And now we were way out at sea.
On the deck of a half-wrecked boat, likely to wither away here. Nothing but empty ocean in every direction, no masts or smokestacks in the distance coming to our rescue.
Worse, there were no clouds in the sky. The sun was beating down, bouncing off the waters of the Caribbean, doing its best to thoroughly bake our skin.
“Too hot,” I said, glaring at the heavens.
From Stuart England to zombie Edo to Cold War submarines to WWII Germany, we’d been forced to trot the globe. This time we’d wound up on a shore in America somewhere.
The beach looked pleasant enough but before we could even hope for a vacation, we were hired to go shark hunting. Apparently these waters were being terrorized by a man-eating shark, and only we could stop it. Like always, this was framed as a job, but was more of an order. Also like always, Haruhi was instantly on board, and the SOS Brigade followed her lead. One of us procured a high-speed cabin cruiser, and we all climbed in, setting out to slap that shark silly.
This was a major undertaking. There were actually two man-eating sharks, each well over five meters long. Our battle with the Jaws brothers was furious. We ended up sticking dynamite in their big ol’ maws and blowing their heads off, but it took us literally an entire day. And one of them gnawed the cruiser’s engine off. With no power of its own, the cruiser got swept up in the current, drifting from sea to sea. No help came, nor were we sent to the next world; with nothing better to do we took shifts sleeping, fishing off the side to keep ourselves fed. The sun rose, and was now high in the sky.
Fortunately, the cabin cruiser had a healthy supply of bottled water, so we weren’t in immediate danger of desiccation, but it was very boring. We’d gotten used to being kicked over to another world at this stage of the proceedings—why weren’t we? We’d accomplished this setting’s goals, right?
“Perhaps,” Koizumi ventured, dangling a fishing line beside me. “It no longer matters whether we complete our mission.”
The girls were decked out in swimsuits, lounging in deck chairs on the ship’s deck, sunning themselves.
The moment we started looking, we found swimsuits, sunglasses, suntan lotion, and tropical drinks. It went beyond well stocked and into overly prepared.
My fishing line refused to budge.
“So what do we do? What are we doing here? How do we escape this endless cycle of crappy games and Z-tier movie worlds?”
“There is one thing I’ve been considering.”
A way to escape this world?
“No, on that front I remain clueless. But I do have a hypothesis about our current predicament. What this world is, and why we are here.”
Koizumi’s face and tone made it clear this would not be good news.
As I dithered about whether I even wanted to know something obviously depressing, the sunlight suddenly dimmed.
“What the—?”
I looked up and found a fog had sprung up around the cruiser. White steam rose from the surface of the ocean. A mystery mist had appeared without warning, growing visibly denser until we couldn’t see at all.
Haruhi took off her sunglasses, sitting up and pointing to port.
“Incoming!”
Good eyes and instincts; our chief was never wrong. A massive shadow loomed out of the pea souper. Had we gone from two sharks to a white whale?
As I remembered just how things had gone for Captain Ahab, something entirely different emerged from the fog. A massive wooden sailing ship. An old galleon, like you see in pirate movies.
Way too ancient to be dispatched on a rescue mission for a stranded pleasure boat.
This galleon pulled up alongside us. For a long moment, it seemed to be taking stock of us—then there was some rummaging about, and a rope ladder fell over the side.
With no engines, we couldn’t exactly sunbathe forever. Let’s roll with it. I reached for the ladder—and my fingers brushed Haruhi’s shoulder.
“I’m going first. Kyon, you bring up the rear. Make sure Mikuru doesn’t fall off.”
Haruhi scrambled up the ropes like a monkey in a colorful bikini. Nagato followed without making a sound, and Koizumi followed her with a nod to me. Asahina looked quite nervous about it and missed her footing with a squeal, rewarding me with several kicks to the face. Eventually, we all made it up.
Burly arms helped me over the rail onto the deck.
The face attached was red with sunburn, his hair disheveled. When he saw my feet firmly on the ground, he grinned once, then went back to his companions.
