The setting for this story is a D&D 3.5 campaign I am in the process of synthesizing from a number of sources: primarily Spelljammer, but with touches of Call of Cthulhu: Dreamlands, Space: 1889, Aether & Flux and Girl Genius.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

- or -

I'm Not a Pirate, Honest!

"What? You want to hear the story of the Dread Pirate Admiral Morgan de Blood's final raid, where we captured an entire Drow treasure fleet and lived to tell the tale? Well, I'm your man! I was right on the Admiral's flagship durin' the whole thing, from the planin' to the blood lettin', and I see'd it all! But talkin's dry work, and I'd maybe appreciate somethin' to wet my whistle first."

"Thank ye matey, that's the stuff. Darkside Lunar Rum – the best kind! I heard that'd was first distilled by those Fungi creatures from beyond the stars, but I don't put no stock in that! What'd flying mushrooms know about rum? What, I've had me drink and it's now time for me story? Fair enough, fair enough! So, gather around lads and lasses, gather around!"

"Now that Morgan de Blood was a frightenin' and fearless man. He stood nearly seven feet tall, his skin was read as blood – hence the name – and all his teeth had been filed to points, as he was born a cannibal corsair in one of the Trojan asteroid swarms where they tend to that sort of thing. Now the Admiral and me and the Brotherhood had been from one end of this solar system to the other and back, lootin' and raidin'. Why we'd have stolen fire from the sun itself it we could of figured out how! And we had robbed folk of just about any race and nationality you could think of, but for some reason we had just plum missed the drow. Now, the Admiral was thinkin' upon retiring then, and it irked him to have missed a sort of victim, but the drow ain't seen in space or on the planet's surface much around here. Then we heard. The drow had sent out a fleet nobody even knew they had into the flow between the crystal spheres on some sort of mission. And rumor had it they'd be coming back soon, heavy with treasure and slaves. So the Admiral swore a mighty oath that'd he'd take that fleet or die in the attempt."

"Well, all very good to swear an oath, but how to surprise a fleet crawlin' with wizards? That's were Morgan de Blood showed what he was made of. The Drow treasure fleet was likely to pass by a dead zone in space where magic don't work – a sargasso as we spacerovers like to call 'em. So we attacked chemical rockets to all of our ships and drifted into the very edges of the dead zone. And we waited. We waited while the heat leached out of ships, while the air got thin and hard to breath, while the cruel unblinkin' stars of space mocked our pain and sufferin'. We waited with no fires and only cold food, and not a man nor woman of us thought of given up or leavin'."

"Three cold, hard days we waited there. Three days wonderin' if the air would hold out, if we'd freeze to death in space's eternal night. Then the lookouts spotted them – space sails, dozens of them! So we lit our rockets and we prayed. We fell on that treasure fleet like starvin' wolves on a flock of sheep. But these sheep had teeth, let me tell you!"

"We surprised the drow, fair and square, but some reason they weren't inclined to just lay down their arms and let the Admiral have their hard-earned loot. It was a fight to the death, and a damn close thing, too! But we had a few advantages. First, we were sailors, and they were not. Oh, they had as fine a fleet as you could ask for – all Mind Flayer built – but they barely knew how to fly them, never mind fight them. Their escorts were rammed and shattered before they properly knew they was in a fight. The second thing in our favor was that we were still by the edge of the dead zone, and when we could, we dragged their ships closer to the zone. This weakened their spell casters a tad, makin' it our steel against theirs, which we pirates of course had the advantage at."

"I remember after, standin' on the deck of the drow flagship, covered from head to toe with blood (some of it mine, most of it not) an' worse things, leanin' on my sword and lookin' over at the Admiral, who was similarly covered (although come to think of it, I bet none of the blood on him was his). The Admiral looked back at me, and he says to me, 'Cap', Cap he says to me, 'I think after a fight like this one today, a man can retire and still hold his head up, because he really knows what it's like to have been in a fight.' I nodded back, 'cause I figured he knew what he was getting on about."

