Bloodlock AKA Elizabeth Sindle

An early digital painting of Captain Elizabeth Sindle of the starship “The Wyld Dream.” She was also popularly known as “Captain Bloodlock.” or “Crimson Vermillion” and sometimes “Crimson Death.”

The Woman and the Legend

Elizabeth Sindle is best known, and remembered as Captain Bloodlock. She was so named for her deep red hair. Bloodlock was an infamous space pirate who hunted the stars and planets on the Orion trans galaxy seas between star epoch 4323 through 4329, during a period of time which is now referred to as the Diamond Age of Space Piracy. Her best-known vessel was the “The Wyld Dream” which ran afoul of the Imperial fleet and was believed by some to have been destroyed in the Battle of Sanctuary.

Some accounts claim that Bloodlock had as many as eleven husbands, and three wives most of them provincial-law, but certification of these marriages are wanting. Her final known husband was John Malcolm (or Malcom) of Tranquility, Sirius (later a colonist of Sanctuary) to whom she was married for only a short time.

Bloodlock often commanded, or simply showed herself wearing a common colony maid’s dress of maroon color, with a black (real) leather bodice, black (real) leather knee high riding boots, and having multiple sabers, lazpistols, and even common knives placed about her person. It was said that she had a riding capra named “Goat” which she would ride and board ships upon. Legend states it would spirit her down corridors her hair wild and free, as she screamed, and shouted “SURENDER OR DIE BY CRIMSON DEATH!”

Accounts by people who saw her fighting say that they believed she looked “like a crazed zealot,” with her handsome but fearsome face, contorted in rage, her blood red mane in a halo about her head. Her high-pitched screams would echo down the passageways, and all the while her capra’s goat-like head bowing to gore any who stood in her path. This picture, which she refined, has aided her in becoming the premier icon of the space-faring pirate.

Although Sindle or “Bloodlock” is one of the best-known pirates in history, her notoriety draw from not only the fact that she was a extraordinary irregularity: a female sailor, pirate, and captain, but also because she became the first Pirate Admiral, commanding at times up to thirty ships.

Her Early life

Much of what is known about Elizabeth Sindle is based on Captain John Aaron’s electronic treatise, A Brief History of the Star Pyrates of the Daron Empire. Official Imperial records and contemporary exposition dealing with her life are rare, due to the colonial uprising of 4444 and the loss of all Imperial data in the Orion Sector. Various sources disagree about her birth epoch, but it was probably between 4295 and 4300.


Elizabeth Sindle, born in Kalster Township on Verdan, was the daughter of doctor Lilah Sindra and her servant. Her father was named either James or John Janeson. When the affair became public, Lilah Sindra, with her lover and newborn child, left Verdan for Kinglow Township, on Linan, where she made her fortune and bought a large capra ranch.

Her First Marriage

The few reports of Sindle that exist seem to reflect that she was charismatic, intelligent, short tempered, and beautiful in a handsome way. When Elizabeth was eleven, she supposedly stabbed a visiting Imperial officer in the throat with a table knife, for attempting to kiss her violently, although it is unclear whether this is fact or purely legend. We do know for a fact that at nineteen, Elizabeth married a sailor and sometimes pirate named Adam Ryan, and in Linanline fashion Elizabeth took her “mother name” of Sindra and changed it to her own, Sindle, when she reached majority, and gave it to her husband when she married. Adam Ryan-Sindle desired to take possession of his wife's family estate, through his and Elizabeth Sindel’s children, and his now mother-in-law Lilah Sindra’s grandchildren. However there was a dispute in which Sindle’s mother disowned Elizabeth over the violent death of her mother’s favorite capra. Sindle was held responsible, but eyewitnesses reported that it was in fact Adam that shot the animal. (Linan Data Storage, Kinglow Province Record, Kinglow Township Sheriff’s Report)

According to legend, Elizabeth burned the family manse to the ground in retaliation for her mother’s order of exile. (Though that may have been a coincidence. It is disputed that in fact a lightning storm started the fire and Elizabeth was already away when it happened.) Elizabeth then took her young husband to New Peace, (now known as Derasaw,) on Flalandri, a popular pirate hive and base for many pirate operations, where she became employed as an informant for Imperial governor, Mistress Francis Walters.

While on Flalandri, Elizabeth Sindle began intermingle with buccaneers, pirates, privateers, and other illicit spacefarers at the local drinking establishments, as part of her job and met the pirate James “Jim Cat” Williams, with whom she had an affair. Williams offered to sell Adam for Elizabeth in a separation-by-sale, but Elizabeth refused, sighting that she cared for her husband still.

Her husband Adam was not amused with Elizabeth’s lover’s plans for him, and secretly complained to the governor Walters of the affair and his suspicions that his wife was not in fact loyal and true to the crown. The governor brought Elizabeth before the court, naked, and sentenced her to be branded with the Imperial seal on her back, so that all may know her true loyalty and then ordered her to return to her legal husband.

Imperial governor Francis Walters was known to many as a fair but harsh leader and her cruel punishment was clearly within her rights as governor, but outside of any true Imperial law. Some have speculated that Walters was in fact in love with Elizabeth’s handsome young husband Adam, and was expressing her admiration for him in what some might consider a courtly fashion.

And so, Elizabeth Sindle with the aid of her lover Jim Cat escaped, but not before nearly all of the Imperial seal was tattooed onto her flesh. At that time the seal was that of the ancient compass, to signify the exploratory nature of the Empire at that time. This was a matter that Elizabeth Sindle never forgave. It is said that not one Imperial aid, officer, soldier, or guard, no matter how insignificant was ever ransomed without bearing her own mark, which was the Imperial seal modified, a compass with the “north” arrow pointing to a star.

