Chapter 22 – Target Practice
March 18, 1660

It was late that day when Jasmine shouted her warning of a sail on the horizon. Per our brief talk, Hans led all his men below to make it look like we were a small understaffed ship and easy prey, but the pretense proved unneeded as we drew closer to find it was a merchantman headed west flying French colors. I almost skipped the ship at seeing its French flag but decided that if nothing else she was good for target practice.

"Port cannon!" I called as we came up on the ship's right side. My crew scrambled to load the cannon and Cinderella made herself scarce per my orders for her own safety. I then drifted to the hatch where Lieutenant Westergaard waited with his cutlass in hand to update him.

"Hook?" he asked me but I shook my head.

"French merchantman," I told him and he relaxed, the other soldiers relaxing as well. "I'm going to use it for target practice before we board."

"Then we shall practice our boarding as well," Hans proffered with a devilish smile. I caught his line of thinking and nodded in agreement as the cannons were pulled back into loading position.

"Shot sir?" Shang asked and I looked at the ship in the distance. We were just getting into range for the mast and rigging destroying round, and

"Chain shot," I told him and he turned and shouted orders. The cannons were then loaded and pulled back into position and aimed, each in turn soon fired towards the enemy ship's masts and dropping the mizzenmast backwards across the helm while the main mast leaned as the shrouds were ripped apart.

"Good shooting, Shang!" I called as the cannons were reloaded, Shang's constant drilling getting the time down to thirty seconds before they roared again and broke the main mast which fell over the fore to stall out the ship.

"Prepare to board!" I called as Ariel brought us up behind the ship. Hans and his men waited on bated breath for the word as I called down the most recent signal.

"They're surrendering," I told the young lieutenant. "We're still going to board, so you can practice your shock and awe at least."

"Soldiers!" Hans called to his men as he gave orders to arrest all crew as they were already surrendering. The moment Simba and Pumba threw their boarding hooks, I signaled Hans to charge and he led his men in an overwhelming surge past my men and onto the crippled vessel, rounding everyone and stripping them of weapons so fast it seemed unreal.

As I stepped foot on the captured vessel, a shot rang out below decks and Hans and I made for the stairs down to see what the problem was. More sailors were held by Hans's soldiers but ten or so were clustered around a door where they were shouting orders to surrender to the people inside.

"Problem?" I asked the young man who held rifle in a ready stance.

"The cooks," he told me as I noticed the bullet hole in the door. "They refuse to surrender."

"I got this," I said as I moved to open the door. Hand on the handle, I opened the door and shouted, "Surrender, we have the vessel!"

"Tu sporco porco non mi prenderai vivo per violare il mio onore!" a woman shouted as I opened the door. I got a brief glimpse of a brown haired woman who threw a knife at me. I scrambled back but found my arm didn't want to move, the knife catching my sleeve forcing me to yank it free as the brown haired woman wound up to throw a second knife which thunked into the door as well.

"Charming woman," Hans said as he regarded my sleeve as the woman shouted again.

"Salt of the earth she is not," I said as I opened the door slightly to peer inside. I could see a man in there with her, likely the cook or her assistant and got a third knife for my troubles.

"How many knives does she have?" Hans said as another thudded into the door.

"Tu sporco porco non mi prenderai vivo per violare il mio onore!" the woman spat as I held the door partly open and fingered my pistol. Sticking the barrel around the corner, I got two more knives buried in the door and a third clattering onto the deck

"Vai e porta con te la tua sporcizia!" the woman shouted as I felt her tear a knife free from the door, which was why I held the door partly open. Giving a shove, I got a feminine oof as I hit the woman with the door as she wrenched another knife free and yanked it back open as the knives clattered to the deck to see her sprawled and grasping for one of the dropped knives. Leading the surge in, I cocked the pistol as I kicked the blade away from her hand, the woman looking up into the barrel of my gun with pure vitriol before more soldiers grabbed her and hauled her to her feet.

