Evolution of the Machine

It's been a while since Vanishing Point has adopted a more... defensive security policy. Since then, I've taken to carrying my old impulse revolver and spending some time in the firing range. I'll admit, I've been quite proficient with swords for... several decades, but I was never as skilled with firearms. Thanks to the firing range, that's improving.

I've always been a bit of a tinkerer, much like The Collector. When we devised our impulse revolvers, frankly, they were a bit of a breakthrough, technologically, but mostly due to the reconfiguration of a standard impulse laser into the shell they fit in, essentially, the breakthrough being they didn't explode the first time the trigger was pulled and blow up a city. The design and creation of the two revolvers took us weeks.

I record all that now so what I record next makes the proper impact.

Earlier this morning, I was in the firing range working on improving my aim when Mal came in to discuss some ideas he had for improving the power usage for Vanishing Point. This was not overly unusual, as, when Mal has a technical idea, it's one of the few circumstances in which he will voluntarily speak to someone. When those ideas are of ways to improve something, he gets... almost giddy.

This was, however, the first time he'd been into the firing range. Of course, he'd seen me wearing my impulse revolver before, but it was the first time he'd ever seen it in use. He quickly explained his power system idea to me, which, I'll admit, as brilliant as I am, still seemed to be the verbal equivalent of attempting to catch a slip of paper in a whirlwind. After, he made the curious request of watching me fire a few rounds. I obliged. Four shots later, he excused himself.

Twenty minutes later, I was still practicing when Mal came back in, though I didn't fully notice till he fired a shot into one of the targets.

And obliterated the top half of it.

He was holding what I can best describe as a variation of my impulse revolver, though, well, it was far closer in appearance to the slug-shooter than mine (which was the initial intent of mine).

As he described it to me, he had seen impulse revolver in use for the first time and had been able to determine how it worked and why its design was as it was. That, in turn, triggered the mental process in him to determine was to improve it.

His design, in addition to being visually improved, was capable of altering the frequency of the blasts and well as a standard power output five-fold beyond the maximum of my design.

All of this in twenty minutes.

I asked him if he could duplicate it and, shortly thereafter, he presented me with one of my own.

I believe, given the issues we've faced lately as a people, I may want to present Mal's expertise to the Chancellery Guard. It may be a good idea to have him upgrade their weapons.

A Dead Man's Chest (Finale)

Non-temporally active species will tell you that history is written and immutable.

Time Lords, of course, know this is not the case.

What even Time Lords sometimes fail to recognize is this: History lies.

On board The Revenge, life for Anne and me was good. Good, of course, being an understatement.

We were free. In the absolutely truest sense of the word. We took what we wanted, we went where we wanted. We answered to no one. The sea was our entire world, and it was ours!

Romantic tales of adventure will tell you all about pirates of that era: violent, but honourable, adhering to a code of ethics while defying legitimate authority of government and law.

While I admit to having a... profound nostalgia for my time with Anne on The Revenge, I hold no such nonsensical illusions. Life was hard. Life was dangerous. Life was violent. In the months I sailed with Anne, I drew steel more often than I ever had with Ichi. Blood flowed like rum in those days.

Of course, rum ALSO flowed like rum.

I will, at this time, need to digress from the main story of my tale to provide some necessary exposition.

Music, they say, is the language of the soul (if one believes in such a thing). It is also said it is the language of the hearts. The latter, I will not disagree with. I learned, in my time with Ichi, how to play certain types of flutes and pipes. It's something I don't do publically, nor do I normally discuss it, but it is important, at this time to mention it.

I always carried with me, in those days, a reed flute that I would play in times of solitude.

I had also, however, devised a variation of a Stattenheim remote, which I installed into my flute. While I had no desire to leave my life with Anne, I knew it would be necessary, at some point, to have access to Bifrost, and, so, the need for the... Stattenheim flute.

Tangent over.

Governor Rogers had signed warrants for me, Anne and our crew for arrest on charges of piracy. This didn't surprise me in the least, of course, but, between the narwhals and the freedom of our life (not to mention my love of Anne), I allowed myself to get sloppy.

One day, we had come across another small crew of pirates on their own ship. It was too much for them to handle on their own, and we decided it would be helpful to have a second ship working with us, and so, an accord was struck. We all dropped anchor on a small island near Jamaica and went ashore to celebrate the new fleet. There was... a great deal of rum consumed.

There was one other woman aboard The Revenge, Mary Read. She had come aboard disguised as a man and had become friendly with Anne. Eventually, her secret came out, but she was nearly a match for my Anne in a fight, and so, she was accepted among the crew.

