“A little chat?” Hearnah asked, hands aloft.

  “It sounded better in my head.” The lieutenant replied, “And this idea sounded better in my head, too. Still, we’re going to wait here.”

  As he said this, the marine walked around the room, never letting his gun aim anywhere but the pirate. He bent over and down, looking for something. Eventually, he found something satisfactory, a small claw hammer, which he used to crack open a small hole in the hull, near the stern. He took out a pouch, and then unsealed the bottle that was in it. Immediately, it stank to high-heaven, its incorrigible stench barely contained by the cork.

  “Alright, little one.” He said, taking out another item - a round marble called a returning stone and giving it to the raptor that landed on the hole. Then, he took out his superior officer’s smelling patch, and let the little devil have a whiff.

  “Now, we’re gonna wait.” Henrique said, “The admiral will be here soon.”

  “I can pay you,” Hearnah said, with something almost like desperation in his voice, “You get paid, what, five, six dollars a week? I can give you twenty dollars, right now, if you leave.”

  “I don’t do this to get paid.” The soldier, with an offended tone, said, “I do it because criminals like you deserve to be behind bars.”

  “A moralist, huh?” He asked, “Then at least you won’t deny me a last smoke of my pipe?”

  Henrique nodded, unaware of what a grave mistake he’d just made. As soon as the pirate started smoking, the smoke expanded, filling the room and obscuring the soldier's view. In response, he fired blindly, missing the pirate as he dashed out of the door.

  “Oh, fuck.” Henrique complained, waving away the smoke from his face as he followed the captain out the door. The deck was busy with, well, deckhands, although at their captain’s warning, they had all trained their guns at the door. As the marine stepped out, he ducked down, letting three of the crew miss him completely. He pulled out another two pistols from his coat and took down the two remaining gunners, leaving it as him against three men, all unarmed.

  “Come on, then.” One of the men taunted, and for some reason Henrique felt supernaturally compelled to oblige. He did so, dashing forward, but his formal training with the sword prevailed; the deckhand swung wildly overhead, leaving his flank exposed to be run through.

  The other two hesitated for a second, and that was all that Henrique needed to slice the first one’s neck and drive his sword through the second one’s gut.

  A musket shot rang out, and the lieutenant wiped some blood from his cheek; it had merely grazed him. Before the symphony of gunfire could signal his doom, though, he kicked over a small bundle of crates tied loosely with rope, and used it as impromptu cover. He reloaded his three pistols, but he was outranged and he knew that the second he popped his head out, he’d be shot. So, thinking on his feet, he used his gift on himself to muffle the sound of his gun. What was not muffled, however, was it ricocheting off the hull.

  “Huh? What was that?” One of the pirates said. This preceded all of them turning their heads simultaneously, a gap which the soldier used to dive into the water.

  Enough time had passed for the admiral - that is to say Jones, since he was nearer - to show up. For such a large man, he proved impossibly quick, dashing over the gangway in the blink of an eye, leaving behind an afterimage composed of thunder.

  He was, less than a second later, mid-deck, and had used his strength to pick up one of the deckhands, hurling him by his locked wrists in a sort of hammer throw at the quarterdeck.

  “Lieutenant!” He shouted, hoping for an answer. When he didn’t get one, he flexed his arms over his stomach, and discharged a great deal of lightning - arcs glimmering in the air for mere microseconds before they fizzled out after striking a pirate or two. “Henrique!”

  “Here, sir…” He panted, barely climbing the ladder up and dragging himself onto the deck. Once there, he flopped with a thud, exposing his bleeding leg, “I must not have noticed it earlier.”

  “Can you walk?” Jones asked.

  “No.” Henrique replied.

  “Alright then,” The admiral said, handing him one of the muskets, “Try to keep watch up here. I’m going below.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” The lieutenant asked, “The others should be here soon, right?”

  “Maybe, but by then, maybe the dignitary will be moved.” He replied, taking off for the lower deck.

  Upon coming down, he was accosted by an eerily tall, ghostly white woman with long, dark hair. She let out a terrible wailing noise that forced Jones to kneel and clutch his ears on instinct. Before long, another crewmate, a beetleman with a large horn came up behind him (for, being partially a beetle, he was deaf) and used the horn as leverage to scoop up the admiral and knock him on his ass.

