Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Pirates of the Caribbean, and I don't claim to.

Chapter Ten
The HMSAlbatross, anchored just outside of Port Antonio, Jamaica, Caribbean Sea

The HMS Albatross tugged impatiently at her anchor chains. James stood at the aft of the ship, with his hands clasped behind his back. In the distance, the winking lights of Port Antonio flickered, very slowly, as the few people that woke up before dawn pulled themselves out of bed, the place where any sane person would be at such an hour.

But there was to be no sleep for the crew of the Albatross, not that night.

One of the senior officers approached James, waiting quietly by his side until James acknowledged him with a nod. "What are the orders, sir?"

James looked back out to sea. "Set out lanterns hanging from the yardarms and off the sides of the ship. We want it to be obvious where we are." He looked to his left. Dawn would be breaking soon; he could see the first graying of the horizon before the sun peeked over the flat line. "Always have at least five men watching for the ships' approach, change them every half hour or so, so they don't get antsy and stop watching."

"What should I tell them that we are looking for, sir?"

"Pirates."

James strode leisurely across the length of his deck, mounting the stairs to the quarterdeck. The men stationed there quickly saluted him and went back to surveying the ocean with renewed vigor and interest. He decided that he might as well get some work done while he still had a chance, but when he got to his cabin, he found himself heading straight for his bed. He allowed himself to sit on the side, but not to sleep – he wouldn't be caught unawares.

He didn't have very long to sit.

Someone rapped urgently at his cabin door window, and burst in, uninvited. "Sir, we see a ship. She's approaching – fast."

He was at the man's side in a heartbeat, and then they were both jogging up the stairs to the quarterdeck.

"She just appeared from around the corner," the man was saying, "from behind that cliff over there."

"Must be hugging close to land, looking for victims," James said, partly to himself. "Probably doesn't have a good navigator, if she's ready to risk being caught by staying so close to shore. Probably not a very smart captain if he hasn't got a good navigator."

He didn't have long to decide what to do.

"Go rouse the officers," he told the man that had alerted him. "Tell them that the ship has been spotted, and to get their men to the cannons as quickly as possible." The man raced down belowdecks.

The other ship still hadn't appeared; more than likely they had backed out at the last minute, or maybe they had been captured. In any case, he was glad they weren't there; that meant one less crew he had to worry about and a better advantage for his own.

He took out his spyglass to determine the manner of pirate they were dealing with, but the shapes were still too blurry and indistinct to tell. They didn't look to be anything too out of the ordinary, James thought.

He looked over the railing to the waist of the ship below. Spotting Edmund, he called out to him. If James hadn't made eye contact, he surely would have pretended he hadn't heard him. But James didn't wait for him to reach the top of the stairs. "Edmund, get some men to raise the flag of the East India Trading Company."

"Sir?"

"You know that things are in a sad state when the flag of a company that sells and transports goods is more feared than that of the Royal Navy's." He nodded towards the ladder to the deck below. "Go on, trust me."

The flag went up just as the ship approached close enough to make out the symbol.

But they didn't stop, they didn't turn around. They continued sailing straight for the HMS Albatross. James couldn't understand it; were they planning on a fight?

The pirate ship slid neatly in next to them, anchoring when they were a shout's distance away. "Lord Beckett!" someone called from the other ship.

Silence. James couldn't seem to make any sense of this shout in his mind, until he looked up to the flag that he was flying, remembered he said that it should be the one they fly, but why would the pirates assume–?

"Hey! Beckett!" The voice had grown angrier.

James stepped forward. "I'm afraid that the Lord Beckett isn't on this ship."

"Who are you?" the man snapped. Some of his men raised their rifles and pistols at this new threat.

"I–" James licked his lips. "I am captain of his lordship's flag ship."

The man was suspicious. "Beckett said he'd be here."

"Well, something very important came up, I'm afraid. He sent me in his place. To talk to you," he said, venturing a guess. He doubted that the pirates would have agreed to meet Beckett if he had vowed to kill them.

"I don't know if we want to talk to you."

"If you don't, I'll have to bring that news back to Beckett, and I think he would be none too pleased."

A silence on the pirates' side now. Finally the man said, "We will talk to you."

"Send some of your men over to this side," James said.

The man stood up indignantly. "Beckett usually–"

"I don't care what Beckett usually does. This is my ship, and he is not here to order me how to run it, so I will run it with my own discretion. And my discretion tells me that it is very unwise to go without protection onto a pirate's vessel. You will come here or else we will not talk. And my men are ready not to talk."

