Pirate of the Prophecy

by Jack Campbell

  Fortunately, she wasn’t dependent on the Mechanic weapon. In addition to the dagger at her belt, she kept her cutlass loose in its scabbard, ready to be drawn.

  “Jeri,” Captain Mak said. “You don’t have to lead the boarding party.”

  “Yes, I do.” She smiled at him. “It’s part of showing everyone that I’m someone.”

  “You can get hurt. You can die.”

  “I know.” Jules flexed her legs. “It’d actually be safer to go barefoot than to wear these boots.”

  “You have to look the part, Jeri.”

  She held the revolver in one hand and drew her cutlass with the other, standing next to the railing as the wind whipped at her. “How’s this look?” Jules asked.

  “Dangerous,” Mak said. “Any young men on that ship will be eating out of your hand.”

  “Maybe one of them’ll be cute,” Jules said, turning to look at the other ship as it strained to escape, spray flying about its bow. “Don’t pirate girls get to love ’em and leave ’em?”

  “If they want to live that way,” Mak said.

  She heard the note of disapproval, of concern, in his voice that he couldn’t quite hide, and turned to grin at him. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’ll be a good girl as I run my cutlass through anyone who resists and help ransack that ship.”

  He smiled at her. “You do need to set a good example for that daughter of your line.” Coming closer, Mak nodded toward the other ship. “Don’t get so far ahead of the others this time. You want shipmates on either side of you, protecting you at the same time that you protect them. Are you sure you want the Mechanic weapon in your hand? You could drop it.”

  “I need to have it ready to use,” Jules said, looking down at the deadly object. “If it’s at my belt and not tied in, it might fall out. And if I’m holding it the people we’re facing will see it and not put up as much of a fight.”

  “I can’t argue with your reasoning,” Mak said. “Blazes, Jeri. Be careful.”

  She gazed back at him, serious, and nodded. “I will be. Captain, I have to do this.”

  “I promised to let you decide,” he said. “Go get that ship.”

  Jules slid her cutlass back into its scabbard and went down the ladder to the main deck, where most of the crew were gathered. Most already had cutlasses in hand, but some held lines with grapnels on the end to hook over the rail of the other ship. Ang and Liv gave her somber looks, unhappy with what she was doing, but she wouldn’t let fear keep her from being who she had to be.

  She climbed up, balancing on the rail facing the other ship, one hand gripping the nearest shrouds. The boots offered only a precarious balance on the top of the rail, so Jules held tight to the rigging with her free hand. The Sun Queen corkscrewed through the bottom of another swell, bounding up the other side to the crest, her bow hurling out a cloud of spray that pelted Jules. She squinted at the other ship, seeing a line of defenders at the rail, naked blades in their hands. The ships were only about twenty lances apart now, the distance shrinking rapidly as the Sun Queen closed from aft on the other ship’s port side.

  Jules leaned out, shouting against the wind. “Heave to and yield! We’re coming aboard!”

  She heard the reply shouted back at her. “We’ll see you dead first!”

  “Better than you have tried!” Jules yelled. Feeling a strange exhilaration mixing with the fear that had her heart pounding faster, she turned her head to call to her own shipmates. “Come on, ladies and sirs! Let’s show this lot how real sailors fight!”

  Sailors of the Sun Queen came to the side in a rush, some balanced on the rail and holding onto the rigging, others poised to leap up and over. Jules watched the gap between the ships shrinking fast, the Sun Queen still overtaking so that their bows were nearly even as the distance between the two ships dwindled to nothing and hulls grated together with the groan of tortured wood.

  A few moments before the impact Jules had let go her hold on the rigging, balancing as she yanked out the cutlass again. As the two ships struck she let the force of the collision help toss her over the rail of the other ship, her cutlass held in front of her, broad blade held flat across her chest to catch the swords of the defenders as she leaped into their midst.

