The Magnificent Seven, Chapter Nine
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Did I mention I don't own Kurosawa as well as Castle? Rating: M Time: The future.
Rick and Kate jumped out of bed and dressed in record time. They opened the door carefully, hoping that they wouldn't find the ship full of armed Cholattes. However, the deck was empty.
Kate stepped out onto the deck and looked up at the pilot house. "Captain Kontos?"
He stuck his head out of the pilot house window. "What?"
"Is there something wrong?"
"Not yet." Was the unhelpful reply.
"We'll come up there." Rick said, speaking before Kate could tee off on the captain.
Arriving at the pilot house, they found Callan already there. "What's happening?" Kate asked.
"Problem." Callan said.
"No kidding." Rick said sarcastically. "Care to be more specific?"
Callan nodded. "We're about to the Great Lake. One really big lake." He showed them a map spread out on a chart table. It did show a large lake. "It's about a hundred and ten miles long and between ten and fifteen miles across. The tribes who live by the lake, mostly human or Tourbon, like to raid each other or attack ships on the lake. If they have to, they'll fish. But they'd rather fight. Iskander led an army around the lake six years back and taught them what fighting's all about. But Iskander's gone."
"So the natives are restless?" Rick asked.
"Worse than that." Captain Kontos said. "Ferrek the Grim, a Tourbon warlord, is here. He used to be up north on the Steppe of Bones with his army. But the steppe clans finally got together and chased him away. He fought his way through the Shining Mountains, "Kontos gestured to a mountain range on the map that was north of them, "and arrived at the Great Lake with his army about two months ago."
"How big is his army?" Kate asked, now worried.
"Twelve hundred, fifteen hundred men. Mostly Tourbon, but with a lot of humans and, they say, even some tame Cholattes. Everyone thought he'd end up fighting the lake tribes, but he's convinced some of stronger tribes to ally with him instead. He's got all of those lake's tribe's ships and he's hammering any of the tribes that won't join him and attacking traffic."
"So we're stuck here?" Rick asked.
"No." Kontos replied. "The sailing ships and oared vessels will stay here, but steamships like ours will go on once our naval escort gets here. The lake's tribe's ships are all sail or oar powered. We can outrun them easily."
Callan shook his head. "They be in everything from canoes to sailing ships our size. They'll have hundreds of boats and ships. We can plow through them, but we'll have a fight on our hands."
"That's what Athena's Pride is for. We'll form a convoy with the other powered ships and she'll fight the pirates. We'll just have to finish off the wounded and cripples." Kontos said.
"Maybe." Callan muttered.
"How many ships do we have in this convoy?" Kate asked.
Kontos gestured out the window to the starboard where four ships were anchored. "There's the Bacchanal, a sternwheeler like us, and not much smaller than we are, and the Ajax and the Hector are side wheelers. About as long as we are, but they have a narrower hull and are faster. Lastly, there's the Proteus. She has a diesel engine which drives a propeller. But, she's a damned cargo ship. Big and carries a lot of cargo, but slow."
"All of them have riflemen aboard and they'll be arming their crews, just like we are." Callan added.
Callan, Rick and Kate left the pilot house and went down a deck. Kate stopped Callan. "Kontos thinks this will be easy. What do you think?"
"That we'll earn our pay on this voyage."
"Where should we put our people?" Kate asked.
"I'm putting my boys on the lower deck. Mostly protecting the engine room. If they board us and take the engine room, we're all dead. Kontos has handed out weapons to the rest of his crew. They'll be on the lower deck, too. However, the toughest ones are the engine room gang. The rest are cooks, dishwashers, waiters and such. Some of them can fight, but we'll need to keep the damned pirates off the ship." Callan looked at Kate and Castel, who had now been joined by the rest of their team. "You should stay up here. You'll have a clear field of fire down onto them from here. I hear there are some passengers who'll be fighting as well. Keep them up here where you can keep an eye on them. I don't know how much use they'll be."
Kate nodded grimly and Callan left. Kate turned and looked at her team. "Amadeo, Irina and Boutje, take the other side of the ship. Rick and I, and Fuad and Chen will take this side. Keep to the front of the ship since Sori's riflemen are at the stern. But keep an eye out back there. I don't know how good some glorified brothel bouncers will be."
"Quite good, actually. Sori pays for and gets the best."
