Who else hates Scroop with a passion?

After a rather rough launch, Silver gave Jim a bucket and mop and ordered him to start swabbing the deck, to which Danica had to suppress her laughter.

"Danica!" Silver called to her as she went below deck. "Go check on the boy, will ya? Make sure he's not in any trouble. And if he is, well, you know what to do."

Danica heaved a sigh. What did it matter to her if he was in trouble or not? Whatever, she had to do what Silver told her.

She went on deck and saw Mr. Scroop standing over the boy. She didn't think it was possible, but she actually hated Scroop more than she hated Jim.

"Cabin boys should learn to mind their own business," he hissed at Jim.

"Why? You got something to hide, Bright-Eyes?" Jim retorted.

Oh, that was stupid, Danica thought.

"Maybe your ears don't work so well," Scroop said as he lifted Jim up by the front of his shirt.

"Yeah. Too bad my nose works just fine!"

Oh, that was even stupider!

"Why, you impudent little…!"

Scroop slammed him against the mast and all the other crew members gathered around to watch the fight.

"Any last words, cabin boy?" Scroop put his claw to the boy's neck.

Okay, it was time for her to step in! "Hey!" she called out to the group. Scroop turned to look at her with pure hate in his eyes, but she didn't care. "Silver wanted me to tell you all that if you do anything that gets any of us in trouble…he'll leave you alone with me. No rules."

At those words, everyone began to back away from her and Jim.

She turned to Scroop. "So I suggest you drop him."

Scroop looked at Jim and released his hold on him, sending Jim back down to the floor.

"See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" Danica asked.

"You shouldn't get involved in things like this," he hissed.

She leaned in close to him. "You don't scare me…Scroop." She accented the "p" with an open mouth, letting the sound pop from her lips.

"I used to."

"'Used to' being the operative words. Let's see, how many fights have you started with me that I've won?"

Scroop remained silent.

"I don't know about you, but I've lost count."

"What's going on down here?" They all turned to find Mr. Arrow walking down the steps to the lower deck. "There'll be no brawling on this ship!"

"Everything is under control, Mr. Arrow," Danica said with a smile.

"That's right, sir!" Silver said as he came up from the galley. "If my Danica says it's fine, it most certainly is fine!"

"Well, anyone who is caught fighting will be confined to the brig for the remainder of the voyage." He leaned in closer to Scroop's face. "Am I clear, Mr. Scroop?"

He glared at the man before Silver gave him the evil eye. Literally.

"Transparently," Scroop answered.

"Well done, Mr. Arrow, sir!" Silver said as the group dispersed. "A tight ship's a happy ship, sir!" He rounded on Jim. "Jimbo, I gave you a job."

"Hey, I was doing it until that bug thing—"

"Belay that! Now, I want this deck swabbed spotless, and heaven help you if I come back and it's not done!" Morph came up to Silver and rested on his shoulder. "Morph? Keep an eye on this pup, and let me know if there be any more distractions."

Morph chirped and nodded and watched Jim's every movement.

Danica prepared to move down to the galley where Silver was going.

"Hey, Danica!" Jim called before she got to the steps. "Look, what you just did…"

She rounded on him furiously and crossed her arms over her chest. "Let's get one thing straight," she said harshly. "I don't like you. I will never like you. So here's what gonna happen. I don't talk to you, you don't talk to me, we don't even look at each other, and we'll get along just fine."

She pounded back down to the steps where the rest of the crew was waiting for her. She took pleasure in seeing them shrink back from her. It had taken a few years, but they were all afraid of her and held her in a high position.

"So, we're all here then," Silver said as she leaned against the wall. "Now, if you pardon my plain speakin', gentlemen, are you all…STARK-RAVING, TOTALLY BLINKIN' DAFT?!" His hand turned into a machete and he flung it around all over the place, and even sliced off the top of this little alien's hat. Danica didn't even flinch as his anger blazed on since this whole tirade wasn't directed at her. "After all me finaglin' gettin' us hired as an upstanding crew, you want to blow the whole mutiny before it's time?!" He ended right in front of Scroop.

"The boy was sniffing about," Scroop hissed.

"You just stick to the plan, ya bug-brained twit!"

Danica smiled. There were very few people who would dare talk to Scroop like that, but he really needed to be talked to that way more often.

"As for the boy, Danica and I will run him so ragged he won't have time to think."

"Wait, what?" Danica said as she came off the wall.

"The both of us are going to spend most of our time keeping the lad busy."

"I just got done telling him that I wasn't even going to speak to him on this entire voyage!"

He walked over to her angrily. "Now you listen here, ya may be tougher since the first time I saw ya, but you still take orders from me."

Danica pursed her lips together and took a deep breath. "Fine."

