The crew of the Wicked Wench made no attempt to maroon the sea lioness, despite the fact that she was a woman. This was partially due to Jack's specific orders not to maroon her, but mainly because the crew was quite superstitious. They wanted nothing to do with her, but didn't want to risk doing anything about her either. So, they just avoided her as much as possible.
So, the trip to Tortuga was quiet, which didn't bother Geneva all that much. It took only a couple of weeks to get there, simply because the winds were in their favor for most of the way there. When they finally pulled into the port, Geneva could see that this town was much rowdier than she could have imagined.
Jack's description did it some justice, but it was a sight that could only be believed upon witnessing it personally. It was very loud, and very dirty. Men ran about, drank until they fell over, and wenches were ever present in the bawdy atmosphere. It was certainly cringe-worthy. But, it did present plentiful opportunities.
Upon their arrival, Geneva decided to go about her own business in Tortuga, leaving Jack behind. Jack was not particularly opposed to getting her off the ship, and they all went their separate ways. Geneva didn't really know his real purpose in Tortuga for herself, but she didn't have interest enough to ask. She was only interested in her own purposes at the moment, and right now, she wanted to remain under cover.
She kept her male disguise on at all times around here. Being a woman on such a rowdy island was probably not the best of fates. She had considered that perhaps she didn't need the disguise anymore, considering that Jack had known very well what she was capable of when they had never met before. But, she couldn't be certain that everyone in Tortuga knew her and what she was capable of, so she had to remain cautious. She didn't want to be treated as a wench. She just wanted to further her pirate career.
Unfortunately, although she was quite good at stowing away on ships without being noticed, she realized that if she was ever to further herself in the pirate world, she'd have to really become one, which meant that she'd have to join a crew. Certainly, she couldn't do so as a woman, so she did so as a man.
She spent months sailing about on different pirate ships, not really making any real contracts or agreements to stay aboard for long periods of time. She couldn't be confined to just one ship for too long. Being in one place for an exorbitant amount of time bored her to death. When the ship made it to port somewhere, she'd abandon that crew and join another one. It turned out that there were quite a few pirate islands that peppered the Caribbean Sea, so getting around was much easier than she originally thought it would be.
For a good part of a year, Geneva made her way around the Caribbean with no problem. She knew the layout of the sea very well, and became even more familiar with ship hierarchy. Although she was never very high up in the unofficial ranking system, she knew very well how it worked, and she learned by observation.
Because she never had a very high rank, Geneva was easily expendable, which was why she never worried about being chased as she abandoned one crew for another. The old crew didn't really miss her, and the new crew didn't really care that she joined. Another hand on deck wasn't all too big a deal one way or another.
But there did come one instance that forever changed her status in the pirate world. She joined a crew, just like she always did every few months or so. This one was no different from any other crew she had ever been a part of. They let her join easily, and then, they were on their way out to sea, off to nowhere of particular interest to Geneva.
But, somehow the captain got suspicious. Geneva wasn't really sure how or why, but he did, and that suspicion slowly spread. Geneva had expected that she'd be able to make a break for it as she normally did, but things happened much faster than she had anticipated.
The captain confronted her, and it surprised her. But, she realized that the crew only thought she was a woman on board, and had no idea who she really was. She was at an advantage in that sense, but her only disadvantages were that the crew was big and they were pirates. Unlike Jack, they weren't about to give her any mercy. They didn't know what she was capable of. And they planned on killing her.
So, she used her swords.
She made a bloody mess of about a third of the crew, including the captain and the first few mates. She had never done anything comparable to this in her life, so it came as a shock to her that she was able to take on so many men at once, many of which knew how to sword fight to a reasonable degree.
But that wasn't nearly as shocking as what happened after that. The remaining crew was struck with such terror that they didn't know what to do. They had absolutely no leadership, and were completely at a loss as far as their next course of action. So, one of the lowly members began to address her as captain, and asked her where she wanted to set sail toward.
This definitely surprised her more than anything, but she eagerly took the position. The crew was afraid, and it was the only thing they could possibly do to appease her now. Appease her it did, though, as she was quick to address the measly swashbuckler as her first mate and order the crew to prepare the sails to head for Tortuga.
She really couldn't help herself. The position as captain was far too tempting, and she severely outranked her former self. In a matter of seconds, she had gone from the bottom of the ladder to the top, and she couldn't accept that kind of success without smiling, letting out her hair, and standing atop the rail of the quarterdeck, above all others, and allowing the gusts of salty wind to flow through her and catch the sails of her soul.