Kate turned around to see Cynane, a group of women and two men approaching them. All were armed. Most had bolt action rifles, but Cynane had an automatic rifle. Kate wasn't sure what kind of weapons the two men had. But they were big. Cynane smiled. "Sori has provided weapons to those of her girls who can fight." She laughed at Kate's grimace. "Oh, don't worry, Captain Castle, my father ran cattle on the plains of Tarquin before the drink got to him and he sold me. I grew up with a rifle in my hand."
"Sori's people are slaves?" Castle asked, somewhat shocked.
"Not at all. We're all free women and do this…Well, for many reasons. But all of these women can fight. The men are Tobos and Arlef. They hunt damnthings up in the Elysian Mountains. That should tell you that they can fight and shoot."
Kate and Rick looked over the two men. Both were stocky and heavily bearded, dressed in rough buckskin pants and jackets, heavy boots and homespun shirts. Their rifles appeared to be about .50 caliber and they both had a pair of large bore pistols in their belts. They nodded to Kate but said nothing.
"I have seven women with me, so I suggest I have half on this side and half on the other. Since you're on this side, I'll take the other side. Tobo and Arlef are used to working together and their probably the best long range shooters on the ship. I suggest they go in the bow so they can move and shoot to either side, as needed." Kate nodded and Cynane turned to a well-endowed redhead. "Penelope, why don't you stay here with Captain Castle and her husband. Distribute the rest of the girls down the side of the ship with Castle's people."
Penelope nodded and did as she was told, then came back to Kate and Rick. "Don't worry about me." She said grimly. "My father was a sergeant in the Leukaspides regiment. He got killed when I was young, so my mother got married again and again as her husbands died. Then I started to develop and men got…interested. I left the regiment and ended up with Sori, but I know how to handle a rifle."
Kate saw a large number of crewmen coming towards them, carrying some kind of heavy panels. "What's that?"
"Steel panels. That'll give us something to take cover behind when the shooting starts."
"How long will that be?" Rick asked.
Penelope shrugged. "Depends on when the Navy gets here."
The Athena's Pride arrived just as dusk was falling, meaning that the convoy wouldn't leave until the morning. Captain Kontos came down from the pilot house and described their escort to Beckett and Penelope's teams. "She's about our length, 300 feet and displaces some 1400 tons. She'll do 20 knots or so, a lot faster than any of us merchant ships. She has a 4.1 inch gun fore and aft, with four pairs of 47mm guns along the centerline. There are a dozen or so 23mm single guns on her and they'll be mounting light machine guns and issuing her crew with rifles and submachine guns. We'll blow right through those damned pirates."
Kontos laughed and went back to his pilot house.
"I'd be a lot happier if there were more warships." Penelope growled.
Once night fell, Kate and Penelope set up a schedule of watches and sent the first of their people off for dinner. Later that night, Rick and Kate snuggled together in their cabin. "One things for sure, no matter what happens, I'm not leaving your side."
"Rick, I may need to have you…"
"No!" He said determinedly. "I'm not leaving your side."
She started to glare at him, but then smiled. "I love you, Mr. Castle."
"I love you, too, Captain Castle."
They woke up before dawn and walked the length of the third deck of the ship making sure everything was in readiness. Then they decided to check the other decks. When they got back to their cabin, they found the rest of their team waiting for them. "Get breakfast and then try to get some sleep. I've set up a schedule for watches and Rick and I are first. Maybe we'll be lucky and nothing will happen."
They weren't lucky.
"Oh crap!" Kate muttered. She had been looking through her binoculars since the convoy had started.
"What is it?" Rick asked.
"The pirates. They have a fleet that stretches all the way across the lake. We'll have to go right through them."
"Couldn't we go around them? It looks like there's plenty of room between the ships at the end of the fleet and the shore."
Penelope joined them. "The water there is too shallow. We might make it and the Bacchanal might, too. But not the rest of the ships. And that includes Athena's Pride."
As the ships got closer to the pirates, Tobo or Arlef, Kate wasn't sure which was which took out a telescope and then began swearing.
"What is it?"
"The ships up there are chained together. The Athena's Pride is going to have to blast our way through."
"That isn't our only problem." Penelope muttered, pointing astern. "There are boats putting out from shore behind us. We're surrounded."
Rick looked at the boats ahead of and behind them. "That's a lot of boats."
