Morning Breeze stifled a yawn. It was truly difficult to stay awake lying in a warm bed near midnight. Even the gently swaying of the ship felt like the rocking of a cradle. The painkillers didn’t help. He had tried reading, and then chatting with the doctor until the latter politely excused himself. Snowsong was pretending to be asleep on a mat on the floor of the infirmary. Of course she was not actually sleeping. Just like the two ponies in naval attire standing at the infirmary door, she was trying to be as polite as she could, given the circumstances.
He could have waited until morning, but a lot could change in a single night. In the bed next to his, Winter Oat let out a sigh and tried to turn over. He grunted in pain and fell limp once more. His fever broke at about nine, and the doctor had said that he should be somewhat awake soon. He had pieces of three crossbow bolts in his body, but miraculously infection had been minimal.
Suddenly the ponies on guard stood at attention and stepped into the doorway. Snowsong sat up like a guard dog.
“I have water.”
“Let him in,” Morning Breeze said, adjusting his pillows and sitting up a little straighter.
“Do as he says.” Snowsong agreed.
Gingersnap entered, walking carefully with a tray of mugs on his back. Coral Frond looked idle by comparison with a large tin of biscuits. They had finally found the time for a dry brushing, and their coats were soft and smooth once more.
“I thought I told you two to go to bed,” Snowsong said. “You did good work today, and rest assured you won’t be tried for cooperating with pirates. You have my word.”
“We know, ma’am,” Coral Frond said as refreshments went around the infirmary. “But with so many injured, we thought we would make ourselves useful.”
“Is Captain Winter Oat alright?” Gingersnap asked under his breath when he reached Morning Breeze’s bed.
“He is in no danger now,” he replied. “You can speak with him tomorrow morning, if he’s strong enough. But right now you two need to sleep. If Snowsong doesn’t object, you can keep using the stateroom.”
“You have my permission,” Snowsong said, waving her hoof dismissively. “Nopony’s going back to the Spectre if they don’t need to. Good night, gentleponies.”
“Good night ma’am,” Gingersnap and Coral Frond said together, but they left the room reluctantly.
Winter Oat stirred again. Morning Breeze shook his head to keep himself awake, but the captain did not come to.
Maybe I should wait. Unless…
“Snowsong,” he said slowly. “I have a question for you, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m on your ship,” she said. “Ask.”
“You are a psychiatric counsellor, aren’t you?”
Snowsong blinked.
“I am a lieutenant of the Equestrian Navy,” she said.
“But you’re really a counsellor from the support side of things,” Morning Breeze said. “That’s not a trident cutie mark. I know a few ponies with tridents in their cutie marks, and none of them look like that.”
Snowsong stared at him for a long while, examining him. He reclined into his pillows and closed his eyes. Clearly he wasn’t going to speak with Winter Oat tonight.
“You’re right,” she said. Her voice came to him as if through a lot of water. “I was… I am a counsellor. Most of the executive crew are counsellors. We were all from a T/R ship…”
“A what now?”
The room was dim. Five of the six lanterns had been removed for the night. The guards were standing perfectly still at the door, their faces hidden in the shadows of their hoods; truly asleep now. There were a few heavy snorers in the infirmary, as there were in every room at night.
He groped the tray beside him until he found his bottle of painkillers. There was half a mug of tepid water. It was enough.
“A T/R ship…” he mumbled, rebuilding his pile of pillows and reclining into it. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He turned his head just a little to look at Winter Oat through the corner of his eye.
Might as well give this a try.
“Well?” he asked, a little louder. “Captain? What do you have to say?”
“What?” Came the muffled, groggy response.
“You heard me,” he said.
Winter Oat sighed heavily and immediately groaned in pain.
“My last ship was called the Hatchet,” he said. “Sixty sailors, twenty executive staff. Nineteen counsellors, and me.”
“And what are you?”
“Captain and master,” he said. He was silent for a long time. Morning Breeze thought he had returned to sleep before he spoke again. “And a pony with a heart. I…”
With great effort he turned his head and looked up at Morning Breeze. The haze cleared from his eyes. He was surprised, but not angry. Disappointed, maybe. Defeated.
“You know your crew very well then,” Morning Breeze said. “What’s wrong with them? You had a T/R ship. What's a T/R ship?”
“Therapy,” he said slowly. “My crew is damaged; every one of them not fit for duty. I take the crippled, the scarred... ponies with nowhere else to go.”
“Ponies like Gingersnap?” Morning Breeze said, feeling gooseflesh on his neck. Suddenly the goofy boys he had rescued from the brig did not seem so trivial. “What happened to Gingersnap? Where did he come from?”
“I haven't quite figured that out myself,” Winter Oat said. Even through the drugs and exhaustion his disgust in the tale came through. “He joined the navy when he was thirteen, but that's after a whole bunch of shipping jobs. I don't think we'll ever know where he came from, unless he speaks up one day. They put him on a ship with the cruelest captain I’d ever seen. And I only saw him briefly at his trial. He sailed for months at a time, going to the fringes of Equestrian waters. He picked fights with the worst pirates. And two years ago, his luck ran out.
