Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [24]
“Oh, my,” Picard murmured with admiration.
“He’s going to get crushed!” Alexander said. “He just went right under that thing!”
“And it would’ve been you being crushed if you hadn’t been stopped.”
“I’m not afraid!”
“That’s commendable, but you’re also not strong enough to pull that injured man out of there. You have to use common sense. Sometimes you’re of more help staying out the way.”
“Doesn’t sound very good,” the boy complained. He fell silent and watched as the marine sergeant squirmed under the massive cannon, then reappeared with his arms around the half-crushed sailor. Blood drained from the sailor’s mouth.
Picard winced. He knew a lost cause when he saw one.
A slice of empathy rushed through his chest. Holoprogram or not, this incident had really happened, and those men had really died, or lay moaning in agony until they finally died. Medical science in colonial times couldn’t hope to snatch many back from the maw of death in battle.
“He did it!” Alexander jumped in victory as the Marine shimmied the sailor out from under the cannon.
An instant later, the officers and deckhands gratefully let the cannon dump to the deck. The boom of its weight on the planks sent a shudder up and down the entire ship.
The officers instantly dispersed to other parts of the ship, undistracted by the good deed they had just done.
Alexander, Picard noticed, continued watching the marine sergeant.
The marine was crouched on the bloody deck, holding the crushed sailor as if cradling a child, and he continued to do so, speaking softly and inaudibly over the din of gunfire, until the sailor’s grasping hands fell limp and his frightened eyes glazed over.
Alexander continued to watch, deeply moved by what he saw.
“Starboard gun crews ready?” someone called.
“Ready!” the answer came.
“Hands to the fore course braces!” The shout came from the main deck, somewhere amidships, not far from the discarded cannon. At first Picard didn’t pay attention, but then the same voice shouted, “Mr. Picard, fore braces! Aren’t you paying attention?”
Well, so much for a simple lesson.
He shot a stare in that direction, and saw one of the officers waving at him.
For a terrible instant he glanced around at all the lines, in a panic that he couldn’t remember what a fore brace was and how to work it; then he forced himself to think. The officer had said “Mister” Picard.
And Picard was wearing a blue jacket of the same type as that man. The deckhands were wearing striped shirts, or no shirts at all, dark bell-bottom trousers, and most had bare feet. Picard’s breeches were white, not bell-bottom, and he had shoes on.
Inhaling sharply, he looked toward the nearest bunch of sailors, who were scrambling to ditch some wreckage overboard and secure a cannon truck, and he shouted, “Hands to the fore braces, gentlemen!”
Two of those men jumped forward to the area where Picard and Alexander were standing. “Aye, sir!” one of them responded, then they separated.
They snatched at two lines made fast to belaying pins on opposite sides of the ship. Picard followed those lines up into the sky, into the rigging, and discovered that they were attached to the ends of the long yard from which the biggest forward sail hung.
‘The fore … main,” he muttered. “No … the fore tops’l—topgallant …”
No use. He didn’t remember what that sail was called. It had a specific name, but he couldn’t scrape it up. He could tell that those lines would turn the sail, and could probably turn it almost perpendicular to the body of the ship if necessary. The yard, a long spoke of wood that looked very heavy, wasn’t attached to the mast, but moved freely on its own lines.
The men unmade the lines from the pins, took hold of them, then turned to Picard for orders.
He looked aft. Nobody was paying any attention. Was he supposed to do something?
“Uh … stand by,” he said to the men.
“Standing by, sir,” one responded.
“Prepare to come about!” somebody called—that same officer from amidships.
Picard looked at the men. Oh, well. “Prepare