"We surrender!" the man said quickly as he stood with his hands above his head. The woman still seemed inclined to struggle but the man approached her and placed a calming hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "Colette, calm down."

"I suppose it do not matter now," she said as she sagged in the soldier's arms as she spoke in heavily accented French, then regarded the fact that her companion wasn't being held with a cocked eyebrow. "What is this?"

"In the name of King Frederick, I've taken your vessel," I informed her to get a look of confusion on her face.

"You are not pirates?" she asked me.

"Privateer," I corrected her. "I take enemy ships in the name of my king and now you will row for land though you are many a days rowing away from the nearest French port."

"Days?" the man asked as he looked terrified.

"They would eat us alive," Colette added. "What are cooks to them. You see the way they treat us this past month. No matter the succulent dishes we prepare or how well we get the salt out of their meat, we are nothing!"

"I know," he said sadly as he put his forehead to hers as they had a moment. "It's Paris all over again."

"We'll find a place," he told her quietly and feeling inspired in the moment decided to interject myself into their private conversation.

"What happened in Paris?" I asked them.

"Not a time to be a Huguenot," the man said as he looked at me.

"Religous freedom, pah," the woman said before spitting on the deck. "They rally their troops and gather their strength to squash us!"

"Huguenot," I said as I heard that term once before, finally placing it. They were a religious group driven out of France about this time in history and settled in and around New York City, a fact I remembered once arriving in New Rochelle with a load of transformers to update the infrastructure and saw it on a statue commemorating town's founding.

"Well, I agree with you on King Louis gathering his strength," I told the pair and saw the hatred wash out of Colette. "You'll all be better off starting anew far from his control and reach."

"See, he agrees with me," Colette said as if that settled everything.

"And I can offer you a position on my ship," I informed her as she seemed to be the dominant of the two. "I have no proper cook and many of our meals lack for it."

"You would offer the position to me?" Colette asked dubiously. "Why not Linguini? It is about the only reason we get the position is he acts the part of the cook and I a mere helper."

"Because you seem to be the dominant between you," I said which raised her eyebrow a bit. "You will find I care not for the fact you are a woman but only that you are capable of doing your job."

"She's the best cook I know," Linguini said as he and Colette shared a look. "I'm barely good at peeling potatoes."

"He's not being modest," Colette said with a chuckle. "He has no talent whatsoever."

"So, sign on with us?" I offered her. "I'll make you an officer which entitles you to an extra portion of the our collective plunder at the end of the year."

"Then I think we have an agreement, monsieur," Colette said and I gestured for the men to release her.

"Good," I said as we shook on it. "You can sign the ship's Articles after we plunder this ship."

"Oui," Colette said as she picked up her knives and placed them back in her apron. My men plundered out the ship, the pickings thin aboard the vessel but I had all the ship's gunpowder and shot taken aboard as well to better prepare for the upcoming fight with Hook.

I then off-loaded the ship of its crew and had them row for it before tossing a few lanterns on the cargo crates and setting the ship ablaze. We stayed to watch it burn, making sure the vessel was well and truly lost before casting off and continuing our course. I then had to search for Cinderella, finally finding the cowering woman in the hold who looked relieved to see me as she lowered the self same knife I had once used to strip her out of her ruined dress.

"Is it over?" she asked and I nodded.

"French ship," I told her as I extended a hand and helped her to her feet. "We still have Hook to find but this is a taste of what is to come."

"You're right," she said as she pressed against me for comfort. "It was scary to go through that and that was while I was down here."

"It's alright now," I told her as I held her close. "It's over."

"Does it get better?" she asked me as she sobbed on my chest.

"You get more used to it," I told her as I continued to hold her. "Starting to see the reason now I treated you the way I did?"

She just nodded her head as she continued to sob so I picked her up and carried her up through the ship to my cabin, the woman's weight nothing for me to handle. With night coming on now anyway, I gave orders for the sails to be reefed and a skeleton crew to keep a lookout and sail the ship quietly through the night, the water likely too deep to anchor or have to worry about reefs as we were in the middle of the Caribbean.

