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PART III
MASTER CARPENTER Adrian Croftwood barked orders to his men as they frantically repaired the damages, which were apparently more severe than she had feared.
Bataar barked orders to those manning the sheets.
Smitty barked orders for all remaining able seamen to man the fire brigade.
Celia said nothing as she fought to keep the Thunderstorm from heeling completely over and, at the same time get them around the burning carcass of the Penance whilst the sun rose right in Celia’s eyes.
“Twenty bits of flotsam making for the Channel, Cap’n!” Kit roared from his perch, and Celia nodded her acknowledgment.
Her relief would have to wait whilst she kept them all from dying the way the fourteenth Earl Tavendish had just died.
She could hear Rathbone’s howls of rage and grief even from here, his curses upon her and her offspring, and his vows of revenge.
The wind blew a large piece of burning wood across the quarterdeck, then dropped it next to Celia’s feet, where it immediately latched onto the tar on her soles. “WATER!” she bellowed, feeling the fire creep over her feet and up her legs, but she could not move—the tar had bound her to the deck but it made no difference. She had a ship to sail.
A long, lanky body on a rope swung behind her, missing her by mere inches but pouring water over her feet and putting out the fire as he passed by. Another sailor just behind the first, equally close, swinging by with more water. A third, then a fourth, until her body was soaked and her feet were sodden.
“JACK!” Smitty bellowed. “Judas caught a plank in the belly. He’s dead in the water and sinking fast.”
She nearly cast up her accounts. “Bataar, full speed to him! Smitty, cast the nets!”
But he already had and, along with every one of Elliott’s men, kept frantically throwing out the fishing nets and pulling them back in.
Empty.
“ELLIOTT!”
“Get belowdecks, Raxham!” Celia roared.
But the girl did not heed her, instead diving over the rail.
“For God’s sake!” Celia raged when the net was not cast again. “SMITTY!”
“She’s got ’im!” Smitty shouted. “Turned him over … caught him under the chin … bringin’ ’im in!” They stilled for a mere moment before Smitty bellowed, “She’s flaggin’! Cast! MILLY! CATCH THE NET!”
Celia was fighting the tide and the wind and the ship that was listing to larboard and her stinging feet that refused to release the deck, and could not watch nor could she judge by the shouts below how they fared.
“They’re up! They’re up! Bring ’em in, easy now … ” After a few moments, roars went up, among them— “SURGEONS TO THE INFIRMARY!” Smitty thundered. “GEORGINA! Get the girl to the galley!”
By that time, they were well into the Channel, closing fast on the Mad Hangman and the Black Demon, both of which had full sails, picking up speed, with grappling hooks at the ready.
“Praise God,” she whispered and headed for the breach between them. She could hear Adrian belowdecks roaring encouragement and instructions to his carpenters, their hammers, saws, chisels working …
Bataar ordered the sails trimmed slightly as Celia maneuvered as well as she could into the breach before the Thunderstorm’s prow was pummeled by grappling hooks thrown such a great distance and … missing. Two caught, but the men aboard both ships continued to cast until they had three hooks from the Mad Hangman and six from the Black Demon on the starboard side, pulling the Thunderstorm out of its list.
“FILL YOUR SAILS!” Gjaltema called across the expanse between them, which order Bataar carried out.
“Captain!” Kit shouted from above, “The Rose is giving chase!”
The Rose was the only Navy vessel that could catch the Thunderstorm and destroy her, too. With the Thunderstorm crippled as she was, she could never have outrun the Rose, nor could she now whilst being towed by a fully loaded and over-armed fourth-rate frigate and a merchant sloop.
Then again, Maarten was sailing a fully loaded and over-armed frigate. “Sorry, Jack! Gotta let you go!”
“AYE!” she bellowed back at Maarten. “ADRIAN!”
“Holes plugged, Cap’n! Pumps fully manned!”
The Mad Hangman cut line and fell out to cover the Thunderstorm and the Black Demon.
“BRIDGE! Get—us—out of here!”
With that, all the sails on both ships blew out and shot ahead while behind them, cannons boomed.
