Explorer of the Endless Sea by Jack Campbell

Author:Jack Campbell [Campbell, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-625675-03-3
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“Are you certain?” Captain Hachi called up loudly enough to be heard along the waterfront.

“Aye, Captain!”

Erin ran one hand down her face, glaring out to sea. “If that sloop is close enough to see then it’s too close for my ship and the Storm Queen to get underway without being seen.”

“Maybe we can catch him just outside the harbor,” Captain Lars said as he ran up.

“That’s not good odds if he’s at all alert. A lucky shot from that ballista of his and it’d be the remaining ship one on one against a crew of angry legionaries.”

“We still have the Mechanic weapons,” Jules said. “And surprise.”

“Yes, but—”

Captain Hachi came striding up, looking thoughtful. “I was just looking at the Storm Queen at anchor and thinking how it was a twin to the Imperial sloop,” he said.

“She was an Imperial sloop,” Lars said. “Until the Sun Queen and Storm Runner captured her.”

“Do you think she could still pass as an Imperial warship?”

Lars hesitated, thinking. “As long as the crew stays out of sight. We haven’t changed any parts of her, and we keep a neat ship.”

Hachi smiled. “There may be a way to capture that Imperial ship without a sea fight. Without any fight at all.”

“What’re you thinking, trickster?” Erin asked.

“I am thinking that if we can get a dozen or so sailors into that captured legionary armor, we might be able to fool that Imperial sloop’s officers and crew into doing just what we want.” Hachi paused, pursing his lips in thought. “It would require me to expose myself as a pirate, but I wasn’t really planning on going back to my job in the Imperial bureaucracy anyway.”

Jules turned to search the surrounding area, spotting one of her sailors. “Marta! Get Shin! He’s over that way! I need him to get into that dead centurion’s armor! And get a dozen more good men and women into armor as well! We need a force of fake legionaries and we need them fast.”

* * *

The light of the rising sun shone on the sails of the Imperial sloop as it glided up to the pier on the other side from the Star Seeker, lines going across to those waiting on the shore. Laborers from the town, told by Jules that they were volunteering to help and interspersed with pirates to keep them quiet, caught the lines and tied up the sloop.

Jules, watching from a building just off the waterfront that offered good cover, watched the sloop’s crew furling their sails. Their movements were those of tired sailors with no trace of worry or alarm in their actions. “Go,” she told Shin.

Shin gave her a proper legionary salute. With one hand casually resting on his breastplate in a way that covered the hole in it made by the Mechanic revolver, Shin led his group of disguised pirates out onto the waterfront.

Jules winced as she watched how sloppily the pirates marched, but hopefully the sloop’s officers wouldn’t notice.

Shin halted his group with a

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