Multiverse 7 has published!

 

Four fresh stories from the universes I play in. The Roo, Princess Rescue, and 2 from the Federation Universe!

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSMB2YNB

B&N: Link

Multiverse 7 Snippet 4

 Sitrep:

So, I just finished act 1 yesterday. I'm going to switch gears today to do the homework for it before sending it off to the Betas. :)

In other news I just received MV7 from Goodlifeguide. I'll be publishing it today or tomorrow!

I also sent the original Bootstrap Colony to Goodlifeguide so she can get a jump on the formatting for print. That has me nervous.

I'm still struggling with the back cover artwork.

On to the final snippet!

 

The following story is from Scamp, a follow up to the Federation story in MV6! Boy it was fun to write! 😄

 

Eos XVIII, Sigma Sector

 

The Meridian class prowler, Batmobile, checked in again with the natives as they made their final approach and settled into orbit. They were masquerading as a small tramp freighter and were essentially on fumes. The captain had decided on stopping at the planet over the other two stops in the cluster because they had not visited it yet. There had also been recent unknown ion trail traffic to the other stops so she’d skipped through SG5-235 rather than stopping and potentially getting caught.

It had meant they were running low on fuel though, and after a year of traveling from Beta sector, the crew could use some fresh provisions and a relief to bulkhead fever. But there were inherent dangers in lowering their guard.

They had found the hidden spy satellite and the AI had downloaded the dump of data. The skipper and AI were still processing it. That didn’t matter to the rest of the crew at the moment since the last ship had departed the star system just under a year ago. They had a job to do, secure fuel and provisions; otherwise, they were going to be stuck in the star system for a long time.

The colony was in a cul-de-sac star system. Named for Eos, Greek god of the dawn, it had a large ocean with some unusual properties. That and a desire for a change in diet had helped the skipper chose their destination.

The mission was tricky; they were supposed to maintain their cover in what was suspected to be a pirate allied star system.

Nothing that team members of the Special Warfare Group couldn’t handle of course.

===#===

Chief Petty Officer Joe Thomson checked the shuttle status as they came out of LOS. So far so good, now he needed to get the hull temperature down so they could move on to the next phase of the plan.

He glanced at the camera feed in the rear. It was filled with trade goods and two of his teammates. He glanced to the copilot seat where Petty Officer Randy Guetta was going through the usual routine with the shuttle’s systems.

Because they were essentially in pirate space, most of the nonhuman team members were used for support in situations like this. Those that did get dropped had to hang back out of sight and therefore out of mind. They usually shrugged it off.

“Drop in three mikes fourteen seconds from … mark,” he announced over the PA.

He got two acknowledgments and then sent a brief SITREP to the ship upstairs. He then took the yoke and began a series of S turns to bleed off some of their excess speed and thermal energy.

===#===

Mayor Lyle Tenaka was on hand for the landing. Sheriff Jim Santos was off doing a patrol with his deputies, something about an owl bear raiding a chicken coop at Crawlies. He’d look into it later.

He had let the commissioner know about the arrival. Commissioner Fenrir Malforth had been appointed by the pirate Empress to oversee trade with the planet. He was officially there as her representative. There had been a cave-in at one of the mines after the rains so he’d stopped there before coming to town.

Given that the rains had washed out some of the roads, he might be delayed a day or more. He hoped so at any rate. The commissioner was a cold bastard. Scary, he thought with a wince. He was also paranoid about the visiting tramp freighter for some reason.

They occasionally did see a civilian freighter or used to until the regular traffic with the pirates. He suspected that they had run off most of the civilian traffic or caught it before the Feds had shown up in the star system. So far he’d only seen three visits by their ships, all cruisers. None had stayed longer than a week. The last had been two years ago.

They were looking for the pirate’s main base. He wasn’t sure he wanted them to find it. At the moment, trading with the pirates was lucrative. It was actual trade too, not tribute, which explained why he was reluctant to mention it to anyone, especially outsiders.

He checked the weather and grunted. He expected a series of storms to roll in by the end of the week as usual. He was pretty sure the ship would want to leave by then so the trade should be short and sweet.

===#===

As soon as they were below fifteen thousand meters, the chief went into a series of S turns to seemingly bleed off speed. Which he was doing but he had another purpose for the maneuvers.

When the hull was safe enough, the rear hatch opened and Sully and Sia waddled out. Sully went over the ramp as the light turned green, Sia a beat behind him. A line attached to the tiger drew a package out with her.

