The first thing James felt was his jaw.

His jaw had apparently been forming complaints since somewhere around the fight mess. Judging by the pain, it still had plenty to say.

The second thing he felt was the bunk beneath him.

It shifted gently under his weight with the familiar motion of a ship that had been sailing long before he came aboard. The hull groaned around him, not in alarm but in the steady way of an old vessel doing its work.

Boots crossed the deck.

Water slid along the planks outside.

Somewhere, someone was wrestling with a rope alone. James recognized the noise well enough to know it was a job that ought to have had two men.

He was alive.

The ship was moving.

His forearm had been bandaged.

A pulse of pain snapped through his jaw. It arrived with all the time of an unpaid debt.

"Right then," he told the ceiling. "Whenever this is. Good mornin’."

After a moment, he put his attention toward the part of the ceiling that seemed most likely to contain the voice.

James grunted, "Och, a wee bit of warning would’ve been appreciated. Before this poor bastard’s life story flattened me."

The notification stated ’complete memory record of the original body.’ I have reviewed it. ’Complete’ was performing important work in that sentence. I apologize for any inconvenience caused by the wording. I do not actually feel regret, but social convention suggests acknowledgment is appropriate.

James attempted a laugh.

Halfway through it collapsed into a hiss between clenched teeth.

Fair enough.

He lay back and let the memories come.

The experience wasn’t tidy. It felt more like overturning a drawer and watching the contents spill across the floor. Pieces of another man’s life arrived all at once, mixed together and demanding attention.

Edinburgh came first.

Cold air off the Firth. Gray skies hanging over the harbor. A childhood spent watching ships come and go and deciding early that the sea looked kinder than the mills. Not by much, but enough.

James paused there.

Edinburgh.

It was the city he was born.

James Calloway.

It was the name his maw gave him.

Even the pull toward the water. That part felt uncomfortably familiar.

For a moment he found himself wondering how much of that was coincidence. The universe had apparently managed to find another James Calloway from Edinburgh and put him aboard a ship. Apparently one developing an unhealthy attachment to the sea had not been enough.

If there was a joke hidden somewhere in that, it was currently beyond him. Or perhaps the joke was simply that fate had no new material.

He moved on.

Britain and the war followed.

The original Calloway had served in the Royal Navy. More importantly, he had served well. That made sense. The pay was real money, and the alternatives on land were rarely attractive.

The War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1713. After that, the Royal Navy released him in the traditional manner, without ceremony and without concern for what the years had cost him.

James understood that part immediately.

Some experiences translated cleanly.

Privateering came next.

Piracy came after that.

The transition between the two barely registered in the memories. Prize money dried up. Opportunities shifted. Another flag presented itself. The decision had felt less like about morality and more like taking the next step.

Then came the brigantine.

The Bloody Rose.

The original Calloway had captured her during a prize action off Hispaniola.

James lay in her bunk and considered that carefully.

Ever since touching the wheel, he’d felt as though he knew the ship. At the time, that familiarity had been strange. Now he understood the reason.

Unfortunately, the explanation was even stranger than the mystery.

There was no obvious solution to that problem.

He figured everyone involved would simply have to live with it.

Then came Hornigold.

The Flying Gang.

Nassau in its prime.

The memories carried crowded docks, taverns overflowing with sailors, and a harbor filled with ships flying flags that respectable nations preferred not to discuss. Nassau had become the unofficial capital of Caribbean piracy, and the Flying Gang its loose fraternity of captains.

The original Calloway had sat across tables from Benjamin Hornigold often enough to know him properly. He was one of the most influential men in the Caribbean. The Flying Gang followed no king, governor, or admiral, but even pirates listened when Hornigold spoke.

He knew the man’s habits.

His sense of humor.

The expression he wore when plans started going wrong.

James lived through those memories and immediately kept them beside another piece of information he already possessed.

He knew how Hornigold’s story ended.

Comparing the two seemed unlikely to improve his mood, so he left them where they were.

The drawer contained more than famous names.

There were the crews.

Men he had never known an hour ago and now could never entirely forget.

The sailor who couldn’t carry a tune and remained unaware of the fact.

The one who treated every meal as grounds for a serious argument.

Faces.

Voices.

Habits.

Dozens of them were gone.

The deck above held only the survivors.

"Bloody hell, lads."

The words came quietly into the empty cabin.

"Sorry for it."

There was nothing else to say.

The dead would not benefit from speeches.

The living still needed a captain.

So he continued.

Eventually his attention settled on the title. He regarded like an unexpected package left outside his door. It probably belonged to him. That didn’t mean opening it was guaranteed to improve the day.

[Against All Reasonable Odds.]

That much, at least, seemed accurate.

"Does it do anything?"

Instead of an answer, the voice displayed a status window.

🏴 [CALLOWAY — STATUS]

Name : James Calloway

Rank : Captain, Flying Gang

Reputation : Obscure

Influence : Limited

Against All Reasonable Odds : You have an unsettling habit of surviving. This remains deeply unfair to your enemies.

Your reputation is ’Obscure.’ Congratulations. Most of the Caribbean would walk past your corpse without recognizing it.

James frowned at the display with mild suspicion.

The evidence seemed questionable.

He had destroyed a French frigate, survived a fight with a naked naval officer, and returned to his ship carrying a Jamaican courtesan over one shoulder.

The official verdict remained obscure.

James figured either the Caribbean had unusually high standards or he’d accidentally arrived during a particularly competitive season for piracy.

"Right. And what does a man need to do for a promotion? Kidnap the Pope?"

The System provided no answer.

That, in itself, was informative.

James attempted to open the ship display instead.

🏴 [BLOODY ROSE — STATUS]

Hull Condition : Repaired

Armament : 18 Broadside Cannons

Gunpowder Supply : 11 Casks

Crew : 39 / 80

Morale : High

Loyalty : Steadfast

Thirty-nine of eighty. This qualifies as success under several surprisingly flexible definitions.

James studied the report.

The hull had been patched. Good. That meant the crew had remained productive while he was unconscious.

The powder supply remained at eleven casks.

That made sense.

They hadn’t needed to spend ammunition boarding the French ship.

At least one part of the operation had gone according to plan.

Then his eyes returned to the crew count.

Thirty-nine.

He lingered there.

Before receiving the original Calloway’s memories, it would have been a number.

Now it wasn’t.

Thirty-nine meant names.

Thirty-nine meant faces.

Thirty-nine meant individual ways of sleeping in a hammock, working a rope, complaining about weather, food, officers, or luck.

The forty-one missing men had possessed all those things too.

"Och, lads."

That was enough.

He started to dismiss the display.

Then he noticed something.

The crew figure looked different from the other entries. Not by much. Just enough to suggest another option waiting for attention.

There was only one way to find out.

He focused on it.

"You’ve got my attention."

The ship display vanished.

Another replaced it.

The new display unfolded across his vision in neat columns. Line after line appeared in a format he hadn’t seen before. It reminded him immediately of a ledger, with names arranged on one side and corresponding information beside them.

A roster.

The complete crew roster of the Bloody Rose.

James pushed himself up onto one elbow.

His jaw complained.

His forearm complained.

Several other parts of his body appeared ready to join the discussion.

He ignored them and began to read.