Blackjack Wayward (The Blackjack Series) (3 page)

I charged to meet him, proud and angry, eager to tear into something after months of inactivity, after being on the shelf while the world spun past me. I roared like a maddened lion, my hands reaching for him to show him who was boss, but he was faster than he looked, swinging that bone hammer before I could cross the distance. I flinched, raising my left shoulder, and caught the mace head square in the deltoid. The brutal impact hit me with a thunking thwap that sent a jolt of pain through my upper body. Checking my forward momentum and sending me feeling laterally into the dirt, the warrior didn’t relent. He jumped into the air for a finishing move that would crush my skull. Old reflexes woke up and I managed to avoid getting pulped, rolling to my feet, my equilibrium struggling to compensate. The blow struck with such force it cratered the ground, showering me with rock shards and dust. The mace head was firmly wedged into the ground, and I didn’t hesitate, charging from his left side and readying a haymaker that would stop the fight in one blow.

He was ready for it, and his vestigial left hand fired out, smacking me in the face despite a flinching move to protect myself. The arm was thin and tentacular, coiled and hidden, but powerful just the same. The weapon was a sharp-looking bladed glove-scythe, and it left a bleeding gash across my chin. The long tentacle circled around me, moving behind before slashing again and stitching me across the chest and drawing blood. The two cuts were slight, as my skin is tougher than most, but he had drawn first blood. He strained and finally ripped the mace from the ground, pointing it at me with what must have passed for a menacing grin. The stone mace head was cracked and crumbling, but he seemed not to notice, rushing in with a wild swing. I ducked, but he spun and swung again, driving me back. The tentacle arm extended, keeping his bladed glove behind me and the mace in front, taunting me with both as he goaded the crowd. They sensed the kill coming, and I knew he would have a special maneuver ready to give them their money’s worth. I looked over at the Captain, but she conversed casually with a fellow that looked rather human. The sexy imp was refusing any more bets, as if there was no money to be had on me and no money to be won on the obvious winner.

My opponent gave me a second respite while the rabble’s mayhem egged him on, but after that brief moment, he crouched again and prepared for the inevitable. His tentacle was held high behind me, more a lure for my attention than anything. The blades could slice my skin open, and if they could do that, they could kill me. He also had the hammer, and I expected a double attack at any moment. The only way for me to survive was to outsmart him, use his own efforts against him.

Then he struck.

First with the tentacle, as I had expected, a downward stab at my midsection, intending to herd me to his right, toward a mighty cross with his mace that was sure to kill me. Instead of avoiding the tentacle’s slash, though, I stepped into it, catching the heavy gloved arm and getting a nice cut on my left upper thigh as a reward. I had little time to register the pain, exerting all my strength on his weaker arm and using it to block the attack.

The blow was devastating, and it felt like holding a punching bag for Bruce Lee on a full flying kick, but in this case, his own arm was the punching bag. I stumbled back, almost losing my footing, and fell to one knee, ready to strike. The warrior howled in pain, retracting the smashed tentacle, still holding the crumpled remains of the bladed fist. His limb was a rended pulp of flesh and black, gooey blood. He stepped back defensively, cradling his injured limb.

The fight’s momentum had swung my way and I charged him, eager to inflict some pain. To his credit, he swung the mace, but it was a haphazard, desperate maneuver and I batted it aside without breaking stride. The warrior’s eyes widened as I grabbed the shoulder straps of his armor and slammed my skull into his hideous face. The explosion of blood almost blinded me, black liquid spraying onto my face and chest, but I wasn’t done. I picked up his dazed form with my fingers clenched around his neck, hefting his entire frame with just my left hand, and I reared back, imagining a point past his skull and aiming for it.

“Et’rethagg!” the captain shouted, stepping forward and drawing her blade. I almost hit the guy anyway, Despite being semi-conscious, the beaten monster clawed at my wrist with his undamaged hand. I eased my grip on his neck and let him collapse to his knees, still holding his damaged tentacle arm.

The crowd was silent for the first time, though a few of the tougher fellows drew their swords or pistols, unsure what the captain had in mind for me. My defeated foe gawked at me in awe. I guess the idea of an unarmed convict smacking him down with such authority was alien to him. Tough shit.

“You’re all right,” I said, braving a smile. “So who’s next?” I taunted. I was tired and a bit bloody, but starting to get my second wind. If I had to take the whole host, if I had to fight all fifteen or so that had come on the longboat, I’d most likely die, but they’d regret ever tangling with me.

“No reason to be scared,” I continued, taking a few steps toward them. “I’m Blackjack, and I got all the time in the world.”

I expected that to incite them into fury, goad some of the dumber ones into charging. I was hoping to hurl a couple off the narrow shard before the cannier fighters closed on me, but what I wasn’t ready for was the confusion and stupefied dread that was clear despite their fundamentally alien features.