The whole crew was assembled on the galleon’s deck.
They were all dressed like theme park pirates, their shirts and trousers the worse for wear. Ruddy faces made them seem liable to start passing the rum around at any moment. The physical vibe suggested they were far more suited to violence than intellectual pursuits. Several of them had black patches over one eye, as if advertising their occupations.
A real racial melting pot, so varied I wasn’t inclined to try to conduct a census. What mattered was that this was a pirate ship, and they were pirates.
I peeled my eyes, checking to see if that one old man was somewhere in the mix, but we hadn’t seen him in a while; maybe his part was done.
Haruhi took a step forward, her gaze sweeping the crew.
“Appreciate the pickup,” she said, beaming.
“Welcome aboard, Captain,” the crew chorused. They led us inside.
Haruhi waved a hand appreciatively.
“Does this ship have a shower? It does? Then let’s hit that up and get changed.”
Several pirates (I assume they were mates of some sort) were all bowing and scraping their heads, leading her to the poop deck. We followed in silence. I realized the mist had thoroughly dissipated. Once more, the sun was blasting us with beams of nuclear fusion, but as dry as the air was, it wasn’t that hot.
Clearly, we’d shifted worlds again. It was such a seamless transition I hadn’t even noticed.
Haruhi was led to the captain’s quarters, and I was way past marveling at that. The idea of Haruhi taking any other role on a pirate ship was less likely than the reversal of the Earth’s rotation.
The captain’s cabin was pretty big for a ship like this. It served as parlor, bedroom, and war room. There was even a shower. A primitive one, with what looked like a watering can at the top, water warmed by sunlight falling straight down. Gave the impression they’d only just thrown it together.
I assumed we’d take turns washing off our sweat and the scent of the brine, then change out of our swimsuits, but the next thing I knew, we already had, and I was fully dressed.
“Huh?” Asahina squeaked, blinking like she’d been tricked by a fox. She was gaping at herself.
I looked down, too.
An open-necked shirt and vest, corsair pants with a leather belt, boots on my feet, and a garish bandana tied pirate-style around my head. Definitely looked like I’d stepped out of the seventeenth century Caribbean, prepared to assault European merchant ships. Everyone’s stereotype of a rank-and-file pirate.
Haruhi alone was a step above, sporting a heavily embroidered coat, and a pirate hat with a skull on it. She was sitting at the head of the table.
“Huh?!” Asahina said again, and I knew why. We’d been fast-forwarded a second time and were now seated around this table. One of the crew was serving tea and biscuits. The biscuits were hard as roofing tiles, and the tea had a distinctive flavor, but it wasn’t half bad.
“So? Haruhi asked, addressing an eye-patched pirate who seemed important. He was standing a few steps from the table. “What are we doing here?”
Then she karate chopped her biscuit in half, muttering, “These are horrible.”
The pirate took out a rolled-up parchment and offered it to her.
Haruhi spread it out on the table, frowning down at it.
“What’s it say? The writing’s too fancy to read. Yuki, interpret.”
Nagato had been nibbling her biscuit like a chipmunk with a walnut.
“…………”
She took the parchment and stared at it.
“‘In the name of the queen, we require you to fulfill your duties. Sail to the new continent and annihilate the ships of our great enemy, the Spaniards. If you or your companions are captured or killed, our country will disavow all knowledge of you. This message will self-destruct.’”
The moment her flat voice finished reading it, the parchment caught fire. No clue how.
That felt like a collage of a bunch of familiar directives, but I couldn’t be bothered to point that out.
“…………”
Nagato dropped the burning document on the table. By the time it landed, it was mostly ash. Call it magic.
“Curious,” Haruhi said, grinding on the biscuit with her back teeth. “We’re privateers, then. I’m not exactly motivated to do anything for England, but it seems fun enough. Definitely a tougher challenge than those sharks.”
She flicked her pirate hat, then winked with such flourish you could almost hear the sound effect. This wink was seemingly aimed at someone not seated at the table.