It was still dark when they dragged me out of bed.
I was awoken by hard knocks on the barrick walls, followed by a voice telling me Captain Vale wanted me at the eastern dock immediately. I'd assumed she wanted to start our training arc together, and you know, at first I'd slept like absolute shit, but these powers have been a blessing; every night ends up being perfect.
"With me, Voss."
Terrible sentence to give someone like me before bed. So by the time I made it down to the docks, I was wearing a fresh uniform, with a tight jaw and my sabre at my hip, which completed the fit. I was already in a fired-up mood. That lasted right up until I saw what was waiting there.
Three Marine patrol boats. Each one, manned, armed, and moving quickly, and standing at the front of the nearest one, one hand resting lightly on the rail, was Captain Vale.
It was still early dawn, so Shellstown's harbour sat in some darkness and fog, where everything looked colder than it really was, and as the sea rolled black beneath the lanternlight, out past the mouth of the harbour, I could already see the reason we were here.
A pirate sloop.
It wasn't an especially large-looking one, but it was definitely fast-moving, riding low against the tide. Two masts with dark sails, yet no real markings I could make out from here. It was already trying to turn away, but the other two patrol boats had moved wide on either side of it, pushing it back toward open water where there'd be room to trap it properly.
The whole thing clicked into place in my head all at once.
Did she want me to join then? Fuck yeah!
That was so much better, it almost made me forgive the ungodly hour.
I stepped aboard the nearest patrol boat. Captain Vale turned slightly as I approached, getting off the railing. Her coat shifted in the wind, yes, I see the fit, Vale.
"You're late," she said.
I looked out over the water. "By what, ten seconds?"
"Seven." She studied me for a second, then glanced toward the pirate ship. "Last night might have been stupidity, luck, or something useful. Let's find out."
Well, at least this is a step up from continuous sparring, some real action you know. The patrol boat surged forward beneath us, cutting across the dark water with two others fanning out wide. Ahead, the pirate sloop was making a desperate attempt to slip the net before it tightened. Men were moving over its deck in a rush. One of them shouted something I couldn't hear over the waves.
Vale drew her weapon in one smooth motion. A cutlass, I stared at it for maybe one second too long, and she noticed.
"Focus," she said.
"Yes, Captain."
God, I hated how much I liked being told off by her.
…I need help.
Anyways, one of the Marines near the bow raised his rifle and fired. The shot cracked across the water. It went wide, then another Marine on the boat to our left fired a second later, and this one punched into the pirate vessel's railing, sending splinters into the air.
From there, all hell broke loose. The pirates answered with pistols from behind crates and coils of rope. A Marine beside me took a shot through the shoulder and dropped against the rail, cursing, before our patrol boat slammed into the sloop's starboard side. Wood cracked as the grappling hooks caught, and Marines scrambled across the gap while the two vessels pitched against each other.
Captain Vale took the lead before the boats had even fully settled against one another. She was over the rail and onto the pirate deck with no hesitation. The first pirate barely got his blade up before she cut across his throat.
Holy shit! I was not prepared for that!
She cut straight through the men trying to stop her. An axe struck the boards where she had stood a moment earlier; its owner went down with her cutlass beneath his ribs. By the time I climbed over the rail, the pirates nearest her were backing away, and she was already advancing on the next group.
I was stuck in my head right now. I knew I'd see death at some point, and I've never killed anyone before; I mentally slapped myself. I needed to lock in, or else it'll be difficult to maintain my image as 'the strongest' if I can't handle it.
A pirate with a heavy knife rushed me. I caught his wrist and drove him backwards into the mainmast hard enough to shake the rigging. He dropped among a tangle of loose rope, and the two men behind him stopped short, suddenly less enthusiastic about their chances.
Another came from my right. It smelled like piss and old beer. He roared as if that helped.
He swung at me, and I shoved him hard in the chest. He went straight over the rail, disappearing into the sea, then surfaced a moment later, coughing and swearing.
I glanced toward Vale again. Three pirates had crowded her near the stern, and she was holding all of them off without giving ground. I was still watching when a knife scraped across my side from behind, cutting through my uniform and skin before I could move clear.
The cut stung as I caught the pirate by his collar and drove him into the railing. The post cracked under his weight, and he folded to the deck without another word.
"Keep your eyes on your own fight, Voss."
I turned. Vale had not even looked at me when she said it, as she was too busy taking a pistol from one pirate's hand by cutting two of his fingers off.
"Yes, Captain," I replied, then ducked a wild swing.
The remaining pirates retreated toward their captain as Marines from the other patrol boats poured aboard. Their captain shouted for them to hold the stern, but the first man to raise a pistol at me lowered it again when I walked toward him. A few weapons hit the boards after that. Their captain kept fighting until three Marines wrestled him down.
The whole fight couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes in total, and as cliché as this may sound, it felt much longer, but then it was over. Just like that.
The surviving pirates were dragged to the centre of the deck one by one, some bleeding, wrists bound behind their backs with coarse rope. There were seven left alive. Their captain was among them, a hard-faced bastard with a split lip and one eye swelling shut,
A couple of our men were injured. Nothing too serious from the look of it. One had a cut on his arm. Another was limping. One poor bastard had taken a pistol shot through the shoulder and was trying very hard to look tougher about it than he actually felt.
