Raise The Anchor

"I just took out a pirate," Shelly stated, staring at the silver knife in her hand.

"Yeah I saw," Colt agreed, still out of breath. "Great timing, as well."

He wondered how many more seconds it would've been before he'd been shot. Probably not too many. Great timing indeed. He thought about thanking her for saving his life, but he was sort of risking his life for her sake anyway. Plus, there was still lots of time left for him to die. Maybe they could exchange their thanks later, if they somehow managed to survive.

"Do you think he's dead?"

Colt glanced down at where Breaker was laying across the ground. His mouth was open and his eyes were closed. There was blood completely covering his torso, which didn't look at all promising for him, but there was no telling. Colt gave a simple shrug as his answer, since he didn't really feel like leaning down and checking the dangerous pirate's breath.

"No telling," he said, "but let's hope so. I wasn't really too fond of him."

Shelly continued to gaze at the body and at the bloody knife she was holding. She looked like she was in a sort of trance, as if...

"This is the first time you've killed someone, isn't it?" Colt asked suddenly, the thought striking him.

For the first time Shelly looked away from Breaker. She glanced over at him and gave a nod.

Well that was just perfect, Colt thought. He didn't know how to comfort someone about that sort of thing, but it was obvious that he needed to get her out of the trance. If they stayed put for much longer, eventually some friends of Breaker would come along. And that would not be good.

"Look, you..." Colt hesitated, trying to figure out how to word what he was trying to say. "You did the right thing, okay? He was going to shoot me if you hadn't stabbed him. And, as a bonus, you fulfilled his dying wish that no man would ever beat him in a fight."

Shelly turned her gaze back to the body and Colt suspected she was rolling her eyes. "I don't think that's exactly what he meant."

"What?" he protested. "Maybe he could have reworded it a little, but whose fault is that?"

Shelly furrowed her brows. "His, I guess."

"Precisely," Colt agreed, "I'm glad you came around. So, any luck with the Authority?"

"I found my brother and told him to move up the defensive ranks," she said. "I don't think he was terribly happy to be getting tactical advice from his little sister, but he said he'd consider it."

So she was halfway successful.

"Okay," Colt nodded. "Well if he considers it in time he might even be able to save some lives."

"Hey, if you think you can do a better job, you're welcome to..."

They got interrupted as an authoritarian officer stumbled back into Shelly and hit the ground. Colt and Shelly moved back a little as the man raised himself up on his elbows and started crawling backwards, away from the advancing pirate.

Colt walked up and grabbed the officer beneath the arms, hoisting him up to his feet. He reached down and picked up the pirate sword that the officer had been using, returning it to him.

"Th... thank you," the officer stuttered, standing back up and turning to face the incoming pirate.

"No trouble," Colt replied, giving the officer a little push. "Give him hell."

Shelly raised an eyebrow as they watched the two men clash sword with sword, dancing further and further away together.

"You're not going to help him out?" she asked.

Colt blinked. "I just did help him. But I'm not going to fight his opponent for him, if that's what you're asking. I wouldn't want to hurt his pride, even if I could fight for him. But there's no time for that, or for trying to convince your brother to make a smart military decision."

"No time for it? What do you mean?"

Now that he was done trying to cover Shelly as she traveled to and from the Authority's defensive line, he had some of his own tasks to do.

"Go find your brother again, or someone else in the Authority you trust, and stick with them," he said. "I'm going to board the Bloody Manta."

"What?" Shelly asked loudly. Colt wasn't sure if she was angry with him or if she was just trying to be heard over the commotion of the fighting. "You're going to board their ship?"

"Yeah," Colt said. "They're doing the most damage to the Authority with the ship cannons. Plus, the pirates that are getting hurt or running out of bullets are just resupplying back on the ship. Trust me, the Authority won't win unless the Bloody Manta is gone. So I'm going to get rid of it."

"So are you going to destroy the ship? Or sink it? How?"

"Nah," he replied. "Sinking it is too difficult, and Goldtown would be lost before I even got the lowest deck underwater. And what am I going to destroy it with, my seashell cutlass? That wouldn't work either. But I do have an idea. So... I'll see you if it works, I guess."

He turned to head toward the ship, but something pulled him back. Shelly had grabbed ahold of his arm.

Colt turned back and raised his eyebrows. "What? Is it time for a goodbye kiss?"