  Then, once the marine was on his back, the beetleman started stomping on him, wailing blows upon his slimy form. Before long, however, he regained his faculties, leaping to his feet and grabbing the pirate by the horn with both hands. Then, with great effort he hurled him over his shoulder, throwing him at the screaming woman. Said beetleman’s horn pierced her, causing her to stop screaming and await the inevitable as Jones grabbed the two of them by the back of their necks and shocked them.

  Jones groaned, rolling his shoulders - more men were approaching him, and he knew they would just be burning his time. Luckily for him, however, the other four marines he chose had arrived as backup, taking on the adversaries here.

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  “This better be the last deck.” He groaned, hands on the railing.

  Before he could make it down though, he was stopped by something. Some invisible force was trying its best to eject him from the ship, and he only managed to fight back by holding on the railing. Most likely one of the senior officers was using their gift, but at the moment, with how dark the lowest deck was, he couldn’t exactly fight back.

  Just as he felt his hand slip off the banister, something broke through the hull, letting a little bit of light in. It wasn’t quite enough to see, but a second, and then a third, and then a fourth breach was made. The cause became apparent soon enough - Rosary kicked through the wood that had become fragile in the wake of the holes, soaring into the ship with the elegance of a bulldog.

  “I’m ready for you this time, asshole.” She said, as she too felt the effects of the man’s gift trying to propel her out of the ship.

  She let her aura cloak her defensively before she leapt forward on one foot, knocking the paralyzer down with one solid blow to the head. “Jones!” She shouted, looking to her first mate, “Go find the minister! I’m going to thin their numbers a bit.”

  He briefly considered that maybe Roserie herself should do it, but whatever, orders were orders. Strangely, though, the lanterns were being lit as he approached the forecastle. Even more strangely, he only had to beat two more swabbies before he reached his destination.

  “Ah, shit.” He said. There were seven of the minister, a Mrs. Martine, and all of them were bound, shaking in fear as a gun was held to their head by a different pirate each.

  “Don’t move, catfish.” One of them said. None of the ministers could speak, “You don’t know who’s the real one, do you? You won’t make a noise until we’re off the ship, if you want her alive.”

  With no other choice, the admiral relented. All of the various pirates and ministers exited right past Roserie, who was currently grinning ear to ear, more interested in fighting the remaining pirates than actually rescuing the person she was here for.

  Eventually though, she was done. She still didn’t see any of the three she wanted to - the captain, the younger man she’d had as prisoner, or the kitty-cat that she’d similarly had as prisoner - but alas. Then, she noticed it was strangely quiet, as though all the fighting had stopped.

  “We need to go, ma’am.” Jones said, grabbing her by the shoulder, “They’ve left the ship.”

  “Left the ship?” She asked, indignant.

  “They seemed to have duplicated the minister, or managed to disguise themselves as her -” He elected to ignore her rather rude tone, “There are eight pirates, and eight ministers in tow.”

  “Fuck!” She shouted, “Agh! I bet they all split up too. Have the most senior of them get the injured back to the Cannon. The rest, and us, will split up.”

  “They’re all injured, ma’am.” He responded, trying not to express his own trepidation in reporting it.

  “Alright then, can they walk?” She asked, groaning when she saw that Jones shook his head, “I didn’t want to make this a military operation. I should’ve just brought more. Alright, you’re responsible for getting them back.”

  “Aye, then.” He responded, trying to figure out the logistics of collecting the fallen sailors. At least three could walk, so he only needed to haul two of them onto his shoulders.

  A few minutes after all the soldiers had left, and a few minutes even after that, four figures fell from the ceiling. They were Hearnah, Jeyro, Parkna, and a final, large armed man who was covered in some sort of sticky substance. He had spread his arms and legs such that he used the friction of his extremities against the support beams to suspend the four of them. They all landed in a heap, getting filthy in the process.

  “Ugh,” Parkna tried to clear herself off, her nose was crinkled, “This smells… terrible.”

