Wind snapped sharply through the flag, flying high above the ship; the complex design signifying the single most powerful government in the world, the Holy Britannian Empire. The ship sailed alone, moving swiftly through the ocean, riding over the rolling waves.
A sailor rushed into the bridge, "My Lord!"
The graying man turned to face the intrusion, his face demanding an explanation.
"We've picked up a castaway, she claims to be a survivor from a pirate attack."
The captain raised an eyebrow, "Where is she?"
"Down on deck, she still seems a bit shaken up, and is refusing to give up her weapons…not that it really matters, she only has a pair of swords."
"Is she Britannian?"
"Yes, milord, I do believe she is."
The man paused a moment, "I shall speak with her." He pivoted around, his cape flowing around him, as he headed out the door.
A few minutes later, the Captain came down onto the deck, stepping out to see the survivor squatting down on the ground, hugging a blanket around herself. Her big copper eyes peered up at the man, instantly recognizing that he was nobility. She brushed a lock of her blond hair back, letting it fall over her shoulder, coming a little short of halfway down her back. On the left side of her head, a small bit of hair was tied up in a braid, secured just behind her temple, and was tucked behind her ear, with its several, steel piercings. Her soft pink lips curved into a smile as she stood up, letting the blanket fall away from herself, revealing her slender, petite body. She was dressed in a red, low cut, sleeveless shirt that stopped just a little bit short of her waistline; her pants were sturdy and blue, fitting her body tightly. Secured by straps just above her butt was a pair of slender, straight swords, with a curved hilt that was more like a pistol grip than the hilt of a sword.
The graying man blinked once, then spoke, "Girl, I am Duke Gurel, captain of this ship, you say that you are a survivor from a pirate attack?"
She nodded, wrapping her arms around her own waist, "I am; I was on Baron Zeck's ship, The Valiant. It was hit by a pirate ship, and totally defeated, I managed to get away because I hid during the attack, then managed to get to a life raft when they sank the ship." Her shoulders began to shake a bit as she ducked her head down. "They…they never had a chance."
The duke strode forward, gently placing his hands on the pretty girl's shoulders, "You have nothing to fear, you are safe here."
She stopped shaking, and after a brief moment, she spoke, her voice no longer weak, but instead, calm and serious, "I may be safe…but are you?"
She seized his arm and pulled, twisting herself into the air and slamming both her feet into the side of the duke's head…he dropped like a sack of rocks.
Everyone else standing around was stunned for a brief moment as the girl landed lightly, drawing the twin blades from her waist. She instantly launched herself off the ground, the blades slashing through two men's throats before they could react. Finally, one soldier managed to react, striking down at her with the butt of his rifle. Gracefully, she twisted to the side, the weapon harmlessly sailing past her. With a twirl, both blades came down on his neck, severing his head from his body.
Completing the twirl, she looked up to see several guns aimed at her. Instantly, she flipped backwards in a back handspring, tumbling in midair, and dashing at another soldier.
Shots rang out just as she made it there and vaulted over the soldier's shoulders, tumbling down and slashing across the back of his knees. The soldier cried out as he dropped towards the ground, the girl seizing him by the back of the shirt and holding him up so that he took all the bullets for her.
Sharply, more shots rang out, and the soldiers recoiled, dropping to the ground. Around the edges of the ship, various people now stood, armed to the teeth.
The girl looked up at them with a smile, twirling her swords once, "Jacks, take your squad to the armory, Shana, engine room, Aarol, take the comm. room. Kelik, secure the rafts and lifeboats."
With various choruses of agreement, they scattered, taking cover and fighting their way towards the doors to get below deck.
The blond girl rushed forward, arriving at the door before anyone from inside could get out.
As if right on cue, the door swung open, and the lead soldier burst through, rifle raised. He was immediately cut down by weapon fire, then the girl twirled into the door, her blades slashing aggressively. Her weapons flashed through the air, cutting through the soldiers as they came.
They broke through the first lines, and the three teams that had entered into the ship split up, heading in separate direction. The girl headed off on her own, dashing up flights of stairs, one after the other.
She finally broke to the top of the stairs, launching herself up the last flight, blades first at the soldiers standing there.
One swung at her, she dodged and slashed back, taking him out at the knees.
Another tried to bring his gun around to bear on her as she flipped up into a handstand, wrapping her legs around the man's head. She rolled back, slamming him headfirst into the unforgiving steel floor. She continued the roll, somersaulting forward as bullets slammed into the ground where she had been a mere moment before. Her feet hitting the ground in the follow-through of the somersault, she kicked off, launching herself into the air. The swords flashed, tearing through the firing soldier; she tumbled forward, coming up in a ready stance. Ahead of her, a line of five soldiers stood, aiming right at her, and behind them, a steel door marked 'bridge'.
"Surrender now or we'll shoot!"
