“Nice work,” Jerry commented before she ran back into the storm of pirates. Azar and the others were already working their way toward the wheelhouse. Jerry pointed at Sacha and yelled, “Grab that board! Block the door.”

  Sacha listened, dragging a large solid wooden board to Jerry and bracing it against the door to narrow the entry points onto the deck. Wench’s Dream was a larger vessel and there were easily another ten crewmen belowdecks still.

  “Block as many as you can.” Jerry jumped up when a man swiped at her with his sword, missing her.

  Jerry trusted Sacha was doing as she was told and charged forward. She was only a few steps away from the wheelhouse door when an arm wrapped around her neck and dragged her backward. The body behind her was thick and firm, someone who was strong and ready for work on a ship. Jerry slowed her breathing and focused her mind.

  Lifting her fist, she jerked her arm backward and right into the man’s ribs. He grunted, but it didn’t make a lick of a difference. She then stomped on his boot, hoping to disrupt his concentration, but that didn’t seem to work either. Her last-ditch effort, Jerry swung her left hand around and pushed past her side, the knife still clasped in her fist driving straight into the man’s ribs, snapping them.

  He dropped her in an instant. Gasping for breath, Jerry moved up on her toes and turned around. She screamed as she charged into him, using her short sword to slice his body up. He fought back, but with each cut to his skin, he fought a little less until he was a bloody mess on the deck. Sneering, Jerry pulled her knife from his ribs and reoriented herself back toward the wheelhouse door.

  While the rest of her crew fought their battle, she raged forward. The door was open—shockingly—and she dove for it, hitting it with her shoulder to wrench it all the way open. Inside were two men at the wheels. The first one had dark skin, eyes the same color, and hair curled in a halo around his head. He came toward her, and Jerry held her hands up, ready for whatever fight he might put up.

  “Surrender now and I’ll let you live.”

  His white teeth shone in the dim light, and he belted out a harsh laugh. “You weren’t much of a fight the first time we met you.”

  “A mistake I won’t make twice.” Jerry loosened her grasp on the sword, preparing for whatever step he might make. The other man, who Jerry assumed was Blaise’s first, held firmly to the wheel. “Surrender or die, and to boot, I’ll eat your brains first.”

  That caused him to stumble in confusion. Jerry took the opportunity and lunged forward. He was quick in his draw and held up a sword, the metal clanging against hers in the quiet room. Raging, Jerry cried out as she slipped in a circle to free her weapon and take another stab at him. The man put a stop to her again.

  Jerry managed to get her knife into his arm, but he easily ignored it as he continued to parry her. Frustration reached into Jerry’s chest, snagging hold of her as she continued to fight with him. The other man stayed completely still as he steered the vessel wherever they were going. Her heart raced, and she took another try at getting him, this time managing to slice along his leg with her short sword.

  The click of a gun sent a shudder of fear through her spine. Jerry froze, the man looking over her shoulder. If there was a gun at her body, there would be little escaping it. The cold barrel pressed into the back of her skull hard, jerking her forward from the force of the movement.

  She held her hands out to her sides to show her momentary surrender. Her mind whirred triple time as she worked through how to get herself out of this one, and when the man standing in front of her sheathed his sword against his side, she knew she had it. She just had to know who was behind her.

  “Ugly thing like you won’t be worth anything to the underground.”

  “Captain Blaise Lotchski,” Jerry said, a sing-song quality to her tone.

  Jerry snorted loudly. He had no idea who she was, did he? Blaise assumed she was a wannabe pirate, someone who didn’t know what she was doing one too many times. She had more connections in the underground than he did, and no way would Miriam sell her to anyone.

  Their crews battled on outside of the wheelhouse, and Jerry couldn’t catch anyone’s attention, not that she wanted to. She didn’t want them to die like she was about to. She wanted them to survive and fight for Yarrow.

  He moved in, his hot breath against her ear. “Thought you’d killed me, didn’t you?”