  “Don’t judge me -” The goopy man replied, his joints creaking in complaint, “I haven’t drank much water recently.”

  “I don’t even want to imagine what you could mean by that.” Jeyro said, “So how long are we going to wait for the swabbies to come back?”

  “We’re leaving now.” Hearnah replied, “You three assist the carpenters, we need to sail in the next ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes?” The younger man bit back, “What are we in such a rush for? You heard the fat fish, only one of them is chasing all sixteen of them.”

  “Sixteen?” The captain asked, “No, fifteen. Oh, don’t give me that look -” He huffed, “If we didn’t give them back the woman we would’ve been followed to the ends of the earth. At least this way we have some time.”

  “Still, fifteen, sixteen, it doesn’t matter.” His ward argued, “She’s one woman.”

  “Ten minutes is a generous assumption.” The older man, at this point was mostly ignoring him, he had gone starboard, and, opening one of the portholes, came to see that there was still a chain attached where it should be. He wrapped it around the lever just on the inside of the porthole, and started cranking it back. Eventually, the chain gave way to a collar, by which a mermaid - barely alive with how withered it was, and certainly less than lucid - was attached.

  “What?” She asked, blearily. She was, truth be told, not even in the right mind to understand where she was, let alone to whom she was speaking, “What’s happening?”

  “In ten minutes, we need to leave.” Hearnah warned. His tone made it clear he would brook no argument, “If you want to eat again, you’ll get us as far away as you can as soon as I tell you.”

  —

  First minute after pursuing the pirates:

  Roserie took off in a dash, leaving a cloud of dust behind her as she did so. So powerful were her footfalls that the cobbles underfoot were cracking as she ran. After thirty seconds of not finding anyone, she changed strategies - instead of running on the ground, avoiding colliding with and probably injuring innocent civilians, she leapt into the air, mantling onto a nearby rooftop to scan from there.

  “Aha!” She said, spotting one of the targets. She ran until she was at pace with them, and leapt down to the street below. He couldn’t even turn around, let alone get their threat out before the admiral had knocked him out cold. As Roserie went to offer her assistance to the minister, their appearance turned out to be a sham, whatever mechanism by which a pirate was replaced by the dignitary fell, and then he tried to pull a gun, which was obviously a bad idea.

  “One down.” She sighed, jumping up onto another nearby rooftop.

  The second fell similarly, bringing her total time since leaving the ship up to ninety seconds. The third gave her slightly more trouble, having hid in an alleyway, but she made use of her whip, and its fleshy pink tendrils, to lift them on the roof she was one before clobbering him.

  “Just my luck.” She dusted her hands off mid-chase, “Not the first, second or third one I find.”

  In the third minute, she found the fourth, and drop kicked him from behind, finding yet another faker. Before she could be too annoyed, the universe had provided her a rare spot of good luck, and the fifth made himself visible. He had the good sense to threaten the “minister”’s life, but he was outmatched when the admiral stomped the ground, destabilizing the stone base enough for him to fall over.

  “Three more.” She said, cracking her neck. As one might guess, the sixth one, who was able to blend in decently well with a crowd of people, was swiftly dealt with and his subterfuge revealed.

  Six minutes in now, she realized that the whole time she had been led further and further away from the pier, which was probably their intention the whole time. Regardless, she had a job to do, and near a fruit stand she found her seventh, and final fraudulent, target.

  At last, and by now she was seemingly tiring, huffing from exertion having to run hither and thither, she stood in front of the final pirate. She had a fleeting suspicion that perhaps all of the ministers were fake, but prayed against hope that such an event wasn’t the case.

  “Just let her go.” She said, a deadpan expression on her face, “You can leave.”

  The deal was evidently good enough, as the final pirate ran, and true to her word, she didn’t pursue him.

  “Are you alright, Mrs. Martine?” She asked, helping the woman to her feet (for she had been thrown to the ground in order for the swashbuckler to make his escape).

  “Took you long enough!” The dignitary said, “Nearly five months I’ve been on that ship.”

  “My…” She grit her teeth, “Sincerest apologies, ma’am. Let’s get you back to my ship, we can contact the Cartesian authorities from there.”