Stormy Seas: Finale

    Eldon fired back and I ducked behind the Captain's desk. I heard Stratt scream and then start cursing at her crew in between coughing fits.
    I peeked around the far side of the desk when the first round of shots stopped. Both pirates were laying motionless on the floor.
    “Vivian?” Eldon asked. He fired again as more pirates came to the door.
    “I'm alright!” I shouted back.
    Stratt was still shouting and coughing.
    “I'm running out of bullets,” he said. He set Stratt down on the floor and hid behind the desk with me.
    “Were you hit?” I asked.
    He started opening the desk drawers and searching them until he found more bullets in a lower drawer. “Only Stratt,” he said.
    A few shots were fired just above our heads. Eldon turned around and started shooting again.
    I glanced over at Stratt writhing on the floor. I could see a bullet wound in one of her bare thighs and she was clutching at a second one in her shoulder.
    We heard the cannons being fired on deck. The pirates were ignoring us now, running straight past the open door to man the guns.
    “The Voilitiers must be close,” Eldon commented.
    “Did they get our messages?” I asked him.
    “Probably,” he said. He began to reload the pistol. “But they must have been fairly close to begin with.”
    The cannon fire was replaced by guns. The pirates I could see on deck were shooting straight upwards.
    “Get down!” Eldon pushed me under the desk and continued guarding the door.
    “Cease Fire!” A voice boomed from the heavens. The Voilitiers must have had some sort of megaphone on their airship. “You are outnumbered!”
    The pirates refused to listen and a few of them ran for the Captain's cabin. Eldon fired a few more shots.
    “CEASE FIRE!”
    Eldon reluctantly stopped shooting. “They're coming down,” he said to me.
    Stratt rolled over and started trying to crawl away.
    “Stay where you are,” Eldon warned her. He turned the gun on her again. “If the Voilitiers want you to hang, I'll see that you hang.”
    She shot him a vicious look. “They don't want me to hang,” she seethed at him. “They want me back.”
    “Captain Carlotta Stratt?”
    I looked back at the door. A man stood in the doorway with a gun in his hand. He wore all brown leather and a cap with goggles.
    “She's our prisoner,” Eldon said to the man. “Who are you?”
    “Captain Emmerson J. Stratton of the Voilitier ship Lady Grey,” he introduced. He took off his cap and smoothed back his white hair.
    Eldon stood. “Eldon Palmer and Miss Vivian Winters.” He helped me stand. “Stratt is there,” he pointed.
    “Charity?” a woman called.
    Stratt groaned.
    “In here, Sarah,” Captain Stratton shouted.
    A woman in a leather coat and checked skirt hurried in.
    “Charity!” she gasped. “Who shot her!?”
    “Her own crew Ma'am.” Eldon explained. I noticed dark purple bruises forming around Stratt's neck and wondered if he would tell them about nearly strangling her to death.
    “Come on, let's get her back to the ship!” the woman said. She called in reinforcements with a stretcher and rolled Stratt on to it.
    We watched them go and then Eldon turned the pistol around and handed it to Stratton. “This is hers,” he said.
    “You may keep it,” Stratton said with a wave. “I certainly don't want her to have it back.”
    “So,” I thought aloud. “Carlotta Stratt is really Charity?”
    “Yes,” the man said wearily. “She was born Charity Stratton, my only daughter.”
    We waited for an explanation. He sat down and Eldon and I followed suite. Stratton eyed us for a moment and then handed Eldon his handkerchief. Eldon hesitated. “Go on,” Stratton said. “Get some of that coal dust off.”
    “Thank you,” Eldon said. He took it and started cleaning around his eyes.
    “Was Charity captured by pirates?” I asked.
    “Unfortunately yes,” Stratton said. “I carelessly left our families unprotected one day and a few of our children were captured by Captain Robert and his men. They said that if we ever came after them again they would kill the children.
    “Charity got a message out to us after a few weeks, asking us why we wouldn't pay their ransom. We offered Robert two of our airships and everything we had taken from other pirates, but we never heard from him or Charity again.
