Disclaimer - I don't own Doctor Who.
Governor's daughter.
"Sail off the starboard beam, sir!"
Clegg instantly pulled his telescope out and squinted through the lenses. The other ship was too far away for him to get an accurate idea of what it was, but it looked quite large through the eyepiece of the telescope. Clegg studied the other ship as best as she could, coming to a snap decision.
"Beat to quarters," he ordered, "and get the explosive shells brought up here."
The Time Lord kept the telescope to his eye so he could monitor the other ship. It looked like the ship was heading straight for the Seal, and as they came closer to the pirate ship it was easy for Clegg and the other watches on the deck to take in the size of the ship.
"It looks like a Ship of the Line," one of the seamen commented; everyone on the Seal was thankful that being a pirate gave them the liberty to speak their minds without fear of being punished for it.
Clegg nodded, hoping he appeared more confident than he probably looked. He just wished he had done more work, but with the primitive materials and tools he had available, he couldn't have developed the weapons he had had thought of in the time limit he was under. It didn't help he had needed to work with the primitive gunpowder formula when there were more dangerous and more effective explosives out there, but without access to the laboratory and workshop in the TARDIS and with the concerns of the stability of the Web of Time to think about, to say nothing about his uncertainty of where he stood with the other Time Lords, Clegg's choices had been limited.
The other ship was definitely a Ship of the Line flying the flag of the Royal Navy, and it was heading close to the Seal. When the other ship was close enough to come alongside, Clegg was surprised when instead of firing their cannons as he'd expected the other ship sent up a number of flags. With his telescope, Clegg took a closer look at the flags. "They want us to identify ourselves, they're looking for the ship commanded by Captain Clegg," the Time Lord announced without lowering his telescope, "let's see how they like our greeting. Prepare to fire, run up the skull and cross bones."
On the quarterdeck of the naval ship, Captain Phillips squinted through his own telescope, scanning the Brigantine. He knew sending up the message was an inherent risk. Clegg was not as notorious as other pirates in these waters, but he was someone not to be underestimated, and it was well known and documented he used a Brigantine, and since Phillips had been tasked with finding the pirate his means for finding the elusive pirate were limited. But even if he encountered the pirate, there was no chance he would be a threat, not to his ship.
Phillips was pleased to be the commander of such a fine warship, he knew without a doubt in a straight up fight the tiny barge Clegg was reported to be using would be no match for him. It was surprise to him when the Brigantine ran up a familiar black flag, but his surprise grew when the other ship began firing at them.
Surprise turned to horror when explosions rocked the ship, particularly in the masts. The Brigantine's guns fired, but instead of the heavy flight there was instead a whistling sound before an explosion followed. Phillips turned to his first lieutenant in shock. "They're using explosive shot," he said in horror, knowing there was probably no way for them to fight back, and his mind raced as he tried to work out a way to deal with this.
Phillips knew better than to underestimate pirates on a good day, and he knew each captain and crew had their own approaches and tactics, but he had never encountered a pirate like this before. "We're going to have to fix this as best we can," he said quickly, "move the ship as far out of the Brigantine's range as possible, that should give us time to load the guns."
The first lieutenant and the others hurried of carry out their captain's orders and one of them hurried to the wheel and ordered the two men responsible for shifting the massive wheel to move them as far from the Brigantine as possible, but others hurried around the ship to order the crew to load the guns quickly, but the surprise attack had shocked the crew of the warship. Other lieutenants went around the ship to see how much damage the explosive shells had inflicted on their ship. The pirates had fired several of them and they needed to see how much of their ship had been damaged and what it would do to lose that part in the battle ahead.
Standing near the wheel on his own ship, Clegg could see the warship veering away. Smoke was rising from several sections, one of the largest clouds of smoke was rising from one of the masts which had caught fire, and was burning through the sail cloth and the ropes holding the structure together. The warship was damaged, but it was a long way from severely crippled, and now it was trying to get away after spending 20 minutes sailing closer to the Seal. They were going to use the time to load their guns, and while Clegg had augmented the Seal's weapons thanks to that time on the island he knew in terms of cold hard numbers the warship had superior numbers.
After that other pirate ship attack, Clegg had no intention of letting any enemy ship overpower his own ship, and he wasn't going to let the Royal Navy bring him down now. He had too much to learn still before he decided it was time to head back to the TARDIS that was still in London so he could escape.
"Follow them," Clegg ordered the helmsman, not bothering with the stupid language seamen used when a more straight language existed.
"Aye, aye, sir," the man at the wheel responded.
Leaving the wheel Clegg headed over to the gun crews. "Reload your guns. Load the guns with the sack bomb, and canister shot," he told them.
