Abney Park's The Wrath Of Fate (9 page)

As we left the cabin, Tanner was already pouring Kristina and himself another round.

We left the cabin at the same time most of the rest of the crew was coming on deck. The clouds around us were burning off as fast as ice melts on a stove top, and they soon gave way to a warm and beautiful day. There were blue skies around us, and emerald green seas below, in the very far distance to our rear we could see a coast lined with palm trees.

Below and just ahead of us, sailing away from the coast was a large three masted ship low in the water, and heavily laden with cargo. It had four cannon ports per side, and the deck was crowded with black-skinned, nearly naked African tribal people, sitting so tightly packed it seemed at first as though we were looking at a shipload of carved statues.

Daniel and I extended our spy glasses. A closer look showed that the dark-skinned people were captives, chained to each other, and chained to the boat itself.

Then we saw a horrendous sight! At the aft of the ship, four clothed and fair-skinned men were struggling with one of the captives. His back was criss-crossed with blood: he had obviously been whipped, and the blood was running down his legs and arms, making it hard for the fair-skinned men to hold him. They each had an arm or a leg, and as we watched, they tossed the body of a struggling man right off the ship!

A mother held her screaming toddlers tightly to her naked breast, turning their faces away. One small boy of perhaps eight ran to the men screaming in rage, and was stopped by the sole of a boot that shattered his nose and covered his face in blood. This was obviouly the ejected man’s wife and childern. It was her turn to be a strong mother and quiet her childern: so she grabbed the eight-year-old, and held him down with the others. Toddlers didn’t become useful for many years, so they had no value. Later, when they slept, this young mother now a young widow, would allow herself to cry, but not now. What was left of her family relied on her keeping control.

I dropped my glass from my now red and moist eyes, and turned to Daniel.

“Where the hell are we?” I choked out. “What the hell is this?”

“I think that’s a slave ship. That coast must be Africa, and this is a ship headed for the Carribean.”

Doctor Calgori hobbled in between us “Then I’m afraid I have made some minor mistake in my calculations. This is the location I was targeting, but I did not intend to travel this far back in time. The slave trade was outlawed in 1806. If that’s a slave ship, we are one hundred years past our target, or say, one hundred years too early.”

I turned to Daniel and said, “Daniel, get to the lower crows nest…and loose the rope ladder!” Being a soldier, he was immediately in motion, but he yelled back over his shoulder as he climbed over the side rail, “Robert, what are we doing???”

“We are saving a father, then a family, and then we are going to hurt some bad guys!” I replied.

In retrospect, this was a rash move. There are times to think, and times to move. This wasn’t the time to think – this father would be dead soon. Perhaps my rash actions were the result of dormant and, as of yet, unneeded heroic tendencies. Or perhaps they were the result of the rum in my belly, put there to calm my nerves. Perhaps the rest of the crew were so easily swayed to this new task because they themselves had been drinking.

Or perhaps we are
all
born to be hereos.

I sprinted to the bow-helm, and pushed on the elevator wheel, which lurched the huge airship into a steep dive. “Easy Captain, nearly lost Daniel there!” yelled Jean-Paul as he watched over the railing.

From where I stood, I couldn’t see the underside crow’s nest, but I could see the surface of the ocean approaching rapidly. “Jean-Paul, tell me when the lower mast is a few feet from the water, then get down there and help Daniel.”

Jean-Paul watched for a few seconds, then yelled “THREE…TWO…ONE…LEVEL OFF!”.

I heaved the elevator wheel, and the ship slowly began to arch towards a level positon, but much too slowly! There was a hard jerk, followed by a spray of foam at the back of the ship, as the mast dipped in. Water was tossed twenty feet high behind us, and a hugh
crack!
sounded from deep in the hull as the mast splintered.

The African that had been tossed overboard was vainly swimming toward the ship that had dropped him. I saw him quickly dissappear from my view under our bow. I just had time to think
“Shit, that was quick! I hope Daniel and Jean-Paul had time to…”

“HUZZAH! They got him!” yelled the crew watching from our side. I pushed a little harder and our airship began to climb again, then I handed the wheel to one of the other pilots and ran to the edge.

As he climbed over the airship’s railing, I could see the African was tall, even taller then me, and rippling with blue-black muscles like a race horse who had just finished his race. He had tattooing, or a sort of decorative scarring on his face and shoulders, and his eyes burned with fear and anger as his arms shook with adrenaline from the cold of the sea water in the wind of our forward movement.

He stood dripping on the deck in a circle of our crew. Not knowing who this new group of strangely dressed men were, there was a brief moment when it looked like he would spring on us. Since nobody could translate our intentions to him, I spoke to him in a language a father could understand: I put my sword in his hand, and pointed toward his family’s captors.

Then I turned and yelled to the crew, “Full speed ahead! Daniel, you’ve got about forty-five seconds to assemble twenty of your toughest fighters! Each man should carry three swords, and at least two men will need bolt cutters or very large hammers.”

“I think I understand you. I’m on it!” Daniel yelled, and the entire crew was in motion.

I ran back to the stern-helm and noticed that although this slave ship was the first ship, this was not the only ship in the water. Five hundred yards to port was a gunship, an escort to the other. It was altering its course now to converge on us.
“Shit,”
I thought,
“this is not going to be easy.”

Daniel and twenty burly armed sailors were starting to climb over the side, and down the ladders to the lower crow’s nest. One of them was Tanner. I grabbed him by the shoulder, “Theres a lot of whiskey in you my friend, can you do this?”

