Pirate's Tail

Chapter Seventeen

The celebration of Ace joining the tribe quickly wore off, but that didn't stop Ace from thinking his membership into the tribe wasn't important. After his initiation into the tribe, he noticed he had more status when he went about the village. People were friendlier and more respectful toward him.

The attention of everyone, Ace included, was focused on the pending arrival of Captain Alphs and the F.S.M. Visp. Since Ace had spent time recently with the vessel, he was in the thick of the planning, providing whatever intelligence he could about the ship, its crew, and the situation onboard. They knew from experiences in the past that a diplomatic agreement between the two peoples was unlikely to occur. As a preliminary caution against the arrival of the Visp, the island was gearing up for battle.

The pirates had a larger fleet of ships now than they had when the Visp attacked the first time, and they were confident they could destroy the Visp and its Captain. Most of the Farobi people had been on the island during the last attack, but they weren't as confident as their pirate counterparts. There was much talk about the first attack on the islands, and Ace had been able to patch together the story.

The pirate ships had been out raising havoc on the seas during the Great War when the islands were attacked. The only ship on the lake at that time was the Queen Nancy. The pirates returned to find Captain Alphs and his crew living in the Farobi's tree village, having displaced the tribe. A battle ensued between the island and the crew of the Visp, and a tentative peace deal was worked out. The pirates negotiated an arrangement with the Captain to get him to leave, and that deal cost them the Queen Nancy.

A report filtered in that there had been a ship sighted a few days out from the Farobian Islands. All the pirate vessels were accounted for, and the people on the islands had begun to assume it was the Visp. An emergency meeting was called to discuss the matter in Commodore Gates' cabin, onboard the Grudge. Ace sat among his father and his two most trusted captains.

"Allen Aaron, tell us what you and your crew aboard the Horse Head saw while out on patrols," Commodore Gates said.

Allen Aaron, a man about the age of Captain Harris, had removed his hat out of respect of being indoors. He wore a dark green vest with a pair of pistols tucked within a golden sash that he wore around his waist. He had black hair and the beginnings of a beard. He took a swig out of the bottle of rum he held in his hands and leaned forward in his chair.

"My crew and I spotted a large Menquin vessel, apparently alone, moving through the waters north of here," Captain Aaron said. "I turned the Horse Head around immediately to return with the news. The ship I saw was in good sailing order, and I believe we have five days, at the most, before the Visp arrives."

"Are you certain it was her?" Captain Harris asked.

"Aye, she fit the description well enough."

"We'll be ready when she arrives. We'll begin to implement a plan today that'll put added guns in both the pirate and tribal villages. Based on what happened in the past, we believe that Captain Alphs will try to sail through the strait and into the lake. Hopefully a few well-placed shots will render him useless before he gets there," Commodore Gates said.

Captain Harris continued the plans. "As a precaution, we'll ready the Farobi with their canoes in their village on the shore of the lake. We plan on installing a couple of cannons within the village. If the Visp penetrates our initial defenses, at least the Farobi will have a few big guns to hold the Visp off with until we can ready our ships."