Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (20 page)

That was eleven days and about the entire width of Africa ago, making our
current position just off the coast of modern day Algeria.  It had been a restful voyage so far with only minor inclement weather, and it had given everyone the chance to relax and settle themselves after the tumultuous past few months.  I’d spent the time doing everything I could to avoid instances that might incite a vision, convinced that even stubbing my toe could trigger one, and I’d been lucky so far.

The rest of my time was spent
performing random ship’s tasks, which included spending as much time with Helena, doing everything we could to enjoy ourselves.  It wasn’t easy, but below deck in our hammocks, we could almost pretend we were on a cruise.  The food wasn’t great, and Helena was having trouble keeping anything down as her pregnancy progressed and the tides picked up, but we made do.  She was starting to show now as well, which was an amazing thing to witness as the days rolled on.  And then there was the best part about her pregnancy: every night, she let me read to her stomach for about half an hour.  In other times, she’d shut me up after about five minutes, but she was willing to allow it now.

With little reading material available, I read Brewster’s high school text book to the kid.  Helena
would fall fast asleep minutes after I started, but I was captivated by the information night after night.  I’d decided to start from the end and work my way backward in an attempt to better piece the puzzle together, and while I still hadn’t found where the timelines had gone askew, I’d definitely learned more than I ever wanted to.  I was only at the 19th Century, but it already seemed like I was reading an alternate history novel.  There was just so much weirdness, one particular fun fact being that the light bulb hadn’t been invented until 1932, and by a scientist in Egypt.

Enough said.

But after a relaxing week and a half, now we were here.

Staring down the business end of an ancient Mediterranean pirate fleet.

About one hundred years ago, Magnus Pompey, the man who would later cross swords with Julius Caesar, rose to power after clearing the pirate infested waters of the Mediterranean of the booty-seeking menace.  He’d done a thorough job, and for the first time, the Mediterranean Sea was relatively safe.  However, that was some time ago, and it wasn’t long before pirates had slunk their way back into the area again.

As I squinted through my scope
, I glassed the dark horizon as best I could, searching for the ships I had been told were coming.  Lookouts from their perch high above had seen the outlines of at least a half dozen ships grouped tightly together out on the horizon, ones that had been following us for days.  The shouts of the crew around me grew louder and I noticed my team setting up positions around the ship’s perimeter.  As the sounds of battle preparations increased, another rancorous sound rolled in from the West.

Thunder.

Just.  Fucking.  Epic.

A few seconds later, accompanied by a flash of ligh
tning, came rain that poured down in sheets.

“Ships
to port!”  Came another yell.

I shifted myself around
through the rain so that I looked to the left, and indeed saw two ships maybe a thousand meters away, but it was difficult to pinpoint because my line of sight was constantly bouncing up and down as the waves picked up.

It was going to make sniper work damned impossible.

I stormed away from the railing and headed for the helm, where shipmaster Gnaeus gripped the wheel in a vice grip.

“Why ar
e they attacking us?”  I yelled, the downpour turning torrential and making it difficult to be heard or even formulate words through the rain in my mouth.

He
spun his head around to look at me.  “This is a merchant ship!  They think we’re transporting cargo!”

It seemed so simple
.

“So you’re
saying we could have avoided this by simply prancing our legionnaires around on deck more often?”

He spit water out of his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a deafening thunder clap that preceded a lightning strike that touched down only a few hundred
meters away.  He turned from the blast and back to me.  “Unless they were stupid!  As you seem to be!”

“Conta
ct starboard!”

This warning came from Helena
as she sprinted past me to join Cuyler at the bow of the ship, where she carefully lowered herself to lay prone on the deck – favoring her left side – and propped her DSR1 sniper rifle on its bipod.  Earlier, Cuyler had sawed off a few of the vertical railing supports that were scattered equidistantly around the perimeter of the ship, allowing them a wider field of fire.  Gnaeus wouldn’t be happy, but he was already less than happy about my own tactical decisions at the onset of the engagement.

I had been at the helm
when the first call came down that we had contacts to port, and I had immediately maneuvered us starboard, away from land, hoping to lose them out over the open water.  What I hadn’t expected was that they were simply driving us toward their friends.  I’d been a hard shooter back home in the Navy, not a naval seaman, and had even less of an idea about naval warfare in the ancient world.  I’d maneuvered us straight into trap, and now our entire flotilla was surrounded.  The other few ships in our convoy hung back but were no less trapped.

Now, we
had no other choice but to drive our ship toward the larger pirate group to our starboard, hoping they concentrated on us, since we had the firepower the other ships did not.

“Gnaeus!”  I called, swaying and lurching with the ship.  “Break starboard!  Head for the pirates!”

“Are you…”

“
Argh, do it ye matey!”  Santino yelled, taking the wheel in his hands and helping Gnaeus turn the ship.

I heard another loud boom from
in front of us, and realized our snipers had already started shooting.  I stumbled toward the bow with my hands shielding my eyes from the incoming rain, slid beside Helena, and placed a hand on her lower back, alerting her to my arrival.

“Hitting anything?
?”  I yelled around the rain.

“No clue!”  She yelled back. 
“But we must be hitting something!  They don’t seem happy!”

I smiled as I looked out over the roiling water
, seeing nothing, but realizing that the superstitious pirates must have thought their dead to have been struck down by Jove himself.

Wang ran up to kneel on the other side of Helena, shielding his own face
with a hand.  “We don’t exactly have the ammunition for ‘no clue’ kind of shooting, you know!”