The Seal was faster than the warship, but the warship had a head start on the Brigantine. Clegg scanned the massive warship from the angle the ship was at, trying to figure out a way to cause a maximum amount of damage from their current distance. A smile spread across Clegg's face, and the Time Lord walked over to stand between two guns.
"You -" he said to one crew clustered around a cannon, "aim your gun at their rudder. We need to cripple that ship, take away some of their strengths."
The gun crew didn't see a problem with that, and they made the necessary preparations.
Clegg went to the second crew. "I want you to fire your shot through the aft cabin," he said.
The two gun crews prepared their guns, and as they got ready Clegg added mildly. "Fire as you bear."
The first shell went straight through the aft cabin, and when it exploded it tore a good portion of the aft section of the man of war to pieces. May who had been standing nearby suddenly called, "They're surrendering, Captain."
Clegg looked through his telescope and saw the naval ensign being lowered. "Cease firing," the Time Lord ordered, and he waited for the order to be circulated through the Seal before he gave his next order, "send a signal to the other ship," he ordered May, knowing the other man who was more educated than some of the pirate crew, "tell them I want to see their captain, but let them know that if there's any treachery on their part, then the battle will resume."
May hid his clear surprise by Clegg's intentions, but the Time Lord had to give him credit for just obeying the order, "Aye, sir," the mate headed off, giving Clegg the chance to speak to the others. "Reload your guns, use the explosive shot and canister. If anything happens then fire your guns, and remember - you're firing to kill.
Captain Phillips felt nervous, but using the long and hard earned skills of controlling his emotions he'd picked up over the years, he was able to fight it down. He just wished he could keep his blood pressure and his desperately beating heart from making him so nervous about meeting Captain Clegg himself. The pirates in the boat were silent as they gently rowed to their ship, none of them had threatened him in any way, but he was on the receiving end of some hostile glares, but otherwise they had not behaved as he'd expected the lawless brigands to act.
Ushered firmly up the ladder, Phillips felt self conscious and more than a little worried when he caught sight of the curious but hostile looks he was receiving from the pirates. Why weren't they doing anything to him?
From the crew, a tall man stepped forwards. Phillips studied him, he was a man dressed in the clothes of an ordinary seaman, but there was something in his bearing that took him by surprise. The man seemed to be somewhere between his thirties and forties, but there was something that told Phillips the man was much older than he looked.
"I am Captain Clegg," the man said shortly, "and you are?"
Surprised that Clegg wasn't the type of man he'd thought he was, Phillips took a moment before he responded. "I am Captain Phillips."
What the pirate captain did next took the naval officer by surprise, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see some of the pirates were just as surprised as he was by the pirate leader's courtesy. He held out his hand. "Welcome aboard my ship, Captain," Clegg said with some irony, "I believe you were looking for us."
The smugness in Clegg's voice as well as the sardonic humour infuriated Phillips. These pirates had launched a vicious attack against his ship, killing god knew how many of the crew. Phillips had encountered pirates many times during his career, in these waters it was hard not to go a month without encountering a pirate, but he had never ever come across a pirate ship that used exploding shot before.
"You should be glad to know I'm willing to tow your ship to an island so you can repair your ship," Clegg went on, idly holding up his hand to forestall any word of complaint from one of his crew, "after I've taken you there, we can both go our own separate ways. Is that alright?" The pirate captain finished.
"The Roy-" Phillips began before he was interrupted.
"Good," Clegg said firmly, knowing what the naval captain was about to threaten him with, but truthfully he wasn't in the mood for any ridiculous propaganda. "Now, I want you to tell me why the navy are coming after me now?"
"Why do you think we're coming after you?"
Genuine anger flashed across the pirate captain's face. "Please, don't insult my intelligence. I'm a lot smarter than you will ever know in your little life. You signalled us to identify ourselves," Clegg said, reminding the captain of what happened before the first shots were fired. "You were looking for me. How many other ships are out there doing the same thing?"
He needed to know how many ships were out there looking for him before he could tell his crew they were going back to England, though he wasn't in any real hurry to do so - he was learning a great deal, and he was enjoying himself even if his trip to Earth had resulted in him losing a regeneration, but he didn't want the navy getting in the way.
Phillips realised he didn't have any alternative but to tell Clegg the truth. "I don't know," he replied honestly, "several ships by now, I'm sure, but I can't say."
"Can't or won't?" Clegg pointed out before he shrugged his shoulders, seeing the truth behind the other captain's words; with how nonexistent the planet's communications were, it was impossible to know what was going on, and who was doing what. But he did want to know who had sent this captain in the first place.