It was a few hours later after the stars sprinkled the night sky when Silver told her to check on Jim.

She rolled her eyes when he wasn't looking and went back up to the deck.

"Hey, at least you managed to do one thing right," she said to Jim.

"I thought you weren't gonna talk to me during the trip."

"Well, I could say that I decided to be nicer, but I would just be lying. Here's the deal. The Captain has put Silver in charge of you, and that means that I'm in charge of you too. For the weeks ahead, you're gonna have to do everything we say. Because if you don't, I'll just go to the Captain, and I have a feeling she'll side with me."

"You can't be serious."

"I most certainly am."

"I'm not taking orders from someone who's younger than me," he raised his voice as he stepped towards her.

"I'm the same age as you, stupid."

"That means nothing!"

"Well, at least I'm smart enough to not go picking fights with someone like Scroop! What were you even thinking?"

"I was thinking that spider psycho needed to be taught a lesson that he's not the toughest guy here!"

"Well, guess again, because he is! He could've ripped you apart in seconds if I hadn't stopped him!"

"I was doing just fine!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Danica!" she heard. Silver came up the stairs holding a pot of soup and he threw its contents over the side. "Stop torturing the lad!"

Danica huffed and moved away from him.

"Why don't you go get some shut-eye? We've all got a big day tomorrow."

Danica began to move towards the galley where they all slept, but she couldn't help but want to overhear their conversation.

"Thank heavens for little miracles!" Silver said happily to Jim. "Up here for an hour and the deck's still in one piece!"

"Look…" Jim said. "Just tell Danica…thanks…for what she did."

Silver looked at him, kind of surprised that a boy with such a hard heart was thanking someone. "Didn't your pap ever tell ya to pick your fights a bit more carefully?" he said gently. Jim's stone-cold glare gave him his unspoken answer. "Your father not the teachin' sort?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"No," Jim answered coldly. "He was more the taking off and never coming back sort."

"Well, ya know, Danica…" He stopped talking when he looked over at Danica and saw that she was moving her hand across her throat in an attempt to get him to stop talking about her. "Uh, never mind," Silver finished.

Danica sighed and continued on to the galley. This was going to be a long trip.

Danica arose bright and early to find Silver and Jim hanging on the side of the ship picking off the things that got stuck on the bottom. It was clear they had been at this for hours, and it would take hours more to finish the job. She smiled at how Silver yelled at him throughout the entire thing.

She went about doing her own work and none of the other members bothered her. Not even Scroop.

When she went down to the galley, Jim was there with Silver peeling some of the fruit for their dinner. In that moment, she felt like he was stealing her friend from her, which just fed the fire of hate she had inside her. They could almost always be seen together as Silver taught him the ways of the ship. She missed having her talks in the galley with Silver as she helped him prepare the meals.

Silver gave her a look and she got what she needed before heading back up, trying to will away the image of Jim replacing her.

Later that night, she looked up at the crow's nest and found Silver teaching Jim how to tie a good sailor knot. When Silver wasn't looking, Jim tied a perfect knot and slipped back down to the deck.

Danica had to admit that he knew his way around the ship and he had a good enough work ethic. That didn't mean she liked him any more than that first day. On the contrary, she still found him annoying and stubborn.

When she found him scrubbing the deck, he got up and faced her angrily. With a stone face, and not moving an inch, she handed him the bucket of water Silver had told her to give him. She raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to challenge her in a fight. Instead, he poured the water onto the floor and continued to scrub it.

"Don't mess with me," she growled as she walked away.

After dinner that evening, Silver took some of the crew members to the galley and began telling some stories about previous encounters with some killer aliens and past voyages he had been on. He used his many different hands to weave a story in the shadows he cast on the walls.

Danica noticed Jim sipping his drink over on the stairs. She slowly got up from her chair and swiped a purp from the nearby barrel.

"Here," she said as she tossed it to him. "You look hungry."

"You guys have been working me hard."

"Got to build some muscle on that wimpy body of yours."

Jim decided it best to let that comment go. "Do you believe any of these stories he's telling?"

"No. He makes most of them up." She turned around to go back and then tossed over her shoulder, "Most."

Silver had Jim doing the dishes from dinner most of the day. Just when he was about finished, Danica and Silver came in and gave him an absolute huge pile made up of probably hundreds of extra dishes for him to clean. Jim looked at them incredulously as he caught Danica's smirk and got to cleaning them all.

When they returned down to the galley hours later, they found Jim sleeping on top of a clean bowl. They looked around at all the clean dishes, now pristine and organized well.

Silver rubbed the back of his neck. "Ya know, I gotta give the lad credit. He does what he's told."

"Yeah, I guess."

Silver took Jim's jacket and draped it over top of his shoulders. The two of them went back up on deck to leave the boy to his dreams.