A brutal fantasy tale of piracy, friendship, romance and revenge on the high seas…

The trip took some three weeks, and when Mary returned to Retiro she left Isabella safely aboard the Pig and went looking for Jack. She found him pacing his own deck like a caged animal and obviously torn between laughter and berserker fury.
Unspoken communication got them to the same dining room where One-Eye Sam had lost his last throw of the dice. Once they had food and wine Mary squinted into his face. “Where’s Gravel?”
“Asleep on his perch. In my cabin. He guards it. Him and Gobshite. And they hate each other.”
“How many?”
“How many what?”
Mary looked at him steadily.
He had the grace to look a bit ashamed. “A baker’s dozen. Not counting Sam. Mostly they seem to have lost interest now. The word has got out that I ain’t easy to kill.”
“No. But somebody is gonna get lucky if’n you don’t do something about this mad Spaniard and his gold.”
“I have an idea, but I was waiting until you come home to run it past you.”
Mary leaned forward. “Tell me.”
“After we have eaten. Somewhere more private.”
She blushed miserably. “Sorry Jack. I wasn’t thinking.”
He took her hand. “Don’t be sorry. It’s good to see you.”
She looked at their hands on the stained tablecloth and her blush deepened. Only this time it wasn’t misery causing her skin to flush. Jack squeezed her fingers before picking up his spoon.
The ‘conversation’ in the room was at its usual just short of eardrum bursting volume, so the sudden cessation of noise came as a shock. Someone mighty interesting must have walked into the place. Jack had his back to the door and he was damned if he’d give whoever the satisfaction of turning around and gaping. Instead he looked at Mary, whose face wore a shuttered look very different from the easy smile of a few seconds before. Before he had chance to ask what the problem was, someone broke into the unreal quietude.
It was a woman who spoke, and she possessed the kind of voice that melts the breeches of the unwary.
“I’m looking for Tall Jack Stainless,” she breathed.
Jack applied himself to his food, and, opposite him, Mary relaxed a little.
One of a crowd of hangers-on, who occupied a rickety table in the corner, leaned over and tugged Jack’s sleeve.
“Pssst, Jack.” The stage whisper was loud enough to alert the whole room. “Jack. You might want to look at the lady what is axing about you. It’s a sight for sore eyes.”
Jack turned around slowly, and met the gaze of the green-eyed temptress who stood in the lamplight with her golden hair gleaming. He looked for about ten seconds before turning back to his dinner. The sound of footsteps behind him had him loosening his hook-bladed knife in its loop on his belt.
“Jack. Jack. Why won’t you look at me?”
He turned and looked, stony faced. The woman essayed a smile. Jack didn’t react. She hissed.
“What’s the matter with you? You one of them that likes little boys?”
Jack laughed, then deliberately turned his back once more. Behind him the beauty hissed. Jack mentally counted to ten, then turned quick as a thought. He grabbed the woman’s narrow wrist and squeezed just enough to make her drop the knife she held. One of the hangers-on bent to retrieve it.
“Don’t touch that,” Jack barked, “it’ll be poisoned.” The loafer leapt back with a white face and staring eyes.
The blonde woman played what was normally her trump card. Allowing her eyes to fill with tears she spoke in a broken little voice. “You’re hurting me. Please let me go.”
In any other company there would have been a stampede of foolish young men coming to her aid. But this wasn’t any other company, it was a room full of pirates, and the man who held her wrist in an iron grip was Tall Jack Stainless, so nobody moved.

Jane Jago

There will be more from Bony Mary and her crew next week…

See how the light falls
Stripes on the ground
Beneath us the mosses
Muffle all sound
And we run like children
Forgetting our days
As silence and sunshine
Tempts us to play
On the bosom of summer
When tender leaves cling
When grasses grow verdant
And small brown birds sing
See how the light falls
Kind as a kiss
And we thank whoever
For moments like this

©jj 2021

You can listen to this being read on YouTube.

