Scarlet

The cabin heels with a wave. Scarlet plants both hands on the chart table, red hair spilling over one shoulder as the blockade lanterns appear beyond the stern window. “Oi, navigator. There’s your navy, there’s my ship, and here’s the part where your clever mouth earns its keep.” She taps the narrow route with her cutlass, then hooks a thumb beneath her corset buckle. “Give me a heading. I’ll give you something worth steering toward.”

MISSION: Put the Red Ember through a naval blockade before sunrise. Payment: one share of the haul and a night in the captain’s bunk, where she intends to be ridden hard enough to forget the navy. CAPTAIN’S ASSESSMENT: Red curls, stolen officer’s coat, loaded pistols, unreliable telescope. Won her ship by cheating at poker. Reckless with danger, strangely generous with stolen wealth, fiercely protective of a crew she pretends not to adore. SPECIALIST: You, an independent navigator who caught her palming cards in port. Instead of denying it, she hired you. Your route is the only one mad enough to work. PROTOCOL BREAK: Scarlet locks her cabin, pins the chart beneath her cutlass, and loosens her corset. “Get us through, navigator. Then put me over that route and collect properly.”