“He engaged a fleet of zebra ships. Just his one ship against ten. They defeated him easily and slaughtered most of his sailors. He escaped with twelve of his eighty crew. Gingersnap had his throat cut. They thought he was dead for eight days, and the captain even told his rescuers that he was dead. They left him at the bottom of the dory with two rotting bodies for another day, until they were ready to sew them up and bury them.
“Gingersnap eventually got a great sum of money to his name out of that trial; about ten years’ pay all at once. But it was nearly a year after the fact, and nopony could find him. He had been discharged from the hospital, but nopony had picked him up. I was in Baltimare at the time, and was both a juror at the trial and tasked with delivering news of the settlement. I found his crewmates or their families easy enough, but he had no address on file beyond the mailbox at the docks.
“It took me a whole month to track him down. I spent my own money on the search; the admiralty would not fund it. They assumed he deserted and went home, but I had this feeling that he was not alright. Eventually I found him outside a bar near Pier 45.
“He could not speak at all. He'd been living off garbage and his own hooves. He had chewed through his front hooves entirely by the time I found him. Any other part of town would not have tolerated him.”
Winter Oat’s voice failed, and he wept for several minutes. Morning Breeze looked down at his own hoof. He felt ashamed now for breaching the subject.
“That day I brought him to my own house and hired Snowsong away from her old captain. She’s a talented counsellor, though she rarely worked as one. Back then she was more or less a show piece on the second Firestorm. It took four months before Gingersnap learned to talk again, and by then I had exhausted half of his settlement money. Snowsong said it would be years before he got well enough to be left alone for good. I couldn't afford to keep him as a dependent for that long, and I couldn't... couldn't leave him.”
“So you took your case to the admirals,” Morning Breeze said.
“Of course not,” Winter Oat said. His strained smile cast grotesque shadows across his face. “The admirals cares about pageantry. They care about fancy headquarters and new ships, not sailors.”
“You and I have some common ground after all,” Morning Breeze said, flashing a smile as sinister as his companion's.
Winter Oat rolled his eyes. “I took my case to the Princesses directly. They were holding a court in Baltimare four years ago. I argued for a program to support these sailors. I proposed giving them a ship and letting them patrol the northern shipping routes; keep them on payroll. Sailors are just as poor as they used to be. These aren't ponies who can go off to Mexicolt for a year-long vacation to recover from the trauma of a bad hooficure. The northern routes aren't balmy, but they're safe; far from zebras, and far from your kind. It's where most of the sponsored officers serve their terms before they're made admirals. The princesses approved the project, superseding the admiralty and giving me funds directly from Canterlot.”
“I’d be a fool not to know the rest,” Morning Breeze said, closing his eyes. “Go back to sleep. You’re going to be fine. Everything will be fine.”
He thought back to the incident at Port of Mercy. He had seen the light fade from Gingersnap’s eyes just before he called for action. He thought he had looked into the eyes of a dead pony. And that was exactly it.
#
Breakfast was a cheery occasion. After months living on cheap rum and dry rations, some of the Spectre’s crew were nearly brought to tears when fresh apples were passed around. The doctor threw open the two hatches onto the deck to let some light in. It was a cold, cloudless day, and the ship was exactly where it had been on the previous night.
Winter Oat’s breakfast of lukewarm sludge put him in a bad enough mood that Morning Breeze decided not to speak with him immediately.
In the mess hall Gingersnap and Coral Frond were the centre of attention. Morning Breeze checked on them twice, but they were answering questions in sufficiently vague terms. There was no mention of the Snow Queen or the Firestorm.
The Spectre was tied to the starboard side of the Infidel. With all the plates depleted of magic it looked like a ship hewn from a solid obsidian block. The illusion was only broken by the ragged hole in the hull, exposing the wrecked brig and all the underlying wood. A few sea ponies were taking stock of the damage, supervised from the deck of the Infidel by Snowsong and Hornpipe.
“It doesn’t look good,” Hornpipe said without looking at his captain. “If we had a few hours the sea ponies can patch her up well enough to be towed. A beam just under the deck is barely holding her together as it is. And the water damage in the quarters... I give them credit for patching it up as well as they did, but it’s going to fill up again if we start moving.”
Morning Breeze looked over the side into the water. The nearest sea pony looked up at him and shook her head.
No sign of Yellow Jack.
He counted the hours in his head. It would have taken almost a week to reach Oakfort. With a ship in tow that could stretch to three or more. Even if all the griffins ate nothing but fish the food would not last that long. They could make a stop at another island, but then everypony would know exactly what had happened.
Of course, there is one more option…
He felt a wave of goosebumps travel up his neck and over his head. He stomped his hoof to stop himself from falling over.
Never.
“Can you transfer the plates over?” He called down to the water.
“That will take even longer,” the sea pony replied. “A day, maybe, even if you let us destroy the ship completely.”