The captain lowered her sword, “Brackshock?” she asked, and I saw terror in the back of her throat, noticed her take a half step back.

“That’s right, angel,” I told her. “I’m Blackjack. Brackshock,” I added, pounding a fist on my chest.

I was expecting them to run off and board the long boat, to rush their ship and bombard me at range with the heavy guns she sported on either side. Conversely, they could charge me, try to overwhelm me and hope for a lucky shot. Instead, they did the last thing I expected. They roared in adulation, sheathing their weapons and surrounding me as if I had hit a walk-off homerun. I expected it to be an attack; a strategy to lower my defenses, but the conglomerate of disparate species mobbed me, saluting me and clambering over each other just to get to touch me. Even the warrior I had defeated came up to me and placed his massive, clawed hand on my shoulder in salute, though I could barely hear what he said over the clamor of his companions. The imp girl wound through the crowd and jumped into my arms, kissing me deeply and drawing the laughter of everyone with whatever she said.

The crew parted for the captain to approach. She ambled up to me, motioning for the imp to leave my side, and then waved another of the crew closer. This was the fellow she had spoken to earlier, who from a distance looked mostly human, but up close, it was clear he was nothing of the sort. His head was much taller, oblong with an oversized forehead. His eyes were white, lacking an iris, and he had no ears beneath his long white hair. I saw what looked like chin whiskers jutting from his jaw line, but as he came closer, I noticed his mouth wasn’t where it should be, in front of his face and beneath his nose. Instead, this creature’s mouth was under its jaw, just beside where the Adam’s apple would go on a man; dripping beside it were some sort of feelers or whiskers that that looked like they were used to help him eat. His hands were also strange, ending in rows of barbells that made it almost impossible for him to grasp anything. Instead, he carried a clear, rounded crystal that he held out to me.

He mumbled a meeping noise that came from under his chin, and the only word I could recognize was ‘Brackshock,’ the same old Shard World bastardization of my super name. I expected the crystal to light up or something, but it did nothing, and after a few seconds, the newcomer just pocketed it and motioned to me saying my name again, as if verifying it once and for all. The captain smiled, rushing the space between us and grasping my shoulders with deceptive strength.

“Brackshock!” she shouted, joined by the others in applause and blandishment. The captain took one of my arms and raised it high in victory, yelling my name again.

And that’s how I joined a space pirate crew.

Chapter Two

They brought me onboard the Black Ship, and I called her that because I couldn’t decipher the scrawled language on her stern. Above the illegible name were the five windows of captain’s cabin adorned with a long ribbon over and around the windows, and two red stars. Beneath, where there would normally lay a tiller on an earthbound sailing ship, was a battery of thrusters and engines, some small and others large, that supplemented the ship’s forward speed.

The black ship was an anachronistic representation of a 17th century sailing ship, squared-rigged and lay out like a brigantine straight out of Earth’s history. Yet there were obvious differences, like masts and sails. She had a fore, main, and mizzen along the centerline of the ship, but each individual mast split into two just a few feet above the deck, looking more like overgrown slingshots. The rigging of each mast was attached to its neighbor with chains and the sails draped continuously along the twin masts, maximizing the surface area. Another difference was her hull, painted black and lacquered to a high polish, and up close I couldn’t discern the edges in the planking. Could the entire hull be carved out of one gargantuan piece of wood?

I wanted to stop and look at everything, absorb each detail. Especially those thrusters. I wanted to talk to whoever worked with them, but I remembered one of the basic axioms from my first trip: in Shard World, you didn’t ask questions.

The Black Ship lay close-hauled to an eddy of wind, the effect of which was to keep her relatively still in space. They couldn’t just drop anchor when there was no sea beneath them. Despite the oddness, the ship was a thing of beauty, with a brass figurehead adorning the bow just beneath the bowsprit; though she may have lacked the distinctive edging of the plank work, her bow was etched with a swirling pattern, as if waves were crashing on her sides. A dozen men worked the rigging, though the Black Ship only sported topsails, with her main and mizzens lufted away on their yards. We came alongside on the small launch, attracted to a magnetic docking port that we settled into with a sudden lurch.

The captain was the first to come aboard, barking orders to her crew as she hopped over the gunwale to the main deck with grace and agility one wouldn’t expect from such a large creature. The ship was alive with activity, with aliens of all sorts rushing to the rigging, crew swabbing the deck, and yet more of the pirates painting just about every nook and cranny aboard the ship. Others stowed ropes and rigging or brought them forth from the holds below.  A carpenter and his assistants worked over the stairs up to the quarter deck, forcing the captain aloft to the rigging to reach the wheel. At the tiller was an octopus-like reptilian creature that acknowledged the captain landing beside it. With just a nod from the captain as command, the reptile turned the wheel, firing thrusters that rotated the ship and opened the sails to the gusting winds. The sails billowed out and sent the ship reeling off into the depths of Shard World.

