Insistent Assistant 13 (Patreon)

Insistent Assistant

Chapter 13

-VB-

Jack looked out into the horizon with his spyglass. He was on the lookout for land that they were supposed to be sighting within a day or two.

Even as he kept his focus on the horizon, Jack couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease.

See, he was still Jack but a small part of him was also Thorkell. Though the latter had no more direct impact on the former or even their true whole, its memory and actions still stuck with them in their memory and in the memories of others.

Most significantly, Thorkell was the better of the two between himself and Jack in the mind of their master, Alan.

It stung a bit, but he, Jack Sparrow, was used to disappointments.

Still, he was teaching his master well. Already, Alan was on his way to mastering navigation and did fairly well as a sailor. His swordsmanship was still something that had to be improved upon, but Jack never claimed to be a swordmaster himself.

What Jack worried about was whether or not Alan had the will needed to be a leader in the wider seas. See, it was one thing for a man to be a sailor and follow the orders of someone else. Pirates, especially, had less qualm about this because if the captain was a piece of shit, then you can always run away at the next port stop.

Alan, though, didn’t seem to be the kind of man who could lead.

In Jack’s eyes, Alan was better off as a simple gate guard or something like that. Someone who didn’t care about the world and would do much better just hanging out with his family and friends. He knew for a fact that Alan led exactly that kind of life before he was dropped here; that was part of the information the Assistant got.

Being a captain in this kind of world required … Well, Jack supposed that Alan had plenty of guts. He was certainly capable of fighting. He was capable of leading, but there in lay the actual question: how long could Alan lead before the stress and pain of leading got to him?

Alan was by no means a psychopath or sociopath. He cared deeply about the people around him, if only because there were only a few such people. No, the problem would come once he gained enough friends who partook in this adventure. Eventually, he will see one of them die. He will do things that is a must but distance him from his family and friends.

Weak on the inside and tough on the outside. The world could condemn him and he would scoff. The moment his family condemns him, he would go crawling and beg for forgiveness.

Or so jack had surmised up to this point.

Things could definitely change. Oh, Jack knew that for a certain.

There were more than a few Assistants who would be more than happy to turn Alan into a evil caricature of himself. They would sing sweet nothings of faulty logic. If Jack had to make one up on the spot, then it would be something like - oh, he didn’t know - it’s easier to protect one’s family when all of the enemies were burning and dead.

Something distasteful like that.

He paused after swiveling his head around and sighted land.

“Land ho!”

The crew and Alan below hurried to see, not that they could.

But before he could give out instruction on which direction to move toward, he spotted something else.

It was another ship heading directly for them.

And it had a tattered flag.

Yeah, there was no way that was a legitimate flag or not a pirate.

“Pirates!”

Jack felt Alan’s attention through their link. “How big?!” Alan shouted.

“It’s a brig at the very least!”

See, this world’s idea of ships was weird. There were galleons that were too big to be called even grand galleons. There were some so small that they could be nothing more than a coastal fishing boat but apparently were used to cross entire islands?

The logic of sailing, navigation, and the like was different here. Just a little, but that little difference was hampering Alan’s education.

So when he said brig, he was using the Old World term for it. A brig was a ship that normally had around fifty sailors onboard. A merchant brig, the one like Alan’s here, required less crew, but it was much more sluggish than the war brig up ahead.

Worse, Alan’s ship had few cannons and definitely no veteran gunners.

Jack looked down and met Alan’s eyes.

There was only one way to fight this, and that was to let the pirates board.

“We’ll sail for the land, but we’re laden with cargo, captain!” Jack shouted. “We’ll have to act like we’re trying to run but let them onboard!”

“I know,” he replied. “Fifty men? I can easily take them on.”

“A-Are you sure about that, captain?” one of the crewmen asked.

Jack ignored the rest of the talks below and looked back up.

Sheesh, that boat’s fast.

Jack wondered if he could take over that ship. After all, he wouldn’t be Jack Sparrow without a Black Pearl to his name.

Besides, it wouldn’t be too hard to keep two ships running at the same time, right?

Right.