Celia didn’t know how long it was before Papadakos appeared at her side, but the sun was at its zenith. She couldn’t remember anything of the hours since Maarten had left her to engage the Rose and she had no idea where they were.
“Cap’n, Solomon bids you go below. I’ll take over now. The Rose is sunk and the Mad Hangman is only three miles behind. Smitty says if the weather holds, we’ll make Rotterdam by nightfall.”
She looked up at him blankly, unable to think much less command. “Aye,” she whispered, but couldn’t move. It was only when Papadakos bent to pull at her leg that she realized her feet were stuck fast to the deck. “That … hurts,” she croaked just before everything went black.
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Pirates!
And they have North Africa to deal with and then the Atlantic cross again.
Nerdrotic/Gary can go further with the whole Star Trek thing. Write a script and take all the action figures he has and just put on a show with them on live stream. Go all out and play like a little kid. I guaran-fucking-tee the internet will watch that exponentially more than anyone has watched New-trek.
Really fucking embarrass them. Doesn’t even need to be just Star Trek toys.
Mike Meyers toy, he wears a Kirk mask. That would be perfect.
I won’t rest until there’s true equality.
As always, that sort of captioning is an immediate nope.
Raxham toeing the line between bravery and idiocy.
I mean, he’s trying to divest himself of his duty in the only way that will protect everyone he loves, so … He has decided to try to have his cake and eat it too.
lol The article makes a pretty good case exactly for adopting the Soviet approach up until that line.
I’ll agree the JCPOA was bad, so is the whole idea that we can legitimately dictate terms to any other country.
Supremes ruled that the executive alone has authority over TPS status. That this even got to the Supremes in the first place and that 3 justices voted against it is absurd. Congress passed the law and states unequivocally who has say over the status and explicitly that it is not up to judicial review. Like it’s even clear than “shall not be infringed.” But there’s CNN pretending there’s some other side to this and that it’s the conservatives who are biased.
What was the argument put forth by liberals? RACISM. That’s basically it.
And finally there was pushback against the bullshit abuse of asylum laws. International law says that immigrants and asylum policies are set by home country and asylum seekers need to respect their laws. American law states that you can’t country show through countries that offer safe harbor if they are considered safe third party countries right off the bat. And it’s very specific as to who qualifies. It’s not about coming from general shithole countries (TPS status exists for just that very reason, in fact). You need to be specifically targeted based on a very clearly defined set of reasons. And even ignoring all that, the people claiming are full of shit regardless. They are coming here for economic reasons.
And to top it all off the American taxpayer has been funding the attempt to undercut our own laws. NGO’s and non-profits taking US tax dollars coach these fuckers on what to say and even what they tell them to say doesn’t make them applicable for asylum under US law.
CNN is trying to pretend that fucking Haitians are going to be some loss for the economy. No mention of how many tax dollars they suck up. When I was younger I worked at Walmart with a shit ton of Haitians (it was an affluent area at that). These fuckers couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with customers. They basically hid in the back talking together in their jibberish. But more importantly the federal government only got Walmart to hire them by offering the retailer massive tax breaks.
They talk about how many work in assisted living facilities. How many received help from the government in getting those jobs? Received training packages to get them credentialed that normal Americans aren’t offered or are unaware of altogether? The ones who do work, besides the welfare they still receive (subsidized ACA plans) are in the fields they’re in largely because of government hand-outs.
One of the lies the pro-immigration crowd loves to tell is that (legal) immigrants contribute. Yea, when you give them a massive leg-up and design programs specifically to help them that you don’t bother to do with the natives.
You heartless bastard. I couldn’t agree more of course, but that just makes us two heartless bastards.
It makes me want to actually, seriously hurt someone who tells me that’s what I am.
“When I was younger I worked at Walmart with a shit ton of Haitians (it was an affluent area at that).”
So that was going on back then, too, eh? A coworker assumed the African-Africans were Haitian, and perhaps they were, but the one time I asked one of ’em, she told me Ethiopian. (“Eh-tee-ope.”) They were in their own professional universe in the receiving pay. No idea who bossed ’em ’round.
Cape Verde are going to get their asses kicked by Argentina, but good for them to get to the knockout stage.