“Aye, this be makin’ us a foine haven.”

Haven my ass, this is my ship.

I fuckin’ honked and all fifteen of the swashbucklers landed on their asses. Also, Princess Eagle—no shit, that’s her name, but her second name’s Sam, so let’s just go with Sam now—and that fancy Oreo dragon dude went up in the air and spread his wings.

Looked pretty awesome, honestly.

“The fock be this?!”

The lady’s got stilts for legs—no, really, those legs’re too long—and she stands up and waves the longest finger she’s got at Sam.

Oreo ain’t impressed.

Went and blew up the galleon—carrack? Fuck do I know—and roared in what I could only assume to be dragon for “Fuck ya ‘tard, thinkin’ ya can diss me an’ m’lady like that?”

So yeah. That was it. That was our first “cross-branch operation”—pfsh, yeah, sounds like I got something stuck up my rudder.

The pirates got lined up along the starboard side, right on top of the bits and pieces of what was their ship.

“Ye’ll pay fer that.” Captain’s pissy.

Sam’s pissier and grabs the captain’s face. Oof. Oreo’s face is scrunching up. No, no! Don’t do that to her! Rest in pieces, I guess…

***

So anyway, the hazing continued for a week, and now I’ve got me a motley-submissive pirate crew. I just barely managed to convince Sam to keep ’em—like, man, she was boutta execute ’em on the spot, y’know? Man, this feels like asking mom if I could keep a kitten I found or someshit…

Apparently, the ex-captain’s name is Scrue. Apparently, they were in the middle of running away from the Japanese Navy. Yeeeah.

I don’t think the Japanese’ll miss ’em, though, ’specially if I gang-pressed them into service heh. We haven’t bumped into them, either, so I guess it’ll be a problem when it becomes a problem.

In other news, I gave the princess the A-O.K. Looks like I’ll be servin’ my country again—legally-speaking, Merika still considers anyone born in Merika to be Merikan, and I was technically born there, so… Guess I’m Merikan, huh.

I mean, I’m a fuckin’ aircraft carrier. It just ain’t possible to live a normal life. What’s a normal life for an aircraft carrier, anyway? So yeah, I’m gonna make it my life’s mission to do a world cruise and kick ass doing it—well, aircraft carriers don’t really fight, so… I’ll just enjoy the fireworks, I guess.

We’ll be headin’ east over what I could only imagine to be the Pacific. Depending on the waves, it won’t take us a few weeks to get to the Merikan west coast.

Meanwhile, I thought up a bunch of stuff. I was thinking that if the pirates’re gonna be useless, it’s gonna look pretty bad, so I was thinking of putting them on a couple of RHIBs and be my little assault squad.

Each one’s pretty fast and has got a minigun on it, but I ain’t givin’ it to ’em if they’re just gonna spray and pray. Well, if I can’t get ’em up to speed with the miniguns in time, I guess it’ll be fine if they could just pilot ’em? Man, imagine them just popping off muskets as they speed past ya at 30 knots. Surreal.

I’ve got some of my work cut out for me, coz the pirates actually do use muskets, so it won’t be a big leap from “gun” to “very fast gun”. I even got one of the nicer kids to teach Sam how to use a musket. That way, I hoped to finally open up one of the armories and give people some spicier options.

“I fail to see the utility.”

Sam’s words are just heartbreaking, okay?

Picture it: “warrior princess with an assault rifle”—I wanna see that, too!

{But why not?!}

" ‘Why’ you say—magic is that much more powerful, you know? Guns are for ships, forts, and pirates and peasants with little education."

Ahh, so it’s not as if they didn’t have ’em. Wait, really? Magic’s more powerful? No, I mean, yeah, you can’t shoot down a dragon with a handgun, and I’ve seen Sam shoot off a bunch of fireballs from the deck as a demo. Each one’s got the punch of a hand grenade, but with none of the “3.5 seconds, plus or minus one second” fuze timing B.S.

I don’t think they’ve seen nukes, but magic is magic, I guess.

In other news, Sam’s been getting better at understanding me. Thank god I don’t have to communicate with Rumba routines anymore—well, most of the time.

***

So, one of the nicer kids from the pirates’s been poking around lately. This is the same kid I got to teach Sam about muskets. I think he’s like, 14 years old or something. Not sure how he ended up with them, but I guess it’s just really like that.

I got deployed near Africa at some point, workin’ deck maintenance on a destroyer. We got hit by RPGs from a speed boat once, but ’course, ’Merica steamrolls the day. We ended up fishing the pirates out of the water—coz ’Merica human rightses the day—and a bunch of them were kids, just like this one.

Hey, you know, come to think of it, why’re these guys in English? Pretty sure it ain’t some funky translation shit, coz Sam understands ’em fine. Pretty sure the Pacific’s got like 500+ languages and only one of ’em’s English.