When Cargo Freighter Zulu/973 found it, the sleek little flitter was floating aimlessly in space, sort of halfway between the mining belt at Beta#32 and the transport station that orbited Jupiter II. It was much more elegant and aerodynamic looking than the ugly cargo hauler that nudged it with an armoured loading claw. The claw poked a bit more firmly and it drifted, with no more sense of direction than any of the other bits of space junk the traders had amassed on their journey.
“Seems dead.” Captain Clearwater remarked to nobody in particular. “Let’s have a look then.”
His communications officer turned the cargo hauler’s docking camera to face the wreck. She seemed to be in going on for perfect condition – clean and shiny and with some sort of earthside oriental script scrawled across her slightly flared bow.
“Get Leah up here.”
Somebody scrambled. Clearwater wasn’t a man to be kept waiting. Leah Su arrived promptly. She was as poised and unruffled as ever, but her bulky escort was red-faced and sweating.
“Su reporting for duty, sir.”
“You’re the nearest thing to a linguist we have hereabouts. Can you read the writing on that ship?”
“More or less, sir. It says something like ‘sea of stars’. Very roughly. I guess it is the name of the vessel.”
“Probably is. Can you see an identifier?”
“No sir.”
“Me neither. And I reckon that makes it fair game. Whatever spoilt rich boy lost his toy out here, I’m thinking finders keepers. Even if nobody has put a bounty on her, she should fetch a few bob for salvage. I’m going over to have a look. Take the con Su.”
Clearwater may have been greedy and even unprincipled, but he wasn’t fool enough to go and inspect a possible salvage vessel on his own. He gathered up a sizeable force, and broke out the blasters.
In the end, there were a dozen space stevedores, wearing their exoskeleton work suits, in the airlock, along with the captain, his first officer and the ship’s metallurgist. The inside door sealed and they put on their helmets before Su began pumping out the air. It took a good ten minutes before it was safe to open the big doors into the blackness of space.
As the doors slowly slid back into their pockets in the hull, Clearwater straddled a jet scoot and headed for the flitter. First officer Ganges clutched the sissy bar behind his captain’s ample backside, and the rest formed a chain behind Ganges clipped together by lanyards attached to their tool belts. It wasn’t the most comfortable way to travel. But it wasted the least energy and Christopher Clearwater abhorred waste. Particularly if he was paying for whatever was being wasted.
The jet scoot gently nudged against the silent craft. Clearwater’s voice rasped in the ears of his party.
“Anybody have any idea how we get in?” Then. “Let’s at least look for a door before we break out the cutting gear.”
Nobody moved or spoke. Before the captain had chance to get properly irritated, Leah Su broke the silence. “Our docking camera view shows a touch plate about two metres to your right.”
Clearwater grunted and edged that way. He slapped a large gauntleted palm against the shiny ochre-coloured plate. To everyone’s surprise, the three leaves of an oddly shaped and almost invisible portal slid silkily apart. Clearwater engaged the electro-vacuum parking brake and effectively suckered the scoot to the side of the flitter. He climbed carefully off his seat and made his way hand over hand to the open portal with his crew following him.
Inside the portal was the expected airlock although the controls were rather closer to the ground than would be normal.
“You. Gamble. Stay with the scoot. The rest of you get away from the door. I’m going to try and operate this airlock.”
Being known as a bad-tempered bastard with heavy fists gets you obeyed speedily, so Clearwater didn’t even bother to look around before crouching by the control panel.
“Pictograms,” he grunted, “that’s handy.”
He touched one and the outer door closed tidily. A second button had air being pumped into the chamber.
First Officer Ganges fiddled with his meters and gauges. “Seems breathable, sir. A bit heavy on the oxygen but nothing problematic.”
“Okay. But we keep helmets on until we are inside. Officer Su. Can you hear me?”
There was no response.
“Gamble. Do you copy?”
“Sir.”
“Right. Open a channel to Su on the mother ship. I’m gonna be using you as a bounce station.”
“Done, sir.”
“You got me now, Su?”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay.” He turned his attention to the boarding party. “Right you lot. Blasters out. And stay alert. Opening inner doors now.”
Back on the cargo hauler the bridge crew heard a gentle hiss.
“We’re in. Seems deserted. Air is breathable if a bit oxygen heavy. We are removing helmets.”
The sound of heavy booted feet and muttered conversation went in for several minutes before the captain spoke again.
“This is a rum old vessel. Everything is of the most modern and the very highest spec. But it seems to have been built for dwarves. And not very bright ones of them. Every control has a pictogram. Makes it easy for us, though. I reckon I can manoeuvre this baby alongside you and dock her. Standby docking grabs.”
“Aye, aye sir.”
“Closing door and pumping out airlock.”
The next sound the bridge crew heard was a wet gurgling groan followed by what sounded like something heavy hitting a hard floor. Followed by silence. As Su frantically toggled the comms button the flitter disappeared. One second she was there, the next gone. For an instant there was an eye-wateringly bright bluish outline on the blackness of space, then even that was no more. Su knuckled her eyes.
“What the frag?”
“Continuum Drive maybe?”
“Too fast even for that…”
The helmswoman kept the levelest head of them all. “Some odd sort of drive sir. Pushed us three parsecs.”
“You sure helm?”
“I’m sure. My gauges are going apeshit.”
“How long to get us back?”
“About two days sir.”
“Gamble’s a dead man then.”
“Not necessarily, sir.” It was the comms officer who spoke in a very shaky voice. “Look out of our starboard window.”
A figure in a spacesuit floated just outside the metre-thick plexiglas waving its arms frantically.
“Fetch him in,” Su said, “let’s see if he knows any more than we do.”
He didn’t. So there seemed no point in going back to where the flitter had been. Instead, Su was elected Captain and life went on much as before – if with less enthusiasm for ‘salvage’.

