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Was that a threat? Kestrel felt the whole thing falling apart on her. It had all started going wrong when she spotted the undead guy, the concussion had affected her acting skills, and now she knew the whole thing was coming apart. She sighed.

"Give me the spyglass. If it's who I think it is, there won't be trouble."

For them, at least. She put the spyglass up to her eye. The ship was closer now. There was no mistaking it. She sighed.

"Yep. It's them. Give it a few minutes."

The others watched her suspiciously as the ship approached. Finally, it pulled up beside them. A familiar figured hopped across the rails and the others stared. Same eyes... Same hair... Same clothes... The only difference was in their bearing, and in the fact that the new arrival was wearing an eyepatch and had a sword almost as tall as her strapped to her back.

The real Kestrel Tonnere looked to the sheepish girl edging towards the opposite rail.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Akiralta, you little rat!"

The girl didn’t go away from his little cleaning area and began to ramble on about her boo-hoo story. Which just irritated him more; if she would just move... ‘Dammit if I’m gunna clean I want it to stay clean for at least one damn minute.’ But he was forced to keep that thought to himself for the new ship drew near. From the ship came out some yelling person-with a huge sword! And Sinsario knows what huge swords mean… uh…great fighter. He wasn’t paying attention to who they were yelling to though; just that neat looking sword. It’s so big! He wanted to play with it.
The old-new girl was cowering from her, actually. With the way they were positioned, new-new girl was definitely yelling at old-new girl.

Sinsario stood up and threw the dirty rag over the railing; he didn’t want to look like Beatrice’s servant. Except the rag might have hit the ship beside them. He was going to back up to the other girls, but Penn had this pissed off feel about her, so he was too much of a pansy move. Instead he felt forced to stay where he was and could only cross his arms. At least he could admire that sword.

Kestrel eyed the people on the ship suspiciously. They seemed ready to jump into a defense, which was odd--Akiralta usually had quite a different effect on people. Kestrel summed up the woman with the rapier, then nodded to her first mate, Aurelia. Beatrice was right--Kestrel wouldn't stand a chance. Aurelia knew swordplay, however. If there was a showdown, it was going to be interesting.

"My apologies, Captain," Kestrel said to Beatrice, "What I meant was," she turned to Aki, "Why did you call us?"

For a second, Akiralta looked frightened. Comically frightened. Then her face spread into a wild grin. Her stance changed, suddenly making her look a dozen times more capable. She was honestly quite honoured that these new people seemed to be standing up for her--she'd definitely have to make it up to them.

"Well," Aki grinned, "It looks like I've managed to complete my contract. All that's left is housekeeping." She rummaged in a pocket, pulling out a sealed envelope and several sheets of paper, which she handed to Beatrice. "Someone wants you to find this captain and take care of the gold-armed man. Here's a letter from them and all my research on the situation."

Kestrel looked impatient.

"So where do we figure in your plans, oh great manipulator?" she asked sarcastically, drumming her fingers along the ship's rail and wondering how to pay back Aki this time.

Akiralta ignored the insult. "You're going to help them. Part of my contract was the engagement of a mercenary group, and I think you would qualify."

"And you think we're doing this because...?"

Akiralta dug in her glove and pulled out the ring.

"Do you know what this is?" She waited for Kestrel to flip up the eye patch (revealing a perfectly good eye) and tossed it over to her. Kestrel's face was now a curious mix of red and white. She struggled to keep her tone even.

"Yes. Yes I do. Well, I guess we've been hired. Any other announcements?"

Akiralta shrugged. "Only that I'm really sorry things got this drawn out." Without taking her eyes off of everyone, she climbed onto the railing. "I thank every one of you for your hospitality. I will make it up to you. Good luck in your struggle. And..." She turned to Sinsario, "I'm sorry about all that. I really do have a thing about the undead. I hit a zombie too hard once and wound up holding both his arms." She shuddered. "Anyways, I take my leave of you."

She threw something at the deck, and there was a bright flash of light and smoke. When everyone cleared their eyes, there was no one on the rail. In fact, upon peering over the side of the ship, there was no one there either. Kestrel sighed in disgust.

