A bird flew by as Ethan gripped the ship’s steering wheel. Sharpe was just off to his left, watching the gentle waves with his hands folded behind his back.
Something caught Ethan’s eye as they sailed toward the treasure island, which sat on the horizon faded with distance. At first, he thought it was a bit of generic debris floating in the ocean. An odd barrel or net-covered box the map’s designer had put in for detail’s sake. When he centered his vision on the object, however, he thought he saw some motion not unlike an arm flailing. It was a person.
The junk was cutting through the waves too fast for Ethan to make the figure out, but he saw a distinct head of red hair. It was hard to tell through all the frothing sea foam, but he thought he also saw a beard to match.
Ethan blinked rapidly, shook his head, then looked back at the spot. He didn’t see the floating man. It was just a torn bit of sail, churning around in the waves. The motion must have fooled Ethan into thinking it was an arm or something.
Strange, he thought.
He thought about bringing it up to Sharpe, seeing if his friend could see what he saw, but the moment passed. The debris was long gone, so he’d have nothing to point out.
Before he even had the moment to bring it up, there was a cry from the crow’s nest.
“Enemy ship!” one of their crewmates called. He peered out at the horizon with a spyglass. “It’s Taylor! Looks like she’s got a galleon!”
Ethan and Sharpe both peered just starboard of the bow. They could see the other ship zipping toward them over the calm waters. It was almost as far as the island was, but the distance was shrinking by the moment. If Ethan didn’t know better, he’d say Taylor outfitted her vessel with a power motor.
“What’s she doing?” Sharpe asked, squinting at the horizon line. “She’s not trying to line up her cannons with us.”
“No,” Ethan said. “She’s trying to ram us.”
Sharpe’s eyes went wide. He went the banister of the steering deck and shouted out to the sailors, “Brace for impact! Load up the grappling hooks!” He turned to Ethan. “If she’s going to hit us head first, we’ll use it against her.”
Ethan nodded to his first mate.
Though it was a perfect, cloudless afternoon, it was like Taylor had snuck up on them. Her vessel was so fast that it basically used the curve of the small planet to ambush them. At least, it seemed that way to Ethan.
Perhaps the game loaded her in there, he thought. Or maybe she just moved within visible range — the limitations of a computer program.
Before long, Taylor’s ship was within a stone’s throw. The men and women on the top decks shouted at each other, brandishing their swords and pistols and rifles. They exchanged taunts for a few moments before the first burst of gunpowder was ignited. In an instant, every flintlock firearm went off. Little puffs of white smoke rose into the afternoon air as bits of wood splinters went flying and some of the sailors started to drop. People bent low as they tried to reload their troublesome weapons. Luckily for everyone involved, the program simplified the process for the sake of enjoyability.
“Fire!” Ethan could hear Taylor shout from her own ship.
“Light ‘em up!” Sharpe barked back.
The cannons started to explode. Which each shot, Ethan could feel the cannons below roll back. The ship even seemed to leap back a few inches with each concussion. Large holes started to appear in Ethan’s ship as Taylor’s cannonballs ate huge chunks out of it. He ducked low as one projectile whistled over his head. He watched another crewmate have worse luck with a cannonball. The lead sphere sent his body flying over the railing and into the sea.
Gauge was shouting something as he peeked over cover, firing at Taylor’s crew with his rifle. Ethan couldn’t quite make out his words as the combat drowned out all other sounds.
Finally, the loudest noise of all shattered the atmosphere as the two ships collided. The splintering of wood, the tearing of metal bolts — it was all too much. Ethan was almost stunned by the wall of sound like he had run into it physically. He shook his head and regained his senses. With the snap of his wrist, he pulled his own flintlock pistol from his long coat and shot a hole through one of the enemy sailors’ forehead.
As the man dropped, Ethan could have sworn he saw the same red hair and beard.
Gauge? he wondered. The face was so familiar, so alike the I.I. rebel, but also not quite. It was enough to make him wonder if he had seen his kill right, or if he was just imagining faces.
Ethan’s ship returned fire, the chains of the grappling hooks tinkling as they crashed through their prey. Some of the hooks fell loose through the same hole they punched in the galleon, but most of them found a place to sink their hooks in.
“There she is!” Sharpe shouted, raising his rifle and firing again.
Ethan followed his friend’s aim and saw Taylor blast away one of his men. She wore an extravagant swashbuckler’s hat, complete with an enormous pink plume that stuck out from the brim.
They locked eyes for a moment. Taylor smirked, then raised her pistol and took a shot at Ethan. He ducked just in time