    “When his crew mutinied and killed him a year later we assumed the worst had happened. And then we started hearing rumors of a Captain Caroltta Stratt commanding his ship. We tried to chase after them, but eventually had to give up. She was too good at evading us since she knew all my tricks.
    “We had chased her this time from the Mediterranean and lost her again until your ship slowed her down.”
    Eldon laughed. “Our ship was called the Lethargy,” he explained.
    Stratton cocked an eyebrow but continued. “I should thank you two since it seems you played a large role in bringing her back to us.”
    “I apologize for the state she's in,” Eldon said. “I did use her as a shield for a bit there.”
    “I can't blame you,” Stratton said. “When fighting pirates you have to do whatever you think you have to to survive.” He stood up and pulled his cap back on. “Are there other prisoners?” he asked.
    “Several,” Eldon said. He handed back the handkercheif now blackened with coal dust. “I can show you.”
    “You know,” Stratton said as he eyed Eldon. “We could use another good man with our crew. Have you ever considered being a Voilitier?”
    Eldon thought for a second. “I think I could consider it. What does it pay?”
    “A share from every venture, and food and quarters for yourself and a family if you choose,” he said with a glance at me. “It's humble but good living.”
    “It sounds alright to me,” I said. I played with my skirts instead of looking at Eldon.
    “It doesn't sound easy,” Eldon added.
    “No, but the two of us have gotten used to adventurous living. Going back home would barely seem like living at all.”
    “Could we have a moment Captain?” Eldon asked.
    Stratton smiled and shut the door behind him as he left.
    “Would you stay with me?” Eldon asked.
    “Always,” I promised.
    “Even if our children were captured by pirates?”
    “It's a risk I'm willing to take.”
    “Vivian?”
    I looked up at him.
    “May I kiss you again?”
    I felt my cheeks flush, but managed to make myself nod.

Stormy Seas: Part 21

    Vivian made no move to raise her hands from the keys. “You can't shoot me and get a good price,” she said to Stratt.
    Stratt turned and the gun was pointing at me. “Then I'll shoot him.”
    Vivian turned then and her hands lifted. “I thought you wanted him to join your crew,” she said accusingly.
    Of course she did, I thought. She had still been calculating if she could control me. Obviously she had decided she couldn't.
    “Even if she shoots me, Vivian, you won't have time to send anything before she stops you,” I said. I was already slipping the ropes off of my wrists and hiding it in my fist. Stratt didn't seem to have noticed but I still wouldn't be surprised if she knew somehow.
    “Fine,” Vivian sulked and raised her hands away from the machine.
    “Get over there with him,” Stratt said. The gun was still aimed at me.
    Vivian began to slide around the desk past her. I knew she was going to do something.
    As she turned sideways to get past Stratt she hit her from behind and reached for the gun. I dropped to the floor just before it went off.
    Vivian knocked the gun out of Stratt's hand and then kicked it away while trying to hold on to Stratt. They both lunged for control of it but a few seconds after the gun had skittered away, a well placed elbow in Vivian's ribs sent her reeling into the wooden desk. Stratt rolled and reached for the gun but I had scrambled forward, knocking it farther away. Stratt opened her mouth to call for her crew but I still had the rope and before she could get the words out I had twisted it around her throat.
    We sat there for a moment in something of a stalemate. The gunshot didn't seem to mean much to Stratt's crew. Possibly only that I was supposed to be dead. When Stratt tried again to make a noise I tightened my grip on the rope.
    “Send that message,” I ordered Vivian.
    She nodded and stood. I listened to her tapping away until she finally pulled the lever to send the message.
    “Get the gun,” I said.
    She had to carefully step over us to get to the armchair where I had tossed the pistol. I watched Stratt, ready for her to try and fight back. When Vivian was past us I loosened my grip a bit because Stratt had started to make little choking noises that I was sure she wasn't faking.
    “Now what?” Vivian asked.
    “Send another message,” I told her. “Give out our coordinates.”
    “What coordinates?” she asked.
