Swamped

You can generally send someone over the edge by poking at their heritage. It's usually even more effective when you get it wrong.

And a Theletian accent isn't hard to recognize after all the time you spent around Ash.

"Guess I shouldn't expect too much from a bumpkin. You're from where, Kroska? They sure don't know how to take orders over there."

"Kroska? Kroska? Do you even realize how much my family lost because of those bastards?"

Even better than you hoped. Seems they've got a personal stake.

"Hey! Don't go starting fights now!" one of the guards says, stepping forward. The other is watching nervously.

"My great-grandmother was a duchess! She had to flee and we were raised in a pitiful hovel thanks to Kroska! I left that place as soon as I could, and I was barely getting by! If this damn ship hadn't been hiring, I might have ended up going to the goddamned swamp!"

And... there's your chance. The guard makes a move to restrain the sailor, and gets a good punch in the eye. The other guard moves forward to intervene, and you slip up the stairs.

One more floor to the officers' quarters, then one after that to the bridge.

Of course, if the guards were keeping you out, then there's probably something going on here that they didn't want disrupted. You wonder what that could be.