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PART III
AUGUST, 1780
OFF THE COAST OF FRANCE
THE THUNDERSTORM WAS cutting through the waves at a good clip, leading her fleet. Smitty was at the helm while Celia stood behind him at her charts, checking her timepiece against her almanac. She looked up at the sails to take a measure of the wind’s strength and angle, then climbed up the mizzenmast’s rigging with her spyglass.
There behind the Thunderstorm, spread out like a fan in her wake, the Silver Shilling, the Black Demon, Iron Maiden, and the Mad Hangman. “KIT!” she bellowed. “Signal that we’re heading west-southwest.”
“How far, Cap’n?”
“Until I feel the wind change.” Without a word, Smitty bore to larboard until Celia said, “There.”
“Cap’n!” Kit called. “There’s another sail coming up five points off the Silver Shilling’s larboard stern.”
Celia was unmoved. No commander in his right mind would take on what amounted to a small navy.
“Cap’n, she’s changing course, bearing south-southwest.”
Rafael. No other captain could anticipate winds as he could and she had only just changed course. He was chasing her.
“It’s the Indigo!”
“I deduce his family didn’t kill him,” Celia called to Smitty, who chuckled. “He should have sent word of his arrival. Dammit, we’re only two days out of Amsterdam.”
“Shouldna come as a surprise his timing is off.”
Celia grunted. “Kit! Has the Silver Shilling seen her?”
“I would think so, if I can see her, but it seems as if the Indigo hasn’t seen any of us.”
“She’s cutting through the same bank of fog we just came from.”
Which would not hinder him in the least bit if his goal was to intercept Celia. He had trained her and knew her habits. He didn’t need to see her to know what route she would have chosen and when she would change course, how much, and why.
With the spyglass to her eye, she could not see anything through that isolated bank Rafael was sailing through, but Celia trusted Kit’s sharp eye.
“Trim the sails,” Celia ordered. “Smitty, come hard about, due south. I need to talk to him anyroad, and here and now is as good a place and time as any, I suppose.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
“Kit, signal the rest to go on ahead on this course. Judas’s navigator will know my intent and keep them on course. We’ll catch up later.”
Mirrors flashed in the sunlight for quite some time. “Done. Silver Shilling is gaining speed and needs us to bear harder to larboard so she doesn’t plow into us.”
Smitty spun the wheel hard left. Kit said, “Captain Judas wants to know if you’re saying goodbye?”
Celia smiled. “Tell him I am and ’tis why we’re heaving to.”
Silence while the messages were sent and received. “He says he’ll see you when you’ve finished, then.”
It had to be done, but Celia dreaded the confrontation. Rafael would be infuriated by her marriage—especially to the man who’d stolen his carving—and take his deeds back out of spite. He may even bedevil them all the way to Algiers, but he would eventually accept it.
Wouldn’t he?
In truth, Celia had no notion, for he had ever indulged her and rarely shown his temper until he had come up against Captain Fury. Indeed, her lasting impression of his indulgence was his laughter when she had flung her retaliatory infidelity in his face.
Now as an adult with years of command behind her, he had little patience with her and she had long ago lost patience with his need to control and manipulate her.
Thus, his appeal to that part of her he hated for his own purposes; his distemper at her first marriage and his rage that she had bedded a Jew; his very real jealousy of Elliott—it was all so foreign to her and she could not predict how it would manifest.
“Habit,” she whispered. “We truly are a bad habit neither of us can break.”
“It’s good to put an end to it,” Solomon said from below her.
She sighed.
“Once we are through here, I would speak to you about our experiment.”
It wasn’t a request. She looked down, her eyebrow raised. “What now?”
“You won’t like it.”
She scowled at him. “I rarely like it when you turn your physicking upon my person.”
“I believe we will have a better chance of success if you trim your duties and spend more time in your bunk.”
She chortled. “Aye. Certainly. As soon as we find your wife and win a war. That cannot take more than a day or two, and then I will be happy to take to my bed until I deliver.”
He grunted. “As I thought.” With that, he disappeared belowdecks, his white tunic flapping behind him.
“Uh oh … ”
Celia’s head snapped up to the main mast platform where Kit kept watch, his mutter only barely audible.
“Kit, report.”
“Cap’n, the Indigo is through the fog. You better come watch. I can’t— I’m not sure what’s happening, but it doesn’t look good.”
Smitty swore even as Celia grasped a rope and shoved off to the midship rigging, climbing high enough to see for miles. She held on and put the glass to her eye.
