“They’re firing,” commented a fisherman/rower redundantly, sweat starting out on his lip. Next to him, one of the veteran crew from the barca-longa rolled his eyes and simply hunched lower over his oar. Within moments, the other Piombinese fishermen were all aping the actions of the combat-experienced sailors of the Adriatic, except that their eyes were still wide and desperate. But they’d hold together for another few minutes-which was all that was required.

  Orazio’s voice was tense. “The scialuppa is entering the inlet now, sir. The xebec is a minute behind, no more.”

  North nodded sharply. “Time to show Colonel O’Neill the red flag, Mr. Porfino. Let’s get our bull charging toward the ring.” He raised his up-time starter’s whistle, clamped it between his teeth and watched the xebec bear down upon the scialuppa.

  “Colonel O’Neill! A red-”

  “I see it, Turlough. Captain, get us moving. Best speed.”

  As two halyards creaked in unison and the yards tilted to catch what breeze they could, the oars, six on each board, rose to readiness, and then, at the order of the coxswain, dipped down and cut deep into the gentle swells of the Cala Santa Maria inlet.

  The barca-longa surged against the current and wind, and began making northwest for the southern tip of the Punta Maestra headland.

  Three musket balls whined off the rocky slope that marked the Cala Maestra inlet’s northern extent. Another one went through the sail, not more than two feet over their ducked heads. Miro checked the rear: Harry was smiling forward at him, hands ready on the tarp. “Steersman,” shouted Miro above the oars, wind, and flap of the luffing sail, “as the rowers bring us into the Cala Maestra, keep us within five yards of the rocks on the northern side.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Hugging the side of the inlet will conceal us for a few seconds.”

  Just then the sail began to luff less, sagging instead as they passed into the lee of the northern slope and the wind began to die. Well, nothing to lose and no time to waste, thought Miro, who reached up, yelled “Watch out!” and tugged on the lead line of the closer of the two knots belaying the yard’s halyard.

  With the knot undone, the yard suddenly had four feet of slack; it fell swiftly, stopping within five feet of the deck. The lateen fell in folds, mostly over the bow. A loud cheer went up from the xebec just as the scialuppa ’s course took it out of the pirate’s line of sight.

  “Oars, all speed; get us distance!” Miro shouted. “Pilot, prepare to bring us about to leave the same way we came in.” He looked aft toward Lefferts. “Harry, it’s all your show, now. Pull the tarp and wait for my signal.”

  As Miro’s small boat surged forward, North watched the xebec add oars to full sails and angle toward Cala Maestra as well. But the Algerine’s course had her set to enter the inlet about forty yards south of where the scialuppa had run in, thereby keeping to the deeper water. As she came within eighty yards of the foot of the Punta Maestra, she heeled over hard to port, clearly meaning to come about as tightly as possible in order to bear down upon the scialuppa and cut off her retreat by straddling the mouth of the inlet.

  Along the length of the ship’s deck, just inboard from the rowers, sure-footed pirates leaned against the turn of the graceful xebec, unable to aim their weapons yet, but ready for the first opportunity. An equal number of them swarmed around the two away-boats that were waiting where the Algerine’s waists narrowed into its bow. Casting the lashing aside and preparing to lift the boats over the gunwale, the pirates’ hurried, eager actions set their belted swords and pistols swinging.

  North saw it all, but only peripherally; he watched, measured the range as the xebec presented its starboard waist full to the slope of the Punta Maestra as it reached the apex of its intended 180 degree turn, and prepared to start back toward the wide part of the inlet’s mouth “Mr. Porfino,” North snapped, “raise the red standard.” Then, clenching the neck of the whistle firmly in his teeth, Thomas North blew out a long, rolling shrill.

  Coming abreast of the tip of the Punta Maestra headland from the south, Owen Roe O’Neill’s sharp ears picked out the sound of North’s signal a fraction of a second before anyone else. “There it is! Best speed from the oars. Spikes and hooks at the ready. Boarders, covers off your pieces and blades two inches drawn; we’re but a minute away.”

  And then the sound of firing began.

