“That could have gone better,” Khikall said as I reentered the command room.

“Yeah, but I got the captain so it all worked out. Any idea why only three pirates tried to board the Retribution, I can’t imagine we incapacitated the rest of crew,” I said, running my hand through my sweaty hair after I put my helmet away.

“The rest were probably slaves,” Khikall replied offhandedly.

I froze, the bile rising in my throat as I realized I just damned a ship full of slaves to a watery grave. I had to grip the edge of my chair to remain standing. Khikall didn’t seem to notice my distress as his seat was farther ahead in the room.

I didn’t know these slaves but just the thought of people being in a similar position as I had been not more than a year ago was sickening.

“Khikall, how many of these pirates use slave crews?”

I don’t know if it was the tone of my voice or something else, but Khikall turned to look at me, I could feel an underlying tenseness to his actions.

“I take it you do not approve of slavery?”

“No, no I do not,” I growled.

He paused to consider my words before replying. “You were a slave?”

“…”

He nodded, “very well, I will not pry. You should be aware that slavery is quite common in the Isles. The travel is dangerous and few are willing to risk their lives when they can send a few trusted people and a boatload of slaves to do the work cheaply. The Guild is especially keen on using this approach.”

“How do you know this if you have never been aboard one of their ships?” I asked.

“It is an open secret. Hard for them to hide it when they are the largest purchaser of slaves in the Isles.”

“And what about Jerboa ships?” I demanded, my anger beginning to slip out.

Khikall tensed, preparing to leap free of the chair at a moment's notice if I lost it.

“Any Jerboa that follows custom would never be caught dead using slaves. The stain would be tantamount to giving up your entire life's worth of achievements and replacing them with black rings.”

I relaxed slightly and Khikall relaxed as well. I didn’t miss the fact that he didn’t say no Jerboa followed this practice. But I would revisit the issue later.

“So, most pirates are also slavers,” I stated.

He shrugged, “perhaps, perhaps not. Slaves may be cheap but they are not effective fighters. Any pirate captain of renown will have a full crew of non-slaves, it's what makes them so dangerous.”

I had to agree with his statement, After being a slave myself and fighting against other slaves, we did our bare minimum to not die or get punished. I did have a fleeting thought of leading a slave revolt on the isles but quickly shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind. I didn’t have the time, resources, or inclination to save a bunch of people I didn’t know. The best I could give them was a quick and painless death.

“Fine, I don’t want to talk any more about this at the moment. Let's go hunting and see if we can find another pirate to take down.”

Khikall nodded curtly and eased himself back in the flight seat. I sat down and strapped back in.

***

It took three more days of hunting around to locate another pirate and I was only made aware of this fact when Khikall hissed and jerked the Retribution to a stop, backing us into a small cove even though we were invisible.

“What's up?”

“It’s a pirate flotilla,” he said and pointed toward a larger island to the east.

I looked at where he was pointing and used the weapon's targeting to zoom in. There I saw three vessels moored to the island. I didn’t recognize the flag from the wanted posters but it was obvious Khikall did.

“Who are they?”

“They are part of Chiman’s crew,” the Jerboa said quietly, never taking his eyes from the three ships.

While I didn’t recognize the flag, I did remember the name. It was one of the largest pirate crews in the Isles.

“Any idea what they are doing here?”

“Nothing good, they usually skulk around the central isles, going after large convoy merchants.”

“I’m guessing by your reaction that we wouldn’t be able to take them?”

“… no, those three ships are each twice as powerful as Grulaine’s and they would be fully crewed by hardened pirates. We are lucky we weren’t spotted.”

“Good to know, but now what do we do?” I asked.

“Wait until they leave, we may be able to outrun them if we have to but I wouldn’t bet on it. Those ships are likely to have fast attack craft aboard, whose only goal would be to hamper our escape while the slower ships catch up.”

So wait we did, two more agonizingly slow days. There was finally a change on the second day when another ship approached from the thinning mists.

“Another pirate?” Khikall asked, looking confused.

“So, not normal?” I interjected.

“No. And it's troubling.”

We were too far away to see much but the fourth ship pulled up near the other three and someone got off. A line of others followed, carrying large crates. It seemed like they were transferring cargo to the other pirates but for what reason I wasn’t certain.

Khikall seemed to know as he chittered in displeasure. “A tribute. Chiman must be trying to expand his territory in this direction.”

“What about that fourth ship?”

“Another local small fry.”

I nodded, “Ok. If they separate, let's follow the new pirate. We can take them down once we are well away from big brother.”

Khikall looked like he wanted to argue against that but eventually, he nodded, “yes, Captain.”

It was a few hours after the solo ship left when the other three ships also left.

By this time the mist was nothing more than a light haze in the air. If it wasn’t for that, we may have lost sight of our target. As soon as the other three ships were far enough away that pursuit wasn’t possible, we pulled out from our little hiding spot and made full speed toward our target.

We remained invisible the entire time, Khikall not trusting to just our speed to avoid a fight with the larger ships.

I just shrugged and let him do what he wanted, as long as it got us to our goal.

