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It's N 28th, 1717 in the Caribbean Sea.

A French slave ship, La Concorde, gently lurches across tropical waters.

Captain Pierre Doucet points his telescope at the horizon. In a few hours, he and his crew

will make landfall on the island of Martinique, where they will unload their human cargo at the

slave market before turning around and sailing back to France. For Pierre, that moment can't

come soon enough. This seven-week voyage has been fraught with disaster. Many of his crew died from scurvy, and Pierre knows that graver threats lie ahead.

They have just sailed into a part of the ocean populated by a lawless breed of buccaneering rogues, fearsome criminals, and pirates.

But all has been quiet so far, until a shout goes up from the crow's nest above. Pierre leans on

the deck railing, scouring the horizon. He sees two small sloops closing in on his ship. As they get

closer, Pierre makes out the black skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger flag. The color drains

from the captain's face, and he starts barking orders.

Soon, two pirate ships pull up alongside La Concorde,

their cannons muzzles bristling from gun ports along the helm.

Pierre shouts at his men to prepare their own cannon,

but before they can mount a defense,

a volley of cannonballs crashes into the port side of his ship.

Pierre's crew scatters, trying to save themselves from the cannon blast and the flying splinters of wood.

And soon the pirate ships are close enough that ropes skitter across the deck of La Concorde.

...