"Well, after that, the fleet of the Brotherhood sort o' broke up, and I took my payout and retired a rich man to Great Lunar University's territory here. What? Why ain't I rich any more? Well, it's a long, sordid tale involvin' rum, gambling and a widow and I ain't getting into it today. Anyway, that's the true tale of Admiral Morgan de Blood's last raid, and I know it's true 'cause I was there!"

The applause started from the children seated on the ground in front, but soon, even the adults standing behind them began to applaud, if not quite as enthusiastically. But still, though Cap, it was a good audience and it looked like plenty of copper and silver were making its way into his hat.

Cap retrieved his hat as the crowd dissolved back into the general throng filling the marketplace. He dumped the coins into his pouch without counting them – no need to look greedy or desperate! But as he did, to his surprise he caught a flash of the tell-tale yellow of gold. Someone had tipped him an entire gold piece? That didn't happen often, and it called for a celebration of sorts.

He turned and was about to make his way to Happy Pieman, a student hangout he favored for lunch and beer, when he realized that his way was blocked by several individuals. Several large individuals. He didn't miss his guess, the fellow standing in front of him, six-foot six if he was an inch and dressed in flamboyant red spacer's togs and wearing a cutlass, was a half-orc. The even bigger fellow behind him, leaning on a club, looked to be a half-ogre. The other three ruffians, now moving to surround him appeared to be human, but still large and villainous.

Well, Cap thought, always mind your manners, particularly when outnumbered. He bowed low with a sweep of his hat, placing it gracefully back on his head as he game up. "Capability Thunder-Smith at your service, good sirs. Tales told, songs sung and music made! How may I be of aid to you?"

The half-orc smiled, or least Cap assumed it was a smile (whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant). "Well, I was looking for an able-bodied spaceman for a little trip, and what do I find here, but a rare survivor of de Blood's Brotherhood, and surprisingly young, too. Why, I do think my search is over!"

Cap smiled as best he could, but the resulting expression was more than a little bit sickly. "Good sir, good sir, you have me wrong! That was but a story! A moment's entertainment for the folks in the marketplace. I'm not a pirate – I'm an entertainer! Just a second year student at the University's bardic college! I get faint at the sight of blood, particularly my own."

The half-orc's smile widened. "And I say you're exactly what I want for my crew! Boys get him!"

Cap went for his rapier, but before he could draw it, the half-orc had his sword arm in a crushing grip. As he struggled to get free, he felt his guitar being plucked from his back.

Cap turned as best he could to see the half-ogre examining the guitar critically. "Nice instrument, if a bit small. Be a pity if anything happened to it."

Cap fought for control, but his dismay showed clear on his face. Not Lady Summer! He'd had that guitar from the very hands of the Honored Professora Maria Elaina del la Cruz y Mendoza herself, and if anything happened to it his life was as good as over, or worse.

The half-orc smiled and released his hand. "Ah, hah! We've a hostage. Well, boy, you come along with us quiet like, and we'll give you your guitar back unharmed once we get to our ship."

Cap looked at him sourly. "Do I have any choice?"

The half-orc's smile widened. "Not a one."

It was a short walk down to the space harbor, but enlivened by the group's chatter. The half-ogre looked thoughtful, a strange but not unpleasing expression on his brutal face. "What'd you think the Captain be having us go after next, Mister Red? I hope it ain't gnomes again. They got no money, and their ships are full of things that go 'boom'."

The half-orc waved his hand as to dismiss the very thoughts of gnomes. "Don't you worry Nif – the Captain, she's a deep one. She'll have found a nice, juicy target for us."

Cap looked around him in increased horror. "You people are pirates! I'm going to get hung just for associating with you!"

The half-orc laughed. "We ain't pirates, we're privateers, with proper letters of marque and reprisal to prove it."

Nif held up a leather document pouch. "Got 'em right here."

