Despair and Ecstasy

“This says that the largest junks were burned by the Chinese at the fall of the last emperor.” Gennie read the description as they made way across the deck of Despair.

“This is not a large one.” De Xavier kept watch on the junk’s movements. He gathered his awe behind a dismissive guise. “She’s not small, but I would have liked to see larger.” 

“You cannot deny she is a catch.” Gennie hugged the book to her chest as she gazed out at the distant vessel. “Oui, mais cette plus la. She is one of the larger sizes listed. Count the masts.” 

“Five?” DeXavier counted through the scope of his spyglass.

“That makes her at least a hundred and sixty-five feet.” Gennie’s smile cut a wicked gash across her youthful features. “A sea monster. Magnifique.”

DeXavier side-eyed from ship to Gennie imbibing the young woman’s enthusiasm. “Beautiful.” 

“Oui. The hull is flat, she rides more on the water than in it.” Gennie demonstrated with her hand over the book. “But the sails are astounding, and so simple I don’t know why no one else has adopted the style.”

“Oh?” DeXavier’s pride in his galleon was wounded.

“Do you see? They are not billowing. While Despair’s are full.” Gennie indicated the sails in turn.

DeXavier had noticed, but thought little of it. A ship could pull her sails tight or let them fill. 

“They are made.” Gennie paused to consider the description. “More like a lady’s fan, sparred. And they rotate.” She paused for the meaning to settle. 

DeXavier lowered his gaze to the page in Gennie’s hand. “She can move in any direction, no matter the wind. And she is fast.” 

Gennie knew this would get the captain’s attention. A galleon was a grand ship, steady, powerful, but slow. A fast ship could be a threatening enemy. Or well suited ally.

“But this is the piece that struck me, rather us.” Gennie turned the pages of the book. “Through science or magic, powder and propulsion, these eastern emperors of the sea have engineered a cannon capable of firing along above the surface of the water. A weapon capable of tearing clean through a vessel at the most vulnerable point. The range of the cannon has been tested, with complete success, at distances as large as four hundred feet.” Gennie looked out over the water. “I would say that was quite a bit further in our case, oui captain?”

DeXavier all but tore the book from Gennie’s hands. “God bless it.”

“De Xavier, you saw what it did at that distance. What do you think a closer range would have done to Despair?”

“You are asking us to move against an impossible enemy.” DeXavier gauged the woman’s features. 

“Not impossible.” Gennie reclaimed the book without hesitation. “Here.” She pointed. “It says the cannon takes effort to load and reload.” 

“She has had plenty of time since the last shot.” DeXavier argued.

“But not the next one.” Gennie pressed the plot between her lips.

It was in this expression DeXavier worried what else he had not seen in the young woman’s skill and purposes. The imp before him was no navigator. Even the lost Lenore had not seen the girl’s real assets though her lineage should have been considered. 

“Why did I not make you First Mate, Cinta?” He breathed the salt air as if taking in the woman and the whole of the ocean for the first time. “Your father would have been proud. Had you been a son.”

The statement startled the wickedness from Gennie’s face. “Desole?”

DeXavier laughed the severity of the conversation aside. “God bless it though you try, you have no head for maps or direction. I worry you’ll lose yourself on the ship. But you think like a pirate.” The captain rested a coarse hand on the young woman’s cheek. Gennie leaned away. “No. You’re no navigator, nor even a first mate. The way your mind works is that of a captain.” 

Gennie digested the words and averted her eyes. Something more would come of the acquisition of a ship. She cleared her thoughts and her throat.

“The design of the junk, even, if her cannons are on her nose, is still a wider target than a galleon. And the flat deck sits lower in the water compared to a galleon.” Gennie and DeXavier had returned their attention full to the book and it’s images of their prey. “Chain shot will knock the deck crew into havoc. It is not the vessel we are out to disperse, but her keepers. Once they are decimated we will not board like brigands.”

DeXavier’s brow curved in consternation.  

“We march like soldiers.” Gennie explained. “The decks are a field. If our crew holds formation, it will push the remaining crew into the sea. We will turn the ship into a giant plank for them to walk.”

“I confess, it is a bit scary, the way you think, Cinta.” DeXavier looked again at the book. “This is your plan, and your prize. Despair is your weapon. Serve her well.” 

Gennie’s eyes fell wide as she caught the captain’s meaning.

“Talena!” DeXavier called his first mate to explain.

“You are giving her command?” The woman glared at Gennie. “She could ruin us all. Send us to the bottom of the sea!”

“You are the finest first mate a captain could ask for, Talena. As you would do for me, do for Cinta. She will be a general of sorts, and only for a short time.” He leaned in to Talena, his hands on her shoulders. “Besides, you will be rid of her success or failure.” DeXavier turned from the women. “But she will not fail.”

Gennie and Talena pondered who the captain spoke of as he strode away, his hand on the rail of his Despair.

“Despair!” DeXavier bellowed as the din of preparations swarmed over the decks.

The crew stilled, eyes to their captain looming from the deck rails, red coat snapping in the wind. 

“I have reason to believe our young navigator has a sound mind for battle.” Over his shoulder he turned to Gennie. “Cinta, Blackstrap, Gennie, has a plan to capture the junk that dared fire upon us. Serve her well and we all share the prize she aims to claim!” 

A silence followed long enough to send an uneasy rumble through Gennie. It was not wholly settled by the resounding “Aye!” that boomed from the decks. 

The war cry was deafened as hands beat cannon barrels, oars and belaying pins beat decks and rails and a whooping arose that carried to unseat the ease of the junk crew. 

Gennie was terrified. 

“They believe in you. For now.” DeXavier set a hand on Gennie’s shoulder. “Now claim that piece of junk, and leave my ship in one piece. Understood?” 