A few hours later saw the pirate ship begin to tow the crippled Man of War to an island, not the same one the Seal had previously been too but an uninhabited island nonetheless. Clegg was watching the massive dark shape of the warship as the Seal gently towed in to the island. The rudder of the warship had been destroyed during the battle, so they had little choice but to cooperate.
Clegg sensed the presence of someone nearby and he turned and found Frost there. The human's face was set, and his body language was aggressive.
"Why are we towing them to an island?" He demanded. "They attack us and they could've killed us even after we'd made that explosive shot, and you're towing them to an island so they can come after us again-"
"They're one of many ships that are looking for us," Clegg pointed out calmly, his hand going to his cutlass; he might like Frost, but he'd learnt enough about the pirate culture to know he'd have no choice but to kill the man if he crossed a line. "Besides, I'm not planning on letting them get away with it."
Frost's aggressive stance faded somewhat, melting into one of surprise. "What do you mean?"
Clegg's only answer was to smirk. "You'll find out," he answered enigmatically before his smirk vanished, "get back to work."
A few hours later, Clegg met with his officers in the cabin. "Some of you are probably thinking we're going to let that ship come after us again - we're not. We're going to destroy that ship."
None of the pirate officers protested, they knew how dangerous the warship was if it survived, how much they could tell their superiors if they reached port. Frost didn't look surprised, he'd done some thinking and realised what Clegg was planning.
"We're not going to turn the ship about and attack her with cannons, not again," Clegg went on, "we might manage to destroy that ship, but we'll probably be destroyed as well."
"We could board their ship," someone suggested.
"We could, but they'll be prepared for such a move," Clegg pointed out, "no, we're going to need to do something else. We can't outright fire on that ship without being shot at in turn. We can't board her and kill the crew. One thing we could do would be to simply cut the tow ropes, we're using to drag her half dead carcass to an island, but while that might be a good move, letting them drift away they still have some of their boats, and they could either reach an island or they might be picked up. I like the last one, personally, because I don't want us to waste our explosive shot. Their rudder has been destroyed, but they've still got some sails to help them move. They might manage to rig up something to help steer their ship."
The pirate officers had to admit he had made some good points, and now they had heard what the captain wanted they realised how limited their own ideas were because they were all virtually the same, and besides it wasn't as though the crew on the warship wasn't already expecting them to do anything like that. The moment their captain returned to them, safe and sound, he had probably ordered his own crew to prepare the guns and had his men issued with muskets and cutlasses, ready for a fight.
No, they realised for ship to be destroyed, they'd need to do something different.
"Wait," Clegg said out loud as an idea entered his mind. "Do we still have some of the old naval jackets left over from the mutiny?"
May frowned. "I think so," he said slowly as he tried to remember if they'd remembered to bring any of the old jackets on-board the Seal and had just forgotten them.
"It doesn't really matter if we do," Clegg went on, "but it would be a good thing if we did have some of them still on board.."
He outlined a plan to his officers, a plan that was risky and dangerous, but it might just work in his case. As for the pirate officers, they were surprised and more than a little amazed by what their captain had had in mind. But they had to admit it was the best and only option they currently had available at the moment.
As he swam towards the warship, completely naked, Clegg tried not to think of what he would find on the warship, even as he struggled to hold the bundle wrapped in sail cloth out of the water as his other hand was clasped around the towrope, using that to guide himself closer towards the warship. But while he was trying not to think too much of what was onboard the warship and the potential problems he might have when he tried to do what he planned to do, he couldn't help but wonder if he was just being crazy. The journey to the warship was a nightmare for Clegg - his Time Lord body might be stronger and more resilient than a human's, but that didn't mean his arms were immune to the aching as he struggled to hold the dark bundle of sail cloth containing clothes he needed to get to the warship. More than once he had needed to spit out mouthfuls of salt water, grimacing at the lingering taste of salt on his lips.
Clegg was lucky that when the Seal crew had transferred from the Raven the men hadn't thrown every single jacket away, and when he reached the keel of the warship he had to wait a moment to give himself time to take a deep breath before he opened the pack and threw up the grappling hook he had packed in the bundle. It wasn't a great throw, but he had to get into the foc'sle, and from there he clambered up the side of the ship and hid himself away as quietly as he could.
Cowering away in the shadows, he listened. He wasn't surprised to hear the sounds of men chatting while they used tools to repair what little remained of their masts. The Time Lord nodded in satisfaction when he realised that he might be able to get away with this. He'd been hoping that boarding the warship would be straightforward enough and he could mingle with the crew for a bit while they worked to repair the damage they'd taken during the battle. Clegg unpacked his clothes from the bundle, and when he was finished, he used the sailcloth to dry himself quickly before he donned his trousers - he had no long he had before he met someone here; everyone might be busy working on the repairs, but that didn't mean someone couldn't come here to do a shit (it surprised him no end that he was more crass than he had been before he had been pressed into service), so he had put his clothes on quickly.
