When Maristella Arrington, the admiral's daughter, meets a charming young lieutenant named Adrian, he convinces her to join the royal navy. She enlists, alongside her best friend, Verity. A few days before her graduation from the naval academy, she receives word that Adrian's ship, while engaged in battle with a pirate vessel, was sunk, and he perished along with it. Maristella then sets out to get her revenge on the pirates who sent Adrian to his watery grave, which proves difficult when she finds that the pirates haveN't killed him— they've recruited him— and she must join forces with them as well in order to save Verity's life.