The half-orc rolled his eyes. "Be careful with that, Nif, you know the ink ain't dry yet!"

The crew laughed, and Cap moaned. He was surely doomed.

"Besides," Master Red continued, "They don't hang pirates hereabouts."

Cap brightened slightly. "They don't?"

The half-orc shook his head. "Nope, they send them to labs to be experimented on."

One of the other spacers nodded vigorously. "That happened to my old mate, Black Dirk McDann. Last times I seen him, he had two heads, both of which mooed like cows, and glowed purple."

Nif shook his head dolefully. "Black Dirk was always unlucky."

After that, the men were mercifully silent until they reached the harbor district.

They saw the masts first, looming over the rows of two-to-three story wooden buildings surrounding the harbor. The streets they walked through were filled with taverns, brothels, flop houses, rope shops, chandleries and assorted ship related business. The streets were full of spacers, tradesmen and prostitutes of every possible sex and species.

Ships of both space and seas filled the Great Lunar University's harbor, and more space-going ships were perched on the dry land surrounding the harbor. The crew headed to one a long, black narrow ship bobbing in the harbor next to a long stone quay. A vipership, Cap thought.. As soon as they came in sight, Nif started waving the document pouch back and forth over his head, a big smile on the half-ogre's face.

The spacers on the waiting ship burst into cheers and then into furious activity. Cap and his escort came to the gang-plank, stopped, and Mister Red saluted the woman who stood on guard holding a lowered pike. "Permission to come aboard?"

The woman raised her pike. "Permission granted, Mister Red! And I think the Captain would like a word with ye."

The half-orc nodded, and strode aboard followed by Nef and the other three spacers. Cap followed along, looking at his guitar wistfully.

Mister Red headed for the bow of the ship, where a tall woman all in black stood on the forward catapult platform watching the ship's crew bustle around with her hands clasped behind her back. The half-orc strode up to the base of the platform, and saluted with a big grin on his face. "We got the papers, M'am!"

The woman hair and eyes were black, but her skin was very pale. She had the delicate bone structure that often indicated a trace of elvish blood. But if she were a half-elf of some sort, she apparently lacked their usual prejudice against half-orcs, as she smiled broadly at Mister Red. "Excellent! Good work. Now, who is this we have here trying to sneak up on Nif and relieve him of that excellent guitar?"

Cap froze. Mister Red laughed. "Oh, him? He's a trainee bard I picked up in the marketplace. Since our last bard got eaten by a void squid, I thought it might be nice to pick up a replacement."

Cap stared at Mister Red in shock. "Wait, I didn't agree to sign up – I was just trying to get my guitar back!"

The Captain shook her head sorrowfully. "Mister Red! You have to work on those bad habits you picked up in the navy. We are a private ship – we are not allowed to press-gang crew."

The half-orc hung his head sadly – or was he grinning? The Captain looked at Cap. "You'll have to forgive my first mate, he can get a bit overzealous at times."

Cap bowed his best bow to the Captain. "It is already forgiven and forgotten! Now, if I could just have my guitar back, I'll be going."

The Captain looked at Cap oddly. "Going?" she repeated to herself thoughtfully. "Can you, by chance, fly?"

Cap looked around wildly to discover that the vipership was several hundred feet over the surface of the harbor and rising rapidly. "What –"

But whatever Cap was going to say next was lost in a below from the lookout. "Captain! We've been tumbled to – the harbor artillery is traversing to bear on us!"

The Captain leapt down from the catapult platform, agile as a cat. "Tell the helm I want full power! Man the artillery, and activate the spell shield. We need to get out of here promptly!"

Spacers ran every which way doing, doing more things than Cap could keep track of. So he focused on Nif. "Can I have my guitar back?"

Nif looked apologetic as he handed the instrument over. "Sure, sorry about all this, but the Stormbreaker is really a good ship. You'll like serving on her – everyone does. And Captain Blacky Van der Decken is great captain."

