Author's Note:
Ooh… intense action time! WOOT! WOOT!
"Unhand me this instant!" Rebecca struggled in the iron grip of a feral-looking canid as the wolf-like pirate dragged her to the starboard side of the main deck.
"Yeh heard her ladyship, Romulus," a rat snickered while crouching on the railing of the ship, "let her go."
"You're hardly worth listening to, Finnegan." The wolf canid -named Romulus- rolled his eye (for his other had a patch over it) and he elbowed the rat humanoid off of the ship.
The rat gave a yelp, before landing into a longboat below the starboard railing. Romulus lightly leapt onto the railing, pulling Rebecca up with him and he hopped into the longboat. Rebecca landed unceremoniously into the longboat and was pulled to one side by Romulus.
Bones climbed into the longboat next, followed by the shadowy man, who Rebecca had kicked. Both his legs from the knee down were mechanical, giving reason to the previous clank when Rebecca had kicked him.
"Bring her around the house and aim the main gun for the ballroom." Bones ordered, pointing to a glass dome at the far side of the mansion. "Finnegan will give you the signal to fire, then prepare the ship to leave."
"Aye Captain." The first mate, a cackling ostrich-like creature responded.
"Why not simply transport into the ballroom with Flint's map?" Romulus enquired.
"It's not that detailed." Bones stated, grasping a round bulge in his overcoat. "Besides, it would likely get damaged and malfunction. The map needs to be kept under lock and key, so this is why we need what Townsend has stolen."
"What are you talking about?" Rebecca exclaimed. None of her brothers and certainly not her father would've ever stolen something, even from a pirate.
Bones ignored Rebecca's outburst and looked at the mansion. "Come now." Bones fired up the longboat's engine and steer the vessel for the glass dome. "When we get through, take all able men as hostages."
"What about treasure, captain?" The rat man asked, trying to stay standing in the speeding longboat.
"We'll loot the place once we have the key in hand." Bones stated, increasing speed as they approached the glass dome. "Mister Romulus, if you please."
"Aye Captain." The wolf pirate pulled out a small handheld grenade and lit it. He held it for a split second, before hefting it through the glass dome. An explosion shattered the last of the dome and the longboat increased its speed.
Rebecca could hear screams within and watched wide-eyed as the longboat dove into the ballroom. A large crowd of people ran in all directions from the falling glass.
Bones halted the longboat just above the centre of the ballroom's dance floor while the rest of the pirates leapt out of the vessel and began taking hostages. Rebecca was pulled out of the longboat by the pirate captain, who held a charged laser pistol to her temple.
"Try anything and I blow your brains out." He hissed.
Rebecca was dragged to the centre of the ballroom as the pirate crew created a circle of hostages held at sword- and pistol-point. She could see her two older brothers struggling in the grasps of a large Densadron while her mother and Sebastian's wife cowered with the women and children in the room at gunpoint.
"Now," Bones took a step, dragging Rebecca with him, "Where is Giles Townsend?"
The room's occupants looked at each other in confusion.
"If I figure out that you're hiding him somewhere, I'll blow out this girl's brains." Bones cocked the laser pistol to make his point. "Now where's Giles Townsend?" He shouted.
There was a resounding boom of double doors slamming open at the entrance to the ballroom. The pirates' attention and the barrels of their proton rifles were turned to the doors. A loud response soon followed.
"Right here!" Giles entered the ballroom with seven other sailors at his heels. "Now unhand my sister –Bones- and I will give you your key." His copper-brown eyes were livid at the sight before him.
"Give me my key, and I'll unhand your sister." Bones retorted, pressing his laser pistol against Rebecca's temple, causing the woman to wriggle uncomfortably.
Giles pulled something from his pocket, flashing a silver light at Bones. The pirate captain tightened his hold on Rebecca as he narrowed his beady eyes at Giles.
"I said release my sister, and never show your face in this galaxy, or I'll never give you back your key." Giles stated.
"Are those your terms, Mister Townsend?" Bones enquired.
"Yes." Giles stated through his teeth. He stepped forwards away from the rest of John's crew, into the circle created by the pirates. "Release her." He ordered.
Bones lowered his pistol from Rebecca's temple and gestured at the key with it. Giles tossed the key at Bones' feet. Bones released his hold on Rebecca and allowed her to retreat to the group of sailors while he snatched his key.
