The Lost Ingots of Tagus
by Aldesina
Chapter 9 Getting Closer
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Disclaimer.....As you are probably all very well aware, I do not own anything, if I did I would be rolling in it, since I am not, and I do NOT own the story I am poor, and can only write fanfiction about it. Ah sigh, oh well, on with the story
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Interceptor
Commodore Norrington sat in his office pondering the cryptic notes from the oddly shaped mechanical box. Said box currently sat next to him as open as it had been when he stuck his hand on it before. No one seemed to know how to close it. Groves had suggested sticking his hand back in it. Norrington had looked at him and asked if he would like to volunteer a hand this time. Groves shut up.
James turned his head toward his door sharply. Speaking of shutting up, what was all that noise outside his cabin? He got out of his chair and walked over to his door. As he got closer, James realized that there were only two voices that were making a disturbance outside his cabin. His first and second lieutenants. Well speak of the devil, he thought as he smoothly opened the door to reveal two very startled, very sheepish looking faces.
"Gentlemen is there anything I can help you with at this hour of the night?" James raised an eyebrow. "I thought you would have wanted to turn in at this hour and get some rest considering that we will be upon unfamiliar territory in twenty four hours."
Both men fidgeted, looking at each other. Gillette finally spoke up
"Permission to speak freely sir?" James glanced at one man then another, wondering if his ear drums were going to be bleeding by the end of this talk.
"Yes I suppose, come on in," James walked back through his doorway leaving the door open for the two lieutenants. The two men walked in after him, Groves shut the door and bolted it behind him. James looked at him sharply.
"Is there a reason for you to do that Eric?"
"James are you mad?"
"Have you lost all your marbles?"
Both men came at him at once hounding him like those harpies he read about in Dante's Inferno.
"Did you see that box? It looks like it was carved by the devil himself!" James glanced at the box. Remarkably beautiful craftsmanship but he was sure devils could have done much better.
"Forget the box, listen to that letter! It's positively mocking you." Indeed it was quite sardonic; most unfortunately it seemed to also have some kind of sick tone of seduction to it.
"Who told them about the Interceptor?" Jack Bloody Sparrow probably tipped them off.
"Why in the world would you trust those instructions?" As if we had any other way of getting there in the first place. Besides it was highly doubtful that someone would go to such lengths to send him into a trap after handing over so much money and that flirtatious letter, oh God! James pressed his hands to his temples.
"Oh for God's sakes, Michel, Eric, do shut up." Both men's eyes widened. Michel Gillette huffed and let out a soft curse in French, muttering under his breath about imbecilic pirates and equally imbecilic commodores that go after them.
"Careful there Gillette, I do speak French you realize."
"This is for your own good you know?" Groves said.
"Yes, James, ever since you let Jack get away the first time you've been working yourself to death." Gillette sighed and tapped his fingers on his commanding officer's desk. "And don't give me that poor excuse about your dream of ridding the Caribbean of every pirate on its waters." Gillette leveled a glare at him.
"It's Elizabeth again isn't it?"
James sputtered,
"Excuse me?"
"It's the pressure of the wedding, and Jack Sparrow coming back, and then Elizabeth being captured again isn't it?" Grooves asked.
"Oh come on man," Gillette threw his hands in the air. "We've been your friends for over seven years. You really think you could fool us?"
"Now, Michel, I thought we weren't going to mention Miss Swann." Groves said tightly through clenched teeth.
"Bugger Elizabeth, she's going to be the death of Her Majesty's marines. Every last one of them."
"Does this conversation actually involve me or did you just need a big enough room to fit both your inflated heads into?" James sat with his head leaning back on his chair and feet propped up most uncharacteristically on his desk. His two lieutenants were also his two best friends yes, but they also had the worst habit of arguing like the worst of gossip monglers when something agitated them. He had to listen to these little spats at least once a month.
"Spats, James?" Groves asked grinning a little. James cringed when he realized he had just said the last part out loud.
