Chapter Nine
Attack of the pirates
It was just past nightfall on the second night after the Saharan had deserted the Conquer-All that the pirates attacked. Beren, who was just beginning to doze off on deck was the first to see them and sounded the alarm.
“Sweet, bloody, Jesus, hail, Mary, Christ, mother-of-God, Lord, Allah, shoot me in the leg…I think the pirates are coming!”
Below deck Chantel and Julie rushed immediately from their respective cabins to see the commotion Beren was shouting about. In the distance Chantel could see, faintly silhouetted on the horizon, the billowing sail bearing the unmistakable skull and cross bones of a pirate ship. Julie swore a string of so many nasty words Chantel wondered where she had picked up such a vocabulary, being out on the sea for half her life. There was no doubt that the pirates had spotted the Saharan and even in the light emanating from the red rim of the setting sun, Chantel could see that the pirate ship was heading straight towards them. Trying to outsail the pirates would be futile. All that the crew on board the Saharan could do was watch in horror as the pirate ship gathered speed in their direction. With the attack of the pirates now imminent, Beren and Julie erupted again into a row about who was to be blamed for the almost certain capture of the Saharan. Chantel listened to their bickering escalate as the dreaded pirates advanced.
“Thank you once again for getting us into this, Beren. We could be raped, murdered, robbed, or even worse, enslaved! I would say that it’s been nice knowing you, but it hasn’t been. It’s been a nightmare!”
Beren was unrepentant.
“Well if you had mentioned before that there were pirates on these seas that would have been really useful information. But despite being paying customers, you thought it would be okay to just keep us in the dark and withhold secret Julie business from us. Don’t you think we have a right to know these things?”
“You should trust in your Captain. That’s why you hired me. If I didn’t want to travel faster than a snail’s crawl then there was a good reason for it. You should have known that your Captain is here to protect you.”
“Pft! Protect us? My bulging brain cells! Like you care about protecting us! I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some other secrets you were keeping from us, Captain Crock.”
By this stage the pirate ship was in plain sight and Chantel was certain that Beren and Julie’s argument could be heard across the water.
“Oh shut your gob traps both of you. Look, here they come.”
Beren and Julie both surrendered the dispute as a lost cause and looked up to see a fearsomely decked ship, a fraction the size of the Conquer-All, but still quadruple the size of the Saharan rounding around to the starboard side. Even in the disappearing twilight Chantel shuddered at what she could make out of the ship. Enveloped in metallic surfaces, the entire body gave off a menacing glare cast by the reflections of the fading light. Its hull was layered with sheets of patchwork aluminium, giving it the appearance of scales wrought upon a robotic amphibian. A plethora of different metal alloys held together the ship and as the light reflected eerily off the various metal sheets, the pirate ship looked like it was enveloped in a hazy glow. With darkness quickly descending, the ship could easily be mistaken for a mechanical creature floating towards them on a cloud.
As the ship came closer Chantel realised the reason for its speed. The ship was flying like a bird, or at least that’s what it looked like to Chantel. With the ship now pointed forward towards them Chantel could see on either side of the ship extended arms, flapping like wings to a regimented rhythm. These oars directed the boat with precision to the starboard of the Saharan and brought the pirate ship so close, Chantel almost thought that they would be rammed. Instead, just when the pirate ship was almost touching the Saharan, shadowy figures threw down some ropes over the deck of the Saharan and slid down these ropes in silence. Clothed in black, these figures said not a word upon touching the deck and simply raised a laser shooter to each of the three people on the Saharan, gesturing for them to climb the rope and board the pirate ship.
“Well easy for you to climb that with your super human ninja strength I bet. You’ll have to give me some time to build up my biceps before I can get myself up on that thing,” argued Beren, as defiant under captivity as he was in any other situation.
Chantel and Julie abruptly did as they were ordered, leaving the faceless figures to confer about what to do with Beren. When they climbed on board the deck of the pirate ship they found it empty, momentarily.
“Well I’ll be damned, I never thought I’d see you again,” a voice boomed from the darkness.
Chantel heard a distinct groan from Julie, from which Chantel could immediately deduce that Julie knew this person.
“What is this you have brought for us? Fresh meat? You really are too kind. How will I ever repay your generosity?”
“These are good people, not toys for you to play with Condor. Leave them alone,” Julie retorted.
As Julie shouted, a figure stepped out from the shadows.
“C’mon Julie, what happened to the respect? You know that it’s Captain Condor, or rather co-Captain Condor…co-Captain Condor,” the figure smirked.
