Blackjack Wayward (The Blackjack Series) Read Online Free Page A

wasn’t where it should be, in front of his face and beneath his nose. Instead, this creature’s mouth was under its jaw, just beside where the Adam’s apple would go on a man; dripping beside it were some sort of feelers or whiskers that that looked like they were used to help him eat. His hands were also strange, ending in rows of barbells that made it almost impossible for him to grasp anything. Instead, he carried a clear, rounded crystal that he held out to me.
    He mumbled a meeping noise that came from under his chin, and the only word I could recognize was ‘Brackshock,’ the same old Shard World bastardization of my super name. I expected the crystal to light up or something, but it did nothing, and after a few seconds, the newcomer just pocketed it and motioned to me saying my name again, as if verifying it once and for all. The captain smiled, rushing the space between us and grasping my shoulders with deceptive strength.
    “Brackshock!” she shouted, joined by the others in applause and blandishment. The captain took one of my arms and raised it high in victory, yelling my name again.
    And that’s how I joined a space pirate crew.

Chapter Two

    They brought me onboard the Black Ship, and I called her that because I couldn’t decipher the scrawled language on her stern. Above the illegible name were the five windows of captain’s cabin adorned with a long ribbon over and around the windows, and two red stars. Beneath, where there would normally lay a tiller on an earthbound sailing ship, was a battery of thrusters and engines, some small and others large, that supplemented the ship’s forward speed.
    The black ship was an anachronistic representation of a 17th century sailing ship, squared-rigged and lay out like a brigantine straight out of Earth’s history. Yet there were obvious differences, like masts and sails. She had a fore, main, and mizzen along the centerline of the ship, but each individual mast split into two just a few feet above the deck, looking more like overgrown slingshots. The rigging of each mast was attached to its neighbor with chains and the sails draped continuously along the twin masts, maximizing the surface area. Another difference was her hull, painted black and lacquered to a high polish, and up close I couldn’t discern the edges in the planking. Could the entire hull be carved out of one gargantuan piece of wood?
    I wanted to stop and look at everything, absorb each detail. Especially those thrusters. I wanted to talk to whoever worked with them, but I remembered one of the basic axioms from my first trip: in Shard World, you didn’t ask questions.
    The Black Ship lay close-hauled to an eddy of wind, the effect of which was to keep her relatively still in space. They couldn’t just drop anchor when there was no sea beneath them. Despite the oddness, the ship was a thing of beauty, with a brass figurehead adorning the bow just beneath the bowsprit; though she may have lacked the distinctive edging of the plank work, her bow was etched with a swirling pattern, as if waves were crashing on her sides. A dozen men worked the rigging, though the Black Ship only sported topsails, with her main and mizzens lufted away on their yards. We came alongside on the small launch, attracted to a magnetic docking port that we settled into with a sudden lurch.
    The captain was the first to come aboard, barking orders to her crew as she hopped over the gunwale to the main deck with grace and agility one wouldn’t expect from such a large creature. The ship was alive with activity, with aliens of all sorts rushing to the rigging, crew swabbing the deck, and yet more of the pirates painting just about every nook and cranny aboard the ship. Others stowed ropes and rigging or brought them forth from the holds below.  A carpenter and his assistants worked over the stairs up to the quarter deck, forcing the captain aloft to the rigging to reach the wheel. At the tiller was an octopus-like