Raini Listral Kasom heard the Lasrom frigate fire a final broadside as she climbed the steps to the Sea Dancers quarter deck and winced when she saw the look of horror on Tain's face. Her first officer lowered his telescope, his face was pale, and a glazed look was in his eyes.

“They just fired on the survivors Captain. Case shot by the looks of it,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard over the commotion on the open deck below them. Raini turned around to see in the distance the Lasom frigate break through a wave and begin to turn slowly towards her. All that remained of the Wave Runner was a small collection of wreckage floating on the water. The old Carrack couldn't have survived long against the frigate on a good day, but the Lasrom ship had burst out of the early morning mist and caught the entire convoy off guard. The Runner had lasted just five minutes and it was down to Raini and the Sea Dancer alone to stop the frigate. Raini gave the wreckage a quick scan with her own telescope and saw that despite two volleys of case shot, which turned a ships cannons into giant shotguns, there were still a few survivors waving at them.

“We'll pick them up once we've killed these bastards,” she said, feeling her anger threaten to get the better of her.

“Dead take them.” Tain said and then took a deep breath. He walked calmly to the edge of the quarter deck and then shouted down to gunners. “All guns out, load doubleshot, the clan needs us at our best today.” Tain hadn't needed to shout, everyone knew what to do and her gunnery officer was by now good enough to have already given the same order. Raini knew Tain was just not someone who could stand around and do nothing, not after he'd witnessed a massacre. He needed to shout orders as much as Raini needed to get control of the ball of hatred that was welling in her chest.

Raini sighed and took the wheel of the Sea Dancer from Ensign Kayvie. She needed to feel the ship move in her hands to plan the battle out properly. She needed to feel the wind and sense how well the ship was picking it up, most of all she needed to calm her own mind and focus. Being at the wheel of the ship, any ship, allowed that. The Sea Dancer was larger than the Runner had been, but the Lasrom frigate was larger still. It had perhaps thirty guns to the Dancer's twenty-four and would be able to stand up to a far greater amount of punishment. The Sea Dancer was of a different design, longer and thinner. It could run rings around even the fastest frigate and it lateen rigged sails, side-on compared to the more traditional square sailed rigging made it handle the wind very differently. The Lasrom ship was a warhorse, the Sea Dancer was a hunter.

The ship’s wheel tugged at Raini's hands as if the Dancer itself was out for blood. The wind had shifted direction since the Lasrom frigate had arrived and was now on her right. With the convoy behind her and the Lasrom frigate dead ahead normally neither side would hold the advantage, but the Sea Dancers lateen sails had been designed for this wind and soon the Sea Dancer picked up speed and began to close fast.

“All guns ready Captain.” The voice of Lilis, her gunnery officer came up from below. She sounded confident and aggressive with not a shred of hesitancy in her voice. For someone so young facing her first battle it was fairly impressive. Tain returned to Raini's side.

“I don't think we can catch them before they reload their guns,” he said. Like Lilis there was no fear in his voice, just anger. He was older than both of them and Raini knew that it took a lot to get him even this angry. Raini motioned for the ensign to take back the wheel and went to the edge of the aft castle. Below her was a sea of crewmen and marines, a brightly colored cacophony of nervous men and women. Within that sea were tiny islands of black and gold uniformed officers, numbering less than a third of what a ship the size of the Sea Dancer should have had.

Lilis was walking down the gunline, inspecting each guncrew with her hands clasped behind her back. Raini had suggested such a thing when Lilis had first come on board and found that her hands were shaking at the mere thought of going into action. She was also shouting at the gunners, telling them not to fire until ordered and to make each shot count. That had been another suggestion, but not one that Raini could take credit for. 'When in doubt, just shout your head off until you can think of something more useful to do.' It had been one of Admiral Younie's first lessons to Raini and she'd passed it on to Lilis at the first opportunity. Lilis' uniform was new, expensive and made her look much more like a Captain that Raini. The black coat and tricorn hat were a little too large, but somehow it just made her look more dashing. Raini's own uniform had never looked that good and these days was more patches than original material.

Lilis pushed past a group of marines lead by Sinis, her second oldest officer. He was a tall and rake thin man with already graying hair and a permanent scowl. His marines, dressed in ragged blue and black were a bunch of hardened killers armed with crossbows, axes, swords, muskets and anything else they thought would help them kill. Of all her crew Sinas was the calmest in battle, even when fighting hand to hand he killed without even breaking a sweat. He was also the most troubling, everyone knew he resented her and every other officer except Tain, but no one knew why.

