Captain Harley spent the week acting as one of the crew, learning the ship from stem to stern. The Empress was a large and impressive ship, with dozens of guns and a history that went back much longer than Harley's military career. The relics aboard were ancient, from a time long before the European civilization, from a great Chinese Empire that had survived much more than the dystopian nightmare of the English middle ages. Sao Feng was something else entirely, quite different from the English sailors. A gentlemen of a sort, but not as refined as his brothers in the West, and yet better educated than half the blokes Harley had ever met. Feng knew more about mathematics and the natural laws of science than most of the professors at Oxford. Beyond that, he was a man of many traditional beliefs, worshipping many different gods. He was perpetually adding the occult into his daily habits, and kept himself steamed constantly, to rid him of the toxins that he believed were destroying his soul.
Feng was poetic, and loved listening to the rythms of poetry. Harley could keep at his attention during dinner, reciting Dunne and Shakespeare. Feng had thousands of men at his disposal, a fleet that if mobilized could pose a real threat to his own Emperor or even the English navy, were they that concerned with the seas so far to the East.
"Tell me, Mister Harley. This man- what did you call him?"
"Prospero."
"Yes, Prospero. The sorcerer."
"Why did he free the creature in the tree?" Sao Feng slurped up his noodle.
"Ariel? Maybe he felt she needed rescuing."
"Bollocks." Jack said, drunk and in the corner of the Captain's hold. "Bollocks says I. I have seen this very play once before. And although I cannot say I particularly cared for it, I did manage to follow the story. The sorcerer frees the charming little nymph from the tree precisely because he knew she would owe him."
"Jack, you don't believe that Prospero freed Ariel out of any human kindness?" Harley said, sipping wine.
"No, mate. That fellow was lampooned on an island for over a decade. Even if he was a magical man, he had needs. A spunky, proportionately advanced daughter to feed, and if by freeing the little sprite, he could get a little of what he needed, is that not just a man's human kindness to himself?"
"And there lies the difference between you and I, Jack." Harley stood uneasily. "Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own, Which is most faint: now, 'tis true, I must be here confined by you…"
Feng clapped. "Very good."
"My Captain." Harley walked to the steps and moved to the deck of the Empress. Huang watched him uneasily from his post behind the wheel. Harley gestured to the small pirate, and Huang flashed a crimson smile back at him. He, like many of the men were suffering from mild scurvy, there was a lack of vitamin C on the ship. Harley spent almost every waking moment formulating some sort of plan to contend with the pirate.
"Thinking hard on it?" Sparrow appeared, "Coming up with something to get off this little boat?"
"Of course." Harley smiled. "And what about you? Surely you do not wish to spend your life under the command of Sao Feng."
"He's a good enough chief for now. Keeps me in the pink. But, what he has offered me, I cannot deny."
"And what is that? Your own crew?"
"And a ship. A fast one. He has read it in the stars that I am the one to rule the Caribbean, to tour in a ship that is supernaturally fast. Can't you hear the banners wave?"
"I say we take the Opium. We take it to sell to our ports out West. We control the stock and you can get the ship you've always wanted?"
"A pirate for a week and already talking mutiny."
"No. Not mutiny. We should do the honorable thing and make Feng believe this is the only thing he can do, also while making him believe the idea was his all along. Not an easy thing, I am sure, but a fate that you and I can make our own."
"Such pretty words." Jack rested his boot on the wheel. "Will you be able to stand behind them when it is all said and done and our backs are both against the wall. I am sure there is more behind this expedition than even Feng lets on. He has a fear, you can trust that. His fear is the Emperor."
For the following few days, Jack and Harley found themselves dropping hints into casual conversations with Feng.
"Be a shame giving all this to the Emperor. I mean, what does he need with Indian made Opium, anyway?" Jack Sparrow muttered softly. "I know a bloke out in Tortuga that could give you a right killing for this much Spice. And, if we managed to overtake that other Shipment along the way, we would be in heaven."
Sao Feng would casually dismiss such conversations as they came, but Harley appealed to his sense of independence. "When will men like you stop paying homage to false gods like an Emperor. You are your own man, Sao Feng. The real reason he has not tried to destroy you and your armada is simply because he is afraid of you."
Nearly another week passed before the dinner that Feng gathered them all together. Feng began slowly, letting the English come out in an excited tone. "I have been doing some pondering. I believe that to simply give this generous supply of Opium to my Emperor is underutilizing the market potential. The true value can be measured in the waters of the Atlantic, where there is much more of a demand."
Harley thought how marvelous it was that Feng had been studying the philosophy of Capitalism. He continued, "I think we should turn the Empress about, make our way around the African coast and dump everything in Tortuga. Mr. Sparrow has also assured that in a few days, the third of the Spring Opium shipment will be arriving in the waters shortly. They will also have the supplies we need to make that venture."
"Jack, I told you about those ships in confidence." Harley stammered.
"And I took that confidence and confidentially confided in our precious Captain. Like I said mate, you and I are going to do whatever we can to destroy tour old company. If that means scuttling three more ships, then we should have another excuse for a party."
"Captain Feng. I understand your need to make as much profit as possible, but I cannot take part in the murdering of men I know."
"Murder? Mister Harley, it is hardly murder to kill murderers. What do think Opium is?" Feng said simply, "Opium is a natural and horrible concoction, a drug so powerful that the most uncommon man will become common. A horrible toxin that eats at the very soul. Lives are lost over this particular substance, and if you are an honorable man, you would say the people who control and distribute the drug are in the same class of murderer you would say I am. You do not murder murderers."
Harley kept his mouth quiet and sat back in the chair, feeling the gentle rocking of the ship on the ocean currents. He was wrapped up in the future voyage of the Empress, of the Pirate Lord and his crew and lost in the meanderings of Jack Sparrow. Before the week was over, he knew that he would have sold his soul to the Pirate gods and he would be lost forever.
"Good." Jack smiled abruptly. "Now that we have all of that nonsense sorted out. "Why don't we all go ahead and make a full proof plan to retrieve the rest of the terrible drugs from the more terrible Dutch East India Company."