When he was finished, Clegg left the foc'sle and sneaked through the ship as he tried to find the powder magazine using the directions taken from one of the old veterans amongst the crew, but while Clegg had a good mental image of where to go, he had to do his best not to be seen by anyone. The majority of the crew were busy working above deck, but there were still a few crew members busy working below. As he crept through the ship, Clegg eyed a few of the marines. He had hoped to get hold of one of those red uniforms, but all the marines had been thrown overboard once the Raven crew had mutinied. But it was obvious that like the other seamen, the marines were forced to pull their weight to help with the repairs, but Clegg wasn't bothered.
It took Clegg a while to get into the magazine, but on the way there he was wondering just what he could do to cause the maximum amount of damage to the ship to get it to sink. He didn't want to kill the crew despite the more bloodthirsty wishes of his crew - it still amazed him how much piracy had gripped his crew, and it also made him wary of how violent humans could be even if he genuinely enjoyed their company, and found them a breath of fresh air compared to his fellow Time Lords - he just wanted to sink the ship and if one or two members of the crew survived, they would spread the word throughout the Royal and Merchant navies about him. That was better than ships simply disappearing.
But then again, Clegg didn't like killing full stop - he might have been a pirate, but he was still a Time Lord enough to know how wasteful killing was and while he knew quite a few would die tonight, he knew some of the crew would survive.
He sneaked into the magazine, and grabbed two charges of gunpowder and fuse wire, and headed down into the hold, avoiding a few of the warship's crew as he went down. He was lucky that the only sources of lighting came from the lanterns with the single candles burning inside them, so he had plenty of shadows and hiding places to pick from.
In the hold Clegg placed one of the gunpowder charges on top of the ballast, and he began digging a small pit close to the hull of the ship. Once he was sure the hole was big enough, he gently planted the charges inside before he attached the fuse wire and then shovelled the ballast back to fill the hole, and he slowly and quietly unravelled the fuse spool and took it back up to the magazine where he attached the fuse wire to another charge.
Leaving the magazine, Clegg gently unspooled the fuse wire and walked back through the ship before he stopped and, grabbing a lantern, lit the fuse and packed it in a corner close to the power magazine before he made a break for it towards one of the gun ports and jumped out before his brain had time to engage. He swam towards the bow of the ship as fast as he could. He couldn't hear any signs that the warship's crew had heard him jump into the water, but he wasn't going to wait for them to realise he was there.
Clegg had just reached the bow where the tow rope was tied, and had just started to swim down it back toward his own ship when he heard a series of muffled bangs and thumps coming from warship, and he turned his head in time to see a large section of the warship's already damaged hull explode. Hearts filled with a little regret, the Time Lord turned back and swam towards the Seal. By the time Clegg was back on board his ship, he could see that the warship was being evacuated.
"Have you cut the tow rope?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Good," Clegg turned his back on the terrible sight of the warship as it began to sink. "Get a few men to watch out for any survivors," he added to some of his officers. "I don't want anyone on-board. Nothing."
He knew his orders could be misinterpreted as brutal, but he didn't care. He just wanted to get to the cabin and shut himself inside, and he left the quarterdeck and headed for the cabin and locked himself away. Captain Phillips had told him about the governor who'd despatched him and a number of other captains to track him and other pirates down, but Clegg didn't really care.
While he was inside his cabin, Clegg started checking over the charts on the table and he began calculating a course that would take them to one of those little islands in the Caribbean that held a port town. Captain Phillips and quite a few naval ships by the sound of it had been sent from this island by a governor who'd probably called in a few favours from the navy to hunt him down. Clegg wasn't sure whether or not he should be flattered or worried by the attention, though truthfully he doubted it would make any difference. Clegg knew that many of the crew would want to deal with the governor, and make him pay for going to the trouble of hunting them down, but Clegg wasn't sure if he should bother but in the end he decided it would be best to play to his crew's desires.
Clegg grimaced as he thought about his crew. It was becoming increasingly hard to keep them in control. At first it hadn't been so bad, but that latest incident with Frost had been one of a number of examples where his crew questioned his decisions. It made him wonder if they would ever truly want to return to England with the loot they'd collected over time. He would outlive them all, but he desperately wanted to get off this planet in the TARDIS.