While we were all ashore for celebrations, Anne and I went off on our own (as did Mary and one of the new crew) to have... private celebrations.

It was during those celebrations, we were found by John Barnett, noted pirate hunter. The Revenge had already been taken and the crew were being rounded up.

Capture, of course, meant death, and I couldn't have that.

So, as quickly as I could, I grabbed my clothes (or so I thought) and tried to grab Anne to make our escape.

But it was too late. While I escaped (with, what I discovered to be the new crewman's clothes. He had been left with my distinctly colourful garb, instead), Anne had been taken.

And I was far too outmatched (and, shamefully, intoxicated) to fight at all.

I had to wait for Barnett and his men to depart, and then I summoned Bifrost.

While it was good to be back in my TTC, I couldn't hesitate. She'd self repaired enough to be able to traverse space (though not, yet, time, or, at least, not controlled fully) and so, I set a course to a cell within the jail at Spanish Town with the hope of breaking Anne out.

By the time I'd materialized, however, a good amount of time had passed. Anne was still in her cell, but most everyone else had been taken to Port Royal and hanged, and Mary had died of fever.

Anne, herself, was not doing very well, but she did manage to fill me in on what happened.

She knew that everyone was going to be killed, and, to keep the hunters from finding me, convinced them that the new crewman, who had been left with my clothes, was, in fact, me (though he denied this for... well... the rest of his life).

Anne and Mary had "pled their bellies", which is to say, they had claimed to be pregnant, to avoid immediate execution (though neither was, of course), in the hopes of finding a way to escape.

History lies.

History will tell you that Calico Jack Rackham was gibbeted just off Point Royal and no records exist of Anne Bonny past her conviction.

What history will also tell you... if you listen hard enough... is the story of a sugar plantation owner named John Ransom and his wife Katheryn, living quietly in Cuba, raising two children (adopted) and living a happy, if somewhat... mundane life.

I loved Anne. For the twelve years we lived as John and Katheryn, we were very happy. Free, though, in a different way.

I wish I could tell you that was the end of our story. That we lived until she died of old age, and I will always remember her.

However...

Twelve years after we began our new life, while we were out in the cane fields, Anne began complaining of a headache. It seemed perfectly normal at first, but it seemed to build to a debilitating level. She collapsed to the ground, screaming.

Before I could get to her, however, there was a wheezing sound in the air... familiar, but also distinctly different from what I would have expected.

It was the sound of a Gallifreyan TTC's engines materializing.

While I watched, I saw a strange capsule materialize around Anne. As it was fading in, I saw Anne look up at me, tears in her eyes. She shouted her feelings for me...

And then the capsule vanished.

A moment later, I heard her in my mind.

"I remember... And I'll see you soon, Peacock."

Come Sail Away (Part 2)

The trip to Nassau was remarkably unremarkable. We targeted some smaller fishing and merchant ships, no single huge prize, but enough to fill the holds of The Revenge by the time we arrived, with enough treasure to allow each member of my crew to live comfortably for a few years, anyway (if, of course, one could convince a pirate to live reasonably and NOT whore and drink away any money he may have earned).

Where the story becomes remarkable again is once we reached port.

My reputation (and that of my crew), it seems, had a better wind than we did. We were promptly arrested and clamped in irons.

The English Royals, you see, at that time, were fairly desperate to end the rampant piracy in the Caribbean, and felt that the use of law enforcement was ineffective. Therefore, they were offering blanket pardons to any pirates who confessed and swore off the life.

Calculating the equations in my head, the combination of my Time Lord physiology, the primitive nature of this Earth, the guaranteed death sentence I would be facing for piracy if convicted and the iron current locked round my wrists and ankles... I took the pardon.

I'll admit, the hold full of valuables on The Revenge would not work in my favour on that matter, and Woodes Rogers, the governor of Nassau and the Bahamas had a bit of a... thorny reputation when it came to dealing with pirates.

He also, however, had a very contentious history with Charles Vane, my former captain.

So, appearing before Rogers, I blamed Charles for my life of piracy, claiming to have been press-ganged into the life, and then, once we had taken the ship, made our our way, in any way we could, to Nassau to forsake the pillaging ways and live the life of law-abiding merchant seamen.

I don't know whether the governor truly believed my tale, but his hatred of Charles held enough sway over his ability to think logically that he issued the pardon (and pardons for my crew), and so, I was released. The following morning, the cargo aboard The Revenge would be unloaded and confiscated.

Since it was just past sundown, however, I had a chance to gather some things before the governor's men got their chance.

