Prologue.
“Governor Decker? I come bearing important news," Commodore Dukat wheezed out.
As he entered the office, the Governor groaned under his breath. He always hated it when Dukat visited him while he was working. The Commodore was a good officer, but one of the hardest in the whole navy to look at.
He was thin, bordering on the skeletal. His hairline reached the top of his head, but he didn't wear a wig like so many other high-ranking men. His skin was like a raw, rotten turkey, sickly pale with faint blotches of purple and green. His veins were a lot more visible than they should be. Like overgrown weeds, they traced under his chin and down his neck. His posture was that of a man whose torso was too heavy for his spine, like he always risked toppling over. Decker wasn't a looker himself, but at least his face didn't give credence to the legend of the Kraken.
Stepping into the Governor's office, Dukat cast a crooked shadow against the wall. The light dimmed as he walked by, like there was a dark energy in the air dampening the candles’ flame. Darkness enveloped the paintings depicting the Governor's lineage that hung up on the wall; Socialites, governors, judges, the members of the Decker bloodline no longer among the living. It looked like the hand of Death was reaching through the murder's row of the old, rich bastards to reach him. Decker shivered—he could always tell when Dukat arrived at Port Bashir based just on the sudden sense of unease he felt.
The Governor chose not to subject himself to the torture of looking at Dukat's face any longer. He couldn't bear it, feeling as if he risked turning into stone at any moment. He craned his neck down to the contracts he had been working on, an excuse not to make eye contact with the Commodore. “Your lack of any positive adjectives concerns me, Commodore," Decker said, adjusting his wig, “Need I worry?"
Dukat stuttered. “D-Do not be, sir!" He tilted his head to the side like a confused dog, “Do you remember the pirate captain, ‘Sawbones' Sawyer Cain?"
Decker's face scrunched up with disgust. “Drop the nicknames, Commodore," he said through gritted teeth. “This is not a saloon," his posh accent adding extra emphasis on the O's. He was already in a bad set of mind, and that scoundrel Cain was the last thing he needed to think about.
It was only then he realized he was prolonging this whole exchange with his little remarks. The Governor groaned, “Yes, I remember. What about him?"
The Commodore took a step closer to Decker's desk. The Governor instinctively leaned back, trying to keep the space between them. Dukat smiled from ear to ear, eyes widening, his wrinkles piling up to the sides of his face like a sea parting.
“He's dead!"
I. Mors Per Mortem
Captain Cain ran up from the Festering Wound’s lower decks. He was brandishing a cutlass in both hands and kept a pistol at his side. “They’re startin’ to board! Defend the ship, you two!” the skeleton howled to his meager crew, “I don’t wanna see a single redshirt left alive!”
Two redshirts swung from the HMS Colossus to the Festering Wound. They hollered all the way over, alerting that cadaverous captain of their arrival. Without turning around, he raised his swords straight into the air, piercing them through the stomach. He then swung around, flinging them into the murky depths below. Cain always took a morbid pleasure from battle, especially if it was against the Royal Navy.
Majel, his feline first mate, stopped mid-battle to chug a bottle of rum. It was to help numb her suffering, as a bullet was stuck in her blubber like a harpoon lodged in a whale. It stung every time she moved, like someone was twisting said harpoon deeper and deeper into her. When the bottle ran empty, she broke it over one navyman’s face and struck another with its newly jagged end.
The unarmed D’anna shrieked in terror as a bloodied navyman chased her around the deck. He waved his sword in front of him without care, hoping that at least one of the blows would graze the elf. However, her cries had drawn wide attention, for she noticed another navyman taking aim at her. When he cocked his pistol, she screamed and ducked for cover.
BANG.
The bullet whizzed past D'anna as she fell to the deck, nailing the in-pursuit navyman instead. The force made him stumble backward, all of his thoughts ceased to be. He fell right down the ship’s staircase, and a loud THUMP echoed throughout the lower decks.
Seeing D’anna’s brush with death, Cain snapped his neck to the navyman responsible. He took another redshirt’s pistol from her hand, pushed her overboard, and shot the other navyman. The navyman toppled over, collapsing onto the ground and roaring in agony.
“How many men will yer cap’n send before he learns his lesson?” Cain yelled. The navyman ignored him, continuing his wails of agony.
“When! Will! Ye! Navy! Bastards! Give! UP!!” Cain asked, kicking him with every word. The skeleton tossed D’anna one of his swords. “Now don’t lose this one, Pointy!” he commanded. “We can’t take any casualties like they can!”
“I’m sorry! I-It just slipped right out!” she cried, huffing as she tried to get herself up.
“That’s bec–” Cain began before a large navyman leaped towards him, punching his jaw right off his skull. The impact made the skeleton flop down to the ground like a tower of dominoes.
“Captain!!” D’anna shrieked. She reached towards the sword Cain had tossed next to her, but the navyman crushed her hand with his boot. She screamed, clenching her shaking fist.
“He’ll have it easy compared to you…” the navyman said as he drew his sword. But before he could finish the elf off, the ship took on a freak wave. It was a mighty surge of sea that tipped the Festering Wound to its port side. Everybody was jolted from the blow, and several Navymen were claimed by the water. Cain’s jaw nearly fell overboard, but the ship’s shrouds caught it like a fly in a spider’s web. One navyman almost took Majel overboard with him, but a menacing hiss made him let go.