He would deal with the problem when it came to it, he decided, and continued with calculating the course; they would need to return to the island where the Seal had been repaired, and replenish the supplies of explosive shot, and perhaps even work to improve their weapons though the facilities they would need for that type of work was considerable.
A few months later Clegg was tucking into a meal in a tavern, ignoring the raucous noise with a practised ease. It had been so long since he'd had a meal that didn't come salty or showed signs of going mouldy that this was a treat. After destroying the naval warship, the Seal had returned to the island she had left only a few days before they came across the ship, and replenished the supplies of explosive shot. Clegg had long since decided not to bother making anything more complex than explosive shot. They just didn't have the tools or the equipment needed to make more powerful weapons.
After leaving the island, Clegg had guided the Seal to the island town where the governor had sent out those naval hunters. The pirates had already dealt with one of them, and so they had travelled to this island without attacking any ship, or even announcing to any ship who they were in case it got back to the harbour. Most of Clegg's men were ashore like he was, learning as much as they could about the town so then if they decided to raid it, then they would know the best places to focus on and which they should avoid.
Clegg and the shore party had been ashore for only a few hours, and they'd already learnt a great deal about the island. But Clegg had learnt a bit about the governor without his men, knowing anything about what he'd done. He had used a combination of subtle hypnosis and telepathy to force some of the townspeople into telling him about the governor, and he had found the perfect means to make him regret sending those ships after him. Speaking of which, when Clegg and his fellow pirates had arrived at the port, he'd noticed that there were only a few naval ships in the harbour at all - there were 3 frigates, 2 ships of the line, and a man of war, and 2 sloops, and it was clear that the harbour was large enough to support a lot of traffic and yet there didn't seem to be anything here.
Another thing Clegg had noticed about the town were three gibbets, an iron cage composed of bands and chains that contained the remains of three pirates. Some, if not all of the shore party, had been downright frightened of the grim threat and warning to all pirates, that this would be their fate if they were caught. Clegg hadn't said anything to reassure them mostly because there was little he could have said to reassure them, and he hoped they didn't feel that he didn't care, but he'd been busy trying to think about what they should be doing in a short while.
Clegg shook his head and thought more about what he'd just learnt about the governor. He wasn't very popular by all accounts, he imposed a lot of tax on the island, most of it beyond unfair but that was the townsfolk's problem, not his. He also had an equally unpopular wife, who was incredibly arrogant, and they had a daughter who was just as bad.
Clegg didn't care if the girl was nice or not. What mattered to him the most was the thought of kidnapping her and ransoming her. Not only would the news about the kidnap and the ransom spread throughout the Caribbean, but also word of why it had happened in the first place. It might stop other governors and commodores from sending squadrons of Navy warships after him and his crew. Besides, it wasn't as if the girl would be mistreated by him and the crew of the Seal.
The only problem was how they'd kidnap her.
It would either have to be done when the girl was out and about during the day, the only problem with that was how they'd get her back to the ship. It might be easier for the girl would be closer to the harbour, but how would they take her and keep her quiet? Clegg could hypnotise her to put her into a deep sleep, but he couldn't stop people from seeing them take her to a boat even if the people here disliked her and her family intensely. Besides, the governor would reward any information relating to the kidnap, and people would take it if they could get away with it. No, a daylight kidnapping was too risky. It would have to be done at night. Clegg already knew where the house was thanks to the information he'd taken from the humans he'd linked his mind with, and since human security in this century was virtually nonexistent except for the guards, it shouldn't be difficult to get into the house. The only problem was the place was guarded, but the pirate captain didn't see that as an obstacle, just an irritant.
He looked up when Frost and Harper appeared.
"What took you two so long?" he greeted them both as he took a bite out of a piece of crusty bread.
Frost glowered at him even as he sat down. "We've checked out the fort," he whispered as low as he could so he wouldn't be overheard, but his fellow pirates could hear him, "it's too well guarded, and we couldn't get close enough to get an idea of how far the powder magazine was."
Clegg was about to open his mouth, but he quickly closed it as two red coats passed by. He waited until they were out of his sight before he replied to what Frost had said. "We're not touching the fort," he told the other two pirates, and he smiled at their looks of surprise.
"We're not, then what's the point of coming here and raiding the town-?"
"We don't need the ship for that, all we need is to take a few of our crew, and bring them here and break into a few people's houses like they were conventional burglaries. We don't need to bomb the place to bits, and besides while that idiot governor sent those ships to hunt us down, the navy have left some of their ships here. They would tear the Seal to pieces," Clegg said as he picked up a piece of cheese; he hadn't thought much of some of the human food when he'd arrived in this century, but he'd developed a taste for some of it, though he yearned for more varied food instead of the simple muck he was forced to eat.
