A/N: Sorry this has taken so long in getting out... Needed some inspiration to keep going with this. 'Sunday' has taken a heavy toll on my confidence.
The night had passed far too quickly for Carson's comfort. Earlier, he and Rodney had together sought out the rock-hard chunks of hardtack in the dark out of sheer desperation. They'd had nothing to eat or drink since the night before, and although they'd been given no water, they were forced to accept that the bricks of baked flour would simply have to suffice for the time being. They'd both had to literally smack the bricks against the hull in order to break off a few pieces small enough to eat, but the effort to simply chew them took far much more energy than it was really worth.
In the end, they'd eaten only a small portion of it, choosing instead to concentrate on resting their arms, knees, and knuckles for what they were sure would be a full day of tortuous hard labor to come. Now it was nearly dawn, and the streaks of violet and blue that signaled the coming day were not quite yet visible through the cracks in the locked door. They could not have slept more than just a few hours when a loud thwack jolted both men instantly awake. The door was thrust open, and Nerry along with two other crewmen pulled them forcibly up to their feet.
"The day waits for no man, lads," Nerry exclaimed with some delight at seeing their misery. "You've got lots o' work ahead fer both of ya today ta earn yer next meal!"
After being quickly put back to work scrubbing the rest of the decks with the same worn and dirty holystones they'd used the day before, the passing of the hours went fairly quickly. Nerry had not so cruelly molested Rodney as he had the day before, likely because of the captain's sternness toward Sonnal, and so they'd been left alone for the most part. But the hours dragged on, their stomachs tightened with hunger, and their mouths went dry with thirst.
Neither was thirsty enough yet to ask for water, but it had become obvious that as the day wore on and the temperature rose to a much balmier level, several other crewmen had become thirsty as well. Rodney paused in his scrubbing long enough to gaze down the steps that led to the lower decks, watching as a sweaty crewman that had climbed down from the crow's next above them reached into a barrel to cup what appeared to be fresh water to his mouth.
Carson had seen Rodney stop, and nudged him with an elbow to get his attention. "You're goin' ta get us in trouble. What is it?"
But instead of answering, Rodney staggered to his feet and stumbled aft towards the coxswain, his knees aching with stiffness. As much as it pained him to suppress the foul mood that often incurred such sarcasm in his voice, he took a deep breath and spoke loudly, clearly, and made every effort to seem polite. "Sir, may I get some water please?"
With an annoyed wave of his hand, the coxswain on duty did not bother to say more than, "Go on. I don't care."
Looking down at Carson excitably, he smiled and hurriedly rushed toward the steps that led down to the lower decks desperate and eager to quench his thirst. He hardly noticed as Carson also rose stiffly to his feet and politely asked for permission as well. The coxswain simply wanted to be left alone, though, and waved him off. But as Carson rushed over to catch up with Rodney, he saw a sight he'd been dreading all day. Sonnal was sitting in a chair below decks as well and had been studying a crude map when Rodney had appeared to stand by the water barrel.
"What the hell do ya think yer doin' down here?" Sonnal spat angrily as he advanced on Rodney menacingly, his target shrinking back against the wall in fright.
Rodney began to tremble and stutter, and was seriously in fear for his life. "Please, s-sir, the guy at the wheel gave m-me permission to get some water, so… I-I'm just…"
Sonnal glared at him, and then glared at Carson as he slowly approached, as if to dare either of them to make a single wrong move. Turning back to Rodney, his face contorted into a scowl. "I'm watchin' you two lubbers closely, an' the moment ye make a mistake, I'm goin' ta be there ta break ya."
He seemed reluctant to allow the two prisoners to drink, but was probably more reluctant to disobey the captain, at least for the moment. With a piercing glare still directed at them, he stepped back toward his table and maps and returned to his studying. Carson breathed a tiny breathe of relief, and then prodded Rodney to drink his fill quickly, lest Sonnal decide to change his mind about letting them drink.
"Sonnal!" Nerry's voice called suddenly from the main deck, making Carson and Rodney jump nervously and making Sonnal sigh with frustration. "Ye'd better come up here!"
"What is it?" he growled irritably, leaning his firm hands on the small table in frustration. "I'm working down here. Spit it out!"
"A ship's been spotted on the horizon ta the east, sir!" another voice shouted from further away. Carson recognized it as belonging to a crewman who frequently carried out his duties in the crow's nest. "It's a galleon bearin' the blue jack o' Gulran!"
Sonnal cursed under his breath and moved toward Rodney and Carson with a swiftness that frightened them as each of his hands gripped them both by a hank of hair. Shoving them forward, he forced them back toward the door that led into the bilge space and then tossed them both back into the depths of darkness. Their eyes took quite some time to become readjusted to the dimness, but their hearing went unimpaired. They remained relatively quiet as the frantic shouts of the crew filled the hollow space, sending shivers up their spines as sudden jolting vibrations echoed through the structure of the ship into their backs as they pressed against the inner hull.