D’anna stumbled as she tried not to fall over the ship’s railing, barely grabbing onto it at the last minute. The large navyman almost fell overboard too, but the hull’s ladder allowed him to survive. He started the climb back up while the elf scoured the ship’s deck for any sort of weapon she could defend herself with. Much to her chagrin, the wave had washed away anything loose; Every pistol, cutlass, and corpse had been claimed by Davy Jones.
She was about to start searching the lower decks when a cannonball exploded from the Colossus, hurling itself into the Festering Wound’s hull.
“The cannons!” she realized, “They’re still here!”
Using the slippery deck to her advantage, D’anna slid up to the cannons as if the deck was made of ice. She held onto one tightly, checking to see if it was even loaded in the first place. It was, since this whole situation was a naval battle until the boarding. Much to D’anna’s chagrin, however, there wasn’t anything to actually ignite it with.
“Dammit!” she cried out. She looked around until she noticed that Cain’s pistol had yet to be unholstered. On all fours, the elf crawled up to the skeleton and took his gun. She blasted the fuse at point-blank range, knowing what a terrible shot she was. It ignited, sparking its brief countdown.
The large navyman reached over the railing and pushed himself up. D’anna rotated the cannon and pushed it forward, pressing it up against his chest. With a flash of white and a billow of smoke, it shot right through him. That caused him to lose his grip, joining his fellow soldiers lost at sea.
With most of the boarders dead, D’anna helped Cain up and gave him back his gun. “Nah wah, awf…” he muttered to the elf. He pointed to the missing bottom half of his skull, “Do you nho whar ma jaw is?!”
“It’s right here, quit your bitchin’,” Majel huffed. With one hand, she unweaved his jaw from the shrouds and held it up to his face. With the other hand, she lowered a fist underneath and gave a swift punch upward, locking it into place. The skeleton’s head was almost knocked back, and he had to open and close his mouth several times to adjust again.
“Thanks fer that…” the skeleton muttered with a blunt venom. He looked back at the Colossus and groaned. “They’re still hangin’ on! D’anna! Start fixin’ up the ship! Majel, cannons! We can’t stop ‘til they’re nothin’ but floatin’ planks!”
As Majel looked to the distance, her pointy ears had flattened, and her slit pupils dilated out of fear. “Captain! Change of plans!” she yelled, tapping his shoulder as she looked to the distance.
“I’m the captain here, ye mangy mouser!”
“No! Look to the East!” Majel pointed, “It’s the Demeter!”
“What?!” Cain screamed as his eyes darted eastward. He shrieked in fear as he saw a man-o-war barreling toward both the Colossus and the Festering Wound. It was black as obsidian with shredded sails that resembled mutilated bat wings. Night followed the Demeter like a loyal pet, darkness sweeping through the waters like a far-reaching fog.
“Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Cain cried, “Drop canvas! Raise anchor! D-Do anythin’ to get us the hell outta here!”
CRASH!
The Demeter crashed bow-first into the Colossus, causing it to knock into the Festering Wound, pushing it away from the battle.
“What’s the Demeter doing?!” D’anna yelled as she held on to a guard rail.
“Who the hell knows?” Majel yelled, “All I know is that it gave us a head start!”
“Aye, and we best start usin’ it!” Cain yelled as he veered the wheel to the west, “We’re not stayin’ to be dessert!”
The Colossus continued to fight, but their targets had now shifted. D’anna watched as the Demeter’s crazed crew flooded onto the Colossus’ deck. They didn’t use any sort of weapons, they just scratched and bit through the Navymen like starved lions. The Colossus’ captain made an impressive last stand, but he was no match for the Demeter’s captain, the crazed Count himself.
“Excuse me,” The Count began as he firmly pinned the captain to the wall, “but do you know where I am?”
While his body had stayed eternally youthful, The Count’s mental state had grown old and worn. What remained was a powerful creature, acting purely on instinct and faded memories.
The captain’s brow furrowed. “Beg… your… pardon…?”
“I don’t know where I am. I am confused. Have you ever felt the rush of a lifetime?”
“What?” the captain cried.
“This feeling of insecurity led by the darkness. It haunts you like the wire.”
“What in the Gods’ names are you talking about?”
“Do you know where I am?” The Count asked again.
“You’re mad!” the captain declared.
“No, I am lost!” The vampire exclaimed as held him up by his scruff.
The Count punctured the captain’s neck and began gulping. The captain started to salivate, spittle boiling out of his mouth like a rabid animal. His body began to violently shake and his skin tightened, revealing the outline of his bones. Black goo began to ooze out of his orifices, dripping down the Count’s hand and onto the deck of the Colossus. He looked considerably more like Cain now, and his eyes had turned completely white.
After wiping his mouth, the Count’s eyes wandered towards the Festering Wound. He tipped an imaginary hat at them. They returned the favor, albeit, with a lot less confidence.
The Rogers sailed away from the Colossus and the Demeter silently. D’anna and Majel were scrubbing dried blood off the deck while Cain stared into space as he steered.
“I think some shore leave is in order…” Cain whimpered.
“Agreed,” D’anna and Majel replied in unison.
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