You have taken the bridge of the freighter Amber Dawn. The marine fire team is KIA and the rigger/decker crew has been sent to Davie Jones in a blaze of .50 cal. fire by Cotter, your boat rigger. Heavy rain is reducing visibility and drenching the decks. The seas are rough, moving even the 30,000 ton freighter hull unpleasantly. The 100 mile ride out here in Cotter’s little boat was … suboptimal. Good thing Cotter had all those motion sickness pills, Or you would’ve been spraying those Marines with your lunch instead of lead and grenades.

Perses’s TacCom sends out a notification: according to the download, you are supposed to head back to Tacoma and the ship shed after running due south for another 15 minutes.

It also pings a warning: another vessel is approaching at high-speed, it looks like an old tramp steamer, the kind that have been plying third world trade routes for almost 2 centuries. But this one is packed to the gunwale’s with rain sodden orks, armed to the tusks. And it appears to have multiple weapon mounts including at least one light cannon mounted forward. The Tower’s camera can barely make out a flag snapping in the wind. Two red…eyes?faces?skulls? Over a metal mouth? No.. that’s a sword, curved like a smile.

Kalix, one of Lughaidh’s bound spirits, manifests before Perses. “The master says they are right on time. You will need to run before them for a little bit then let them board you, and squawk a distress call that you have been boarded by Pirates-heading due south. Then clean your decks and head back to the barn. Got it? Good.” The little smoking imp disappears back into the aether.

Back at the Tower in Redmond, “Well, apprentice? Have you had enough nicotine? How is the catalogue coming? Kalix tells me that your compatriot, Perses has boarded the freighter with several new ‘hires.’ Now we shall see whether they can hold it against this ‘Captain Blood.’”

“Captain Blud Tusk, Master” the Butler corrects.

“Whatever his nom de guerre, we want him to take the blame, but not the ship. What do you think Apprentice? Can they make that happen?”