01/09/2023 Snippet, ROCCA JACK AND THE LIQUID GOLD JOB.

Locales!

Barnegat Ruins

Cursed Jersey

Five days later

Jack had to admit, the Old Americans could build. They also could make some damned impressive ruins; this particular shattered heap of ceramic and steel looked like it had fallen a decade ago, instead of five centuries. You could even still make out the carved, colored friezes of gulls and seascapes covering the base of the Barnegat Lighthouse.

He jerked his chin at Charlie. “That must have been, what, three hundred feet high when it was in one piece?”

“Three hundred, twenty nine feet,” Charlie replied. “It’s not the original; that’s on the south side on the inlet. This is the one the Old Americans put up when they realized that the suborbitals” — she made an absolute hash of the word — “needed lights and… some kind of beacons… up and down the coast. The other beacons are gone by now.”

Jack looked it over with an expert eye. “I’d be surprised nobody’s salvaged the friezes, but…”

“Exactly. Cursed Jersey. You’d need to stay for at least six months to get them ready for transport, and that’s five months too many.” Charlie looked at him. “Please tell me we’re not staying a month, Captain.”

“Not the plan, Charlie, not the plan.” Jack scanned the channel with his spyglass. “We’re staying here to find the Emancipation, or pieces of it, and that’s all. If Robbie comes back from Barnegat Light with the crew and the cargo, we won’t even bother looking for their ship.”

Charlie gave him a cool look. “Not gonna lie, Captain: I’m surprised you didn’t send yourself to check out the southside. Or go with Robbie, have me or Gonzales helm the ship.”

“If I didn’t have Mercer onboard,” replied Jack seriously, “I would have. We may be used to sailing by the seat of our pants, but they run things a little tauter up north, though. I don’t want him thinking I don’t take the job seriously.”

In front of him, a flare rose from the tangled ruins that had once been a coastal town. Jack saw the blue flash from it, and swore as he moved towards the ship’s wheel. “Besides, I’m a damn sight better than the rest of you at aiming a broadside. Port shotline, crew your stations! Starboard shotline, keep careful watch! Raise anchor!”

Charlie was only a step behind him as he took his position on the castledeck; Jack felt the world shift slightly as she muttered words, and suddenly the anchor was rising a good bit more quickly. “What do you want, Captain?” she asked him. “Illumination, shields, or a fireball?”

Jack looked up. “Still plenty of daylight. So just keep all your eyes out for trouble. Hopefully, all Robbie found was critters. Unless they’re real bigguns, we’ll be able to see them off with a volley or two.”

“You don’t think that, though,” Charlie replied, and it wasn’t a question.

“I do not,” he agreed as he raised the spyglass again. “If it was just critters, Robbie wouldn’t be running away.”