Oh, wait, here it is. The kid’s found the firing range.

Now, normally, I wouldn’t be forking over service M-4’s to 14-year-olds—the folks back home would argue about that, but I’ve got my own standards, ’kay?—but this kid? I’ve got an exception for this kid.

He’s sneakin’ around like a detective, but looking closely, he’s actually surprisingly really careful around things. See? He doesn’t fuckin’ push random red buttons like a certain dragon.

Alright, let’s get the ball rolling.

I parade in a bunch of Rumbas. The pirates and royals are all used to them, so the kid’s just half-surprised. The Rumbas look kinda cute, anyway, so he watches them trudge along.

Then I open one of the gun racks. A Rumba nudges against the rifle on it, and it tips over and falls on a row of other Rumbas. I get the Rumba train to chug along and deliver the rifle to the kid.

Yeah, I’ve gotten ridiculously good at using Rumbas.

{Behold ye repeatin’ musket.}

The kid’s spooked by my PA announcement, and I’m fucking crying.

Oh, did I mention? Kid’s a good shot, and he’s got a good sense of where his buddies are. In a way, he’s probably the safest guy to give this to. I’m planning on making him train the other pirates. Later on, they should be able to pilot a RHIB as well, but I think I’ll get Scrue to do that one.

I’m also pretty sure even a rain of 5-56 can’t touch Sam or Oreo, so my officers should be fine in case Scrue decides to mutiny with her newfound assault powers. Fuck around and find out? Ain’t gonna be my problem, lady.

Now, sadly, an M-4 might have been too high of a hurdle for the kid.

It’s been half an hour and he’s ony figured out how the fire selector works. I’ve been hearing clicks the whole time, and I’m pretty sure he’s also frustrated because this is obviously a gun, but it’s not shooting. Unfortunately, he hasn’t figured out that bullets needed to go into the magazine first, and then the magazine went into the gun, and then you needed to unfuck the charging handle and—y’know what, it’s surprisingly complicated.

I—guess I’ll get one of my staff officers down here to translate for me.

***

Sam managed to convey what I wanted to say, but a whole lot of it was just her pointing at random parts of the rifle and I’d just say {Higher.} {Lower.} {That’s not a bullet! That doesn’t go there!}

The kid figured it out pretty quickly, and guess what! Sam’s pretty fuckin’ terrified!

“T-that’s a fast musket.”

I pop three targets up at the end of the range, and the kid just downs them all in quick, semi-automatic succession. Those are some mad shooting skills at 50 yards and 14 years old, the heck.

“T-that’s a terrifying talent.”

A part of me wants to make this kid a gunnery instructor. Hmm, yes, I can see it. This kid on a heavy machine gun. Ah, no, I can put him in the fire mission control station and have him manage the railguns and missiles, too.

Wait, wait, no, he’s just a kid.

… But what if.

“Great Holy Island, what is your intention?”

Hm? I’m not sure if the CCTV in the firing range is shit. I can’t tell if she’s afraid or just suspicious.

{Hey now, I’m not sure if you know, but I’m an aircraft carrier.}

“Air-craft… carrier?”

{Yeah, yeah, so I can’t do fighting on my own, okay? I actually need people, like you and Oreo, and even the pirates.}

“Hmph, these criminals? What more power do you need than a rider and her knight?”

{Something sounded weird there, but—marines, I need marines!}

“… Wuh?!” Sam knelt. I think she thinks that she offended me or something. “Forgive me, Great Holy Island, but truly, it is demonstrated that our powers make marines unnecessary. As such, they are only deployed by peasantine armies with little in the way of magic and dragons.”

{Uh-huh.}

“If there were magicians and dragon knights involved, no marine would even be able to board our ships or make landings on our soil. The oceans will roil, and the very earth will be torn asunder before they take our freedom!”

{Huh, so everything’s just fuckin’ solved when there’s artillery and air support, huh? Man, that’s so American…}

" ‘American’? So it is true—you are truly an ancient and wise being!"

Huh, so they know the word, huh? I got a boring-ass narration about the history of the Dragon Kingdom of Merika a while back, but they really sounded like a fantasy rehash of the America I know.

For fuck’s sake, corporations are still alive and kicking, even.

{A-anyway, there’s only one of you and Oreo, so if you’re away, these freeloaders are gonna be useless, y’know?}

“Indeed, even criminals must earn their pay… I understand. I apologize for having doubted you.”

{Dude, seriously, just chill.}

“P-please, no, not the winter room!”

Wait, no—gah, damn it, fine. They’ll understand me properly only when I say it like this.

{… Please retire to your quarters.}

“R-right away!”

Aaand she left.

Ah yes, the Japanese Navy are on the radar. Looks like they’re in trouble.