Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [31]
"But that tilts the deck into them!" he noted. "Isn't that worse?"
Tibby laughed. "No, we can stand a lot of direct hits on the superstructure. Messy, but it won't sink us or drive us out of control. A shot below the waterline that got between two watertight hatches might send us to the bottom, though." He turned to face them. "Better take cover, you two. It could get nasty around here. I have to get to my command station in the auxiliary bridge."
Mavra nodded and then said, "Come on, Joshi. We'll be no good later on if we're in bloody pieces."
He was reluctant to leave; he wanted to watch the battle. However, he never questioned her judgment or common sense. He went.
"They're angling bow into us, Captain!" shouted the lookout. "Looks like we got a fight!"
"Trim sail completely!" ordered the captain. "I'm going to let the current carry us back into the fog. Hard port! Man stern bridge!"
The sails came immediately down; at the same time, the Trader turned slowly to present the least profile to the challenger. It also started to move slowly backward, at the mercy of the southern current now.
"All aloft, below!" the captain yelled, and everybody, lookouts included, got down fast and went to their stations. Large barrels of water were made handy to wash down the cannon deck. Torches were lit.
The cutter, seeing their maneuver, had matched it. The same current that carried the Trader would carry it, and as long as both were current-propelled, the big ship could not make any speed on the little one.
There was a bright yellow flash and a boom from the foredeck of the cutter, and a smoky plume rose from its bow, then angled toward them.
"Steady as you go . . . steady . . . steady . . ." the captain murmured. They had now turned completely around, bow away from the cutter, the captain on the stern bridge. The smoke plume looped, started to come down.
"Hard port, now!" yelled the captain.
The ship's massive rudder turned under heavy, trained muscles, the chains that controlled it groaning and the masts swaying as it suddenly turned to present its profile.
There was an explosion about thirty meters out, a tremendous blast as the rocket hit the sea in front of them and struck the surface at a velocity sufficient for spring-loaded detonators to ignite.
Fragments of metal ate into the ship even from that distance, but it was a clear miss, and nothing flew but a few splinters.
The cutter turned sharply now, so that it was apparent that they had only two launch tubes, bow and stern. In the time it would take them to get the stern tube in position, they would have to present a brief but inviting broadside to the Trader.
The second mate, who was in charge of the gun crews, waited his moment. Then, suddenly, for a brief period of time, both ship's sides were parallel.
"Fire all guns!" he shouted, and immediately bright-burning torches were touched to fuse holes in the rear of the cannons. There was a repetitive series of explosions that shuddered through the ship as sixteen cannon shots went off in series.
They were short. Though great plumes of water rose all around the cutter, and it looked as if the smaller craft had been completely destroyed, as the water calmed, it became clear that none of the missiles had come within fifty meters of the attacking craft.
The Trader continued to turn, bow now facing the pursuer's stern. The exceptionally strong current allowed the smaller craft to close, but, with the cannon-washes from the salvo, it wasn't any easier to turn than the much larger vessel.
Ordinarily the Trader would accept such a challenge and engage at a fixed distance circularly, ship-to-ship, but the cutter's rockets gave it added range, and the captain dared not let it come in too close. That was frustrating; the rocket mines obviously had a greater range than the Trader's cannon,