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Queen of Pirates 2: Wreck of the Phantom Ship
Written by Kunzite
Cover Art by Roberto Viacava
Edited by AnnieHall
Please Note: Enjoy this preview of Kunzite's Queen of Pirates 2: Wreck of the Phantom Ship
The sun was at its zenith, casting its rays over the bright azure waters of the Caribbean that shimmered with the luminescence of crystal. In every direction the gentle waves of breathtaking blue stretched out to the horizon until they were one with the sky. Perhaps in some direction, some small archipelago or island might lie just beyond sight, waiting to offer succor to the land-starved seafarer. But to those who sought their fortunes at sea, to those who lived and died by the code of piracy, this vastness meant only freedom: glorious freedom without limits or constraints.
And to those who valued it so highly, who would choose death before servitude or the iron shackles of law, their freedom carried a weighty price. And so it was that in the middle of that vast emptiness, two ships met that day locked in combat, the ocean their battlefield and the birds overhead the only witnesses to which titan would fall that day.
The first ship was by far the larger, with her hulking frame displacing the waters beneath in a show of brute force. Every mast and spar towered above like iron bars, casting the pall of night over the bright blue skies. Armed with well nigh one hundred cannons, she spat fire from her sides with the fury of an infernal war machine. As she fired, the placid ocean was torn asunder in a maelstrom of cannonballs striking the water and splintering the planks of its opponent ship. She moved slowly through the waters like some lumbering siege engine, sowing destruction in her wake. Atop her looming masts flew the imposing banner of privateers of the Royal Navy.
The second ship was smaller, and yet it refused to be dwarfed by her more massive adversary. Painted in the reds and ochres of the rising sun, she was as much in place in these tropical settings as the other ship was an aberration. Although smaller, she was no mere sailing-craft: a powerful frigate with a full compliment of guns, she was built for battle. The frigate fired back at her foe with a barrage of cannonballs that shattered the black wood of the enemy’s hull, all the while using her superior speed to evade the hail of gunfire. Great waves caused by cannonballs that just missed would crash against her hull as she weaved in and out of firing range. The bow cut the waters in front of it like a knife, with water spraying about a figurehead of a long-haired goddess. Atop her masts, the frigate flew the banner of Jolly Roger in a show of defiance that they would never flee or surrender. As she passed, two words could be read on her nameplate through the ocean spray: Blazing Star.
Then, as the gap between the two ships closed, a single grappling hook flew from the deck of the Blazing Star towards the black ship, hooking on the top yard of the main-mast. The figure which threw it gave it a tug, and without further ado, sprinted across deck and leapt up into the air, swinging across the water towards the deck of the black ship.
Even in the thick of battle, time itself seemed to stop as all eyes were on the woman who so descended upon them like a beautiful avenging angel. She wore black stiletto boots, which clung to a pair of legs as tall as ships’ masts, both powerful and seductively feminine. She wore miniscule canvas shorts, and at her belt was a gold-hilted cutlass, whose glittering beauty belay the deadliness of its blade. Above her shapely, curvaceous hips was an exposed midriff, her stomach taut and perfectly flat. Her white peasant blouse rippled in the wind as she flew, loose and flowing but still not concealing the enormous, heaving pair of voluptuous breasts underneath. Even with her deadly weapon on display, the eye drifted to these tantalizingly perfect spheres, hanging like forbidden fruits just out of sight. Her face, luminous in the sunshine, glowed with supreme confidence and was ringed in a breathtaking halo of fiery red hair that flowed in long curly locks, blowing fiercely in the wind. There was not a soul on board that ship who needed to be told who this was. It was none other than the infamous Captain Blaze: swashbuckler, fortune-seeker, and undisputed queen of pirates the seven seas over.
As her boots struck the deck of the privateers’ ship, her cutlass was out of its scabbard in a flash, the bright steel of its blade glinting in the noonday sun. And yet the Captain herself cast an even more radiant figure. In a moment, half a dozen sailors had drawn their swords and attacked this stunning interloper, but she held them all at bay with a calm and poise that made her somehow more fearsome still.
“Hard alee, Molly!” cried Captain Blaze back to her ship over the din of gunfire and clanking steel as she fought. “Sheet the mainsail and prepare for boarding!”
“Bringin’ ‘er about!” cried Molly from the foredeck of the Blazing Star. “Dead-Aim” Molly Hawkins stood at the helm, both hands on the wheel as she navigated the ship. Her short-cropped blonde hair rustled in the sea breeze, a feral warrior’s grin on her face as she relished every close brush with death. Spry, quick, and powerful, her body had been forged in the heat of battle, skin tanned by the tropical sun and muscles built from a lifetime on board ship. Her signature pistols hung from her belt, and from time to time her hand would grasp one of the carved wooden handles in anticipation of using it. Molly was surest shot with any kind of gun on board the Blazing Star, but her prowess with the pistols in particular was legendary.
Back on the deck of the privateers’ ship, a second figure swung on a grappling hook across the watery divide. She flew through the clouds of smoke and splintering timbers with a heated impatience to join the battle, landing alongside Captain Blaze. In a moment, she and the Captain were back-to-back fending off hordes of approaching foes with their blades. It spoke volumes of her that Captain Blaze herself had the respect to trust her guarding her back: she was one of the few who had ever earned that distinction. But this woman was special for other reasons, as well. For aboard the Blazing Star, she alone had once been on the other side of the law, hunting those she now called friends. Her name was Rebecca Saunders, once the most respected privateer and bounty hunter licensed by the Royal Navy.
Once known for her reserve and caution, Rebecca was now known as one of the fiercest warriors among the crew. She fought with the zealotry of the convert, relishing the freedom of a lifestyle she had once not even allowed herself to dream of. As she fended off their enemies, anyone could see that her heart gloried in the joy of battle, in the release of living free at last. Gone were the conservative clothes of her past life: now she wore a black lace-up bodice which revealed a tantalizing view of her round, spherical breasts, and a pair of tight scarlet leather shorts that left equally little to the imagination. Skin-tight leather boots crept up to below her knees, holding in her powerful leg muscles. In her outfit, her shapely, firm posterior was even more difficult to miss. She laughed with delight as her flowing auburn hair cascaded down over her bare shoulders. Never would anyone have guessed that Rebecca the once-aloof privateer had been hiding such a curvaceous body beneath the uniform of her trade, but now she hid nothing from the world.
“Molly’s moving in to boarding range!” cried Captain Blaze. “I’ll hold them off here, Becky! You deal with the starboard guns!”
To deal with fifty cannons would have been a tall order for just one woman, but Rebecca knew the kind of help she had. Already every eye on deck was on Captain Blaze: every hand was gripping a sword, and every avaricious heart wished that they would be the one to cut down the infamous lady pirate and win the king’s ransom she had on her head. As Rebecca and Captain Blaze separated, the privateers clustered around the Captain, and even most of the cannoneers abandoned their stations to chase the magnificent bounty.