“You're not going broadside to broadside with them, are you?” Tain asked. He had a blackpowder pistol in his hand and was checking the powder.

“No, we'll go past, hold fire and then turn and rake them.” Raini said trying to work out the plan as she did so. She wanted to win the fight, but if she couldn't do it quickly then the guns of the frigate would turn the Sea Dancer into matchwood. Her only hope then was that she'd buy enough time for the rest of the convoy, twelve slow and vulnerable merchant ships, to scatter. She took a deep breath; it was time to let everyone else in on the plan.

“Lilis, hold fire until after we turn, Kalavor, oars out on the right side only!” She shouted and watched Lilis's face as she figured out what Raini was planning. The girl gave her a grin and a thumbs up before turning back to her gunner. Kalavor, technically her quartermaster and one of her youngest lieutenants gave her a wave of acknowledgment and shouted for the oars to be run out through the Sea Dancers gunports. It was an old technique that no Lasrom ship could do these days, and with a bit of luck they wouldn't realizes the significance.

“This is going to hurt isn't it,” Tain said wryly.

“She almost twice as big as us, we have to get close or she'll just sail right passed and into the convoy,” she explained. “So yes, this is going to hurt.”

The guns on the right side of the ship were run back and replaced with oars. Kalavor looked up at her and she raised a hand to indicate that he should wait.

“Sinas, I want harassing fire on that ship as we pass.” She ordered. A moment later and the port side of the ship was lined with two score of marines who were taking cover with the guncrews. That was good, Raini thought, an inexperienced crew wouldn't be doing their best to put as much metal and wood between them and there enemy. They would have suffered terribly in the next few moments.

The Lasom frigate loomed forward, it was not riding the waves so much as it was crushing them. It was a two decked vessel, it's hull a light blue colour that softened the ramrod straight lines of the ship. It was designed to be a killer, not a work of art, it was mathematical and precise and in a straight up fight would shred the Sea Dancer. It was approaching fast and they would pass each other on the Sea Dancers left side. Raini could see the guns being run out and knew in the pit of her stomach that this was indeed going to hurt.

The crew of the deck fell silent as the ships closed; Raini could hear orders being shouted on the Lasrom frigate but couldn't make out the words. Had they figured out what she would do? If so, they were just a few minutes from death. She found herself holding her breath and was gripping the handle of her saber tightly. “If it happens, please make it quick.” She whispered.

The bows of the two ships crossed and Raini saw her entire crew tense up. For a second there was nothing but the sound of waves and the creek of the rigging.

“Wait for it!” Lilis shouted, her voice cracking. The ship was less than ten meters away.

“What are they waiting for?” Tain whispered. They were close enough for Raini to see the Lasrom crewmen standing at their guns, not even bothering to take cover.

“Wait for it.” Lilis shouted again. Sinas was at the front of the ship and with a wave of his arm he ordered his marines to fire. There crossbows and muskets gave a pathetic volley that sent a man or two falling backwards.

“Brace.” Raini said to herself. The ships were almost completely alongside each other.

“Wait-” The Lasrom’s volley tore the sound of Lilis' voice out of the air. Gunners and marines staggered back, screaming as cannon shells crashed through the Sea Dancer’s thin plating. The smell of blood and gunpowder was instantaneous, and the smoke lingered for just a second before the wind snatched it away. Raini looked down at the deck of the Sea Dancer, two of its guns had been torn from their cradles and a score of her men were staining the deck with blood.

“Wait for it!” Lilis was again pacing down the deck while everyone cowered. Raini prayed that the Lasom didn't have a sharpshooter worth a damn.

“Hard to port.” Raini shouted as loudly as she could as the Sea Dancer cleared the frigate. Those crew on the right of the ship dropped their ores into the ocean and gave a cry as the first stroke began. Other crewmen pulled on the rigging, bringing the sails around to pick up a strong wind from behind them while Ensign Kayvie grunted as he span the wheel for all he was worth. The Sea Dancer began to swing to the left.

The Lasrom frigate had fired a solid broadside, and if the Sea Dancer had tried to fight the same way it would have died as quickly as the Runner had, but Raini had a different plan. She would teach the Lasrom crew how to destroy a ship that was tougher than yours, and afterwards she would teach them not to fire on drowning men and women.