Cap grabbed Lady Spring and held her close to his chest. "But I don't want to sign on a pirate ship!"

Nif smiled sweetly at Cap. "Who says we're a pirate ship?"

Just then, a flight of ballista bolts passed within feet of the port side vipership, followed by a fireball that exploded on the starboard side, but did not seem to touch the vessel.

Cap stared at Nif unbelievingly. "If this isn't a pirate ship, why are they shooting at us?"

The half-ogre shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed. "Captain forgot to pay the harbor fees again. They hate that."

There was another flight of ballista bolts, including a thud from under the ship. Mister Red yelled: "Carpenter – handle that!"

Nif ducked his head. "That's me! See you later."

At this point the vipership was climbing rapidly, and the sky overhead had darkened dramatically. By now everyone was at their station and ready. Nif came back on deck and gave the Captain a thumb's up.

That's when the patrol ships pounced. Fireballs bloomed all around the Stormbreaker, and ballista bolts and stones came down like hail. Cap rolled himself into the smallest ball he could manage and tucked himself in next to a bulwark, wishing he had a shield. Then, as suddenly as it started, the attack was over as the vipership outdistanced its opponents.

Cap was just standing up when he heard the call of "Man down! Somebody fetch the cook!"

Cap looked to see Nif lying bleeding on the deck, a ballista bolt embedded in his shoulder. The projectile would have ripped a smaller man arm off, but as it was he was bleeding very badly. He appeared to be unconscious, which was perhaps a mercy.

Cap found himself kneeling beside the half-ogre before he consciously decided what he would do. He pulled off his shirt and wadded it up. He looked up at the pale faces of the surrounding crewmen. "Grab the bolt – I'll hold him down!"

Two men grabbed the bolt and pulled it out while Cap held Nif's shoulders. The half-ogre grunted in pain. Cap quickly shoved his shirt into the wound. He turned to the nearest spacer , placed the man's hands on the now blood-soaked shirt and snapped: "Hold this down!"

Then Cap swung Lady Spring around and began to play a spell-song. Suddenly, Nif's breathing eased, the bleeding slowed, and his color improved. Cap sagged back on his heels, it had worked!

On Nif's other side, the ship's cook fell to his knees and began to pray while holding a golden disk pendant over the half-ogre. Cap blinked in surprise: the ship's cook was a priest of Pelor?

After a few healing spells, Nif was sitting up, looking none the worse for the wear, except that his shirt was ruined. As was Cap's, as he began to be aware when he stood up and realized he was the recipient of appraising stares from most of the female and some of the male crewmembers. Mister Red walked up to him and handed him a black, silk shirt. "Well done, boy, well done! Cook tells me that Nif might've bled out before he got there, if you hadn't helped."

Cap smiled and pulled on the shirt. It was, he noted to himself, identical to the one the Captain wore. The half-orc shook his head and grinned. "And I thought you got faint at the sight of blood?"

Cap shrugged. "I lied. I'm a storyteller – that's what we do for a living."

Master Red laughed. "As opposed to the rest of us who just do it for the fun of it?"

Mister Red's expression turned serious. "The Captain and I have decided if there's any loot this cruise, you'll get a full share, even if you don't do a thing more. It's the least we can do when you go saving the big lug's life after I press-ganged you like that."

Cap shrugged. "Well, I'd hate to just be a passenger. How about this, as long as you don't do anything that looks too much like piracy to me, I help out in whatever way I can. Deal?"

The half-orc laughed and held out his hand. "Deal!" And they shook on it.

Master Red smiled his unpleasant smile, but Cap was beginning to get used to it. "Now, if you'd like to help out, how about a nice shanty to help the work go faster? We need to put the ship back in order, after all."

Cap nodded while desperately trying to remember if he knew any space shanties. At last he started out with: What do you do with a drunken spacer, what do you do with a drunken spacer, what do you do with a drunken spacer, er-ly in the morning!"