Shelly lifted a hand, as if she was about to strike him. "How about a goodbye slap?"

Colt stuck his hands in the air. "Hey, I'm not the one who held me back."

She rolled her eyes and ultimately must have decided to ignore him.

"I'm coming with you," she said.

Colt sighed in exasperation. "Oh, no," he said. "Not this again. You're not coming with me, because getting on that ship will most likely lead to lots of death."

Shelly just shrugged as if the thought of death suddenly didn't bother her anymore, despite her reaction to seeing one dead pirate.

"I'll be fine," she said. "I have a highly-trained military personnel to lead me."

Colt looked around, as if someone was going to magically appear and take this girl off his hands for him. But no such person showed up, and instead he was left with the nice sight of authoritarian officers and unhinged pirates murdering each other. This didn't leave him with as much of a choice as he would have liked.

"Look, I obviously can't stop you from coming with me," he stated, earning a glance from Shelly that made it seem like she already knew this information. "But whatever happens on that ship is on you. I won't be held liable for any death or injury."

"Well if I die then you'll probably be dead too," she pointed out. "So I don't think we'll have any problems there."

Colt thought about this. "Good point," he said. "Let's go."

They took off toward the shore, trying to avoid any unpleasant encounters. This was rather difficult, since if there were no enemies in an area there were probably cannon balls arriving soon, and vice versa. People always said not to take the path of least resistance, but that path didn't even seem to be an option here. If it had been an option, he would have taken it hands down. But they ended up having to do things the hard way. Which was the way they seemed to do pretty much everything.

Things got more dangerous the closer they got to the island's coast. There were more pirates and fewer authoritarian officers the closer they got to the ship, which made trouble increasingly hard to avoid.

Colt picked up the pace a little, with Shelly not too far behind. He needed to get on board as quickly as possible, and he wasn't going to get there by simply waltzing up and hoping no one noticed.

"Hey, Colt?" he heard Shelly say from behind.

"Try to keep up," he replied, "we're almost there."

"That's not where the problem is."

There was no time to stop and talk, but Colt slowed down anyway and turned to look back at her. She was keeping up the pace and staying right behind him, the only issue was that she wasn't the only one. A group of pirates had started to spread out behind them and were following them as they approached the ship.

"Right," Colt muttered, coming to a full stop and watching as the advancing pirates did the same. "I see your point," he said to Shelly. This did complicate things.

He considered just making a break to the ship again. The following pirates would make an escape from the ship almost impossible, but at least he'd be able to do what he set out to do.

But even that wasn't possible. Because when he looked back toward the ship, he saw that another group of 6 to 10 pirates had formed on that side as well. Rotating himself around, he found that he'd fallen right into their trap and he and Shelly were fully surrounded.

"Well this is not ideal," Colt stated, to which Shelly murmured her agreement.

The circle of pirates tightened in, with some readying their swords and others aiming their firearms. Colt's feeling of hope dwindled as he looked around at them. There was no situation that he could conceive in his head that ended with him and Shelly winning in a fight against all of them. He could barely fight one of the Bloody Manta's pirates at a time and Shelly had only ever won a total of one fight. The odds were not in their favor here.

But this wasn't the first time they'd been in a seemingly impossible situation. They'd gotten into some pretty deep holes on their journey to the authoritarian base but here they were, still standing. At least for the moment.

Colt stepped forward, looking around at the pirates, and prepared himself to pull something out of thin air to get them out of their predicament.

"I'm glad you guys are here," he told the pirates, none of which looked as if they returned the sentiment. "Really. I was looking for someone to speak to, but everyone was... well, fighting."

One of the pirates in the crowd stepped up and pointed at him with his sword. He stood between Colt and the Bloody Manta, and stared him down with aggression in his eyes.

"No one's allowed to get near the ship," the pirate said. "We're taking the both of you out."

Colt put his hands up and stepped back a little. "Hey, hey, hey," he said with feigned innocence. "We're not here to fight. We want to help you guys. That's why we're here."

The pirate lowered his sword a little, obviously confused at the offer of help from someone on the island he was currently attacking. But he had lost his aggression, so Colt thought maybe his spur-of-the-moment plan might work after all.

That was, until a different pirate stepped forward. This new pirate was on the other side of the circle, and he unfortunately recognized who the man was immediately.