They dropped below the shuttle and the ramp closed. Chief Thompson and PO Randy Guetta remained at the controls of the shuttle. They returned to the normal mission profile as the sniper team popped their chutes and then performed a water insertion below them.

===#===

Sully kept his hands crossed in front of himself and his body straight as a pencil as he dropped out of his chute and into the cold salt water. Plasma from their reentry had made things hot initially, but the cold dip was a shock to his system.

Both SEALs had used a single-use small deflector to ward off the heat and plasma but they’d still felt a bit of it. They’d had to be well clear of the wake of the shuttle before they could deploy their chutes. It wasn’t quite a classic HALO drop but it felt like it.

The package that had been attached to Sia deployed after bobbing back to the surface. It inflated into a rib, an inflatable small boat.

“Hurry up before the damn sharks come to investigate the splashing,” Sully grumbled. PO Ben Sully was a Neochimp and the team’s best sniper. He was, however, a typical chimp and therefore hated water.

It was amazing though what one could put up with if you were dedicated enough. He managed to get into the rib and rolled to the side to make room for his much larger partner.

“No claws,” he warned.

“Teach your mother to suck eggs,” PO Sia Clarkson, the Neotiger engineer and spotter growled. She was there to handle the communications for the sniper team as well. She clambered into the boat just as a fin broke the surface.

“Screw you,” she growled at the fish, holding up a one finger salute as Sully got the small motor going. She oriented on the coast with her implants and pointed in the direction they had to go. “Six kilometers that way,” she said.

“Copy that,” Sully said.

They secured their gear and then the quiet motor roared to full power. They laid flat on the rib’s sides as the boat headed inland.

===#===

Scamp was grateful to be awake, so grateful he tried his best to be as helpful as possible around the ship.

He had been given basic civilian implants with a jack during his physical exam. He knew that they could track him on the ship and off. It was not used when they played hide and seek though. He was particularly good at that game, whether he was seeking or hiding. The SEALs were a bit chagrined to know he could smell them out even with their implants.

He had been awake for two months and was growing up a bit. The chief said he was maturing, which he attributed to regular schooling and his time on the ship.

He was allowed to be awake while in port as long as he stayed out of the way and did his chores and schoolwork. He was determined to become a SEAL when they finally reached the Federation. He even worked out in the small exercise room and had passed a basic firearms safety and marksmanship class.

He had a series of chores to do. Everyone had chores, so he wisely didn’t complain. His included checking ship systems, watering the plants and caring for them, cleaning, and doing chores in the galley. He was too young and not an official member of the crew so he couldn’t stand watch. Not that he didn’t sit in a few times.

They did occasionally tease him about nodding off. They were right and he was embarrassed but took it in good stride most times, including the pranks some of the SEALs occasionally pulled on him when he did take a nap.

He did like that the chores rotated and that he could and did get back at the SEALs who pranked him on occasion. They had a wicked sense of humor and enjoyed a good joke, even when they were the butt of it. He’d also learned to not complain about being occasionally singled out.

He rounded a corner and dipped into the storage room off the tiny sickbay. The lights came on automatically.

He noted the cyborg woman in the stasis pod. He stared at her for a long moment before he turned, made a check on his tablet, and then scampered off.

===#===

Multiverse 7 Snippet 3

 Sitrep:

So, plugging away on Bootstrap 5, I'm closing in on finishing up the first act. Slow going, but I'm getting there.

In other news, the cover for Bootstrap 1 revamp is good but the backflap needs work. I've been working on it in the evenings. Render times have skyrocketed with the increase in level of detail which is... driving me crazy at the moment. Mechmaster is patiently working on it with me. :)

Hopefully I'll have something better to show soon.

Oh! Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

On to the snippet!

 

The following is the start of the first Federation story called Skyworld. It was fun to write and puzzle over.

 

Skyworld

 

The lighthouse was an ivory pillar on a jagged steep column of rock. A suspension bridge connected it to another rock spire, and another bridge from there connected it to the rock where the main house was.

Stairs spiraled down around the rock. At one point, the wood and plastic stairs had a railing; the wood had dried out and at some point either given way or been sacrificed for fire material. Now the only safe way down the stairs was to cling to the rock face and pick your way along the steps. You took your life into your hands each time you used them. Forget trying to climb up or down the stairs in high winds.

Ben Sereph, the chief lighthouse keeper, noted fog rolling in. It was to be expected. The barometric pressure was high but the temperature was dropping quickly. He checked the foghorn to be sure it would work. He also checked to be sure he had enough padding to pack the ears of the family to drown it out later.

