The Navigator

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

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  This book is a work of fiction. All events and dialog contained herein are purely fictitious. All characters, with the exception of certain well-known historical and public figures, are products of the authors’ imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical and public figures appear, the situations, events, and dialogs concerning those persons are fictitious. The inclusion of certain historical facts is not intended to change the fictitious nature of the book.

  Copyright © 2018-2019 by Erin Michelle Sky & Steven Brown

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Please address all such requests to inquiries@trashdogs.com.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944292

  ISBN: 978-1946137098 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1946137036 (hardcover)

  ISBN: 978-1946137043 (trade paperback)

  Cover art by Benjamin P. Roque

  Cover layout and interior design by Jordan D. Gum

  Ebook design by Dawson Cosh

  Edited by Lourdes Venard

  Trash Dogs Media, LLC

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  Carrollton, GA 30117

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  For everyone

  who has ever forged ahead

  against all odds

  very good story begins with trouble.

  This is the one kind thing that might be said for trouble, as it is a nuisance in every other regard and best avoided. But Wendy Darling is already in a good bit of trouble, whether she realizes it or not, and things are about to get much worse.

  Trouble number one: Wendy is exceedingly pleased to have made her way aboard The Dragon, but Captain Hook does not appreciate her presence. He is itching for an excuse to place her or any of her friends in irons. This includes John, Michael, poor Reginald, Thomas (the Royal Society fellow), and even Nana, the monstrous Newfoundland dog.

  Don’t think Hook is above placing a dog in irons, because he is not.

  Trouble number two: Wendy is being treated as the navigator by the first mate, who happens to be her dear friend, Charlie. No one else in Hook’s crew wants her to hold such an important position. There is a good bit of grumbling about this belowdeck, where you might not hear about it, but where it has the ability to fester.

  Unfortunately for the crew, Wendy is the only one who can be the navigator because the magical compass only works for her. But if you have ever tried to argue logically with an angry mob, you’ll know that it isn’t helpful.

  Trouble number three—

  Well, let’s watch together as Wendy discovers it for herself.

  She is standing on deck next to Charlie, who has the helm. She is wearing a pair of men’s breeches—dark brown—tucked into her tall, black boots, with a white linen shirt and a cream-colored waistcoat. This is a bold choice for a seventeen-year-old woman in the year 1790, but Wendy is a sailor now and prefers to dress the part. She wears her sword at her left hip, with a brown leather pistol holster strapped to each thigh. She has a larger holster strapped to her back, so her musket would peek over her left shoulder if it were present. Sadly, it is not. All three of her guns are locked away in the ship’s armory. Hook is the only one who carries a gun aboard The Dragon unless the ship comes under attack.

  (If you had ever seen the crew drinking and carrying on—which does not happen every night, but often enough—you would understand this policy.)

  Wendy holds the compass in her left hand as she stares out to sea. The rest of her platoon is scrubbing the deck under John’s direction. They are not regular members of Hook’s crew, and this is the only shipboard task they are qualified to perform. Besides which, it amuses Hook to watch them perform it.

  Wendy feels like she should be scrubbing the deck too, out of solidarity. But she also remembers the cruel taunts of Mortimer Black and the strange song that has haunted her ever since that eventful day some seven years ago.

  If women ever sail the sea,

  They’ll scrub the decks for men like me!

  They’ll marry none but Davy Jones,

  And for their children, only bones!

  As you can imagine, she would prefer not to scrub the deck if she can help it, no matter how guilty she might feel over having managed to avoid it.

  As for Nana, she is sitting calmly by Wendy’s side, not at all bothered by the fact that she has been excused from the scrubbing detail. And Thomas is hovering just behind Wendy’s left shoulder, his hair appearing even more wild at sea than it did in London. He stares at the compass in fascination every time she opens it, as though each instance of its operation is a brand new miracle.

  “Astounding!” he says. Or, “Marvelous!”

  So now we’re all caught up, and this is how things stood when Wendy opened the compass yet again, reassuring herself for the hundredth time that their course had not altered. Only this time, Thomas said nothing at all.

  Startled, Wendy glanced over her shoulder, only to find him staring up at the crow’s nest, high over their heads. She followed his gaze to see the lookout holding a spyglass to his right eye, staring intently off to starboard (which is how Wendy, having been trained in nautical terminology, thought of the right side of the ship.)

  “A sail!” the lookout shouted. “A sail!”

  Immediately, Smee—the bo’sun (who hated Wendy perhaps more than anyone)—whistled several sharp tones through the silver instrument that hung around his neck.

  “Alert,” Charlie said. Wendy nodded, holding her breath.

  Suddenly, the lookout whipped a blood-red flag straight to the top of the mast, and the ship exploded into life.

  The bo’sun’s whistle sounded again, and sailors shouted to each other, sprinting across the deck.

  “What?” Thomas exclaimed.

  “French,” Charlie said between clenched teeth. “They’ve seen us. It’s the call to man the cannons.”

  Wendy’s hands fell uselessly upon her empty holsters. “My pistols!” she exclaimed.