It was even difficult for Celia to understand what she was seeing because it defied all sense. Rafael was at the wheel and gesturing wildly—gestures she had never seen him use and couldn’t read. But his crew knew, and suddenly, Rafael spun the wheel hard—
—to starboard.
Sails billowed and the Indigo shot through the waves, making directly for the Silver Shilling.
“No,” she whispered. “KIT!” she roared. “Signal the Indigo to stand down!”
Kit did as commanded, but no answer was forthcoming from the Indigo. “The Indigo has just ordered the Silver Shilling to heave to.”
“God help us,” Celia said, still hanging onto the ropes and watching in horror. “GEORGE! Take a mirror and tell the Silver Shilling to heave to and talk to him. He’s just posturing!”
Silence. Then, “She will not, Cap’n.”
“Captain Covarrubias wants the figurehead!” Kit called. “Captain Judas is refusing to give it up.”
Celia clasped her rope and swung down to the quarterdeck to take the wheel from Smitty, who muttered, “Idiots,” before barking orders to prepare for battle.
“George! Tell the Silver Shilling to give it to him. I can replace the carving and its contents. Rafael only seeks to get his deeds.” She hoped. “Kit, tell Rafael I have the deeds in my possession. The figurehead has lost its value to him.”
More flashes.
“She’s still refusing, Cap’n,” George called down.
“Cap’n!” Kit this time. “Captain Covarrubias says he’ll not leave without you and the figurehead. Both.”
“Does he understand I have the deeds?” she asked desperately. “Judas found them and gave them to me.”
“Aye, Cap’n. He says ’tis of no matter. He’ll not relinquish you or the figurehead.”
“George, tell Judas I’ll speak to Rafael, but he’ll not leave without the figurehead. He’ll have a battle whether he wants it or not.”
Faster flashes.
“‘So be it,’” Celia whispered to herself, reading the signals from Elliott’s own hand. “Where are the others?” Celia demanded.
A third crewman had ascended to another platform on Smitty’s order and it was he who replied. “They are heaving to. No battle preparations are being made. It appears they simply intend to watch.” A third set of signals went out to the rest of her fleet. “Captain Hollander says ’tis a duel over a woman and he will not interfere.” Pause. “Captains Dunham and Bull concur. Captain Dunham also says—”
“I don’t want to hear that bastard’s commentary!” Celia barked.
“Aye, Cap’n.”
Kit was the next with a report. “The Indigo wants us to join our guns with hers.”
Celia, too, came hard about, turning until she could see both ships. “Tell him no. Tell him I will come to him and I’ll have another figurehead made. He must stand down!”
“He says this is of your making, Cap’n, and that you’re obligated to him to assist.”
“Jack.” She started at Solomon’s voice from behind her, and she twisted to look at him. His normally expressionless face betrayed his anger, which meant it must be great for him to allow its display. “He will forever use your history with him to twist you about his finger. Would you send a hundred men to their deaths because of an obligation you do not owe to a man you think you love?”
She had no room for dispute, but that had never stopped her before. “It does belong to him … ”
Solomon closed the gap between them with one swift step, and leaned down to hiss in her face. “And so somebody stole it! Boohoo! That is what happens in this world. For all his brilliance, Jack—and he is brilliant—he is a spoiled brat, always running to Fate—”
“CAP’N! Captain Covarrubias is demanding we engage!”
“—to plead his case, to ask for favors no other mortal can expect. Fate is tired of his whining, tired of placating him. He was a fool to permanently store valuable documents in any ship at all, much less one sailed for the purposes of a war. It was only to Judas’s credit that he simply gave them to you when he found them. He could have destroyed them to drive a wedge between you and Rafael, but he didn’t. Rafael now knows that so the deeds are not at issue. You are.” Celia pulled her lips between her teeth. “You are not fourteen anymore, Jack,” he snarled. “Nor even twenty. This man does not love you as a man loves a woman; he loves you the way he loves that figurehead. You are his creation, his property. He despises Captain Fury and thus, he will never love you for who you are now, the way Khersis did, the way Judas does.”
He was right, but Lord, how it destroyed her to have it said so bluntly and she choked back a sob.
Celia looked up at Kit. “Tell Rafael I have wed Judas and, though I stand with my husband, I have every intention of returning him his deeds.”
Kit’s breath left him in a long sigh of relief, and he sent the message.
Rafael’s howls of rage made Celia flinch. Flashes came back and Celia read them herself. “‘Then I shall make you a widow. Again.’” She turned away from the rest of Rafael’s message. She couldn’t bear it, and she couldn’t have raised her voice to give the command if she tried. “Stand down.”