“Come on!” cried Captain Blaze as she leapt into the fray. “I’ll take on the whole scurvy lot of you!”
Facing her foes’ charge head-on, beating back her assailants with bladework so fast that her steel appeared only a deadly blur. She parried their thrusts without breaking stride, and dodged one blow after another with unearthly grace of movement. She leapt through the air, landing on railings or swinging across the rigging as her fiery red hair streamed behind her. Her exultant, mocking laughter burned in her opponents’ ears as they chased, but no sword could touch her.
But Rebecca had assailants of her own to deal with. Suddenly she heard a great blast from above, and an instant later, a musket-ball whizzed by her ear and buried itself into the deck-planks behind her. With a sharp spin Rebecca turned and looked up at the marksman: it was one of the privateers standing atop a yardarm, looking down at her from twenty feet above.
Now that the woman had been spotted, she decided not to reload her musket, casting it aside and drawing her cutlass, a weapon she looked infinitely more pleased to have in her hands. With a cry of battle, she swung her blade and sliced the nearby rigging in two, forming a long rope. With her blade between her teeth and both hands gripping the rope, the privateer leapt fearlessly off the yardarm, swinging down in a long arc towards the deck to engage Rebecca in battle.
But Rebecca’s reflexes were too fast to allow this. In the blink of an eye, her cutlass was unsheathed as well, and without hesitating Rebecca pulled back her arm and hurled the blade forward with all her might. It flew straight as an arrow, traversing the distance and slicing clean through the woman’s rope as though it were a thread. Screaming, the woman careened over Rebecca’s head, shouting oaths but completely helpless to control her flight.
“Next time, don’t miss!” cried Rebecca jubilantly as the woman flew off the port side and into the water below. It did not even bother her that she was now unarmed: the heat of battle was upon her, and all she could think of was the glory of taking the ship. She ran along the side of the ship, knocking the cannons and hurling the powder barrels into the sea, where they impacted in explosive geysers scarcely seen in the violence of the battle raging all around.
But even the lure of the great Captain Blaze was not enough to draw every privateer from their post. Straight ahead, Rebecca saw a lone gunner, still dutifully manning her station even after her sisters had left to pursue the bounty on deck. Rebecca sprinted towards her as she packed the powder and wadding into the barrel and slid the cannonball into the muzzle. With the Blazing Star coming in to boarding range, a direct hit could cripple the ship. Rebecca ran as fast as she could, ready to knock the gunner out of the way before she could light the fuse. But she was too late: she swore out loud as the gunner struck flint against steel, and the spark caught on the fuse, burning towards destruction.
Without a weapon, Rebecca instinctively knew she had only one chance. She gunner had both hands on the cannon, aiming it with such attention that she did not even see Rebecca running up behind her. There was no time to snuff out the fuse so Rebecca did the only thing she could do. She pounced on the gunner from behind, slipped her hands underneath the woman’s shirt, and plunged her fingernails into her soft, ticklish underarms.
“EEEEEEEAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!” The gunner shrieked with surprised laughter, her ticklishness amplified by the ambush. It was exactly as Rebecca had hoped: she was so sensitive that the initial shock had been like lightning through her body. It caused her to spasm and the cannon barrel to fly back as she jerked her hands away. And now, instead of being aimed at the Blazing Star, the barrel pointed directly up in the air as the fuse continued to burn down.
“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! THE CANNON!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” The gunner stared helplessly at the cannon, every second burning closer to an explosion that threatened to engulf them both. But as much as she tried, she was too ticklish to lift her arms for even a moment and reorient the cannon. The soft hiss of the fuse was barely audible over her high-pitched laughter as she tried to protect her underarms from the tickling fingers running wild beneath her shirt.
“Oh, I see it just fine,” said Rebecca to her furiously laughing victim. “Now let’s just have a laugh together and see what happens!”
Terrified, the gunner tried even harder to fight the tickling sensations and push the cannon back down again. Rebecca saw her struggle, and quickly switched tactics. Sliding her hands around her victim’s sides, she squeezed her huge, bare breasts and began to tickle and fondle them without mercy.
“AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! NOT THEEEHEHEHEHEHEHERRRE!!!” screamed the woman, immediately helpless in the throes of hysterics as Rebecca’s fingers launched an all-out assault on her hyper-sensitive breasts. She cupped them from underneath as they bounced wildly in her hands, stroking the undersides as she squeezed the supple, ticklish melons with delight. The woman’s limbs went to jelly as tears ran down her cheeks, unable to breathe or free herself.
“Hands off the cannon, my ticklish bounty hunter!” Rebecca mocked, her fingers pressing into the pliant, jiggling flesh with abandon. Their huge, spherical shape left vast reaches for Rebecca to exploit, alternating between firm squeezes and a maddeningly soft touch. Already the gunner’s giant, erect nipples began to show through the thin fabric of her shirt, and when they were gently teased she would laugh even louder than before.
“LET ME GOOOHOHOHOHOOHOHO!!!” pleaded the gunner, so weak with laughter that she was only held aloft by Rebecca’s tickling hands. “IT’S GOING TO—“
She never had an opportunity to finish her sentence. With a final hiss, the flame burned down the fuse and made contact with the powder at last. There was a deafening blast, and the cannon belched a cloud of smoke and flame, sending the cannonball careening directly up into the air.
Time seemed to stand still as Rebecca saw it travel upwards, and then hang in the air for an interminable split second. Her first thought was that the Blazing Star was safe. But then her own survival instincts awoke with a start. Flinging the gunner aside, Rebecca dived out of the way, hurling herself onto the deck while half a second later, the cannonball came back down only feet behind her, completely shattering the deck in a fury of splintered wood and smoke.
Massive tremors shook the entire ship as the cannonball plummeted downwards, knocking those who were still standing onto their backs. The ship rocked as though shaken with an invisible hand, the cannonball crashing down through deck after deck as it penetrated deep into the hold with enormous momentum. Rebecca had only a moment to grin at the extent of the damage. She looked up to see the entire mizzen-mast, unsteadied by the enormous hole beneath it, tremble precariously and come crashing down onto the deck with a force that threatened to nearly capsize the ship.
In an instant, the ship was plunged into chaos. The privateers, who until then had been more than holding their own, fell into a panic as the ship sustained heavy damage. Hands abandoned the fight, running below deck to fetch tar and boards with which to desperately patch the holes in the ship. Some tried to return to the cannons and continue firing, but their efforts were so distracted that their shots missed the target by a huge breadth.