The Lasrom frigate had it's back to them now, where its own plating was the weakest but that wasn't the most important part. The Sea Dancer had finished its turn and was now moving across the frigate’s stern, that wasn't the most important part either. What was vitally important about this situation, so much that Younie had drilled it's importance into her until she could give his lecture in her sleep, was that a single cannon shell from one of the Sea Dancer’s portside guns would break through the ships stern and keep on going. Nothing would stop it, not cannons, nor bulkheads nor braces. Not even people. Each shell would kill dozens and Raini had ten remaining fourteen-pound cannons, double shotted with two shells each and a crew who knew exactly what to do.

Each cannon fired in turn as it passed the Lasrom Frigate's stern, shattering it and turning it's insides into a bloody wreak in less than ten seconds. There would be nowhere to hide from the guns, no cover, just a torrent of flame and steal that would gut the frigate and its crew.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Oars both sides, hard to starboard.” Raini shouted. If she'd had turned left again then her now unloaded guns would have faced a broadside from the frigates starboard batteries as they overtook the ship. Orders rang out across the ship, Lilils' slightly higher pitched voice carrying over them all. It was a complicated maneuver, but the experience and skill of its sailors was one of the few advantages the Kasom clan had in this war.

Raini watched both ships began to turn into the wind, the Sea Dancer turning back on itself to bring it's unfired starboard side guns to bare, the frigate merely turning to the left. If it wasn't for the oars both ships would have come to an almost complete stop as they faced the wind, but the frigate, with less distance to turn would have won the race.

As it was Lilis and Kalavor shouted out each stroke and by strength alone Raini's crew turned the two hundred and fifty tonne ship around in record time.

“Oars back, both sides, fire starboard guns at will,” Raini ordered. Her voice cracked just a little as she did so. Part of her wanted this fight to be over as soon as possible, but the rest of her was revelling in the sheer insanity of it. They were miles away from the land, clinging to rickety constructions of mere wood, fighting through each storm and squall for life and yet taking every opportunity they could find to blast the hell out of each other.

Lilis pushed passed Kalavor on the starboard batteries and by raising one hand signalled her gunners to wait for the order to fire. The wind was now on their left and catching in the Sea Dancer’s sails again and Tain adjusted her heading to parallel the Lasrom frigate.

“Fire!” Lilis dropped her hand with glee and another volley thundered from the Sea Dancer. Raini watched as the planking of the Lasrom frigate splintered but she doubted it had done anywhere near the damage of the raking.

“Bring us close Tain,” she said then rushed to the edge of the quarterdeck. “Load caseshot and prepare to board that ship. We need to replace the Wave Runner.”

Her crew cheered at that. Raini was now sending many of them into what would undoubtedly be a blood-soaked slaughter, but they still cheered at the idea of taking the ship as some form of repayment. Then a cannon shell from the frigate smashed through the deck and sent the men scurrying back to their work. More shots were fired, a ragged volley of half a dozen shells as the frigates crew, blinded, deafened and blooded though they were, did their best to return fire.

Tain turned the Sea Dancer until it was angled towards the frigate as the crews below worked to reload the cannons with caseshot. Sinas' marines started to pick off random Lasrom crewmen with crossbows and then as the distance between the two ships shortened, with muskets.

A dozen of Sinas' marines rushed to the quarter deck and took up position around Raini. The lead marine, a man named Tasagin gave her a nod as he reloaded his musket. His eyes caught sight of Raini's pistol and stayed there for just a moment. It was a beautiful, expensive and deadly weapon. Utilizing a small power cell it could fire a metal slug out of a barrel made with two metal rails faster and more accurately than any black-powder weapon. Mag-guns, as they were commonly known, were rare everywhere and almost unheard of in Kasom lands. The Clan Elders claimed that they were too expensive and fragile to be useful in a battle, but it's rate of fire was unmatched. One round every five seconds and five shots without the need to manually reload it. Besides, Raini had earned the weapon fairly and no one, not even the Clan Father could take it away from her.

Raini could see a group of Lasrom officers and marines forming on the frigate's own quarterdeck. Her first shot sent one man to the deck with a hole in his chest and the rest scattering for cover, but it didn't help. A few inches of wood wasn't enough to stop the Mag Gun and with its five second reload time Raini had killed two more marines before anyone started to fire back at her.

She found herself ducking just a little as the crew on the Lasrom frigate fired back, even though she was an officer there were limits to her bravado. Tasagin grinned at her.

