Greybeard's Gambit (part 1)

image generated with help from LeonardoAI

THWACK! The cold steel of Greybeard's hammer slammed into the head of the final nail of The Coffin. The Coffin was the last ship of the fleet that Greybeard has so meticulously planned to build and it had taken many months to reach this point. Beads of perspiritive glass rolled down his aged leathery cheeks. "It's time," he said out loud in a raspy voice.

Greybeard had felt the bitter sting of betrayal in his latter years, and his recent foray into the life of an outlaw was propelled into being by will of the betrayer. Once a privateer for Queen and country, the life of the respectable was now a mere spectacle of the past. Avast be the past, there is a future to suture. Captain Invidia's plunder had set the straight-laced man asunder when it had failed to be reported, as was the duty of all privateers. Did Invidia really think they would not be audited? It was only for the lack of foresight and naivete that Greybeard did not see the treachery afoot, and so, to the Queen he was to blame when Invidias' words snaked their way to her ear first. No matter, that which was wronged shall be made right. As far as they all know, Greybeard's corpse is servicing the nutritional requirements of plants on a tropical island somewhere, and this is precisely how Greybeard wants it.

The tranquil tropical wind gently whirled past Greybeard, causing his tri-parte to furl ever so slightly. The plan was simple: give Invidia exactly what she wanted. They would be the pirate ship that she would never see coming. "Hoist the colors," Greybeard barked at the self-assured first mate. "Aye Captain," the mate and several others replied in unison. 2 deckhands began to yank hard at the rope and raise the colors of the Spanish Crown that had been "acquired" through a little bit of ingenuity, higher and higher into the sky. This ship, one of 7, would be the bait. The other 6, well, redundant, but for this plan to work, redundancy was crucial. 7 ships for the 7 seas.

Greybeard was not entirely certain why he had settled on this precise number (it was either going to be 7 or 8), but it seemed, intuitively to work. The other 6 captains, each with their own motley assortment of backgrounds, had all agreed on some common points. The most important of these points were: 1) The Crown was directly threatening their way of life. 2) Other pirates are not automatically saints for their predilection against the Crown, and are prone to the same problems that many other humans are. Greed can sink many an attempt for mutual gain, and no one understood this more than Greybeard. While Greybeard did his best at selecting his allies, trying to screen against the greedy, the time had finally come to test them all. "Depart," he opined as loud he could, hand on the handle of his rapier, posture straight, and ever hopeful for what was to come.