He nodded down at one of his officers on the deck below, who then passed on the order to the men sitting ready at their cannons. He saw the gun doors open slowly, but he couldn't see the mouths of the cannons.

"Fine," the man said venomously.

A plank was set across the two railings, and three men, including the speaker, crossed it easily. On the Albatross, they landed before James and glared at him with hostility.

"Come with me into my cabin," James said.

The men crossed their arms, and the speaker said, "No, we've made one concession at your request, now you must make one at ours. We talk out here on the deck, where our crew can see that we're safe and being treated with respect.

James nodded in consent. "What is it that you would speak to Lord Beckett about?"

"He's late," one of the other men snapped.

"I told you, he couldn't come–"

"Late in his payments," the other clarified.

"Tell Beckett," said the speaker, "that we don't appreciate being lied to, and that we would like our money now, please, otherwise he will just have to do the job himself, without our help. And we will have to take some compensation of our own, besides."

"Money– What is Beckett paying you for?" James wasn't sure that he wanted them to answer. He half-hoped that they would keep on being stubborn and deny, deny, deny.

The speaker was becoming agitated, nervous. "Just give us the money."

"You aren't getting any money, not today."

The speaker took a menacing step toward James. "What was that?"

"I said that I refuse to pay you, not when you take innocent lives without a second thought." James heart was beating quickly. He hadn't checked these men for weapons – pistols, daggers, rifles – and he was greatly regretting it. He certainly didn't have a pistol on him.

The speaker reached slowly into his jacket–

–when Edmund came barreling from the side, tackling the man. They wrestled, at which time the man pulled out the dagger that he had been reaching for. The other two men were quickly detained and the threat of a thick wall of men with their rifles at the ready was enough to forestall any attempts of retaliation from the opposing side.

No one knew how to rush into the fight on the ground without meaning death for Edmund or a severe injury to their own persons. James saw his opportunity and took it: Edmund held the dagger as high up as he could, gripping tightly on the man's wrist, and James aimed a sharp kick at the man's hand. The dagger went flying, and one of James' men snatched it up.

The man Edmund had pinned went limp, stopped struggling. He had a cut on his cheek from a close brush with his own dagger, but he was by no means repentant. "Call your dog off," he hissed at James.

Edmund gave him a sharp blow to the side of the head and would have continued if it weren't for James' quiet command.

"That's enough, Edmund." He tried to keep his voice firm but also thankful. Turning his attention back to the pirate, he said, "And now that you've had your little bid for power, do you think that you will be able to comply with what I ask of you?"

"I don't want to talk to you anymore." He was sullen, and his prone position was wearing on him.

"Oh, but you will talk." He turned to one of the soldiers standing behind him. "My pistol, please." The adrenaline, the outrage that this man thought he could take his life– James was feeling more than a little on edge.

And in the man's eyes, he thought he could see the frustration consuming him – had the pirate acted just a tiny bit faster, James would have been the one bowed under his mercy.

His cold pistol in hand, loaded, he slowly walked closer to him. "Tell me what Beckett is paying you for."

But the pirate was evidently determined to keep to his promise. He kept his mouth tightly shut, staring hard up at James, daring him.

There was a loud rushing sound in his ears that made it hard to focus. "I don't have time for this." He stepped closer to him and aimed his pistol so that the bullet would just bite into the flesh, embed into the wood below – if the man were lucky and the bullet fired straight.

The report was deafening, so close and in such close silence. Edmund had leapt off the man when he saw what James was about to do, retreating a few feet and watching James with fear in his eyes. No matter; the pirate wasn't going anywhere. His back arched involuntarily and his mouth opened first in silence scream then slowly, a wail grew in volume until he was crying out for God's mercy, James' mercy.

The bullet had lodged itself in his shoulder.

James felt numb. He looked down at him and said, "Well, will you tell me now?"

All that for nothing. The man was too busy wallowing in pain to contemplate what exactly his rapport with Cutler Beckett was.

James turned to one of the officers standing by. "Take the crew prisoner; make sure to take all their arms – all of them." He started off towards the ladder below. Before his head disappeared beneath the deck, he said, "And make sure he doesn't die – I'll need him yet."

The two sailors keeping guard of the brig stood up as soon as James walked through the door, still bleary eyed and clumsy from sleep. But James walked past them, his thoughts and gaze focused on one thing, and one thing alone.

"Sparrow." He stood a foot away from the bars, the faces of the surprised pirates blurring into the background in his search for one man.