She smirked…they'd hesitated…she flipped the swords up, aiming the tips at them to reveal the tube that ran down the back of each blade, down to the hilt, which looked curiously like the chamber of a pistol. She flicked something on the hilt and a trigger flipped free on both hilts.
"What the…"
She opened fire, five shots, five kills.
Not bothering to slow down, she slipped up to the door, hefting one of the dead soldiers up off the ground and holding him in front of her. She lightly pushed the door open, pushing the soldier in first.
Seeing one of their own made them hesitate, and gave her all the time she needed as she shoved the man forward, running up his back and flipping off the dead body, landing in the midst of the bridge, blades flashing.
About ten seconds later, the entire bridge crew was dead. She reached down into her pocket, coming out with a small device that she clipped over her ear, "Bridge secure, everyone report in."
"Armory secure."
A few moments passed, "Comms secured."
A few more moments, "Engine room secured."
Another moment, "Ship secured, resistance subdued."
The girl nodded, "Good, Kelik, cut the jamming and open a line to home."
"Alright…jamming down…line open…patching ya through."
A new voice picked up on the line, male and gruff, "Report."
The girl straightened a bit, "The ship has been captured, Captain. All tracking systems are turned off."
A moment of pause, "Sera, what have I told you about taking part in battles, much less boarding the ship first?"
She flinched a little, "Um…"
"You know you are too valuable for us to risk losing…we'll talk more when you get back. But if you ever think about doing something that stupid again, I'll order you to be restrained until the fight is over."
"Y-yes sir."
The communication cut off and she slumped back against the wall with a sigh, "But it's so boring to just stay back until it's all over, and its not like I even got hurt or anything."
She idly ran a hand through her blond hair, playing with her single braid. "Oh well, guess its time to get to work." She pushed off the wall, headed for the door, passing a few people on her way out.
One of them, a big burly man with a pair of shotguns on his back caught her slender arm, his hand completely enveloping her upper arm, "Where ya going, Miss Sera?"
"This time of day, the yard will be covered in fog, I'm gonna go up the mast so I can see, I'll give directions by radio."
"Ya got chewed out by the Captain again, didn't ya?"
"Eh heh…I'll catch ya later, Jacks."
With that, Sera was out the door, and Jacks and his small crew moved about the bridge, removing the dead bodies and manning the different posts.
One man, a little younger, sat himself in front of a disabled computer, "Hey, uh…Jacks?"
The big man looked over from the ship's wheel, "Yeah, what?"
"Um, the navigation system is down, looks like it took a bullet."
"Of course it is, Miss Sera would have shot it when she was in here."
"Wh-wha!? She did that on purpose? But without nav systems, how are we gonna find our way anywhere?"
Jacks looked over at the man, "This is your first raid with Miss Sera, isn't it?"
"Y-yeah."
"Then I guess I can't blame you for not know. Britannia can track any ship that taps into their navigation satellites, so we can't use those. Besides, where we are headed…ya can't use nav systems anyway."
"What?"
"Out in the ocean, there are a lot of strange things that no one, even now, can understand. The veil is one of those."
"The veil? I've never heard of that."
"Yeah, most people don't talk about it, and those that do are passed off as crazy. The veil is a place that is always shrouded in fog, and peppered with islands and reefs. There are enough magnetic materials in those islands that compasses are unreliable, the fog never lifts so you can't see where you're going, and something about it manages to throw off any satellite scans or satellite communications. In short, even in this day and age, the veil is a part of the world that is unmapped, and tagged as somewhere that everyone should avoid. Sera is the last of a race of people that lived in the veil. A while back, a ship wrecked in the veil and managed to survive. But the veil isn't too well equipped to support life, and eventually, they all died out, except for Sera. No one really knows why, but that girl has the best sense of direction anyone has ever seen, she has maps of the entire ocean memorized, and can navigate without any tools at all. And best of all, she knows the veil like the back of her hand…probably the only person in the world that does. If Sera is on the ship, we don't need nav systems, she is one."
"So…is that why she went up the mast? She has to be up high to navigate?"
Jacks laughed, "Hell no, she's up there pouting. Cap'n tells her not to board a ship until we already have the thing conquered."
"But she was the first one on."
"Exactly, Cap'n must've given her an earful about that."
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
High up in the mast, Sera sat, her right arm hooked around some tension lines, her legs dangling freely over the edge of the pole she was sitting on, the nearest solid ground over forty feet below her. Strong ocean winds kicked at her hair as she stared out at the horizon. She put her hand against the radio transmitter on her ear, "We ready down there?"
"Good, Jacks, turn right, thirty-eight degrees."
The large ship began to turn, then straightened, "Two degrees too far, Jacks…there we go."
She cut off the communication, her copper eyes looking out at the ocean as the ship sailed on, heading south east; a short phrase of an old song slipped from her lips, sweet and slow, much slower than the original song was, "I'll sing along with the Pirate Song, hail to the wind, hooray to the glory. We're gonna fight `til the battle's won, on the raging sea."