"So what do we do?" Harper asked.
Clegg paused, he didn't really want to speak in such an open place where anyone could eavesdrop on them though he doubted many of them would really care, since pirates frequented towns like this, sometimes openly and sometimes in secret. "I'll tell you later, when we're in the boat," he whispered back in reply, hoping his tone told them to drop it.
Neither pirate looked happy about that, but they knew better than to press him too much. After Frost and Harper ate and drank their own meals, the three returned to the boat to head back to the ship. But standing above the boat, Clegg sighed at the sight before he sat down and helped Harper and Frost, he was getting truly fed up and irritated with boats, brigantines, frigates and ships of the line. He was tired of Earth, this boring era, and he just wanted to return to the TARDIS, and get back into the universe.
After the three pirates pulled away in the boat, Frost glanced at him as they pulled at their oars. "So, what's the idea, I mean, if we're not going to attack the fortress-?"
"Do you remember Captain Phillips?" Clegg interrupted.
"Phillips? The captain who came after us?" Harper said.
"One of them," Clegg confirmed grimly. "Don't forget he did say he wasn't the only captain looking for us, for ME! The point is Phillips came from this harbour. The governor here sent a few of the ships that should have been HERE, but there are only a few ships here; the navy are many things, but they are not stupid. They probably insisted on keeping the ships in this harbour here, to protect the port. We can't bring the Seal into the port, the ships here will tear our ship to pieces."
Clegg anticipated a protest. "And before you say it, the explosive shells are good but the problem is we don't have any armour on our ship. But we're not going for the ships because the crews there won't really care about burglaries on the land. That's what we're going to do. We're going to divide our crew into parties; one group will stay on the Seal and protect it, another group will divide on land and break into different houses and businesses to steal the money and whatever else is there. But when they go ashore, they cannot drink a drop of rum or any other alcohol."
Frost nodded, seeing sense in that. "Alright, but what do you have in mind?"
"Another group will go to the governor's mansion. The governor sent out ships like the one Phillips commanded, and I've learnt that he has a daughter. We're going to kidnap the girl. We ransom her, the governor gives us the money, and gets her back alive. If we do that without a shot fired, perfect," Clegg said.
"When did you plan to do this?"
"Tomorrow night," Clegg replied. "I want to get a better idea of the lay of the land, find out more about the governor's home, and see if there was a way into the governor's house without anyone really noticing at night and come up with counter plots in case something happens."
Clegg stood outside the governor's house, crouching low in the underbrush. His knees were aching from him crouching in such an uncomfortable position for a while, but he ignored it. He had been walking around the walls surrounding the mansion all morning, always keeping an eye open for any of the guards. He was just lucky the humans cared more for appearances for their military uniforms instead of caring about remaining unseen, but the humans here made it so easy for him to find a hiding place before they arrived, they made so much noise it was almost laughable.
He had left the Seal early in the morning so then he could take advantage of the quiet to reach the governor's mansion and maybe even take a look into the grounds themselves to get an idea of what was there, and what he could use.
The grounds of the mansion were expansive. They had white-beige pavements and gardens and lawns that were neatly arranged with the mansion itself looking like one of the gleaming buildings he had seen on Gallifrey. It only took him half an hour to find other ways in and out, but the problem was they would need to climb the walls just to deal with the guard soldiers protecting the family.
Clegg stayed around the mansion for another few hours as he continued to explore the place before he decided to head back to the Seal. By the time he returned to the ship, he'd come up with the rough outlines of a plan and he met his officers. For an hour, Clegg and the officers discussed the plan, working out the details and who would be doing what. It was decided that Clegg would lead the group to the governor's mansion with a small group to take care of the governor's daughter and provide an escape. Frost and a few others would take their groups and begin raiding businesses and houses for any loot, and they would also start fires on the island to distract the soldiers stationed there to keep them from getting in the way while they took the governor's daughter back to the ship while May stayed on-board the Seal to keep watch and keep close to the harbour while staying out of sight of the fort and the navy ships still there.
When the meeting was over Clegg and the officers left the cabin to make preparations, but unlike other times the crew didn't receive a vote about what they had to do - time was pressing as it was, and truthfully Clegg didn't have time for the democracy pirate ships practiced. The groups were arranged on the quarter deck. They were all dressed in land clothes that they'd managed to steal over time.
Clegg surveyed them for a brief second before he nodded and gestured to the daggers, axes and cutlasses and a few pistols. "Everyone grab a weapon," he ordered. All of the pirates weren't armed yet because of his orders. Clegg didn't want anyone to carry a musket or any weapon larger than a pistol except for a cutlass.
