Michael stood, arms crossed, looking at the woman his men had dragged up from the sea. He remembered the rush of activity when she had been spotted. By rights, no one in the water should have survived that storm. Hell, the ship barely made it through, but something in the back of his mind told him to bring her on board. He knew his men wanted to protest, after all, it was bad luck to have a woman on board a ship, but they knew better than to disobey orders. If his men were good for anything, it was that they were loyal and obedient. Michael laughed to himself. He made his men sound like a dog. Well, some of them acted like it, but that was besides the point.
He had been as surprised as anyone that she was still alive. Unconscious, but alive. Michael deftly removed her gear from around her waist. The last thing he wanted was a woman holding a sword to his throat. He inspected her cutlass. Odd, he thought as he looked back at the woman. She was clearly soaked from head to foot. But there was no water damage to her blade. The salt should have marked the blade, but no, it was as clean as the day it was made. Her pistol was the same. The water should have rendered it useless, but despite a jammed hammer, it all seemed fine. He looked back over to the woman, who was still unaware of the world around her. He placed the cutlass and pistol on the desk. The pouch had some weight to it. He opened it and poured the contents into his hand. A handful of coins fell into his hand, but they weren't like any coins he'd seen in his travels. So she was foreign then? That was the only explanation he could come up with that made any sense. Maybe she was from some far off land that Michael hadn't found yet. A one that had odd money and made weapons that couldn't be ruined by water. If that was the case, then she needed to wake up and help him set course for this magical land. Until then, though, he had to keep watch over her and make sure his men didn't try anything untoward while he wasn't looking. They might be pirates, but he'd be damned if they weren't gentlemen.