i hope this was worth the wait. and i hope to get the next chapter out a bit more quickly. For now a heading change for the Bloody Galia and her crew.

The Bloody Galia's new female crew member was instructed to sling up her hammock in the medical bay. It was assumed that since their on board medic had seen everything the Captain had to offer and could still attend to duties that this would be the best place for Freya (or Freddie as she had asked them to call her) to sleep. The arrangement seemed to be working out fine and if Mhaegen had decided to reveal her true nature to her new cabin mate then it seemed Freddie was amenable to keeping the secret. Not even the captain had been informed if the two former whores were being completely honest with each other.

Mhaegen hadn't been speaking to Sanya about much of anything lately. She suggested that the captain have a little parley with her quartermaster but other than that she'd been strangely silent with the both of them.

Jak Frasier aka Jamos Blackwell, what was the captain to do with him? They all knew his true identity now and that he had spurned her twin sister. Sanya couldn't just let that go. But she also couldn't forget what her first impression of him had been on that dock at Flint Locke.

She had thought him attractive, desirable even. There was a time when she thought Mhaegen might have shared her opinion of the young noble. The captain might have even given her blessing to the medic and the quartermaster, but if Mhaegen didn't want to reveal her true gender then Sanya couldn't exactly bring it up.

She could take the doctor's advice however. Sanya would have a chat with her quartermaster. That was his job after all, to relay her orders to the crew. She had a new heading in mind and she had a question for the second son of Blackwell.

…

He knocked on the cabin door and entered at her bidding. "You wanted to speak with me, Captain?"

"Aye," she answered a little distractedly and then stated more sharply. "You can leave the door open."

"Aye." He had been about to close the door so they could speak privately but left it ajar per the order. It was the first time he had been allowed to enter the Captain's inner sanctum and he took the chance to look around at the cabin that would have been his.

The sparse decoration didn't seem to be overly feminine. It appeared to be as comfortable as he might have expected for someone who had grown up in a noble house but not excessively plush. She had, after all, designed it to her own specifications. He wondered if she was already planning, while she was helping her father to construct the commissioned vessel, to deny the pleasure of sleeping in that bed to its rightful recipient.

The captain cleared her throat. Had he been caught staring at her bed? It wasn't like he'd been thinking about sharing it with her. Although he'd never been quite able to deny what Marlon had insinuated about him having feelings for the captain, even to himself.

Their eyes met and he could have almost sworn that the color rose slightly in her cheeks before she cleared her throat again and gestured towards the chart on the desk between them. "This is what I wanted you to look at."

He took a step closer and her hand went to hover over her favorite dagger in her belt.

As far as Jamos knew she hadn't been alone with a male member of the crew in her private domain since that incident with her first quartermaster. Well, other than Marlon the medic. And even Marlon had been keeping his distance since Jamos's cover had been blown by that holonews story.

Jamos didn't intend to come between them if there was something there before he arrived on the scene. Then there was also the matter of the girl whom the captain had sent up to the room ahead of her at the brothel. Freya, or Freddie rather, was a member of the crew now. He didn't know what to make of that either. The captain said there would be no romantic relationships onboard the Bloody Galia but she seemed so free with her affections whenever they were in port.

Jamos remembered the way the old Quartermaster had looked at her before he met his sorry end. He couldn't help but think that there was more to all that than just the doctored account books.

He knew very well what she was capable of and he ran a thumb along the sideburn that covered his scar. He didn't want to meet the same fate as his predecessor so he held up his hands in a gesture of bearing no weapons as he approached the desk and the chart laid out upon it.

She seemed to relax a bit. "Do you know what this is, Mr. Frasier?"

He suppressed a smile at the use of his chosen moniker rather than his noble given name as he studied the map. It was old but he recognized a bit of the shore line. "This isn't the northern sea. This is the river south to Iziz."

"Aye!"

He didn't have to look up to hear the smile in her voice but he couldn't resist. She had the same light in her eyes that she'd had when she challenged all those boys to a knife throwing contest at the Hold when she was eleven years old, and at the idea of seeing Miara's drexl eggs.

"How far did your brother get?" she asked him, maybe actually admitting his family connections for once.

"Uh…" He looked again at the map and traced the river's course with his finger from its mouth at the northern sea down a couple of leagues. "I think it was around here where he saw the smoke rising and dropped anchor. He lead a shore party and found Miara. She couldn't or wouldn't tell him much about what happened…" he shrugged. "And I think they just turned back north."

"I think we can do better than that."

"Go further south than any northerner in…"

"Well since Dina's failed attempt anyway," she answered smugly, crossing her arms over her chest. Then she deflated a bit at his silence. "You think it's possible?"

"I…" What did he think? He thought she was beautiful and passionate and courageous but he forced himself to keep to the matter at hand. "I think it's brilliant… Captain. When would you like us to change our heading?"