"Keep me hands off your sister, and never show me face in this galaxy." Bones pocketed the key and looked up, his malicious smirk return. "So rest the final terms of Mister Giles Townsend." He then raised his pistol and fired a shot through Giles's chest.
"No!" Rebecca screamed, watching her older brother fall dead at her feet. Jane Clarke sobbed from the other end of the ballroom as Sebastian's wife held her from rushing to Giles's side.
"Loot the place! Kill the lot!" Bones unsheathed his sword and raised it in the air. "For Captain Flint!"
The pirates roared as they began fighting the men in the ballroom. The soldiers and sailors managed to obtain weapons and began fighting off the cutthroats while everyone else tried to make an escape.
"Stay back!" Juanita grabbed a candelabrum and hit the rat pirate across the face, knocking him back. The female Shikaran came back to back with Jim, who was busy fighting off another pirate with a stolen sword.
"You know…" Jim kicked the pirate back. "You fight pretty well, for a girl."
Juanita laughed, swinging the candelabrum behind her to catch an oncoming pirate in the face before Jim could be hit. "You fight pretty well for a boy."
"Serenity, get out of here!" Sebastian helped his younger brother and his father against the Densadron.
"Not without you!" Sebastian's wife called. She then screamed as a pirate came after her.
"Hands off!" Sebastian yelled, throwing his sword into the pirate's back and running to his wife's aid.
"Sebastian, behind you!" Rebecca called, helping John fight off a band of pirates.
Sebastian grabbed his sword from the back of the pirate that had tried to attack his wife and stabbed it into the gut of another pirate.
Denton –still fighting the massive Densadron- was then tossed across the room, hitting a pillar at the opposite side. There was an explosion that caused a piece of the roof to fall upon the Densadron, killing it.
"Finnegan –you idiot- I said give the signal, not drop the house on us!" One of the pirates scorned the rat humanoid.
"Aye." The rat man pulled out a hand grenade, lit it and threw it up in the air.
The resulting explosion collapsed a section of the roof farther away, allowing the pirates a margin of time to get back into their longboat.
"Denny!" Sebastian called out to his youngest brother, now separated from him by a barrier of rubble. His shouts we cut short when Romulus tackled him, stabbing a dagger into his side, before running to the longboat with a malicious snicker.
"Sebastian!" Serenity cried to her husband, kneeling beside him. "No!"
There was a far-off explosion of cannon fire as a cannon ball came barrelling through the ballroom. The resulting impact shattered the main supports in the ballroom and blew more people astray.
"Get out of here!" Douglas called to whoever was still living within the room. "The roof is coming down upon us."
"Father! Mother!" Rebecca called out as sections of the roof began to create a wall of rumble between her and the last of her family. John grabbed Rebecca around the middle and fought against her as he made his way to the exit.
"Are yeh mad, Rebecca?" John struggled with the young woman in his arms. "We've gotta get outta 'ere!"
The cackling pirate captain steered the longboat towards his ship, throwing an oil lantern down upon the rubble and setting fire to the collapsing roof.
"No!" Rebecca screamed, fighting against John's hold to try and save her parents. "No!"
"Get everyone outta 'ere!" John commanded, fighting against Rebecca to get them out of the collapsing –and now burning- building.
Scroop, Juanita, Martin, Jarred, Henry and Jim hurried out of the building amongst the very few survivors of the pirates' attack. Rebecca continued to fight against John's hold as pieces of the flaming roof came down on top of her family.
"Rebecca, yeh can't save 'em now." John stated.
"No!" Rebecca felt hot tears fall down her face as she was finally pulled out of the ballroom and she turned away, running with John towards the exit before the rest of the mansion collapsed.
The coughing survivors stood outside the fiery inferno that was once the Townsend-Clarke mansion.
"He killed them." Rebecca gasped for fresh air as she fell to her knees upon the ground and looked up at her flaming home.
A mental image of Giles's empty copper-brown eyes upon his frozen face flashed through Rebecca's mind while the last words of her father echoed through her head.
Tears found their way out of her eyes as she tried to look away from the mansion.
"He killed them…" her breath hitched as she fought between coughs and sobs, "and I let him get away." She balled her hand into a fist and looked into the sky.
She knew that somewhere up there, the Black Arrow was making its seamless escape into the velveteen skies and was already plotting another hunt. The pirates had escaped.
Author's Note:
Thank you readers, and thank you Whisperwings (for betaing, of course).
MG#6