Alfred had his hands full and his thoughts busy with just the navigation of the ship. They'd gotten out of the monster's grip but it wasn't as though they'd gotten far, and one wrong move could have seen them back in its clutches. From his vantage point on the higher deck Alfred could see that some of the tentacles they'd injured on the starboard side had sunk back down into the water, as if in retreat, but he had no confidence at all that they would stay down — or that there mightn't be other, healthier ones to replace them within the span of minutes. They were still being assaulted from the port side, too, and with one of their sails already damaged the Voyager's manueverability was compromised. They needed to move in a way that the monster didn't expect, to buy them a little time to put some distance between the two of them — that, and perhaps they needed to hurt it a little more to get it to think twice about the pursuit.

He barked another series of orders, but then was distracted by a call for help from the main deck below. Alfred closed the distance as fast as he could, but by the time he'd reached it the healer was already pulling Sterling up onto the deck. Alfred moved towards the railing (or rather, where the railing had once been — alas for his poor ship), wand drawn, and tried to determine what had happened.

"I rescued you from the sea once already," he quipped, since for the moment they didn't seem to be in immediate danger. "That's enough for one trip, isn't it?"

At that, one of the tentacles lashed back up towards them from the waves, but Alfred had been watching for it — his spell struck it before it could reach them. "Can you still stand and fight?" he asked Sterling — the healer, he assumed, had his hands more than full with the ladies.