This is Jayport, refuge of the Commodore's Flotilla. Its history, a story too long to be recounted here, goes back to the last days of 2022, when two ships of the Royal Navy and a liner full of refugees came here and established the floating hospital. But this flotsam and jetsam of the world-that-was eventually formed an alliance with a band of island mariners. Now their combined children roam the Caribbean from the Texas coast to Grenada, raiding off the Kurian Order just as their English forebears plagued the Spanish Main and French Colonies.
Standing on the Thunderbolt's bridge, David Valentine watched as they approached the Jayport harbor. The ship threaded her way through the reefs, unmarked save for two points where the surf splashed up against the coral obstructions projecting just past the surface. A fishing trawler led the way, like a pilotfish swimming before the gray bulk of a shark, and behind came the graceful pyramid of wood and canvas, the three-masted clipper Rigel. She had shortened sail to keep position behind the plodding gunboat.
Valentine squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun. The light refracted off the armored glass of the bridge, glittering with spiderwebs of cracks from the bullets of last night's fight. Carrasca, the officer in charge of the prize crew, watched the Thunderbolt's progress from the wing projecting out of the bridge deck over the ship's side, her black hair now untied and fluttering in the landward breeze like a pennant. She watched the course of the Thunderbolt as carefully as if she did not have a guide through the reefs
protecting the port. The pirate at the wheel wore a sleeveless, cut-at-the-knees jumpsuit, his thick legs planted wide on the deck. The helmsman looked as if he spent time fighting tiller ropes, rather than the hydraulic rudder of the Thunderbolt.
"This reef is a bastard," the helmsman commented to Valentine. "The gap likes to silt up-many's the time I've heard a scrape going over it."
Valentine moved outside the enclosed wheelhouse and joined Carrasca on the starboard side. He looked down at the forward Grog deck, where the other surviving "loyal" hands of the Thunderbolt sat in an apathetic bunch under guard. They remained under the supervision of the chief petty officer, a frog-faced toady of the captain named Gilbert. The captain had never been found, dead or alive, and Worthing-ton had been killed with the crew trying to load the main gun just below the bridge.
Valentine could still see the wine stain of his former wardroom mate's blood on the wooden planking. Somewhere to the rear, Ahn-Kha and the men who joined Valentine's fruitless attempt to take the ship were already scrubbing the decks clean after laying out the corpses in a neat row. By tradition they should be sewn up in their bedding, but the cloth was too valuable to waste in such a fashion. The fourteen men who had died last night would leave the world as naked as they came into it.
"Nice breeze," Valentine commented, watching Car-rasca's wind-whipped hair. Had he reached out his arm, he could just have touched the longest strands.
"We call it the Doctor. It usually blows all day. Then there's the night wind off the island, it's called the Undertaker. It doesn't smell as good, but it'll keep you cool." Valentine enjoyed hearing her speak. There was something of the music of a Caribbean accent mixed with Hispanic pronunciation.
"Pretty view," Valentine said, applying it both to the woman and the island, though he kept his eyes on the bay.
He was used to the coastlines of North America: flat expanses of beach, wood, and marsh. On Jamaica, the hills rose right out of the ocean like a green wall.
"Yes. You'll want a hat. The sun is strong, even this time of year."
"What's that big ship in the center?"
"She's the hospital. Once was the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus. She's been here my whole life; I was born in her. So were a lot of the men you see around here."
"How many people do you have?"
"A census isn't one of our priorities. There are the townspeople and plantation families proper. I'd guess around seven hundred or so. Then there are the ships' crews. You could add in the folks inland and along the coast, fishermen, and a few free spirits who come in with a hold full of grain or pork when it suits them. Oh, and the rum distillery. You might say that they're allies of ours, even if their product goes out on Kurian ships, as well. Maybe six thousand people could call Jay home."
"Jay? Does that refer to Commodore Jensen?"
She looked away from the ship's bow for the first time. "You've heard of him?"
"He's not the most popular man up north. They're starting to take Jayport seriously in the KZ."
"KZ?"
"Kurian Zone. My former employers."
"Ahh, I see. We call it Vampire Earth."
Valentine smiled, his first unforced smile in days. "Lurid."
"Saying the name is inaccurate?"
"I wish. Our maps show this island as Kurian controlled-Vampire Earth."
"Most of Jamaica is theirs-or his. We call him the Specter."
"Friendly terms?"
Her mouth writhed. "No. We're no lackeys of his. As
long as we don't bother him, he leaves us alone. Better for us."
"Better for the Specter, too."