Again their eyes met. This time Ramona’s expression was thoughtful, rather than guarded.
“I’ll talk to my crew,” she said at last. “For my part, though, the main hesitation isn’t money… it’s position. I worked a long time to get where I am, captaining my own ship. In all honesty, I’m not sure how content I’d be working under someone else again. Still, if you let me go, I’ll probably end up crewing again for a while. I just don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
“What if I offered you a position as captain of your own ship?” Tambu asked.
Hope flashed across the girl’s face for a moment.
“I don’t want to sound suspicious again,” she said carefully, “but that sounds a little too good to be true. You capture a pirate ship and crew, then offer to turn them loose again intact? What’s to keep us from going back to business as normal as soon as you turn your back?”
“For one thing, your crew would probably be divided up among the available ships under various commanders. For another, we’ll probably be operating as a fleet for a while, which would tend to discourage independent action. There is also the minor detail that I plan to be on board your ship.”
“That sounds to me like I’d be captain in title only.”
“Not at all,” Tambu assured her. “It’s my plan that the captains under my command have complete autonomy on their ships, providing, of course, that they stay within the general guidelines I set forth for them. I envision my own position to be more of an overall coordinator for the entire force. I suspect that if all goes well, that will occupy my time to a point where I will have neither the time nor the inclination to bother with the operational details of a single ship-including the one I’m on.”