"Don't let your guard down," snarled the man, adjusting his brown and raggedy-looking eyepatch. "Colt here likes to talk himself out of his problems."

Colt turned away from the original pirate, whose aggression had returned, and stared directly into the singular oculus belonging to One-Eyed Morgan.

Shelly leaned toward him and whispered, "How does he know your name? Do you know him?"

But Colt didn't respond. His attention was fixed on the one man that he hated most, other than Captain Rave himself.

"Morgan," Colt stated. Not the most intelligent response to the man, but it was all that came out. One-Eyed Morgan resembled everything he hated about his old life, the life of a cabin boy. Morgan always shoved him around, trying to get him to do this or that, and was one of the prime reasons that Colt had got fed up with his life in the first place. And now he was back, after all that happened, staring into that demanding and affection-less eye.

Morgan smirked. "What's the matter? Didn't expect to run into me again?"

Colt continued to simply stare for a moment, then regained his composure. "I just think it's odd that Rave actually let you off the ship for once."

One-Eyed Morgan's smirk faded and the man scoffed as he puffed out his chest. Colt could tell he'd hit the mark with that insult, as the pirate's pale complexion started to turn red.

"I am Captain Rave's second-in-command, and I can do as I please. There's not a person on the ship that he trusts more than me."

"Yeah, on the ship," Colt pointed out. "Maybe that's why he keeps you there. Or perhaps it's just because of your less-than-average combat ability."

Morgan's large nose twitched a little and his hand wandered down to his sword. Colt figured he had the man right where he wanted him, but then Morgan looked around and must've decided against acting out.

One-Eyed Morgan took a breath and then the smirk was back on his face. "None of what he says is true, men. Not a word of it. It's what this hopeless, embarrassing cabin boy does. He talks a big game, tries to get out of work that needs to be done or in this case his own death. But once you get close up..."

One-Eyed Morgan approached him slowly and Colt began to step back, until he felt something sharp touch his back. He'd backed up right into the sword of the pirate behind him. There was nowhere else for him to go.

"...he's just like all the other weaklings."

Colt gulped and felt himself shaking with fear. He couldn't believe that he'd even considered trying to fight One-Eyed Morgan. Who was he kidding? There was no way he could beat someone like that. It was a wonder he'd managed to hold his own against the other pirates so far. What did he have, several days of experience fighting? What did he really think that he could do against these guys? There was nothing that he could do to change the outcome of the fight. Captain Rave would take Goldtown, just like he took over everywhere he went. Having Colt on their side would make no difference for the Authority, despite what Shelly may have thought.

One-Eyed Morgan drew his sword and Colt prepared, not for the first time in the past couple weeks, to die.

Yet once again, maybe because of circumstances or maybe due to something like dumb luck, Colt didn't die.

Right as Morgan began to lift his sword, a loud and agonizing sound came from behind Colt. Morgan turned his gaze above Colt's shoulders and Colt spun around to see what had happened.

The pirate that had been standing behind Colt with his sword pressed to his back was kneeling on the ground now. He was frantically grasping at his leg, which had a knife protruding from it. Blood dripped down the leg as the pirate's hand hovered over the knife, as the man clearly tried to decide whether or not to yank the thing out.

Colt glanced over at Shelly, who just shrugged and motioned toward her own knife which was still in her hand. So if it wasn't her, then who...

He looked out into the distance, back toward the island, and saw a figure waving his hands back and forth and yelling something that, judging by his lips, was similar to got you! The other pirates, who were looking around, also spotted him and some of them ran after the attacker.

As the guy turned and ran off, Colt finally recognized who it was. It was a kid with long hair that looked a little younger than him.

He smiled. "I don't believe it."

"Who is it?" Shelly asked.

"The bandit that attacked us, Mason Barns," he told her. "The seed we planted. It grew after all, I guess."

"Enough!" One-Eyed Morgan was yelling. "Get back in formation! We're not allowed to fight, we have to stay and guard the ship!"

Colt turned back to Morgan. "So what was all that about doing what you please?"

One-Eyed Morgan put his focus back on Colt, making him regret he'd said anything. The man raised his sword to resume the process of killing him, but it didn't get much further this time.

Shelly ran up and plunged her knife into Morgan's side. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized he'd underestimated her, but he didn't get to fix that mistake. She grabbed Colt's hand and pulled him toward the Bloody Manta as the other pirates who had stuck around ran after them.