Jack struggled between them and gripped the bars when he saw James. "Ho" was all he said, all he seemed to be able to say. His expression finished the sentence for him, said what he couldn't say: what are you doing down here, Norrington?

"All right, Sparrow, out."

Jack laughed aloud, jostling his crew in his glee, but the amusement quickly faded when he saw that James looked so serious and pale. "What?"

"Out. You're coming up with me."

Jack's hands fell from the bars. "What, are you going to make me walk the plank? Have you found a satisfactory school of sharks?"

James took the keys from one of the surprised guards and unlocked the door. "No quick movements," he said, and reached in to pull Jack from amidst the crowd of equally surprised pirates. As much as he wanted to, as much as sense begged him to, he couldn't put the irons on him, not if he planned to use Jack the way he planned to.

"What– what exactly are you going to do to me, Norrington?" Jack stumbled up the steps of the ladder without both hands out to catch himself and hold on. He was silent when he saw the crowd on deck; James saw his gaze fixed longest on Edmund – the only one that had left an impression on him – who was still sitting next to the wailing man. "What is this, some sort of execution squad?" Jack said, nervously focusing on the lines of marines with loaded bayonets.

"Take them to my cabin," James said, indicating the three men that had originally been over to talk. Cries from the injured man were beginning to give James a headache. Several of his men helped to lead the men who could walk through the swinging doors; Edmund helped carry the wailing man.

James pulled Jack up short before he could follow them. "You are going to cooperate," James said in a low voice.

Jack started his usual vow of innocence. "Now, now, why would I–"

"Do you remember what you promised to me when I let you live? That you would help me in my mission? Well, now you're going to have a chance to prove your honesty."

"Now?"

James started pushing him towards the door, one hand tightly gripping his upper arm. "They won't tell me why Beckett has been paying them; find out from them. Tell them whatever is necessary to tell them to get them to talk."

Any worries or protests from Jack were cut off by the banging of the swinging door behind them. He felt Jack stiffen and his steps slow when all eyes present turned to him. But if there was one thing that James could say about Jack Sparrow, it would be that he was adaptable.

He gave James a glare over his shoulder. "Do you mind, sir? There's no need to keep up this façade." He winked at him.

James saw the shocked look in the eyes of his officers, the suspicious on the pirates' faces, but he nodded and even managed a weak smile. He let go of his arm. "Yes, of course." What the hell is he doing?

Edmund sent James a fearful, questioning glance; James shook his head.

Jack managed to walk in straight line with his shoulders back, until he was standing in front of the detained prisoners. He knelt down in front of where they were seated on the floor, in the middle of a ring of soldiers. He waved his hand dismissively at them. "Why are you all still standing around like that? Go out and check on the prisoners on deck. We can handle these few in here."

James confirmed Jack's order with a short jerk of his head. Only Edmund stayed, obviously considering himself entitled to know what it was that his employer was doing.

"Now, what is this about Beckett paying you?" Jack said as soon as the room was quiet.

The injured pirate spat at him. "What makes you think that we would tell you?" However, there was less venom in his voice, dampened by the confusion of seeing Jack's appearance.

There wasn't even a pause before Jack replied, so very naturally, as if it were the obvious truth. "We're undercover," he said conspiratorially. "This whole ship. We're really pirates, but you know, this is really one of the better ways to go about getting treasure from merchant ships, if they think we're the East India Company. They willingly give their goods. Less blood, that way." When they didn't look completely convinced, Jack added, "I'm the captain. You might know me: Captain Jack Sparrow?"

"Sparrow?" And there was recognition in their voices.

James never failed to be shocked by just how much a name could change everything. Especially such a sullied name.

Everyone but the injured man – who was still gripping tightly onto the bleeding gash on his shoulder – smiled. They seemed to revel in their good fortune; pirates being caught by pirates, what good fun! One looked over at James and said, "How did you get such stiff-looking men?"

But Jack waved their question off – after a sly glance back to the two men standing uncomfortably by the door. "This might concern us, too. I've spoken to Beckett, but he never offered me any money. What sort of deal did he let you in on?"

"You've spoken to him, but he never told you what he wanted you to do?" The men were much more comfortable after learning that they were in good company. "He paid us to attack this port."

Author's Note: Oh my! James can be so cruel. And just what is going on here between Beckett and the pirates?
As requested (although this chapter was already written at the time of the request, haha), more Jack! And you can pretty much expect there to be more of him from here on out, now that James has let him out of the brig and into his confidence. Oh man, this story is so much fun to write.
Keep reading and, of course, reviewing! Please?