Foreword:
This version of John Silver, and the name "Benbow", are not mine. They belong to Disney and Ron Clements. Original characters/names belong to Robert Louis Stevenson. All other characters, names and places, however, belong to me unless otherwise stated.
Flame if you like; I'll just ignore you.
Enjoy the story!
:-:
Possibly because half the crew were still drunk, or possibly because the white-wigged captain had given up trying to control the celebrations of the sober half, Bonnie Wheeler had no trouble sneaking off the three-masted Navy schooner the moment it docked. She pulled her father's long black coat tight around her and trotted away from the ship whose holds, empty decks and air ducts been her home for the past three months. Better, though, than what she had left behind when she stowed away on the R.L.S. Ambrosia.
She swept her long hair out of her green eyes and hopped as she walked, getting a view of the port town in front of her over the heads of the sailors cramming the boardwalk. Vaguely she remembered the Opeth spaceport for its prodigious size and the less-than-respectable set of sailors that infested it. Shabby storefronts, brothels and barking vendors drew her eyes away from the groans and crashes of ships docking and setting off. She looked for one inn in particular, a wooden panel above its door painted with a red raven and a foaming mug of ale. The drawstring shirt and threadbare cotton pants under her big coat had grown loose while she hid on the Ambrosia. No faces in the mosh-pit of the boardwalk looked familiar to her; few were of her own species. She moved quickly and economically; she held her head up and spied the Red Raven.
A different quality of noise buzzed in her ears as the door to the bar swung creakily shut. It matched the low, smoky yellow light. The patrons, mostly grizzled space dogs hunkered down around their tankards, didn't bother turning to look at her. She sucked into her lungs the tang of woodsmoke and beer, and soon she was pleasantly awash in it. The wonderfully human face of the owner, a stout, red-faced matron, stirred Bonnie's memory. She smiled.
"I'm not sure if you remember me, but I'm Constance Wheeler, Prisca and Iscariot's daughter? With the Wheeler Interstellar Surveying team? We stopped here for a couple of weeks a while back."
No light flickered on in the woman's hooded eyes; only a wary shadow.
"Remember? I was the pancake girl?"
Then a broken, toothless grin split the woman's face. "Yes! Bless me 'eart! Ye came in 'ere every morn beggin' fer loganberry pancakes! I din't reco'nize yer name– I thought it was Bonnie."
"That's what everybody calls me, yeah." Bonnie let out the anxious breath she was holding.
"Well, Miz Bonnie, where's the rest o' yer crew?"
Bonnie opened her mouth, then closed it. "I... decided to strike off on my own. Got tired of it."
The matron blinked. "Yer a bit too young t'be strikin' off on yer own, dearie."
"I'm not so very young," Bonnie said, drawing herself up to her full height.
"So what brings ye 'round to my neck o' the woods?"
"I'd like to see if I can get a bit of work. I'm really good in the kitchen. I cooked the meals for the surveying team."
A good-natured cackle rose above the hum of male voices. "An' it jus' so happens we're hirin' cooks. When can ye start, dearie?"
"Right now." The grin took up her whole face and made her green eyes flash.
:-:
The growling voice of their captain, deep and dangerous, full of restrained rage, froze their blood and shook their bones.
"Ye think ye can betray yer cap'n, an' ye betray yer own crewmates. Remember this lesson, lads."
Captain John Silver stood with a snarl on his thick lips, towering over his bo'sun and his second mate. The smaller men's rapiers and shirts were flecked with blood. The bo'sun whimpered as he tugged his sword out of the helmsman's ribs and turned toward his next victim, gagged and bound to the starboard railing. He paused and felt his captain's red laser eye right between his shoulderblades.
"Don' stop now, Blaize me lad. Ye 'ad no qualms about killin' me. If ye have the stones fer that, surely killin' a swabbie's nothin' to ye."
Silver's voice dropped like lead from his mouth. Blood puddled at his feet. The Benbow drank it slowly, and moaned to taste the mutiny that soured it. Blaize convulsed and the boy screamed. Silver's body surged with bitter victory.
He had been mutinied upon only once in his life. But that betrayal had cost him his leg, his arm, his eye, his ship and his treasure. It would not happen again. He clicked the pistol into place on his great metal arm and pointed it at Blaize's scaled back. The shifty reptilian eyes flicked back at Silver, terror lighting them up.
"Cap'n, don't kill me, please." Fear had taken the air from Blaize's lungs. The weak, breathy hiss barely reached Silver's ears above the sound of the sails straining against the stellar wind.
A heavy hand descended upon Silver's left shoulder. He glanced up at his hulking first mate, the only man on the ship he could trust. Leonard stood a head and a half taller than Silver, his face wide and flat, the gorilla-like nose set in a hairy, squinched face with glittering black eyes overshadowed by heavily-furred eyebrows. The huge batlike ears were tilted back.
"Cap'n, we should keep at least two alive. You and I can't pilot this ship into Opeth by ourselves."
Blaize and Jester the second mate gazed up at their savior, then at their condemner. Silver narrowed his eyes, shining the laser full in Leonard's face.
"Mr. L–Leo's right, Cap'n. Ye two're strong men and capable, but there's on'y so much two pair o' hands can do," Jester stuttered.
The little wheel that replaced Silver's right ear whirred and clicked; the blood-red beam faded to an easy yellow and disappeared. The savage snarl dropped from his face, but when he reached out to Blaize with his natural hand, the slender Sithrasian nearly bent double with terror. Silver hoisted him into the air by the front of his dirty jerkin and brought the squirming snakelike man close to his ursine face.
"I'll keep yer useless carcass alive, Blaizey, but if I find anythin' whatsoever out o' place between here 'n Opeth, ye'll be danglin' from the crossbeam by yer own innards. Clear?"
"As a b-b-b-bell, C-c-cap'n."