Four men huddled fearfully in the tiny cabin. The clash of swords and gunfire seemed to be getting closer, punctuated by an occasional agonized scream.

"It's the only way," Leonard insisted, pushing his wire-rimmed spectacles higher up on his nose. "If we're captured, we have to pretend to be ordinary people. Look, among the four of us, we have a Danish prince, a German duke, the son of an Indian ambassador, and... a highly skilled engineer," he finished lamely, trying not to look at Howard.

"Hey, make that a highly skilled engineer whose family could buy yours several times over," Howard growled, balling his hands into fists. "Your stupid title is little more than a courtesy. All you're going to inherit is some crumbling pile of rocks that barely qualifies as a castle. Not that Raj and Sheldon are any better. Sheldon's fourteenth in line to the throne, and his social gaffes and scientific experiments make him the black sheep of his whole extended family. And Raj, a diplomat's son, can barely look at a woman, let alone talk to her... unless he breaks the rules of his religion and drinks alcohol, and then he becomes an asinine fool."

Raj began to protest at this, but Leonard cut him off.

"That's a pirate ship that overtook this merchant freighter, and if I'm not mistaken, those pirates are out there making short work of our crew. The only way to save our lives is to convince them we're rich passengers that they can ransom. I don't think they would risk bringing three royal navies down on their heads by kidnapping such important personages as ourselves," Leonard argued, preening a little at that last bit despite the approaching danger.

"It's not the worst idea I've ever heard from you," Sheldon agreed grudgingly.

"Howard, Raj?" The other two men nodded reluctantly, and just in time. The door burst open, its flimsy lock giving way to a heavy belonging to a muscled mountain of a man.

He grinned as he took in the fancy clothes of the unarmed men cowering in the cabin below decks. "Well, what do we have here?" he drawled. "Presents for the captain."

The four of them were dragged unceremoniously, hands bound behind their backs, across a narrow plank to the pirate ship. A black flag sporting a bloody pair of crossed cutlasses waved from the top of the main mast. The crew were some of the roughest men they had ever seen in their relatively sheltered lives. They were dangerous, unwashed savages. Leonard shuddered, wondering what kind of man could keep order over such a cutthroat group.

The hulking pirate left them on the foredeck. "Stay put, and you won't be harmed," he growled. None of them felt reassured by that. After several minutes which felt like hours, they saw a slender figure coming toward them, trailed by the man who had taken them prisoner. As the pirates drew near, Leonard was shocked to see that the one in front was a woman, with golden locks flowing loose from underneath a patterned kerchief tied around her head. He gulped to see a naked sword in her grasp.

"...ten barrels of pickled herring, six bolts of wool, several lengths of mahogany, and these four," the larger man finished, apparently reciting a list of the merchant ship's cargo.

"Dammit, it's been too long since we've had a good catch. Very well, scuttle it and send it to Davy Jones' locker," she ordered impatiently.

There were soft gasps around him as his three friends realized it at the same time as he did: this breathtakingly beautiful woman was the captain.

The man hesitated. The captain, who had been looking over her prisoners with an appraising air, swung back to him with a frown. "Is there a problem, Kurt?" she asked acidly.

"It's a perfectly good ship," he said stubbornly.

She crossed her arms. "We haven't gotten where we are today by being reckless. I don't have the money to refit that scow, even if I wanted to. I know you've been itching to purchase a ship of your own, but that barge couldn't overtake a jellyfish. The answer is no. Now do what I say."

He looked rebellious, but nodded reluctantly and said, "Yes, cap'n," before he walked away.

Awestruck, Leonard watched the female captain as she paced toward them. She looked like a depiction of one of the Norse goddesses he had once seen in a book, all wild blonde locks and fierce beauty, and he already fancied himself in love with her. The sword in her hand gleamed, clearly well-cared for, and she held it with a casualness that belied its weight. At his father's insistence, Leonard had taken fencing lessons, but he had never mastered the foil. He didn't care that the woman of his dreams was rather frightening. Their children would be smart and beautiful, he thought, and she would protect them as only a mother could. He glanced over at his companions. Now if only they would keep their mouths shut before they ruined everything.


The captain repressed a scowl as she watched Kurt saunter off. There were times when she questioned the wisdom of hiring an ex-lover as her first mate, but he owed her for the second chance she'd given him after his indiscretion. Besides, much as she hated to admit it, some men respected her more for having a walking wall of muscle loyal to her every order.

She turned back to her prisoners. She had high hopes that the four men were important enough to their families that she could collect ransom. She'd never been interested in the drawn-out process of ransoming prisoners, but she wasn't about to ignore the opportunity which had been dropped into her lap. Penny planted a booted foot on the leg of the nearest wretch. "What's your name, lubber?"

The prisoner's gaze roamed up from the tip of her boot, past where her loose-fitting pantaloons belled out just below the knee. He squinted through round spectacles at her heavily embellished bodice and lingered at the generous bosom proudly on display. His jaw slackened, and then dropped open when he finally lifted his eyes to her face.

"Hello. I'm Leonard. Our children will be smart and beautiful," he said dreamily, sounding as if he were bewitched.

