Jak Frasier, or whatever he chose to call himself, really did need to speak to the captain. It was his job, after all. Quartermaster was supposed to be spokesman for the crew.
Sanya had been avoiding him since his appointment, however. In fact, since that day, she had meticulously avoided being alone with any member of her crew. Any crew member that is except for Marlon the Medic. Not that the captain discussed the events that led up to the need for a new quartermaster even with her trusted ship's surgeon.
Mhaegen had guessed the reason for this and she didn't press the issue. If the captain wished to confide in her how Leon Hardicort had lost patience making due with his counterfeit lovers, and had died in the attempt for the real thing, she was welcome. Mhaegen, for one, was glad that he was out of the picture for good.
She was a little surprised when Sanya mentioned playing her deception at the next port of call. Mhaegen asked the captain if she was up for such a thing. It wasn't a place they had visited before and the salt gods only knew if the employees or the clientele would be willing to go along with her scheme.
Sanya waved away the worry. Her crew had back pay in their pockets from the credits that the former quartermaster had been hiding away and everyone was curious about this particular harbor. It was the land that had once belonged to the Shechel Clan, that the Blackwells had redistributed to some branch of the Flint family after they massacred the town's original occupants.
"It'll be fine," Sanya assured her medic, "as long as I can get into the brothel and get one of the girls to wait in a room for me, no one will ever be the wiser."
True to her word the captain was the first of their number down the gangplank and off into the town as soon as they weighed anchor. And right on her tail was Jak Frasier.
Mhaegen hurried after. For one she wanted to catch him to give Sanya a little head start, but there was another reason that medic was secretly hoping to have a word with the new quartermaster. After their short time sailing together and working together to help the captain overcome the Leon Hardicort problem, she was starting to see what a really great guy Jak was. In fact she was seriously considering revealing her true identity to him, and then… Well, she would leave that part up to the will of the salt gods.
For the moment, though, she had to make sure that he didn't discover Sanya's secret too soon. And she would have done, if the bosun had not come to her with blasted splinter in his hand that needed her expert medical attention before she could even leave the deck.
"I'd need a kriff too if I'd been through everything she's been through in the last couple weeks," Mhaegen overheard her fellow crew members discussing the captain as she hurried to finish her job.
"Thought surely she'd just get that from the new quartermaster."
…
Sanya, at that moment, was just finishing up her conversation with one of the girls in the brothel. The girl was pretty with dark hair and a pale complexion, wearing a low cut red dress. She smiled as she nodded and said, "Aye, captain," before walking up the stairs and disappearing into the furthest room along the balcony.
Jak watched her go before he approached the captain. "So are you planning on taking advantage of the amenities while we are here taking our leave?" He asked.
She startled at his presence but quickly recovered. "Aye, if the right bloke comes along."
"Is that what you were discussing with your lovely friend there?"
"Actually I was gonna see about getting her as a gift for my new quartermaster." Sanya smiled. "But she's otherwise engaged for the evening. Excuse me."
He attempted to follow her, "Captain, I thought we might finally have a chance to discuss…"
"Mr. Frasier," she countered. "We're off the account this evening. Go. Enjoy your leave." She nodded toward the entrance where several of their fellow crew members were just making their way in. Among them was Marlon the medic.
When Jak turned again to speak to the captain she had already made her way to a table of unfamiliar sailors. She threw her arm around the shoulder of one of them and laughed at whatever they were laughing at.
"Is it true," he heard her saying. "All the awful things they say the Blackwells did to this place?"
"You can't believe all the ghost stories." One of the sailors at the table passed her a mug and she took a great swig of the beverage.
"Aye." Another one agreed. "They didn't get all the Shechels."
The man who's shoulder she was resting on spoke up. "I'm part Shechel myself."
"Aye?" She looked around at all of them and then eyed the speaker lustily, "Which part?"
He stood. "Would you like me to show you?"
Her answer couldn't be heard over the tooka calls and whistles but she grabbed him by the kerchief he was wearing around his neck and began to lead him up the stairs towards the room where Jak knew the girl in red already waited.
He was still pondering this when Marlon came up to him and offered, "A group of us are sitting over here. You're welcome to join us." The medic coughed. "Unless you were going to look for other entertainment?"
"N-no," he answered distractedly and went to sit with his fellow Bloody Galians. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy their company. They had accepted him as one of their own. They had unanimously voted him into the position as quartermaster. He had developed friendships among them, especially Marlon, who's shared victomy by the bully Hardicort had forged a bond that would not soon be broken. Unless…
The medic drank and chatted as amiably as any of the other men but his dark eyes often wandered to the closed door behind which the captain and the sailor and the girl in the red dress had all disappeared.
Jak, too, frowned in that general direction. Not that Sanya Harkon had ever been the typical lady. She continued to astound him daily.
He remembered the little girl with her careful updo all askew, throwing knives against Bralykburns and Flints. He unconsciously touched the bit of facial hair that covered his scar and thought of the smirk on her face when he offered to show her the drexl eggs.
Marlon was saying something to him, bringing him out of the memory. "I'm sorry. What was that?" He brought his attention back around to the medic.
"I was just…" Marlon began and then stopped. The medic examined him, glanced up at the door off the balcony and back again. "You're in love with her."
"What?" Jak sputtered. "No. No, I'm not. How could I be? I hardly know her."
