Chương 1114: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Twelve

Dear Diary, The more I learn about the fuckin' English Pirates in the here and now, the more I'm kicking myself. I mean, not literally, although I've been a little tempted to do just that now and again. But seriously, if I think about it back in the day, there were always big bad villains out in the world. Commies. Socialists.

'Radical Leftists'. Antifa. The news kept us fully aware of all the scary shit that was out there. Puling things a little closer to home, the Middle East and Cuba were always kind of perennial 'scary places' somehow both full of legions of heavily armed folks who wanted to kill everybody northwest of Key West while also being poor as shit because they weren't kowtowing properly to the corporate overlords.

Look, I only had the basic cable package, it came with the internet connection, and sometimes I was too depressed to turn off the news. Or I was too high to work the controls and they wound up on a news station. Y'know, shit happens. Thing is, I've talked about the basic economics of urban life in economically devastated areas before.

Yeah the news talks about shit like drive bys and gangs and shit like that all the fuckin' time when they need to excuse the latest atrocity from somebody with a badge, a gun, and no sense of restraint or empathy. But I lived in the middle of that, and I know things like 'poor kids who join gangs don't waste ammunition'.

I mean, yeah, they do, but they waste it in the 'can't shoot for shit because they don't have the money to practice actually firing their guns' sense, not the 'pulling the trigger on some rando' sense. If a guy in a gang pulls the trigger, it's usually a business decision.

I know that sounds bad, but honestly if I'd been offed by some motherfucker because he thought I was gonna infringe on his business, that would at least be, I dunno, less offensive than the asshole who offed me because it made his dick hard enough to fornicate with the barrel of his gun. Yeah, wandering a little far afield there. Something, something, something, I got shot in the head and maybe still haven't worked through that particular fuckin' trauma.

At any rate, I knew the bullshit the powers that be were spouting about gangs was ninety percent fearmongering bullshit. By extension, and from the, like, three Cuban people I knew, two of whom were legit immigrants and one who was a 'political refugee', I knew that if Cuba hadn't been functionally blockaded for generations, they'd be doing just fine, and most of their beef with folks on the mainland was because of that fuckin' blockade. Okay, 'sanctions' or whatever they called it.

It didn't take me too much brain power to realize that a lot of the 'big scary enemies' were probably just like that; the folks in charge needed a boogeyman, and nothing makes a better 'big scary monster' than somebody the target audience will never get a chance to talk to.

The longer I've listened to Saffron talk through the Articles of Agreement the little flotilla we'd captured used, the more I've realized that most of what the Atlantean Cities think about the English Pirates comes straight out of the House of Orange. Y'know, the fuckers who got their asses kicked so hard by the English that they had to leave the fuckin' continent.

Don't get me wrong, from what I've seen of these three and what I read about pirates back in the day, they're not, like, moral exemplars or some shit like that. They can and do kill people who try to fight them off. They steal shit, in the 'aquatic highway robbery' sense, but then once they've stolen that shit, they've got a whole assed distribution process for whatever they looted. Some of it is kinda simple, like shares being distributed based on seniority and position, but even there it's pretty level.

I think Anne gets the biggest chunk out of any of the three we've looked at, and it's like, one share on the ships she's not personally on and four shares on her ship. Meaning she gets four times as much as the greenest guy on the boat. Yeah, like I said, I'm not really behind the whole 'robbery on the high seas' part of the deal, and I'm fully against killing people to take their stuff, but the rest of it is pretty solid. Of course, I discovered something today that just blew my already blown mind.

So after Friday night's Revel, where I spent the latter half reassuring Cherry that I would love and cherish him if he never turned another fuckin' trick, he drifted off to sleep muttering, "gotta work in the morning." While smiling. I made sure Karen knew that nobody was allowed to force him into anything, and that if anybody so much as pressured him, I would be Very Put Out.

She seemed a little surprised, not by my position on the matter, but both that he'd thought he had to work or he'd get kicked out, and that he didn't want to. He really does love his job, apparently. He's just not up for working right now, which is fine too. Decided to let the pirates stew for a day on Friday, but only after making sure they had all the supplies they needed. Swanson told me they all got super suspicious about the supplies, but I can only do so much.

I spent the day training out in the Courtyard all shrunk down to itty bitty sized, because I'd been cooped up too long in the negotiations. Dinner wound up being steaks. Okay, the kits and I got steaks. So did Saffron. Siobhan technically got one too, but honestly I think the two of them fed most of theirs to the kits. Because these were big monster steaks, like a pound each, and they're both itty bitty. The kits and Marie nommed them hard, as did about half of the kids. Fortunately, Marie also had a mix of salads.

Egg, Tuna, and what looked to be what I thought of as Caesar salad. Ria liked the egg salad, Maze seemed to enjoy the tuna, and Lindsey definitely nommed the chicken. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. When I asked her about it, she just said, "these chickens were annoying."

"You helped slaughter them?" She nodded.

"You weren't mean about it though, right?" She looked a little shocked.

"Just because they were annoying?"

"Of course not!" I hugged her.

"Good kid. Proud of you." Soaked away the lingering soreness of my workout, then dreamt of my ladies... I'm not sure. Doing taxes? Sitting around with a bunch of, like, account books or some kind of shit like that. As I have noted, Mimic Dreams or not, dreams are fuckin' weird as shit sometimes. When we got back to the Black Dragon, the three Captains were already there waiting. I mean, we hadn't gotten there at the ass crack of dawn, but I still was a little surprised.