A series of loud cracks emanated from almost directly above them, and the ship rocked back in forth in an unnatural rhythm as the creaking of wood stretching and breaking echoed along the hull. A split in the planks of wood appeared behind Carson, spraying him with frigid sea water and sending splinters deep into the skin of his back. Crying out with surprise more than pain, Carson was somewhat reassured to feel Rodney's hands grasping for him in the dark.
"Are you okay?" Rodney called out nervously into the darkness, his hands trying to help support Carson's effort to stand upright. "What happened?"
Gritting his teeth together against the pain, Carson did not answer and meagerly accepted Rodney's sturdy grip, but only ended up toppling over on top of him when a shockwave tore through the hull beneath their feet. The hole in the hull began to open wider, sending a small torrent of water through the cracks in the fragile wood and pelting their legs with splinters of wood and more frigid water. But the warping in the hull had somehow manage to crack one of the old and rusted out hinges of the door, and it now leaned precariously at an angle with the remaining hinge horribly bent and twisted.
It was a simple task to simply push the door out of the frame. Rodney peeked his head out of the doorway just long enough to ascertain that the rest of the crew were not watching them before slowly climbing up and out of the bilge space onto the main deck. As they peered around at the disarray that assaulted their senses, they saw that one of the three main masts had broken and tumbled into the water. A chain shot had severed it about a third of the way up, and as they watched in horror, crewmen were pulling belaying pins from the rigging or out of the capstan that hauled the anchor or drawing and loading muskets from storage below decks, wherever it was convenient.
The enemy had somehow managed to put the ship in a position where Te'Lan could not outrun them, mostly likely with destruction of one of the main masts, and were now in the process of pulling along side the ship to board it. Gruff sailors in dark blue uniforms began to hop over the gunwalls or slide across ropes onto the deck, and most, if not all, wielded swords or muskets of their own. Captain Te'Lan appeared from the forecastle, using the pistols taken from Carson and Rodney to kill nearly a dozen enemy sailors before drawing out his sword to cut through his enemies as thought he was cutting through a wave of water.
Sonnal could also be seen pummeling blue-uniformed sailors simply using a belaying pin, and his friend Nerry was at his back with a musket. They almost looked to be having the time of their lives. But amongst the bloodlust and defense of the ship was death and carnage, and soon everywhere they looked the moans and screams of dying men filled their ears. Carson was immediately on the move, tearing bits of cloth from torn shirts to staunch bleeding wounds. Rodney, who had no real skill with medicine, tried to help as best he could, but as he spied a group of crewmen attempting to fill and aim a canon aimed for the enemy ship, he figured that his skills would be best put to use helping them calculating the proper trajectory for the cannonball to do as much damage as possible.
Weaving through fighting crewmen and enemy sailors was difficult, but Rodney managed to reach the group preparing the canon without much incident. Using a pendulum to measure the canon's angle and doing some rough trajectory calculations in his head, Rodney struggled to twist the gear that would raise the canon's aim.
"What the hell do ya think yer doin'?" one older, white-haired crewman shouted over the din of battle. "We're aimin' fer the hull, ya lubber!"
"Aiming for the hull will only put holes in it," Rodney snapped hastily, wiping his forearm across his sweat laden brow. When he looked back at them though, they had stopped. "I don't have time to explain everything. C'mon, people, let's get this thing moving. Put your backs into it!"
They stared at him as if he was crazy.
"Alright, alright!" Rodney shouted pleadingly, using his hands in a futile effort to demonstrate his brilliance. "Look, if we aim for the supports holding the hull together just below the aft transoms, we might be able to destabilize the ship or maybe even sink it with one shot. So come on, let's move."
"We can't hit that!" the white-haired crewman scoffed. "It's under the draft!"
Rodney was getting irritated by the lack of coordination. "I'm telling you, it won't be that difficult! With a few well-tailored trajectory calculations, and we can—"
A huge, black-haired, and scruffy brute of a sailor dressed in blue suddenly appeared climbing up over the edge of the gunwalls and raised his sword, ready to plunge it into Rodney's abdomen up to the hilt. He stared at the brute, wide-eyed and disbelieving, and brought up his arms in a feeble attempt to keep from being fatally stabbed.
A shot rang out, nearly battering Rodney's already aching eardrums into a bleeding pulp. When he finally mustered up the courage to open his eyes and uncover his face, Rodney blinked at the sight of the white-haired man slowly lowering a smoking musket that had been aimed at the brute. Looking down at the man, now dead, then back at his savior, the man came up to Rodney and grabbed him firmly by the scruff of his neck.
With a sly, crooked eye, the white-haired man leaned in close to speak, almost cheerily. "Ya really think ya can get this here canon to hit the transom? Go ahead an' do it. Just keep in mind that if ya fail, we're all dead men. You'll get yer own hangin' at the Gulran execution dock right next ta ours."
With a nervous gulp, Rodney bit back the bile that had begun to build up in his throat and weakly grasped the raising gear for the canon, double- and triple-checking his calculations while he struggled. With a faint nod of his head, he motioned for them to pack the canon, and then the fuse was lit. This was the moment for Rodney to either shine as the mathematical genius he always knew he was, or to die like the pirate scoundrel that they thought he was.