On a barren lump of rock on the other side of a foreign galaxy there was unbridled joy among the arouraios kin. Those whose bones had been close to coming through their skin were now fed, and the freezers held enough sustenance to carry the whole colony through at least two turns of the mother planet. Captain Skrzzt looked at his mate and smiled to see the gleam returning to her dark fur and the sparkle of fun illuminating her eyes.
Not only was the colony saved, the big bipeds also had surprisingly tender sweet flesh and the idea of another raid into their space was already being mooted.
Skrzzt ordered his ship to be camouflaged with a wrap of dull-coloured polymer while he chose a crew from the hundreds who volunteered.
The last thing he did before turning his trusty ship back towards the areas travelled by the food creatures was to require the name to be painted on the bow.
The Marea Celestia winked out of the sky above her home asteroid…

© jane jago

The Good Ship Sea of Stars

You can listen to this on YouTube.

There are some books one remembers distinctly from childhood because of the immense impact they had at the time on the developing individual. I have memories of A Wizard of Earthsea bound up in blood and trauma.

I was gifted the tome by some long forgotten maiden aunt of my pater’s who had included a hand scripted note saying how she thought the cover looked like it was ‘a good book for a little boy’. I should probably add that said maiden great-aunt was profoundly immersed in art deco, dadaism and surrealism. Left to myself I would not have opened the thing and would have slipped it into the bag of items Mumsie always kept for The Less Fortunate and shipped out to a charity shop once full.

But Pater had other plans. It seemed I was required not only to write a loquacious and sycophantic thank you letter to said maiden great-aunt, it was also required that I first read the wretched thing and pass comment upon how profoundly it had moved my innocent young soul. In other words, a review.

From the wisdom and experience of adulthood, I can look back fondly on my child-self and laugh at my puerile folly in thinking this was some show of esteem and affection for his aunt from my father. As I recall the inheritance netted him enough to double his investments overnight.

I still have the review, which I wrote with a cartridge pen on the back page of the book and in the process inflicted a paper-cut on my innocent childish fingers. My first ever.

The Review.

A boy called Dunny, or Sparrowhawk or Ged is good at magic and goes to a kind of Hogwarts on an island. There he learns magic and gets in a fight with the school bully. He loses his shadow and he and his best friend have to find it again. 

It was a very annoying book because the boy could have won by using the magic stone but for some reason decided not to.

Stars: One and a half. 

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Classic songs for the festive season, cheerfully and irreverently reimagined for you by the Working Title Blog…

(To be sung with feeling to the tune of ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful‘)

I can’t get a taxi and my feet are freezing
Nobody wants to help a girlie in the rain
Come and assist me
You could even kiss me

Oh someone take me home please
Before my tits they do freeze
Before I widdle on my knees
It’s only half past ten

Stood at the bus stop both feet in a puddle
Nobody knows if there’s a bus tonight or when
Come and assist me
You could even kiss me

Oh someone take me home please
Before my tits they do freeze
Before I widdle on my knees
It’s only half past ten

My coat is soaked through, ditto both my best shoes
And there’s a weirdo in a very dirty mac
Come and assist me
You could even kiss me

Oh someone take me home please
Before my tits they do freeze
Before I widdle on my knees
I’ll ne’er come out again

You can listen to this being read on YouTube.

It was still dark when the tiny clock in the wall beside Ig’s face bleeped. He wished he could ignore it, but he knew from bitter experience that he had five minutes maximum to be out of bed and dressed or face the consequences.
“Lights on fifty percent.”
Light filled his cell making him blink owlishly. If that was fifty percent, he was a sewer rat, but at least the fragging lights had come on.
He rolled out of bed and turned on the tap in his chipped wash basin. Good. There was water, and it was even warm. Ig briskly sluiced his hands and face before scrambling into his clothes.
He was just adjusting the braces on his coverall when the door banged open with so much force that it bounced off the wall. One of the new intake of sergeants stood in the doorway eyeing him suspiciously. The man’s hard little eyes roamed the cell looking for violations. Ig stood wooden-faced and quiet, looking at a point somewhere between the sergeant’s red face and the twin belts of rank that held up a big, jutting belly. The non-com stalked away, allowing Ig to join the queue for the latrines.
Our hero’s day went downhill from there. The breakfast oatmeal was garnished with burnt bits, and then he found himself under the command of a new intake corporal. It wasn’t good. Corporal Legolas had about as much idea of guard detail as Ig had of the world above ground. First of all they had almost left without the gas rats in their cage, and then the man had attempted to stroke one of the Wardens. Okay, Wardens looked like dogs, he’d give the corporal that much, but not knowing the difference had cost more than one man a hand or arm. Finally he wanted his men to march into the fragging tunnels. Ig got the distinct impression that the explanation of harmonics and echoes had passed over the man’s head, but once the Guard Captain made it a direct order they were okay. Or as okay as a detail under the command of a complete greenhorn was ever going to be.
The attack came as they were almost at the tunnel exit. Twenty or so humanoids rose from their place of concealment among a jumbled pile of rocks. Ig and his companions drew their battle sticks and began the methodical process of beating their assailants about the heads and shoulders to force them back from whence they came. Then Legolas panicked and started shooting – he had a sidearm in either hand and he just let rip. The men in his detail cursed pungently and threw themselves to the ground.
A while later, guard detail AlphaZero exited the tunnel dragging the body of their corporal behind them. He was so full of holes as to resemble one of cookie’s colanders. Ig poked the body with one booted foot.
“Ricochet,” he grunted.