Fog was the scariest time to be in the air; any sane flyer either flew above it or grounded themselves. If they were going over the deeps, they chanced a predator seeing their shadow and lunging at them in a breech.

Clouds at least were not as bad most times. Fog was a form of cloud, but it could be so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It would roll in just below the lighthouse giving it an ominous sea of cotton all around it.

Seeing a breech was spectacular as long as you weren’t the victim of it. He had seen his fair share of them over the years as the lighthouse keeper and before when he’d been a flier himself.

He flexed his right arm, keeping his left to his side. His left arm had been badly damaged in an injury and had healed wrong. The wing skin was bumpy and had holes in it.

He was a chimera, a descendant of a genetically engineered human who had turned themselves into a man-bat. He had hollow bones and short legs. A flap of skin had once been between his legs. That too had been damaged, and the doc had trimmed it to allow him to get around easier without having to knuckle walk anymore.

It did allow him to wear pants, which was warmer in the cold wet air. But he still missed … he twisted his face and looked away in pain.

His homeworld had been a minor gas giant in the goldilocks zone that had been terraformed by a corporation during the Federation. The man who had orchestrated the move was named Drake Tugarin. He was still around; when he had retired, he had changed his body form into a were dragon. He was over nine hundred years old and a titan. He slept a lot more, and his mind wandered, but he still thought of himself as the governor of the star system.

No one was stupid enough to dispute it. At least, no one within biting range of the dragon at any rate.

During the Federation time, the planet had served as a tourist trap in the region. Ships would stop by for their abundant supply of hydrogen, water, and oxygen. Cruise liners would bring loads of passengers to experience the color of the natives and the hospitality of the hotels that were there to service them.

Hotels, resorts, and of course casinos. All designed to pamper the guests and keep them content while they willingly signed over vast sums of money in the casinos or doing events and other scatterbrained things.

There had been fishing, air sailing, diving, flying, and especially racing.

Most of the residents had worked in the hospitality industry in company housing. They had to fulfill every job imaginable to keep the place running smoothly.

When the fall of the Federation came, many star systems were overwhelmed helping refugees. When the power, food, and tech inevitably ran out, they had to scramble to find ways to support themselves.

Their home planet had a space station at one point. Operative word there, had. He looked up to the blue sky bleakly. At one point, they’d had a massive space station that ships could unstep their hyperdrives and dock with.

That had changed when a damn changeling had gotten on board. The governor had ordered the station to be destroyed by setting off an improvised fusion warhead. Millions of people had died. But better they died cleanly in the hellfire of a nuke over getting eaten alive by nanites that had been set loose within the confines of the station.

He shivered a little. And better still that the nanites hadn’t found their way to the planet’s atmosphere.

Some of the resorts and hotels had fallen over the centuries. Many of those had been kept up by antigrav. When the tech failed, so did the platform. Small platforms had managed to use vast dirigibles to keep afloat but they were fire hazards.

There was no real ground for people to settle on and spread out on. The ground they did have was the tops of spires and mountains that were far below. No one could survive living on the ground; the air pressure was just too great.

Over the intervening years if one thing or another didn’t kill you, a person saved up and got off the damn world. They were still a crossroads for ship traffic. There were four jump points that lead to other star systems. They were one of the few places it was convenient to refuel.

Of course that meant they were essentially a watering hole. Which meant predators in the form of the damn lice, bedraggled pirates lurked. They had driven off a lot of the traffic.

He hated the pirates with a passion. They hadn’t taken his wing, which had been his own damn fault. But they had killed many people. Worse, they took what they wanted and threatened to destroy the few places left that people could cling to.

Those people that could get out had done so over the years. Many young people took off if given half the chance. They had lost a lot of institutional knowledge in the process.

That and the population had shifted.

He checked the light and cleaned a section of the glass with a rag. There was a bit of crud, probably from the airborne bacteria and plankton. Cleaning the light was a constant headache; the light tended to attract animals and insects. With the small ones, came the larger ones and so on and so forth.

He checked the instruments and then used a quill pen to mark down the time and readings for the almanac. He was careful to not use too much of the ink. It was made from a flying squid that was tough to catch.

He put the quill in the container and then turned away. The journal laid open for him. The papers ruffled by the light breeze. He glanced at it and then outside.

His wife should be back any time, he mused thoughtfully. Hopefully before dark, he thought darkly. She knew better than to push it. Hell, hopefully before dusk, that was when the predators really came out to hunt.

