Chase (ChronoShift Trilogy) (4 page)

Hardy walked up, a tuft of foliage sticking out of his collar.  "How long you been waiting?" he asked.

’Bout an hour.  You've got something on your shoulder." Mark pointed to the small branch as if it were a piece of food stuck in his teeth.

Hardy stopped short of extending his hand to Mark.  This was the first time they'd faced each other in a peaceful setting since the fight in Mark's office months before.

"Are we good, Mark?"

"You did just save my life."

"That doesn't matter, and you know it.  You've saved mine plenty of times."

Staring at his shoes, Mark didn't look up or say anything.

"Mark, Laura didn't cheat on you with me.  She did try once...well...never mind.  I made it clear I wouldn't have anything to do with her as long as she was with you."

"So, you told her to break up with me," Mark growled.

"No..."  Hardy grimaced.  "I wouldn't give her the time of day till I knew you two were finished.  Man, look.  What's done is done.  The only question now is, are we going to move on from here or not?"

Mark extended his hand.  "Forget it," he muttered.

Hardy took it, grateful for its significance, though he knew things wouldn't be the same for a while.  Maybe never.

"What now?" Hardy asked.

"Rialto and his pal are out there somewhere, and they've got some kind of device that'll detect us if we shift.  We're flying under the radar for the moment, but if we shift, we could alert them to our presence."

"So, how long do we wait or how far do we have to go before we shift out of here?"

"I don't know.  We need to think this through before we do
anything
.  These guys aren't playing around."

"Let's get a beer."

"Sounds good."  Mark smiled for the first time.  "There are probably some bars down near the wharf by the Potomac."

"I bet they're called taverns in 1814."

"Let's go find a tavern then and get some ale."

***

The tavern was darkly lit by a scattering of lanterns and candles.  It was a rough looking place that likely only the toughest of sailors would call home.  Whoever the owner was, he apparently subscribed to the Just-Give-’Em-a-Stool-and-Take-their-Money school of philosophy.  The man that wanted more was in the wrong place.

The barkeep was unkempt and hadn't shaved in over a week.  He eyed them warily.

"What'll it be, boys?"

"Couple of ales."

Mark scanned the tavern.  There were a few other patrons in the dump.  At one side, three burly sailors sat in a booth discussing something of import in hushed tones.

"I figured we'd find some place a little more lively than this," Mark muttered under his breath.

"Yeah.  Let's down these beers and get out of here," Hardy agreed.

"Hey, Barkeep!" Mark called.

The unhappy man brought their beers in a couple of dirty looking steins. "Yeah, what?"

"Where is everybody?  Seems kind of dead to me."

"It's the war, got ev'ry body in town spooked, ’fraid to come out."

"War?"  Mark queried. 
What war?

"Boy, I shoulda known ya were teched in the head, wot with them queer looking duds an' all.  The war with the British, who else?!"

Mark took Hardy aside for a quick conference.

"What war is he talking about?"  Mark covertly checked his shifter, keeping it from prying eyes in the bar.  "My watch says 1814, how about yours?"

"Yeah.  Mine too."

"So, it ain't the Revolutionary War."

"What other war was there with Britain?"

"It's gotta be the War of 1812."

"Wasn't that just in 1812?  Did it last all the way through 1814?"

"Savannah would know."

"So helpful.  In case you hadn't noticed,
she isn't here.
"

"Maybe it just started in 1812."

"What do we know about this war?"

"I'm trying to think…there was a big battle in New Orleans — I remember that much.  My teachers didn't exactly spend a lot of time on it in school."

"Didn't Washington DC get burned by the British?"

"Sounds right.  Now that you mention it, isn't that when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner."

"Yeah...but that was over in Maryland, I think."

"That battle would be something to see.  Maybe we could join in, lend a helping hand."

"Are you boys gonna pay for them drinks?" interrupted the barkeep.

"Oh, sure."  Mark flipped him a gold piece, hoping the man wouldn't notice the date stamped on it.  Neither one of them had come prepared for this decade.  They'd both outfitted themselves with clothes and currency from the 1860's.

The barkeep seemed satisfied.  He puttered off, stopping by the booth with the sailors and saying something to them before he disappeared into the living quarters behind the tavern.

Mark and Hardy sipped on their ales.  Mark commented on how much he'd like a place to go lie down for a while.

"That can be arranged," said a voice from behind.

The speaker was a tall, burly sailor, the largest of the three who'd been sitting in the booth.  His dingy, blonde hair was long, falling way past his shoulders.

They'd turned to face this sailor when he spoke, and Hardy realized too late that one of the shorter sailors had snuck up behind the bar and was swinging a bottle toward the back of Mark's neck. 
Where was the third guy?

The blow hit home, hard.  Mark's legs gave out from under him and his body sank to the floor.  In an instant, Hardy's hand was moving, reaching to activate his shifter, but his finger was still a few inches away when something struck the back of his neck and then his whole world went black.  His last thought was that he guessed he knew where the third sailor had gone.

Last night I nearly died,

But I woke up just in time.

                    ~ Duke Special

A gentle rolling motion lulled Mark into a wakeful state.   Wherever he was, the light was very dim.  He couldn't make much out except for the faint image of a short wooden ladder illuminated by the only light visible, which emanated from a hole directly above it.   The putrid stenches of human filth and sweat mingled to assault his senses.

He felt confined.  His first instinct was to reach for his shifter.

A hand grabbed his wrist.

"Don't shift," Hardy whispered.

"Why not?"

"I think we're on a ship."