“If there wasn’t, I couldn’t! In my present condition, however, I’m more than enthusiastic to do this!” he replied with a starry-eyed grin.

“Good point. Hand me your bottle.” I pulled the cork with my teeth, and threw back almost more than I could take without it coming back on me. As it burned in my throat, I vaulted over the railing.
God, I hate whisky.

We were converging on the slave ship at a startling pace. Our sails were still down, but our propellers were roaring, and before I had a chance to wonder if I could make it to the bottom before we collided, I saw the mast of the slave ship tangle with our own lower mast. Simultaneously, the rear of the slave ship lifted from the water, while the bow of the
Ophelia
pitched forward, and several of our sailors were knocked from the rigging to the slave-filled decks below.

The slavers were ready, having watched our odd vehicle grab their discarded slave. They had a few minutes while we approached to get over the shock of a flying ship, and they leaped on our men the second we fell amongst the Africans. But here they got a surprise!

Bear with me while I explain. If the singer of a rock band leaps from a stage into a massive and excited crowd, the crowds put their hands upward and “crowd surfs” him. They hold him aloft and move him around the room as if he was surfing on his back. In fact this is called “crowd surfing”. Likewise, when the slavers leaped into the crowd of chained slaves to attack us, the slaves were not idle. They also had seen us pick one of thir own, and they saw us attacking their captors. So when the slavers entered the crowd of slaves, a hundred hands picked them up and tossed them overboard!

In under a minute, only eighteen slave ship sailors remained, and they crowded into the center of the deck, back-to-back, keeping as far from the Africans as possible. Soon much of the crew of the
Ophelia
stood on deck too, some starting to cut loose and arm the grateful captives. We cut the slaves’ chains with large bolt cutters we had taken from the hardware store in Idaho in 2006.

The last man to climb down onto this ship was the African we pulled from the water. With no hesitation whatsoever he strode to the captain of the slave ship, raised skyward the heavy cutlass I gave him, and cleaved the captain’s face and chest with one blow.

He then turned and knelt, and embraced his newly freed children as the rest of my crew ran past him and threw themselves into battle.

This was to me my first
real
sword fight, but before you doubt the likelihood of my survial, let me say that I was on the fencing team both in high school, and college, and I had half a bottle of cheap whiskey in me to keep my mind from telling me that these were actually sharpened blades!

We, and the now free and armed slaves, took no time whatsoever to mince their captors. As the fighting began to slow, I noticed my left arm was bleeding quite a lot, and as I looked at it I heard a series of deep booms from our starboard side, followed by a shower of wood chips coming from above us!

The escort ship, which I had forgotten until now, had come within range and observed the whole fight. They now were firing on the
Ophelia
! The first volley had smashed the wood of her belly, and pieces of that wood were raining down on our heads. The ship was a war ship, huge and strong, and its crew where not slavers, but naval warriors. I could only watch as they fired a second round into our beautiful airship!

As I stood there, useless, wondering what I could do from here, wondering how many hits our airship could take, I heard a distant, cockneyed voice above me yell, “Return Volley!” and suddenly the starboard side of the
Ophelia
erupted in flame and smoke, from OUR cannons!

Daniel laid a hand on my shoulder. “Have no fear, Robert. The
Ophelia
is an airborn war ship, more than a hundred years newer in design than that ship in the water. She was built to overturn battles. This will not be difficult.”

Our first volley cracked railings and decking on the escort ship, and either by good luck, skill, or fierce and vengeful Karma, one cannon ball went directly through the attacking ship’s captain!

As our crew loaded for the second round, I hoisted myself into the rigging, and yelled, “Surrender now, and be set free. Otherwise, prepare to die! I’ve got fifty cannon (I was not sure if this was true) and a hundred sailors (I’m certain this was not true) and we can sink you from a height your guns cannot reach, if we choose! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS!”

Instantly the lower ranked sailors began to drop their swords or step back from the cannons. The officers frantically conversed before one yelled back to me, “Hold your fire! What are your terms?” There was obvious panic in his voice.

“Surrender with no more protest, and we’ll set you adrift in your dingies. From here you should be able to return to the shore, but your ship we take! This ship is too crowded. I’ve got a boat load of Massai here that I think look like they could use it.”

In the months that followed, the seas became thick with tribal African warriors. We taught them to sail, and use cannon, and together we sought other slave ships and their escorts. Two ships quickly became four, and four became eight and then twenty, and so on. Each slave ship they overtook added sailors and warriors to their crews, and each escort ship they defeated added to the size of their armada.

In under a year slave trade was eradicated between Africa and the Americas. Soon the nations of the world had to ask permission from the United Tribal Navy of Africa for permission to sail through their waters. UTNA was swift, and strong, and merciless.

The night of our rescue, as I sat in the captain’s cabin, undressing for bed, I noticed in the corner of the room a device that looked like an antique typewriter with a small screen TV screen attached to the top. A plaque on the bottom read: “Chronofax, by Calgori Industries”.
Now how did that get here,
I wondered.

I went over to it and typed,

Dear little boy.

It looks like you were right, so I dropped that worthless life. Things are really looking up for us. Wait till I tell you what you will become when you grow up! Rock star. Airship Captain. Pirate!

Oh, and you’ll also be a hero. Better practice your swordsmanship.

As I typed this message to myself, I could swear I remembered receiving it…was I typing this from memory, or making it up?

I pulled out my journal, and sketched these lyrics:

Letters Between a Little Boy