It only took an hour for us to get our target back in sight. It appeared that they weren’t in any hurry to leave the area. The pirate ship was another dirigible type ship but instead of having a large balloon strapped to the top, it had large bags tied to the lower sides of the vessel, kind of like floaties.

“What's with the smaller balloons?” I asked.

“It’s probably a hybrid craft, part dirigible with some sort of wind enchantment to help it stay aloft. Cheaper than going for a fully enchanted ship but also more expensive to run.”

“How so?” I asked in confusion.

“This ship runs on mana hearts, correct?” Khikall asked in return.

“Yeah.”

“Well, theirs do as well. Eventually, the mana will break down the crystals and they will need to be replaced.”

I was really confused by this explanation as I hadn’t seen any indication that any of my mana heart-powered devices were breaking down.

“… Um how long does this usually take?”

Khikall shrugged, “months, maybe years. Depends on how often they have to be refilled.”

Great, another thing I would need to keep an eye on.

“There are rumors that the enchanters guild purposefully builds their enchantments to cause this but I wouldn’t utter that where one of them could overhear you,” he added.

Well, I wouldn’t put it past those greedy fucks. But I could test this theory easily enough when we had some downtime. I had plenty of those cheap mana generators. The Retribution didn’t need them as I had powered all the systems through the main mana heart. I mainly kept them around for emergencies.

“I will keep that in mind,” I said, “With this new ship, I want you to try something,” I added with a smile.

***

The lookout lazed around on the upper deck in boredom. The captain had made the entire crew offload their spoils to that greedy prick Chiman’s crews. He didn’t see why they had to pay tribute to a Pirate Lord that didn’t even operate near these islands. The lookout was caught up in his thoughts and failed to spot the small vessel that was approaching. It wasn’t until it shimmered at the edge of his vision that he sat up and took notice.

He launched to his feet and sounded the alarm but it was too late. The ship slammed into the side of their vessel and the lookout was thrown off the deck and into the open air. His scream was lost amongst dozens more as their ship nearly split in half.

***

When I had originally built the Retribution, I thought it may be a possibility that I would have to ram something, so the bow of the ship was triple-reinforced titanium with a tungsten tip. When I told Khikall of my plan he looked dubious but acquiesced. Now the Jerboa had a smile on his face. I could understand why.

Our ramming attack had cleaved through the enemy shield and punched through their wooden hull with little resistance, nearly splitting the vessel in half. This was only made possible by the thin wooden structure of the airships. If this ship had been designed like an ocean-going vessel, with a thick wooden hull, I doubt we would have done nearly as much damage.

While they were shielded and enchanted that was only against magical attacks. Nobody used normal weapons when you had magical cannonballs that could do significantly more damage.

At least I hadn’t seen anyone use them so far apart from the Black Dragon, and they were significantly weaker against a shielded target.

I quickly boarded the enemy vessel and took care to slaughter any surviving crew I came into contact with. There was no sign of the captain aboard, so I figured they had either abandoned ship or fell through the large rent in the hull. I shrugged, not caring one way or another, and grabbed the flag from the ship.

A few slaves came up to me and tried to beg me to take them with me but I ignored their protests. They were free and the ship was still afloat, so they could make it to an island. Besides I didn’t have the room or resources for that many people. I may have also been angry at the fact that they couldn’t free themselves from their enslavement. Not rational, I know but it's how I felt when I saw them.

Not all of the slaves were happy to hear my answer and some tried to rush me or board the Retribution. I didn’t hesitate to take care of those troublemakers. One last thing I did before leaving was steal every single cannon from the ship. No point leaving them behind to be used against me when we left.

You might think what I did was heartless but I had learned a bit more about these pirate slaves from Khikall before I committed to this plan. While the Avuilian Protectorate allowed slaves, they had to be tried for a crime. That crime could be as simple as owing money and failing to pay or as heinous as murder. But what pirate would employ a debtor in their crew when they could employ a killer instead.

That’s not to say some didn’t employ lesser criminals. But surviving slaves were often just shuffled onto another pirate ship and any innocence they once held had long since been burned out of them. You could see it in the cold calculating gazes in the remaining slaves' eyes.

None of the survivors tried to stop me as I took anything of value from the ship. I jumped back aboard the Retribution and used my strength to push off the other ship, separating us again. I gave a one-finger salute and made my way back inside.

“I can understand your reticence on using slaves but you could have easily sold them at the next port,” Khikall said.

“I could, but then they would quickly rejoin another crew and continue the cycle of piracy. This way they may survive, and someone may rescue them, only to sell them off later but at least it will take longer for them to become a problem again,” I replied, plopping into my seat.

“Fair enough, where to next?”

“Let’s find a port, I want to sell the cannons and claim the two bounties.”

Khikall paused in thought. “There is a smaller port about a day's flight from here. It shouldn’t have as many pirate spies as the larger ports.”

I nodded, That was another thing Khikall had educated me on. Every port had spies, some more than others. It was why the Retribution had been sold out so quickly after I arrived.