Free Adventures of Captain Xdey by Laura Dasnoit

march north. Ramos gestured for Xoey to go ahead of him. She could hear the kids whispering.
    “Momma told me that I’m not supposed to go to the lake.”
    “There’s a monster there.”
    Nadine motioned Xoey to go on ahead. “I need to find Mal and Decyl. Don’t be too long.”
    And that’s how Cop, Xoey, and Ramos headed to the lake with the hour they had to spare.

    The lake was as described, barren of all life. Xoey slid down the dirt embankment. “It just dried up?” It wasn’t too surprising considering she was already melting beneath the unforgiving morning star. Fortunately, the sun had started its descent toward the horizon.
    Cop nodded. “Yeah, the water always came out of the pipe, but one day…it just stopped. That’s when the water evaporated to nothing.”
    In the center of the bowl, a hole as wide as Xoey’s hand descended down. She ran her finger inside the hole to feel the solid metal pipe. “Uh… Why is there a pipe?”
    Cop shrugged his wiry shoulders. “Why are there pipes in the ocean?”
    Xoey blinked a couple of times to make sense of what he’d just asked. “The ocean doesn’t have pipes.”
    Ramos and Cop scooted down, wiped the back of their pants, and made their way to Xoey. “How do you know? Ever been down to the bottom of the ocean?”
    “Look, the ocean has water because it’s always been there. There ain’t no pipes. This one goes somewhere—so where does it go?”
    “Beats me,” said Cop.
    Ramos squinted to the west. “Some say it goes all the way to Storm’s Hold. The lake used to be our source of water. Upper City now delivers it in bottles. Same happened in Storm’s Hold, too. The machine to take out the salt from the sea broke.”
    Xoey wasn’t one to believe in coincidences. Cop chimed in, “Ask his father, Sheriff Ty. He might know more.”
    Xoey stood on her tiptoes to flick Cop on the forehead. “Dumb of you to pick on the Sheriff’s kid. They keelhaul pirates for less.”
    Ramos and Cop leaned in. “What’s keelhaul?”
    She scratched her head pondering how best to describe the horrid act. “It’s when a man is tied by a rope, thrown overboard, and he’s pulled under the keel from one side to the other.”
Cop blinked. “What? Who decided to do something like that?”
“Pirates got codes, you see. The good ones do, at least.” She could tell she was already confusing them by using the word good.
    “Where I’m from, there’s a hierarchy. Amorina and her brother Zaren are at the top of the top. They’re warriors and former pirates. Beneath them is the Council dressed in sharp clothes with voices to match. Usually you can find them arguing about what is best for the land. The legend is that Cap’n Ralu and his crew got twisted up in a storm at sea. The ship held thousands of cressings, hundreds of thousands of vessings, and even more of the titanium coins that we call hessings—which could buy Grittle.” She wasn’t too sure about that, but it was a lot of currency.
    “Amorina and Zaren needed those coins for the land, so they sent out the best captains and their crews to go to the Perimeter marked 47. Ships raced in the choppy waters. Some cheated and fired upon each other. Out of ten ships, only three made it to the grid location. Cap’n Brighton’s ship—who was my Cap’n, Cap’n Towler’s ship, and Cap’n Pene. There was no way they were going to divide the coins. They already had to split it 60/40 with the hierarchy. Cap’n Pene was a tall man with long black hair, a long face, and nightmare eyes. He wasn’t a nice person. To show how serious he was, he and his crew swung aboard on Cap’n Towler’s ship and put the Cap’n in the keelhaul.”
    Both Cop and Ramos made faces of disgust, unhappy with the thought of what it could do to someone. It was a better alternative to drown. “Well, what happened?” Cop inquired.
    “Cap’n Towler didn’t make it and was let go to join the sea. Cap’n Brighton was infuriated by the