The next day Tai Huang joined them in Pirate Hall for the planning session, and Elizabeth spoke the thought that had been bothering her all day. "If we have the Empress, the Revenge, and the Enforcer, then I don't think we ought to use the Black Pearl in the fight," she said.
"And what's wrong with me lovely Pearl?" demanded Jack.
"Nothing at all, only she is built more for speed than for battle. Also, I thought you would prefer her not to be full of holes afterwards."
Jack had to admit that was true. "I'm listening," he said warily.
"Angelica knows the Pearl is yours, especially now that Barbossa has her father's ship. She's trying to get to you. I think we should use the Pearl as bait, to draw her in, and then let the other ships do the fighting."
Jack thought about this for a moment. "So you want me to just sit there on my ship and let everyone else do the fighting for me?" He thought a moment longer and started to smile. "I like it."
"Well, wherever you are, that's where she'll attack the hardest," Elizabeth said. "Am I right?"
Jack had to admit that was true. He nodded grimly. "She did show a certain barbarous enthusiasm for enacting my immediate demise when last we met."
"So I suggest that you leave Gibbs and one or two others on the Pearl, and join me and Tai Huang on the Empress."
"Then she'll destroy the Empress," Jack objected. "If she sees both of us together on it, she'll obliterate it to get to us, and your Empress is still just a junk. No, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll join Barbossa on the Revenge. Both her father's murderers on the same ship—she may lose her mind and do something stupid. And the Revenge can hold up to her stupidity a lot better than your pretty little Empress."
"Fine, then. I'm sure Barbossa will love it," Elizabeth grinned.
"What will Barbossa love?" asked Barbossa himself, as he approached the table and sat down. He nodded briefly to Tai Huang, who was watching and keeping quiet.
"Having Jack aboard during the battle," Elizabeth told him.
Barbossa made a moue of distaste, but Elizabeth went on. "Being able to order him around on your ship, for a change."
"Oi!" Jack protested.
Barbossa raised his eyebrows and smiled a little. "When you put it that way, it sounds downright appealin'. What about it, Jack?" he asked, drawing out the other man's name as usual. "Going to join me crew?"
Jack gritted his teeth. "So it would seem, Hector."
Barbossa grinned. "I'm sure I could find an openin' for a powder monkey."
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Hector, you're going to need to assign me a powder monkey all of my own. Unless you have anyone on your ship who's a better musketman than me?"
"No, I s'pose not," Barbossa told him regretfully. "But if you're coming with me, who's captaining the Pearl?"
"The Pearl won't be fighting," Jack told him.
"No," Elizabeth explained. "She'll be bait."
"Ah. Good plan," Barbossa agreed, evidently following their line of thought without needing to ask. "And where will you be, Mrs Turner, if I might ask?"
"I'll be aboard my Empress, with Tai Huang and the rest of my crew," she said.
"Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about your dainty little ship," Barbossa taunted.
Elizabeth glared at him. "I doubt you'd have called it that with Sao Feng as captain!"
"Course not, ma'am. He'd have his sword in me ribs before I'd finished speakin'. I'd 've still thought it, though." Barbossa smiled, evidently imagining the situation. "I'd have derived a great deal of inner satisfaction from thinkin' it while lookin' at his ugly face, whereas your face, Mrs Turner, bein' pleasurable to look upon at the best of times—"
"—Only gets more so when you're angry," Jack finished. He and Barbossa shared a wicked grin as Elizabeth's color rose.
"What?" she cried, outraged.
"See?" Jack asked Barbossa.
"And not a sword in sight," Barbossa agreed. "Infinitely preferable to Sao Feng."
Tau Huang nodded and spoke up for the first time. "Sao Feng was good sailor but very bad man. Empress crew prefer Captain Swann as long as we can pretend she is a man."
Barbossa and Jack both broke up laughing.
"Mind you," Tai Huang clarified with a straight face, "It takes some imagination."
The other two captains laughed harder. "I suppose it must, at that," Barbossa answered.
"Oh, no question," Jack remarked, eying Elizabeth up and down. "A lot of imagination, I would think, to pretend Captain Swann is a man!"
Barbossa's gaze swept up and down her figure as well, and he snickered. Tai Huang ducked his head to hide his smile. Face blazing, Elizabeth cleared her throat.
"You do what you have to do, I guess," she replied. "My crew's having to pretend I'm a man is certainly no worse than my having to dress as one in the first place!"
"But probably a lot harder, darling," Jack observed. "All you have to do is wear trousers. Your entire crew is tasked with the job of pretending not to know what's in 'em!"
Strangely enough, the meeting, along with Elizabeth's patience, ended shortly thereafter.