Free Dark Resurrection by James Axler Page B

lovely ladies have been assigned a separate cabin for your comfort and privacy. Each stateroom has its own toilet and sink.”
    Doc bristled at the idea of their being split up. It grievously complicated what they had to do, which was take command of the ship by force, and quickly. As they were still in chains and controlled at blasterpoint by the pirates, whether he liked it or not there was nothing to be done about it.
    While Doc, Jak and J.B. waited in the corridor, Mildred and Krysty were ushered into a room on the right by the female whitecoats and three of the pirate guard. As the doorway was blocked by the male bodies, Doc couldn’t see what was going on inside. After a few moments, the whitecoats and pirate guard came out. Dr. Montejo pulled the door shut behind him and shot the slide bolts, top and bottom.
    As if there was ever any doubt, Doc thought, this, too, was a prison ship.
    Then Dr. Montejo opened a door on the left and waved for them to enter.
    Doc stared into a low-ceilinged, windowless steel box, roughly ten by eight, illuminated by a pair of caged light bulbs. There were three built-in bunks along the left-hand wall, and a sink and a low, lidless toilet on the opposite side.
    “Beats the rowing bench all to hell,” J.B. said.
    The pirates roughly pushed them into the small room.
    Dr. Montejo ordered the connecting chain removed, but left their ankle and hand manacles in place.
    Jak shook his wrist chains in the man’s face. “These?” he said. “Like to wipe own butt.”
    The whitecoat addressed them with open palms, in solicitous, dulcet tones.
    Doc translated for his Spanish-challenged comrades. “The good doctor deeply apologizes for the continuing security measures, and assures us from the bottom of his heart they are only temporary. As soon as everything is secure, the ship will be leaving Veracruz, then we will have much more freedom. He says he knows we must be hungry and we will be fed shortly. After that, we will receive a complete physical examination and our wounds will be properly dressed.”
    The smiling Montejo and the scowling pirates backed out of the cramped room. The door slammed and the locking bolts clacked shut.
    “Trust no whitecoat,” Jak said. “All lying fuckers.”
    “You’ll get no argument from me on that, dear boy,” Doc said. “I’d just as soon see them food for crows, dangling by their overstretched necks from every incandescent light pole…”
    “Shh,” J.B. said. “Listen…”
    They could hear heavy boots moving around on the deck above. Then the sound of the gangway being winched in.
    “Count ten, mebbe more, not sure,” Jak said.
    “If the rest of the bastards got off the ship, our odds are looking better,” J.B. said. “How many bodies does it take to crew a tub like this? When the time comes, how many are we going to be up against?”
    “If memory serves,” Doc said, “even a skeleton crew to run a ship this size would be seven or eight sailors, not includingthe captain. That would be the minimum, and it would entail hard duty for all around the clock.”
    The ship’s auxiliary diesel engine started up with a rumble. There was a burst of shouted orders from the dock. After a moment, the heavy mooring lines thudded onto the deck above the companions’ cell, and then the vessel slowly backed away from the dock.
    “Where they take us?” Jak asked.
    “Where do they think they’re taking us, you mean?” J.B. corrected him.
    “South,” Doc said. “My guess is it has to be south, deeper into Matachìn territory. I can’t think of a reason for them to want to ferry us back north.”
    The time-traveler took a seat on the edge of the bottom bunk and stared at his own blurred reflection in the polished metal wall. Looking closer, he noted that its surface was covered with crude graffiti. Proper names. Obscene phrases in Spanish. Obscene cartoons. All apparently scratched into the soft steel with the edges of handcuffs.
    Wherever they were