Chantel could see now that the voice belonged to a middle-aged greying man, around the same age as Julie and just as lithe in figure. Even in the minimal light available, Chantel could see that the man’s face was as lined and hallowed as a train track, furrowed with leathery lines formed under the harshness of the glaring sun. Just at that moment, Beren was bundled on board by the black-clad ninja figures who hoisted him and his wheelchair on to the ship.
“I knew it! You are a pirate,” he shouted accusingly at Julie.
Captain Condor, the man, turned to face Beren.
“She’s not just any pirate. She’s the pirate queen of this ship, the Kazaa. The greatest ship in this part of the world. I have no idea why she abandoned this ship to steer that piece of junk down there.”
“You know very well why, Condor. You know that I’ve put my entire heart and soul into this ship and it broke my heart to leave. But I just couldn’t sit there and watch you use this ship for evil.”
“Evil, schmeevil. Why are you so quick to judge? You are the only one who labels what we are doing evil. I haven’t heard anyone else on this ship complaining.”
“Condor! You are stealing those people’s lives. I simply couldn’t be complicit in that.”
Beren and Chantel watched intrigued as the argument progressed. Julie, their Captain Julie, it would appear was an ex-pirate. Chantel was mortified. She had trusted Captain Julie completely. She had defended her against Beren’s suspicions. To have that trust misplaced made her stomach churn. Chantel suddenly felt like she had been struck by a tidal wave. Beren could not help but give Chantel a slightly smug raised eyebrow, in vindication for his earlier distrust. Beren never could resist the opportunity to give someone the ‘I told you so’. His ‘I told you so’ skills were so advanced he could even apply them in silence.
Suddenly out of nowhere a woman rushed onto the deck and embraced Julie in a humungous bear hug.
“Julie, it’s so good to see you again. How could you leave your Aunty Bessie like that? Without saying a word. We were all so worried about you.”
Aunty Bessie epitomised the image of an archetypal grandmother. With her thinning hair tied up in a tightly knotted bun complemented by an outfit that would not look right on anyone younger than seventy she played the old woman character as fittingly as the logo for a brand of homemade biscuits. Julie reciprocated Aunty Bessie’s affection with a look of contentment that Chantel had not seen on Julie’s face for the entire time she had been on the Saharan. Chantel knew that Julie was home. Aunty Bessie immediately began fussing over her long lost niece-in-law like a mother bear pawing over her cubs.
“Condor, leave her alone for now. Look at her! She must be tired. Let her rest for goodness sake. You two have so much to talk about. You can take yo
ur time to talk things over. Don’t do it out here in front of everyone. Take care of your guests first.”
Captain Condor regarded his ageing relative and sighed. Just like that, Aunty Bessie had diffused the situation.
“Okay, Aunty Bessie. As you say.”
He eyed Chantel and Beren for the first time. His face expressed alarm upon seeing Beren sitting in his wheelchair.
“Lordy, what do we have here? A cripple! Well, well what is your story? A shark attack? Laser shooter skirmish? You don’t see many people like you around nowadays,” Condor queried curiously.
Beren rolled his eyes. He had been grateful that Condor’s reunion with Julie had provided a momentary distraction from the universal attention given to his condition. He knew that it would be too good to be true for such a distraction to be long lived.
“Well if you must know, I was involved in an accident while on the run from the global police,” was Beren’s haughty response.
“No joke!” Condor exclaimed in awe. Being a fugitive from the global police was no laughing matter, as Condor was only too aware. “What did you do?”
“Hacking,” Beren replied abruptly.
“Ah.” Condor raised his eyebrows. “You’ll have to tell me the details later. Sorry to see that it put you in this condition. On the plus side, you must have nice strong arms then, eh?”
“I make do,” Beren said, failing to see the relevance of this comment.
Aunty Bessie chipped in again to save the day.
“Come on now everyone. Let’s get something to eat. It’s time for dinner and lucky for our guests, I’ve cooked up a feast! Some sixth sense must have told me that our dear Julie would be joining us again with these lovely guests. Come,” she gestured to Chantel. “Let’s get some food into you. Look how skinny you all are.”
That night was the strangest night Chantel had ever had in her life, up to that point. She was certain that if she had been given some fore-warning that embarking on this voyage would involve being kidnapped by pirates en route to Lagos she would have thought twice about leaving her life in Sydney behind. As it turned out, these pirates didn’t seem so bad, or so Chantel thought. She could definitely think of worse things that might have happened to her on her journey.