Damn you, Serena, get back here, he thought with a mental growl. Motion at the house out of the corner of his eye attracted his attention. He turned and saw their eldest waving. He grunted and lifted him up off the stool and made his way out of the lighthouse and to the bridges linking the lighthouse to their small home.

===@===

Serena felt contentment as she sighted home. It was still there, still a part of the landscape. Like the rocks the house and lighthouse clung to, just there.

She was tired from her long flight and heavy payload, but wise enough to not go straight in. There was a narrow stretch that she could run but it went right over the depths. Instead, she banked away and took the safe way in. It meant the setting sun was at her back.

The depths were already being obscured by the rolling fog, like a blanket being pulled over it. Ben’s going to be irked at my tardiness, but I had to catch that last thermal, she thought with a mental shrug.

It wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t fly. He had been young and stupid enough to fly too close to the rocks. He’d paid for the mistake with a shattered wing arm and shredded sails. The fire a few years ago hadn’t helped.

At least we didn’t lose the house, she thought as she banked ever so slightly, conserving altitude as she tried to sail into the narrow landing platform attached to the house.

She felt the packages and mail weighing her down. It was all strapped to her harness. She might have over done it, but it might mean they may not have to go out for groceries again for a full week.

Maybe.

Besides, they’d gotten paid, which was great. It had been past time to stock up. The larder was getting low and the kids were heartily tired of eating lichen and what the adults could catch in the nets. A treat was in order.

She did a spiral once home was in sight. She hated and loved this part. The depths were near the edge of the platform; the winds were just right that had to go over them in order to land. In order to do it, she had a trick though.

Like a falcon she tucked her wings in tight and pointed her nose to the platform in a steep dive. She flew fast over the depths as she lost altitude and then unfurled her wings to back wing at the platform edge.

A sudden gust of wind threw her timing off. But a hand reached out to grab her harness just before she went backwards over the edge.

She smiled as she recovered her balance, tucking her wings in her knuckles to the ground for stability. Her long fingers tucked up against her arms.

“You need to be more careful with an unfamiliar load, mom,” Charlie said as he let go of her harness.

“Nice to see you too, son,” she said as she kissed him on the head.

“I take it work was good?”

“You could say that,” she said with a grin as they got away from the edge of the platform to avoid anything being tempted to come up to investigate. Once clear she undid a few of the packages and handed them over to him.

He wrapped one around his waist and then slung the other over his shoulder. She tisked and attached it to his harness.

He clicked his mouth but didn’t object. He knew better.

They negotiated the stairs, sticking to the cliff side. “Your father needs to get another rope here. Two of them,” Serena complained.

“You say that all the time. But you know he can’t leave this place. So, it is up to you to buy them, right?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Too true.” She was tired and hungry. Her hunger was a product of her exertions flying. She had low blood sugar and needed to refuel. “What’s for dinner?”

Her son snorted. “What else? Stew. Dad was brooding in the lighthouse all day so we only checked the small traps.”

“Damn,” his mother muttered.

“He did check them in the morning; there wasn’t much. I netted a crab off the east side.”

“You did?” she asked, clearly pleased.

“Yeah, it made for good crab sandwiches,” he said.

She smiled. At least he and his siblings had been fed.

One of the things that had attracted her to Ben was his inability to fly. She’d never told him that, in fact she’d never told a soul. He was moody and brooded a lot. She knew it and knew why. But the reason he couldn’t fly was why she had taken him as a mate. He could mind the kids while she continued to fly and work.

It wasn’t something you ever admitted to your earthbound mate, however.

He did have his moments. He was great with their children when he was in a good mood. Even when he was in one of his moods he never took it out on her or the kids. He just shut down. Usually the antics of one of the kids would break him out of it.

Once they were at the landing around the house, he turned. “One day I am going to make this bigger so you can land here,” he indicated the platform.

“Sure you will. With what wood?” she retorted.

He shrugged as she opened the door and they stepped inside.

As expected the house was warm but darker than outside. The windows were small and patched. Two were covered with muslin rather than glass. They still had pieces of glass in them, but they didn’t do much. When it was cold out, they were the first to be shuttered.

A dried log of lichen was burning in the fireplace. It was a light fire; a pot of stew simmered next to it on a forked rod.

A spoon and poker leaned up against the sooty fireplace. She flicked a look of disapproval at the spoon but then went back to surveying the room. All was right as it should be.