She beamed like a thousand suns and practically danced around her desk. "Right away! We're provisioned for a few weeks. I don't know what the landing opportunities will be once we get underway, but then nobody does, Aye? It'll be a voyage of discovery!"

"Aye, Captain!" He would have liked to take her in his arms and swing her around but he didn't dare. "I'll relay the orders to the crew."

"That is your job." She grinned at him, really at him! "And, thank you, Mr. Frasier."

"Aye, Captain." He gave her a low, formal bow.

…

The air grew hot and steamy as they traveled down the river and the jungle began to encroach on both shores. Most of the crew had stripped down to just their trousers to try to cope with the heat with the notable exceptions of the captain and Freddie and Mhaegen who still wore the iron breastplate that she had donned to hide her identity since she had left the whorehouse for good and ever.

Once they had gotten beyond the spot where they believed Trevon Blackwell had made his landfall they had a grand celebration. There was music and dancing and a rather large amount of rum consumed. And even though the captain reasserted her position that there were to be no romantic relationships between members of the crew, and warned all of her men that crewperson Freddie was off limits to grand laughter of those who had come to see both of the known females as beloved sisters, Mhaegen couldn't help but notice the glances that passed between the captain and the quartermaster when they each thought the other wasn't looking.

She wondered how long it would take them to realize that they were obviously meant for each other. Jamos Blackwell was never meant for her. Mhaegen sipped her rum more slowly and when asked why she wasn't enjoying the party gave her gruff, false laugh, "Somebody's got to be sober enough to fix up you di'kuts when you injure yourselves with your stupidity."

It turned out to be a good thing that someone wasn't sleeping off a hangover early the next morning when Mhaegen heard a cry ahead of their prow through the thick foliage. It didn't sound like the calls of the creatures whose eyes they had seen glowing in the shadows of the trees. It sounded human. And then she heard something that sounded like distant blaster fire.

"Did you hear that?" she called to the man who was on duty at the wheel.

"Hear what?" He yawned and rubbed an ear sleepily. He was keeping them on course in the deep center of the river but obviously not paying attention to much else.

Mhaegen ran down to the med bay and woke her cabinmate. "Freddie, come up on deck! I need you to check something out."

The girl stirred in her hammock. "Alright, Marl. Give me a mo."

Once back out on deck Mhaegen listened and thought at first that maybe she had imagined it. But then just as Freddie came up to join her she heard it again. Way off in the distance, but in the direction they were heading, there were human voices shouting. And yes, there it was again blaster fire, she was sure of it.

The two former whores shared a look and even the man on the wheel perked up this time. Freddie scurried up the rigging like an owl monkey to see what she could see over the tops of the trees and then a creature swooped over the river towards the battle with a rider on its back.

The man looked just as surprised to see a ship on the river as they were to see him. If he was any less of a beastrider he might have lost his seat with the shock. Rather, he circled and smiled in exhilaration. He made eye contact with Mhaegen for a moment and gave her a nod before he zoomed off in the direction of the sounds that were louder now as they continued to sail towards the center of the action.

His skin had been darker than her own, his hair in long dreadlocks. He surely hadn't recognized her as a woman but perhaps her breastplate had signaled her as a fellow warrior. There was something about him but even as more of her crew members started to spill onto the deck all she could do was stare in the direction he had flown away.

"Was that a drexl?" someone yelled.

"Nah. They're extinct, aren't they?"

"You'd better hope so! That's a wooden deck your standing on. Don't want to feel the fiery breath of one of those today!"

"Sounds like a battle!"

The crew of the Bloody Galia were beginning to strap on weapons as if this was their fight. And then the captain appeared already fully kitted out. "Sounds like there's some fun to be had!" Sanya called out over the noise.

"Any idea who's side we'll be fighting on?" her quartermaster asked with a grin beside her. He had come from his own cabin, Mhaegen noticed, so they had at least still slept in separate apartments.

"None in the slightest." The captain laughed.

From up in the main top Freddie shouted down. "I think it's the beastriders vs. troops from the city!"

"Shall we flip a coin?" Jamos suggested with a shrug.

Mhaegen spoke up then, though she wasn't entirely sure why, "The beastriders are like us! They just want to be left alone in their jungles!" Her heart hammered against her breastplate. Somewhere deep inside her she really just wanted a chance to meet that man who she'd seen on the back of that creature. "And it was a ruping not a drexl! They don't breathe fire."

"Good to know!" Jamos pounded her on the back companionably.

"Alright then!" the captain called out to her crew. "We fight for the beastriders! They should be easy enough to tell apart from the city dwellers!"

There was a chorus of, "Aye!"s as the Bloody Galians raced to their positions as if this was any action they might face on the high seas.