But the damage was the least of their problems. For descending upon them like the phoenix was the Blazing Star, traversing the turbulent waters and clouds of smoke with the Jolly Roger flying triumphantly above the main-mast. Shouts and battle-cries echoed from her decks as the pirates drew their blades and moved in for the kill. Grappling hooks flew towards the privateer ship by the dozens now, latching onto the railings and tethering the two ships together. Planks were hoisted across the gap, and onto the decks of the black ship swarmed an unstoppable tide of fearsome female warriors: lady pirates the likes of which were not to be found anywhere on the seven seas.
“Avast, ye lot!” cried Captain Blaze, surveying the deck from the rigging ten feet above. “Behind me, and show them no mercy!” Without hesitation she leapt down from her perch, drawing her blade in mid-air, and by the time her boots hit the deck she was already in mid-stride, her Amazonian army behind her hungry for conquest.
“Officers first!” cried Molly Hawkins jubilantly, on the heels of her captain. She shot her pistols from the hip, and yet every bullet struck its mark. With her typical bravado she took trick shots, shooting cutlasses out of the hands of charging foes who then fled in terror, Molly’s laughter at their heels.
And just behind her was Rebecca, on her feet again and fighting where the battle was the thickest. With the roar of battle in her ears and the hot blood coursing through her veins, her heart soared with every strike and parry. This was what it meant to be alive.
* * * * *
The aftermath of the battle was sweet triumph for the crew of the Blazing Star. Their enemies subdued and their ship captured, the lady pirates were spread out in revelry and celebration. Bottles of rum, taken from the ship’s hold, were cracked open and shared while the sounds of drinking songs filled the air. And accompanying the music was laughter: wild shrieks and screams coming from one of the pirates’ favorite forms of entertainment. Everywhere across the deck, the privateers were tied up and tickled by their lusty conquerors.
Long rows of dozens of girls were tied to the rigging, wrists above their heads and their bare feet dangling above the deck. The lady pirates reclined on the deck beneath them, tickling one pair of feet after another and laughing as the ticklish privateers shrieked and danced for their amusement. Elsewhere, the pirates had bundled the privateers up in sailcloth from neck to ankles, dangling them upside-down with ropes over the sides of the ship. They would then lean on the railing and leeringly tickle the face-up bare feet while the privateers howled with laughter, their bound bodies swinging and bumping against the side of the ship below. Some ran their long fingernails over the helpless soles, while other pirates entertained themselves passing around long, stiff feathers which they brushed across the tender surfaces. Some of the girls placed bets, wagering pieces of eight on who they could reduce to begging most quickly. Rebecca took in all the sights as she strolled by on deck alongside Captain Blaze. It had been a good day.
“Not a bad day’s work, especially considering they came to us,” observed Rebecca as they walked. She held a few pieces of gold jewelry taken from the officers’ quarters that had struck her fancy, for there had been plenty of booty to go around.
“Aye, that it was,” agreed Captain Blaze, taking a swig from a bottle of rum in one hand as the other absently dangled a pearl necklace. “Rather a shame we couldn’t take the ship herself, though.”
“More trouble than it’s worth,” agreed Rebecca. “The girls say it will take days to repair all the damage from the battle before she’s in sailing shape again. And we don’t exactly want to hang around here that long when there may be other ships on the way.”
“Good to see you can still be sensible on occasion,” jibed the Captain with a grin. “But never you fear, Becky. I just may have something even more valuable than the ship.”
“More valuable than the ship?” Rebecca echoed. “I thought we’d already cleaned this place out.”
“There’s something in particular I wanted you to see,” said the Captain. She passed to Rebecca a small scrap of parchment, which she took into her hand and unfolded. It was a map, or at least a piece of one: it was torn at the edges and most of the identifying features had been removed. Most of the map was merely empty space indicating open waters, but in the center was something that grabbed Rebecca’s eye immediately. There was a large “X” written there, and next to it a scrawled note: “Revenant spotted here.”
“I found it among the captain’s papers,” said Captain Blaze. “Have you heard of the Revenant, Becky?”
It was more a statement than a question. Every mariner knew the legend of the phantom ship Revenant, once the most powerful warship in all the Royal Navy, striking terror into all who beheld it. It was said no cannon could pierce her hull, and no ship could stand up to the fury of her guns. It was said, too, that she was the fastest craft on the seven seas, and if she spotted you, there was no way to run. But one day, when she was transporting a cargo of gold ingots from the colonies, she vanished en route without a trace. Some said she had fallen afoul of a storm and sank. Some said her crew had mutinied and slain each other, leaving the empty ship to drift aimlessly to this day like a cork on the ocean. But on thing was certain: no sign of the Revenant had ever been found, nor of the fortune in gold ingots she held deep within her hold. Until now.
“The Revenant?” muttered Rebecca, scarcely daring to believe it. Already her navigator’s mind was trying to determine where this monumental find might be. When she had been captain of her own ship, Rebecca had sailed far and wide in search of bounties, so she had no small knowledge of the ocean. But the immediate problem presented itself.
“This could be anywhere,” said Rebecca, pointing at the “X”. “There are nearly no land masses nearby to identify the area.”
“Aye, and that’s a problem,” the Captain nodded. “But this looks like only half of a map. Notice how it’s torn on one side. There’s a chance the other half might tell us something.
“I’d wager it would,” said Rebecca. “Look at the way it’s torn: not done carelessly in a straight line, but very carefully, in a definite pattern. Someone tried very hard to keep the land masses off of this half. Probably to make sure no one could find the treasure without both halves.”
“Good thinking, Becky,” grinned the Captain. “And all the more reason to go ahead with my plan. You see, I’ve got the captain herself tied up in her quarters right now, but as of yet she’s been a bit uncooperative. Care to join me in a bit of…gentle persuasion?”
Rebecca grinned. “You know me all too well, Captain.”
* * * * *
As the door to the captain’s quarters swung open, the sounds of murderous cursing assailed the two visitors, who calmly walked into the spacious, luxuriously-decorated cabin and closed the door behind them. Lying on the bunk was their host: still wearing her full battle regalia, tied up with rope from torso to ankles with her feet propped up at the foot of the bunk.
“I’ve no words for you scum!” spat the captain, thrashing furiously on her bunk as she gnashed her teeth in rage.
“See what I told you, Becky?” asked Captain Blaze with a knowing smile, turning to her companion. “So I think that leaves us only one option. Perhaps you’d care to assist me?”
Rebecca grinned and gave an eager nod. Striding over to the bunk, she gripped the bound captain’s elevated ankles, and began to undo the buckles on her boots.
“You—you won’t get me to talk!” swore the privateer captain, with some tremulousness now in her voice. She knew what Rebecca was doing, and all her muscles began to tense in anticipation.