Penelope spat over the side. "All of the damned lake tribes must have joined Ferrek."
Athena's Pride had increase her speed, heading towards the fleet ahead with a bone in her teeth. She opened fire with her forward main gun. The first round hit a hundred yards ahead of the fleet and between the two largest ships. The second round hit a mast, bring in down.
"Shoot for the damned hull!" Penelope screamed, uselessly. "Sink the bastard."
The ship took several more hits and began to settle in the water, but then stopped.
"Damn!" Rick muttered. "The chains are holding that ship up. Keeping it from sinking. All it's doing is pulling the other ships closer to it."
Athena's Pride changed tactics. The ship turned hard to port and went down the line of anchored ships blasting away at a dozen ships or more, then turned and ran back, targeting the same dozen ships. They could clearly see pieces of the ships being blown off and fires started to rage on some. Rick noticed some crewmen jumping into the water.
Penelope looked behind them. "We'd better get going and damned fast. We've got hundreds of boats and canoes coming up behind us. And they're getting too damned close for my liking."
Rick checked. Hundreds of boats and canoes seemed an understatement. The surface of the lake was covered with them. "Shit!" He muttered.
The Athena's Pride changed tactics again. This time the warship concentrated her fire on the first ship she had shot at, the big pirate vessel that was only being kept from sinking by the chains holding it to the line of ships on either side of it. The concentrated fire finally blew the pirate ship to pieces and there was a small gap in the line. While the Athena's Pride concentrated her fire on the ships that had been on either side of the now sunken pirate ship, widening the breach, the merchant ships headed for the opening and safety. Poseidon's Dream was third in line behind the two side wheelers.
"Look!" Someone cried. "Behind the ships!"
Behind the line of chained together pirate ships were hundreds more boats and canoes, filled with fighting men, ready to storm onto the merchant ships.
Rick nervously checked his carbine and made sure his ammo magazines were loose in the pockets of his vest. As they passed the line of pirate ships, he noticed something. "Hey! The big ships have cannons! They look like muzzle loader but they could sure knock a hole in us. Why aren't they firing?"
Penelope laughed. "You must not have pirates in you city. Fire on us with cannon? Why that might sink us. And the last thing the pirates want is to sink a valuable ship, it's even more valuable cargo and prospective slaves."
"I really have to do more research on pirates." He replied.
"Castle. We're closing in on the boats." Kate was right. Just behind the ships were the boats, now all crowded along the gap they were rushing through.
Suddenly, they were among the boats. A canoe with a dozen humans in it, came along side and the crew began to jump onto Poseidon's Dream. Castle flicked the safety to semi-automatic, got a sight picture on a large man with a rifle in the back of the canoe and shot him. He moved his shots forward until the canoe was empty, then he took aim at a boat with a dozen or more oarsmen and fifty men or so that had hooked onto them with a grappling hook. Castle fired until the magazine was empty, dropped the old magazine, slapped a new one in, and resumed firing. He could see that the men from the boat were getting onto the lower deck.
A non-human hand grasped the rail between Castle and Kate. A Cholatte's head popped up and looked over at Kate. He levered himself up, showing a long sword in his other hand. He swung his sword back. Castle could see that Kate was too engrossed in her own fight to notice the Cholatte. He swung his carbine around and found it blocked by the Cholatte's wrist. With no other option, he fired into the being's wrist. A round that would have blown a human's hand off, merely punctured the wrist, but the Cholatte did notice it. He roared at Rick who fired as many rounds as he could into its wrist. The Cholatte roared again, but this time grabbed the railing with its other hand. Rick pushed the muzzle of his carbine into its mouth and fired. The Cholatte fell into the lake below. Rick turned to see Kate staring at him. He smiled and she smiled back.
Kate saw something past Rick that infuriated her. "Stay here!" She barked at Castle and headed down the deck.
"Kate, I'm going…" He felt a solid bump and looked down. Another boat had pulled alongside and pirates were getting ready to board them. He swore and started firing into the mass of pirates below him. One Tourbon in a garishly colored cloak seemed to be in charge, so Rick fired at him, missed and put the second round into his head. He was too busy to notice Kate.