  She knocked aside one sword blade, barely turned a second before slamming into the two sailors holding those weapons, knocking them and her to the deck. Rolling to one side, Jules got to her feet, the Mechanic revolver clasped so tightly that her hand ached. She got the cutlass up again just as another blade came at her, the impact of cutlass on cutlass causing Jules to stumble backwards, the ring of clashing metal in her ears and her hand stinging from the force of the blow.

  The Sun Queen had rebounded from the glancing blow and was swinging back to make contact again, another wave of boarders waiting to jump and join Jules and the others who were fighting with the defenders in an intermingled mess of bodies. Fortunately, the other ship’s crew were all fitted out in neat, identical outfits, making it easy to tell who was friend and who was foe.

  Jules parried the next attack, getting her feet firmly set, and rammed her cutlass’ guard into her opponent’s stomach. As he reeled backwards, another defender thrust at her with a short sword. Jules twisted aside and beat at the defender’s blade, but as she tried to swing her cutlass up the ship rolled, the deck tilting under her so that Jules staggered back against the rail. Her foe, in the act of raising his sword to chop at her, over-balanced as the deck tilted and fell against her, pinning her to the rail.

  She swung up the pistol and hit his head with it, dazing the man and giving her a moment to position her leg and knee him hard. As the ship rolled back, the deck tilting the other way, the man stumbled backwards, bent over with pain.

  Jules brought her cutlass grip down on his head, taking him out of the fight.

  She looked for a new opponent, seeing defenders grappling with pirates on both sides of her before the ship twisted over a swell, causing the crowd of defenders to part momentarily as everyone sought firm footing.

  Through the gap, Jules saw someone in the suit of an Imperial official near the quarterdeck, pointing toward her. A big man in full legionary armor who’d been standing next to the official responded by charging straight at her, a short sword in one hand and a shield in the other. A quick glance to either side told Jules that she was hemmed in by other combatants, leaving no room to dodge the assault except by diving backwards off the ship. But if she stood and took that charge, the big man in armor would slam her back against the rail hard enough to break her bones.

  She’d resolved to save the Mechanic weapon for an emergency. This seemed to qualify.

  Jules raised the revolver, pointing it at the charging foe, her finger on the trigger, wondering what aside from a very loud noise would happen when she shot the weapon.

  The legionary was almost on her, his shield held like a battering ram, his sword raised to chop down on her. The end of the revolver was nearly touching the shield when Jules pulled the trigger.

  The boom of the weapon blanketed the other sounds of fighting. The weapon bucked in Jules’ hand, shoving it back with surprising force, just as the shield hit her and she yielded to the attack, ducking under it and letting the shield and the legionary behind it roll over her and slam into the rail at her back.

  Jules came up again as fast as she could, her wrist aching from the force of the Mechanic weapon, but her cutlass held ready for the legionary’s next attack.

  It took her a moment to realize that no one was fighting. Instead, everyone was looking at her with varying expressions of shock, surprise, and on the part of the Sun Queen’s crew, elation.

  The legionary tried to get up, rolling to his side. A hole was visible in his shield, another in the armor covering his torso, red blood spilling out. He lay, staring at her with a bewildered expression.

  Jules raised her revolver into the air. “Who wants to be next?” she shouted.

  Blades hit the deck as the defenders drop
ped them, holding out empty hands, the triumphant sailors from the Sun Queen rounding up their prisoners.

  Jules walked toward the quarterdeck, revolver in one hand and cutlass in the other. “Do you yield?” she yelled at the captain of the ship.

  The captain seemed to be having trouble believing his eyes. “Who are you that carries the weapon of a Mechanic?” He looked about as if searching for Mechanics with her.

  “Jeri of Landfall,” Jules said.

  “Where did you get that weapon?”

  “I have friends. That’s the last question about me that I’m going to answer. I’m going to give you one more chance to answer mine. Do you yield?”

  “Will you spare my crew?”

  “You have my word.”

  The captain reversed his sword, extending the hilt toward her. “On your word, Jeri of Landfall.”