“We have plenty of time to determine that,” said Captain Blaze with a smile. Rebecca slid off the Captain’s boots, slowly and purposefully, and a moment later she tugged off the white socks that cushioned the feet underneath. Placing them on the captain’s desk, she licked her lips at what she had uncovered. The bare feet underneath were pink, soft, and plump with tenderness: long and well-defined with high arches and smooth heels. Stripped of their protection, they twitched reflexively in the exposed air, a tell-tale sign of fearfully ticklish feet.
Both of the lady pirates took up their place at the foot of the bunk: Captain Blaze above the right foot, Rebecca above the left. The privateer captain looked up at them, over her own tall feet and squirming toes. The two pirates were not even making eye contact at this point: both of them looked down pleasurably at the bare, helpless sole in front of them.
“Last chance to talk, Captain,” said Captain Blaze. “Tell us where you got this map, or your ticklish feet pay the price.”
“N—never!” the privateer captain gritted her teeth. That was all the invitation Rebecca and Captain Blaze needed. Each of them took up a heel in the palm of their hand, and with their other hand, launched a merciless tickling attack on the captain’s feet.
“BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! NOT THE FEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEETTT!!!” The captain went from silence to an explosion of helpless laughter as the two lady pirates tickled her soles with the ferocity of huntresses leaping upon prey. Sharp fingernails stroked and scratched the tender surfaces, causing her to thrash until her entire bunk shook.
Rebecca tickled her sole with the most zeal and intensity, assaulting the helpless flesh with wild strokes and fast, random patterns that had her foot spasming in every direction at once. She wriggled all five fingers at the top of the arch, jumping down to the soft pillowy flesh of the instep, and then darting around the sides of the foot wherever she could find a sensitive spot. Tickling from all sides, she delighted to see her target so utterly outmatched that it did not even know which direction to flee from her fingers.
“Maybe this will teach you not to fire on our ship!” cried Rebecca, reveling in the revenge as much as the interrogation.
“AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!” was the captain’s only response.
Captain Blaze, on the other foot, took a much more methodical approach. Using her long, red fingernails with their rounded points, she stroked the surfaces carefully, mapping out their ticklish cartography as carefully as a mapmaker. She kept track of the worst spots of all and carefully recorded them. She found soft creases that caused the captain to scream in ticklish agony when a fingernail was gently dragged along them. She found tender spots, no more than a fingertip wide, where the ticklishness of her sole suddenly doubled. She smiled with satisfaction as she experimented with the endless combinations that these weak spots offered.
“PLEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEASEE!!! NO MOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHORRE!!!” cried the captain.
“You know how to end this,” said Captain Blaze with a soft, catlike smile as she cruelly toyed with a soft spot on her arch.
Between the unpredictable chaos of Rebecca’s tickling and the cruel, methodical strokes of Captain Blaze’s fingernails, the privateer captain felt her grip on sanity slipping away. Her feet were flushed bright red and her mind was lost in a sea of mindless laughter. There was only one way to save herself, and like a drowning woman she clung to it like a piece of driftwood in a storm. Raising her head off the bunk, she cried in desperation,
“I’LL TALK!!! AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! I’LL TAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHALLK!!!”
“Then talk, my dear,” said Captain Blaze, neither she nor Rebecca relenting for a moment. “The map, where did it come from? And don’t think I’d have any reservations about tickling a woman to death, if it comes to it.”
“I—BLACKWATER BAY!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” shrieked the captain desperately. To her infinite relief, this confession bought her a few precious moments of respite from the unbearable tickling: both Captain Blaze and Rebecca drew back, pondering what to make of this new information.
“Now, you wouldn’t be feeding us misinformation, would you?” inquired Captain Blaze sweetly, her hand poised menacingly in front of the privateer’s bare, squirming sole. “An upstanding, law-abiding girl like you in a port known for harboring smugglers and cutthroats? Now what on earth would you have been doing there?”
“Please! It’s the truth!” pleaded the privateer captain, desperate not to provoke her captors into another tickling session. “A merchant captain lost it to me in a game of cards! I never caught her name! Please, I’m telling the truth! I have no reason to protect her!”
“Don’t be too quick to judge, Cap’n,” said Rebecca, who felt the need to come to the defense of her former profession. “Privateers aren’t naval officers, you know; we didn’t always operate inside what you could call the strict confines of the law. We carried the official license of the Crown, but not much else separated us from the ones we were trying to hunt down.”
“Maybe so, Becky,” mused Captain Blaze. “But I’d hardly say this one is quite up to your caliber.” She flashed a menacing smile at the still-struggling privateer captain, and gently stroked the tops of her bare feet, causing a ticklish spasm to shake through her entire body.
“I’d say not,” said Rebecca with a casual acknowledgement of the compliment. “But even still, privateers succeed because they can go places the Royal Navy can’t. Many’s a bounty I tracked down back in the day by laying anchor in a black market port and paying off the right people for information. It’s quite possible our informant here really has been where she says.”
“Possible, indeed,” mused Captain Blaze. “But what do you say we make absolutely certain?”
Rebecca turned on the privateer captain with a wolflike grin. “Why, Captain. What an excellent idea.”
“N—no! Please!” pleaded the privateer captain, eyes wide in terror. “I’ve told you all I know! I swear it!”
“You’d be amazed how many people discover new things they’ve forgotten given the proper incentive,” replied Captain Blaze with a knowing smile. “Becky, I think I’m going to explore the ship and see what I can learn from some of the officers. I trust you can…make our guest comfortable in my absence?”
“It’ll be a pleasure, Captain,” said Rebecca, eyeing the two squirming bare feet left in her charge.
“Please!” begged the privateer captain, hysterical with terror. “I’ll give you gold! Anything you want! Just leave my feet alone, and it’s yours!”
Rebecca licked her lips. “This is going to be even more fun than I thought,” she said. “Come back in an hour, Captain. I think I should have all the answers I need by then.”
“Enjoy yourself, Becky,” said Captain Blaze with an appreciative smile. Leaving the captain’s quarters with the door swung open, the privateer captain’s wild laughter mixed with the screams and pleas of her crew outside. From every corner of the ship came the sounds of hysterics as the privateers were strung up and subjected to merciless tickle torture at the hands of the pirates. For the next week at least they would keep the vanquished ship in tow: plundering its supplies, drinking the rum from its hold, and above all subjecting its crew to every ticklish torment their supple bodies could withstand. From far above, the sun shone down on the Blazing Star and her prize, coasting over calm blue waters towards their next destination. A cool ocean breeze blew over the deck, carrying the sounds of echoing laughter far into the distance.
Please Note: This story is continued in the e-novel Queen of Pirates 2: Wreck of the Phantom Ship
Queen of Pirates: Wreck of the Phantom Ship is the sequel to Kunzite's popular Queen of Pirates enovel!