Gennie nodded over the crew awaiting her orders. “Take this boat around. We are going to play a little game of chicken.” 

DeXavier laughed. 

“The face of a junk is wide. A galleon has a narrow fore.” Gennie laid out the plans on a table at the helm. “The water cannons are here and here.” She set her a finger on either side of the face of the junk. “They take time to load, light, and fire. Longer than a deck nine. If we stay our course the worst we can expect is two shots, one far left the other right. With enough speed our wake should push them away.”

“With enough speed.” Talena interjected. “Straight into the mouth of a sea monster.” 

Gennie leveled with the woman. “It will work. We will feel a shudder, like before. Nother more. It may rock the ship. Richie says Despair can do it.” 

Both women turned on the gunner. “Aye, Mistress!” Richie saluted. 

“You say that with too much ease, Richie.” DeXavier’s brows fell. 

Richie bowed and swung from the top rail to the deck below.

“We must be certain Despair’s guns and supplies are secure.” Gennie called after the man. “We don’t want chaos on our decks to mirror that which we cause on the junk.”

“DeXavier will man the swivel guns.”

“My pleasure, Cinta, err Captain.” 

“Bien. Chain shot will do for this part of the attack.” Gennie did not allow herself a pause to embrace the sound of her name with the title. 

She would not allow herself to be flattered by DeXavier’s faith in her. “There is one flaw I am still puzzling.” 

“Excuse me?” Talena all but growled.

“Stopping.” Gennie’s eyes were hard on the charts laid out before her, in part in study, as well as to evade the glare of the first mate. “It is not my aim to destroy either vessel.” Gennie assured the table. “But if Despair is to have enough speed to wake the cannons askew.

“The issue will be slowing enough not to bore the junk in two.” Talena sighed away her glare. “De Xavier trusts you. So I trust you.”

“On this, I’m not sure I trust me.” Gennie’s own sigh sent shudder to the soles of her feet. 

Talena rested what Gennie took for a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Instead the woman’s grip taloned to match the fierce grin on Talena’s lips. “Sink my home and I’ll kill you. For now focus. Explain this formation again.” 

Gennie knew Despair was more than a ship. “The phalanx,” Gennie cleared her head of dark thoughts. “Used in the days of the great empires.”

“Skip the history lesson.” Talena’s jaw relaxed. “This is a plan for land. How do you suppose it would work at sea?”

Gennie swallowed her uncertainty. “What is a ship, but a floating piece of land, and if these designs are true, a junk is one very flat piece of land. As long as no man steps out of line the wall will work. Keep your orders simple, front lines always pressing forward. We will run them off of their own battleground.”

Talena eyed the weathered paper. “Aye.” 

Despair was slow to speed, but once momentum took effect and the wind filled her sails, faith billowed. 

“Captain!” The call came from the crow’s nest.

DeXavier looked to Gennie with a pride that had not ebbed since the seed of her plan. Beneath permission to respond something else bubbled, though Gennie dared not name it. She took her eyes to the boy in the nest. “What see you!”

“Snakes like fire! Riding the water’s surface!”

“What side?” Gennie pressed between the crowd to the bow of the ship.

“Both! Starboard closing faster!” 

Unfazed, Gennie called to the helm. “Ease to port thirty, non, twenty degrees. We will wake the first and stay clear of the second.” To the crew she bellowed. “Prepare for impact!” 

Holding to all they could, the crew of Despair prepared to be shaken as before. 

As planned, the first glittering serpent slammed away in the wake of the galleon. The cylinder hissed the length of the ship before releasing an explosive spray and bubble from below. The dome of the bubble rocked Despair and her crew but sent only one unfortunate soul to the sea. 

“Press into it. We cannot forget the other side.” Gennie barely completed her order when a second cylinder hissed into the wake. 

This one, tossed by the increased wake, flipped through the surface in a vibrant display. Exploding sparks peppered the deck, sailors, clothes, and hair caught fire.

Even as crew scrambled to dowse one another Gennie’s focus honed. “To the guns!” She was certain they were within range. 

Chain shot erupted from the pair of swivel mounted cannons. The ball and chains whipped the air as they made for their target.

They were close enough to hear screams from the junk and the splintering of wood and bone as the centermost mast shattered like a vase.

The pain in Gennie’s eyes followed the ripple of the silken sails. A feat of masterful engineering, split to toppling. The marvel twisted into the sea, taking with it a swathe of devastated crew. 

They were moving too fast. 

“Drag anchor!” Her order cut through the chaos and destruction like a roar of thunder. 

She wanted to shutter her eyes to the impending crush of two beautiful ships tearing one another apart. She kept weather eye instead. A good captain would not look away. 

“Drag anchor!” The groan of wood on wood twisted Gennie’s gut.

The cracking of foremasts snapped like a knight’s lance against one another. 

Even as the masts crashed upon the deck of the junk, Gennie gave her order. “Formation! Forward!” 

Her command was echoed by Talena followed by a wild cry as Despair spilled onto the junk.

The junk crew fell under bullet and blade into the sea. Gennie’s ears rang. Her muscles throbbed in time with breath and beating heart. The cloy of blood, and steel, and powder clung to her shoulders, her hair, her soul. 

With heart alive at the thrill of the hunt, Gennie watched her crew cast over limp bodies and chum to the sea. DeXavier might have been at her side a moment or a month before his words drew Gennie back to the small body her soul called home.

“Her name is Mei Hei Feng. It’s etched on her hull, just behind the eyes. She’ll need work before she’s seaworthy again. Despair put a few dents in her.” 

In the dying light, Gennie took in the ravaged beauty of the ship, her ship. “Her name is Ecstasy. And her captain is Blackstrap.” 

And this is where her story begins.