  “Wait,” someone else cried. Jules looked, seeing the man who’d ordered the legionary to attack her. This close she could see the fine quality of his Imperial suit, speaking to both his wealth and status. His eyes studied her, amazed. “That’s her! The one the Emperor seeks! Your name isn’t Jeri. We know your true name, pirate.”

  “Then speak it if you dare,” Jules said, holding the revolver up. “No?”

  The captain gazed at her with a different sort of surprise, extending his sword hilt again. “I yield the ship to you, Lieutenant.”

  “Good,” Jules said, ignoring the use of her Imperial rank. What next? “I also need you to yield your money chest and the key to it. Show this man your cargo manifest,” she added, pointing the tip of her cutlass at Ang. “Get enough of your crew in the rigging to furl your sails.” She looked over at the bleeding legionary. “And this man needs a healer.”

  “He failed,” the man in the suit said, glaring at the legionary. “The healer is in my employ and will only aid those honorably wounded in the fight.”

  Jules shook her head. “I said I’d spare the crew. You’re not part of the crew. You’ll have your healer help him first or you’ll need the assistance of that healer yourself.”

  The tone of his reply held the same arrogance as that of the Mechanics when they’d spoken to her. “You wouldn’t-”

  She’d been forced to endure that from the Mechanics.

  Jules held herself still, realizing that she’d moved in a flash without thinking, her cutlass blade pressed against the neck of the official in the fine suit, pressed hard enough for the edge to draw a trickle of blood. The official stared at her, frozen in fear. “Go ahead,” Jules said. “Finish what you were saying. What? I can’t hear you.”

  She stepped back from him. “The healer. Now. I won’t ask again.”

  As the Imperial official frantically waved a middle-aged woman into motion toward the fallen legionary, Jules turned her back on him, walking away. “Ang, could you keep that guy away from me?”

  “Sure.” Ang eyed her. “Was that really an act? It sure was a good one. You even had me believing that you were about to shove that cutlass halfway through his neck.”

  “Yeah,” Jules said flatly. “It was an act.”

  The money chest proved to have a substantial sum inside, even considering that they’d have to split it with the Storm Rider. Most of the cargo proved to be salt blocks harvested from the waste to the west of the southern reaches of the Empire. Valuable, but heavy.

  “Who does the work?” Jules asked, feeling uneasy as she gazed at the rough blocks that had been hewn from mines. “Cutting these out of the ground?”

  “Felons,” Ang said. “You never heard where the salt on your table came from?”

  “We didn’t get much salt in the orphan homes,” Jules said. “Remember? Where’s Captain Mak? Why haven’t I seen him yet?”

  “Still on the Sun Queen.”

  “Why? Doesn’t he usually come over to supervise looting the captured ship?”

  Ang had the expression of someone eager not to be caught between duelists. “Captain Mak told me, and Liv, to inform anyone who asked that you are the captain of the Sun Queen.”

  Jules brushed by him, going to the rail to look over at the Sun Queen’s quarterdeck. “What are you doing, Captain?” she yelled across.

  “Following orders, Captain,” Mak yelled back. “I think following orders is important.”

  “So is understanding them. What am I doing?”

  “What your new allies want you to do. We want them to be happy, right?”

  “How much of this salt do you want us to send over? Liv’s supervising the rigging of some tackle to lift blocks over to the Queen.”

  “Keep sending it over until we tell you to stop!”

  Feeling like the “captain” should be supervising things, Jules set out to check out everything on the captured ship. She almost immediately saw the healer wrapping up a cut arm on one of the defenders. “Where’s the man I shot?”

  The healer looked up, her face hard with anger as she looked at Jules. “He’ll live. We need to get him to one of the hospitals in Landfall, though, to ensure he recovers fully.”

  “Good. What are you mad about?”

  “People who attack other ships and give me far too much work to do.”

  Jules nodded to her. “If I was still serving the Emperor, I’d be doing the same thing, wouldn’t I? Only I’d be doing it to add to the fortunes of people like your employer.”

  “Is that how you justify theft and murder?” the healer said as she worked on the injury.

