“Captain, I must protest. It’s too dangerous. As first officer, I should be the one to conduct the mission.”

The two senior most officers of the ship were seated in the captain’s cabin. The seas were rougher than earlier. 	It was not significantly worse, but enough for the first lieutenant to steady his cup of tea as the vessel dipped into a wave. Fir Hampshire sat at her desk, arms folded and legs crossed. She took a silent sip of her tea, before looking askew at Mr. Hudson. 

The plan to investigate Tortuga had produced a fair bit of rebuttal from her first officer ever since she announced it earlier in the week. Briefly outlining the plan, the orders entailed sailing the captured raider into Tortuga, under Hampshire’s command to gather intelligence for an assault in the near future. The HMS Endymion would keep just out of sight over the horizon to provide ancillary support if needed. 

”Alright,” she began, looking him in the eye. “I’ll place you on the mission. It would indeed be a waste of an opportunity to distinguish yourself if you stayed aboard.”

“I’m glad you’ve reconsi—“

“However, I will still be commanding our little foray into Tortuga. Robert, we’re not sailing into the Spanish fleet. Tortuga may be unlawful and unruly, but it is a functional town. Money and power are still the law of the land, and as the commanding officer, it would be better to see their current state of affairs firsthand. No issues should arise as long as you don’t look like a fool. My decision is final; let’s not ruin tea over it.” 

Robert could only sigh. He was still mulling over the issue, but he knew as a friend and officer, anything further would be pointless. 

“Alright,” he said, moving on. “Mr. Smith says we’ll be seeing gale-like conditions by tomorrow. We may have a hurricane on our hands.”

Fir nodded. She hadn’t been on deck since morning, but she suspected as much from the steadily rising seas and the sound of the wind against the glass panes of her cabin. She had already given it some thought, and in fact found the situation beneficial to her cause. Normally, ships would head out to sea to ride out a storm, but Tortuga provided an exceptional safe harbor due to its geographic features. Any captain worth his salt would realize this and make for port rather than riding out the hurricane at sea. If they were to sail in at this time, they would likely have a better impression of number of pirates operating in the area. With this in mind, she decided to accelerate the time schedule for the plan.

“Tell Mr. Gibson to signal the Orient Fortune to come alongside.”

And as it was, on the next day, a small sloop entered Tortuga under a cloak of heavy rain, wind, and all manner of high waves.