A Pirate’s Life

Sindle concealed herself as a man in order to join Jim Cat’s crew aboard the Reprisal. (Pirate Article often barred women, half-breeds, mutants, or children from service on board a ship.) Soon after, Elizabeth with the aid of several of her fellow crewmen stole a light cruiser at the first dock the Reprisal found, in the skyharbor on Celia Station, and set off to the oblivion seas on their own. Soon they put together a full crew and began taking several plundered ships, including three sub-light vessels, the largest of which she claimed as her own and dubbed “The Wyld Dream.”

It is well known that she participated in combat alongside the rest of the crew, and the accounts reciting her exploits portray her as deadly, relentless in combat, and as someone who commanded the respect of her fellow sailors.

The Captain and Admiral

Over the next several years, she, her former mates, now also captains of their own vessels, and Jim Cat worked together to hunt the saw quite a few successes as pirates, capturing many ships, and bringing in a profuse bounty of weapons, currency, and goods.

Somehow Captain Bloodlock convinced her rowdy comrades that they should follow her lead, and name her admiral, making the first ever pirate fleet to patrol the void.

The fleet was known as “Blood’s Brood” by their Imperial advisories. In time the colonists and the fleet found an accord. Bloodlock would direct her ships toward Imperial and intergalactic corporate traffic, and would often assist small colonial boats in need. She also found it profitable to smuggle illegal arms to the colonists, which at that time were used in defense against the less scrupulous marauders.

All the while Captain Bloodlock was disguised as male. However, according to legend, she spaced a fellow pirate through the nearby airlock when he discovered her gender, while attempting to rape her in the loading bay of The Wyld Dream. (It is said she was considered a very handsome man.)

Sindle's true sex would not remain secret for long. Her first mate became suspicious of Bloodlock’s murder of the sailor who attacked her and demanded an explanation. (Pirate Articles often state that rape or attempted rape of another sailor aboard ship is punishable by 20 lashes and a week in the brig for any man who penetrates or attempts to penetrate another by violent or forceful means.)

When Bloodlock confessed that she was actually a woman, and the sailor had found out, her first mate convinced her that the charade had run its course and no one would dare question her on as the captain of the crew of the best pirates in the void, and the leader of the Fleet. Eventually she began revealing her secret to the other crew members, and soon it was spread throughout the Fleet or so the legend goes.

Incarcerated

Late in 4328, Jim Cat and his crew were attacked by a vessel captained by Joseph Gunner a privateer who was working for the Imperial governor of Maicia. Most of Jim Cat's sailors did not put up much of struggle, as many of them were too intoxicated to man the Reprisal’s guns, or when boarded, to resist the boarding party.

Jim Cat’s ship the Reprisal and his entire crew had been captured. However, Captain Bloodlock, who was patrolling the void nearby in her vessel The Wyld Dream drew the attention of Captain Gunner, and Gunner finding his first arrest so easy, quickly turned to take another pirate ship.

To his great surprise Bloodlock fought fiercely and managed to hold off Gunner’s ship, but was unable to board either Gunner’s “Evil Black Dragon” or the Reprisal. Both ships escaped and she knew her old friend and lover had been lost to the Empire.

After the capture, the Governor of Maicia, sentenced Jim Cat to be beheaded, and his crew as well. Naturally Bloodlock staged a daring rescue, and went into the jaws of the Empire to seize Jim Cat back from certain death. Witnesses stated that he hid as the pregnant Bloodlock and her crew dealt with his Imperial captors. Bloodlock is reported to have harassed the imprisoned crewmen of the Reprisal by saying, "I’m sorry boys, but if you had fought like men, you needn’t be cut to pieces like pigs." And she left them in their cells, with their Captain in tow.

Freedom was, however, nearing an end for Bloodlock. The Imperial governors had foreseen the rescue and cleverly implanted Jim Cat with a delayed time beacon signal, which was imbedded in him while he was in cold sleep awaiting his trial.

The Imperial navy used the beacon to track The Wyld Dream across the Dark Expanse, and came upon their secret harbor; a colonist sky dock that orbited the planet called Sanctuary.

There they found what remained of Bloodlock’s Pirate Fleet. (She had lost several ships in heavy fighting as the Imperial governors joined forces to thwart her efforts after the rescue.)

Vice Admiral Madon of the carrier Venture forced the surrender of Bloodlock, on the bond that her sailors, and their husbands, wives, families, and children on the planet below, would be spared the block.

After the arrests and trials, Bloodlock pled her belly, announcing during the sentencing phase that she was clearly pregnant. In accordance with Imperial provincial law she received a temporary stay of execution until she gave birth.

Still, Elizabeth Sindle never made it to the chopping block. She died in prison most likely from an infection to a wound she received in the battle; however it has been alleged that she committed suicide to deny the Empress the pleasure of watching her head be parted from her shoulders.

An Unexplained Departure

Sindle’s child, the one she was caring in prison, disappeared from the historic record while in Imperial care. There is no record of a release or of an execution. Many factors can explain this, such as the loss of Imperial Data in the colonist revolt of 4444; still it seems odd that private scholars don’t note the whereabouts of the child or any children who were captured from Sanctuary. This has led some to theorize that Sindle’s mother ransomed the babe and it’s brothers and sisters, and gave them an opportunity to have a life free from the burden of the children’s mother’s fame. Other sources claim that the children were returned to Sindle’s first husband, or even that Empress raised the children as her own, and created a group of loyal assassins from the stock of her greatest foe. The most accepted scenario is the first, that Elizabeth’s wealthy mother paid a ransom for the children’s release. The author concedes however that anything is possible.




Star and compass rose brush from DeviantNep [link]

Sparkles and stars from Obsidian Dawn [link]

Inspiration and model from mizzd-stock [link]