  “Yes,” Jules said. “Where’s the injured legionary?”

  “Over there by the foremast. You can gloat all you want. He’s too weak to hurt you.”

  Jules crouched down to look directly into the healer’s eyes. “I fought him when he was at his full strength. And I let you speak like that to me without doing anything to you in response, even though I could have. Remember both of those things.” Without waiting for a reply, she stood up and walked to the foremast.

  A pallet lay next to the foremast. On it was the legionary, stripped of his armor and weapons, his upper torso naked except for the bandage the healer had wrapped tightly around him. Jules hadn’t had time to really look at him before. He had strong features and a thin beard, even looked a little familiar. Maybe she’d met him during her training in Imperial service. His torso was well-enough proportioned and muscled to remind her of her joking comment to Captain Mak about finding a cute guy on the captured ship.

  Jules knelt by the pallet. “How are you, soldier?”

  The man’s eyes moved to rest on her. This close, she could see the pain riding him from his injury, and the weakness his blood loss had caused. “I will live, I am told,” he replied in a Landfall accent.

  “I’m sorry I shot you without warning,” Jules said. “That wasn’t a fair thing to do.”

  “You were in a fight. It was the smart thing to do. Don’t fight fair, Lady Pirate. Fight to win. Fight to live.”

  Lady Pirate. She smiled down at him. “Good advice. I’m glad you’ll live.”

  “Thank you, Jules.”

  She gave him a stern look, thinking he must have seen the name on those Imperial posters with her picture. “Don’t call me that.”

  “I called you that in the legion home in Landfall, when you were a little demon of a girl and would ask to ride on my shoulders so you could see over the wall and watch people on the street.”

  Jules stared at him. “Shin? You’re Shin?”

  “A little bigger, a little older, but yes.”

  “You joined the legions. How’d you get assigned to this ship?”

  “That fine suit among your prisoners. He demanded a personal bodyguard, and my commander was eager to please. So here I am.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jules said. “I’m so glad that I didn’t kill you.”

  “I’m glad that I didn’t kill you,” Shin said, his eyes searching her face. “I wouldn’t have tried if I’d known who you were. There’s a story going around, Jules. About a prophecy.”
>
  “It’s true.”

  “But…it’s you? It’s truly you?”

  “Yes,” Jules admitted.

  Shin paused, his eyes watching her with awe. “A daughter?”

  “A daughter of my line,” Jules said. “Stop looking at me like that. That daughter might take more than a few generations to get here. I’m going to try to lay the groundwork for her, though.”

  His smile grew slowly. “Then you’ll need strong fighters,” he said. “Take me with you.”

  Jules smiled in return, warmed not only by meeting Shin again but also by his response. “Thank you. But the healer says you need to get to a hospital to recover. There aren’t any hospitals to speak of west of the Empire yet. Go back to Landfall and get well. I just hope you don’t get punished for failing to kill me.”

  “I was felled by a Mechanic weapon. Even a centurion would say there’s no shame in that,” Shin said. “Jules, will you tell me, why do you have it?”

  She let her smile grow conspiratorial. “Because a certain Great Guild thinks I’m going to do what they want.”

  “Fools. I’d know better than to trust a tricky girl like you.”

  Jules felt her smile become hard. “The Mechanics don’t know what being from a legion orphan home means about a person.”

  “It means you’re a sister to me. I heard you called Lieutenant. Is that true?”

  “I managed to get an officer appointment,” Jules said, feeling embarrassed to tell Shin that. It felt like boasting. “Before I had to go on the run.”

  “An officer? One of my sisters from the home? Jules, I’m so proud. How will I find you again?” Shin took a quick breath as a wave of weakness washed across his features. “I know others who will come with me if I go west.”

  “Deserting from the legions is a death offense,” Jules reminded him.

  “You mean like you did?”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” She reached out to touch his shoulder. “I don’t know where I’ll be. Go west, ask for me in ports you stop at. Even if I’m not there, I’ll hear you were asking for me.”