Stephanie Rabig - Sink or swim : the search for Aveline

Captain Harriet "Harry" Roberts and her daring crew have many adventures involving dangerous mermaids, stolen sisters, voiceless sirens, and various love affairs whilst clashing with the wicked Wrath Drew, captain of The Charon. Climb aboard, and enjoy this series of interconnected stories about the good-hearted, diverse, (and rather lusty) crew of The Sappho.

Sink or Swim

The Search for Aveline

By Stephanie Rabig and Angie Bee

Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by Emilia Vane

Cover designed by Natasha Snow

This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

First Edition March 2017

Copyright 2016 by Stephanie Rabig, Angie Bee

Printed in the United States of America

Digital ISBN 9781620049204

Print ISBN 9781620049211

To all of the ladies left out of the history books. We know you were there, even if others ignored or forgot you.

They always said Captain Harry Roberts had the Devil's luck.

As a curtain of rain doused the rigging and sails, the only illumination intermittent forks of lightning, Harry wondered if perhaps that luck had finally hit its limits. The ship tossed and bucked like an unbroken stallionthe wild to-and-fro-ing would have sent a lesser seaman careening over the railing. But the captain pushed forward doggedly, hand tight around the sea-slick wood.

"What's the status?" Harry screamed over the tempest, voice crying out between crashes of thunder.

"The hole aft is getting bigger, Cap!" the first mate reported, usual sangfroid cracking. If asked before today, Harry would've said it'd be a frozen day in hell before Jo's steel of self-control would so much as bend; now the captain was half-tempted to check the tropical waves for icecaps. "The bilges are half-full and the level's only rising. If we don't find the eye of this storm or a harbor soon"

The rest of the words were lost in an apocalyptic crack. The questing lightning had finally struck something solid: one of the three masts. There was a terrible, pungent scent of ozone and ruined wood, a chorus of screams from the crew in the adjacent rigging still trying to secure the now-useless sails, and then the top third of the splintered mast gave way to gravity and fell. Jo threw an arm around the captain's waist and dove to the side only a moment before the timber cracked the boards they had been standing upon.

"Captain!" shouted the steerswoman over the chaos. "Captain, I see a cove ahead!"

"Aim true, Agnessa!" Harry ordered, standing and helping Jo upright.

"Aye, Captain!" The thin arms strained with the wheel, hauling the listing craft to the east. If it had been anyone but Agnessa standing there, Harry might have worried. But the steerswoman's slight frame belied a whipcord strength and a diamond-hard resolve. Lashed to the tiller with knotted rope, feet planted as if she was rooted there, Agnessa stared straight ahead through the storm. When she was focused on her job, she never paid the slightest attention to anything else.

Harry Roberts was not superstitious. While other pirates carried talismans and steered clear of so-called cursed wrecks and paid soothsayers outrageous sums to foretell the luck of raids, Harry listened only to the wind and the waves. Harry understood the sea and knew its dangers, and refused to pay any attention to omens and signs.

"Look!" shouted a voice from a crow's nest. "Did you see it?"

"See what?" came the rejoinder down on the tilting deck.

"Just off the bowa giant tail! Something is leading us into the cove! A sea serpent!"

"You're seeing things, Mad! There are no serpents in these waters!"

"I swear, Cap! I saw it! It's good luck, it is! We're being guided to safety!"

"And you've been hitting the rum again! You're imagining things, or seeing jetsam stirred up by the storm!" Harry caught at a swinging rope and hauled hard to pull up a sagging sailcloth. "I swear to Ol' Jones himself, Jo, that when we get through this and shipshape again, I'm tearing out Wrath's liver with my own two hands."

"As well you should, Cap," replied the first mate, once again outwardly unruffled as the ship scraped past an outcropping of coral that would have sunk a craft with a less deft steersman.

"To think, I saved that cur's life!" Harry ducked as a chill wave doused them. "Twice! I should've let the noose have him!"

"Turning his cannons on us was utterly uncalled for," agreed Jo.

"Guess we're sorta lucky this squall blew up," said Harry as Agnessa spun the wheel sharply, missing a half-submerged wreck that had clearly fallen victim to the treacherous reef they were now navigating. "Bloody hell, remind me to give that woman a kiss when we weigh anchor. She's got us dancing through this muck like it's a bleeding waltz."

"I'll just take a couple of those eagle egg rubies you've been hoarding, Captain," called the steerswoman. "You can save your kisses for someone you actually want to kiss."

"Good God, woman, how did you hear that over this roaring?"

"Your voice sort of carries, Captain."

"She has a point," said Jo. "And I believe the storm is abating."

A ragged cheer rang out as the black clouds roiling like oil overhead began to dissipate, and weak, gray sunlight started shining through the drizzling rain. Almost immediately, a rainbow cut across the sky, arching triumphantly over a beach that couldn't have been a more welcoming sight. The driftwood-dotted strip of sand would no doubt be golden when dry. The sagging palm trees looked to be heavily weighted with coconuts. Andby far the most lovely of sightsa clear stream trickled down from a volcanic hill, lush with greenery, spilling over the black rocks and soaked beach into a small, misting waterfall.

"Weigh anchor, if it's still attached," shouted Harry. "Take stock of provisions and the state of the hold. Jo, I need a headcount immediately. Agnessa, three of those rubies are yours, m'girl. Not even Davy Jones could've sailed through that reef in such weather. You're a credit to us."

"Just doing my job, Captain."

"Both lifeboats still accounted for?"

"They are, Cap," called Mad Maddie, sliding down a rope to land with monkey-like agility beside Harry. "I volunteer for the landing party!"

"Of course you do," Harry smiled, pulling off a paisley-patterned headscarf and mercilessly wringing it dry. Next to be doffed was a leather coat made three times heavier with water, which was draped over a patch of railing. The boots felt half-full with brine, but there'd be time to empty them on shore.

Then Harry undid her long blonde hair from its salt-encrusted braid and threw back her head to laugh. "We made it through Wrath Drew's cannon fire, a typhoon, and the very teeth of the Devil! I'd like to see another crew manage so much in a day! Excellent work, beauties!"

Just beneath the waterfall, submerged to the nose, he watched the bustle on the ship...

And waited.

*~*~*

"I got the feeling we're being watched," Mad Maddie said quietly, an ominous edge to her voice.

"Mad, what the hell did I tell you?" Harry snapped.