After a week of following the faint trail of the ship that left the pirate haven, we finally caught up with it. Or at least where it stopped. It was another pirate city but it appeared a massive battle had taken place.

Buildings were nothing more than burned-out husks and bodies were strewn about everywhere. It was rather easy to tell what had happened as the remains of broken slave collars were lying about everywhere. The exception to this was the non-combatant slaves. It seems the former pirate slaves didn’t look too kindly on them. Using them as practice dummies, taking turns defiling their bodies, or simply hacking them to pieces while leaving their collars intact, making it impossible for them to fight back.

I just shook my head at the wanton slaughter that occurred here. Nobody was going to miss the dead pirates but I doubted this was the sort of revolution the optimistic freed slaves had in mind.

Seeing as there was nothing left worth taking as the former pirate slaves had ransacked anything of value, we left the island and began trying to track them again.

It was much easier since we were now tracking three ships instead of the one. Left to fester and grow, this new menace would not stop at attacking pirate hideouts.

It took another three days to catch up and by that time the three ships had grown to five. Where the other two ships had come from, I wasn’t sure. But it was more than I was comfortable taking on. If they were smaller ships I wouldn’t hesitate but each one was a large warship with the smallest being the original ship from the liberated island.

“Whadya wanna do, captain?” Khikall asked.

“What are our odds?”

“Fifty-fifty. Probably less. If these were still slave-run ships I would give us better odds but now these men have a reason to fight and they won’t go down easy.”

I nodded, knowing his evaluation was probably pretty accurate, although I would give us a bit better odds, they still weren’t great. All it would take is one of the enemy ships ramming us and even the Retribution’s tough shield would collapse under the strain.

“We need to warn the Protectorate and the Federation about this new threat. Perhaps they will take it seriously enough to send a fleet out to deal with it.”

Khikall nodded, turning the ship away from our pursuit and toward a civilized port that may be able to help.

***

Chani was sporting a wide cruel grin on his face as he peeled a section of skin from one of the captains of the new captured pirate ships, with a short curved blade that was rather dull. A sharp blade would have made the work quicker and easier but he wanted his target to suffer. Suffer like how he had suffered for years under multiple pirate captains. His work earned him the nickname ‘The Executioner’ from his new crew. He chuckled, he liked the name. He had never earned a nickname as a faceless killer when he lived on the Isle of Gorsh. A time he still looked back on with fondness.

It had been quite easy to get them to come alongside using the pirates' own tricks against them. A combination of flags meant you wished to trade. Sure the pirates were reasonably skeptical as all men of their nature were but he quickly slipped a few of his men among their enslaved crew and began releasing them. After that, it was easy to subdue the few remaining ‘pirates’ using them as test subjects for his ministrations.

The surviving pirates were shackled so couldn’t fight back but still, each death was more than enough to grant him a level from these stronger pirates. He had gone from level fourteen to level eighteen in a matter of days. And the captain here was his final masterpiece and he was savoring every last moment before taking the man’s life and hopefully bumping himself up to level nineteen.

Who would have thought that Chani, a street urchin turned killer would end up as a pirate captain with a fleet of five ships. His luck had turned when those idiots on that island freed him and strung his former captain up. Oh, how he wanted to stay amongst the sheep and slaughter to his heart's content but this was soo much better. Those people had been weak and the thrill of hunting them down and killing them out of sight couldn’t compare to having a rapt and enduring audience as he had now.

The thought sent a shiver of excitement down his spine and his loins throbbed in excitement. He would sate himself with the last surviving member of that stupid island. She wasn’t much to look at, but a warm hole was a warm hole.

Already his fleet of ships was heading to their next target. The anticipation of more bodies to express his talents on was palpable. With one last flourish, he detached the former captain’s lower jaw, eliciting a burble of pain. With his arm he reached down the gagging man’s throat and gave a mighty tug, yanking organs out through the man’s mouth.

Chani basked in the glow of admiration as his victim shook and shuttered, slow to die thanks to the healing potion Chani used on him. But potions had their limitations and eventually, the man’s body would give in and the final shutter would bring Chani to near ecstasy.