  “Not really,” Jerry answered, keeping her gaze on the dark eyes of the man in front of her. “But I definitely took you down a notch or two.”

  Blaise barked a laugh, but he had a definite wheeze in his breathing he didn’t have before. Jerry had done that, she was sure, and she would end it all soon enough. She had thought for a brief moment she had at least injured him enough that he wouldn’t be able to get up and would bleed a slow damn death. Apparently, she had been wrong. Jerry slowed her breathing, catching herself and becoming hyperaware of everything around her. She was ready for whatever was going to come next.

  “Take her,” Blaise ordered.

  The man in front of her stumbled, and Jerry reached forward as she ducked down, grasping the sword at his side. The gun went off, the thump of the man in front of her hitting the deck loudly as Jerry flipped around and slid the sword straight into Blaise’s heart. Jerry held his gaze as his lips parted with his last breath. She raised an eyebrow at him while his body went limp.

  “Seems once again I’ve outsmarted you.” Not giving the first mate a chance, Jerry spun on him with the sword in her hand. “Are you surrendering or choosing to meet the same fate as your captain?”

  He raised his hands up by his head and released the wheel.

  “Good choice.” Jerry eyed him. “Call off your men.”

  “They won’t listen.” His voice was gruff as he spoke. “They only listen to Captain Lotchski.”

  “Then they’ll be loyal to their death. Get on your knees.”

  He complied, and Jerry wondered if the rest of the crew would meet Blaise in the otherworld. She suspected they wouldn’t if this man wasn’t. Jerry found some rope and tied him up, bringing him out onto the deck.

  She shouted as loud as she could, “Listen up all you pirates! Lotchski is dead! Wench’s Dream is mine!”

  Her crew cheered loudly, and Wench’s Dream’s crew dropped their swords in surrender. Jerry shoved the first mate into Azar’s hands, letting him handle that situation. Within a few minutes, they had the rest of the Wench’s Dream crew tied up on the deck. Sacha and Yafe took tally of what was in the ship’s stores and how many were dead.

  Jerry rolled her shoulders and supervised it all, but ideally, she wanted to get back to Yarrow. She wanted to get home and be among her family. Elation filled her, but that longing to be settled was still very much present in the forefront of her mind.

  Vivian came aboard, having been on Yarrow, and flagged Jerry down. Walking toward her, Jerry wiped her hands on her tunic, realizing it was blood after blood and she would have to take some time in the washroom to get it all off. “What is it?”

  “We just finished going through Yarrow.”

  “How many dead?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “They had sixteen men there?”

  Vivian frowned as she shook her head. “Twelve men. Four whores.”

  Jerry’s stomach flopped hard. “And the whores? Are they dead?”

  Vivian nodded. Jerry’s stomach fell. She hadn’t anticipated Blaise would still be one of those captains, though she probably should have. He was an asshole through and through.

  Guilt hit her hard. That could have so easily been her and her mother. It wouldn’t be the first time she had been in a situation like that. Pushing past the emotion bubbling in her, Jerry asked the next question.

  “What else did they have on board?”

  “Cirax.”

  “How much?”

  “Nowhere near what you said it should be, though I would expect some to be used, but they were still missing some.” Vivian dashed her tongue across her lips. “I hope you don’t mind, but I gave the crew some if they wanted it. I didn’t want to eat…the alternative if I could avoid it.”

  Jerry nodded sharply. “Just keep track. Cirax doesn’t work as well, so you’ll need more than you think you might.”

  “Understood, Cap.” Vivian wrung her hands together, as though she was nervous. “What uh…do you want to do with the bodies?”

  “Cut off the heads and store those. Throw the bodies over. We don’t need them.” Jerry caught the look of fear in Vivian’s gaze and sighed. “If you can’t stomach cutting off their heads, then someone else can do it.”

  “Okay.” Vivian walked away, her steps heavier than when she’d arrived.

