Ultimate Justice
Prologue
The swell of the sea had doubled in size in the last
thirty minutes.
“Skipper, it’s no good. We won’t make it,” Taylor
shouted above the thunder and the howling wind that surrounded them.
The captain threw back his right arm, which connected
hard with Taylor’s face. Taylor staggered unsteadily on his feet and landed heavily
against the door to the tiny bridge. “Get away from me, you imbecile. I give
the orders around here, not you. You hear me?”
Taylor righted himself and surged forward, determined
to make the captain change his mind. It would be foolish for them to try to
enter the port in a storm like this. He watched out the starboard porthole at
the waves continually bombarding the deck, and knew they wouldn’t have long
before the sea welcomed them with open arms and sucked the life out of them.
Thoughts of his wife, Sonia, and his three adorable children entered his mind
and stayed there, as if mocking him for undertaking this perilous voyage,
despite the huge risk involved. Unexpectedly, his family’s beautiful smiles and
the shocking thought that he’d never see any of them again spurred him into
action.
He scanned the wheelhouse for a possible weapon. He
saw a metal bar in the corner and pounced on it. “Skipper, stand away from the
helm.”
Captain Smythe, a man built like a heavy weight boxer, snarled at Taylor before his
gaze drifted to the bar he was holding. “Think you can take me on, sonny? Fancy
a bit of mutiny, do ya?”
“Our lives are in danger, Skipper. Surely you can see
that?” Taylor watched as madness seemed to settle in his aggressor’s eyes.
“I see no such thing. It’s a storm, and a tiny one at
that. I’ve been at sea longer than you’ve been out of nappies, lad. Now, let me
bring this old girl and her cargo in. Have a day off from your foolishness for
a change. Leave this job for a real man to handle.”
The captain’s undermining of him incensed Taylor. He
gritted his teeth and his knuckles turned white around the bar he was holding.
Smythe turned his attention back to fighting the helm. “You fucking idiot.”
Taylor ran at him, screaming like a banshee with the bar high above his head.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let you kill us all.”
Smythe cried out in pain as the bar crashed against
his skull, but he didn’t go down as Taylor had expected. “Ya bastard. Think you can take me on, do ya? You’re the fucking idiot around here if you think
that.” Smythe’s iron-like hands connected with first the right and then the
left side of Taylor’s face, leaving him dazed. The bar crashed to the floor,
and stunned, Taylor held his head in his hands. He’d never been hit so hard by
a man before, and he’d been in several fights over his thirty-odd years on
Earth.
The boat swayed violently as both men stood their
ground, eyeing each other with caution and contempt, but at the same time unaware
of the screams coming from the hold below.
The captain beckoned to Taylor. “Come on, then, if you
think you’re hard enough. Give me what you’ve got, you nancy boy, with your
snooty redheaded wife and your two point four children.”
The captain’s intentional goading worked, and Taylor
charged him with all his might. The captain’s chest puffed out and his fists
clenched into tight balls. Taylor was clobbered around both ears before he got
within a foot of Smythe, but he kept up his charge, despite being almost
knocked senseless. Taylor bowed his head low and charged into the captain’s
portly stomach. Smythe only laughed at his inept attempt to bring him down.
Taylor, his
blood boiling with anger, stooped to the floor and retrieved the bar. He swung
it like a golf club at the captain’s lower leg. With the boat being tossed in
the high waves, the captain lost his balance and hollered as he went down. His head hit the side of the binnacle supporting the
helm, and blood erupted from a wound above his right eye. Taylor tried to stop
the wheel from spinning out of control, catching his hand several times in the
spokes in the process. “Fuck!” he cried out as a bone snapped in his little
finger.
The captain, who was lying on the floor, laughed.
Taylor glared at him, then turned his attention back
to the helm, and, watching it intently, he waited for the opportune moment to
come his way. Finally, he grabbed one of the spokes firmly with both hands
while he anchored himself behind the wheel, his feet spread wide apart. Feeling
calmer now that he appeared to have the vessel under control, he guided the
ship out to sea and away from the port they had been heading towards.
“Turn this ship around. If you don’t, we’ll go under
for sure,” the captain insisted.
“Shut your mouth. If I’d left things for you to sort
out, we would have been smashed to pieces on the rocks by now.”
“It takes decades of experienced sailing to become a
captain. You’ve got neither the balls nor the stamina, sonny, to bring this
ship home safely.”
“We’ll see about that, old man.” Taylor focused fully
on the task at hand and chose to ignore anything else the captain had to say.
In the distance, he could hear the ghostly screams of their cargo riding on the
howling wind. He gulped down the frustration building within him and steered
the vessel through the tumultuous waves. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw
the captain struggle to his feet. But there was little Taylor could do about
the captain’s impending attack. His back took the force of the captain’s
strike. He gasped for breath as the air was driven from his lungs. Excruciating
pain shot through his body.
“Take that, you bastard. I’m taking control of my
ship. My ship, you hear me?” The
captain ran to the wheel.
Taylor’s hand went in search of what was causing the
pain in his back, and his heart sank when he discovered the six-inch blade
embedded there. He crumpled to his knees as the blood started to drain from his
body. The beautiful faces of his young family flashed before his eyes once
again. He asked only one thing: “Why?”
The captain took his eye off the sea for a split
second to glance at Taylor, and that was when disaster struck. The wheel spun
out of Smythe’s hand, and the force sent him reeling across to the other side
of the bridge. The whole boat lurched sideways and water flooded through the
open bulkhead door as it flew open. With his life slipping away, Taylor
didn’t have the strength to stop himself from being swept out the doorway and
onto the deck.
Smythe did nothing to prevent his exit for, despite
his hulking frame, the water dragged the captain through the doorway after
Taylor. They both choked on the salt water as the mighty energy of the
unforgiving, raging sea pulled their heads under the surface. Taylor watched
his captain resurface three or four times, his body smashing against the
taffrail a few times before being washed overboard and out to sea. Taylor
finally succumbed to the sea’s beckoning call.
It wasn’t long before the ship, in her last death
throes, finally sank.
The sea sighed with satisfaction at the devastation it
had caused, yet no one was there to hear it. Even the ship’s valuable cargo had
been silenced.