  The lower slopes of the Punta Maestra seemed to roll a wave of thunder at the xebec as it showed them her starboard waist. Thomas North’s ten Hibernians, still concealed in the scrub and well-covered by rock outcroppings, began raking the deck of the Algerine at ranges varying from eighty to one hundred and ten yards. The steady crack-klikka-crack-klikka-crack of eight black-powder lever-action rifles accompanied faster, sharper reports from two SKS-Ms, each fitted with thirty-round AK 47 magazines.

  Both the black powder. 40–72 cartridges and the Soviet 7.62 x 39 mm rounds were at their optimum range, and although more rounds missed their targets than hit, there were far, far more bullets in the air than there were pirates to fire at. The pirates did not go down in windrows, but they went down constantly, and within the first five seconds, some started to break for cover, abandoning the lines, the sails, the oars. Even seasoned corsairs, who had learned to brace themselves to withstand at least one murderous blast of grapeshot before leaping over an adversary’s gunwales, had little preparation for the unrelenting fire they faced now.

  The xebec continued to come about, albeit unevenly-but then the tightness of her turn widened out into lazy arc; the heavy fellow manning the tiller fell away from the handle as three bullets drilled through his thick torso and speckled the deck behind him with blood.

  However, the pirates were numerous, and as bad as their casualties were, there were still more than two score of them, knots of whom were already trying to fight back. Most forgot the scialuppa in their eagerness to return fire against the new enemies on the slopes of Punta Maestra, but not all: four made for the portside rail, armed with wheel locks and long-barreled miquelet muskets.

  Damn it, thought North, who let his binoculars fall loose on their lanyard and snatched up his own SKS, hoping he’d find the range in time…

  Harry pulled the tarp off the reconstituted outboard motor that had been borrowed from their dirigible’s array of makeshift up-time engines and opened the choke a bit; the engine coughed, then roared, and plumed water up behind the scialuppa. “Coming about,” he shouted as he angled the engine’s handle to starboard.

  The prow of the scialuppa started coming around steadily to port. But the rowers continued to pull hard, and Harry could feel that their muscles were providing them with additional, and very welcome, speed. Although relatively powerful, the compact outboard motor had been intended to propel dinghies and rowboats, not something as large as a scialuppa. They were coming about-faster and more tightly than their enemy could have reasonably expected-but it wasn’t going to be fast enough; Harry saw a quartet of pirate marksmen gathering at the xebec’s portside rail, which overlooked the open expanse of the Cala Maestra. And the scialuppa was the only target in that direction. The range was long-almost a hundred yards-but still…

  As the barca-longa came around the headland and her lookout could see into the Cala Maestra inlet, the ship’s limp lateen sails finally crossed the line of the wind and swelled tentatively. Owen started scrambling forward; they were still hauling as close to the wind as possible, but they’d only accelerate briskly once they began to turn into the inlet, which would bring the northerly wind off their prow and over their portside bow.

  “Keep pulling boys, for all you’re worth,” he shouted as he went along the benches. Eyes forward, he saw the stern of the xebec heave into view around the stony shoulder of the Punta Maestra and thought, now we’ve got you, pinned from behind and beside, and not enough room or time to turn out.

  Or maybe they did have enough room and time-or at least, that must have been what the two pirates who leaped to take hold of the tiller believed. They heaved the xebec’s rudder back into a tight turn to port. One, glancing over his shoulder, saw the barca-longa and screamed something in a swift liquid language that Owen had never heard. But the meaning was clear enough: musket-bearing pirates began streaming toward the protuberant stern overhang that followed the xebec like an elaborately carved afterthought.

  “Wrecking Crew,” Owen shouted back over the heads of the boarding party in the bows. “you have targets. Clear their poop deck.”

  Thomas realized, even as he raised the SKS, that if he fired he might well kill his own people. As luck would have it, his own line of fire to the four pirate marksmen taking aim at the scialuppa extended onward to the deck of that smaller boat. Miro and Lefferts’ men would be safely out of the way in three, maybe four seconds, but that might be too late. Besides, what the hell was the sniper waiting fo-?

  From forty yards up the opposed slope of the inlet’s northern headland, there was a flash and a viciously sharp report. One of the four pirates at the rail bucked backward a step, then went down, thereby obscuring the high spinal exit wound and the dark blood that was beginning to spread across both sides of his back like a pair of painted wings.