  Charlie nodded. “Go now. While you can. I won’t have you unarmed if we’re boarded. Find Nicholas. He’ll make sure you get them.” He said nothing more, but the look he gave her as their eyes locked sent shivers of fear down her spine.

  For the first time since she had left London, Olaudah Equiano’s warning came back to her—as clearly as though he were speaking it now, directly into her mind: “There are worse ways to live, Miss Darling. There is a price to changing one’s destiny.”

  Wendy narrowed her eyes and her lips tightened into a line of steel, the hidden kiss in the far corner disappearing altogether. She clasped Charlie’s shoulder and held his gaze just a moment longer. Then she sprinted off to join the throng of sailors making their way belowdeck, with Nana racing faithfully behind.

  endy found Nicholas in the captain’s quarters, but Hook was already giving the boy orders of his own, having nothing to do with Wendy’s pistols.

  “She’s going to run. Signal The Cerberus and The Tiger to chase her down. We’ll catch up once they engage. I want that ship!”

  “But …” Wendy said quietly, and then she trailed off, not really having meant to say it out loud.

  Nicholas paused and glanced her way, but Hook raised his eyebrows and thrust his chin at the door.

  “Aye, sir,” Nicholas barked, and he scampered out.

  “But what, Miss Darling?” Hook leaned back against the captain�
��s table and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Wendy squared her shoulders and met his gaze, but she said nothing.

  “But chasing French ships isn’t our mission?” he prompted her.

  “Well, it isn’t,” Wendy agreed. That was exactly what she had been about to say.

  “On the contrary. Chasing French ships is always our mission. I do not keep my commission by standing around in a London office staring at maps on the wall. I capture French ships and send them home.”

  “I see.” Wendy placed her hands on her hips and then dropped them to her holsters, tapping her fingers meaningfully on each one. “Well, Captain, if we are to engage the French in a sea battle, I would prefer not to be unarmed. Charlie sent me to get Nicholas, to escort me to the armory.”

  “Oh he did, did he?”

  “He thought I might need some assistance, or at least a proper introduction. After the way I was treated by the quartermaster in London,” Wendy reminded him sharply, “I thought it a reasonable suggestion.”

  “You won’t need the assistance because you won’t need the arms,” Hook countered. “The Tiger and The Cerberus are both faster than The Dragon. They’ll make short work of that ship before we even get there. And in any event, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “You’re … what?”

  “Like it or not, Miss Darling, you are a target. Englishwomen fetch a fine price in certain parts of the world, and I won’t let that happen on my watch.” He paused, offering up a slow, wry grin. “Not even to you.”

  “I can take care of myself.” Wendy’s left eyebrow drew itself up to its full height, daring him to say otherwise.

  “Hmm. Be that as it may, I am ordering you to remain by my side until further notice. Do I make myself clear?”

  Wendy ground her jaw back and forth and locked eyes with him for a long moment before responding.

  “Aye, Captain,” she finally said. He was the captain, after all. It was the only thing she could say in response to a direct order.

  “Excellent.” He smiled, but the light of it never reached his eyes. “Follow me, Miss Darling. It promises to be a fine show, and we shall have the best seats in the house. I do enjoy a good tragedy.”

  They made their way through the ship and emerged, blinking, beneath the midday sun. Only a few white, puffy clouds in the distance marred the perfect expanse of bright blue sky above the endless sea. Hook raised his spyglass to his left eye and turned it toward the hunt, but Wendy didn’t need a contraption to see what was obvious. The French ship was under full sail, doing its best to flee, but The Cerberus and The Tiger were gaining on it.

  The Cerberus was a Portland-class ship of three full-rigged masts, with square sails just like The Dragon and fifty guns to her name. She was smaller than The Dragon, but faster—roughly the same size as the vessel she was trying to chase down. The Tiger was smaller yet. She was a survey ship of only ten guns, with a mere hundred crewmen. Designed for speed, she was already ahead of The Cerberus, but she was staying carefully out of range of her quarry. She wasn’t about to take on the larger ship until The Cerberus could join the fight.

  They watched in silence as the scene played out, the two British ships slowly closing in on the third. Just as The Cerberus was coming into range, Nicholas rejoined them, weaving his way through the crewmen who stood by on deck. The Tiger was already in position on the starboard side of her prey, just out of range of the cannons, and The Cerberus moved in on the side opposite, flanking the French vessel.

  When The Cerberus finally opened fire, Wendy gasped.

  “No!” she cried, her voice almost lost amidst the raucous shouts of the crew.

  “Perhaps now you see why the fairer sex has no place on a fighting ship, Miss Darling,” Hook commented.

  “What? Oh for heaven’s sake, look up!”

  Hook was still looking through the spyglass, focused on the details of the battle, so he hadn’t seen what was obvious to everyone else.

  Frowning, he removed the glass from his eye and then uttered a half-strangled yelp. A ship was hovering above The Cerberus, just below the distant clouds—a three-masted, full-rigged fighting ship, almost as large as The Dragon herself. A flying ship. And a line of everlost stood shoulder to shoulder along the rail, firing their muskets onto the helpless crew below.

  Hook stood impossibly still. “It flies,” he whispered.