It turned out that the privateers (or were they pirates?) knew a lot more verses than he did, most of which could not be sung in public. A few of which could not be safely sung in private. He took careful mental notes.

Over the next few weeks he helped out on the ship in various ways. He made music, sometimes alone, sometimes with the Captain on the fiddle and Nif on the drums. He took his turn washing the deck or peeling potatoes or mending clothes. And he took part in weapon practice, although his battle station was below decks with the cook, healing any casualties.

It was a good time, with good company and lots of things to learn. He even could've had his choice of female company, but there was a noticeable lack of privacy on such a small ship with such a relatively large crew, particularly since only the Captain and Mister Red had their own cabins. Not that this stopped the crew from enjoying each other, but Cap had been gently reared, and felt, damn it, some things did not call for an audience!

On the fourth week of the cruise, they put in at a small, out of the way jungle asteroid for food and water. The natives were suspicious and unfriendly, but they did pass on an interesting rumor: a flying pyramid had been spotted in the sky on several occasions.

The Captain and First Officer were excited about this report. Cap had himself read old legends about flying pyramid ships, and from what he remembered, the best response the Stormbreaker could have to spotting one would be to travel in the opposite direction as fast as possible. What in the world could twenty privateers do against a pyramid stuffed to the brim with undead?

Two days later, he found out. The lookout spotted the pyramid ship lurking in a debris field (or perhaps it was the source of the debris field?). The Stormbreaker promptly turned and flew away, which as far as Cap was concerned was the only sensible response.

What followed was not sensible. A mass invisibility spell was cast on the ship (in case the crew of the pyramid was living), and large amounts of canvas were applied to make the vipership look like a rock (in case the crew of the pyramid were undead and stupid). Then the Stormbreaker crept back to the debris field. Unfortunately, the pyramid ship was still lurking there.

The Stormbreaker slowly crept up on the pyramid ship, carefully approaching from the undefended bottom. Once the vipership made contact, the crew swarmed aboard howling, except for a small guard. Even the cook took part in the attack, looking rather different in gold-washed chainmail and wielding a sun-mace.

Cap stayed behind and healed whoever showed up. Once in a while an armored skeleton would drift away from the pyramid in pieces. An occasional explosion would rent the side of the pyramid as the privateers' mages attacked their enemies with more power then sense. After what seemed like hours, the crew came staggering out, carrying chest after chest of copper, silver, gold and gems. Also large amounts of ruined but once valuable perishable good such as cloth or wine. Amazingly, none of the attackers had been killed, a feat that the crew attributed to the Captain's leadership and her mastery of fire magic. There was no pursuit, and as they pulled away, the pyramid ship gently began to fall apart and soon was indistinguishable from the rest of the debris field.

That night, there was a bit of a party on the Stormbreaker. Cap played until his fingers bled, then drank rum until he passed out. The night was almost worth the next morning. Almost.

They made a quick cruise back to Green Luna, where they landed in the harbor of a small city state next door to the Great Lunar University. When the crew left almost en-mass to spend their spoils, the Captain kept Cap aboard so she could give him his share. For some reason this took all night. In her cabin. With the door locked.

Next afternoon he said his goodbyes, promised to look them up again some day when he finished his education, and booked a spot on a small coastal vessel heading for University territory. The trip was very peaceful, which may be why he was so terribly surprised when he was arrested on suspicion of piracy the moment he showed the customs official his University identification papers at the dock.

Once he explained his story, the Magistrate was more than ready to condemn him to the labs for "associating with known pirates", but fortunately he had been allowed to send one message when he was arrested. The Honored Professora herself came to claim him, and that was that, since, at the University, a full professor was just one bare step below the gods. If that much.

Then the Professora took him back to her apartments and made him tell the whole tale again over sherry and cakes. Then she made him sing all the new verses he had learned for What do you do with a Drunken Spacer?. All of them. While she listened intently and seriously. As he played, Cap wondered: would the labs have really been that much worse?