Empty Jesters — J.S. Morin

Stealing from pirates: victimless crime, or moral imperative? Captain Jessie Ramsey has a problem. Her giant ship, the newly renamed Arete, needs more crew to keep up and running than she can currently muster. Also, she can barely feed the ones she's got, since hunting pirates hasn't turned out to be the bonanza of repatriated stolen goods she'd imagined. Fine. That's two problems. But she also takes prisoners when pirates surrender, and the destination she negotiated isn't the direction that'll get them resupplied. Oh, and several of her crew are disgruntled, overworked, and burnt out. Plus, there's the matter of the kidnapping victim they rescued one of those pirate raids who is getting suspiciously friendly with the ship's wizard. Jessie wanted to be captain, and to succeed, she's going to need to learn what it takes to delegate authority, trust in her people, and most importantly... start hiring.A little smuggling freighter might be able to operate with a small, ragtag crew, but this alien monstrosity Jessie's commanding is going to need a huge ragtag crew.