“Heave to!” Solomon bellowed, shocking all aboard. He was not an officer, but his orders were not to be questioned, even above Smitty’s. “We will not engage. Kit, George, send the message. Kit, do not communicate with the Indigo any further.”
“Aye, Sir.”
“Cap’n!” George yelled. “The Silver Shilling says she will not fire upon the Indigo unless she is fired upon.”
It was not an empty gesture on Elliott’s part, but the end was inevitable. Rafael would fire upon the Silver Shilling to force Elliott’s hand because …
The report of the first round of cannon fire came, a total of ten eight-pounders fired upon a vessel that had more than thirty bigger guns aimed at him.
And again.
Celia sighed.
… because he was Rafael.
“All hands on deck!” Smitty bellowed. “Prepare the fire brigade!” Men and women swarmed to the water and sand buckets.
Celia did not need to see the battle to know how it would unfold. What surprised her was how many hits Elliott was willing to take before he ordered the blast that would sink the Indigo.
three
five
seven
“Captain Judas says he’s sorry,” George called, “but he’s taken as much damage as he will tolerate.”
Celia dropped her head to the wheel, tears stinging her eyes, gathering her strength to lift her head to watch. She felt Solomon’s big hand on her back, at her neck, massaging her muscles as if to squeeze his comfort into her. Yet when she moved, he gently kept her head down. “You do not need to witness this,” he murmured.
He made some sort of gesture with his free hand, and suddenly, all man-made sounds aboard the Thunderstorm ceased.
Though Solomon would not allow her to watch, her ears saw it all when the boom of God-only-knew-how-many cannons resonated across the sea and caused the Thunderstorm to shudder.
Celia held her breath and counted the seconds until …
The Thunderstorm rocked and heeled starboard with the sole blast of the Indigo’s destruction.
Debris rained down upon them, and her crew scrambled to keep anything from catching fire. An ember fell on the back of Celia’s hand and she watched it burn her before it went out, unable to sustain itself.
Kit dropped lightly to his feet beside her. “Cap’n,” he murmured. “The Indigo’s last message was ‘Avenge me.’”
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Pirates!
“He was a fool to permanently store valuable documents in any ship at all, much less one sailed for the purposes of a war.”
Yeah, this landlubber’s gonna agree. (Oh. That love-y type thing gets in the way. Hmm. Stupid, love. Behave.)
(Mustn’t lie. Red Dawn dad screamed to me at the end. Righteous.)
Silver Shilling, the Black Demon, Iron Maiden, and the Mad Hangman all sound like bands Neph would know about.
I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but the endearingly bad C.H.O.M.P.S. is currently available on Tubi.
So is C.H.U.D. C.H.U.D.
Mmmm, Valerie Bertinelli… :Homer drooling sound::
Added both.
OT: That four and a half hour video on the Charlie Kirk murder someone (Drake?) linked a little while ago: I just finished watching it.
The only thing batshit crazy I see is the video title which is not at all descriptive.
The video went live for members of Julian Dorsey’s channel on August 5th, live for everyone else on August 7th. Based on the reference to a Candace Owens video, I’d say this Dorsey podcast video was filmed August 3rd or 4th. I haven’t paid enough attention to the Tyler Robinson trial to know what was public when.
It’s mainly Joseph Scott Morgan, a long time forensics guy, talking about forensic investigations work, specifically around Charlie Kirk and the aftermath of his murder.
The exploding mic theory comes up. Morgan says he would need to analyze Kirk’s shirt to know if the mic exploded or not. According to him, it’s a simple analysis that would definitely show whether or not the mic exploded. I didn’t get the impression Morgan thought the mic exploded. He’s just saying how he would prove or disprove it.
Morgan was critical of a few aspects of how the crime scene was handled and handling of evidence. For the former, the guys are watching a video. Morgan commented on things like too many people being at the crime scene making it hard to control what happens with evidence. Morgan was critical of a) Erika Kirk receiving Charlie Kirk’s necklace at the time she did as the necklace is evidence (it could have marks helpful for figuring out what happened) and b) Erika Kirk seeing Charlie Kirk’s body before the autopsy (not standard procedure, Morgan has been involved with cases where family members in shock handled the body potentially contaminating evidence).
I found much of Morgan’s descriptions of the forensic process fascinating.
Irony that Rafael’s own rage killed him rather than his family doing so.
I noticed the same thing. Still, too bad his crew had to die with him.
Rafael is absolutely brilliant, but his wisdom is a bit suboptimal. Elliott might not be the most academically inclined in his family and thus undervalued, but his wisdom is unparalleled, and that’s what Celia understands and respects.