She got that a lot, too-both the lustful stares and accusations of using witchcraft to become captain. Her crew all knew better now, of course, but any time they took on new hands, it seemed she had to keelhaul one before the rest learned respect. She smiled sweetly while she slid her boot up to the junction of his legs and applied pressure as her sword appeared at his throat.

"Not to mention imaginary," muttered one of his companions under his breath, drawing her attention. She withdrew her heel from the bespectacled idiot's groin, who slumped over, gasping in pain. Her gaze was drawn to a thin, dark-haired man who glared back at her as if his life was not in her hands.

"Who the blazes do you think you are?" she snapped, flicking his coat lapels with the tip of her saber and thinking the man was a gaudy as a painted whore. He was wearing a magenta coat with a lime-green vest, canary yellow cambric shirt and indigo trousers tucked into sedate brown boots. In comparison, Leonard's garb looked drab and poorly-fitted. A man hardly larger than a boy was resplendent in carnation pink from head to toe, so tight that he could scarcely breathe. The brown-skinned man would have almost blended in with any group of well-dressed young gentlemen, save for the heavy knitted vest he wore.

"My name is Sheldon Cooper, and these are my colleagues: Leonard Hofstadter, Howard Wolowitz, and Rajesh Koothrapali." There was enough of a hesitation as he gave the strange names to make her wonder if they were real, but she didn't care. Most of her crew had left behind their old identities when they turned pirate, so what did it matter if these men did too?

"So Sheldon, tell me why I shouldn't toss you and your friends here to the sharks."

He blanched a little at that, an impressive feat given the pale shade of his skin. Clearly, he hadn't spent much time above decks on the merchant ship to still be so fair.

"We are four scholars from the University of Berlin," he said. "You can deduce that our families are not without means and would be willing to pay whatever you ask to secure our safe return. If you require further incentive, each of us can use our knowledge of our particular field of study to aid your privateering."

Penny scowled. "We're pirates. I'm Captain Penny Rogers, and you're on my ship, the Queen of the Seas. We don't hide behind words like 'privateer', so stop using all that fancy language and tell me what a pirate ship needs with scholars."

To his credit, he kept his composure, even though she still had her sword pointed at him.

"Howard is an engineer," he said, indicating the smallest of his friends. "He can help repair the damage your ship took during the fight as well as make many improvements to its structure."

"My lady," Howard said with a ridiculous leer. He switched to another language and rattled off a few sentences, then continued in what sounded like a second foreign language. "Do you speak Farsi?" he asked.

"Clearly, she does not, or she probably would have skewered you with her sword," Sheldon cut in, sounding bored. "He's been slapped by women from nations you've probably never heard of. Although I don't speak Farsi or Russian, I know him well enough to say that he probably said something to you which is too lewd to be stated in plain English."

Narrowing her eyes at all the men in turn, the captain turned and quickly rapped the flat of her blade across Howard's knuckles. He yelped in pain. "Try that again, and I'll keel haul you," she said.

"Raj is a competent astronomer and can help you determine your position more precisely as well as train your own navigator to do the same," Sheldon continued.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" she asked, gesturing at Raj with her sword. He made a squeaking sound of distress.

"He doesn't talk to women," Howard cut in quickly.

She shook her head in confusion and turned away from Raj.

"I am one of the most intelligent men in Europe," Sheldon asserted immodestly. "While any explanation of my field of study would clearly be beyond your ability to comprehend, I am certain I can solve any problem you can pose."

She glanced over at the one man he hadn't mentioned. "And what of your friend here, the one who wants to be a eunuch?"

"Leonard will assist me," he replied immediately. His confidence went well into the realm of arrogance, but she rather liked it. He may be obnoxious, but he had the kind of attitude that might make him at home on a pirate ship. It probably didn't win him many friends in the polite societies of Europe, assuming he was telling the truth about being quality. She believe him about that, though. The four men's clothes were made of the best materials. If she wasn't mistaken, those were real gemstones sewn into the vest of the dark-skinned one.

Turning her attention back to the man in front of her, she said, "What if I asked you to help me find out the route of a cargo ship of the East India Trading Company?"

He shrugged. "Child's play. I can do that and determine the best location for an ambush. I can even devise strategies which may allow you to capture the ship rather than sending it to the bottom."

She shot him a steely-eyed look at that remark, but he returned her gaze calmly. He seemed to have no idea that he had just insulted her abilities as a captain. So he was brilliant, arrogant, rude and seemingly with few morals. He might fit in with her crew better than she thought.

"You've got yourself a deal," she declared. She spat into her palm and held it out to him to seal their bargain.

He looked at her in horror. "Good Lord, woman, I'm not touching you. Do you have any idea of how many germs are contained in human saliva?" he cried.

She stared at him in disbelief, then sighed. Who knew what strange impulse had led her to imagine he might become part of her crew. She had obviously been way off on that one. "Gentlemen, until my ransom demands are met, you'll be guests on board my ship. You'll work for your room and board, same as everyone else, but as my guests, you will not be harmed. Now cut them loose and show them to their bunks," she said tiredly to a nearby crewman, then turned and walked away. The interview with the prisoners was over.