    I glanced up at the desk where Stratt had her maps and charts. “Look for a log book,” I said. I wondered if Stratt ever bothered to keep one.
    “This?” Vivian held up a leather journal.
    “What's it say inside?”
    “Thirty knots, wind from the west,” Vivian read off the page. “Then some numbers.”
    “Go to the last entry and put in those numbers,” I said.
    Vivian went to do so and I stayed put, with Stratt's head on my thigh. I could see her wanting to make a comment about it, but ignored it.
    “What if no one gets the messages?” Vivian asked.
    “Someone always gets them,” I said. “Passing ships, other pirates, Voilitiers.”
    Stratt suddenly started struggling. She managed to cough out the word “No!” as I flipped her onto her stomach.
    “Pass me the gun.” I put my hand up and Vivian set the pistol against my palm. “The others don't seem to think their beloved Captain is in any danger,” I said to Vivian as I pressed the gun into Stratt's back, “but I don't know how much time that will buy us.”
    “What will we do when they try to come in?” she asked.
    “We'll find out how much they love their Captain,” I finished. “Won't we?”
    Stratt glared but stayed still.
    There was a sharp knock on the door then that made all of us startle. “Captain Stratt!” Abbot's voice said from outside.
    Vivian and I glanced at each other.
    “What!” Vivian shouted back, mimicking Stratt's tone rather well.
    “It's those Voilitiers! They're right on top of us!”
    “You're out of time,” Stratt coughed to us.
    “Your orders Captain?”
    I loosened my grip on the rope around her neck.
    “Get in here!” she shouted.
    The door burst apart at the hinges and Abbot and the bearded pirate hurried in.
    “Stay where you are!” I ordered. I pulled Stratt up by the neck so she was kneeling in front of Vivian and I, and I made sure that they could see the gun I was holding.
    “The Voilitiers only want her, if she dies we throw her over,” the bearded one said.
    They both drew pistols from their belts and opened fire into the room.

Stormy Seas: Part 20

    “Cap'n sure seems mad at you,” Clark said outside my door. I was sitting on the stool as far away from him as I could get. I was guessing from the length of time he had been there that he was supposedly guarding me.
    “After awhile she stops being nice to people who make her mad.”
    “Why do you let a woman order you around anyway?” I asked him.
    “We'd have all been hanged years ago if not for Stratt,” he said. “She knows pirating better than anyone else.”
    “I wonder how she learned it,” I scoffed.
    “Thinking about joining our humble crew?” he laughed.
    I ignored him. I was tired of talking to him anyway.
    I sighed to myself, considering my predicament. It seemed like there was nothing for me to do but listen to Clark talk all the way back to England.
    You got yourself into this foolish mess, I thought. Surely there must be some way to get yourself out of it again.
    I reached up to the porthole near my head and started fiddling with it to see if I could open it. It was far too small to escape through, and even then there was nothing but open ocean for me to escape to, but it gave me something to do.
    “Think of it this way,” Clark was still talking out in the hall. “All your little friends will be amazed that you survived all this. You'll probably be some sort of hero.”
    I rolled my eyes and continued fiddling with the porthole, hoping for a latch of some sort. I grew tired of fiddling very quickly. The whole thing was tightly bolted together.
    I decided to change tactics, and possibly see some more of the ship. Maybe I would get another idea.
    “Where is the lavatory?” I asked Clark.
    “There's a bucket in there,” he laughed.
    My eyes narrowed at the laughter coming from behind the door. I grabbed the bucket by the handle, stood up, and smashed the bucket against the wooden door. Hard.
    The laughing stopped as soon as the bucket hit the floor.
    “I want to speak to the Captain,” I demanded. What I really wanted was to get out of this cell, and maybe find some way to send help for Eldon and the others.
    “Stratt's not going to build a toilet for you,” Clark said in response.
    I kicked the door to make sure I still had his attention. “Not about that!” I practically screamed.
    “What then?” he asked.
    “About everything,” I said.
    “Captain's busy,” he replied.
