Back aboard The Foolish Endeavor, Elisa sat on a barrel and rubbed at her temples. “We should start loading over the ammo.”

“I can start on that,” Riv said, “once I check the powder for water damage. If it’s damp, I’m not hauling it.”

Aethe walked up from belowdecks, holding a salvaged crate of salted meat. “Food’s still good. Some of it, anyway. Not ration-quality, but better than nothing.”

Marco nodded. “Keep an eye out for anything weird like documents, ledgers, or maps. And check the captain’s quarters. If he had anything magical, I want it.”

“What about the people?” Elisa asked. “You don’t think they’ll take it?”

“Not a chance. You saw them. They won’t move an inch, outside of what they need to do to get sailing. We need to give them space. If they trust us, great. If not, we still take them home. Easy-peasy.”

She looked at him for a long beat. Then she nodded. “Good answer.”

They got back to work. There wasn’t much to find in terms of treasure, but the pirate ship was at least well stocked. As soon as they could, they got back to the ship, leaving the travelers and other crew to calm down.

Aethe tossed some food around to each of them, and they munched while the other crew worked on patching enough holes to limp their ship home.

“Good shooting there.” Marco pantomimed pulling back a bow. There was a lot to like in Aethe’s recent performance, and he didn’t feel like leaving it unmentioned. “I was surprised. How do you do that thing?”

“What thing?” Aethe looked pleased to be complimented but confused on some aspect of exactly how she was being praised. “I don’t remember doing anything special.”

“It’s like you knew where I was going to be,” Marco said. “Pew! An arrow hits the guy at just the right time. Pew! It misses my head by an inch and catches him in the shoulder. It was crazy.”

“I thought you were doing that!” Aethe leaned in. “There would be no shots, then you’d duck, or turn just a little, and I’d have them.”

“I guess I was doing that a little,” Marco said. “But it was because I knew you’d be there to take them.”

Aethe smiled. It was a nice smile, Marco thought. Brighter than most. He looked at it until she seemed to notice and brought her face back to a more normal-for-her calmness. He was sad about it, but the normal version was pretty nice too, now that he thought about it.

“Oh no,” Elisa muttered, not quite quietly enough that Marco couldn’t hear. She leaned toward Riv. “It’s happening.”

“I think it’s been happening for a while.”

“But now they are becoming aware of it. I thought it would take longer than this, but it makes sense that violence would bring them together.”

“I’ve got five silver on Aethe realizing it before Marco does.”

“Unfair. She’s an archer. They’re good at spotting things.”

“Let’s just hope it doesn’t get weird. Weirder, I guess. I mean, it’s kind of a lost cause, right? Weirdness is pretty much maxed around here.”

Back near the mast, Marco and Aethe were already comparing notes on firing angles and crowd control tactics. Marco had found she was remarkably open when he suggested it, like she was trying to get away from the others’ comments too. Whatever her motivations, she seemed to take the job seriously. Aethe drew diagrams on the deck with a bit of chalk she kept in her pocket. Marco nodded along, surprised to find he actually understood most of what she was saying.

He didn’t have nearly as much to contribute, but he did have some ideas about close-range firing angles she hadn’t thought of thanks to his experience using the gun. It wasn’t a fair trade, he knew, but at least he had been able to contribute.

Soon enough, the other crew had ported everything over to the pirate ship and repaired it enough to detach from The Foolish Endeavor’s extra buoyancy. The two crews joined forces to pry the ships apart, and then they were on their way.

“We just follow, right?" Riv asked. "I guess any direction is as good as any other."

“Right. And we hope that nothing happens,” Marco said. "If anything, I need another nap. Not a fight."

The next warning came from the port side of the ship. Aethe’s voice rang out, directed to Marco at the ship’s wheel.

“Sail, port side. Closing fast.”

“Got it.” Marco looked around and spotted the new ship. “Black flag. Maybe they’re friends of the civilian ship?”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Don’t think so,” Elisa called back.

On the other ship, all the crew that were fit to fight were already springing into action, double-checking cannons and stringing bows. The civilians were streaming belowdecks, a luxury the larger ship provided that the previous craft couldn’t.

“Okay, so not friendly,” Marco concluded.

Spinning the wheel, he brought the ship about to put more of a gap between him and the friendly craft. Within seconds, Elisa had dropped her notes back in her bag. Riv was double-checking the supply of cannonballs near each of the cannons and any other steps he could take to make sure the ship was as ready for combat. For a team that had only come together recently, they were just about veterans at sea combat at this point.

The black-flagged craft approaching them was a small ship, maybe half the length of the one they’d just fought. It looked fast, and it was making the most of that speed with a straight approach that swung back and forth just enough to improve its evasiveness. It was a good tactic, except for three things.

The first was that it made its approach clear. It was coming for them in what looked like an attack run, and with its intentions so clear, there was plenty of opportunity to intercept them with cannon fire. The second was that the ship wasn’t even trying to fire, just moving directly towards them at an angle that didn’t even allow them to shoot anything to make life harder for Marco and his crew.

