Pirate Game Fan Fiction

 

The Second Polarian War (Part 7) by Honest Patrick Hawkins

Chapter 7 The Frozen Gate

It has been nearly 20 years since the Polarian war devastated the Spiral. Entire realms were destroyed by the struggle of the three greatest powers of the Spiral against the newly arisen Polarian Empire. Many still blame Napoleguin for much more than just causing a war. Due to Napoleguin’s radical campaign the Armada was created. A side-effect of the war which many pirates curse to this day. No nation or empire is as harsh against pirates as Valencia, specifically the Armada. After the armada came to rule Valencia, smuggling goods to and from Valencia became near impossible, Pirating in Valencia practically disappeared and not a single crime ever went unpunished in Valencia again.

You may say that it sounds too good to be true, well guess what… it is. The Armada executes half of all the criminals it captures and all criminals found guilty of so much as living next to a pirate or speaking to one accidentally in the pub are put up against the wall for a lovely meeting with, you guessed it… the firing squad.

Polaris on the other hand has become so lax towards piracy after Napoleguin was exiled that becoming governor of Polaris is very possible for a pirate… that is if you have the money to bribe the right people and the money to hire enough polar bear guards to protect you from the competition. After the war Polaris was torn up between the three empires that defeated it and became a realm divided in four parts. One part for each realm that it fought against with the size depending on the contribution of that nation to defeating the Polarian navy and one part that the Polarians got to keep for themselves.

Because of this complicated situation the Polarians found themselves isolated, shunned, oppressed and hated by the rest of the spiral. To make matters worse, after Napoleguin got exiled the other nations decided that it was only natural to bring back the previous ruler and monarch of Polaris, the Walrus tsar. The Tsar had enjoyed a life of luxury as the puppet of the other three great nations. His sole task as monarch was to prevent Polaris from ever being capable to start a new war again, the rest didn’t matter.

Needless to say that the penguins had lost everything that they worked for in the Polarian revolution. Polaris had descended back into its previous state, with the penguins being third-rate citizens, the polar bears again being used to do the most taxing jobs and serving as the nobility’s private army and the walruses having returned from exile now being completely in control of the government, all the companies and of course most of the wealth in Polaris. But the flame of revolution had not been extinguished. Every penguin in Polaris was taught or still remembered the time when Napoleguin was in charge, a time when there was equality and prosperity in Polaris.

Napoleguin’s loyalists were still active in Polaris, always plotting, always listening to any news that they might hear about. Any important developments or changes were smuggled in the form of little pieces of paper with unreadable scribbling to Skull-Island and more specifically Fort Helena.

Napoleguin had been keeping up with the circumstances of the Spiral and Polaris and had judged that this was the time to make his move. Going back to Polaris however would not be an easy task, as the stormgates to Polaris had always been heavily guarded to keep troublemakers out. And now that Napoleguin had escaped the security would have been doubled. Even though we knew all that the captain still chose to sail to perhaps the most notorious of the entrances to Polaris, the famed frozen gate.

The gate was in no way what you imagine it to be. It was not as if you could build a wall and gate around a stormgate in the first place. The stormgate to Polaris in Skull-Island was in quite a peculiar place. In the Skull-Island realm there exists an island shaped like someone started to draw a circle but stopped when he was nearly finished, the locals call it “Ring Rock”. In the middle of this circle lies the stormgate to Polaris. After the Polarian war, Marleybone build a gate in the gap between the two ends of the Island.

There were once inhabitants on the island but the name “frozen gate” comes from the icy cold winds that emerge from the stormgate which caused the Island to become uninhabitable for the locals who were used to tropical temperatures. Nowadays the Island is home to an entire base of Marleybonian soldiers who live, eat and sleep in their barracks on the island when they aren’t on board of the ships that form the blockade that encircles the island. And what a blockade it is: twenty ships in total protect the stormgate, with five on each side. They will shoot at any ship that comes too close and does not sail slowly and in a straight line when it does approach the gate.

The Gate itself is made from dense Marleybonian steel and is guarded by two battle towers on each side with each tower armed roughly with one hundred cannons, two of which are made to take out warships. On the other end stood the base, a large fortress like structure also armed with guns, cannons and even a destroyer-class frigate which would pursue any intruder in the unlikely event that a ship ever made it through the blockade and entered the stormgate. The idea itself that anyone would be foolish enough to try to enter Polaris through this entrance was considered absurd as the worst-case scenario the base could simply call the other ships on the other side of the stormgate that a foreign ship had broken through and they would seek out and destroy this intruder.

There haven’t been any attacks on the gate in some years. Not since the time of Polaris loyalists and a flood of bandits who sought to make a fortune robbing the helpless population of Polaris have there been any real attacks on the frozen gate. The guards have grown soft and overconfident, few still were the rock-hard soldiers which formed the core of the impregnable fortress that was Ring-Rock.

It was cold, always cold. Not a single day went by when the icy winds that emerged from the stormgate didn’t force every redcoat to curse the fact that despite being in the hottest part of the Spiral they were posted in the one place where it was cold. It was a day just like any other and captain Kinsley commander of one the five ships that guard the east side also known as the gate side knew that despite the constant routine he had to keep up his guard otherwise the men would see no reason to remain alert as well.as the captain walked across the deck of the ship, a slight hint of desperation and agony was in the air as soon the ship’s shift would be over and they would be replaced by another ship.