“Ready for some fun?” he asked, though it was clear he was just trying to work of his own nervousness.

“Twenty meters, grapples out!” Tain yelled from the ship's wheel. Raini watched as the grapples were launched at the Lasrom ship. Some of those who threw them were picked off by Lasrom marines as they stood, but enough survived to begin pulling the two ships together. There was a ripple of musketry from both ships, Sinas and Lilis were both yelling orders, Sinas picking targets, Lilis yelling for the guns to be rolled out.

“Wait for it!” Lilis yelled again. A crossbow bolt hit the ships wheel and Tain gave a yell and ducked back. The two ships were still moving, neither had lowered their sails but they were now stuck together. The distance between them was less than five feet, close enough to see the Lasrom sailors yelling, to feel dread when one of them took aim at you, and close enough not to miss.

The Sea Dancer’s cannons fired one last time. The thin tin cases barely had enough time to fly apart before they reached the frigate, but the bullets inside still scattered themselves into the mass of men who had rushed to the deck to defend the ship. Most were turned into bloody scraps of still twitching flesh, others managed to stagger away a few feet before collapsing as cannon after cannon fired to clear the deck of men. Raini stood and looked down at the deck of her own ship, she saw Lilis perched on the railing, sword out and looking like a child who was about to charge the gates of hell.

“Lilis, stay back,” she shouted. By the Dead, Raini thought, but the girl was only fifteen. She didn't know if Lilis heard her and a moment later the bows of the two ships crashed together. Raini took a deep breath and stood, aware that she could almost reach out and grab the Lasrom deck.

“Kasom!” She shouted. “For the clan!” Her crew screamed with her as she jumped the tiny gap between the two ships. She was aware of the Lasrom screaming back at her, aware that one of the officers was bringing a pistol to bare but he was moving too slowly and the fourth shot from Raini's mag pistol sent him to the floor a moment before she landed. A Lasrom marine wielding his musket like a club gave a wild swing at her head and Raini used the momentum from her leap to duck underneath the blow and then rammed her sword into the man’s stomach. Tasagin landed next to her, firing his musket at the tangled knot of officers and marines who came charging at them. Raini shoulderbarged the group, trying to clear a way for those behind her to make the jump. She felt a marine's breath of her face as he gasped, there wasn't enough room to swing a sword and so she rammed her head forward into the man's nose, he fell back and another marine and an officer, decked out in expensive gold braid and a fine coat, pushed themselves forward to take his place. Raini felt someone push her from behind as they landed on the deck and so ran forward into the group again, she swiped at the officer with her sword, a half dozen quick and unwieldy blows that drove the man backwards into those behind him as he struggled to parry them. Tasargin had a short sword out now and was doing the same with the marine. There was no room to maneuver or for anyone else to help so Raini just went forward, step by step pushing the six or seven Lasrom back as they too struggled to bring their numbers into the fight.

“Kasom,” she yelled again and finally beat the officer’s guard back enough to take a chunk out of the man's leg. He gasped and fell to the floor. Raini stepped forward again and kneed him in the face before kicking his sword away. Then suddenly the group was scattering before her, throwing themselves down the steps towards the gundeck, trying to find help. Screaming, she followed them, taking the steps several at a time and trying not to slip on the blood when she reached the bottom of the steps.

The gundeck was a wreak of tangled bodies, smashed cannons and those, who thanks to a miracle, were still fighting. There was no way to control a battle such as this. All you could do was to hack at anything that had the wrong uniform on and scream. She swiped out the legs of two Lasrom sailors before any of them even realized she was there and then heard a cry from her left.

Lilis was lying on the deck, sword in her hand and crying out as a huge Lasrom marine raised a boarding axe to crash down on her. Acting on pure instinct Raini lunged forward, aiming not for the man, the axe would come down with killing force whether he was alive or dead, but at the space in between him and Lilis. The girl was holding her sword in both hands, one hand on the flat of the blade to try and block the axe.

The axe fell and Raini put all her strength into her sword arm and caught the weapon's shaft with her sword. It slowed the blow down enough so that Lilis own blade took the rest of the momentum, the axe stopped a mere inch from Lilis' face. The man had realized now that there was another weapon involved and turned to Raini. Snarling in anger as he did so, but it was far too late. The last shot from Raini's Mag Pistol shattered the man’s face and Lilis screamed again as she rolled to avoid the falling axe. Raini didn't offer to help the young girl get to her feet, she merely stood over her and swung the sword again and again to drive the remaining Lasrom back.