Item Features
**33,000+ Words!
**Cover Art!
**f/f Tickling!
Product and Ordering Information
Please Note: Queen of Pirates #1 is on SALE! This month at MTJpub.com
Written by Kunzite
Cover Art by Roberto Viacava
Edited by AnnieHall
Please Note: Enjoy this preview of Kunzite's Queen of Pirates 2: Wreck of the Phantom Ship
The sun was at its zenith, casting its rays over the bright azure waters of the Caribbean that shimmered with the luminescence of crystal. In every direction the gentle waves of breathtaking blue stretched out to the horizon until they were one with the sky. Perhaps in some direction, some small archipelago or island might lie just beyond sight, waiting to offer succor to the land-starved seafarer. But to those who sought their fortunes at sea, to those who lived and died by the code of piracy, this vastness meant only freedom: glorious freedom without limits or constraints.
And to those who valued it so highly, who would choose death before servitude or the iron shackles of law, their freedom carried a weighty price. And so it was that in the middle of that vast emptiness, two ships met that day locked in combat, the ocean their battlefield and the birds overhead the only witnesses to which titan would fall that day.
The first ship was by far the larger, with her hulking frame displacing the waters beneath in a show of brute force. Every mast and spar towered above like iron bars, casting the pall of night over the bright blue skies. Armed with well nigh one hundred cannons, she spat fire from her sides with the fury of an infernal war machine. As she fired, the placid ocean was torn asunder in a maelstrom of cannonballs striking the water and splintering the planks of its opponent ship. She moved slowly through the waters like some lumbering siege engine, sowing destruction in her wake. Atop her looming masts flew the imposing banner of privateers of the Royal Navy.
The second ship was smaller, and yet it refused to be dwarfed by her more massive adversary. Painted in the reds and ochres of the rising sun, she was as much in place in these tropical settings as the other ship was an aberration. Although smaller, she was no mere sailing-craft: a powerful frigate with a full compliment of guns, she was built for battle. The frigate fired back at her foe with a barrage of cannonballs that shattered the black wood of the enemy’s hull, all the while using her superior speed to evade the hail of gunfire. Great waves caused by cannonballs that just missed would crash against her hull as she weaved in and out of firing range. The bow cut the waters in front of it like a knife, with water spraying about a figurehead of a long-haired goddess. Atop her masts, the frigate flew the banner of Jolly Roger in a show of defiance that they would never flee or surrender. As she passed, two words could be read on her nameplate through the ocean spray: Blazing Star.
Then, as the gap between the two ships closed, a single grappling hook flew from the deck of the Blazing Star towards the black ship, hooking on the top yard of the main-mast. The figure which threw it gave it a tug, and without further ado, sprinted across deck and leapt up into the air, swinging across the water towards the deck of the black ship.
Even in the thick of battle, time itself seemed to stop as all eyes were on the woman who so descended upon them like a beautiful avenging angel. She wore black stiletto boots, which clung to a pair of legs as tall as ships’ masts, both powerful and seductively feminine. She wore miniscule canvas shorts, and at her belt was a gold-hilted cutlass, whose glittering beauty belay the deadliness of its blade. Above her shapely, curvaceous hips was an exposed midriff, her stomach taut and perfectly flat. Her white peasant blouse rippled in the wind as she flew, loose and flowing but still not concealing the enormous, heaving pair of voluptuous breasts underneath. Even with her deadly weapon on display, the eye drifted to these tantalizingly perfect spheres, hanging like forbidden fruits just out of sight. Her face, luminous in the sunshine, glowed with supreme confidence and was ringed in a breathtaking halo of fiery red hair that flowed in long curly locks, blowing fiercely in the wind. There was not a soul on board that ship who needed to be told who this was. It was none other than the infamous Captain Blaze: swashbuckler, fortune-seeker, and undisputed queen of pirates the seven seas over.
As her boots struck the deck of the privateers’ ship, her cutlass was out of its scabbard in a flash, the bright steel of its blade glinting in the noonday sun. And yet the Captain herself cast an even more radiant figure. In a moment, half a dozen sailors had drawn their swords and attacked this stunning interloper, but she held them all at bay with a calm and poise that made her somehow more fearsome still.
“Hard alee, Molly!” cried Captain Blaze back to her ship over the din of gunfire and clanking steel as she fought. “Sheet the mainsail and prepare for boarding!”
“Bringin’ ‘er about!” cried Molly from the foredeck of the Blazing Star. “Dead-Aim” Molly Hawkins stood at the helm, both hands on the wheel as she navigated the ship. Her short-cropped blonde hair rustled in the sea breeze, a feral warrior’s grin on her face as she relished every close brush with death. Spry, quick, and powerful, her body had been forged in the heat of battle, skin tanned by the tropical sun and muscles built from a lifetime on board ship. Her signature pistols hung from her belt, and from time to time her hand would grasp one of the carved wooden handles in anticipation of using it. Molly was surest shot with any kind of gun on board the Blazing Star, but her prowess with the pistols in particular was legendary.
Back on the deck of the privateers’ ship, a second figure swung on a grappling hook across the watery divide. She flew through the clouds of smoke and splintering timbers with a heated impatience to join the battle, landing alongside Captain Blaze. In a moment, she and the Captain were back-to-back fending off hordes of approaching foes with their blades. It spoke volumes of her that Captain Blaze herself had the respect to trust her guarding her back: she was one of the few who had ever earned that distinction. But this woman was special for other reasons, as well. For aboard the Blazing Star, she alone had once been on the other side of the law, hunting those she now called friends. Her name was Rebecca Saunders, once the most respected privateer and bounty hunter licensed by the Royal Navy.
Once known for her reserve and caution, Rebecca was now known as one of the fiercest warriors among the crew. She fought with the zealotry of the convert, relishing the freedom of a lifestyle she had once not even allowed herself to dream of. As she fended off their enemies, anyone could see that her heart gloried in the joy of battle, in the release of living free at last. Gone were the conservative clothes of her past life: now she wore a black lace-up bodice which revealed a tantalizing view of her round, spherical breasts, and a pair of tight scarlet leather shorts that left equally little to the imagination. Skin-tight leather boots crept up to below her knees, holding in her powerful leg muscles. In her outfit, her shapely, firm posterior was even more difficult to miss. She laughed with delight as her flowing auburn hair cascaded down over her bare shoulders. Never would anyone have guessed that Rebecca the once-aloof privateer had been hiding such a curvaceous body beneath the uniform of her trade, but now she hid nothing from the world.
“Molly’s moving in to boarding range!” cried Captain Blaze. “I’ll hold them off here, Becky! You deal with the starboard guns!”
To deal with fifty cannons would have been a tall order for just one woman, but Rebecca knew the kind of help she had. Already every eye on deck was on Captain Blaze: every hand was gripping a sword, and every avaricious heart wished that they would be the one to cut down the infamous lady pirate and win the king’s ransom she had on her head. As Rebecca and Captain Blaze separated, the privateers clustered around the Captain, and even most of the cannoneers abandoned their stations to chase the magnificent bounty.