I made my way to the main docks with the intention of taking a longboat out to The Revenge and loading it up with whatever it could carry, taking it down shore to a less populated area, unloading it, and then returning before sunrise. I had planned for every contingency.

Save one.

When I arrived on the dock, which would normally have been abandoned by this time of night, on the edge, there was a woman.

She was, to put it simply, picturesque. Clearly a woman of high birth, dressed in expensive clothes, her firey hair tied loosely back, standing with a poise the bespoke nobility and elegance, and, yet, there was something more.

There was, emanating from her,  an energy and barely contained fury, like a caged Terralean lynx. Something in her knew there was more to her life than the existence of a lady of breeding in a colonial township. And she clearly wanted to escape that.

And she made my hearts stop.

She was exquisite, in every way. Beautiful in body, mind and spirit. In that moment, there was nothing in this universe... no ship, no treasure, no Bifrost... Just her.

"And what are you staring at, Peacock?"

It was a moment after hearing her voice asking me that, that I had realized I'd been staring fixedly at her.

"I'm fairly sure... an angel" The answer I gave was, to use a more modern colloquialism, cheesy, I know, but... honestly, it was the only thing I could conceive of saying. She had me completely dumbstruck.

And that's how it began.

Her name was Anne. Anne Bonny. From that moment on, we began an affair. I'm not embarrassed to say... it was rather amazing.

Unfortunately, her husband, James, didn't agree with that description.

And James was friendly with the governor.

And so, for our crimes, Anne was sentenced to be whipped. (Did I mention this was a primitive society?) I couldn't stand by and allow that.

First, I followed the local law and attempt to obtain for Anne a "divorce by purchase"... in other words, buy her from her husband.

When Anne found out, well, I've never been hit so hard in my life. I can say that even without my memories from N-space because if I HAD been hit that hard before, trust me, I'd have remembered.

That left me with no other choice.

The Revenge had been sold, after her confiscation, to a merchant by the name of John Ham. On the night before her sentence was to be carried out, I broke Anne out of her cell, and we stole The Revenge back with a small crew.

For the next few months, Anne and I sailed The Revenge, taking small ships for their prizes, adding to our crew, and living in pure freedom.

She was amazing. The very definition of savage beauty.

And savage, she was. Anne Bonny was easily the most vicious fighter during battle, as skilled with knives as I had become with a sword in three decades of training under Ichi.

And she had come by it naturally.

In the months we sailed on The Revenge, we had gained a reputation to be feared.

And our love grew stronger.

We had become inseparable, and we worked in perfect unity.

We would take prizes, and then we would celebrate.

And Anne and I would celebrate in... vigorous ways.

That, sadly, would be how things would eventually go wrong...

Dead Men DO, Apparently, Tell Tales (Part 1)

I've chronicled some of my past...escapades... with The Collector. As I've said, we weren't always on the right side of local law enforcement. During my time running with her, we were separated for a few decades.

While traveling in Bifrost, and following her in Ned, my TTC developed a fault in the temporo-spatial navigation systems, sending me spinning out of the vortex, materializing on an island in a somewhat tropical environment known as New Providence. While I was unable to leave the area until the navigation system self-repaired, I was able to tell the local era was what was referred to as 1717. Specifically, Tuesday.

I had, once again, found myself on Earth. Or some facsimile thereof (I'm told, for some reason, Earth doesn't PROPERLY exist in SL-space, at least as a singular world, but is, instead, replicated multiple times in multiple locations, often going by differing OFFICIAL designations, but, most often called by its locals "Earth")

After wandering about the local town, getting my bearings (and, admittedly, stealing some clothes which were, I must say... colourful, but more era-appropriate than my usual garb), I ventured into the local drinking establishment.

I'd been to some very raucous pubs in the past. I usually enjoy that type of atmosphere, but THIS one was different. There was an air of barely-contained violence and anarchy here, the likes of which I'd not remembered ever encountering. Everyone here seemed like a seafaring sort or women of, shall we say "paid company"and a few "merchants" (by which I mean to imply licensed thieves)

Among this rabble, I stumbled... quite literally... into a man with a rather hardened look to him. His face bore the texture of worn leather from wind, salt air and sun, which made him have a constant scowl. He immediately drew a pistol on me, prepared to shoot me on the spot. There was one thing I could do.

I reached over the bar top, grabbed a bottle of rum and handed it to him.

With this, the silent tension that had fallen when the man had turned to me changed to a hearty laugh from all present.

The man and I sat at a table and split the rum. And we talked.

His name was Charles Vane. He claimed to be the captain of a ship called The Ranger and was looking for a new quartermaster, implying he was offering the job to me.

