Shot across the bow

[Roger Smith]

Crow spared only the briefest of glances up toward the lookout, before casting his eyes to the horizon. Deep, clear blue in all directions; sky above, ocean below. Far, far off in the distance to the west he could spot the looming form of an island. Even further off, just the barest smudge at this distance, there was the 'mainland' of the verse; the land where the portals that connected this place to the Nexus and that insufferable metal den, Coruscant, could be found. Not what he was looking for, but good that there were such easy landmarks to keep track of. His scanning of the horizon eventually let him lay eyes on the item he was seeking. Not one, but three ships. "Heave to, lads! Reef those sails, and look sharp about it!"

Activity went into overtime at the captain's word, crew jumping to work to haul up the sails and slacken off their rate of travel. As they did so, Crow gave the wheel a steady turn, swinging the ship hard around to cut it against the wind and slow them yet further. "Mister Carlyle!" Holding one hand steady on the wheel, the other reached out to his number one. "Me spyglass, if you please?" On cue, without even a moment's delay, the towering brute produced the telescope and set it in his captain's hand. "Much obliged. Now, if you'd be s'kind, take the helm."

Stepping away to the gunwale, the old sailor lifted the spyglass up to his eye and peered through it at the distant ships. Great huge things, the lot of them all. Two sported the black flag, a dead giveaway as to what they were about. The last one had been completely ruined; sails shredded by cannonfire and in poor shape all around. Dead in the water, even if they hadn't been set upon by the bunch of scallywags as they had been. Still...maybe, just maybe, it was a situation they could turn to their advantage. Two against one was rarely good odds, especially given both other ships were much larger than the one he commanded.

Eventually, he lowered the spyglass, and turned to the deck below. "Mister Jakobson!" he roared out, voice carrying easily over the noise of wind and seabreeze, and the clatter and clamor of the crew. Down below, the face of a man, hair covered by an old, greasy blue bandanna, poked into view from belowdecks. "I've a mind to see some of your famous marksmanship!" He raised an arm, pointing out at the nearest of the ships. "Run a shot across 'er bow, and look lively about it!"

"Aye, Cap'n!" Jakobson replied, and vanished out of sight again.

The keen ears of the captain could manage to catch the scurrying and noise from below, down on the gun deck. The creaking as the hatch for a cannon was opened, and the lumbering mass of steel and wood was wheeled into place. Moments later, the voice of the cannoneer called out, muffled by the deck: "Fire in the hole!" and with a noise like thunder, the cannon fired. Smoke plumed out of the barrel, thick and acrid, as the cannonball rocketed across the blue waters. A special recipe of some extra potent gunpowder, and a unique design for the cannon barrel and ammunition both, would let them actually make a hit, even from this range. It wouldn't inflict any serious damage, but it would give them ample time to prepare all guns for serious combat if it roused the enemy crew.

But it didn't rouse anything.

The cannonball soared over the water, and across the other ship. Jakobson's marksmanship was spectacular, as it always was, and the ball of iron smashed clean through the gunwale on one side, thudded off the deck and off the other side. Crow peered intently through his spyglass at the ship, for some sign of activity, but there was nothing. Slowly, he lowered the telescope, collapsing it in his hands. He didn't like the looks of this one bit. Something unpleasant was going on. "...mister Carlyle, bring 'er about. Make course for our new friends, there."

"Aye, Cap'n," the impromptu helmsman said, giving the wheel a solid turn.

"Alright, me buckoes! Make yerselves ready, and smartly! All hands to guns, get ready fer anything." He looked up toward the crow's nest. "And mister Rockard! Keep a weather eye on those ships! Any sign of movement, I want to hear about it yesterday!"

"Aye aye, Cap'n!"

There was something wrong here, he could feel it. There was an unpleasant pricking crawling down the back of his neck at the sigh of three ships seemingly abandoned. An impact like that cannonball should have gotten some kind of reaction. It meant that...either the crew of all three ships had disappeared. Or they were all too scared, or just unable, to raise any sort of alarm or even check to see what it was. All prospects were poor. His fingers trembled, and he reflexively clenched them into fists, grinding his teeth together. It reminded him all too much of something in his past.