Jessie woke up with a start when she heard a sudden BOOM and people shouting, mainly in French. She rubbed her eyes sleepily, then turned to the others. they were all still asleep. Geez, and she thought that she was a deep sleeper. She quickly got up and started waking the others up. "Get up! Get up!" She yelled. It seemed to somewhat rouse them. She thought of something, then yelled, "Ryan! Timmy! Trevor! Heidi! Your pants are on fire!" They all sat up really quick, eyes wide. Jess stood there with her arms crossed. "You up, yet"
Ryan rubbed his eyes. "What's all that racket?" he muttered, then looked out the door. "Hey, they're loading the cannons," he said.
"Say what?" Jessica ran over and shoved him out of the way. Sure enough, there were lots of men out there hurrying to load the cannons. When they were all finished, a person whom she supposed was the leader of that certain group would raise his fist. When they were all done loading, A man towards the front of the ship would shout, "Feu !" and they would all fire their cannons. Jessie turned to Ryan. "what's he saying?" she already had an idea of what he was saying, though.
"Fire," he said. Jessie nodded softly.
"Who are they firing at, though?" she muttered.
"I'm guessing that whoever they're firing at is pretty close, 'cause they're firing as fast as they can. Look, they're not even waiting for the order to fire," Trevor said.
Timmy nodded. "Guess we can only hope that if the other person does manage to take hold of this ship, they're friendly and will take us home." Jessica glanced over at him.
"Yeah, but will 'home' even be there?" she asked. The others fell silent, contemplating this. The silence was suddenly penetrated by a large crash in which a large cannon ball had penetrated the ships side, right outside of their cell. They were knocked back onto the bales of straw, and Heidi banged her head on a part of the wooden floor where there wasn't any straw.. "Geez"
Jessica quickly sat up and looked outside of the cell door. "Look, they're drawing their weapons." The Frenchmen had started to pick up pistols, cutlasses, and knives, and some were heading up to the deck. A few were laying on the floor, groaning. "Hey, we could probably bust open this door and grab some weapons, then fight le Frenchmen." She glanced at Ryan. "You could probably knock down the door. The lock was knocked loose at the blast." He hesitated. "Come on, do you want to be blown away at the next blast?" He sighed, then motioned for her to step out of the way. He stood for a moment, then ran at the door and rammed into it, grunting. After two hits, the door gave way and was knocked down. Jessica grinned and darted out. "C'mon!" She quickly grabbed a pistol, cutlass, and a knife, which she tucked into her pockets. She glanced at the others, who were picking out weapons of their own.
They were suddenly back in their cell, rubbing their heads. "Ow, geez. You'd think they'd fired enough shots at this stupid boat," Trevor muttered. Luckily none of their weapons had stabbed them, except Ryan had a small cut on his hand.
"It's fine," he said quickly as Jessica glanced at it. She shrugged, then warily got up.
"We could probably just wait right here," she said. There are plenty of Frenchmen that are gonna fight out there, and they haven't really noticed that the door was blown off. We'll wait until the other people come down, then attack." The others nodded, and settled down into the straw, watching the door. They all heard a silence up on the deck, and the sailors below deck fell silent as well. A shot was suddenly fired, and then the sounds of swords clashing and guns being shot. Jess glanced at the others. "Get ready," she muttered. They nodded and gripped their weapons.
Jessica spotted someone jump down the ladder, wearing a British-looking jacket. "Now!" She yelled, and they all leapt out, firing their pistols at the frenchmen. They were somewhat taken by surprise by the attack from the rear, but most were focused on the invading British. Jessica clashed up against a Frenchman with her cutlass, and quickly twisted her own sword so that it flipped his out of his hand and ran him through the next second. She didn't really think about it, somewhere in her subconscience, she was screaming at herself to stop. But she couldn't stop, she was already in too far. She heard her friends behind her, apparently she was leading her friends. She suddenly felt a bullet graze her forehead, she staggered back with a cry. She lifted a hand to her forehead, and took it away. Wow. She was bleeding. Ryan ran up beside her just in time to block an incoming blow and ran another Frenchman through.