  About time our marksman got into the act, groused North silently, wishing that it was Lefferts up on the slope: best sniper among us, by a country mile. But, being armed with Harry’s scoped up-time Remington, the Hibernian who had been given the job was still very well equipped to take down any pirates who might pose an unanticipated threat to the team or its operations. But there were still three pirate musketeers — Who fired in a volley even as the sniper’s second shot cracked and echoed between the granite walls of the inlet. Another pirate went down, clutching his shoulder. But so had someone in the scialuppa. North thought about his binoculars. If they got either Miro or Harry But he swept up the SKS instead; first things first, now that the scialuppa was out of his downrange field of fire. North squeezed the trigger, saw the round send splinters up from the deck a few feet behind the musketeers. Damn Chinese export ammo; even for Combloc 7.62, it shoots like a rainbow. As North raised the weapon slightly and let the bead rise a little too high in the sight, then squeezed the trigger again.

  Blood spattered outward from the lower back of the pirate on the left. He clutched the rail, his legs sagged, then his knees went-at the same moment that North had finished riding the SKS’s recoil back down and cheated over to the right to bring the last corsair into his sights.

  His weapon barked in unison with the sniper’s Remington; hit from front and back, the last of the four pirate marksmen spun and toppled to the deck.

  Thomas grabbed for his binoculars, swept them after the scialuppa, looking for “Estuban? Estuban?” shouted Harry, his buttocks half off the stern thwart.

  Miro’s rather round, close-cropped head poked up out of the tangle of sails in the bows, just visible over the back of the slain oarsman.

  “I wasn’t the unlucky one, Harry; I’m fine. You just keep bringing us around.”

  “We’re around already, heading toward open water.”

  “Good. Excellent, in fact.”

  “Yeah. Now, want a piece of advice?”

  “Certainly. What is it?”

  Harry smiled. “Keep your own head down, too, fool!”

  As half a dozen pirates swarmed back out across the xebec’s stern overhang to fire down into the barca-longa that was almost upon them, Donald Ohde, Paul Maczka, and Matija Grabnar raised their shotguns and began the firing-and-pumping sequence that was, more than anything, the combat trademark of the Wrecking Crew. And whereas the high velocity bullets of their other weapons often inflicted surprisingly subtle entry wounds, the twelve-gauge pumps, furnished with double-aught buckshot, left little to the imagination.

  Owen had not seen this kind of carnage, this closely, before. As he watched, the left half of one pirate’s head simply shredded away in a cloud of red chunks; another lost the fingers of his pistol hand, and the eye that had been peering along the barrel; another’s chest rippled outward in a red crescent, a moment before blood and flesh sprayed out of the exit wound on his back, splashing in a wide arc upon the limp sail hanging on the mizzenmast.

  “Clear!” shouted Donald.

  Owen didn’t have time for even one encouraging word. “Get us up tight against her aft quarter!” he shouted over his shoulder at the oarsmen as he edged out onto the prow, from whence he gave new orders: “Hooks and spikes. Weapons ready.” He checked the pepperbox in his right hand and drew back the boarding spike in his left.

  “You’re not boarding amidships?” Donald’s voice was doubtful, even above the noise.

  “No time,” Owen yelled back, swinging and sinking his spike into the hull as the barca-longa finally bumped against xebec. “Besides, we’d be between North’s riflemen and the pirates. Not a place I want to be. Now, hooks and lines forward; make us fast, and then-when the sassenach starts the music-up we go!”

  North frowned as he saw O’Neill ready to board the xebec along its starboard aft quarter. It was one of the most dangerous places to board, and comparatively easy to repel. The pirates understood that better than anyone; those who could began flooding back to the stern, weapons ready, savage cries rising up. After having been on the receiving end of so much death and destruction, they were clearly in the mood to begin to reverse the situation.