“which prominent political candidate (at the federal level) spends the most on hair and makeup? — According to campaign finance records, Ossoff has paid “makeup artist Stephanie Ponder $2,887 for ‘makeup services'” since February… He’s not only paying big bucks for hair and makeup, but he’s also paying them to a high-profile artist. Ponder has a resume that includes working on The Notebook, Hunger Games, and Remember the Titans… The article also mentions that, “A recent Puck profile asserted that Ossoff ‘has seemingly reinvented himself’ in anticipation of a 2028 presidential bid, adding a ‘beefier physique to his studied, Obama-like cadence.'”
And the media is falling for it, of course. Ezra Klein of the New York Times has pointed out that Ossoff knows how to make himself appear imposing and powerful on TV… Queerty reported that “Jon Ossoff & his slutty little glasses are already our summertime political crush” and called him “an attractive version of Atticus Finch.”‘
Queerty. “[Ossoff’s] slutty little glasses.” Serious people, these are. They’re open about their middle school popularity contests, who’s hot or not. Queerty. (Not a bad name, frankly, but, uh. I’m w Rhy. “Queer” just means Marxist.
The ghosts of redcoats are laughing their asses off
https://www.mass.gov/how-to/apply-for-a-license-to-shoot-cannon-and-mortars
The 2nd amendment doesn’t apply to AR-15s!!! It only applies to … oh, wait …
The ace that shot down planes from all four Axis powers:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Louis-curdes-triple-axis-ace.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original
OK they’re both trash people but only one of them is dead. Why are we still talking about them?
A laser was bounced about, people paid attention and started dancing. Still clicking? The laser’s fluttering continues until the dancing stops. Social primates gonna gossip. Like the Prince Henry /Meghan shit. Christ, that bullshit has multiple headlines on *each* outlet’s front page. Damn! Who the fuck gives a shit?! (Dancers.)
“both trash people”
God forbid I’d be judged forever for stupid shit I did as a teen. Then again, I never murdered anyone.
If you’re interested in the case, just go directly to WFAA’s coverage of the case. It’s better and more thorough than the Post.
The judge makes a decision on a new hearing today (Saturday).
As of tonight he’s kicked me three times since April, and admitted it. Hope you Twitterers like him.
Sadly, as ever, (fairly sober) TOG apologizes that she cannot hang around for replies.
“I don’t care about legality.”
Re my injured finger: “So sue me.” (Judgment-proof!)
This is yer boi Yusef Bobbo, y’all.
I don’t recall any of us’all recommending you stay in this situation.
Quite the opposite in fact.
Sounds like he’s more yer boi than anybody else’s.
If he’s committed assault, call 911.
https://www.visitphilly.com/52-weeks-of-firsts/
*lights the Bro signal*
Happy Saturday! Get out there and have a Smurftastic one.
🌈🍄🤣
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dUxMU-T_8
🎶🎶
I’ve just decided that I aint doin shit today, Ef my obligations.
That’s the spirit!
*high-fives*
Mornin’
Good Morning, All!
Just started the first cup but already things are looking brighter.
Gonna be another great day, starting at 55F and will be sunny when the time comes.
I’m hoping things dry off and I can dodge rain long enough to cut the grass. This has to be the wettest August I can remember.
Generally things have been scorched and the lawn is dead by now. With all the rain we’ve had, things look more like April.
Ya I’m not hear my idiotic coworker complain about how we are ‘in a drought’ but instead complain ‘this is too much rain’
I almost got stranded in a flash flood the other day. I haven’t seen a deluge like that in ages.
We’ve had a bit of rain the past couple weeks, nice to see green grass again. We’re good now for the fall.
Morning Glibbies, I’m hitting the road out west for Burning Man; I’ll be scarce in these parts for a while.
Drive safely (as if you wouldn’t) but there’s 350M others out there.
Avoid those with CA plates and phony CDL.
suh’ fam
whats goody yo
TALL WEEKEND CANS!
Sorry, everyone. Am embarrassed too. And I have forgotten my lede…!
I should post pics of the interior (some exterior too) of this house. That would set the cat upon the pigeons. It could be an article.
RUN FROM NARCISSISTS! Rike from Gozira! RUN!!
Tomorrow is bee inspection day and take all the full frames out of the boxes.
Then the last one in 3 weeks, a week before HH.
Good morning!
Three days of Nats down, two left.
The good shooters decided they’d rather lose to the best than beat the worst, so I’ll be walking the prize table early. Might even get a stage win.
Morning, all.
Dog sitting – took her out at 11:30 pm, she whined to go out at 3AM, then 5AM, then up for the day at 6:30AM.
Gonna be a long couple of days if she keeps this up.