"You okay?" he shouted through the din.
Jessica numbly nodded, and started fighting again, trying to ignore the flow of blood streaming down the side of her face. All of a sudden she felt herself grabbed from behind, around her waist. She flailed and pulled out her knife and pushed it up into the chest of the man who held her, but he just grunted and pulled it out, then tossed it aside. A young British man stood in front of them.
"Pas un pas en avant, monsieur ! Je fendrai sa gorge "
The man looked at Jessica with puzzlement. "How the bloody hell did you get here, Miss"
"Long story, man," she muttered, then mouthed 'I got a shot left'. He nodded, then started to take a step back. Jessie slowly reached into the pocket of her jeans, and drew out a pistol. Her captor still didn't see what she was doing, so she quickly whipped it up and fired a shot in his face. He let out one cry, then fell back. Jessie rubbed her throat and looked down at the fallen Frenchman. "Faggot," she muttered. She looked up around her. The frenchmen were surrendering. She sighed, and tossed her pistol down. "Hope I never have to use THAT again," she muttered. Ryan rushed up.
"Are you okay? I saw what happened. How-" he looked up at the British man, who was still eyeing them with puzzlement.
"Hey, Ryan? What I REALLY wanna do right now is just sit down and have a drink. A cold drink. Like a Coke, or something." Ryan nodded, smiling softly.
"I think you'll find Coke's a little hard to find over here." He looked up to see Trevor and Steven walking over, and Heidi close behind them. None of them seemed to be very much worse for wear, except for a few cuts and what would be very nasty bruises.
"Are you guys okay?" asked Jessie.
"Are we okay? Dude, you just got shot with a M-16. The worst we've had is a nick with a swiss army knife. Do you THINK we're okay?" Trevor exagerated just a little. Heidi rolled her eyes and pushed in front of them,standing in front of Jessica.
"Jess, you DO look pretty bad. Do you want to go get some fresh air, or something?" Jessica nodded. She was actually feeling a little faint-headed.
"Yeah, that would be good." She started towards the hatch, and stumbled. Heidi rushed forward, and grabbed her arm.
"Here, let me help you," she said.
"I'm not an invalid," Jessica snapped, but let her help her towards the ladder anyways. The British sailor stepped forward.
"Miss, you might need my help. The crew will just think you're some spies disguised to look like British," he eyed them, "Although, if you are, they did a pretty bad job on disguising you. Any Britishman could tell you aren't from Britain"
Timmy rolled his eyes. "It's 'cause we aren't from England. Duh," he added.
The sailor eyed them. "Anyways, I'm Adam Parslow, Able Seaman. If you could follow me..." he turned and made his way up the hatch.
"Do we CARE about titles?" muttered Jessica, but started up the ladder. She blinked at the bright light as she stepped out. "Geez..." She stepped out of the way for the others, looking about herself. There were frenchmen all about her, either laying down on the deck or being herded into groups by the British sailors, who started casting glances her way. "Um, Adam"
"Please, Miss, call me Mr. Parslow"
"Uh, okay... Mr. Parslow, could you tell me what ship your on"
He grinned. "One of the best ships in the British navy. The H.M.S. Surprise, 28-gunner frigate"
Jess nodded and digested this information. "The H.M.S. Surprise..." The name sounded familiar, but where from? By now the others had come up from below. Heidi tapped Jessica on the shoulder.
"Shouldn't we be meeting Le Capitaine sometime soon"
Jessica shrugged. "I don't know how they do it, maybe we have to be asked some questions before we meet him, for security." She shrugged again.
Trevor blinked. "Hey, that guy looks kind of familiar." He pointed out a British sailor, who was talking to a bunch of other sailors. Jessica and Heidi's jaws dropped.
"Ohmygawd," exclaimed Heidi. "That's Billy Boyd!"
Yes, I got the next chapter up. And yes, I AM aware that Mr. Parslow was in Post captain, just pretend it's his older brother...