[My Final Heaven]

The Mist Stalker was lying low on the mist line. Not at full submergence, as the mist wasn't deep enough in the river delta and she could fall through, but her mast had collapsed and her sails spread over the deck to make her appear like just an eddy in the mist. They were lying low because their target was approaching them, a fat merchantman running on stunsls with the tide.

'Helm, prepare to surface and come about to port broadside.'

Elcid cranked the thruster accuator wheel to direct aim the starboard balast tank so that when they de-presurised to surface, the blow back would manuver them around to port while the crew raised the mast. I would appear to the merchant vessel as if they had suddenly appeared on thier stern out of nowhere.

'Mark!' Exclaimed captain Capella and Elcid hauled full back on the on the elevation levers to blow the balast tanks. The force of the blow pivotted the Mist Stalker around by ninety degrees and Elcid used the rudder to bring it around another 30.

'Well done mister Baretto,' The captain congradulated him on the manuver, 'Run up the mast you laggards! Raise the colour, clear that mist off the deck and get the crews to the guns!'

The captain really didn't have to yell reflected Elcid. This was a pretty standard manuver by now. They had the element of surprise and the Mist Stalker had a veteran crew. The captain reading the look on Elcid's face smiled and as they were alone on the bridge for the moment he explained.

'Of course I know everyone knows thier buisness but it's the look of the thing my boy. They need to count on the fact that thier captain is watching them all the time, that he knows what's going on, and that I'll tan thier hides raw if they slack off even for a second.'

'Sir.' Replied Elcid.

The four pound cannons slamed back on thier traces, each small gun hurrling chain shot wheeling up into the merchantman's rigging, tearing appart the sails that were still fastened to thier cross bars, as yet unfurled. Because the merchantman was running with a tailwind, only thier foreward topsail and stunsls were flying, so any attempt at present to manuver would stall the ship and becalm it.

A second volley tore away the merchant's starboard stunslboom and that was enough to make it's captain lower thier colour. It looked like they had no stomach for a fight today which angered Elcid. He had just got a new batch of refined Crystal mist and had wanted to test the Arquebazooka's new explosive shot against some enemies.

'Remember what I told you...' The captain read his look once again.

'Always give quarter when it's asked.' Elcid responded automatically.

'Very good. Now, bring us alongside and lets be away with the prize post haste mister Baretto.'

'Yes sir.'

The raid went smoothly. The Mist Stalker was gaining notoriety in the region as the ghost ship that came up out of the mist and attacked without warrning, but who would always spare the lives of a ship's crew if they surrendered and wouldn't even steal the full manifest.

True to form, once the merchant ship had surrendered to them, Elcid pulled along side and the Captain went aboard with a retinue to negotiate. They were acting as privateers under the direction of the Thermidor Government to attack any merchant ships doing buisness with the Kingdom of Ares, so they had set up at the river delta which poured into the great mist ocean where they attacked merchant ships either leaving on the Noontide or waiting for the Midnight tide to carry them upstream.

Buisness had been good so far, and they'd only had one ship that had even put up a fight. They'd had to board it, as they were always fighting ships much bigger than thier own, and thier guns were too light to penetrate the armor. Besides, thier own armor was thin enough and if thier secret weapon was hit, they would be sunk. The Mist Stalker was unique in ship design, as far as Elcid was aware, because it featured a mist sealed cabin.

During that boarding, they'd lost three men which they'd had to replace with Plains farm hands who reminded Elcid far too much of himself when he'd first come aboard the Mist Stalker. Far too young and far too nieve and not a wisp of mist in thier blood.

Mist is extreemly dense as will creep into most places even though they are tightly sealed, so the Mist Stalker had a snorkel that it run either above or bellow the mist line, which pumped fresh air into the cabin and forced the mist back out again. It was this system which allowed them to be so successful against much bigger ships, always rissing out of the mist at close range and directly in the ship's for or aft quarter where thier guns could not shoot.

When the captain returned to the bridge with the tribute loaded in the hold, he had Elcid set a course towards thier base of opperations, a small plains village with a small air dock that was a ways out under the mist sea. They were safe from Ares ships there, because of the sea's dept which was too deep for a warship to pass through. Because the larger the ship, the greater the boyancy, an average ship of the line didn't have enough balast to sink through the deep seas to the land beneath, and while a land patrol would eventually be dispatched to stop them, the war was still a sea battle for the moment, and neither side seemed to want to take it to the next level.

All this, meant that the privateer trade was a lucrative one, as they set sail with a manifest full of silver ignots, silk and prime timber. Elcid, for all that he was disapointed he hadn't gotten a chance to use his new weapon was feeling good to be a pirate as he piloted the Mist Stalker towards home at a fair clip.