Time to start polishing off some of these backlogged stories!
They spent that first night sleeping on the hard deck, using whatever they could scrounge for pillows (nobody needed a blanket when cruising the Arabian Sea). Toilets were a couple of buckets. Food wasn’t even considered, but that changed the next morning; the hatch opened, to reveal two pirates brandishing their rifles and saying — well, Ted didn’t recognize the word.
But the ship’s cook did. He got up, pretty creakily, and staggered his way to the hatch. When he got there, the pirates stopped him with an outstretched palm. A bunch of what Ted very privately thought of as ‘foreigners shouting at each other’ followed; it ended with with the cook turning back – to point right at Ted.
Later he’d wonder why he was still ready at that point to stand up when people with guns were pointing at him. But he knew the reason why: it was because this was still Old Ted. Old Ted still thought that nothing really bad could happen to him, if he followed the rules. New Ted knew better.
But that would be later. For now, Ted hesitantly moved forward, stopping the second the pirates gestured to him to stop. He had never felt less heroic in his life.