"Chen!" Kate screamed at the woman. Chen was standing there, frozen. Her rifle was at her shoulder, but it didn't look like she'd fired a single round. Kate reached around and pulled the trigger of Chen's weapon, hoping the noise and the recoil would snap her out of her trance. Nothing happened. Kate tried again. Nothing. Kate pulled Chen's finger off the trigger and took her weapon, then pushed the woman down behind a steel plate. Next to her was a petite blonde, methodically working the bolt of her rifle and firing into the mass of pirates below. "Hey! Can you fire this weapon?" Kate screamed. The blonde paid her no attention. Kate grabbed her arm and shook it.
The blonde stared at Kate. "What?"
"Can you fire this weapon?"
The woman nodded wolfishly. "Sure. Trigger, safety, magazine release. No problem." She looked down at Chen. "Wounded?"
All Kate said was, "Fresh magazines are in her vest. She should have lots of ammo. Then she ran back to where she had left Rick. She found Amadeo and Irina with Rick, firing rapidly into the pirates below.
"Why are you here?" She yelled.
Irina turned and smiled. "No more pirates on the other side. Cynane sent half of us over here to help out."
Kate heard an odd popping noise she hadn't heard before followed by a loud blast. Amadeo was firing his grenade launcher into the pirates below, not only killing them, but damaging the boat. A second grenade punched a hole in the pirate's boat below the water line. At the same time, the pirates who had boarded were jumping off the Poseidon's Dream. It took Kate a few seconds, but she stared at the lake and saw only pirate craft receding in the distance. They had made it.
She turned and saw Rick smiling at her. She threw herself at him and kissed him hard and long. She pushed her boobs into his chest and felt his erection against her stomach.
"Oh! Is Chen dead?" Irina said, shocked.
Kate broke the kiss. "Not yet." She kissed Rick quickly. "I have to do something. Keep that thought." She said glancing below his belt. Then she strode down the deck to Chen, grabbed her arm and pulled her up and into Chen's cabin.
Kate slammed Chen down onto her bed. "What the hell is wrong with you? You're supposed to be a trained cop, or paramilitary or something. Why the hell are you like this?"
Chen stared down at the floor, ignoring Kate.
"What am I going to do with you? You're nothing but a drag on this team. You bitch constantly and you don't pull your weight. Can you think of any reason I should keep you on this team?"
Chen's head snapped up. Her eyes were full of tears. "I hate this! I hate it!" She screamed. "I never wanted to do any of this! I don't know how to do this!"
"What do you mean?" Kate asked, bewildered. "How could you not know how to do this?"
Chen shook her head and wiped the tears away. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way. My father is a general in the Peoples Armed Police. My two uncles are also generals. I was supposed to go to officer's candidate school, become a police lieutenant, and been stationed in Shanghai, or Canton, or somewhere nice. I was supposed to sit in a nice office and do paperwork, not grub around in the desert. But there was some kind of a scandal and the Party decided that we new officer candidates would go through regular basic training and be sent off to learn how to be police by being privates for a while. For a whole year! I never paid any attention to my training, I was a general's daughter. The trainers understood and let me slide. Then I was sent off to that awful desert hell hole, Kashgar. I hated it. I hated what I had to do. I left my group and wandered into the desert because I was tired of listening to a bunch of peasants jabber away. I didn't belong there. And then I found myself here! And I don't belong here either."
Kate shook her head. How could the hydrogen breathing geniuses who had dragged them out here have decided on Chen? She was a spoiled brat who was nearly useless as a cop, or anything else. "Chen, I don't care about your past or how many generals you have in your family. My problem is that you're pretty much useless to us. You don't want to be a cop? Okay? Do you want to leave the team? Believe me, I'd be happy to leave you, and I think you'd be better off away from us. You'll either get yourself killed or someone else."
Chen looked frightened. "You'd leave me? Here? With these people? How would I get home?"
Kate shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe our friends would send you back when we're done. Maybe not. But if you're dead, it won't matter much."
Chen shudder and grabbed Kate's hand. "Please don't leave me. I'll try. I can be useful. I'll do anything. Please. Don't leave me."
Kate had half expected Chen to jump at the chance to get away from the team. She hadn't expected this. She thought for a second. "Let me talk this over with my husband." She pulled her hand away from Chen's and left her sitting on her bed, crying and begging, "Please. Please. Please."
When she walked out of Chen's cabin, she saw Rick and he rest of her team and some of Sori's girls standing there, waiting for her.
"Kate, I have some news for you." Rick said, seriously.