It seemed I hadn't adapted to the cut yet, so it was still there, but again, it wasn't life-threatening. Captain Vale stood in front of the prisoners with blood on her blade and almost none on herself.
That felt fitting.
The wind tugged at her coat. The deck rocked beneath us. Sunlight had finally started breaking properly now, turning the horizon pale, and in that light, the pirate captain lifted his chin and spat a string of blood onto the boards near her boots.
She looked down at it, then back at him.
"Name," she said.
He grinned through ruined lips. "Eat shit."
I leaned back against the rail, breathing hard, still wired from the fight and honestly feeling pretty good. This, I could do. Raiding boats. Beating the fuck out of people. Real shit, you know?
Vale took one step closer to the kneeling captain.
"Name," she repeated.
He laughed this time, then coughed halfway through it. "You know what I am, bitch. That's enough."
Captain Vale tilted her head just slightly, as if reconsidering whether he was worth the air he was using. "Six weeks raiding our coastal traffic," she said. "Fishing boats, supply launches, two merchant skiffs. A family vessel on the east line."
The pirate captain's grin faded a little.
"You dumped three men overboard alive because they resisted," she continued. "You sold another four to slavers operating further south."
That got a reaction out of a few of the Marines.
The pirate captain sneered. "Should've sold more."
Captain Vale nodded once. That was when I assumed she'd gotten what she needed. You know, for the report. For prison. For whatever dull, boring legal process the Marines were meant to pretend existed before locking people in cells forever.
Instead, she raised the cutlass and drove it straight through his throat.
For a second, I genuinely thought I'd imagined it.
He jerked hard against the rope, eyes blown wide, blood flooding down over the front of his shirt and between the boards at his knees. Vale pulled the blade free in one clean motion and stepped aside before he toppled.
I stared. Captain Vale looked at the nearest Marine.
"Execute the rest."
For a moment, I thought I'd heard her wrong. Apparently so did he, because he hesitated.
"Captain?"
Her expression didn't change.
"I am not repeating myself."
The Marine swallowed loudly.
Vale's eyes shifted slightly. "Or would you rather guard their cells until they're back at sea?"
A pirate started begging.
There's something deeply unpleasant about hearing a man go from snarling animal to desperate human in about half a breath. He couldn't have been much older than the captain. Nasty-looking, sure. Blood on his hands, if Vale was telling the truth, and I had no reason to think she wasn't. Still, tied up on his knees, voice shaking, he was a prisoner now.
Captain Vale stepped forward and cut him down herself.
Across the neck, and the others followed.
Not all by her hand. Some by the men. Some cleanly. Some not. One pirate tried to crawl. Another screamed. One cursed the Marines until steel shut him up. Blood ran in dark lines across the deck grooves, mixing with the seawater washing over the boards.
I did not move.
What the fuck is going on! I'd wanted real strength. Real action and a real chance to grow. Captain Vale had given me that before sunrise and then, just like that, shown me the bill attached to it. The sea rocked the ship gently. The executions ended. Bodies slumped. Ropes hung loose. The men started moving again, quieter now, dragging the dead and checking wounds and avoiding looking too directly at the blood pooling at their boots.
Captain Vale wiped her blade on the dead captain's shirt and sheathed it. Just like that. Like none of it had required more effort than sorting paperwork. She turned then, and her eyes landed on me. I must've looked off, because one brow shifted almost imperceptibly.
"Something to say, Voss?"
There were about forty things to say, and none of them was smart.
"I thought we were taking prisoners."
A few of the nearby Marines went very still again.
Captain Vale held my gaze for a second, then walked toward me across the blood-slick deck until she stopped close enough that I could smell salt, iron, and that clean, sharp scent she always seemed to carry under everything else.
She waited, but I had nothing more to add.
She glanced past me, out over the water toward Shellstown. Morning light had fully broken now, washing the sea in a flat grey-blue. Civilian boats would start moving soon. Fishermen. Supply hands.
Then she looked back at me.
"Our prisons fill, Voss. And sooner or later these men are back at sea with a new flag and another knife." Her voice stayed even. "Dead pirates raid no one."
I looked at the bodies. That was, technically, very hard to argue with. She seemed to read the thought on my face and decided to make it worse.
"If you object, grow strong enough to build a better world. Until then, this is the one we have." Then she stepped past me and started issuing orders for the return to port. Just a single answer and the expectation that I'd either live with it or take it like a good boy.
Which, to be clear, I did not appreciate.
I stood there for another second, staring at the deck, at the dark blood washing slowly toward the scuppers. Yesterday, Captain Vale had been a scary, competent superior officer with a sharp stare. This morning, she was still all of those things.
Unfortunately, she was also something else. Something a lot less good, and the worst part was that none of it made her seem weaker. If anything, it made the opposite problem a hell of a lot more dangerous.
I exhaled slowly and looked out toward Shellstown as the patrol boats began to turn back toward the harbour. Corrective training, apparently, had started the second I stepped on deck.
And I had a very bad feeling the lessons weren't over.
…
End of Chapter!
Word Count - 2207