I would have stayed in the launch, in awe of all the shipboard commotion, if not for a strong shove from behind from the skull-faced fellow I had fought just a few minutes earlier. For a moment, I feared he might toss me overboard, but he twisted his face into a skin-less smile and gave me a hand onboard.

The ship was clean, something you might not expect from a band of pirates, particularly this rough bunch. Every inch of the deck was scrubbed and cleaned, the masts were sanded down and painted, the rigging was properly greased and coiled, and the unused sails were shipped away in their yards.

The sundry of creatures that kept the ship going reminded me of my prior experience in Shard World, of the small village we fought to protect, and the variegated creatures that called the place their home. The difference was one of functionality: there were few aliens aboard the Black Ship that couldn’t avail themselves in a scrape.

None gave me more than a cursory glance as I came onboard. They were more concerned with their duties than with the weird-looking newcomer. Besides, they were probably used to new crew joining all the time.

I had to admit, it was exciting, getting to live through a childhood dream, sailing onboard a pirate ship, cutlass in hand and a scarf on my head, swinging from yard arm to yard arm, while fighting a boarding action. It hearkened back to all my favorite movies as a child, the 1940s Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power classics that I would watch with my brother, then act out using a ruler as a sword and a kitchen towel as a cape, tucked into the collar of my shirt. We’d fight and prance around the house, drawing the ire of my stepmother and her brother, Bennett. Even knowing we’d get a beating from our masochistic uncle was worth the fun, and once the pain of the whipping belt would fade, our minds would wander through the night, fighting off nefarious Spanish villains across the quarter deck of the pirate ships in our dreams.

And now I was aboard a real pirate ship.

The sexy little imp reappeared from behind me and took my arm, taking me to the aft gangway leading down just beneath the quarter deck. Above me, the captain was speaking to an impressive-looking humanoid whose eyes bored upon me. He was a tall, golden-skinned man with wide, powerful shoulders and long black hair, wearing nothing but a small loincloth and a shoulder armor rig, along with a scabbarded sword at his hip. His eyes followed me until I was out of sight, headed below decks.

The imp was in a rush, and heading down the gangway led us to a darkened underbelly of the ship. First was a sweeping gun deck, with a row of eight heavy cannon on either side leading forward, crisscrossed with the crew’s sleeping hammocks. I got only a passing glance of the whole thing before being led further down to the berthing deck.

The main room was replete with more creaking hammocks hanging from the ceiling, many taken up by the snoring crew from other watches. They circled a central area where a few quiet crewmen sat on boxes and benches around a cooking stove from which emanated a rich meaty smell. Again, I wasn’t able notice much as she dragged me around the kitchen bustling with activity and a small room with stores, and then further aft to a hold that was partitioned with canvas to give the place the appearance of several rooms. She slid the canvas door aside in one room to what were her quarters, and pushed me inside. Once inside, her demeanor changed from rushed to seductive and provocative. She circled a bed large enough only for her, tracing her finger across the ruffled sheets, then over her curvaceous figure, before leaning on the bed itself and speaking to me in a voice much softer than before. She pointed at her chest and said, “Kivara.”

“That your name?” I said.

Kivara nodded and knelt on the bed, taking off her top and revealing herself to me. She crossed the bed to me and looped her arms around my neck, pressing her chest against my bare flesh, boring her mouth into mine. I could see all the reasons to resist, the dangers of allowing myself to get close to someone I barely understood, but as her hands caressed my back, probed beneath the fabric of my jumpsuit, feeling her touch over my body, I surrendered to my baser urges. I can’t say I regret it.

The dreams that followed were disjointed, the chatterbox-like sleep that comes after too much drink. Faces and places were framed by flashes from a camera, there one moment and gone the next, only leaving slight afterimages to remind me. They were my memories, my life in fast-forward and reverse, a few frames at a time in disjointed fashion, past and present intermingled.

Then Cool Hand came to me. It was a stark contrast to the life-flashing-in-your-eyes backdrop. He stood above it, as if he had torn himself from the madness and stepped forward, his cheesy grin intact. Cool wore the same clothing as ever, unmarred by the wounds that had taken his life. He fought against that backdrop, as if it threatened to swallow him in. It was too much for him to overcome, and his form was forced back, blending into the scenery

“You done yet?” he managed, struggling against the inevitable, sucked back into a vortex like a butterfly against a tornado. Then he was gone, and I heard a voice, like a caressing whisper, waking me. I looked for the source, but it was beyond me, while at the same time all around me.

“Help me,” it cried.

Then I woke.