Made sense.  The rolling sensation, which could only be waves.  The stench of the lower decks.  If Mark hadn't been so groggy from being knocked on the head, he would have caught on sooner himself.

"I think you're right."

"If we shift out of here, we're gonna find ourselves treading water.  Probably in the middle of the ocean for all we know."

"Those sailors...
man
!"  Mark rubbed the back of his head and neck.

"Yeah, we need to pay them back for this."

"First, we need to get above deck and figure this out.  Are you tied up?"

"No.  I think we've been shanghaied."

"Shanghaied?  I read about that somewhere.  Didn't think it was such common practice."

"They don't need us tied up once they get out to sea.  Where are we gonna go?"

"Pretty miserable business if you ask me.  All right, let's get our bearings.  Is that ladder the only way out of here?"

"Think so."

They crept over to the ladder as silently as possible in the almost pitch blackness of the hold.  They couldn't evade detection forever, but the longer they could observe others without being seen themselves, the better.

Sticking his head up through the hole, Mark looked around.  They were definitely on a ship of some sorts.  The space above their hold looked to be a food storage area.  Barrels filled with unknown contents and bags of dry goods stacked five high lined the walls with gaps only for entering and exiting the room.  A lone table stood in the center of the small room, and on it a candle burned.  There were two chairs at the table, and one of them was occupied by a young man dressed in the uniform of the British Royal Navy.  He was writing in a ledger.

As Mark lifted himself further from the hold below, the boy suddenly became aware of his presence.  He rushed out, screaming “Cap'n, Cap'n!” and disappeared through a doorway.

"There goes the element of surprise," Hardy remarked.

"What did you want me to do, sit there and stare at him?  Come on."

Hardy followed Mark up out of the hold.

"Let's see what we can find out before the 'Cap'n' gets us."

They emerged into salty, ocean air and bright sunlight, which momentarily blinded them, their squinted eyes having become accustomed to the darkened holds below.  It was hard to believe they were actually on a real-life sailing vessel of old, but here they were.  Just like the movies, except real...much more real.

Men were busy all over the ship, adjusting and tying off riggings, moving stores, scrubbing the deck.  Several of the men glanced their way as they came up the ladder, but didn't stop what they were doing.

The 'Cap'n' stood in a doorway at the back of the ship, which probably led to his quarters.  His uniform was that of a British naval officer.

"Shank!"  he called.

All work on the ship instantly ceased.  The crew wanted to see the show.  A balding, sweaty beast of a man appeared at the captain's side.  Apparently, this was Shank.  The captain gave the man some orders, the details of which Mark and Hardy couldn't hear from their distance.

"Sparrow, Taylor!"  Shank barked.

Two surly men came to life and moved toward Mark and Hardy.

"What do you think, Hardy?"

"I think we can take ’em."

"There's a lot of them, and we're in the middle of the ocean."

Hardy grinned.  "Certainly you're not going to let a little thing like horrendous odds stop us."

Mark grinned back.

Sparrow and Taylor moved in closer, never guessing these two shanghaied men who'd just regained consciousness would be capable of putting up a fight of any sort.

Hardy's left arm shot out, his fist slamming into Sparrow's throat.  Sparrow sputtered, hands to his Adam's apple, choking and gasping for breath as he sank to his knees.  Hardy hadn't hit him hard enough to kill, but the guy would be out of commission for a while.

Taylor readied himself, seeing what Hardy had done, but it was too little, too late.  Mark feigned a move backward, but came around with a solid roundhouse to the temple.  Taylor fell to the deck, out cold.

Instantly, ten to twelve more men leapt into action, but the confining space only allowed four or five to attack at once, and these men weren't trained in hand to hand combat.  Most of them probably brawled aplenty whenever they went ashore, but it was a far cry from the training Mark and Hardy had received in Special Forces.

They were experts in this kind of fighting.  The odds were a little rough, but the fight resembled more of a dance moving to graceful music than a brawl.  Their movements complemented each other, flowing like finely-tuned choreography.   Men fell, and rose, and then fell again.

They were having fun.

Abruptly, Mark froze, which caused him to take a fistful to the temple.  The pain was ferocious, but he didn't move.  He was staring into the muzzle of a flintlock pistol.  He cleared his throat, letting Hardy know the gig was up.

The captain was calmly pointing the large-barreled pistol at Mark's head, a bored expression on his face.  Shank held another gun on Hardy.  They were close enough they wouldn't miss, but far enough away Mark and Hardy would have no chance of disarming them before they fired.

"Quite impressive, lads, but not good enough, I'm afraid.  Welcome to the
HMS Huntingdon
.  This here's
my
ship.  You've got exactly three seconds to decide if you want to submit to my authority and that of the British Navy, or we'll put a round through each of yer heads and dump you overboard for the sharks.  Makes no difference to me, so decide."

Mark looked into the man's eyes and saw true apathy.  Relenting, he nodded once.

"And you?"  He waved his pistol Hardy's way.

Hardy also capitulated.  They were out of options.  They couldn't shift until they got close to land, and no matter how good they were, there were just too many men on the ship to overcome, especially if guns were involved.  It was less risky to give in until they were in a better position to shift away.

"Good.  You two will man one of the cannon below during battle.  The rest of the time, you'll scour the decks.  Shank will instruct you once you've come to."

  Shank moved behind Mark.  He lifted him in a massive bear hug and squeezed, turning Mark's world a painful black.

When he awoke, he was below deck again, together with Hardy.  Shank was immediately aware of their return to consciousness and yanked them up to their feet.  Sweat rolled down the man's meaty arms as he stabbed a finger at one of the cannon and spat out incoherent orders regarding the finer points of its operation.