"Well, that was needlessly over-dramatic. I'll get the maps out and tell my crew to sharpen their blades."

Beatrice eyed through the documents. Paperwork, sweet. So that's about as fate as things got, then. When she finally looked up, having half-heard what had been said, Penn was up and running. Beatrice shrugged and turned to the others still on her own deck.

"All right. So now that we're finally gettin' some direction it's from a girl who first drags a pirate ship right up to us before she disappears in a smoke screen. Bound by blood and paper sheets. Smells fishy to me. None of these seem to point in any particular direction, though. Possibly the letter. But I'm almost thinkin' it's gonna blow up in my face if I open it. Any volunteers?"

She grinned and played with the envelope between her fingers. This was a matter of seeing what the others made of the situation. She wasn't handing this to anyone before she'd had everything examined in peace and quiet.

"Otherwise, I advise we get back to our stations and blast away before the rain starts anew and drowns us all."

Not that it looked like there was more rain coming. But it would have put a neat finishing touch to Sinsario's swabbing.

Penn found the flag she wanted. She folded it so she could carry it in one hand and propped herself up on the highest point of the wreck. As she jumped off to her ship, Penn set the wreck on fire. Even as the first drops of rain landed, the fire burned on, incinerating any evidence of the ship's presence. "We should probably find a better place to discuss this," Penn told the people on Beatrice's ship. As she put away the flag in the storage room where here casimir tree sit, she opened the hatch to the cabin and dropped some of Sinsario's scavenged corpses in. "I have a feeling that this rain is going to be pouring... hard. I really don't want to linger here any longer." As the last of the corpses were dropped in, Penn dropped into the cabin herself to properly stow away the corpses.

Tonight was gonna be a stormy night, for sure.

Kestrel shouted back, jumping over the rail onto her own ship.

"I know an inn not too far from here. Great food and no one who's going to interrupt us or overhear. They've got docks, too. You can follow me when you're ready."

Kestrel climbed up to the ship's wheel. Quieter, she called out to the lookout.

"Jennell, keep an eye for anything at all. I don't want to be taken by surprise."

Kestrel settled herself, leaning on the railing and watching the other ships for signs of movement. Aurelia came to lean beside her.

"I've explained things to the crew. They're ready for action, though they don't know why we've gotten them involved." She looked at Kestrel pointedly.

"I'll explain later," Kestrel glared. Aurelia shrugged delicately and entered the cabin.

Kestrel grinned.

"Oh, interesting is definitely the word. Add my crew into the mix, and you might even get intriguing. You'll see them at supper, if they behave themselves. 10 clicks North North-west. You'll see a small town half carved out of a mountain. It's quiet, but it's used to visitors and won't ask questions."

Kestrel glanced at Penn's hologram with a touch of envy. Her maps were archaic in comparison. That said, if her hologram didn't have a tavern as good as the Skygull programmed in, it wasn't worth that much anyways. Kestrel took the wheel and lifted the ship out of the canyon. The other ships followed after a couple of minutes, leaving the canyon empty.

Or, almost empty.

As Beatrice pulled out, there was a movement on the bottom of the hull. A hoverboard detached itself and drifted into an alcove in the canyon wall. Akiralta pulled off her wig and switched it for another, reaching for the address in her pocket. Time to report to her employer. She peered out at the empty canyon and started slowly making her way towards civilization.

No one seemed to notice.

The Hawk's engines coughed a bit in the sudden change of pressure, but the ship remained steady on the Skygull's trail. Beatrice awarded herself with a rather large sip of her cheap brandy; she was quite pleased with having left that forsaken piece of canyon behind. The rain irked her a bit, though, partly because it would possibly rid the place of anything she may have missed the chance to spot, and partly because she could barely see anything. Piece of junk windscreen.

She grumbled an "Affirmative" in response to Kestrel's directions and then leaned back against the wall of her tiny cabin with one hand resting casually on the control panel. Over all, life was actually pretty good for a brief while; her deck was cleaned, she was still alive, had her brandy, and no one seemed to be acting all too hostile towards her. She grinned slyly while beginning to hum a catchy and exaggeratedly pirate-inspired song to herself.