Watching all of the men picking up pistols which had small powder charges attached and a small number of the lead balls and scraps of cloth they needed to go down for a moment, Clegg picked up his own weapons - just a dagger and a cutlass. Once every member of the landing party was armed, some of them carrying torches to light the fires, Clegg issued his last minute orders. "We're going ashore to kidnap the governor's daughter," he announced, though he knew that if one of them were captured, they'd talk just to save their worthless hide, "but some of you are going to commit raids on the houses and businesses themselves. Some of you are going to start fires to keep the soldiers busy while we work to kidnap the daughter of the governor. Those of you who have pistols and cutlasses try not to use them if you can; they're insurance. Don't fire or kill anyone unless you have to. Right, get into the boats."
Leaving the ship, the boats split up and headed to different parts of the port town so anyone on watch in the naval ships or in the fort wouldn't get too suspicious.
Clegg split up with Frost and the others, and took his group to the mansion. "Right," he told them, "it's a long way up, but we've got time."
Following their captain up to the house, the pirates approached the mansion cautiously, and they were half way along when one of them turned back to the town when they heard the sounds of panicked screaming. "Sir, look, they've started the fires!"
Clegg turned around and saw the pirate was right. The fires were small, but they were clearly getting larger as more people became more panicky and afraid of getting burnt to death in the fires. Clegg studied the spectacle and nodded. He had told the officers to be very choosy about where they started the fires so then they didn't accidentally burn down a place where a burglary was taking place.
"Come on, the sooner we get this done, the better," Clegg said, and he continued leading the way to the mansion. As they grew closer, the Time Lord whispered to his men to keep quiet and to hide, and if they came across any guard, they were to kill them while some of them were to get over the walls into the grounds so they could find a way into the house to find the governor's daughter.
Clegg went over the wall, and he quickly hid in a bush and gestured for the next climber to wait for a moment as a soldier came closer. Clegg could see that the man was tired, bored and fed up with his job. He looked fairly young in Clegg's eyes, but that didn't matter. The Time Lord, wincing at the necessity, clamped his hand around the human's face, and snapped his neck before he could make a sound before dragging him back into the bushes and gestured for the next climber to come over the wall. Clegg looked down at the soldier, wincing at the unnatural angle of the neck, and pushed that aside as he reached through the cartridge case and took out some of the soldier's ammunition and he also pulled the musket aside and held onto it, checking it was loaded.
It took the pirates only a few minutes to deal with the remaining guards. There were quite a few of them in the grounds, but like the first guard quite a few of them were bored, and in various states of fatigue that made it easy for the pirates to pick them off. "You," Clegg gestured to a few of the pirates while speaking in a whisper since there may still be some guards nearby that hadn't been accounted for, "stay out here, if you see any more soldiers then deal with them quietly. You three," he pointed at three others, "come with me."
Taking his coat off to muffle the sound of smashing glass - he really wished he had a sonic screwdriver on him, but since the expedition to Earth was just a brief visit, neither he nor Annar had seen much point in taking other pieces of Time Lord technology with them - Clegg smashed the glass window, and reached a hand through the hole after he'd used the pistol in his hand to smash away anymore of the glass that could slice his wrist to pieces.
He stepped through the door and looked around the opulent surroundings. It may have been dark, but Clegg could definitely see that this family certainly loved its position in the town, even if their little empire was tiny considering the size of the island and how many similar governor's there were out there. Clegg ignored it though he didn't care if one of the pirates he'd brought with him stole a few things. Why would it make any difference to him if they took anything?
Clegg led the pirates out of the room and took them upstairs, knowing that was where humans usually lived, something that seemed to occur with other races, including Gallifreyan - it was amazing how many traits other species took into their own - but Clegg pushed that aside and focused on the here and now as he and his fellow pirates upstairs, mindful of any creaks on the stairs after hearing them downstairs and he held his pistol up, hoping that the humans were very, very deep sleepers. The landing was just as opulent as the lower level, but it was narrower and there were several different rooms.
"Stay with me!" Clegg whispered, worried one of them would make a stupid mistake.
Unfortunately, they made a stupid mistake a few seconds later because they opened a door and walked inside… only for two servants to wake up at the noise of the door opening and them noisily clattering in to start screaming - only for Clegg and one of the pirates to shoot them to shut them up, but it was too late. The screams from the servants had woken up others.
"What's going on here? Who are you-?" The voice of a young woman said, but the screaming and the sounds of guns going off had pushed one of the pirates to the edge, and he shot her before Clegg could stop him.
