Timeline: Sometime post episode "Idol"

: Shiver Me Timbers :

By

- Norah Reaves -

Sky Tate hit the alarm beside his bed, wondering how his roommate managed to sleep through the noisy thing. It always managed to wake him up after all. Then again, Bridge always was a sound sleeper.

He made his way slowly through the quiet hallways. Not many cadets woke up before the regular alarms went off. So he was one of the few people up at the time. Heading towards the bathrooms and still blinking sleep from his eyes, he almost bumped into Z Delgado.

"Ahoy mate!" She called, a wide grin covering her face as she did so. "Top-o-the-morning to ye!"

It took a moment for the oddity of the Hispanic girl's word choice to fully make an impact on his half-asleep mind, but by the time he realized it enough to ask her what she'd meant, she'd disappeared around the corner. He shook his head. Sometimes when it seemed like he finally got around to sort of understanding his teammates- they did something like –this-.

Some time later he bumped into Bridge – who was on his way toward SPD's mess hall. The young man came into step beside him, "I'll be headin' down t' th' galley fer some grub, is ye compass pointin' ye in the same direction landlubber?"

The way Sky stared at Bridge was similar to the way he may have stared at him if he had grown two heads and a tail. "Um… you know what? I'm going to need to take a rain check for that one." As fast as he could, he headed away from Bridge and towards the lab, where he knew he could find Kat. Maybe she was still sane.

- x -

Sky caught Kat just as the woman was entering the lab with several data pads tucked under the woman's arm.

"Kat, have you noticed anything strange going on?"

Setting the files down on her desk Kat turned to Sky. "No, but I've only been up for a couple of hours. Is there a reason why?"

"No reason at all, just asking."

- x -

Heading down to the mess hall after several more details, Sky thought back to all of the recent battles that the B-squad Rangers fought in over the recent week. Much to his surprise, there weren't any. None that could have a strange effect like this on his teammates at any rate.

Everybody was down in the mess hall, chatting animatedly with one another- and from the distance, nothing looked (or sounded) any different than usual.

But as he drew closer, and could separate the voices of his teammates from the rest of the people milling about- he noticed it again.

"Jack! You don't sound anything close to pirate-y enough!"

"It's about as pirate-y as I know Syd! It's not like I've seen any pirate movies or anything."

"You could at least make an effort to sound like a pirate."

"Is pirate-y even a word?" Bridge interrupted.

"YES!"

Then, it hit Sky- pirates. So that's what this was all about. In the back of his mind, he remembered Bridge mentioning something about it being… what was it, pirate week? He'd tuned it out due to it being three o'clock in the morning at that time. Now it seemed as though his entire team was in on the event.

'Well, everybody except Jack and myself that is.'

"Rangers- report to the command center."

That was their cue to drop everything and run.

- x -

The B-squad gathered around the control room, while Kat debriefed them on Grumm's newest flunkie.

The monster that appeared on the hologram was similar in style to a bulky robot and a black eyepatch covered it's left eye, while large cannons were strapped to it's back. "Arrgh!" It yelled, brandishing a weapon that looked suspiciously like a cutlass.

Sky bit back a groan, even as Bridge grinned.

"Hey, looks like Grumm is getting into this holiday too."

The End

A u t h o r' s N o t e:

This little short was written on a silly little lark for international "Talk Like A Pirate" day. I hope I didn't muck up the characters too badly for my first time writing them! Thanks for reading, and please feel free to leave a review. 3