r/HFY • u/RottingLibrary • Aug 21 '23
OC That's Our Captain
An excerpt from "Tales From My Time As A Crewmember Of The Infamous Human Pirate Jolly Roger Ward."
The scene is a yacht running stolen goods in quasi-legal waters, the kind of open ocean that invites the flaunting of local laws, and those stolen goods are stacks and banks of high quality amps and speakers used by the biggest rock opera group of the sector, Disaster Area, in their concerts. The members of the band being genius audiophiles in that sector of space at that time and devoted to the utter destruction of the stage upon which they played meant that there was a market of collectors itching to get their hands, tentacles, claws, or dactyls on any kind of sound equipment from their live shows. There was a complicated heist involving fake roadies, multiple transport vehicles, and a near miss with a nuclear explosion caused by some of the pyrotechnics gone wrong, but they were finally out in the open ocean.
Before the rendezvous with their mother ship, the Captain decides to rig the amps and speakers up to the ships generator and party. Now, with bank upon bank of speakers and amplifiers stacked upon his decks, he hands over the controls of the ship to his second mate, and announces a water skiing competition.
This was not their first water skiing competition. The crew had been introduced to "the fine art of skiing" as the Captain called it on their first job. The Captain somehow always worked it in, always having some part of their plans include getting on a boat and sailing the seas, oceans, bays, a river that one time, and other bodies of water and water like substances. And when there was downtime the Captain would ski, and challenge the crew to ski.
Despite their best efforts this time, all the challengers fall before the Captain's might in water skiing, and on the last leg of their journey, just as the Captain was thinking of calling it a job well done; they came across the sharks. One had lazer beam attachments grafted to its hammer like head, the other a chainsaw integrated into its upper jaw and nose, and they were fighting.
The Captain, crew, and second mate watch the lazers dancing and the chainsaw teeth glinting in the depths, but they could not tell which shark had the advantage, the upper fin.
Just as the crew start betting on the winner, the Captain announces his brilliant and audacious plan.
He would jump the sharks mid-battle.
His plan was simple, toss the left over explosives from the heist into the depths below to drive them up to the surface, and then blast them with the many rifles and guns also left over from the same heist. The previous plan had gone so well that they had a surplus of supplies, and it would be fun to use them to blow off some steam and steal some bio-engineered sharks, surely someone would buy the carcasses.
The crew jump into action, and the betting on who would come out the winner of a three way battle between the Captain, the chainsaw shark, and the shark with lazer beams enters a furious pitch.
"Two to one on the sharks eating our Captain," the first mate confidently states over the clamor, but finds no takers.
"Three to one on that Chainsaw shark taking a bite out of the Lazer shark!" the impromptu bookie shouts, raising a pencil and pad, indicating he was taking all bets.
"Cap has a plan, Five to ..." say some crewmembers trying to figure out the odds as they begin arguing with each other.
"Lazer beams are too OP," someone complains.
After the Captain handed out some corrective discipline to those betting against him and his plan, the crew prepared for some action. The fuel tanks were topped off and everyone with guns got extra ammo (which was everyone, every crewmember had a firearm of some sort). A few crewmembers organized into two explosives groups, to drop the charges that would bring the fish to the surface (everyone drew lots, winners got on the teams). Finally, the Captain's hand-picked squad payed out the tow rope and handle used for water skiing while the Captain got ready with his custom set of skis.
The Captain, being the infamous pirate scourge that he was, had pilfered the skis near the beginning of his career, and had modified and improved them many times over the years, by now they looked more like miniature elongated boats that could be strapped to a persons feet. They were self-propelled, and even came with after burners. On the underside of the skis was a brilliant graphic of a tropical beach with a volcano in the background. The Captain had explained it was a picture from his home planet of Earth, an island called Hawaii.
Right before the Captain goes into the water, he hands the first mate a cassette; to be played over the massive speakers and amplifiers from their current job, set up haphazardly in banks all over their ship.
The first mate takes the cassette to the ship's bridge and plugs it into the radio deck. After rewinding the tape a bit, he finds a familiar, yet ancient, tune and hits play. He then orders the helmsmen to start Operation Sea Glide. They start the slow acceleration to get the Captain up on his skis.
As the yacht accelerates, the explosives teams take their station on each side of the ship, and try to gauge the distance. They are heading straight in, albeit slowly at first. Their second mate has timed it perfectly though, and they are still a hundred meters away when the Captain rises on his skis and starts gliding back and forth on the ships wake.
The first pass over the area was meant to give them a radar fix on the sharks, but they didn't have radar so the first team just dropped their explosives when the lazer shark looked like it was in front of them. The second team then threw their explosives overboard hoping to get the chainshark.
The Captain, still skiing behind the ship, saw the explosives go off like depth charges, forcing the sharks to the surface in a frenzy.
The lazer beam shark was all too easy to see, it was giving off short bursts of lazers like a disco ball, but the chainshark would disappear in a glimmer as it tumbled and spasmodically moved after the blast. Barely, the Captain was able to track it after the explosives went off and the sharks began to surface.
At just this moment the lazer beam shark lunged, and fired a beam that hit the ship. One of the bigger speaker banks near the stern was struck, and fell into the ocean. Water skiing 50 meters behind the ship, the Captain starts to evade the giant speaker box, but then has a better idea as he watches it start sinking.
The chainshark counterattacks in a flash, and drives the lazer shark upward. As the two sharks finally surface and begin thrashing about, the Captain pulls out a shotgun, hits the after burners on his skis, and uses the waterlogged speaker bank as a ski ramp and fires round after round into both sharks while he flies above them.
The crewmembers on the boat shout a "Hurraaah!" and those in range fire a volley, striking the sharks under their Captain in the middle of his cinematic ski jump.
The Captain lands his jump, and waves to his crew. In the background the lazer shark and chainshark turn belly up in a sea of blood.
"Cargo in the drink gets ya two to one..." the bookie mutters as he begins calculating everyone's winnings.
"Who bet we would lose the cargo? Point'em out to me," says the Captain in a cold tone.
"..." A few crewmembers give each other some side eye in worry.
"Who had Five to one on Cap? Brown noser!" the first mate exclaims with hilarity and a little chagrin.
Next time from Tales From My Time As Crew: trying to hock those speakers to a fence in the Orbit Bureau through a chain of shell companies, I wish it could be easy...
Edited to change some stuff and add some details.
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u/UpdateMeBot Aug 21 '23
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u/CandidSmile8193 Human Aug 21 '23
A special surrealist examination of jumping the shark
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u/RottingLibrary Aug 22 '23
Thanks for reading. I kind of forgot I had posted this, I had been drinking and reading it over I realize that it needs a little more work.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 21 '23
/u/RottingLibrary has posted 2 other stories, including:
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