William was entertaining his two sisters. Sunny was enjoying gliding off the stool. “Mommy mommy!” she called out in excitement.

Serena smiled tenderly and hugged her daughter. Eliza hugged her from the outside. “So, what’d you bring us?” the impetuous elder daughter asked slyly.

Her mother chuckled in response and ruffled her hair.

“So, where is your father?” she asked.

“At the lighthouse. Fog is rolling in. We had some plankton hit it. No pitting,” William told her. “He was waiting for the evening check-in time before he set the foghorn.”

Serena nodded.

“We need to do something about the western wind turbine. It’s not anchored well,” William said.

Serena nodded again. “The problem is …”

“Getting to it. And having something to anchor into. Yeah, I know,” he said. “But if we don’t do something soon one good gust and that will be all she wrote. It’ll fall into the depths.”

She grimaced. “The line might stop it.”

“If the weight doesn’t snap it. Or pull the box down with it,” William retorted.

Serena nodded again. She knew that. She was just tired.

Charles helped her to get her packages sorted out. The mail went to her desk by the window. The rest was quickly sorted out. She kept her surprise for later under wraps.

Charles went out to wave their father in as she settled down to eat some stew. The kids were pleased and told her about their day. She was tired but listened to them as she ate.

When Ben came in, she felt the gust of cold air but was sleepy. She smiled as she cuddled with Sunny. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi, yourself,” he said with a nod as the door closed behind him. Charles followed him in with a net. He dumped the contents in the sink and then began to sort it out. Ben went and kissed his wife’s forehead and then went to help his eldest deal with the catch.

Once the catch was sorted, he reset the trap with a bait fish and then went out and dropped it.

“Where was that one?” she asked Charles while his father was gone.

“North. He checked the traps on his way in.

“Oh,” she said with a tired nod. “Anything good?”

“A couple of crustaceans. There are some bones and wings of flying fish. He should have checked the trap sooner.”

“Or you should have,” she retorted. He grunted but said nothing.

“So, school is done?”

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Go to bed,” he replied with a chuckle.

She snorted. She did appreciate the warmth of the chamber. He placed a blanket over her shoulders. She felt gratitude.

He went back to sort the catch just as Ben returned. Ben gave her another kiss and then she tiredly told him about her day. He sat across from her and listened to every word, something she deeply appreciated and treasured.

===@===

Multiverse Snippet 2

 Sitrep:

So, I'm plugging away at Bootstrap Colony 5. It is slow going but I'm picking up speed as I get back into the rhythm.  

I have also been making some progress with the revamp of the Bootstrap 1 cover. The base cover is done, I'm going to work on the lettering and the back flap in a bit.

In other news, Goodlifeguide let me know they'll have MV7 back next week sometime.

On to the snippet!

The following is from the PRI story Dragon Carrier, which is a follow up to the PRI story in Multiverse 6.

Dragon Carrier

Tuanku Cayao stared out at the bricklayers erecting a smokestack and considered how far they had come in such a short time period. It was all due to the gaijin in the Ianna Imperium.

Well, to be fair they had set the spark and alarm had fanned it into competition, a sense of urgency to do something or get left behind or worse, get invaded and have their lives and freedom ruined or cut short.

In one of the rarest moments in history, the twelve pirate clans had banded together like never before. They had opened their archives to the makers like Dirk Wheeler to compile what they already knew but didn’t understand with what they had seen from the Imperium’s craft. Dirk had mentioned that seeing something done was halfway there to actually doing it themselves.

Well, they’d known the realm of possibility from tales from his home world of Patria, Earth. He had left there at the tender age of eleven from the seas near Indonesia thirty local years or annus as they called them ago. The years didn’t quite match up on the alien world, one of many differences between the two planets.

They had seen and heard the stories, seen samples of craft and technology that survived to get to the island. But none could understand enough to implement the technology, at least not until a group of gaijin had come across with a seemingly complete computer database of technology.

Seeing was believing though, and when a pirate captain had seen an Ianna aircraft buzz his ship and prevent him from catching a prize, it had sparked the lords to do something.

That and well, the stories of the Imperium using that technology to utterly destroy the army of Duluth and conquer it in short order. They had to upgrade if only out of an urgent need for self-defense.

Knowing something could be done was great, but they hadn’t the understanding of things until Dirk dug into the archives. That and they picked his brain. He hadn’t expected the changes that had been wrought in such a short time.

They had alcohol fueled motors now. They had crude electricity with little understanding of how it worked; he only remembered so much to help. The materials were an issue of course; he knew they couldn’t replicate a microchip when they were still struggling to produce the basics of other components.