The sounds of fighting began to die to down as the Lasrom survivors were beaten back into a corner of the deck and Raini's crew were content to let them retreat. Soon the Lasrom, seeing how badly they were now outnumbered were throwing down their weapons.

Raini breathed a sigh of relief and helped Lilis to her feet. The girl was shaking.

“Sorry cap'an. I didn't think...” The words trailed off,

“Don't worry. I made the same mistake once.” Raini said and saw Lilis's eyes flick to the scare on her face. Raini wondered if she'd already heard the story from someone. “Get back to the Sea Dancer.”

Raini turned back to her crew and Lasrom and raised her sword to elicit a cheer from the former. It didn't fail.

“Kalavor?” She shouted, “get our two boats and any you can find on this ship and see if there are any survivors from the Wave Runner. There might be enough of them to sale this ship for a day or two.”

“Aye captain.”

“Sinas, get the Lasrom locked up in our hold, bring any officers to me.” Sinas waved a hand in acknowledgment but said nothing. “Everyone else, good work, we've hurt them far more than they hurt us. The admiralty and Clan Father will be pleased, and I will ensure that you are rewarded for such excellent service.” They cheered again, but the sound was almost drowned out by the thumping in her ears. It was as if all the fear and terror that she should have felt in those five minutes of hand-to-hand fighting was now coming back with interest.

“Captain?” Tain yelled from the frigate’s quarterdeck. Willing her hand to stop shaking Raini pulled herself back up the steps to find that Tain and Tasargin was standing there with the well dressed and wounded Lasrom officer who was kneeling over a body.

“He was my son,” the officer cried as she approached, “he was sixteen, Kasom bastards.”

Raini clenched her teeth and grabbed the man by his jacket and hurled him to his feet. She pushed forward and drove him back against the ships railing until he almost fell over the edge.

“Did you give the order?” She snarled, the man’s face two inches from her own.

“My son…” the officer protested, “have you no dignity, will you not let me mourn?” Raini pushed forward again and felt the railings shift slightly against her strength.

“Are you the captain.? Did you order the caseshot to be used on the survivors?” Below and behind her everyone had gone deadly silent. Any relief that had been in the air that the fighting was over had been replaced with a sense of menace.

“I am Captain Vandi Lasrom.” The man admitted. Raini pressed the Mag pistol into the man’s jawline, only faintly aware that after five shots its power cell needed replacing.

“And...”

“We didn't have time to destroy the convoy and pick them up. It was a quicker death then letting them drown, but I suppose you Kasom aren't smart enough to understand that.” He spat at her and Raini felt her anger fall away a little. She could see in his eyes that he didn't care anymore, his son was dead and he was just trying to throw it all away to try and join him. She still held onto him, trying to see some measure of simple decency in his face, but in the end there was nothing but anger and hatred. He whispered “Go on you Kasom bitch. Fire.”

She didn't, and if his eyes were any indication he was unprepared for her letting him go and stepping back.

“No,” Raini said, feeling her anger bubbling just below the surface. “I have something else in mind.”

“Clanless whore!” He shouted but the blood running down his leg had sapped his strength and he could do nothing else. “Not brave enough to execute me here and now? You’re going to bother with your clan's mockery of a trial?”

“No. I'm going to keep you in my ships hold and put the word out that you opened fire on defenseless men and women. Then one day one of the Dead will hear about that and sneak on board my ship and you'll spend the rest of your short life wishing that I had killed you.” The color drained from the man's face in an instant.

“Y-you can't,” his voice was barely above a whisper.

“Avion himself said that just such a massacre falls under their jurisdiction. It might take a week or two for one to show up, but they will eventually.” She felt a slight grin tug at her lips, but she forced the smile away.

“Please, kill me now. If there is any decency in your soul.”

“Tain, take him below deck and make sure he can't escape by any means.” She said. Her second officer had also gone pale, but he nodded none the less and began dragging the struggling Lasrom captain away.

Raini followed them back on board the Sea Dancer. Ignoring the look of Lasrom and Kasom crewmen alike. Even Sinas, standing on the quarterdeck with his arms and face covered in blood, was looking at her in horror but she didn't care. She didn't like the Dead any more than they did, but they had a job to do, and Raini thought it was about time they earned their reputation.