“Come on!” cried Captain Blaze as she leapt into the fray. “I’ll take on the whole scurvy lot of you!”
Facing her foes’ charge head-on, beating back her assailants with bladework so fast that her steel appeared only a deadly blur. She parried their thrusts without breaking stride, and dodged one blow after another with unearthly grace of movement. She leapt through the air, landing on railings or swinging across the rigging as her fiery red hair streamed behind her. Her exultant, mocking laughter burned in her opponents’ ears as they chased, but no sword could touch her.
But Rebecca had assailants of her own to deal with. Suddenly she heard a great blast from above, and an instant later, a musket-ball whizzed by her ear and buried itself into the deck-planks behind her. With a sharp spin Rebecca turned and looked up at the marksman: it was one of the privateers standing atop a yardarm, looking down at her from twenty feet above.
Now that the woman had been spotted, she decided not to reload her musket, casting it aside and drawing her cutlass, a weapon she looked infinitely more pleased to have in her hands. With a cry of battle, she swung her blade and sliced the nearby rigging in two, forming a long rope. With her blade between her teeth and both hands gripping the rope, the privateer leapt fearlessly off the yardarm, swinging down in a long arc towards the deck to engage Rebecca in battle.
But Rebecca’s reflexes were too fast to allow this. In the blink of an eye, her cutlass was unsheathed as well, and without hesitating Rebecca pulled back her arm and hurled the blade forward with all her might. It flew straight as an arrow, traversing the distance and slicing clean through the woman’s rope as though it were a thread. Screaming, the woman careened over Rebecca’s head, shouting oaths but completely helpless to control her flight.
“Next time, don’t miss!” cried Rebecca jubilantly as the woman flew off the port side and into the water below. It did not even bother her that she was now unarmed: the heat of battle was upon her, and all she could think of was the glory of taking the ship. She ran along the side of the ship, knocking the cannons and hurling the powder barrels into the sea, where they impacted in explosive geysers scarcely seen in the violence of the battle raging all around.
But even the lure of the great Captain Blaze was not enough to draw every privateer from their post. Straight ahead, Rebecca saw a lone gunner, still dutifully manning her station even after her sisters had left to pursue the bounty on deck. Rebecca sprinted towards her as she packed the powder and wadding into the barrel and slid the cannonball into the muzzle. With the Blazing Star coming in to boarding range, a direct hit could cripple the ship. Rebecca ran as fast as she could, ready to knock the gunner out of the way before she could light the fuse. But she was too late: she swore out loud as the gunner struck flint against steel, and the spark caught on the fuse, burning towards destruction.
Without a weapon, Rebecca instinctively knew she had only one chance. She gunner had both hands on the cannon, aiming it with such attention that she did not even see Rebecca running up behind her. There was no time to snuff out the fuse so Rebecca did the only thing she could do. She pounced on the gunner from behind, slipped her hands underneath the woman’s shirt, and plunged her fingernails into her soft, ticklish underarms.
“EEEEEEEAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!” The gunner shrieked with surprised laughter, her ticklishness amplified by the ambush. It was exactly as Rebecca had hoped: she was so sensitive that the initial shock had been like lightning through her body. It caused her to spasm and the cannon barrel to fly back as she jerked her hands away. And now, instead of being aimed at the Blazing Star, the barrel pointed directly up in the air as the fuse continued to burn down.
“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! THE CANNON!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” The gunner stared helplessly at the cannon, every second burning closer to an explosion that threatened to engulf them both. But as much as she tried, she was too ticklish to lift her arms for even a moment and reorient the cannon. The soft hiss of the fuse was barely audible over her high-pitched laughter as she tried to protect her underarms from the tickling fingers running wild beneath her shirt.
“Oh, I see it just fine,” said Rebecca to her furiously laughing victim. “Now let’s just have a laugh together and see what happens!”
Terrified, the gunner tried even harder to fight the tickling sensations and push the cannon back down again. Rebecca saw her struggle, and quickly switched tactics. Sliding her hands around her victim’s sides, she squeezed her huge, bare breasts and began to tickle and fondle them without mercy.
“AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! NOT THEEEHEHEHEHEHEHERRRE!!!” screamed the woman, immediately helpless in the throes of hysterics as Rebecca’s fingers launched an all-out assault on her hyper-sensitive breasts. She cupped them from underneath as they bounced wildly in her hands, stroking the undersides as she squeezed the supple, ticklish melons with delight. The woman’s limbs went to jelly as tears ran down her cheeks, unable to breathe or free herself.
“Hands off the cannon, my ticklish bounty hunter!” Rebecca mocked, her fingers pressing into the pliant, jiggling flesh with abandon. Their huge, spherical shape left vast reaches for Rebecca to exploit, alternating between firm squeezes and a maddeningly soft touch. Already the gunner’s giant, erect nipples began to show through the thin fabric of her shirt, and when they were gently teased she would laugh even louder than before.
“LET ME GOOOHOHOHOHOOHOHO!!!” pleaded the gunner, so weak with laughter that she was only held aloft by Rebecca’s tickling hands. “IT’S GOING TO—“
She never had an opportunity to finish her sentence. With a final hiss, the flame burned down the fuse and made contact with the powder at last. There was a deafening blast, and the cannon belched a cloud of smoke and flame, sending the cannonball careening directly up into the air.
Time seemed to stand still as Rebecca saw it travel upwards, and then hang in the air for an interminable split second. Her first thought was that the Blazing Star was safe. But then her own survival instincts awoke with a start. Flinging the gunner aside, Rebecca dived out of the way, hurling herself onto the deck while half a second later, the cannonball came back down only feet behind her, completely shattering the deck in a fury of splintered wood and smoke.
Massive tremors shook the entire ship as the cannonball plummeted downwards, knocking those who were still standing onto their backs. The ship rocked as though shaken with an invisible hand, the cannonball crashing down through deck after deck as it penetrated deep into the hold with enormous momentum. Rebecca had only a moment to grin at the extent of the damage. She looked up to see the entire mizzen-mast, unsteadied by the enormous hole beneath it, tremble precariously and come crashing down onto the deck with a force that threatened to nearly capsize the ship.
In an instant, the ship was plunged into chaos. The privateers, who until then had been more than holding their own, fell into a panic as the ship sustained heavy damage. Hands abandoned the fight, running below deck to fetch tar and boards with which to desperately patch the holes in the ship. Some tried to return to the cannons and continue firing, but their efforts were so distracted that their shots missed the target by a huge breadth.
