Free Web NovelChapter 7: Against All Reasonable Odds
Meg shoved herself off him and immediately winced. She set one bare foot flat against the deck, put her weight on it, then cautiously trusted it.
"That," she snickered, "is the last time I let a man carry me. You landed on my foot."
"Did I?"
James sat up and took stock of himself. It was a good habit after a fight. Most of his body hurt like hell. His jaw was particularly vocal about it.
"In my defense, lass, I was a wee bit occupied with not dyin’."
"You seem to always occupied with that."
She climbed to her feet without help. The captain’s coat hung around her shoulders, pulled tight against the wind coming off the sea. The look she gave him suggested she intended to remain on her own feet from now on.
James pushed himself upright. Every muscle seemed to have discovered a fresh injury and wanted attention for it. He ignored them. There were more immediate problems.
"Cudjoe!"
The quartermaster was already moving as the last of the crew scrambled back onto the Rose.
James started to shout, "Get the foresail up and cut us loose from whatever’s still hangin’ off that bastard! We’re not stoppin’ to say our goodbyes!"
"On it!"
Good.
A crewman was already halfway up the foremast rigging before he’d finished speaking. That saved time, and time was exactly what they needed.
"Mind the foremast! She’s split below the yard! Don’t trust her with more than you have to!"
The damage was significant. Push the mast too hard and they might lose it entirely. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Cudjoe crossed the deck, repeating the orders with more precision and considerably less patience.
"You two, on that line! Get the jib up before the captain decides we’re sailin’ on hope alone!"
"Aye, Quartermaster!"
That would do.
James reached the wheel and wrapped both hands around it. The wood felt familiar beneath his palms. Years of use had worn smooth the exact places where he gripped it, as if the ship herself remembered him.
He turned the wheel.
The Rose answered slowly, leaning into the turn with a deep groan from her timbers. Given the state of her mast, she had earned the complaint.
The distance between the two ships began to widen.
One foot.
Then another.
Black water churned where the ropes had been.
Across the deck, the crew had slipped into the loud, reckless mood that came after surviving something that should have killed them.
"Did ye see the Frenchman? I’ve seen men wake up in brothels better prepared for a fight!"
"I’m tellin’ the lads back in Nassau, and not one of ’em’s gonnae believe me!"
"Oi, where’d the captain find the lass, under some desk?"
Meg stood at the rail with the coat pulled tight around her. She wasn’t listening to them. Her attention remained fixed on the frigate.
"Why aren’t they firing at us?"
James kept both hands on the wheel.
"Because yer good friend Henri’s not longer in a position to give the order."
Meg glanced at him. "That’s a polite way of saying you killed him."
"I try to maintain standards."
She frowned toward the warship.
He could practically see her thinking what the hell just happened. If she was trying to decide how much had been skill and how much had been luck, James wasn’t sure he wanted the answer himself.
The Rose continued pulling away.
The problem was that she wasn’t pulling away fast enough.
Distance was safety.
Safety required more distance than they currently had.
James watched the widening distance with one eye and the sails with the other. Somewhere inside that frigate was enough powder to solve a whole set of problems at once. He had no desire to be nearby when it happened.
Then he heard it.
A low rumble rolled across the water.
James’s grip tightened on the wheel.
That wasn’t cannon fire.
The frigate’s hull flashed from within.
For an instant, thin lines of orange light burst through every seam in her timbers, as though fire had suddenly filled her from keel to mast.
Night vanished.
The sea turned white.
Then the frigate exploded.
The explosion tore through the frigate all at once. Burning timber blasted into the sky and scattered across the water. Pieces hissed and smoked wherever they struck the waves.
A wall of heat followed.
Then the sound arrived.
It slammed across the Rose, rattling the rigging, shaking the deck, and setting James’s teeth vibrating.
Any remaining discipline among the crew vanished instantly.
"THAT’S WHAT YE GET, YE FROG BASTARDS!"
"Did ye SEE that?! Did anyone SEE that?!"
"I’m namin’ my next child after that explosion!" freewebnovel.cσ๓
Near the mainmast, Cudjoe watched the burning wreckage for several seconds.
He nodded once.
"Well. I doubt they’ll be followin’ us now."
Meg screamed.
Short, sharp, and completely involuntary.
She grabbed the rail with both hands. Her knuckles turned white.
James laughed.
He couldn’t stop himself.
The night had tried to drown him, kill him, shoot him, burn him, and generally object to his continued existence. After all of that, watching a French warship transform itself into the largest bonfire in the Caribbean was genuinely funny.
"Welcome to the Caribbean, lass!"
His grin stretched wide enough to make his jaw complain all over again.
Gradually the shouting faded.
The deck drifted into the strange quiet that always followed something enormously loud.
Then something appeared in front of him.
⚓ [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Quest Complete: Baptism by Fire
Reward: Title — [Against All Reasonable Odds]
Reward: Knowledge — The complete memory record of the original body.
You survived the night. The statistical likelihood of that outcome was embarrassingly low. I’ve modified the experiment to prevent luck from developing unrealistic expectations.
The title will make you harder to kill. Why? No one knows. I checked repeatedly. The answer remains ’because apparently.’ Several predictive models objected. They have been retired.
As for the second reward, you now possess the complete memory of the original body. After a brief review, I can report that the process of drowning, dying, awakening in a different century, and immediately joining a pirate crew has affected you far less than expected.
I would normally describe that as reassuring.
In this case, it isn’t.
"Next time I’ll try dyin’ more scientifically."
James grinned at the message.
Then his eyes passed over the reward again.
Memory.
The word snagged his attention.
A light pressure began building behind his eyes.
At first it was mild, no worse than standing too quickly after sitting too long, a brief rush that left the world slightly unsteady.
Then it grew.
A new noise reached him.
The hum seemed to come from somewhere inside his own head, low and constant, vibrating through his skull.
James tightened his grip on the wheel.
The wood vanished beneath his hands.
The pressure behind his eyes spiked into agony.
His knees buckled.
The deck tilted beneath him.
For a confused instant he thought the ship was rolling.
Then he realized he was the one falling.
His cheek struck the planks hard enough to send a jolt through his jaw.
Voices erupted around him.
The last thing he saw was Meg pushing through the firelit deck toward him, her face tight with alarm.
Then darkness swallowed him.
