This latest story from Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) hits that “Time” part and presses fast-forward rather than rewind, “The Dead Pirate’s Cave.” In it, a young woman and a young man are both held captive by pirates, the woman because her father was the only person whose blood was cleared for scanning by robotic guardians of a hidden treasure, and the man because he was the last person to see the pirate who buried the treasure in question alive—and he alone knows the path to find the cave.
What unfolds is a story that bounces back and forth from the past—when the young woman was taking care of her father and the pirates arrived—to the present with the young man on the pirate ship, both of them trying to survive their way through this. He wants to see the treasure. She wants to get back to her father alive.
It’s a fun story, and it plays with the futuristic pieces (two kinds of technology are key) well, while holding to the original premises of a pirate story. There are a couple of twists, and a very satisfying ending.
'Nathan Burgoine 