But the damage was the least of their problems. For descending upon them like the phoenix was the Blazing Star, traversing the turbulent waters and clouds of smoke with the Jolly Roger flying triumphantly above the main-mast. Shouts and battle-cries echoed from her decks as the pirates drew their blades and moved in for the kill. Grappling hooks flew towards the privateer ship by the dozens now, latching onto the railings and tethering the two ships together. Planks were hoisted across the gap, and onto the decks of the black ship swarmed an unstoppable tide of fearsome female warriors: lady pirates the likes of which were not to be found anywhere on the seven seas.
“Avast, ye lot!” cried Captain Blaze, surveying the deck from the rigging ten feet above. “Behind me, and show them no mercy!” Without hesitation she leapt down from her perch, drawing her blade in mid-air, and by the time her boots hit the deck she was already in mid-stride, her Amazonian army behind her hungry for conquest.
“Officers first!” cried Molly Hawkins jubilantly, on the heels of her captain. She shot her pistols from the hip, and yet every bullet struck its mark. With her typical bravado she took trick shots, shooting cutlasses out of the hands of charging foes who then fled in terror, Molly’s laughter at their heels.
And just behind her was Rebecca, on her feet again and fighting where the battle was the thickest. With the roar of battle in her ears and the hot blood coursing through her veins, her heart soared with every strike and parry. This was what it meant to be alive.
* * * * *
The aftermath of the battle was sweet triumph for the crew of the Blazing Star. Their enemies subdued and their ship captured, the lady pirates were spread out in revelry and celebration. Bottles of rum, taken from the ship’s hold, were cracked open and shared while the sounds of drinking songs filled the air. And accompanying the music was laughter: wild shrieks and screams coming from one of the pirates’ favorite forms of entertainment. Everywhere across the deck, the privateers were tied up and tickled by their lusty conquerors.
Long rows of dozens of girls were tied to the rigging, wrists above their heads and their bare feet dangling above the deck. The lady pirates reclined on the deck beneath them, tickling one pair of feet after another and laughing as the ticklish privateers shrieked and danced for their amusement. Elsewhere, the pirates had bundled the privateers up in sailcloth from neck to ankles, dangling them upside-down with ropes over the sides of the ship. They would then lean on the railing and leeringly tickle the face-up bare feet while the privateers howled with laughter, their bound bodies swinging and bumping against the side of the ship below. Some ran their long fingernails over the helpless soles, while other pirates entertained themselves passing around long, stiff feathers which they brushed across the tender surfaces. Some of the girls placed bets, wagering pieces of eight on who they could reduce to begging most quickly. Rebecca took in all the sights as she strolled by on deck alongside Captain Blaze. It had been a good day.
“Not a bad day’s work, especially considering they came to us,” observed Rebecca as they walked. She held a few pieces of gold jewelry taken from the officers’ quarters that had struck her fancy, for there had been plenty of booty to go around.
“Aye, that it was,” agreed Captain Blaze, taking a swig from a bottle of rum in one hand as the other absently dangled a pearl necklace. “Rather a shame we couldn’t take the ship herself, though.”
“More trouble than it’s worth,” agreed Rebecca. “The girls say it will take days to repair all the damage from the battle before she’s in sailing shape again. And we don’t exactly want to hang around here that long when there may be other ships on the way.”
“Good to see you can still be sensible on occasion,” jibed the Captain with a grin. “But never you fear, Becky. I just may have something even more valuable than the ship.”
“More valuable than the ship?” Rebecca echoed. “I thought we’d already cleaned this place out.”
“There’s something in particular I wanted you to see,” said the Captain. She passed to Rebecca a small scrap of parchment, which she took into her hand and unfolded. It was a map, or at least a piece of one: it was torn at the edges and most of the identifying features had been removed. Most of the map was merely empty space indicating open waters, but in the center was something that grabbed Rebecca’s eye immediately. There was a large “X” written there, and next to it a scrawled note: “Revenant spotted here.”
“I found it among the captain’s papers,” said Captain Blaze. “Have you heard of the Revenant, Becky?”
It was more a statement than a question. Every mariner knew the legend of the phantom ship Revenant, once the most powerful warship in all the Royal Navy, striking terror into all who beheld it. It was said no cannon could pierce her hull, and no ship could stand up to the fury of her guns. It was said, too, that she was the fastest craft on the seven seas, and if she spotted you, there was no way to run. But one day, when she was transporting a cargo of gold ingots from the colonies, she vanished en route without a trace. Some said she had fallen afoul of a storm and sank. Some said her crew had mutinied and slain each other, leaving the empty ship to drift aimlessly to this day like a cork on the ocean. But on thing was certain: no sign of the Revenant had ever been found, nor of the fortune in gold ingots she held deep within her hold. Until now.
“The Revenant?” muttered Rebecca, scarcely daring to believe it. Already her navigator’s mind was trying to determine where this monumental find might be. When she had been captain of her own ship, Rebecca had sailed far and wide in search of bounties, so she had no small knowledge of the ocean. But the immediate problem presented itself.
“This could be anywhere,” said Rebecca, pointing at the “X”. “There are nearly no land masses nearby to identify the area.”
“Aye, and that’s a problem,” the Captain nodded. “But this looks like only half of a map. Notice how it’s torn on one side. There’s a chance the other half might tell us something.
“I’d wager it would,” said Rebecca. “Look at the way it’s torn: not done carelessly in a straight line, but very carefully, in a definite pattern. Someone tried very hard to keep the land masses off of this half. Probably to make sure no one could find the treasure without both halves.”
“Good thinking, Becky,” grinned the Captain. “And all the more reason to go ahead with my plan. You see, I’ve got the captain herself tied up in her quarters right now, but as of yet she’s been a bit uncooperative. Care to join me in a bit of…gentle persuasion?”
Rebecca grinned. “You know me all too well, Captain.”
* * * * *
As the door to the captain’s quarters swung open, the sounds of murderous cursing assailed the two visitors, who calmly walked into the spacious, luxuriously-decorated cabin and closed the door behind them. Lying on the bunk was their host: still wearing her full battle regalia, tied up with rope from torso to ankles with her feet propped up at the foot of the bunk.
“I’ve no words for you scum!” spat the captain, thrashing furiously on her bunk as she gnashed her teeth in rage.
“See what I told you, Becky?” asked Captain Blaze with a knowing smile, turning to her companion. “So I think that leaves us only one option. Perhaps you’d care to assist me?”
Rebecca grinned and gave an eager nod. Striding over to the bunk, she gripped the bound captain’s elevated ankles, and began to undo the buckles on her boots.
“You—you won’t get me to talk!” swore the privateer captain, with some tremulousness now in her voice. She knew what Rebecca was doing, and all her muscles began to tense in anticipation.