“Shut up, Wang,” I yelled.  “Let her work
!”

“Go back to playing doctor
!”  She yelled.

“I’ll remember that
the next time you get stabbed.”  He paused.  “Again.”

I winced at the comment
, but Helena reached out and punched him in the ribs.  He yelped and rose to his feet to join Bordeaux and Vincent near the starboard railing, while I heard a shot ring out from Cuyler to my left.  Like the bow canons on a British man-of-war naval frigate in the eighteenth century, Helena and Cuyler continued to deliver punishing shots at the enemy in front of us.

But it wasn’t enough. 
We needed a better plan.  I looked back and scanned the deck, seeing for the first time as dozens of legionnaires in full combat gear assembled neatly into rows, using each other for balance, a centurion barking orders for them to stay in formation.  I noticed Gaius and Marcus among them and left Helena to catch up to them.

“
What’s going on??”  I yelled, listening to the rhythmic pelting of rain striking the metallic armor they wore.

Marcus tilted his head at me, caus
ing his helmet to slip to the side.  He lifted it back into position and ran a hand down his face, fruitlessly trying to wipe it dry.

“Is
it not obvious, Hunter?”  He yelled back at me.

I looked at the legionnaires that held formation beside me
again, but then turned back to Marcus and looked at him with an impatient look.  “
No!
”

“I thought you were a man of history, Hunter
!” Gaius remarked.  “You do know just how well our navies handle themselves, correct?”

Both he an
d Marcus smiled at me.

Of course I knew.  I just hadn’t realized it until now
.  Rome’s navy had been the greatest of its day, but it wasn’t because of any naval strategy or technologically advanced ship.  In fact, their ships were just copies of those invented by other nations, but they were the best because they had adapted their acumen at land based warfare, and applied it to naval warfare.  Their main naval tactic was to pull alongside an opposing ship, drop some kind of anchor to attach the two together, and board it.  They would then let their unrivaled sword fighting do the rest.

Genius really.

I returned their smiles as realization set it, then craned my neck to look over their shoulders to study the enemy fleet formation.  There were four ships dead ahead, two directly astern, and another two off to port.  I didn’t see what else we could do besides get close to the four in front of us, and shoot as many of them as we could before the Romans took care of the rest.  Blood was bound to be spilt on both sides, but that was war, and I couldn’t think of another option.

“Hunter!”  The voice was loud, even over the roar of the storm.  I looked to discover its source, but the
weather kept me from locating it.  I tried again but then gave up, turning back to look out over the water to await the coming battle.

“Hunter!”  The voice yelled out again, but this time Archer came running through the gathered legionnaires in my direction.  I reached out and gripped his shoulder as he came up to me, leaning in close so that we
could better hear each other.

“What?”

“Why are you just standing here?”  He yelled.  “Let’s take them out!”

“Unless you brought a few missiles with you, I have no idea how!”

He looked at me sourly.  “What?  I thought you were a SEAL!”

“Yeah, like five years ago!  I don’t know…”

“Come on!”  He yelled, yanking my arm.

I stumbled after him as he led me to the stairs that led below deck.  Legionnaires stood there, awaiting their turn up top should a comrade fall, and we had to push through them
to reach the ship’s interior.  They slowed us down, but finally we made our way to the lower deck where the rain vanished and I could finally hear myself think again.

I stopped for a second to open my jaw and pop my ears, hoping to dislodge a bit of water that seemed to have gathered there.  It remained stubborn until I tugged on my earlobe and pounded the opposite side of my head with my palm
, and with one last shake, I felt clarity return.

I ran to catch up with Archer, finding
him in our makeshift armory, which was a mess after the rocking ship had knocked down a number of boxes, some breaking open to spill their contents onto the deck.  Archer was digging through one such overturned box, and I found myself growing concerned for his sanity.

“Archer, what are you…”

“Strip, Hunter.”

“What?”

“Strip!”  He said more emphatically, twisting at the waist to glare at me.

I really had no idea what he was up to, but I pulled my shirt over my head all the same.

“I really had no idea you were into me like this, Archer, but…”

“Just shut up, and hold this.”

I’d just unbuckled my belt when Archer threw two small backpacks at me.  I unzipped one of them and peeked inside to find a large explosive.

A p
owerful one.

My pants fell around my ankles
. “Wait… you’re not thinking about…”

Archer shot to his feet and pulled his
own shirt off.  “That’s right, Hunter.  We’re going for a swim.”

He kicked
off his boots and pulled off his pants, and made his way top side in nothing but his compression shorts.  I looked down at my smiley faced boxers and winced.  I’d picked a bad day to wear them.

I ran to catch up.

“Archer, wait.  I haven’t been an active SEAL in over five years.  I can’t go swimming in a storm like this.  And my side.  I don’t have full mobil…”

“Quit your whining,” Archer said.  “You can make it.  Don’t you want to save lives
, or not?”

I stopped as Archer reached the first Romans blocking our way.  I did want to save lives.
  Of course I did.

But like this?

“But I’m going to lose my favorite boxer shorts!”

“Not my problem,” he
yelled.  “Let’s go.”

“I’m going to make it your problem…” I mumbled a
s I pushed through the Romans.

Off to my left, I caught sight of Artie as she was waving to catch my attention.

“What are you doing, Jacob?” She asked, glancing at my exposed lower half then up again.