Marlon dropped his eyes and his voice but the room was loud and surely no one else could hear their whispered conversation. "I think you know her better than you let on."
Was Marlon jealous? It dawned on Jak then. "But you know her far better than I do. You've sailed with her much longer. She trusts you."
There was something like sheen of tears in the medic's dark eyes. "It doesn't matter. I'm just a nobody. What chance did I ever have with nobility?"
Jak was at a loss. "Sanya doesn't care about something like that."
Marlon got up from the table. "I'm sorry," he said in a rush. "I won't get in your way."
"Wait! Marlon!" Jak also stood and tried to wave the medic back but his attention was caught by a disturbance from the other side of the room.
There was a blue glow emitting from somewhere and a cheer from those surrounding it. One of the crews must have brought a new bit of tech up from Iziz. The holoprojector beamed out an advertisement for some sort of cleaning product but every man and woman in the place was instantly glued to the image. Most of them had never seen anything like it. Only the privileged few could afford a communication transmitter.
Jak of course had seen one. He'd made his betrothal agreement over such a thing. And like a recurring nightmare the next image to appear over the projector was a recording from that actual event. A voice called out from the unit's speaker, a plea for the missing second Blackwell son to be found and returned safe and sound to his family. There may have even been a reward offered for information about his whereabouts but no one heard it.
"Hey! That's our Jak!" One of the more inebriated members of his crew crowed.
All eyes turned towards him in in the great tumult he didn't know whether to confirm or deny the accusation.
Doors opened all along the balcony spewing their occupants to see what all the fuss was about. Sanya exited her room pulling on her long coat and she leaned over the balcony railing to get a better look at the image of her twin sister.
Of course someone noticed the resemblance. She'd never kept a secret of her identity other than those early days when she was trying to make good her escape. Only those who really knew her, however, might have noticed how truly it rattled her to see Talya's image projected there.
They were all talking about her, pointing, both at her and at poor Jak, but she hardly noticed as she drew one of her daggers and tossed it at the eye of the holoprojector, ending the transmission for good and ever.
There was silence. She straightened her clothing as she sauntered down the stairs and then someone yelled up to her, "Did you know it was him?"
She stopped on the staircase landing and observed them all imperiously just as she would from the quarterdeck of her ship. "Did I know he was the bastard who said anyone would be a fool to marry my sister? Aye, but I'd rather not be the captain known for offing two quartermasters in a standard month."
The mood of the place broke and returned to its regular noise and gaiety. Jak tried to catch her eye but the captain was making her way over to the owners of the holoprojector. Perhaps she was offering to pay them for the loss. It hadn't been their fault, what had been beamed out of the thing.
Jak couldn't go to her now, not here. His gaze went again to the door of the room Sanya had occupied and he saw the girl in the red dress patting the sailor on the shoulder as he pulled on his boots. The girl whispered something in his ear and he nodded fervently before making a beeline for the exit without speaking to anyone.
…
Sanya did pay for the holoprojector she had destroyed. She even offered to sail down to Iziz and fetch them another one. They assured her she had provided them with more entertainment then they ever could have pulled up on that thing.
And when she finished with that bit of business there was someone else waiting to talk to her. "Captain," the girl in the red dress must have come for her payment but she didn't simper and fawn like the other whores. She stood up straight at attention. "My name is Freya and I want to join your crew."
"You want to…" Sanya repeated incredulously.
"My father was a sea captain," Freya explained. "My mother died and he took me aboard his ship but his crew were superstitious and wouldn't have a girl aboard, so he dressed me as a boy. I learned everything from him. I know all about ships and sailing." She sighed. "But he went overboard in a storm. When the crew found out I was a girl, they landed me here."
"You want to be a sailor?" the captain asked.
"It's all I know." Freya rolled her eyes. "Well other than…"
"You've never tried to dress as a man again and join another crew?"
"I don't want to hide who I am. You don't."
Sanya smiled. "No, I don't." She rattled off a few questions about sail rigging and what to do in the event of a high wind or a lull or when chasing down another craft. She was more than satisfied with the answers she received. "I would be proud to have you as a member of my crew, Miss Freya." She offered her hand for the other young woman to shake.
"Freddie," the new able seawoman corrected, shaking the captain's hand with a firm grip. "It's what my Da used to call me."
"Very well. Pack your things and report on board, Freddie. We'll have to work something out about the sleeping arrangements. I won't have my other sailors distracted…"
"They won't be. I promise. I'll do my duty. I'm done with all that."
…
Later when Sanya introduced her men to the newest member of the crew, it was to surprisingly little commotion. They accepted another female aboard as a matter of course. Freddie had changed into pants and a shirt more like what the other men wore and had her hair tied back in a ribbon with a hat pulled down to shade her pretty face from the sun.
They agreed that she would sling her hammock in the medic's cabin. Marlon had seen everything the captain had to offer, after all, and didn't seem to be distracted from his other patients.
Sanya wondered if this might encourage her ship's surgeon to also reveal the secret she'd been keeping but Mhaegen was even more reserved after the events of the Shechel brothel. She wouldn't tell the captain why.
And then there was Quartermaster Jak Frasier, spokesman for the crew.
"Be sure to remind them that I'll have no on-board romantic relationships," The captain told him when she daned to speak to him at all. "The men and women on my ship will behave professionally towards each other."
"Aye, Captain."