“We have plenty of time to determine that,” said Captain Blaze with a smile. Rebecca slid off the Captain’s boots, slowly and purposefully, and a moment later she tugged off the white socks that cushioned the feet underneath. Placing them on the captain’s desk, she licked her lips at what she had uncovered. The bare feet underneath were pink, soft, and plump with tenderness: long and well-defined with high arches and smooth heels. Stripped of their protection, they twitched reflexively in the exposed air, a tell-tale sign of fearfully ticklish feet.
Both of the lady pirates took up their place at the foot of the bunk: Captain Blaze above the right foot, Rebecca above the left. The privateer captain looked up at them, over her own tall feet and squirming toes. The two pirates were not even making eye contact at this point: both of them looked down pleasurably at the bare, helpless sole in front of them.
“Last chance to talk, Captain,” said Captain Blaze. “Tell us where you got this map, or your ticklish feet pay the price.”
“N—never!” the privateer captain gritted her teeth. That was all the invitation Rebecca and Captain Blaze needed. Each of them took up a heel in the palm of their hand, and with their other hand, launched a merciless tickling attack on the captain’s feet.
“BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! NOT THE FEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEETTT!!!” The captain went from silence to an explosion of helpless laughter as the two lady pirates tickled her soles with the ferocity of huntresses leaping upon prey. Sharp fingernails stroked and scratched the tender surfaces, causing her to thrash until her entire bunk shook.
Rebecca tickled her sole with the most zeal and intensity, assaulting the helpless flesh with wild strokes and fast, random patterns that had her foot spasming in every direction at once. She wriggled all five fingers at the top of the arch, jumping down to the soft pillowy flesh of the instep, and then darting around the sides of the foot wherever she could find a sensitive spot. Tickling from all sides, she delighted to see her target so utterly outmatched that it did not even know which direction to flee from her fingers.
“Maybe this will teach you not to fire on our ship!” cried Rebecca, reveling in the revenge as much as the interrogation.
“AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!” was the captain’s only response.
Captain Blaze, on the other foot, took a much more methodical approach. Using her long, red fingernails with their rounded points, she stroked the surfaces carefully, mapping out their ticklish cartography as carefully as a mapmaker. She kept track of the worst spots of all and carefully recorded them. She found soft creases that caused the captain to scream in ticklish agony when a fingernail was gently dragged along them. She found tender spots, no more than a fingertip wide, where the ticklishness of her sole suddenly doubled. She smiled with satisfaction as she experimented with the endless combinations that these weak spots offered.
“PLEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEASEE!!! NO MOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHORRE!!!” cried the captain.
“You know how to end this,” said Captain Blaze with a soft, catlike smile as she cruelly toyed with a soft spot on her arch.
Between the unpredictable chaos of Rebecca’s tickling and the cruel, methodical strokes of Captain Blaze’s fingernails, the privateer captain felt her grip on sanity slipping away. Her feet were flushed bright red and her mind was lost in a sea of mindless laughter. There was only one way to save herself, and like a drowning woman she clung to it like a piece of driftwood in a storm. Raising her head off the bunk, she cried in desperation,
“I’LL TALK!!! AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!! I’LL TAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHALLK!!!”
“Then talk, my dear,” said Captain Blaze, neither she nor Rebecca relenting for a moment. “The map, where did it come from? And don’t think I’d have any reservations about tickling a woman to death, if it comes to it.”
“I—BLACKWATER BAY!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” shrieked the captain desperately. To her infinite relief, this confession bought her a few precious moments of respite from the unbearable tickling: both Captain Blaze and Rebecca drew back, pondering what to make of this new information.
“Now, you wouldn’t be feeding us misinformation, would you?” inquired Captain Blaze sweetly, her hand poised menacingly in front of the privateer’s bare, squirming sole. “An upstanding, law-abiding girl like you in a port known for harboring smugglers and cutthroats? Now what on earth would you have been doing there?”
“Please! It’s the truth!” pleaded the privateer captain, desperate not to provoke her captors into another tickling session. “A merchant captain lost it to me in a game of cards! I never caught her name! Please, I’m telling the truth! I have no reason to protect her!”
“Don’t be too quick to judge, Cap’n,” said Rebecca, who felt the need to come to the defense of her former profession. “Privateers aren’t naval officers, you know; we didn’t always operate inside what you could call the strict confines of the law. We carried the official license of the Crown, but not much else separated us from the ones we were trying to hunt down.”
“Maybe so, Becky,” mused Captain Blaze. “But I’d hardly say this one is quite up to your caliber.” She flashed a menacing smile at the still-struggling privateer captain, and gently stroked the tops of her bare feet, causing a ticklish spasm to shake through her entire body.
“I’d say not,” said Rebecca with a casual acknowledgement of the compliment. “But even still, privateers succeed because they can go places the Royal Navy can’t. Many’s a bounty I tracked down back in the day by laying anchor in a black market port and paying off the right people for information. It’s quite possible our informant here really has been where she says.”
“Possible, indeed,” mused Captain Blaze. “But what do you say we make absolutely certain?”
Rebecca turned on the privateer captain with a wolflike grin. “Why, Captain. What an excellent idea.”
“N—no! Please!” pleaded the privateer captain, eyes wide in terror. “I’ve told you all I know! I swear it!”
“You’d be amazed how many people discover new things they’ve forgotten given the proper incentive,” replied Captain Blaze with a knowing smile. “Becky, I think I’m going to explore the ship and see what I can learn from some of the officers. I trust you can…make our guest comfortable in my absence?”
“It’ll be a pleasure, Captain,” said Rebecca, eyeing the two squirming bare feet left in her charge.
“Please!” begged the privateer captain, hysterical with terror. “I’ll give you gold! Anything you want! Just leave my feet alone, and it’s yours!”
Rebecca licked her lips. “This is going to be even more fun than I thought,” she said. “Come back in an hour, Captain. I think I should have all the answers I need by then.”
“Enjoy yourself, Becky,” said Captain Blaze with an appreciative smile. Leaving the captain’s quarters with the door swung open, the privateer captain’s wild laughter mixed with the screams and pleas of her crew outside. From every corner of the ship came the sounds of hysterics as the privateers were strung up and subjected to merciless tickle torture at the hands of the pirates. For the next week at least they would keep the vanquished ship in tow: plundering its supplies, drinking the rum from its hold, and above all subjecting its crew to every ticklish torment their supple bodies could withstand. From far above, the sun shone down on the Blazing Star and her prize, coasting over calm blue waters towards their next destination. A cool ocean breeze blew over the deck, carrying the sounds of echoing laughter far into the distance.
Please Note: This story is continued in the e-novel Queen of Pirates 2: Wreck of the Phantom Ship
Queen of Pirates: Wreck of the Phantom Ship is the sequel to Kunzite's popular Queen of Pirates enovel!
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**33,000+ Words!
**Cover Art!
**f/f Tickling!
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