Breaking Fast
By Zath Chauvert

Chapter Two: The End of the Beginning

"Sparrow!" Gillette shot to his feet. The girl tumbled out of his lap. It was only reflex, not concern, that caused him to catch her mere inches before she hit the floor. He hauled her to her feet, not even realizing that he had done anything until she relaxed in his arms and resumed her previous attempts at unbuttoning his waistcoat. Even then, he barely noticed.

"Yes, Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate extraordinaire," Groves said. "Mr. Trently said he recognized him from that failed attempt at hanging him way back when. How exactly is it possible that you didn't hear any of this the first time that we went through it?" Gillette didn't respond. He probably didn't even register the fact that Groves had made a comment at all, because at that moment he was too busy mentally running through all the possibilities that unfolded themselves at the mention of the pirate's name.

As Gillette himself had said not too many moments earlier, the past few months had been extremely boring for the British Royal Navy. Somehow, England had fallen into a condition of being at peace with Holland, France, and Spain, all at the same time. Everyone knew that such a state of affairs couldn't possibly last for very long. It was only a matter of time before someone decided to declare war again. But in the meantime, without any of their traditional maritime rivals to fight, the Navy was left feeling rather useless, especially in the Caribbean. For as long as the peace endured, there was little for the small Port Royal fleet to do but sail in circles around Jamaica at irregular intervals to make sure that all was well along the island's coasts.

Sparrow's presence changed everything. If Sparrow was in Port Royal, then his ship couldn't be very far away. The Black Pearl was most definitely not the last real pirate threat in the Caribbean, regardless of whatever claims Sparrow might try to make to the contrary, but it was still quite definitely a pirate ship. It was a very fast and very grand pirate ship, and it was probably worth a fortune. In these times of peace, Spanish, Dutch, and French ships were all considered to be friends, making pirate ships the last legitimate source of prize money. Part of Gillette's mind instantly became occupied with calculating what a lieutenant's share in such a prize might be.

The rest of Gillette's mind was busy planning the best way to go about capturing the pirate vessel. The Black Pearl seemed to be able to outrun anything afloat, but if put in a position where running wasn't an option, the Dauntless could take her. With Sparrow ashore, the Pearl was probably holed up in one of the many small hidden coves that lined the rocky shores nearby. Once they found which cove was serving as the Pearl's anchorage, they would simply need to block the entrance and wait for the pirates to surrender. The Pearl might be a great ship in her way, but she wasn't a first-rate ship of the line. With the Dauntless carrying at least double, if not triple, the number of guns that the Pearl had, at most they would need to fire a broadside or two. Victory was almost assured if they moved quickly enough. All that was required was being able to locate the pirate ship before it slipped away, back into open waters again.

The action would be just the thing that was needed to raise the morale of a crew that had been left idle for far too long. Gillette could feel his own morale improving already. And maybe, just maybe, if someone put a few well-chosen words in the proper ears, the Admiralty would buy the Black Pearl and put it into service instead of selling it off to some merchant. Then, they could delay Sparrow's execution long enough for the man to see his former ship being used to hunt pirates. Gillette thought that it would be the perfect revenge for the humiliation he and his fellow officers had suffered when Sparrow had first captured the Dauntless and then used it as bait in order to escape with the Interceptor, and he was sure that Commodore Norrington would agree with him. James never said anything about the incident, but Gillette knew that it rankled him even more deeply than it did Gillette himself. At the smallest allusion to the ill-smelling rogue, the typically calm and collected Norrington would immediately tense, turn an alarming shade of red, and change the subject as quickly as politeness would allow. The problem had gotten to the point that everyone, even the usually oblivious types like Governor Swann, avoided touching on the topic for fear of it having detrimental effects on the Commodore's health. Maybe, Gillette thought, once the pirate was dead James would finally...

Gillette's long reverie came to an abrupt end as his brain suddenly yanked his thoughts back to the present so quickly that it felt almost like a physical blow. "We have to tell the Commodore about this!" he exclaimed.

"It's an amazing coincidence," Groves said blandly, "but Mr. Trently was saying the exact same thing not ten minutes ago." Theodore was hiding his mouth behind the blond woman's curly head, but even without being able to see it, Gillette knew exactly what sort of smile it was trying to twitch itself into against the will of its owner. "And I may be wrong, but I think he's saying it again, even as we speak." Groves motioned towards the other side of the room with a jerk of his head. Gillette followed his gaze and saw that Trently appeared to be in the midst of haranguing Mr. O'Keefe and Mr. Blackthorne, a pair of junior midshipmen whose combined ages did not yet total thirty years. The Flying Manatee was the public house of choice for Port Royal's Naval and Marine officers, but on that particular night the two boys were the only persons of military rank that Mr. Trently could turn to other than the lieutenants with whom he had just parted company not long before.

Gillette sighed. "I suppose you're going to tell me that I should apologize to the man." Lieutenant Arthur Gillette was an officer of many talents. He could whip green landsmen into a well-trained gun crew in days. He could recite the entire text of the Articles of War in three and a half minutes. He could go more then fifty-six hours without sleeping. He was good with numbers and was excellent at solving anagrams. He could fight the undead with only a moderate loss of composure. Unfortunately, he was absolute rubbish at making apologies.

"It would be the proper thing to do."

"It would be proper for me to apologize or proper for you to tell me to apologize?"

"You're stalling. Go on, engage the enemy and glory will be yours!"

Gillette rolled his eyes. "He is not the enemy!"

"Then there's nothing to worry about, is there?" Groves said with a grin. He gulped down the last of his punch and stood up, taking much more care of his female friends than Gillette had. "Look," he added, "you're wasting time. If you can't tell the man that you're sorry, you can at least thank him. Then we can move on to more important things, like seeing some action before we all die of boredom."

"Thank him? What do you mean 'thank him'?"

Now it was Groves's turn to roll his eyes. "I mean that you just walk over to the nice farmer and say, 'Oh thank you, sir, for finding a pirate for me to chase. This is the best thing that's happened to me in months.'"

If looks could kill, in that moment Gillette would have earned himself an arrest and court martial for murder. Fortunately for Groves, Gillette was neither a gorgon nor a basilisk, so the flustered lieutenant was only able to gape at his overly merry friend for a long moment before beating an angry retreat that was unintentionally identical to the earlier departure of the man he needed to apologize to. Gillette's giggling admirer, who had once again attached herself to his body in a most unseemly manner, went with him. He was one step away from declaring her a parasite (which would have meant that the Dauntless's surgeon would have been allowed to remove her with a lancet) when she finally made herself useful. Her persistent groping, which had previously been so distracting, suddenly provided him with the inspiration that he needed to deal with the farmer. It was an odd way to find a Muse, but it allowed Gillette to forego the verbal stumbling, the fishing for words, that he always suffered from on the rare occasions that he was forced to apologize to anyone who wasn't a superior officer.

So great was his inspiration that when he finally reached Mr. Trently, instead of suffering from the awkwardness he usually felt in such situations, his words came tumbling out one after another in a veritable torrent. Without a single pause for breath, he proclaimed, "My dear sir, it has been brought to my attention that I was unforgivably brusque with you just now, and for that I must offer my most sincere apologies. I deeply regret my behavior. We shall be looking into your problem immediately. In the meantime, please allow me to make restitution by presenting you with this buxom young lady. May the two of you have a long and happy life together." With that, he thrust the girl into Trently's arms and disappeared out the door before either the man or the woman could open their mouths to reply.