  Jerry stepped into the wheelhouse, the floorboards still covered in blood from the battle that had raged in there. She’d get someone to clean it up if she didn’t do it herself before then. Jerry messed around with the dash, working out their systems. Vivian would likely be better at this than she was, Azar definitely would be able to get her moving, but it would be Vivian who could give them easy control.

  She’d contact Vivian in a bit and have her come over once she was done with Yarrow. Yafe stepped into the wheelhouse and put a hand on Jerry’s arm. “We did it.”

  “We did,” Jerry agreed.

  “Now we have our home back.”

  Jerry’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. Yafe was right. This had been what they had worked so hard for—getting their home back. Yarrow was more than just her home—it was her crew’s home too. She had fought not just for herself like she had thought but for all of them. “How’s inventory coming over here? Vivian just gave her report.”

  “Oh, it’s going well. There is plenty in the storerooms, including some cirax.”

  “Vivian found some as well.”

  “Not surprising,” Yafe answered. “That way they could all have access when necessary.”

  Jerry nodded as she ripped a wire from the dash, one that she hoped would reboot the system and delete the codes in it. “How many dead?”

  “Twenty at least. I think Azar is still counting.”

  “Go find out, will you?”

  “Sure thing, Cap.” Yafe left her alone.

  Jerry was about to get on the ground and crawl under the dash to finish some rewiring when she again noticed the blood. She was already drenched in it, but the prospect of burying herself in more was too much and her stomach clenched at the thought. Jerry cursed as she knelt down, blood soaking through the knees of her pants as she tried to avoid lying down fully in it. Blaise stared at her from across the room, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

  She didn’t used to be that way, and the fact that she had enjoyed taking his life should have told her she’d gone too far back into her old ways, perhaps even further to the dark side than she’d ever been before. Granted, Penum had become a completely different place from when she was growing up in the underground.

  What would Arloa think of her now?

  Frowning at no one but herself, Jerry rewired Wench’s Dream, glad when her method of fixing the problem seemed to work. She had complete command of the ship where she hadn’t before. Cracking her knuckles, she toyed with the commands and tested out what she could without going too far. She was already working on dividing her crew up. It would leave her with a skeleton crew on the medical ship and Yarrow which would put them at a bit more risk than she would like to gamble with. But she had promised Arloa she would return the damn ship.

  Yet she still had one last stop before she reached Raegina. She was going to take back Calluna. It was her ship, whether Ursula thought so or not, and she wasn’t going to leave Calluna in the hands of anyone that would mistreat her.

  She would take Calluna the same way she had taken Yarrow. the backup codes she had insisted on programming into the systems would be to her benefit. Which reminded her, she would get Vivian to check Wench’s Dream for anything similar that Blaise might have done, not that she was worried since his corpse was cooling only a few feet away from her.

  Azar stepped into the wheelhouse and frowned at the bodies. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “Thanks.”

  She didn’t watch as he cut off their heads and dragged the remains to the edge of the deck where two more of her crew flipped them over the sides. Hopefully they would get a good rain soon so they could collect some water and clean the decks and ships properly.

  When Azar returned, wiping his hands on his pants, Jerry gave him a firm nod. “I want you to command Wench’s Dream. Go ahead and pick your crew.”

  “Who’s going to take the medical vessel?”

  Jerry pursed her lips as she stared out in front of her, seeing each of her crew in her mind. “I thought Yafe and Sacha might take that pleasure. They seem to get along well enough to manage it.”

  “I agree.”

  “Give them four others. You take who you need and give me six. From there we can work on a plan to steal back Calluna.”

  “Aye, Cap.” Azar stepped out of the wheelhouse, casting Jerry into silence again.

  She programed her codes into Wench’s Dream’s system, cursing under her breath at the damn name of the ship. She would have to change that as soon as they got to harbor and she took legal possession of the vessel, likely with some help from Miriam. She wasn’t going to give up this opportunity that had presented itself. Her fleet was increasing.