"Stop firing, you idiot!" Clegg shouted, but it was too late - the lead ball had struck the young woman in the chest, and she dropped to the ground, her mouth open in shock.
Clegg went over to her and his hearts almost stopped when he noticed the more expensive nightwear the young woman was wearing - the servants had been dressed in simpler, rougher clothing. Bending down Clegg studied the injury, but he knew it was too late - she was already dead.
"YOU MURDERERS!"
A loud voice screamed from upstairs as a woman who was a much older version of the young lady screeched from upstairs, and Clegg's head snapped up and stared up at her, hoping his expression of regret was obvious to her. But humans were either good or bad at reading expressions or body language, and Clegg knew her emotions would make it impossible to notice when she was in this state.
"YOU KILLED OUR DAUGHTER!"
"Mary, what's - WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY DAUGHTER, YOU MURDEROUS BASTARD?!" A man with silvery hair asked before seeing the young woman's dead body lying on the ground.
Clegg turned to his men. "Let's get out of here," he said, and they rushed downstairs and out of the grounds.
"We have to go," Clegg said to the pirates waiting outside.
"Where's the governor's daughter?" One of them asked as they ran to the gates, which were miraculously open and with all the guards dealt with it was easy for the pirates to leave through them than to climb and hop over a wall.
"Dead," Clegg shouted back. "We accidentally woke up a couple of servants, and then she was there, but she startled one of us and got shot. The plan is finished. We have to get away from here, quick, before anything else happens."
The governor was shaking with repressed rage as he had the colonel of the armed garrison and the commodore commanding the local naval squadron in his office. Now that the mess from last night was over, and he had received the reports of the events from the night before, the governor could see how they were connected, though it had taken him a while since he was still trying to burn through the anger that was burning in him after finding his daughter's dead body - the servants and the soldiers were replaceable but not his daughter, the apple of his eye. She had been murdered needlessly, and his wife was inconsolable with her death.
Several of the local businesses and houses had been broken into and had been burgled, several fires had been lit and had tied up and panicked the townspeople and had kept the soldiers and some of the sailors, those who weren't drunk, busy for hours to put them out. None of the thieves or arsonists had been caught for questioning, but while there didn't seem to a connection the governor had spent an hour before the meeting with the colonel and the commodore trying to make sense of what he knew. There were too many incidents of arson and theft, not to mention murder - those soldiers on the grounds, which only made his wife Mary scream louder and louder as well as their servants - to not be a coincidence.
To any outside observer, they might think it was coincidence, but how could they be? Arson, theft, and murder all in the span of a single night? Unlikely.
The arsons in the town, the murders, the thefts - they were all part of a single plan, but the commodore had brought back news - a ship had been observed sailing away from the port, and it wasn't one of the ships in the harbour. The fort had seen it leave in the early hours of daybreak, but the ship had been out of range of the guns and it didn't see the signal flags that had been raised to bring them back to identify themselves.
"Last night," he said to the two uniformed men, "my house was broken into, your soldiers were killed," he said to the colonel, who was standing there already grim faced, "and the town was being burnt down and burgled, and my daughter was murdered. And you, commodore, you tell me there was an unknown ship nearby."
"I have been thinking about that, sir," the commodore said, keeping his voice at a respectful silence in the fact of the murder of the governor's daughter. "Recently you pressured me to send out ships to help in the hunt for pirates, including Captain Clegg. I believe it is possible that one of the ships sent out encountered him, and he became aware of the hunt, and your involvement in it."
The governor stiffened. Pirates! The scum of the Earth, they cropped up everywhere, small groups appearing out of nowhere faster than the navy and the army could exterminate the vermin. Captain Clegg had quickly become one of the biggest, though he was by far a long way from being close to Blackbeard or Henry Morgan's level of notoriety.
"Do you think Clegg was the one behind last night's…. Crimes?" The governor hissed the last word, unable to contain his fury.
"It's possible, sir," the commodore said, though deep down he found it hard to imagine any pirate just avoiding the chance to not fire cannons at any ship, and just creep in quietly to commit theft and murder, but it wasn't impossible.
"How many ships can you get out there to find Clegg?" The governor asked, trying and failing to not sound excited at the prospect of getting justice for his daughter.
"Not many sir, but that isn't a good idea-" the commodore tried to say, but the governor wasn't in the mood for games or military mumbo-jumbo.
"No matter, get all the ships out there, at once! I want that pirate caught, and while they're at it, they're to capture or kill any pirate they come across! I want Clegg dead!" The governor's mouth was frothing with rage as an image of his only daughter came to mind again. He would make Clegg pay for her murder, oh yes. He would.
Clegg would pay!