Twenty minutes later, the group emerged onto a beach. Hermione gasped. It wasn't the beautiful white sand that you usually only find at resorts or the crystal blue ocean that stretched out as far as the eye could see. No, what made Hermione gasp was the ship careened on the beach. At least the body of it was a ship. Where the sails should have been there was a dirigible body. Hermione couldn't stop staring. She felt like she'd been sucked into a Star Wars movie, except there was nothing like this in Star Wars. Hermione could see two people hanging around it.

Jamie, who was still with her, noticed Hermione's face. "Impressive, ain't she? She's called Mazu's Glory."

Hermione managed to recover her voice. "Is that a space ship?" she asked.

"Nah, we don't have that kind of tech yet. She's an airship: Kitty Hawk class with an upgraded Takeshi 46 engine. Garcia ditched the original Pegger 14."

"Pegger 14 is crap!" called out one of the men carrying Ron. Hermione assumed he was Garcia. "It's the same engine as the Pegger 10. They just changed the outside covers and hoped nobody would notice. Didn't even replace those awful PSR coils. They were smart and used PSFs in the Takeshi, among other things. Added 2000 km to its lifespan for less than 10 Peso a-piece. Damn, cheap Peggers."

Hermione had no idea what he had just said but she managed an: "It's huge."

Jamie laughed. "Not really. She's about average for a Kitty Hawk: 30 metres. But she's light and fast so if we can't beat 'em, we can always outrun 'em!"

Ron started to stir so Garcia and the other man put him down in some grass on the edge of the beach.

"I thought you said he'd be unconscious for an hour," said Harry.

Jamie shrugged. "He's a big guy. Guess his system absorbed it faster."

Ron groaned. He struggled to sit up.

"Easy there, fella," Garcia put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from sitting all the way up. "Take it slow, you went down pretty hard back there. You'll feel weak and nauseous for a while but just try not to−"

Ron suddenly leaned sideways and vomited all over the grass.

"Ron!" Hermione was by his side (the side without the vomit) before she realized that she'd moved.

Ron stayed leaned to the side for a moment before sitting up.

"Fine," he muttered. "I'm fine."

Barbossa walked over. Hermione realized with a start that he'd slipped away without her noticing. She always prided herself on her powers of observation, so it threw her for a loop.

"If you two are done," he said. "Cap'n will see you now."

The crew members jumped to attention at the mention of the Captain. Hermione suppressed a gulp. If mention of him had them all jumping, what was he like in person? Hermione hoped that he'd take pity on them. An ally in this world would be nice.

With Garcia and Jamie's help, Ron stood and they group made their way to the airship.

After a few steps Harry stopped.

"What?" the girl asked him.

He pointed to the ship. The crew and Hermione looked. She saw nothing that she hadn't seen before.

Harry stammered. "Are-are you pirates?"

Hermione whipped her head around to stare at the ship again. Sure enough, the flag blowing in the breeze from the top-most point of the ship was black with a white skeleton on it.

"Uh, yeah, I guess we are," the girl said with a dismissive shrug.

Hermione's mind raced. Pirates? They'd made friends with pirates? Maybe it wasn't too late to escape. But Ron... he was in no condition for a quickie apparition. And they were in unfamiliar territory. With no set destination in mind they'd all get splinched. Hermione had no idea if they could apparate back to their own universe and she didn't want to try and risk killing them all. Better just to stay where they were. Besides, these pirates seemed nice enough. And if they were planning to kill the three of them they'd have done it already, right?

Hermione had been walking with the group while she thought this and they were now at the foot of a rope ladder leading to the deck of the ship. Mazu's Glory was even bigger up close. Her hull curved out towards them, making it feel even bigger and more imposing.

Jamie gestured to the ladder and bowed slightly at Hermione. "Here, let me help you up."

The girl crew member elbowed him aside. "That's what she said," she teased and climbed up the ladder like a monkey. The rest of the crew laughed.

"Hey!" he protested but Hermione could tell he knew it was a joke. She envied the relationship that they had. If she said that to either of the boys, they'd take it personally and be mad at her for a week.

"Well?" Barbossa's voice brought Hermione back to reality. She grabbed the ladder and climbed. The rest of the group followed suit as well as the man and woman who had been with the ship all along. Hermione stared at them, wondering which one was the captain.

The man was tall and gangly. He had brown hair that was receding giving him a large forehead. Coupled with the big eyes, he looked a bit like a bug. He kept wringing his hands and looking from person to person. Hermione wondered how much Barbossa had told him and why he seemed so nervous. He wasn't the one who had fallen through to an alternate universe.

The woman was black and looked to be in her late-thirties. Her hair was in a ponytail but Hermione guessed that it would reach her shoulders when out. Her eyes were almond shaped giving them an almost Chinese look. Hermione thought that of the two of them, she was the captain. She had that look of authority about her.

"What do we got?" an American woman's voice asked from behind Hermione. The crew of the Mazu's Glory all turned and gave the speaker their full attention. Even Ron and Harry seemed fixated. Hermione turned.

A woman had stepped up to the railing of the deck above them. She was dressed more like a cowboy than a pirate to Hermione's mind. She wore big black boots and beige tights that looked like they were meant for horseback riding. On top she wore a dark blue double-breasted jacket that had been part of a military uniform in its past life. It had shiny gold buttons down the front that weren't done up. Slung low on her hips was a belt with a gun holster on one side and a knife sheath on the other. Both had weapons in them.

If the black woman looked like authority, this woman radiated it. She was definitely the captain.

"Interloppers, Cap'n," Barbossa answered

"You're the Captain?" gasped Ron.

"Cap'n Jack Silver, at your sevice." She smiled at their shocked faces.

"You're, um..." Harry began.

"Not what you were expecting?" she prompted. "Thought I'd be a man, did you?"

"Well yes."

"Most people do. And I like them to think that, hence Jack and not Jacqueline." She smirked at them and came to stand in front of the three students.

"So, which world are you kids from?"

"World?" Ron asked. He'd been unconscious for the "multiple alternate universes" part of the conversation.

"Yeah," continued the Captain. "You're not the first inter-world travellers to come here. So far we've identified Worlds B through to H, with our own being A. Our scientists think that our world is a 'basin' or something like that. Basically, other worlds bump into ours and people and stuff fall in through the cracks. Officially, we're supposed to report and inter-world activity to the authorities and hand over whatever, or whoever, came through. But..."

The Captain's searching look eyed them up and down. "I'd say we can get a fair penny for them in Renata, eh Matteo?"

The First Mate nodded solemnly, while giving the three teenagers the same searching look.

Hermione was getting more and more panicked with every passing moment, and she could see that Harry and Ron were too. First alternate worlds and pirates, now "Get a fair penny"?

"Um," Harry had finally found his voice. "Are you talking about−" He glanced at Ron and Hermione before saying what they all were thinking. "−Selling us?"

Captain Jack gave a laugh that she quickly muffled when she saw their faces. "No! What kind of scum do you think I am?" she cried, sounding outraged. "Selling people indeed. I meant take your stuff and sell it. Other world goods sell for a fortune on the black market. Look, we're pirates but we traffic in inanimate objects and livestock, not humans. Got that, kid? I will not have my reputation tainted with− with THAT!"

The thought of human trafficking clearly upset her. She rubbed her temples and turned to walk away.

"Cap'n?" called one of the crew. "What should we do with them?"

"Find the boys bunks in crew quarters and the girl can sleep with Mandy and Doc Philips." The Captain slammed her door shut, and that was that.