The Nine Oceans

Historical Chapter 0.5

Nine Oceans, 5 YEARS AGO...

The engine in the Flippant Dart, the little two-master Justin found passage on for getting out of Opat, guttered to a stop. The yells that followed were, in Justin's opinion, more derogatory than was really necessary. Some yelling was to be expected, considering what the Captain thought was their current circumstances, but really. Justin wasn't pretending to be that bad of a bosun.

Captain Alexis Mer was nearing financial ruin due to a run of nothing but bad luck, though, so at least Justin understood the frustration of today's situation from her perspective. He yelled back at her, being certain to include enough technical nonsense she was struck silent by the tirade of engine-based verbiage he knew she didn't understand, and continued to prep the small engine so it would restart smoothly once he wasn't here to muddle up its operation. He smiled at how well the new cover he'd made fit into place once it was latched, and patted the old engine he'd had the pleasure of repairing while on board. It had been kept in excellent condition before Captain Mer's run of bad luck, and now it would continue to run well enough to hopefully get her through to some good luck.

John and Tam hadn't been certain of their places on the crew, Tam not having been acquainted with working on ships before, and John having only ever been on the little fishing boat he and his father used for work and transport around The Islands. But Justin hadn't tried to offer their services as anything above basic, and Mer had only been grateful to sign on a chitted bosun with experience keeping still water engines running. When they'd been standing on the dock, she honestly hadn't cared if Tam and John were luggage trunks she had to feed so long as Justin signed on to keep the Dart on top of the wet.

As his labour on board was the reason his friends were able to be here – and safe, as well – he'd worked as if the Flippant Dart was his own. He'd fixed the few maintenance issues for the engine and boiler his first day on board, but continued mucking with it's operation to seem like it wasn't fully repaired. Then he'd enlisted John help him replace what was needed to clear out all the wood rot in between pretending to still be working on the engine. Tam took on sail repairs at first and, once the Captain found out she could weave rope, spent most of her days twining new rigging out of old. Between the needed sail and rigging repairs, and Justin making the engine seem like it wasn't working, they'd wasted enough time to let whatever ship his mother was on to catch up. She hadn't mentioned which one she was on during any of her contacts, just that catching up wouldn't be a problem.

The sail colours proving his mother was coming to get him on one of his uncle's ships hadn't been much of a surprise considering her silence on the topic, but the four towering masts spotted gaining on the Dart wasn't the ship Justin had been hoping for. He'd planned on bringing his new friends onto the Gem and had spent the better part of the last two weeks figuring out how to quickly explain John and Tam to his uncle after they'd jumped ship. He knew Lynn would support him, so then Justin would have help convincing Lady Ann that John and Tam were, well, Justin's friends.

But this was the Lofty. Captain Darian Loche rarely allowed anyone onto his ship without first knowing who they were. That could be tricky, because then Justin's friends would need to know who Justin was, or Justin had to tell his mother who John and Tam were. And he still hadn't told his mother he was bringing Tam and John, because he'd been expecting to have his uncle standing beside him for that part of the conversation.

The engine is off, Justin contacted to his mother as he tacked a note to the workbench in the engine hold. There wasn't any use having the engine ready to restart if there weren't clear instructions for restarting it and for keeping it running. Captain Mer's previous bosun had died from a wasting sickness only a month ago, which she'd only discovered he had a week before his death, and he hadn't left instructions for anything. He also didn't do much of his job during what looked to Justin like nearly a year while sick, understandably, but he'd kept collecting – and spending – his full pay for that entire year. Also understandable, but not very honest; and part of Captain Mer's streak of bad luck.