A Most Unusual Interest

A Most Unusual Interest Chapter Twenty Seven (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… I think 003 is in the chimney. There’s SOMETHING in there the cats really want to get at… *ponders * Readers/Reviewers: *sigh * Sorry it took so long! But thank you thank you thank you thank you for reading and reviewing!!!! *glomp *



Jack was not amused. He was so far from amused, he decided, that he would not recognize it if it came up and bit him. He gritted his teeth as the ship heaved to, the other pirate vessel coming into view. “Gibbs,” he barked, “I’m going below. Alert me of any changes!” He did not wait for the man’s response as he stalked to the hatch, hands fisted together behind his back. He clattered down the ladder with none of his usual grace and stalked to the cell at the far end of the hold. The dead/alive crewman was still laying there, still as he had been earlier, staring glassily into space. Traces of the black goo he had thrown up earlier stained his chin and chest as he lay immobile, a faint stench of rot and heat wafting off of him. Jack opened the bars to the space and stepped inside, pulling it to but not locking it again. Just in case. “ ‘ere,” he muttered, toeing him with one booted foot. “Oy…” He shoved the inert form now and frowned even more deeply. “Guess you really are dead, eh?” He sighed and reluctantly squatted beside the apparently dead youth and began patting him down, feeling for valuables and possibly some sort of identifying item, though he seriously doubted anyone joining a pirate crew for any reason would carry a nicely printed calling card.
Jack had rolled the felled crewman onto his stomach and was trying to boots off stiffening legs when the ship pitched hard to port. A canon blast followed so closely on the heels of the lurch that he really was not sure which came first. His balance was shot as he sprawled on the tilting floor, sliding towards the bars on the far side of the holding space. The body of the youth slid with him heavily, hitting the bars with a dull thud. Jack scrambled backwards and grabbed for the now-swinging gateway, stopping himself from hitting the bars or body but wrenc his his shoulder. “Bugger,” he gritted, the ship rolling back to a semblance of upright. Another canon blast sounded and this time, the ship was hit. The impact shook the very teeth in his head as he struggled upright. “Why can’t they leave The Pearl alone?” he shouted to no one. As he lurched towards the hatch, Gibbs dropped down before him.
“Cap’n…there’s been some changes…”
“Thank you, Mister Gibbs,” Jack replied with narrowed eyes. “I never would’ve guessed.”

The deck was in chaos. The cannonball had hit the deck below, the narrow and musty space where some of the crew slept and dry goods were stored. They were not taking on water—yet—but they were still in dire straits. “Why aren’t we firing back?” Jack barked to the first crewman he saw. “Get the guns out!”
“We…we can’t, Cap’n, sir!” he quailed. “They…they…”
Jack rolled his eyes, already tired of the gibbering man. “They…they what?” he demanded, flinching involuntarily as another cannonball flew a little too close. “Ready the damned guns!”
“They’re diabled, sir. Someone…someone buggered ‘em all to Hell!” He cringed as if expecting Jack to strike him.
Jack stared, blood rushing in his hears. “What?” he ground out. Another impact sent him sprawling back and the gibbering man in the opposite direction. Jack grabbed the first solid thing he could, Gibbs, and snarled. “What the hell is he on about? How can the guns be disabled?”
Gibbs looked as stunned and blank as Jack felt. “Jammed up with pitch, they are, an’ our magazine’s gone! Thrown overboard, belike!”
Jack felt a knot of nauseating anger in the pit of his stomach. He knew without being told who had done it. In his haste to find Myrtle, he had abandoned his questioning of the new crewmen. “Find me the two who came aboard with the walking corpse!” He turned away from Gibbs and plunged headlong into the chaos on deck. “Run out the sweeps!” he yelled. “We’re not going down without a fight!” He reached the railing and got his first good look at the ship. It was not, as he had somewhat suspected, Anna Maria in a very dark humor. In fact, Anna Maria seemed to be in as dire straits as they.
A ship roughly the size of the Pearl, under full sail and moving fast, loomed off port. They seemed to be loosing interest in the Pearl, he thought, as they were not firing back. Instead, the strange ship began to swing towards Anna Maria’s ship, the renamed Interceptor, the Devil Ray. The knot in Jack’s stomach tightened as something new caught his eye. A flutter of movement on the strange ship resolved itself into a banner… “Bloody pirates,” he growled. The ship’s Jolly Roger snapped in the stiff wind, declaring their intentions clearly. Jack swallowed bitterly as the implications of the crossed cutlasses sank in. He had long refused to fly a flag such as that, refused to be identified with one of those who would take human life so freely when there was gold to be had… Slowly, horror dawned as the strange ship made true it’s intentions towards The Devil Ray. “Myrtle,” he breathed. “Anna Maria…” A blast shook him as the unmarked ship fired on The Ray. Direct hit. Several more blast sounded in rapid succession before Anna Maria’s crew could get a single shot off.
“Cap’n, they’re gonna sink,” Dawson uttered disbelievingly.
The entire deck had gone silent, the confusing and frankly stunning attack of this third ship taking them all off guard. They had expected to fight and possibly die, not to be used as a distraction, as Jack now realized they had been. “Full sail. Ready the skiffs.”
“They’re…”
“Let me guess,” he snapped to Gibbs. “Disabled?”
“Aye,” he replied sheepishly.
Jack swallowed hard again as the mystery ship seemed to pull back. The Devil Ray was obviously taking on water now, and fast. “Get closer.”
“Cap’n, sure that they’ll fire on us,” Dawson protested.
“I’m not,” he growled, “letting them drown like rats! Get closer!” Already, he could see the first people leaping into the water to avoid being sucked down as the ship was pulled below. “Run out the sweeps and make ready…”