  But, for whatever reason, Owen Roe, while ready, seemed to be holding his men back a bit. They had made fast a pair of grappling lines, but were taking time to gather and ready themselves, almost as if North smiled. Owen Roe was a wily bastard of a bog-hopper, after all. Yes, the pirates were indeed rushing to the stern to repel boarders. In fact, so many of the surviving corsairs were rushing in that direction, that they were actually beginning to get in each others’ way, bunching up “Fire teams!” North roared down the hill. “Supporting fire for our boarders. Now!”

  Owen Roe O’Neill watched as one of the barca-longa ’s crew perched on the bows jumped high and swung a tethered boarding hook overhand to sink it into the deck of the xebec’s overhang. But as he did, a flat-faced pirate pushed forward; his meaty paw held a hatchet, which was already flashing down.

  Owen’s crewman watched as the flashing blade severed both the tether and his wrist; only a moment later did he scream and fall into the water. Muskets sputtered from behind him; the barca-longa ’s own crew was lending a hand. The offending pirate staggered back, a ball creasing his shoulder, but nothing more.

  Owen gritted his teeth. He heard the pirates massing near the lip of the stern overhang, just beyond where his people could see-and from which vantage point the pirates had a profound advantage over any number of boarders. Well, hurry up then, you bloody Sassenach; can’t you see the target I’ve made for y-?

  A dark round object, leaking smoke and sparks, went over Owen’s head, curving down lazily toward the crowd in the bow of the barca-longa.

  “Grenade!” Owen yelled-and watched as, with near balletic grace, Paul Maczka of the Wrecking Crew reached up and batted it aside in mid air: the weapon landed in the water with a plop.

  And then the fusillade from Punta Maestra began.

  “About feckin’ time,” muttered O’Neill. Then shouting to his boarders: “Go!”

  North, intent on saving every round of true up-time ammunition that he could, did not contribute to the fire that rolled out from the rocky slopes below him and drove down into the mass of pirates, packed tightly into the stern of the xebec. The first ripple of fire was, by pure chance, more of a ragged volley that caused a peppering of dark red bursts across the crowded pirate torsos. As those hit fell bleeding to the deck of the xebec, some tried finding cover, others turned and tried to run away from the press on the poop deck.

  The sharp report of the sniper’s Remington 700 interrupted the flight of the first three that tried to flee back amidships; the ones behind them either dove to the deck or over the rail. Nerve and numbers riven, the pirates fell back from the stern, some now turning about in confusion, uncertain of where to go or what to do.

  Owen heard the decrease in the Hibernians’ rate of fire, the desperate footfalls crisscrossing the poop deck above them without rhyme or reason and knew down in his belly that this was the moment he’d been waiting for. “On me, you cultchies!” he roared at the Wild Geese behind him, and jumped high from the prow of the barca-longa in the same moment that he caught the rail with a swing of his grappling hook and heaved himself upward.

  He half fell on, half landed across, the starboard rail of the overhang. Letting go of the hook and its line, he shifted his left hand to pull himself over the rail in a tight roll. He came up-and there were two pirates already coming at him, their eyes wild and desperate.

  Owen raised the pepperbox, aimed at the chest of the nearest pirate, and squeezed the trigger.

  The front-heavy weapon blasted out a great volume of smoke-and pellets; loaded with a charge of. 27 caliber lead balls, it emitted a cone of death that riddled the first pirate, and nicked the second one, spinning him around with a single hit in the arm.

  Owen smiled as he heard the first of his Wild Geese clambering up behind him, and he drew his sword as the rest of the exhausted and widely wounded pirate crew turned, eyes wide. “Now, you bastards,” he said in a voice that-even to him-sounded more like an animal grow, “let’s be finishing this.” He leaped forward with a shout, the Gaelic war cries of his men following right behind him.

  Thomas North watched the close combat on the deck of the xebec; although still outnumbered about three to one, the six Wild Geese and their leader rapidly drove the remaining corsairs before them. Any who survived their hail of lead and attempted to close found themselves facing fresh, armored troops whose skills had been honed by a lifetime training for, and fighting on the battlefields of, the Spanish Low Countries.

  As the last half dozen corsairs were driven back into the bows, some started dropping their weapons, and began making the strange prostrations of surrender common among the people from the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The gestures vaguely disturbed North, reminding him of the self-abasing postures of supplication that were the expectations of shahs, khans and beys.