Tyranny of Steel

Honoria aimed down the sights of her bolt-action rifle. The beautiful princess turned privateer, held a spare round between her luscious pink lips as if it were a cigarette. She also held several munitions between her fingers on the supporting hand. When armed with a single shot bolt-action rifle, this was a common technique used to reduce reload time. 

Any minute now, the Mortar team would launch a shell on the unsuspecting village, thus starting their assault. At the moment, the Byzantine Princess was among her crew of privateers, who were stationed just outside a native village in the Andes Mountains. For the past few weeks they had fought, and struggled to get this far in the foreign land. Now they finally gained some treasure. 

Though just a small agricultural village from a primitive stone age society, Honoria was certain there was bound to be something worth scavenging within its confines. At the very least, they could abate their current food shortage. Thus, with fierce determination, and a desire to avenge her fallen sisters, Honoria had ordered the assault on this village. 

Whether the people of this village were associated with the war bands that had ambushed her crew since their arrival, Honoria did not know, nor did she care. In the eyes of her followers, all the locals were the same, thus by spilling blood here, they would avenge their fallen comrades. 

After what felt like a lifetime of waiting, the roar of the mortar and the fiery blast of its explosion took place; in doing so, signalling the privateers to begin their attack. Thus Honoria stood up from behind her cover and charged towards the village, her crew following behind her. As they approached the target of their wrath, they opened fire on the unsuspecting villagers who believed a natural disaster was occurring.

"Kill them all!"

A storm of bullets went down range, towards the unarmed villagers, riddling their bodies with bloody holes. In the next second Honoria and her girls pulled back the bolts on their rifles, and inserted one round contained between their fingers. Having reloaded their weapons, they raised, lowered their muzzles once more, and aimed at the next target. 

By now, the warriors of the village knew they were under attack, thus they rushed out towards the unknown enemy with their shields and spears. However, when they noticed it was a bunch of women attacking them, they hesitated to respond. In their minds, they could not fathom the idea of an all female war band. 

Evidently, this tribe was unrelated to the ones who had been attacking Honoria and her crew, thus they were unfamiliar with the weapons and tactics that the girls used. They raised their wicker shields to protect themselves from the enemy's attack. However, the bullets cut through their defenses as if they were completely nonexistent. Striking the village's warriors in the chests and spraying their blood into the air. 

Honoria did not know, nor did she care. This village was unrelated to her previous enemies. Instead, she led the charge towards the ranks of what few warriors the enemy could muster, and fired upon them. Luckily for her, there were only a small amount of combat capable men in the village, thus after firing their initial volleys, the girls ran through the survivors with their bayonets, slaughtering what little resistance the village could muster.

In a matter of minutes, the foreign privateers had captured the village, where they gathered the locals in to the center, and bound them with ropes. Honoria quickly dispatched her orders to the troops under her command. 

"I want a squad guarding these prisoners. As for the rest of you, search for food, water, and anything of value! This village is ours!"

The crew of Queen Honoria's Revenge lifted their rifles in the air and cheered. This was an easy victory for them, and after weeks of suffering enemy ambushes, they felt like they finally had a secure area to operate out of. 

While Honoria's crew were ransacking the village, the Pirate Queen herself pulled out a flare pistol and loaded a green flare before firing it in the air above. Despite weeks of climbing, Honoria and her crew had not gotten far into the Andes, instead they were still within observation distance from the vessel, and its sailors. When the green flare went off, it signified that the embarked privateers had established a secure base camp. 

Those who stayed behind on the vessel had been waiting weeks for this signal, when they finally gazed upon the green flare in the night sky shooting up from a peak in the mountains above. An overwhelming sense of relief filled their hearts. 

As for the captured villagers, they gazed at the strange green light, which illuminated the sky above with both fear and reverence. They could not imagine what sorcery these foreigners had conjured to create such an astonishing sight. 

After firing the flare, Honoria began searching around the village for something to eat. Eventually, she came across the village's stockpile and opened it up to reveal a strange product. Honoria handled the object in her hand, completely unaware that her husband's obsession with the new world revolved entirely upon this vegetable. 

In Honoria's hands was a potato, something that Berengar had been struggling to live life without ever since he had first reincarnated into this world. At first glance, this object was not only unappealing, but quite mundane.

Yet this vegetable, and those like it, were the greatest staple food a society could ask for. If Honoria were to bring these back in ample numbers, they could be grown in Austria on an industrial scale, and provide many benefits to the Kingdom's growing population. 

However, to this Pirate Queen, this vegetable was unappealing. If it weren't because she and her crew were running out of food, she would never think about eating such a thing. Despite her internal protests, she brought out troves of potatoes and ordered her crew to cook them. 

"I don't care what you have to do, but prepare whatever the hell these things are, and make them edible. They don't appear to be poisonous, so go nuts!"

Elfrun nodded her head and grabbed ahold of the wicker basket which contained the vegetable and peeled the thick skin with the blade of her knife. While she was doing this, her comrades lit up a fire and prepared a cooking pit.

After the area had been prepared, Elfrun reached into her satchel and pulled out a pan, where she poured some cooking oil onto it, before placing the cut potatoes inside. In the girl's infinite wisdom, she had fried the potatoes before topping them off with salt and pepper. 

After a large amount of the vegetable had been fully cooked, Elfrun brought a plate over to Honoria and offered the Captain the first taste of this new food. By now Honoria was practically starving, and after sniffing the savory aroma of fried potatoes for the past few minutes, she no longer looked down on the vegetable. 

Instead, she was eager to take the first bite, and after doing so, she exclaimed in shock. The crew gazed at their captain with curious gazes. They could not tell whether her response was a good or bad sign. However, after getting an initial taste of the potato, Honoria ate them with gusto. 

She did not have to say a word. After seeing their captain's actions, the crew had no further reservations and feasted upon the fried potatoes, savoring the exceptional taste of the completely foreign vegetable. Honoria was certain now that they had found a genuine treasure. Forget gold and silver. This vegetable would be worth a fortune if they were to bring it back to the fatherland. 

Thus unknowingly, Honoria had discovered something that would make the King of Austria favor her over all his other wives for quite some time. When she finally returned to Austria with a cargo filled with potatoes, the King would reward her and her crew with their weight in gold for their discovery. An action that would surprise them all.

After weeks of bloody conflict, making their way across the Andes mountains, Honoria and her crew had finally found the treasure that would make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. The discovery of potatoes in the new world would later be seen as a catalyst for the Age of Discovery in this timeline. 

When the day finally came that King Berengar von Kufstein, made the existence of the New World public to the Austrian people, and that the potatoes which would become a staple in their diet had originated from their, wealthy entrepreneurs, and nobles alike would invest in expeditions to every part of the new world, in search of fame, and fortune. 

Honoria and her crew had unknowingly made their mark on history, forever to be remembered as the first major explorers of the New World. However, their story did not end with this journey. In fact, the discovery of potatoes would inspire the Pirate Queen to invest in new expeditions across the South American Continent.. With such a fearsome reputation, young women around the Mediterranean would be eager to sign up for her crew.