***

We stopped at the first port we found and reported what we had uncovered to the dockmaster, who seemed less than interested in pirates killing other pirates. The laissez-faire attitude of the dockmaster irked me. Did he not care at all? I guess not. Not even Barcos could cajole the man into taking our account seriously, not that he tried all that hard. It didn’t help that the dockmaster was well aware of who we were and the fact that Barcos was persona non grata and just short of having a bounty on his head for his actions at the Legion shipyard.

Somehow the rest of us skated by but it probably meant we wouldn’t be receiving any assistance from the local government.

“I doubt we will find a sympathetic ear,” Barcos shrugged after the dockmaster wandered off. “You would have been better off keeping those men and women as slaves.”

I glared at the man as he gave an unrepentant shrug and headed back to the ship. I was mad, but it wasn’t directed towards him, at least not all of it. It was my stupid fault we were in this mess. But with my past, I just couldn’t do that. Killing them sure, that I could do but using them as slaves, no.

I had to draw the line somewhere, even if it was just a hair above rock bottom.

“Any suggestions?” I asked the other two.

“I have one, but you’re probably not going to like it,” Em’ah replied. I motioned for her to continue. “If we leak that a new pirate group is trying to displace one of the kings’ they should step in and deal with the problem themselves. It will mean more pirate activity in the area but the issue of our feral former pirate slaves should be dealt with quickly.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Then let them rape and pillage until someone in the government gets off their ass and deals with it themselves.”

“Em’ah’s right, captain, while you may have set the spark, you didn’t add tinder to this wildfire. It may actually work in our favor.”

I quirked an eyebrow at Khikall’s response, “how so?”

“Well, captain Grulaine has obviously gone into hiding, otherwise we would have heard of attacks by him, even this far from his hunting grounds. If the entire province is thrown into upheaval, he may just risk surfacing to take advantage of the situation to line his own pockets some more. We only need to be ready for when he does.”

With Khikall’s quiet demeanor, I sometimes forgot he was a crafty former pirate captain. His reasoning was sound. And while I found it distasteful to allow a mistake I set in motion snowball, if the legal protectors of the area couldn’t be compelled to help out, who was I to step in and do their job for them.

“Fine, but I think if we are going to take this approach we might as well go all in.” I retrieved another handful of the deactivation tags and handed them to Em’ah, who looked like I was handing her a pile of wet shit. “I think you can figure out what to do with those?”

“You really don’t give two shits if the Protectorate comes down on us for this do you?” she asked in reply.

“Nope. Fuck them, you have two hours, then we are out of here.”

“I don’t like slavery any more than the next person, but this is insanity,” she muttered quietly as she hurried away, vanishing in the crowd.

“You’ve a kind heart,” Khikall chuckled.

I rolled my eyes, “knock it off with that shit, we need to be ready to go before everything goes to hell around here.”

With a curt nod and a rueful smile, Khikall jogged back down the dock toward the Retribution.

I stayed for a minute contemplating what I had just set in motion. I wasn’t second-guessing my decision to give slaves their freedom, just the way it had to be done. Being the hero for once would have been nice but this had to be done so nobody could trace it back to us. I had enough enemies and no powerful backers if what I started came to light.

Even if I didn’t add these tokens, it was already too late to put the cat back in the bag of this slave uprising. So instead of letting it smolder for months or years, it was time to add fuel and see just how hot it burned. People and slaves would die but that was sometimes the price of freedom. The masters had only themselves to blame for this predicament.

With one last look at the quiet bustling town, I turned and headed for my ship. I ran out of compassion and caring for these people after being assaulted, sold out, and ignored. It’s no wonder the Federation and the Protectorate were so opposed to each other. At least the attitude of the Federation citizens was based on cultural identity. What was the Protectorate's excuse for being douchebags and asshats at every turn?

Power grew complacency I guess. Well, no matter. Once we riled up the pirates and locals enough, I’m sure my target would finally expose himself, then we could take him down and I would move on from this area. Playing avenging captain was fun and all but the longer I stayed, the more I was getting dragged into the fetid whirlpool of local politics. It was something I wanted to avoid at all costs.