© jane jago

Classic songs for the festive season, cheerfully and irreverently reimagined for you by the Working Title Blog…

(To be sung cheerily and heartily to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells‘)

Dashing through the snow
In a very dangerous way
Oe’r the road I go, sliding all the way
Horns in cars all sound
Give me such a fright
Oh why did I come out to do
My Christmas shop tonight?

Oh bloody hell, shopping smells
And the town’s gone mad
It’s no fun to try and run
When there’s no gifts to be had.
(Repeat)

First I tried for toys,
Gifts for girls and boys,
All were too expensive
And made a lot of noise
So I thought of treats
Stuff them up with sweets
But then I past the dentists
And thought about their teeth.

Oh bloody hell, shopping smells
And the town’s gone mad
It’s no fun to try and run
When there’s no gifts to be had.
(Repeat)

So what can I get
In the slush and wet?
Tonight is my last try
To find some gifts to buy
Oh, I’m giving up
This is just too hard
They can all have gift tokens
Shoved in a stoopid card!

Oh bloody hell, shopping smells
And the town’s gone mad
It’s no fun to try and run
When there’s no gifts to be had.
(Repeat)

Listen in to Tall Tale TV for the whole story

The spirits of the woodland felt the pain of their holy places dwindling under the assault of the human machines, but they were patient beings who bided their time and watched. They saw the rise of the arrogant ones with their fat bellies and careless cruelty, and they also foresaw the fall from grace engendered by such greed and stupidity.

Knowing that the end game was afoot and with the feeling in their souls that their children had a part to play in the plans of Mother Earth, they sent one of their own precious young ones to the place where the wealthiest of the humans raised their own younglings. Flora cast down her eyes and did as the spirits commanded, even knowing her own chance of motherhood was taken from her by the needs of of the forest beneath her feet.

She was ‘welcomed’ at the place and given the dirtiest and most menial of tasks to do. Working only for her bed and board she became the most trusted of all those whose destiny was to care for the young whose parents found those tasks beneath their greatness. She was a quiet creature, but one who listened and understood more than the untroubled brown eyes ever showed. She heard the pontifications of the ‘doctors’ and the priests as the fertility of the human race fell away. She kept her face calm when the silverbacks in their expensive suits declared this to be a punishment of god on women who no longer knew their place. She smiled inwardly when the scientists explained that this could not be the case, citing the deformity of the male seed as the primary cause. But she could not hold back the tears of  pity when the soldiers came and took the foremost scientist of all from his office in the nursery. They burned that venerable old man alive, and his screams sounded to Flora like the first death cries of the human race. 

Some days, when she looked at the innocent younglings in her care and she saw how sickly they were becoming, she cursed those who sent her to witness the end. Of course, she didn’t live long enough to see the game through (even forest folk do not live that long), and when she became too old to work her place was taken by a sturdy youngster with broad shoulders and a plain face. The humans named this person Bessie – thinking Salicis Arbore far too fanciful a name for a servant. 

Bessie wasn’t as amenable as Flora and the humans feared her a little so that when she announced that she was taking Flora home to die nobody argued. Only the oldest among the matrons even daring to ask if she would return. 

“I will. If you will get out of my way now.”

Jane Jago

Classic songs for the festive season, cheerfully and irreverently reimagined for you by the Working Title Blog…

(To be sung brightly and enthusiastically to the tune of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town‘)

We’re having a dance, right down the street
Feeling like we, got wings on our feet
Secret Santa’s coming to town

We’ve been to the pound shop, got us some shite
Wrapped it up shiny, giggled all night
Secret Santa’s coming to town

Everything we purchased inappropriate and silly
From socks with individual toes to a tiny dancing willy

We’re hiding our smiles, keeping our face
Inside we’re proud to be a disgrace
Secret Santa’s coming to town

We’re waiting for the boss man to open his big box
He’s gonna get an awful shock, coz he’ll be expecting socks

We’re having a dance, right down the street
Feeling like we got wings on our feet
Secret Santa’s coming to town