"I don't know who that was exactly," Shelly told him as they continued their run to the ship, "but he was talking too much."

Colt chuckled. "You're getting better with that knife."

They ran to the end of the shore and waded into the water, entering the giant ocean that spanned as far into the distance as the eye could see. They started swimming as the water deepened, but didn't have to go for too long before they were at the ship.

Seeing it up close again, Colt finally remembered how it was much bigger in person. Suddenly his plan didn't seem so doable anymore, but it was too late to turn back now. Much too late.

He grabbed the ladder and started climbing up the side of the ship, with Shelly following behind him.

"Okay," he called down the ladder, "so the plan is to make a run for the anchor."

"The anchor?"

"Yeah. We're going to raise it, which will made the ship unsteady. Then, if we can, we'll need to lower the sails as much as possible. That'll put the ship in motion, and will do anything from buying a little time to sending the Bloody Manta far away from here, depending on how fast the crew is at handling the unexpected."

"Okay," Shelly nodded. "Then what?"

"Then we run for our lives, and try to get off the ship as fast as possible. That'll be the hard part. There's no easy part, come to think of it, but you get my point."

Colt reached the top of the ladder and then he was back on the ship he'd hoped never to return to. He was back standing on the main deck of the ship, which was formed from a collection of wooden planks that he had cleaned hundreds of times. Except this time he wasn't here to make the ship look nice. He was here to get it as far from the island as possible. This time he was working against the Bloody Manta, and no one on board was his friend.

Okay, that last part hadn't changed much.

Colt glanced behind and saw Shelly make it off the ladder and onto the deck, just as gunshots flew past her as the pirates from behind started to catch up.

"Come on!" he yelled, and they ran toward the front nose of the ship. Colt dodged around some people standing idle on the ship and made his way to the capstan, which was a lifted up axle that was used to raise and lower the anchor. He had never been trusted to even clean it—much less use it—due to him being "likely-to-mess-something-up" but he thought he pretty much knew how it worked. Push it one way to raise the anchor and the other way to lower the anchor. How hard could it be?

Unfortunately, he didn't end up being able to figure it out.

The pirates following behind them were evidently rather skilled at climbing ladders, and had started firing shots and yelling orders to the other crewmates as soon as they had stepped aboard.

Colt and Shelly ducked down low to avoid the bullets flying about everywhere, and it was amazing that none hit their mark. But dodging bullets was a rather difficult task, and it caused him to run straight into someone on the ship.

He stumbled backwards, and noticed that the person he had collided with hadn't moved an inch. It was as if Colt had just bounced off of him. And then he recognized the person, and understood why.

Standing before him was Cedric, the head cook on the Bloody Manta. The short man stood before him and puffed out his chest, which was sort of unnecessary since he had a permanently-puffed-out chest.

The cook pointed a meaty finger at him. "Colt!"

The other pirates wasted no time circling Colt and Shelly yet again, and the shots died out as their prey became fully surrounded. Shelly looked around at all their foes, no doubt trying to think of a way to get them out of the situation. But lightning never struck the same place twice, and Colt doubted they'd be able to get out of the same predicament twice either. So instead he focused his attention on the cook. Out of everyone that he hated on the ship, he probably hated Cedric the least. Don't get him wrong, the guy was ruthless and had worked Colt to death. But he had never acted unfairly or without reason. He was just doing his job, and most of the time he got mad at Colt, he'd probably deserved it. He hadn't been too easy on Cedric either. So maybe he could use that somehow. Get the cook to take pity on him and help him out.

"Cedric," Colt greeted, trying to sound as optimistic as possible. This was especially hard when surrounded by pirates who looked like they wanted to kill you and might do so at any second. "I've missed you. I really have."

Cedric didn't reply. He simply raised up a cooking utensil—a two-pronged fork that he always seemed to have with him—at the ready. So Colt figured that was probably going to be a "no" on the whole taking pity thing.

Then Cedric made a motion with his wrist and the shaft of the fork extended. It became a sort of spear, a weapon that now looked intimating even if you weren't a heavy cooking ingredient needing to be picked up.

"I can't say the same about you," Cedric replied. "You always slacked off, my boy, always! But not even you can manage to avoid what's coming."

Colt was about to reply, but then he felt something cool touch the back of his head. The barrel of a gun.

"Prepare to die," said a voice.