"If you would just be a little less inane about some things your ears wouldn't have to suffer as much." Gillette cut in.
"And what dare I ask have I been foolish about this time?"
"That woman again." Michel Gillette huffed.
"We see you James," Groves elaborated. "Helping Will Turner and making preparations for the wedding along with the governor, helping with the arrangements, For God's sake man, you would probably will the clouds away on their wedding day if you could." James smirked a bit at that statement. They thought he was here because of Elizabeth. No one seemed to believe that he had gotten over it. She would have, indeed made him a good wife, and they would have been a wonderful match. Yet he would have never had her heart, and what was the point of caging a person's body when her heart, perhaps even her very soul belonged to another. He knew that he might have never been a cuckolded husband, but he would have never been able to compete for her heart either. So he did the only sensible thing to do at the time and let go. His heart had dropped to his feet and twisted in pain, but at the same time a great burden was lifted off his mind. Always honor bond to do what was right, always seeing to others before himself.
"Would you believe that I gave chase for a different reason?"
"No" came two simultaneously stubborn voices.
"Well I did."
"And that might be?" Gillette asked skeptically.
"Diablo." James said simply, moving his feet off his desk and sitting up straight again. "And do sit for heaven's sake."
"Not until we've made our point." Gillette pressed stubbornly.
"You have amply made your point. You believe that I am foolish, you think I am still in love with Elizabeth, and you think that I throw myself into work to forget my grief."
"You do throw yourself into work to forget your grief."
"In the past gentlemen, in the past." James waved his hand at the chairs in front of his desk again. "Are those chairs so uninviting?" Both Gillette and Groves frowned and sat.
"Well besides the most obvious reason why on earth are we going at such inane speeds to a meeting with pirates?" Gillette asked.
"That Diablo character intrigues me." James said. "He could very much give Jack Sparrow a run for his money." Gillette turned sharply at this.
"He?"
"Yes Michel, he"
"The letter was signed by a woman though." James shook his head,
"I had an encounter with Diablo. It's safe to say that I thoroughly believe that Diablo is a man. An assassin perhaps, his fighting style was nothing I had ever encountered before." He raised his head to glance at the two younger officers sitting before him. "Do you remember a particularly scrawny looking pirate standing next to the pirate captain?
Gillette frowned but Groves's eyes widened.
"You can't possibly mean that little demon in pirate's clothing." Gillette snorted at that comment
"Remember the name Diablo?" Groves looked annoyed at Gillette.
"Now what in the world would that thing want with our Commodore?"
"Apparently he wants to make my acquaintance," James said simply, although I don't buy that thing about him having a mistress for a second. Still there is naught else we can do now considering our circumstances. We still have to get Miss Elizabeth back, and Mr. Turner, and it's also our duty to hang those pirates that captured him."
"And that Sparrow as well" Gillette said grinding his teeth at the mention of Sparrow
"Indeed, now then gentlemen, if there is nothing else I suggest you both take to bed, it'll be a long day in the morning."
"Are you going to sleep?" Gillette asked James raised an eyebrow
"No, not yet"
"Then what makes you think we're about to?" Groves cut in.
"Call it a command"
"But."
"Lieutenants!" Both men were immediately up and to attention, James inwardly breathed a sigh of relief to the fact that he was such a crazed workaholic that managed to outrank them for the time being, and to the fact that British military training was the best in the world.
"Sir." They said in unison
"As I had said previously it will be a long trip there, and undoubtedly an even longer one back, I suggest that you both get to bed. Dismissed"
"Sir" They both saluted through grimaced teeth and left the room promptly. James swore he could here swearing coming from the other side of his door again. Yes it was going to be a long trip.