Teasing his memory helped to break through logjams of things that had been described in journals from gaijin. That was something he liked. His adopted people had bought or taken in gaijin from various cultures, and they had been paid to write down what they knew.

Unfortunately, less than a tenth of that knowledge had been applied up until now. But now they were making a great deal of headway.

Dirk Wheeler’s Maker Clan had been working to innovate before the Imperium had grown in importance. His clan had engineered gliders and flying beasts. They had implemented many other things. Adding new tech was just pushing things faster.

He looked over the top of the building where workmen were covering over the truss sections with plywood. Plywood had been around for a while but they now made a lot more of it. Dirk had introduced workshops and other facilities and a better shipyard. The building he was watching grow was a new workshop being built where a group of old workshops had been torn down two hafta ago.

Even though he and an elderly Chinese lady had filled in important pieces, they still had many left glaringly open to puzzle over. The Chinese lady had passed away recently but not before finally revealing the secret to gunpowder to the clans.

He heard shots and turned to see puffs of smoke where men were drilling at a gun range. They had flintlock pistols and rifles at the moment, but it was far better than bows, crossbows, and swords. They had to use flintlocks since they were recreations of the few originals that had survived as prizes in collections and could use the black powder. The chemists in the Abbas Clan knew of smokeless gunpowder and guncotton but lacked the recipe to make them at the moment.

The fact that the Imperium had both wasn’t lost on the clans. Their spies were working with the Duke of Medicini to redress the balance there and elsewhere.

Pierre Fouche, lord of his own clan, was steering that effort. He was dealing with Duke Medicini as well as managing the spy efforts in Ianna with Cheung Leung’s support.

Already they had received some useful bits, like pamphlets on vaccines and a tattered children’s book with pictures of gaijin technology. It was proving useful but maddeningly vague.

Perhaps more would come in soon.

~~~\^/~~~

Captain Ahmad felt his ship rock as the two boats lined up. He was in his old clipper. He wanted to use the newer vessels but his lord had decreed that those ships had to stay close to port. They did not want to tip-off their hand that they were moving away from sailing vessels so quickly.

He understood it, but the newer ships were faster. Perhaps they could find a way to work some of the new gadgets into his old ship? That would be nice. A motorized winch would be ideal. The same for stoves and things. He made another mental note to look into it as the breeze picked up.

A lookout called out a sail sighting and he turned in the indicated direction. “About time,” he muttered.

The small fishing vessel came alongside warily. Once they were alongside, a plank was extended between the vessels and he went aboard.

The fishing captain was ready to do business. He offered papers and things that had been handed out in his small village. They had been crumpled at one time but smoothed out. “You do not need them? Or did you make a copy?” Captain Ahmad asked as he looked the material over. There were new pamphlets, a paper on events, and another book.

The fisherman looked away. It became clear but unsaid that he couldn’t read. Most of the fishing families couldn’t read.

“They want to put our children in a proper education,” the fisherman said and then spat over the side of the boat. He was careful to do it in the offside away from the clipper out of respect or fear.

Captain Ahmad nodded. It was typical in the fishing villages. As soon as the children were old enough to mind themselves they worked clamming or in the docks running messages or carts or gutting fish. You learned what you could. If the family wasn’t too tired, they would do something during the long winter or hire a tutor if they were well off. The poor didn’t care, however.

Most families inland liked having kids because they did chores and helped out with the farm. They were accidents though. “They might as well pay for their own upkeep. My eldest son will be coming out with me next trip,” the fisherman said.

“Ah,” Captain Ahmad said as he nodded and handed over a small pouch of coins. It was a bit ironic that the coins had come from the Nuevo Imperium vessel that they had captured and looted. The crew didn’t need such things anymore.

“Thank ye kindly, sorr,” the fisherman drawled as he made the small pouch disappear. His eyes gleamed.

The two captains conversed; Captain Ahmad was careful to question the man in different ways about points of interest that Pierre’s men had given him to follow. When he was certain of the answers, they parted ways.

Once he was on board his ship, the captain went below and came back with a massive fish. He tossed it to a deckhand on the clipper. “My thanks!” he said.

The deckhand took it with a grin. “We’ll be eating well tonight!” he said.

The crew cheered.

The captain snorted. Once the fishing vessel was underway again, he ordered his first officer to set course for home and then went below to his cabin to write up everything that had been said while the memories were fresh.

~~~\^/~~~