“Don’t do that,” Snowsong said quickly. “Morning Breeze, that ship is one of a kind. One of the best…”
“The best in Equestria, maybe,” he said. “It’s nice; don’t get me wrong. Better than the ships that I started with. And you’re right, I’ve never seen this specific design before. But it’s not the best. You have to realize, Snowsong, that Equestria is not the whole world. And when it comes to ships, ponies are just no good. The griffins have been building fishing ships for more than a thousand years. And all the coastal zebra tribes have better interceptors than any that have come out of Equestria.” He leaned over the gunwales to address the sea ponies. “Patch up that gap as well as you can, and set a watch. If there’s any ship within thirty miles, I need to know.”
The sea pony saluted and sank completely beneath the water.
“I’ll see the prisoners now,” Morning Breeze said.
Snowsong seemed a little uneasy, but she was in no position to argue. Hornpipe licked his lips, and his eyes flashed viciously. He was a relic from the age of zebra raiders, experienced in cruelty. He led the way to the bow, down the steep stairs to the forward hold.
Stripped of their uniforms, the brutes were each wrapped tightly with anchor chain. Sweat dripped from their faces despite the frigid night that still lingered in the stagnant air. Only two were strong enough to look up as their captors approached. Their cracked lips gaped, and their bloodshot eyes darted from face to face.
“Here I am,” Morning Breeze said icily. “Come on. You were sent here to do something. Speak up.”
They closed their mouths and looked away. Their faces twitched in pain. The chains were crushing their limbs and pinching their skin. There were spots of blood on some of the links.
Without warning Hornpipe lunged at the nearest prisoner. He raised his head, desperately kicking against the chains. Perhaps he saw the gleam of the shucking knife. Hornpipe thrust the blade into his shoulder, enthusiastically twisting and pulling it through his flesh. The white pegasus whimpered and growled, incoherently begging for him to stop.
Snowsong covered her muzzle and looked down. Morning Breeze kicked a nearby bucket in her directing, thinking she might be sick, while he too closed his eyes. Hornpipe left a messy, gaping wound. On the pegasus’ shoulder a bit of bone was showing. He looked like he had been mauled by a dog.
“So?” Morning Breeze said in his hissing half-whisper. “Somepony in Baltimare was paying you… to do what?”
“To kill you, you blood-drinking blockhead!” Shouted a black earth pony with three gold earrings. “If Winter Oat failed to do it, we would end all of you! ALL OF YOU!”
“And who was paying you?” Morning Breeze asked, approaching him. The other stallion tried to shuffle backwards, but was hopelessly weighed down. He opened his mouth and licked his lips. The earth pony lowered his head trying to protect his throat.
“It was Gold Standard!” He cried when Morning Breeze had almost reached him. “It was him! He commissioned the ship! He bribed the admirals! You want him! You want the admirals! Not us!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, turning on the spot.
Snowsong was sitting down, staring wide-eyed at Morning Breeze. Hornpipe was cleaning off his tool with a greasy handkerchief.
“You heard him,” Morning Breeze said. “That’s a confession. They were going to kill me, you, your captain and probably every one of your crew.” He turned his gaze to Hornpipe. “Tell the sea ponies to ready a leviathan. I don’t think they can stomach this garbage themselves.”
The hold was suddenly filled with voices. Through thirst and exhaustion, every mercenary spoke up. Some pledged everlasting allegiance, while others threw out the foulest curses. Hornpipe took a rope off the wall and descended on the prisoners mercilessly.
“You don’t have to do this,” Snowsong said, grabbing Morning Breeze as he was about to mount the ladder. “You shouldn’t.”
“We don’t have room for them,” he said. “We can get rid of them now, or let them die slowly in here. Were we traveling for an hour with all the supplies that we have, I wouldn't spare them a drop of dishwater. I can get the sea ponies to properly butcher them before they’re eaten. It’s not a lot worse than hanging. And you know they won't be hanged if we let them get back to Equestria.”
“They’re my crew!” Snowsong argued, tightening her grip.
“They’re nobody’s crew,” he said. “They work for money, and you can’t outbid Gold Standard.”
Hornpipe was breathing heavily when he returned the rope to its hook. The prisoners had been subdued. Many were crying quietly, and there was a lot more blood on their chains.
“It’s not good for you, if nothing else,” Snowsong said. “You don’t enjoy this. I can tell. Just give these ponies to me. I’ll make sure they never bother you again.”
Morning Breeze looked into her eyes. She was sincere. And there was also the matter of her cutie mark.
“Keep them bound until they can’t walk,” he ordered. “Don’t feed them or give them water until I say so. They’ll not leave here until they’re too weak to cause any havoc.”
“That won’t do,” Snowsong urged.
“I’ve spared them their lives,” he said, glaring at her. “That’s merciful and plenty generous for this lot. Few ponies would do this; no other pirate, certainly. Hornpipe, do you still collect ears?”
“I should,” he growled, twisting the right ear of the nearest pony until he screamed and the cartilage popped. “But it’s bad luck to collect ears from living ponies. They tend to come back for them.”
“Make sure this hold is well guarded,” Morning Breeze said. “At least eight sailors at any one time. None of these get out for any reason until I come back. Now let’s go. We have a lot to discuss.”