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The Dragoness
"Land Ho!" Diablo strapped on the chest plate back over her chest, flattening out her breasts and widening her waist to make her look less like a woman and put on her mask. In a couple of her times in Tortuga she had appeared besides Bootstrap as a masked man, other times, well, Diablo grinned, other times she pretended to be Bootstrap's lover, so to speak. The masked man usually did not sit well with the other pirates and during the first couple of years had provoked attacks on her person and sometimes on the crew she sailed with. That died out once they found out that she could fight, actually it was more like they thought he could fight. The lover, well, she was immediately and promptly written off and ignored. Which made her life easier when she needed to gather information. However this time, they needed to impress, specifically they needed to dissuade anyone that might have wanted to approach Bootstrap on this trip. The only people that Diablo wanted to see were the people that they had made arrangements with earlier on.
"Land Ho!" Diablo rolled her eyes, Yes I can hear you Rubens, for God's sake the Interceptor a day's way back could hear you. She adjusted the folds of her tunic once again and checked in the mirror making sure her hair was bound up and most signs of her being female were covered up. She winced a little at the corset, unlike the regular corsets that most women wore hers was designed to flatten the breasts, not emphasize them. Diablo stretched once or twice to get used to the stiffness and once again checked in the mirror, this time to tie the bandanna around her head and make sure that no one could see the corset from under her tunic. Satisfied that what stared back at her from the mirror was as male as she could get Diablo left her room.
She found Will and Elizabeth already out standing next to Bootstrap. Elizabeth's hair had been tied back and on her waist beneath the tunic she now wore a gun on her left hip and a sword on her right. Will Turner had his wedding sword slung around his waist, though it was obviously more fancy then what he usually wore, it also came with an extra sharp blade.
"Now that wouldn't happen to be a Will Turner original now would it?" Diablo asked with a gleam in her eye. Elizabeth blinked at her
"Well no, mine isn't but, how did you know that Will made swords?" Diablo winked merrily at her from behind the mask.
"It's a gift" Will shook his head at her,
"I bet my father told her."
"And why are you wearing that?" Elizabeth continued "We all know you're a woman, and we all know what you look like."
"But no one at Tortuga does, and I intend for it to stay that way."
"You mean you have the whole of Tortuga believing that you're a man?" Will asked, "I thought you just said you had friends there, also isn't it a little conspicuous to be walking around with a mask in Tortuga, you'd stand out like a sore thumb."
"That's the point."
"Wasn't this gold thing supposed to be secretive to begin with?" Will asked again, "You seem to be completely blowing our cover to me."
"No Jr. surprisingly she's not." Bootstrap said coming up from behind Diablo with a huge grin on his face.
"Don't. Call. Me. Junior." Will bit out.
"But that's your name" Bootstrap said.
"Oh for God's sake, argue this later will you, we're pulling up to harbor now." Diablo said as she took the wheel from Marlow and proceeded to steer The Dragoness in as the rest of the crew prepared the ship for docking.
"Would you care to explain why she's decked out like a peacock?" Will asked sounding exasperated.
"I become a peacock just because I have a mask on?" Diablo asked from the wheel "You do realize that peacocks are male don't you? Their counterparts, the peahens are quite plain in appearance and don't stand out at all. Since I am female, I should be a peahen, and then saying that I stand out would not make any sense at all because the female of the species is particularly bland looking." Will and Elizabeth just blinked.
"Will you stop evading the question already" Elizabeth said.
"The reason why we have Diablo dressed up is because we want to make sure that we'll be uninterrupted during our stay. Her reputation is usually enough to put off most of the common riffraff."
"And how did she come by this reputation."
"I killed anyone that stepped in my way the first few times that we docked in Tortuga, and mostly everyone thinks I'm an assassin for hire that Bootstrap brings on trips at times." Diablo turned the wheel lightly and Smith tied the ship off at the dock.
"Any other time I just go as I usually am," Diablo smiled back at them "They call me Mara, and I'm your dad's personal love slave."
Will cringed.
"I didn't need to know that." Diablo grinned at him
"Aww look, he's so adorable when he's blushing." Bootstrap laughed,
"Just like Milady!"
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Author's Note; I realize that this was a particularly short chapter but I thought that it would be a cute way to end the chapter. Ten should be up shortly Please continue reading and reviewing Bye Bye!