Ships missing: Murmillo class ___ 1 pc.

[Pepe]

He was Juan-Raul de la Cruz, Capitan of battleship Athos. Sounds good, si? Depends what you want from life. Cruz wasn't a fan of titles, climbings up the ranks, big celebrations, loud music, messy battles with lot of dead enemies... and so on. He prefered silence, strong colors of Cretan desert sunrasings and warm dry wind on his face. He was born rich, only one lucky male child of old big Cruz family owning several clean water wells on Crete. Family Cruz was always friendly to Cretan nature and that's how their lands remained clean and water wells so well preserved. They were only Cretans glad to employ a Gaian, so after a fall of Gaia there were plenty of them, even some very beautiful girls. They were very interested in young Juan-Raul, so his father rather sent him to Escuela naval, an expensive school for pirate navigators. He was pure-blooded Cretan land owner and didn't want to raise Gaian grandchildren. Cruz family were quiet people, totally not like common Cretans, so other families didn't like them. In school Juan-Raul was called El Paleto. It means redneck, or hard working ignorant peasant. But he was smart and healthy, never involved in rum and marijuana fiestas, so he graduated surprisingly young and was assigned to Custodi battleship Athos. Custodi captains had to have mixed Latino-Hellenic crew, as strongly recommended by The Brotherhood. He was from Cruz family, so other ships weren't available to him that year. He started in cleaning department, but captain noticed him fast and started to give him more complicated tasks than rubbing the deck.

But there he is now, seating at the central table at Athos notorious tavern, surrounded by his drunk officers, celebrating his promotion to a captain, while worst Corsair mariachi band was playing Cretan hits very very loud on very very old instruments. He wouldn't allow all this, but there was no real danger to think about since huge Coalition fleet demolished Stirling. No one expected that. Stirling's pieces are all over Gran Canaria now. Cruz was told it will be his job and looks like job was done by simply hiding behind gold-sparkling rocks of Dublin and doing nothing. Feeling of relief was huge on all Athos's decks and steam had to go out. With BAF so weakened, more and more pirate units were coming back to Athos with loads of plundered gold. Even those Furiosa grannies were loaded and they had new teeth and freshly replaced other prosthetic body parts. They were eager to rendezvous with Fes and start bombing... anything.

Something was making Cruz sad, besides that mariachi performance. He has found all code frequencies keys and managed to assemble most of his fleet back after that fiasco over New London. Even Athos herself was half-wrecked, but he managed to patch her up. One ship was missing. He sent a message to them, but it was still blinking in his message box as just delivered. He'd be happier if it was read at least.

Are they alive at all? were his thoughts at this loud evening.