Oneshot #1

The sea was calm.
Not the genuine calm of a warm day. This calm did not conjure images of fluffy clouds and laughing baronesses. This calm was the calm of the Doldrums. It was force, not peace. A blanket draped over the ocean, suffocating the waves and restraining the tides. The sun stared down from on high as the Calcutta charged through the comatose waters, leaving a froth in her wake.

Johnathan Pierce had not been born in the Doldrums. None of his crew had been. The Doldrums had come to them, and everything had changed. But somewhere, between the shattered constellations and the infinite depths, there lay an opportunity for wealth beyond measure. That was the hope, anyway.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

"Hold straight," Pierce shouted through the fog, "ahead one third!" Shadows loomed to their left and right. Spires of twisted steel and shattered bone jutted from the darkness, any one of them sharp enough to tear the Calcutta's hull open.
"Bear port... hold! Bear right on my count... one, two, three... count! Hold! Reverse one third! Bear starboard! Ahead one third!" The ship danced in time to her captain's voice, threading the needle in the wreckage of a battle lost long ago. On the deck, all was quiet. The helmsman was too preoccupied with subservience to think, the captain too busy navigating to focus on anything but the next fifty yards. But down below, all was raucous as normal.

"Ha! Straight Flush. Your pay is mine, Gavin."
"Royal," one of the other men at the table grinned, his teeth yellow in the desultory glare of the emergency lighting.
"Bullshit!"
"Y'know Charles, maybe if you didn't go all in every time, you'd be able to save up for some decent booze," a third man grinned, leaning back in his chair. In his hands was a tumbler of alcoholic... something. It boiled into the air, cloaking his head in fumes.
"Me getting the cheap stuff doesn't stop you from drinking it up, Harris."
"Heaven knows somebody has to get rid of the stuff for you- what in the devil?" The hull reverberates like the inside of a drum. Instantly the cards are forgotten; Gavin and Charles jumping to their feet, Harris following suit- but only after downing his drink. Tumblers and cards are replaced with rifles and hatchets, waterproof canvas jackets donned in haste as the three pound up the stairs onto the upper deck.
Pierce had found his quarry.