  “Well, what shall we call you? Hmm?” Jerry patted her hand on the wheel lightly.

  When the ship groaned back at her, Jerry’s lips twitched upward.

  “Astilbe.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Every step Jerry took was with confidence. She strolled through Yarrow’s thin corridors, happy to find only slight modifications had been made to her since she’d been stolen. Jerry found her cabin, emptied it of the previous occupants shit, and dumped what she couldn’t sell over the side of the ship. She didn’t even watch it be eaten before she went belowdecks again.

  Kneeling on the floor right next to the cot, Jerry slid her fingers along the wood until she found the single plank with a slight notch in it. Picking at it with her nail, she pulled it up using the tip of her knife. Underneath it was the gun she had purchased illegally, the one she was supposed to never carry according to the cards she had received after being freed from Joab.

  Under it was a small cloth. Unwrapping it, she stared at the two locks of hair she’d kept there. Relief flooded her at the sight of them. It was far more than she had expected to ever find again. Running her fingers over them gently, she marveled at the texture. One chunk of hair was from her mother, and the other was from Arloa. She’d never thought she’d see this again. It was the only thing she had left of her mother, and she intended to keep it safe for as long as possible.

  Jerry settled them back under the floorboard but kept her gun on her person. The crews were cleaning the ships as they all prepared to leave for the next part of the journey. Jerry slipped into the washroom, disgusted with how nasty it had become, and cleaned it before she took a shower.

  As soon as she was ready to go, with her sword and gun on her, she left her cabin and went up to the wheelhouse. Vivian sat on the floor of the newly scrubbed wheelhouse, playing with two small devices in her hands as she focused on something.

  “Care to share what you’re working on?” Jerry asked as she took over the dash and brought up their coordinates.

  Vivian gave her an excited look before jumping to her feet. Her hands moved about her wildly as she spoke. “You said we’re going after Calluna, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Hit me with it.” Jerry brushed her fingers over the brass bar at the edge of the dash, trying to decide what system she wanted to check first. She knew Vivian had already been through it all, but Yarrow was hers, and she wasn’t about to skip double-checking it all herself.

  Vivian chattered, and Jerry only half paid attention as she focused on her true love that was finally in her possession again.

  “So I think we can do the same thing with Calluna, assuming you never told Ursula about the backups.”

  Jerry furrowed her brow and looked at Vivian. “Why would I tell her about those?”

  “You told me.”

  “Because it was useful to me to do so. Trust me when I say I plan on changing them all as soon as this is done.”

  Vivian’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I would expect nothing less. So is that the plan then?”

  Jerry pressed her lips together and stared out the front window of Yarrow. Crews worked on both the other ships, and she could clearly see them still throwing shit into the ocean as they cleared out the stuff they didn’t need or want. “Yes, but don’t tell anyone else.”

  “Got it, Cap.”

  “I want to surround her. It shouldn’t be too hard since Calluna wasn’t in the greatest shape when we left her. I doubt Ursula has had time and credits to properly fix her engines and hull.”

  “Agreed.” Vivian leaned against the brass bar, her thin fingers wrapping around the metal as she moved forward and looked out the same way Jerry had just been. “When are we leaving?”

  “In an hour.” Jerry walked out of the wheelhouse, the decision made, ready to tell the others.

  The three ships moved directly toward Calluna. Jerry wasn’t going to hold anything back. She knew where Ursula would go to hide, where she would try to find work and credits in order to feed the crew she was left with, assuming they didn’t leave her the first time she made it to port. Jerry flew directly to the edge of Raegina’s borders.

  A small island on the edge of the borders was Ursula’s preferred hideout. She had mentioned she’d evaded the authorities there several times. Jerry flew as fast as the medical vessel would allow her to go, since it was the one with the most weight and least power. She allowed them to keep pace mostly because she didn’t want to lose sight of Yafe and Sacha. She wouldn’t force them to be left behind without her protection.