Miya Black, Pirate Princess I: Adventure Dawns by Ben White Page A

said. "Good!"
    "Miya," he replied. "No."
    "What?"
    "No. I know you don't want to hear it, but 'no'," said her father, before taking a bite of his toast.
    "I haven't even said anything yet!"
    "But I know exactly what it is that you WILL say. And the answer, I'm sorry to say, is no."
    "Okay then, mister 'I know everything there is to know about my daughter', what was I going to say?"
    " 'Dad, I know you don't want to put me in any danger but I really want to help out and do my part to protect the kingdom, and really you know I'm a good fighter and good on a ship and I'd be a great asset to you, and you need good crew, so really there's no way you can say no, right? Right?'. Something like that."
    Rats, thought Miya. "N-no, I wasn't going to say that," she said. "Hah! As if I'd say something like that. Um."
    "So what were you going to say?"
    "I ... was going to ask you ... about ..."
    The sound of a bell from outside interrupted Miya, to her quiet relief. Her father frowned, then got up and went to answer the door, coming back a minute later with a piece of paper in his hand, frowning even deeper.
    "What is it?" asked Miya, through a mouthful of stolen toast.
    "Badger Pete has sacked Goodport on Triangle Island. Took everything of value, stole every seaworthy vessel and left the port burning behind him."
    "Oh no."
    Tomas grimaced. "Although I feel awful for saying it, in a way this is good news for us."
    "What? Dad!"
    "I mean that Triangle Island is not a part of the northern islands, and it's a good distance to the west. I didn't think Pete would go that far out of his way, but now it seems as though he's conducting a systematic campaign of sacking and recruitment ... and enslavement, of course. From Triangle Island it seems likely that he'd attack Blossom Island next, and then the others in that area ... again, though I hate to say it, that puts a good few islands between us and his fleet. We almost certainly have more time than I had hoped, two weeks or more, especially if he returns to the northern islands ... still, to sack Goodport so thoroughly—the message says he attacked with an overwhelming force, but gives no indication to actual numbers."
    "You'd think someone would've counted," said Miya.
    "You've never been in a battle," said Tomas, "it's not quite that easy. Especially if you're on the losing side."
    "Huh."
    "This is a third-hand report, passed from a Goodport fisherman who saw the attack to a trader to one of our fishermen ... the attack happened five days ago ..."
    Tomas paused a moment, then was suddenly moving, Miya dropping the toast and following him instantly, both of them heading for his study. Once there, Tomas pulled out his map while Miya cleared a space for it on his desk, then they rolled it out, weighed down the corner with some books, and studied it together. Tomas tapped Tonfa-Tonfa with the back of a pencil.
    "We know he was at Tonfa-Tonfa twelve days ago," he said. "To get from there to Triangle Island in seven days ... no, let's say six, this Pete seems like a cautious character, he'd take a day to scout out defences, prepare his attack ..."
    Tomas frowned at the map for a moment, while Miya looked at him expectantly.
    "What?" she blurted out after a few seconds, unable to contain herself. "What's going on?"
    "I think he might have stopped at Tonfa-Tonfa—stopped attacking the northern islands, I mean. Maybe just La'asi, and then if he headed west immediately ... if he didn't ... no, not with frigates ..."
    Tomas trailed off as he looked at the message again. "It just says 'warships'. Maybe it was brigs ... but even then, even with favourable winds the whole way—he's travelling slower than I had thought."
    "That's great!"
    "Possibly." Tomas tapped his pencil against his lip for a moment, then scribbled some numbers on a piece of paper, frowned at them, then crossed them out and wrote some slightly higher numbers in their place. He looked at these new numbers a moment, made a few quick