    “Busy ordering everyone around?” I prepared to give the door another good kick.
    “Busy interrogating another prisoner,” he said.
    “Another prisoner?” What other prisoner? Who else are they holding for ransom?
    “He escaped earlier and they trapped him in the coal store.”
    “Who?” I asked.
    “From your ship, they said his name was Palmer.”
    “Eldon!”
    I realized too late that I had said his name aloud.
    “Aha!” Now I really had Clark's attention.
    A key turned in the lock and Clark swung the door open. “Maybe Stratt would like to see you.” He grabbed me by the arm and half dragged me out into the hallway.
    “Captain?” Clark knocked politely on her door, still holding my arm so tightly that I was beginning to lose feeling in my fingers.
    “What is it?” Stratt's sharp voice demanded from inside.
    “A friend of the prisoner's,” Clark said.
    He waited until Stratt allowed him to open the door. She seemed curious but when she saw me she didn't look the least bit surprised.
    Eldon turned around to see me and didn't look surprised either. He was standing in the middle of the room with his hands tied behind his back and every inch of him smeared with coal dust.
    “So is that how you ended up on that ship?” Stratt asked me. “I was wondering.”
    “We met on board,” Eldon answered casually.
    “Too bad.” Stratt was laughing at us with her eyes.
    I noticed a Transligraph in a little cupboard behind Stratt's desk. I had used one before on an airship with Aunt. It was used to send and translate messages without having to know morse code. It must mean that, for all her knowledge of ships, Stratt had not learned to use morse code and needed this machine to send, receive, and intercept messages at sea.
    “What will happen to Vivian?” Eldon was asking Stratt. They had resumed their conversation.
    “We're holding her for ransom,” Stratt said. She sat down on her desk and took off her feathered hat.
    “Good,” Eldon said.
    Clark was still in the room. If he left I might be able to knock Stratt out and send a message for help out before she came around. I began looking for something to hit her with.
    “Won't you sit down Miss Winters?” Stratt said to me. She waved at the armchair she had been sitting in earlier.
    “Thank you,” I said politely. I took a more strategic seat in a wooden chair a little more to the side. Clark was watching us all.
    Stratt dismissed him with a wave and he left, shutting the door behind him.
    “Aren't you wondering what will happen to you now?” Stratt asked Eldon. “I obviously can't keep you around now that I know you can escape, and I'll have to show your friends that they won't get away with anything they try.”
    “You'll slit my throat in front of them?” Eldon asked. I was horrified for a moment but then I saw how Stratt was reacting.
    “I take no pleasure in slitting throats, Mr. Palmer,” she said. She was smiling. I was getting the impression that she liked Eldon.
    “You don't seem very old fashioned, so I'll rule out walking the plank,” Eldon continued.
    Stratt stood and started circling him. “I can be old fashioned when it strikes my fancy,” she said.
    She had her back turned to me for a moment. I glanced at the Transligraph and then for something I could club Stratt over the head with. My eyes met Eldon's, which were looking at me sternly.
    “No!” he mouthed.
    “I was thinking about something else though,” Stratt came around in front of Eldon again and leaned close to him. He stared straight ahead instead of down at her smiling sensuously up at him. “I'm always in need of more crew,” she said. She had her back turned to me.
    I stopped listening and stood as quietly as I could and tried to keep my skirts from rustling. I opened the little door to the Transligraph and started tapping out my message on the keys. They made faint clicking sounds as I typed out the words “Help. Prisoner.” The S key stuck and made a sharp metallic click when I released it.
    Then there was another click. The sound of a pistol cocking right behind my head.

Stormy Seas: Part 19

    Sweat began to bead on my forehead as soon as we stepped past the boiler room on the pirate ship. A fairly young looking man with a bristling beard was leading myself and a handful of other crew from the Lethargy. We had been taken prisoner and brought down into the bowels of the pirate's ship.
    “Not so good lighting, yes?” Ameya whispered at my side.
    I shushed him. The bearded man had a pistol in his hand and was watching us closely.
