valentine hardened his ears, searching where his eyes could not go.
"Mebbe a trap," someone muttered around the corner.
"If it is, you can tell the commodore you avenged me. Quiet now, I need to listen," a female voice said. "Hello back," the unknown woman added, a bit more loudly. "This ship is in the hands of the Commodore's Flotilla, of Jayport, Jamaica. I offer you a chance of surrender with fair treatment. Why were you calling for help?"
The owner of the voice stepped around the corner, and all that Valentine could make out in the smoke and darkness was that she was a tall woman. An equally tall man joined her, and at a motion from her hand he opened a kerosene lantern and held it up, revealing the two of them. They both wore loose cotton shirts, cut as pullovers with deep V-necks, dark culottes topped with a sash and gunbelts, and boat sandals. She had dark hair pulled back from her face and handsome, large-eyed features showing Latin blood in her golden complexion. The man behind her was ebony-hued, eyes narrowed suspiciously as he searched the men on the barricade, a revolver in his other hand.
Valentine thought it best to match her and hopped over the barricade, though he took care to land on his good leg. "Ahn-Kha, tell your pair in the laundry not to fire. It's over."
Ahn-Kha barked something out, answered by grunts from the darkness of the laundry room. Valentine moved forward to meet the two at the intersection. She looked at the bodies, and Valentine saw her reading the story in the carnage.
"Surrender might not be the right word, but we won't trouble you."
"You in a position to cause trouble?"
"Not if you play fair by us. My name is Valentine, out of Southern Command in the Ozarks. God knows how I could prove it to you, though. Our plan was to take the ship, but"-Valentine indicated the barricade behind him-"it went rather wrong. Help us, and you'll have my thanks, and my word that we will not harm you or the Thunderbolt further."
"You are a long way from Mountain Home, Valentine," she said, showing a better knowledge of his land than he would have guessed. "My name is Carrasca, First Leftenant of the Rigel."
"What's happened to the rest of my crew?" Valentine asked.
"A few were killed. Someone from the bridge fired a machine gun into us, and more were shot off the superstructure, but most surrendered. I see your men are better armed than the rest."