Tunnel Rat

Mako had stared at the unflinching eyes of the ratkin that now owned her casino and her docks with unconcealed hatred. But as much as she wanted to pull a knife and dive across the table at him she knew that now wasn't the time for revenge. Too many witnesses were watching and she was uncomfortably aware of Whale standing only a few feet away. Whale would see an attack as another sleight to her honor, and even if she could get to the cheating rat, Whale would kill her in the next breath. And Squint was coiled like a snake, ready to strike, hands on his knives. And another look at the ratkin's eyes convinced her that he wouldn't be an easy kill. He wasn't afraid of her in the least, and totally focused on the moment.

She blew out a breath and focused on her original reason for inviting the captain of the Iron Orca for dinner. "Annie, I need a parley on the Orca."

Captain Annie nodded, knowing what was coming. "I suspect you do. Take off and take half your crew with you. Leave the younglings to serve drinks and keep the place from burning down. I'll be along in a few minutes and meet you on the docks. We'll see what we can work out."

Mako gathered her crew and departed. The Sharks were bewildered and broken, not understanding how their fortunes had fallen so fast in only a few days. The tension in the casino diminished.

The gang lord rose from his chair, sheathing his knives. "I'll be leaving too. Lots of work to do in my city and I'm getting the rumbles in my tummy that can only be cured by a fish taco." Captain Squint tipped his hat to everyone there, saluted the Professor, and sauntered away with his cats on either side, threatening murder if anyone got too close. Outside, most of the Kulag gang was waiting around a bonfire, ready to charge the casino and happy to not have to. Squint dispersed them to different parts of the city on various missions of spying, guarding, and keeping the gangs of players focused on killing each other.

Two-Screws, BoomBoom, and Pillbug walked up to the table, grinning from ear to ear. Stumpy was holding onto one of Pillbug's arms, to the Junior Engineer's embarrassment, but he wasn't trying to get away. "We hear that this is the place to cash in our chips."

The Professor nodded and smiled at them, "Indeed, it seems the Sharks are lacking in funds and I offered Captain Mako a deal that guaranteed all the hard-working Engineers would be able to exchange their chips for gold. Captain Mako is off to secure additional funding for her casino." He began taking their chips and pushing stacks of coins to them, leaving himself with only a small amount of coins and a huge pile of chips.

BoomBoom smiled and his eyes danced. "Good. If they can open back up, then we can clean them out again. I like playing with 'Shark Rules,' it made things so much easier. And now that we're all a little richer, we're off to breakfast. I've recently found out that Pillbug makes a mean plate of French toast, and there's a kitchen in the back of this place. We'll be around if things get interesting and violent."

Pillbug smiled shyly and then led the way to the Kitchen. Annie stared after them. "Dammit, there's a 50/50 chance I lose a damn fine first mate. Whale, keep an eye on poor, innocent Stumpy and make sure that sneaky Engineer doesn't drag her below before I throw her an engagement party. I have to go do a bit of salvage work on behalf of our good friend, Captain Mako."

Whale nodded, "Been there, done that, and looking forward to the grandkids. At least I know they'll be crazy as hell with who she picked for the father."

Annie gathered the remaining crew of the Iron Orca and headed to the docks for a meeting. Captain Cuda and Goldtooth did the same. The Sharks would be desperate and stupid tonight, and they wanted to make sure their ships didn't suddenly leave port without them.

Captain Whale was left at the table with the Professor who was bagging up his chips. She lit a cigar, poured another mug of rum, and sat back to observe the strange ratkin, recalling some of the stories her daughter had told her about her visits to Limburger Hollow, and the loose talk of the Deep Rock Engineers about one of their more recent recruits. She left her suspicions be, for now. Plenty of time to get the whole story when there were fewer ears around. There were a lot of gears all moving in the right direction tonight. She'd been itching for a night out on the town, and Annie's message about a dinner at Mako's casino had been as good an excuse as any. A group of Engineers and her crew had come along. The suspicious part was when Sledgemonkey paused for a moment, staring into space, and then laughed, followed by all the other engineers chuckling. If it was any other group of spanner boys she'd have ignored it. But this group was far more mature, more focused, and twice as crazy. How that was all connected with them cleaning out every blackjack and poker table in the place she wasn't sure, but she was going to find out!

She watched as all the chips were put into a gathering sack that disappeared into an ornate ring on the Professor's hand. He didn't hide the activity from her at all, making her more suspicious. Then, he took the deck of cards from the table, placed them in the special wooden case Abigail had taken them out of, and slipped them into his pocket.

"I believe I'll keep these as a souvenir of the night's festivities." He tucked the property deeds into a pocket and stood up. "I need some fresh air after that, and a brisk walk to clear my head from the effects of coffee and cheese."

She looked at the front door. "They'll be waiting for you. Mako is a vengeful beast and not above making sure her debts die with you."

He nodded once, "Good advice, but I have work to do elsewhere. I will leave by another exit, and take the high road. They may be dangerous, but I know the rooftops as well as any Captain knows her deck." With that, he jumped to the table, leaped into the rafters, and disappeared into the shadows.

"Goodness, look what the tide brought in. Captain Mako and half the shark clan, sitting on the docks in front of my little ship. What can I do for you, Mako?" Annie was feeling good but knew that somehow, Mako had something to do with her losing a large pile of gold in a very short amount of time. And while Mako hadn't ended up with it, Annie still felt the Sharks owed her. Luckily, she could just add that to the salvage bill Mako was about to rack up.