    “Through there!” he ordered. He pointed with his gun through a dark little door that most of the other captives had already crawled through.
    I bent down and inside with Ameya following close behind. It was very dark inside, since there were no windows or lamps, and it was quite warm from the boilers.
    I could hear rather than see the other captives as I tried to find a place to sit. I heard the door slam shut and the lock click just before I sat on someone who I had thought was an empty space.
    “Excuse me,” I apologized as I inched past him, trying not to step on anyone else.
    There was silence after that for a long moment. Outside I could hear the sounds of the engine and of shovels scraping coal.
    “Is very dark now, yes?” Ameya broke the silence.
    Someone snorted.
    “Get used to the dark lad,” another man said. “They'll probably sell us to the gold mines in Africa.”
    “It'll be coal mining, everyone needs coal,” someone else added pessimistically.
    “Where are you fellows from?” I asked. I crossed my arms over my knees and leaned against the wall.
    “The H.M.S. Gloryling,” someone said. It was hard to tell who was who.
    “We were sunk by the pirates and they pulled us few out of the water.”
    “And we've been in here ever since.”
    “Really,” I commented. I half turned and started poking at the wall behind me. “Do they ever open the door besides when they bring new captives in?”
    “Never that I've seen.”
    “What have you been eating?” I asked.
    “They open a hatch in the door and put the food in. If you can really call it food.”
    “After a few weeks you'll be happy just to see that!” an older sounding voice said.
    “That sounds like what we need,” I said. I shifted to my knees. “Which way is the door?”
    “Here,” a voice to my left said.
    I crawled that way, trying to be careful of where the others were. My hand hit the metal door and I began running my hand along it, looking for the hatch.
    I felt an indent in the lower part of the door, just about five or six inches above the floor.
    “Have any of you ever tried to open it?” I asked.
    “Sometimes for light,” someone said.
    I started sliding it open with my fingers. It was slow going until I got it open wide enough to fit my fingers through. I bent down and stuck my head out. I turned to the side and craned my neck to see  out into the boiler room. There were two pirates there, one sitting and smoking a pipe, and the other stoking the fires. Neither noticed me opening the hatch.
    I pushed the hatch open the rest of the way and tried to see if my shoulders would fit through.
    “Where are you going Mr. Elderton?” Ameya asked.
    I pushed myself back into the cell and shushed him.
    “You'll end up shot,” someone said.
    “I'll try and find a way to get us all out of this,” I said. “Keep quiet if you don't want to be sold in Africa!”
    I tried again, putting my arms through first. My shoulders made it through the opening and I continued crawling out.
    The pirate who had been shoveling coal tossed his shovel aside with a loud crash that startled me but when I looked he was climbing a ladder out of the hold and his smoking companion appeared to be sleeping.
    I continued crawling out until I was stopped by my backside. The hatch was just barely too short. I tried to wiggle myself through, which caused the metal of the door to dig into my hip bones. One more wiggle got me through and my legs followed easily.
    I crawled away from the boilers quickly and started looking for a hiding spot while rubbing my bruised middle. Then I had another idea.
    I turned around and went back to the boiler room.
    “Mr. Elderton?” Ameya whispered through the still open hatch.
    I wordlessly bent down and slid it shut again. I stood and peered around the corner into the boiler room. The pirate was still seated with his pipe in his hand and his eyes closed with his head on his chest. I took careful footsteps across the coal littering the floor and then climbed up the side of their boiler where the pistons were hard at work moving the ship.
    I passed them carefully and found a huge bin shaped thing filled to the ceiling with coal. After I shifted some of the coal I crawled around to a place where I could look down on the boiler room. If I waited until most of the pirates had gone to bed I could sneak back down, free the others, and we could all take the pirates by surprise.
    The coal moved uneasily below me. I tried to scramble for the edge of the coal store but more and more coal slid out from underneath me. I began to feel myself sinking.
    I looked down. The chair the sleeping smoker had been sitting in was empty but I had a good guess where he was. At the controls for the giant coal box I was sitting in, prepared to drown me in coal.