The third, and most important, was that being small and evasive mattered a lot for survivability when and only when it meant they were also hard to hit.

This one wasn’t. Compared to the opponents that Marco had faced in the past, this was quite possibly the strangest and also the weakest.

“Do they think we’ll just roll over?” Riv asked. “Out of fear, or something?”

“No idea. No reason to find out, though. These guys are obviously hostile. Elisa? Aethe?” Marco asked.

They looked over, and Marco gave the signal. The girls did their thing. They first fired a couple warning shots. When the smaller craft showed no sign of turning around, they filled the air with flaming death combined with pinpoint system-assisted accuracy. Only every third shot hit, but creative sailing and an ample supply of ammo fueled by a hyperactive Riv helping with the reloading meant that thirty-something shots over the course of the next few minutes landed.

Marco knew it couldn’t be that easy. Enemies were tough. Enemies were dangerous. And enemies always, always had something up their sleeve that you couldn’t see until it was too late. He knew all those things as surely as he knew anything anymore, right up until the other ship turned tail and ran away.

“What?” Riv said. “Really. What?”

“It’s… did they just suck?” Marco looked out into the water suspiciously. “Could they have been that bad? Or are we just that good?”

“We aren’t that good,” Aethe said. “Not at all.”

“Then what?”

“Inconclusive!” Elisa yelled. “It still might be a trick.”

“You want to chase them?” the captain yelled. “We are pretty close now. You can come back here later and just carry on on the same course, and you’ll find us.”

“You sure?” Marco yelled. “Could be more pirates heading your way.”

“We’re closer than you think. Trust me. And knowing where they run to when they get hurt might be useful. There are a lot of pirates out here. They must be staying somewhere.”

They took a quick vote on it.

“I say we just stay,” Elisa said. “It could be a trap, but even if it isn’t, it’s been a long day.”

“Maybe. But we can sleep on the ship if we need to,” Riv said. “We just got attacked by two pirate ships in an hour. If we know where they are coming from, that’s going to help us avoid getting attacked by more. I don’t want to have to do this any more than we have to.”

Aethe nodded along to what Riv was saying. Even without her speaking, it was obvious she agreed.

“Elisa…”

“Marco, don’t worry.” She shook her head. “I’m just a little tired. I’m not always right, either.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Oh, I’m right about anything in a book. This isn’t that, though. I’m okay with this on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“We follow the pirates from Aethe’s visual range. I’m pretty sure she has better eyes than the rest of us, and we are small. That’s the only way we can follow them and have a chance of going unnoticed.”

“Deal, then. Aethe, are you up for it?”

She was. They let the ship get so far Marco was sure they had lost it before they started on their way. Aethe sat at the edge of the railing and watched, occasionally calling course corrections out for Marco. The rest of the day they sailed after the damaged ship and intentionally slow speeds, staying just out of what they hoped was their line-of-sight.

“They haven’t acted like they’ve seen us, at least,” Aethe said. “Either they haven’t, or they have wonderful discipline.”

“It couldn’t be the first,” Riv said. “If they had that, they wouldn’t have sailed right into the mouth of our cannons.”

Aethe tensed up, which led to the rest of the crew also snapping to attention. She relaxed a moment later. “They’ve stopped now. Apparently they are content to drift through the night.”

“All right, then. I’ll take the first watch.”

“You can’t.” The elf shook her head. “We have to see them, but they can’t see us. That means I have to take every watch tonight.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s necessary,” Aethe said. “It won’t be the first time. It’s fine, captain. Eat and go to bed. I’ll let you know if they move.”

Marco tried to obey, but found himself unable to sleep. An hour into laying in bed, the guilt of leaving Aethe to an all-nighter was gnawing at him. As silently as he could, he rose from bed, trying not to wake the others as he slipped above decks. The elf was sitting there in the moonlight, looking as calm and serene as the water.

“Sorry again,” Marco apologized.

“I told you not to be sorry. And to sleep.” Aethe motioned him to the rail. “You really couldn’t do either?”

“I really couldn’t,” Marco said. “You almost don’t seem to mind this.”

“I don’t. Elves are… remarkably lockstep, in their habits. They eat at the same times, sleep at the same times, work at the same times. Being alone in the quiet is almost new for me.”

“Huh,” Marco said. “I’m almost the opposite. I spent most of my life training. Elisa was my only real friend for a long time, and only because she followed me around on her own initiative. Having people around like this has been nice for me.”

“Don’t mistake me too badly. I like having you all around. It’s just… the quiet is new. I think I like it.”

“Well, I won’t ruin it then. But I really can’t sleep. I’ll just sit with you.”

They sat for a few hours like that, silently. Marco wasn’t sure when sleep took him, but it was dawn when Aethe shook him awake.

“They’re moving,” Aethe said. “And I think I see where.”

“You do?”

“There’s an island in the distance. I think. They are probably going to it.”

“Then why didn’t they just stretch and make it there last night?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose we might find out.”