Sharp pain radiated through my forearm. Long, thin cuts marked the flesh where Zundergrub had stabbed me with Shivvers’ dagger. Overcome with agony, I grasped the forearm about to scream when a figure threw the canvas walls of my room aside, shocking me out of my waking dream. The figure carried a bundle of clothing that concealed his features, until he threw it at the deck beside me. Once freed from the burden, it revealed itself to be the behemoth I had fought on the rock shard earlier. I looked over at my arm and it showed no new injury, just the old wound the doctor had given me.

I was still in the room the imp had brought me to, sitting on the same bed, stark naked. I looked at the big guy, who showed no animosity for our previous fight, feeling awkward at how close we were in the cramped space. He nodded to the bundle of clothes, then to me, as if for me to get dressed.

“For me, huh?” I said and he seemed to understand, nodding again.

Rolling over, I rummaged through the bundle, which stank of mold and must and looked overall like it had been kept deep in a wet hold for far too long. I spotted a pair of boots that might possibly fit my huge feet, and brown leggings that I threw on. All the while, the big guy stood there, watching me with that expressionless skull-face of his. I think he was going for non-threatening, but it was impossible to carry out practically, with how small the room was.

“You gonna just sit there and watch?” I said, but he just pursed the sliver of skin above his eyes, confused. It was a miracle I could move at all in the small space.

He replied in a language that was surprisingly elegant and florid.

“I didn’t get any of that,” I said, finding a long-sleeved white shirt that must have once been white or cream, but now was a slew of shades, ranging from gray to ocher. Atop that, I slung a leather vest and a brown, moth-eaten trench coat that was perfect for my wide shoulders.

“There,” I announced with a flourish. “All I need now is a feathered hat and a cutlass.”

We may have been two creatures from separate parts of the universe, as different as night and day, yet my laughter made him chuckle, a high pitched, whiny sucking of air that escaped as he clutched his chest in a full-bellied guffaw. He pounded my shoulder in approval with his strong arm. He hit me on the same shoulder his mace had struck me not just a few hours ago, yet there was no pain in the joint, no memory of the shattering blow. My arm was as good as new, and that was strange. Perhaps the same qualities that had given me powers were at work. In my previous visit to Shard World, I had felt an expansion of my powers. Part of this was natural, from hitting new plateaus as I explored my limits, but I could also feel some force at work making me stronger, faster, and tougher.

The skull-faced alien took my arm and motioned for me to follow, breaking my train of thought. He led me through the berthing deck, now more populated with crewmen and women of all sorts of species. Most slept on canvas hammocks, swaying with the slow, rocking motion of the ship. Others gathered around a central stove, keeping warm in the chilly below-decks air, wrapped in blankets and speaking in hushed tones as my companion and I walked past, keeping their curious gazes on me.

“You got a name, big guy?” I asked Skullface as we moved to the stairs leading to the gun deck. He stopped and looked at me, shaking his head.

Pointing at myself, I said “Blackjack,” then touched his chest and shrugged.

He understood and pounded his chest. “Zann,” he announced, then said something to the group that watched us, eliciting a round of laughter, no doubt at my expense. As the laughter died down, he looked at me, nodded in approval, and continued moving. We rounded up the stairs, passing the relatively unoccupied gun deck where only a few crew worked with the carpenter to repair a damaged wheel lock for one of the massive guns. A few acknowledged me as I walked past, but they quickly went back to their work.

Coming to the main deck was like walking out of a dark pub in the middle of a bright, sunny day, a stark contrast of illumination from the dimly lit below decks. Zann seemed unaffected and shooed me forward when I paused to let my eyes adjust to the light.

Only a few crewmembers were above deck. Earlier, the main and quarter decks were jammed with crew, ready for action; now just a few were scrubbing the deck or coiling rope; another two or three were above in the rigging, tending to sails. Waiting for me on the quarterdeck were the Captain, the gold-skinned fellow, and an insectoid crewman having replaced the octopus-thing at the wheel. As we came up the stairs, the golden man’s stare never once left me.

Zann announced me, then was excused. He walked over to the far bulwark on the quarterdeck. The golden fellow was actually more bronze than anything else, and he was one of the most impressive beings I have encountered in my travels. Though I was a full head taller than him, he was as imposing as I was not, wearing the ridiculous Blackbeard costume.

His chiseled physique was flawless, beyond the caliber of an Olympic athlete, but his musculature was taut and practical, and the scars across his chest, arms, and face were testament to a life led by the sword. And what a weapon he possessed. Even sheathed, the thing glowed with encrusted gems; the leather scabbard was engraved with pattern I had never seen. It was similar to a series of silver tattoos on his chest and arms: beautiful but so subtle that they were imperceptible except up close. His teeth were fanged, like those of a wolf, visible only from his scowl he intended to pass for a welcoming smile. Above it all, his most surprising feature were his eyes, fierce and gray, like those of a plains predator, ever watchful of enemies far and close.