Taking Cinderella into my private cabin I set her down on the bed which roused her from her own misery as she took in the room before beginning to undo her vest as I removed my own uniform jacket and examined the ruined sleeve for a moment before hanging it on the back of a chair.

"What happened to your sleeve?" Cinderella asked me as she removed her sash to hang it with her vest.

"Nothing really," I said as I began removing my boots. "Got it hung up while securing the crew."

"If you want I can fix it now," she said as she removed her shoes, something I hadn't noticed until then. "Or do you want me to wait till in the morning?"

"Uh, morning," I said as I figured her work would be better and easier in daylight. Cinderella nodded as she kept stripping out of her clothes, hanging her tunic with her vest to leave her bare chested before standing and removing her pants as I slid into bed still mostly dressed as Cinderella joined me completely nude.

"You're still wearing clothes," she said as she looked...disappointed? I looked down in confusion for a moment at my clothes before sighing and climbed out of bed.

"Why wear clothes to bed, anyway?" she asked me as I stripped out of my clothes.

"In case of something happening I don't rush out of here looking like a crazed Celt going into battle," I said with a snicker. "Though I imagine that would stop a few dead in their tracks to see that."

"I can see why," she said as I started to crawl back into bed.

"You seem...amorous...tonight," I responded as she pressed her naked body against mine.

"I was talking with Jasmine when she came down from the nest and she asked me about last night," she said as she cuddled in close to me. "She wanted to know why I was screaming."

"I didn't think she could hear us," I told her as I fondled her butt.

"Her hammock is right below us," she told me. "Plus she has really good hearing."

"So, what all did she say about last night?" I said as we cuddled. "I assume she told you that it shouldn't have been so painful?"

"She did," Cinderella confirmed for me. "She said she looks forward to when her and Aladdin make love because she feels so wonderful during the act itself."

"I could have made it feel good like that if I wanted, even if it was your first time," I admitted to her. "But, considering the circumstances, that would have told me nothing."

"What about now?" she asked me and I smiled.

"A mutually beneficial night?" I asked her, smiling as she shifted to bring her lips to mine. We kissed briefly before she pulled away as I rolled to lie on my back. Cinderella moved down to my hardening cock as she began to suck on it as I instructed her to do. It didn't take long for me to blow a load in her warm, sucking hole with her tongue wrapped around my hard rod. She ended up spitting most of it back onto my rod before we shifted around, but I had a surprise for the petite woman.

With her legs spread open to give me access, I gave her a smile before lowering my head to her hairy sex and began to eat her out. The moment my tongue touched her sensitive skin she began to moan and pant but I didn't stop my ministrations to the temple of woman. After several long moments she experienced what I think was her first orgasm where with a shriek, she arched her back as I continued lapping at her being and kept going long enough for her musky scent to fill the room.

After what seemed like her third such orgasm, I finally stopped and sat back on my haunches and had her get on her knees and she numbly followed instruction to flip over and stick her butt back in the air. In the wan light coming from the stern lanterns through the window, I could see the reddish imprints from where I'd spanked her ass the previous night then gave her butt a gentle slap to make her moan.

As I rubbed myself against her sopping wet hole, I found her so wet I had no trouble pushing into her sex where she moaned as she accepted my manhood. Moving slow, I buried myself in her until skin met skin and then began to pump her with long steady strokes so she could feel every ripple and bump of my being in her own. It didn't take long for her to begin to sing into the straw-filled mattress as she experienced another orgasm but I didn't stop even as her sex milked and sucked on my rod and held on for awhile longer until she and I finally orgasmed together as I filled her belly with my seed again.

"Wow," she finally breathed airily afterwards.

"Better?" I asked her and she merely nodded as she dealt with the new feelings as I bent low over her back and massaged her boobs.

"Now...I can see...why she loves...it so much," she finally got out between gasps. I finally let her lay down after a bit longer as my own overly sensitive rod slipped out and we went back to cuddling on the bed, our own exhaustion winning and putting us to sleep soon after.