788. Chapter 788

After The Third Man

Episode 2.14

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Arrgh, matey. I don't be ownin' Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Author's note: This is a sequel to The Fifth Bullet.

Doctor Richard Castle stood on the quarterdeck of the pirate ship Revenge and tried to fathom what had happened to him and his daughter in the two weeks since he had been captured pirates.

"Father, what are you thinking of?" His redheaded daughter Alexis approached him as he stared over the starlit Caribbean Sea.

"How odd the world is." He replied.

"Just odd in general, Father?" Alexis said with a smile.

"No. How odd our lives have become. We've been captured by pirates. Normally, I would have thought that to have been a quick route to the bottom of the sea with a cut throat."

"That will not happen to us."

Castle nodded. "I admit that Captain Beckett and the crew of the Revenge are like no pirates I've ever heard of. Captain Beckett is a lady of intelligence, breeding and education. She became a pirate because Governor Bracken, a man I would have assumed to have been beyond reproach, murdered her parents because they were about to expose his corruption and evil doing to good King George. Now she seeks revenge."

"No, father. What she seeks is justice. As do her crew. They are all men who have been wronged by Bracken and turned into outlaws through no fault of their own."

Castle sighed. "And now we have joined them. I am their ships doctor and you have become, in effect, the ships navigator. What a brilliant daughter I have."

Although Castle could not see it in the dark, Alexis blushed furiously. "I have studied navigation in conjunction with my hobby of astronomy, Father. Celestial navigation isn't that hard."

"But I regret involving you in this. I follow Captain Beckett willingly because I believe in her cause. Should anything happen to this ship, I would accept my fate. But I am wholly sorry that you would now share that same fate."

"Father, please do not think that because I'm of the fairer sex that I'm incapable of feeling the same fine feelings you do."

"Never, Alexis." Castle looked up at the stars and judged the time. "We should go to sleep."

Below, Captain Kate Beckett leaned against the open window of her cabin, having heard every word the Castle's spoke. A single tear slid down her cheek.

The next morning they came upon a longboat under sail that headed directly towards them.

"The fool is making it easy for us." Growled Javier Esposito. "He's headed straight for us. We'll take him easily, although there'll be little of worth in such a small vessel."

But the sharp eyes of his Irish friend, Kevin Ryan, knew better. "There's value beyond measure in yon craft, Javier. For it carries the love of my life, Jenny O'Malley."

Ryan was right. The longboat came alongside and Jenny boarded the ship.

"What happened?" Ryan called, throwing his arms around her.

"Yes, what is it?" Captain Beckett asked.

"Spaniards under El Diablo, Capitano Jeraldo Lockwood, an English renegade who's taken service with Spain, raided Dr. Perlmutter's plantation. He killed poor Dr. Perlmutter most barbarously, stolen all of the slaves and the sugar the doctor had for market. I barely made it away with my life."

"Which way did Lockwood sail?" Beckett asked.

"Towards Panama and home." The lovely Irish lass replied.

Beckett thought for a moment, then smiled. "If it's loaded down with loot, his ship, the Cacafuego, will be sailing slowly. We can catch him, I hope." She turned to her new navigator. "Alexis, I need you to plot me a course to Panama." Then she turned to her new ship's doctor. "As you will not take a human life, you should go below to the cable tier when the fight starts."

Dr. Castle shook his head. "No. I can save no lives from the cable tier. I'll stay with you."

That night, as the Revenge bore towards Panama, Captain Beckett had Dr. Castle join her for dinner, something that she had done with increasing frequency. After dinner, they shared a bottle of port wine.

"Richard, I should like to ask you again to remove yourself to the cable tier below the waterline when the battle starts." She blushed and looked away from him." I find that I have become very fond of you. I should hate to have something happen to you."

"And I have grown fond of you, too, Kate. And if something happens to you, I want to be there with you. As your doctor I feel I need to be."

"Just as my doctor?" She asked in a low voice.

Castle stood and went to her side. "I want to be more than that."

"Show me what you want."

He leaned forward and kissed her, slowly and gently at first, but then with a fierce passion.

"Captain Beckett!" Ryan called, pounding on her cabin's door.

Kate cursed under her breath. "Do you always have to interrupt us, Ryan?" She muttered. Then in a commanding voice, "What is it, Ryan?"

"We've spotted the stern lamp of a ship ahead of us. It must be the Cacafuego, just where Miss Alexis said it would be."

Kate stood up and grabbed her sword and pistols. She turned to Rick. "Dawn comes early in these latitudes. There is much for me to do before the battle." Then she leaned in and kissed him. "And much to do after."

As dawn began to break, the crew of the Revenge could see the Cacafuego ahead of them. "She wallows like a barn in a flood." Ryan said grimly.

"Better yet, we have the weather gauge." Captain Beckett said.

"The weather gauge?" Castle asked.

"We're upwind of the Cacafuego, Father, and so can maneuver with the wind. And choose the time of attack."

"I knew that." Her father replied.

"Oh?" Captain Beckett said, raising an eyebrow.

"No a clue, actually."

Meanwhile on the Cacafuego, Captain Lockwood was trying to get his ship ready for battle, a task made difficult because much of the sugar they had stolen had been turned into rum by the late Dr. Perlmutter, and his crew was recovering from an epic bender. Lockwood lashed about him with a whip, which is very butch, but not an accepted practice in the best management books.

Captain Kate order her long twelve pounders run out and trimmed the sails to run down on the Cacafuego before the other ship was ready to fight. At the last minute, she turned and presented her port battery to the stern of the enemy ship. The Revenge fired down the length of the Cacafuego, doing great damage. Only the Cacafuego's two sternchasers were in a position to fire back, but fortunately, the crews of the two guns were too drunk still to fire.

Then disaster struck. As the Revenge sailed parallel to her enemy, Cacafuego's mainmast, riddled with cannon balls, fell. The mast smashed into the Revenge, providing a perfect bridge for the Cacafuego's crew to swarm aboard the Revenge, and they did just that.

As Captain Beckett ran towards the boarders, Rick ran with her, drawing his rapier. Being careful to only wound his opponents Rick fought side by side with her. Then she found herself facing El Diablo himself. Although El Diablo didn't have Kate's skill with a sword, he was taller, stronger and had a greater reach than she did. Slowly he forced her back.

Rick tried to help her, but found himself fighting the Spaniards and unable to disengage. Just as he wounded his last opponent, he saw a Spaniard aim his musket at Kate's heart. Without thinking he drove his blade through the Spaniards own heart. He turned to help Kate, only to see that El Diablo, the dreaded Captain Lockwood, had a yard of Kate's steel through his chest.

But still the pirates came at the crew of the Revenge. Kate found herself standing between Rick and Alexis. "There are too many of them. All we can do is show them how brave men and women die."

No sooner had she spoken than a mass of black slaves rushed from the hold of the Cacafuego, led by their dusky, and quite buxom, Queen. They grabbed any weapon they could and attacked the Spaniards. It was bloody, but the fight was soon over.

As Castle bound up the wounded, Kate approached him. "I saw what you did. Kill that man, I mean. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Later, perhaps. I find it doesn't bother me as much as I thought. He would have killed you."

She knelt beside him, leaning in close, her lips inches from his.

"Captain Beckett!"

"Yes, what do you want this time, Ryan?"

"We've found documents in El Diablo's cabin. They prove that Governor Bracken has been smuggling weapons to the Spaniards to use against us."

She put her hand on Rick's shoulder. "Perhaps now I can get closure."

"Whatever you do, Kate, I'll be with you."