Archive for the ‘Pirates of the Carribbean’ Category
PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: IN: THE PERIL OF PLUNDER
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
Captain James and the Red Cassandra bore down on a merchant vessel reported to be carrying a King’s ransom in Spanish gold. Ever since they had retrofitted Cassandra with parts of the strange ship that fell from the sky, the seas were full of easy pickings and pirate life was good. The royal navies of Europe were no match for Red Cassandra’s new armor and firepower. James knocked back a swig of rum. His pirate ship was invincible.
He was almost ashamed at how easy plundering had become. Why had the occupants of the flying ship abandoned it? And where were they now?
The merchant vessel drifted into range. Easy. Too easy, James thought.
Ten navy ships crested the horizon. He could have given the order to fire on them but he wanted them to be close enough to see.
He waited till they approached and then gave the order.
Fire !
Beams of red light shot from Red Cassandra’s new cannons. The navy ships wooden hulls were neatly sliced in two with a series of satisfying hisses. Then the seas were alive with the sounds of panicked men, burning wood, and frigates filling with water on their way to Davy Jones’ locker.
“Aw, that was too easy, Captain,” first mate Rudolph said. “At least they could have fired on us. I like the sound of cannon balls bouncing harmlessly off Cassandra’s hull.”
As Rudolph spoke a shadow fell over them. The sky was cloudless and the rest of the sea was bathed in afternoon sun. James looked up. A giant sphere of shining metal hovered above.
Cassandra’s cannons shook in their casings and lifted into the air, ripping planks from the deck along with them. The new hull plating followed into the sky and disappeared into a hatch in the belly of the floating craft.
The strange spherical ship rose into the heavens.
James ordered the Cassandra to sail back into hiding. The navy was defeated today but they’d be back. He knew without their new weapons and armor the days of easy pillaging were numbered.
James watched the flying craft until he could see it no more.
Who were they, he wondered. Was life the same for a pirate up in the sky? Maybe somewhere, among the stars, there still was a place where a man could be free.
-End-
Pirates of the Caribbean
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
The skull and crossbones flag wasn’t flying high with impunity like it used to but James considering himself lucky that at least the Red Cassandra wasn’t full of cannon balls in Davy Jones’ locker. The Royal Navies had put so many at the end of a rope. He didn’t like being out manned or out gunned.
The crew had finished repairing and caulking their hull after their last close call. Wind rustled through the palms on shore. The moon hung over its lonely reflection. One more quiet night in the hidden bay and then it was back to the shipping lanes to hunt. Easy prey was in such short supply.
Something whisked overhead, whistling like the mother of all cannon balls. Had the British found them, even here? No other cannonballs followed. James looked up in time to see a huge shooting star with fiery red tail streak across the sky and disappear over the trees. Fireworks? A thunderous crash came from beyond the trees followed by column of water.
“I seen it, Captain,” Billy cried from the crows nest. “A ship fell from the sky. And it was on fire!”
James ordered the Red Cassandra to the inlet on the other side of the island. In the shallows lodged between the sandbar and the reef was the wreck of the strangest ship he had ever seen. A sleek oval schooner with no sails. It was made of a glistening metal that looked like silver and gold.
James and Billy and some of the crew approached in the dingy.
“There’s no crew in here,” Billy said from inside the torn belly of the strange ship. “They must have abandoned. But wait, I think I found guns, Captain.”
James had an idea. He fired his rifle. The ball dinged harmlessly off the metal hull.
Then he ordered the crew to fire the Red Cassandra’s cannons. The cannonballs were easily repelled.
They spent the next weeks living on fresh fruit and fish and plating the Red Cassandra’s hull with the salvaged metal. They mounted the new guns in the cannon ports and the on the deck.
James mounted a strange device from the other ship’s bridge in front of the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure what it did but it seemed to be a map of the stars and that could prove useful. It cast the ship in a glow like artificial moonlight. He liked how ominous it made them look.
To the shipping lanes, Captain James ordered.
He raised the Jolly Roger. The men cheered. James smiled.
Let the Navy come, he thought. Looks the skull and cross bones will be flying high on these seas a while longer.
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