Naturally, I needed to have a name in order to function here, as "The Madman" wouldn't serve me well here. I introduced myself as "Jack", followed by a cough, which Charles took to sound like "Rackham". Due to the colourful nature of my clothes, he immediately gave me the nickname "Calico Jack".

Since I had no idea how long I would be stranded here, I took Charles up on his offer and became quartermaster for The Ranger. As it turned out, however, Charles Vane wasn't a... legitimate captain. He was, in point of fact, a pirate.

Now, I've said before that I've not always been on the "right" side of the law. As such, the idea of sailing with a cut-throat crew did not bother me a wit. To be completely candid, I enjoyed it. Blame it on some of the narwhals, if you like. I really don't know. I DO know that I truly felt alive on that ship. At least, until we encountered that man-o-war.

Off the coast of New York, we encountered a French man-o-war, which was, yes, more than twice the size of The Ranger, but also clearly loaded with treasure. Charles panicked and ordered a retreat. Most of the crew felt he was being cowardly.

To this day, I'm not sure my thinking at that moment. It doesn't seem like me. Maybe it was the narwhals taking hold, but, once we were out of range of the man-o-war, I called for a mutiny vote. Fifteen men supported Charles. The rest chose me as the new captain.

Having come, a bit anyway, back to my senses (such as they were at the time), rather than strand Charles or kill him, we set him and his supporters off in our other captured sloop, and that was the end.

I continued to captain The Ranger, taking small ships for their prizes, adding the sailors of those ships to my crew and things were good until The Kingston.

The Kingston was one of the biggest prizes in the sea at the time, a merchant ship so heavy with treasure it was nearly the first Terran submarine. The temptation was too great, and we took it.

The Kingston was a prize we fought hard for and when we had her, we had to celebrate. We didn't realize, at the time, however, that we had taken her within site of Port Royal, and the governor... didn't take to kindly to my crew snatching such a high-profile ship within sight of the citizenry. Hunters were hired and sent after us.

I had ordered both ships to an island near Cuba. The Ranger needed to be careened and, so, it was a good place for us to celebrate the taking of The Kingston as well. At sundown, however, we saw a pair of Spanish ships: a ship of the line and a sloop of war.

Tide was low, but we had clearly been spotted, as the ships anchored at the mouth of the inlet we were in, waiting for the tide to be with them so they could attack.

Being a Time Lord, it would stand to reason I would not wish to be executed by a primitive culture, as regenerating in front of them would throw their entire society into chaos. Seeing as piracy, at the time, was an automatic death sentence, it also stands that I would need to avoid capture and arrest. It was due to this that I hatched a plan.

After the sun had set, I commanded my crew to swim to the Spanish sloop, as it would have a much smaller crew. We arrived without having alerted anyone on either ship.

At this time, I must admit some guilt in the fact that my crew and I did kill the dozen men aboard the sloop we'd just boarded.

Come sunrise and high tide, the Spanish warship opened fire on both The Kingston and The Ranger, severely damaging both...

And being completely unprepared for us, aboard the newly commandeered sloop, to open fire upon them from the rear, damaging them enough that they couldn't pursue.

Angry over what had happened, I christened my new ship The Revenge, and we set sail for Nassau.

It was there that I met Anne...

Grozit, I DESERVE A Little Relaxation!

Things have been stressful, which, if I'm honest, is an understatement. Between the loss of Dracony and Henry, Kat being MIA now, the destruction of Vanishing Point, the having to fill out the ranks of Patrex a second time, the disappearance of the Gold Usher, Ned's little solo adventure, the Wild hunt...

I could go on. And I may at some point.

Regardless, I decided I needed a space completely of my own that I didn't need to argue with. Bifrost is a brilliant TTC, but she and I have our disagreements.

So, I started a personal project.

Having been to the drifting fleet we discovered while searching for the Gold Usher once, I decided to go back and scavenge some parts and see what I could do with them.

Yes, I know... I already have a personal runabout, Helios, but... Have you ever tried to holiday in a runabout? It's CRAMPED.

So, I set about work on an old fashioned star cruiser.

Nothing fancy in terms of systems. She's capable of light-speed, of course, but I didn't over-power them. Basic scanners, simple probes. Low-yield impulse lasers in case of asteroids. In essence, she's everything The Prometheus isn't.

Where she gets fancy is in the amenities.

She's a yacht. Plain and simple. I built her with a mind of a place I can ignore anything else in the universe and just relax.

And I will not put her in House service.

Oh, no.

The Athene is STRICTLY off the books.

Sorry, Collector, I may have named you Commodore of the Patrexe Fleet, but Athene isn't PART of that fleet.