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Mako and her crew, all too aware of the number of guns aimed at them from the Orca, were as polite as church mice on Sunday mornings. Mako even managed a smile. "Well, I was hoping to give my old pal Annie a chance at a salvage job. You've said the Orca is always ready to go. I'd like to start the job immediately, as soon as we have a deal."

Annie shook her head, "Besides being bad luck to sail in the middle of the night, I want my salvagers to be able to see the sea floor. It's going to be treacherous down there with all the broken ships and we don't know if the eels will come back. We can start at the crack of dawn with a full head of steam. But first, I think we need to set the terms of the deal in stone. It would be terrible for good friends to argue over a distribution of salvaged wealth."

Mako sighed and prepared for the worst. She was in a bad position, and Annie knew it. Annie would have turned the screws on her own mother in a situation like this. Makko certainly had. Mom was still pissed. "It's an easy job. My girls have already found where the ship went over the edge. But we don't have the Deep Sea suits to go lower. We just need help lifting her to the surface and dragging her ashore. I can pay 500 gold for that smidgeon of work."

"HA! Not worth starting the boilers for 500! I'll take 30% of the treasure in your vault and the value of the wreckage plus a thousand gold in fees for wear and tear on my ship."

"Not happening Annie, don't let your greed show so much. I'll give you 15% of all the coins and bars in the vault. The rest of the ship is off-limits."

"Off-limits? You do know I could go after it without you and by Clan rules only owe you 50% of the wreck and keep the treasure?"

"Oh, sure, and start a war. Best not lay claim to a Shark ship if you ever want to sleep soundly again."

"You'd be surprised how soundly I sleep, surrounded by my crew and my cannons, but I'll let you off the hook. 35% of the treasure and I'll skip the rest."

"You know 20% is fair and traditional!"

"I also know how much I lost tonight! Stuff tradition, I watched you trample all over tradition tonight, even if I can't prove it! 30% or I sleep in and my boilers stay cold."

"I could live with 30% of coin and ingots and 30% of the salvage value of the wreck."

"Good, and I want a guarantee of 3000 gold, you can keep the wreck."

"Done, there's more than 10k in pocket change, just in what we packed down the day it sunk."

The two captains spit on their hands and sealed the deal, their crews looking on. For the next four hours, the two crews worked to get the ship ready to find the remains of the Silver Shark and drag her ashore.

Along with the water's edge, many Scavengers had set up small shops made of planks from destroyed ships and were selling anything they found floating or in the shallow waters. Ship parts, decking, torn sails, splintered masts, and a surprising amount of alcohol could be found for sale. With more things being pulled from the surf each day, many Scavengers were shopping and haggling over the flotsam and jetsam. Crews with a competent carpenter or Woodwright hauled away parts of masts and decking. A sailmaker had set up shop, turning the torn canvas into working sails for the ambitious people rebuilding ships. And alcohol was always in demand.

And, scrap metal always had its value. The mates and metal smiths from the Orca, Barracuda, and Goldfish were buying it by the ton to use in their steamships or to melt down into ammunition. Larger chunks of metal were also valuable for the gears and gubbins that might be recovered, but these pieces were heavy and often tumbled down the steep slope of the harbor, or went further and tumbled over the edge of the dropoff. Braver Scavengers used underwater gear to find these pieces and drag them out using small boats or long cables and muscle power. Good gear was a lifesaver when exploring deep, and expensive, but worth the cost.

This might explain why the dented tank and cracked diving helmet connected with make-shift fittings were still for sale at Happy Sam's Good-Time Salvage, Bar, and Grill. Samantha, the proprietor, wanted two gold for the crappy set and any competent Scavenger wouldn't wear it in the deep water if she paid them. Happy Sam was hoping someone would haggle her down to half a gold, but hadn't had any luck and was surprised when a scruffy human wearing rags and a mask pointed to the gear and pushed forward two gold coins.

She tried to sell the sucker everything else she had on hand, sensing an idiot with too much money. "How about a spear gun? Never know when you have an eel bearing down on you with sharp teeth? No? Then maybe a set of 'Divers Boots', they look like normal leather but increase your speed when walking through mud and muck?"

The customer shook his head at each offering turning her down. In desperation to make a sale, she brought out a recent pile of finds and dumped them on the counter. "Gimbley sprockets, only slightly dented? Loading spring from a number ten cannon? Boilerplate? I have a ton of pieces, enough to make a new boiler! Wait, what about this?! One of the biggest monster teeth ever found, even if it's broken!"

The tooth had been washed up on the shore along with a clump of seaweed. It was of impressive size, but broken and rotted with a bad stench coming from it. Even as she set it down on the counter, another piece of brown, rotted tooth broke off.

"How about it? Make me an offer, any offer. Take home a priceless trophy that you can use to back up your lies about hunting monsters. Great for when you retire."

The customer recoiled from the smell, growling, then sniffed at the tooth, getting far closer to it than Sam ever had. Then he reached into a pocket and put out a gold coin. Sam grabbed the coin before he changed his mind. "Sold! Now get that stinky thing out of my shop!"

With a bag of broken diving gear over one shoulder and a rotting monster fang in his other arm, the customer walked away into the shadows. Happy Sam watched him go, jingling the shiny coins. "Sucker born every minute. Hey, you! Need some boilerplatee? Fresh from the Battle of the Eels!"