  “I told you it did,” Wendy reminded him.

  “It flies,” he repeated.

  “I told you it did,” Wendy said again.

  “IT FLIES!” he shouted. He exploded into motion, his coat sleeves snapping as he pointed this way and that, roaring out commands. “All men to arms! Man the cannons! Get us into range!”

  His arms dropped to his sides, and his forget-me-not eyes locked onto the flying ship in the distance.

  “Captain,” Wendy prompted him, but he didn’t respond.

  “Captain?” she tried again.

  He turned his head toward her and grunted incoherently, but his eyes never left the everlost.

  “My guns, Captain?”

  Hook nodded, once, obviously still distracted, but that was enough for Wendy. “Nicholas?”

  The boy tore his own eyes away from the spectacle and glanced at her.

  “I need you to take me to the armory. To make sure I am properly armed for whatever comes. Do you understand?”

  Slowly, his gaze came into focus. He blinked several times and then nodded. “Aye, ma’am. I’ll take you.”

  He headed toward the ladder that led belowdeck, with Wendy and Nana following. But every few steps he looked back over his shoulder, until he could no longer see the sky.

  he entire ship was in an uproar.

  “A ship that flies!”

  “The everlost are helping the French!”

  “She flies!”

  The flying bit was no surprise to Wendy, but why was Peter protecting the French vessel? Had the everlost and the French been allies all along?

  Her mind raced with the implications.

  Peter had given her the compass. He had told her to give it to Hook—and to use it to come find him. Then they had encountered a French ship, located directly along their course. They had chased it, and Peter had been waiting, ready to ambush them.

  He had been using her. Ever since he had learned she was at Hook’s estate. He had been using her to get to Hook all along.

  She didn’t want to believe it, but what other explanation was there?

  By the time they reached the armory, Wendy was fuming. The quartermaster took one look at the raw fury in her eyes and handed over her weapons and ammunition without comment.

  Wendy and Nicholas emerged back on deck just in time to see the flying ship tilt wildly and open fire with her cannons on The Cerberus. The everlost took to the air like a swarm of hornets dislodged from their nest, but they soon reorganized themselves, lining up to balance on the far edge of the ship’s airborne hull while the battery tore into the ship below.

  Wendy tried to find Peter in the mayhem, but she was too far away to make out any face in particular. And soon enough her gaze was torn from the distant figures by the sickening crack of The Cerberus losing her mainmast. She watched in horror as it parted near the bottom, tilted slowly, and began to fall. The men below scrambled to avoid the timbers that slammed into the deck, and then a second crack signaled the end of the foremast.

  The barrage of cannon fire finally ended, but the damage was done. The everlost surged over the side of the flying ship, firing their muskets from midair. Wendy watched as one after another pitched backward through the sky. At first she thought The Cerberus was firing back, but then she realized it was just the recoil of the everlost’s own weapons. The men of The Cerberus were being slaughtered.

  With only one mast left and the entire deck in chaos, The Cerberus wasn’t going anywhere. Which meant that The Dragon was finally catching up. Fast.

  Hook started barking orders.


  “Pay attention to her height! Get in range of that hull! Blast her out of the sky!”

  Wendy couldn’t help but wonder whether damaging the hull would do any good. Could you even sink a flying ship? But of course, they had to try.

  Peter must have recognized that Hook was gaining on them because his ship turned broadside toward The Dragon.

  They’re going to fire on us! Wendy realized.

  Peter had given her the compass, and it would only work for her. He had to know she would be on The Dragon. Somehow, even in the middle of a sea battle, Wendy had still expected him not to fire on her.

  That was the last straw.

  Wendy reached over her shoulder and snatched her musket from the holster strapped across her back. She didn’t know what good she could do with it. She had seen Peter both shot and stabbed to no real effect. But she wasn’t about to give up. Not without a fight. She loaded the weapon and waited for them to come into range, but she never got the chance to fire a single shot.

  The cannons on Peter’s ship spat out another barrage of destruction.

  “Take cover!” Hook shouted.

  “Get down!” Nicholas echoed, and he all but pushed Wendy back through the hatch. There wasn’t time for both of them to get through, and she watched in horror as Nicholas threw himself flat onto the deck.

  Michael! John! Charlie! Wendy had no idea where any of her friends were—only Nana was there with her, by her feet as always and barking like mad into the confusion. But the cannonballs screamed harmlessly overhead. The everlost weren’t aiming for the hull. They were aiming for the masts, just like they had with The Cerberus.

  Disabling the ships, not sinking them, Wendy suddenly realized.

  Maybe Peter was trying to protect her after all.

  Another barrage soared through the sky, and this time both the mainmast and the mizzenmast split in two. There was no slow-motion teetering, no chance to dodge the falling timbers. The masts just exploded in the middle, the top half of each crashing down sideways onto the deck below.

  And just like that, it was over. The Dragon fired a parting volley, a multitude of explosions so loud that Wendy felt them in her entire body, but the cannon fire didn’t come anywhere close to hitting the flying ship. It had risen high into the sky as soon as The Dragon was disabled. Wendy could only watch as it hovered above the fleeing French vessel, escorting it away.