Then again, they all had plates of breakfast stuff. Nothing amazing, just sausage, eggs, bread, and I think grits, but they were all still eating after we came in.

"Sorry to keep you guys waiting." Redbeard shook his head.

"Do not be. The one thing... The only thing, really, that I've never enjoyed about life at sea is the food." He took another bite, savoring it.

"I'd ask how you do it, but you've built a ship out of steel. A ship the size of an island."

"Yeah, well. Not exactly built. Not this one. But we'll get there eventually." Saffron nodded, and I got the impression that I'd just given something away.

"We've already recreated parts for repairs. Now it's just a question of recreating enough to put together into a brand new ship." The three Captains all chuckled at that, but didn't stop eating. Eventually, while the two guys were still chowing down on, like, their third plate each, Anne pushed hers away, nodded to the steward, and said, "this was very good." After the steward took the plate and left, Anne turned to me.

"May I ask you a question?" I shrugged.

"I mean, I might check with the Imperator to make sure the answer isn't some kind of state secret, but sure." From beside me, Saffron muttered, "as if that ship hasn't already sailed." But she stroked my thigh under the table while she did, and she smiled when the steward brought her Rich Man's Port cocoa, so I figured it was all good.

"Why?"

"Why what? Why would I check if something's a state secret? Because honestly there are a lot of things I know about that I don't realize everybody doesn't know. I'm kind of a Goof like that." Saffron chuckled into her cocoa. Anne just said, "no, not that, although... No. Why are you doing this? I'm certain your Black Dragon alone could erase our entire flotilla. I'm fairly sure your Tentacles could have bested us as well. I'm talking about the ships, not..."

She trailed off, looking a little disturbed by her memory of me covering the sky with limbs.

"So... Why?" I thought about it for a minute. Kinda played up the fact that I was thinking, so she didn't feel like I was ignoring her or stalling.

"Kids."

"Pardon?"

"I've got kids. We've got kids. A whole mess of them. Love them to pieces. But they're not gonna be kids forever. They're gonna grow up and want to do things eventually. Some of them, I think, are gonna want to do the sailor thing, whether it's being part of the Navy, or working on a merchantman, or, y'know, just sailing around for love of the sea." She smiled kind of wistfully, like she absolutely knew what I meant by that last. Wasn't exactly my thing, but wasn't not my thing either.

I think the Kraken may have rubbed off on me over the past couple years.

"Go on."

"Yeah, well. I'm really hoping that my kids don't have to fight just to enjoy the ocean. Like, even the ones in the Navy. Best case, they do drills and polish the shiny bits of the boat and never hear a shot fired in anger." She snorted.

"Would that we all lived in a world like that."

"You got kids?" I asked. She shook her head.

"A Captain's life is a lonely one."

"Wouldn't have to be." Redbeard's comment was almost too quiet to hear, but Anne heard it anyway and rounded on him.

"Do our holds look full to you?" At that point, more to prevent any kind of bickering, I said, "hey..." I paused, thought, can I tell them we're looking to hire them? Saffron thought for a split second, then nodded.

"Look, we might be looking for some, I dunno, privateers. No saying you couldn't go home with some payment in advance, if you're worried about being able to afford kids." She shook her head, chuckling.

"You've not read the subsections of the Articles regarding relations, have you?" I hadn't, so I shrugged and asked, "like, nepotism, or doing the deed aboard ship. Because that latter one is kinda fun, even if we mostly haven't been able to do it since we got her un-grounded."

"A story for another time," said Saffron, then continued.

"Go on?" Anne just chuckled, then laughed, as both men turned a little red. Like, they weren't up for discussing sex with us in the room or something, I'm not sure. Anne just pulled out the copy of the Articles we'd been using, rolled through it until she got to the section she wanted, and held it out so I could read it. Took me a minute. Legalese is comprehensible to me now, and I'm not sure if it's my Reason or Blend, but 'comprehensible' does not mean 'enjoyable read'.

When I realized what she was showing me, my brain kind of rejected it. Then I reread it.

"This... Everybody signs on to this?"

"Or they find a ship that doesn't include these clauses. Which... I'd guess at least eight in nine do."

"So... Sex between men and women is grounds for loss of share?" She shook her head.

"Only before the hold is full." When I head tilted, she explained.

"Wouldn't want to risk a pregnant woman in a fight."

"Okay, yeah, I get that, but... This other part here, about extra shares for both parents if somebody does get pregnant?" She nodded.

"Of course. A babe aboard during a fight would be even worse, but no one would want one of our own to go hungry back in port."

"Okay, so I get the mom's extra share. But the dad's?" She looked a little shocked.

"Of course. So long as he stays there to look after his child and their mother; if he wants to leave for whatever reason he can buy his way clear for his extra share. Raising a babe is hard work, takes two."

"Or more," added Saffron quietly, and Anne nodded. I just shook my head.

"Not gonna argue with any of that. Just kind of surprised that you've, uh..." I scrambled a little.

"Got it all in writing. I mean, I agree with it, it's a good idea. Just surprised me a little." That was the fuckin' understatement of the year, really. Not the bit about 'no fucking until the job is done'. Although to be clear the Articles specified 'man with woman', so I'm guessing two dudes or two ladies hooking up was fine. But the fact that fuckin' late medieval pirates had not just maternity leave, but fuckin' paternity leave? That shit blew my mind.