“Sir the ship is ready to return to base at your command.” Lieutenant Watson seemed to be exhausted as well, judging from the slow pace and dull tone of his voice.

“Not much longer Watson, soon we’ll get the signal from the base and we’ll return to base. I know it’s been exhausting but we need to keep a watchful eye, especially now.”

“Do you really think he’ll show up? Here?” Watson seemed to expect the captain to know more than when he got a message from high-command to remain at high alert and increase the security measures.

“Napoleguin never was someone that makes rash moves, in the battles that I’ve read about he was always a careful and calculating commander. But this time he really has no choice but to take risks. If he stalls too long he might lose the momentum that’s been created back home now that they’ve heard about his escape. On the other hand he’s a fool if he thinks that he can break through a blockade this strong.”

“Well then, I’ll tell the men to relax a bi…” The lieutenant could not finish his sentence as a loud voice echoed over the deck.

“Ship spotted at three o’clock!”

Immediately everyone on the ship forgot about cold and time as now was their moment to do their duty. The redcoats raced to the deck of the ship prepared to follow any orders that they would be given. The five ships that guarded the east side aimed their cannons at the approaching ship and the base had already been alerted of the approaching vessel.

“What flag does the ship sail under?” The captain sounded as if he had seen Napoleguin himself approaching at three o’clock.

The lieutenant took out his spyglass and inspected the ship carefully through it. “It appears to be a trading ship from the east Rajah trading company.”

“When is it due to pass through the gate?”

“It was scheduled to arrive a week ago but there has been no contact with them since they were spotted at Port Regal. Could be that they were ambushed by Pirates who are now using the ship to smuggle something into Polaris.”

“Something or someone.” The captain frowned deeply as he was thinking of all possible explanations why the ship was tardy. “Fine, intercept the ship once it reaches the restricted area.”

“Aye, aye captain! Prepare to intercept, all cannons be prepared to fire at my command!”

The approaching ship was a medium size Marleybonian frigate with the flags of Marleybone and the east Rajah trading company fluttering in the wind. As it approached slowly and steadily as was required when approaching the gate the captain could not help but feel slightly uneasy. It was as if a dark cloud hung over the ship and a cold chill came from the men aboard it. The captain let go of these feelings as the ship was now inside the restricted area and captain Kinsley’s ship was ready to connect to the ship and board.

“Ahoy there captain, captain Boomer of the twenty-fifth trading ship at your service.”

The crew on board of the ship was in no way out of the ordinary, all men wore either tidy uniforms from her majesty’s navy or the scurvy dog’s common working outfit as was custom on these ships. The dogs on board who wore a working outfit all looked rough, badly fed and smelled like they had been bathed in Darkmoor water. In other words no abnormalities.

“Why are you a week behind schedule with your delivery? Are you trying to get on everyone’s nerves or are you just not bright enough to be on time.” The captain seemed to be unimpressed by what he believed to be a charade.

“Aaah, don’t be mad cap, we just ran across some rather nasty people back at regal. We had to take care of some unpleasant business before we could make for the gate.” Captain boomer spoke in a much more formal matter than captain Kinsley was accustomed to. There was something in his manner of doing things that made him unfit to be a captain of a merchant ship.

“You do know how tense the situation is right now and yet you let something as trivial as problems with some locals delay you for nearly a week?” Captain Kinsley was not amused by the banality of captain Boomer’s tone and relaxed attitude.

“Aaah don’t be mad cap, tell you what, I got me one spare crate of yum left. You look the other way with us being late and all and I may be so clumsy as to leave it in your cabin by mistake.” The redcoats could not help but mumble something amongst themselves. This quickly ceased when the captain looked their way with a stare that could turn water to ice.

“I don’t have any intention of showing you any such courtesy. For a start my men will inspect your cargo to make sure that you have no stowaways or illegal goods with you.”

“Sure cap feel free to look at any crate you like, we got nothing to hide here.”

The captain signaled twenty redcoats to make for the cargo hold. Twenty redcoats in two files were shown the way and entered the lower decks, disappearing from sight.

You said this was the twenty-fifth ship of the trading fleet right? Said captain Kinsley as if he suddenly remembered that he could talk to captain Boomer while they waited for the men to return.

“That’s right.” Replied certain Boomer promptly.

“That’s funny because your ship passed through this gate last year and I don’t remember the captain being called Boomer or anyone of the officers onboard to be named Boomer.” Noted captain Kinsley sharply.

“Not surprising, half of our crew was killed off when we were attacked by some pirates in Skull-Island.”

The captain seemed unsettled by this answer from captain Boomer. “I didn’t know that you are allowed to do business with pirates these days.”

“We go wherever there’s profit cap, can’t afford to have things like morals or codes these days.”

The captain could not ask another question as from the lower decks emerged the twenty redcoats that had gone to inspect the cargo.

“Report!” said the captain to the redcoats.

“No goods or stowaways found in the cargo hold captain.”

“Alright now all we need to do is make sure that all your papers are in order and you’re good to go.” Captain Kinsley seemed relieved that his men hadn’t found anything suspicious and he could relax a little.

“Sure cap right this way to my cabin, all the papers are inside and in order.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Said Kinsley now having calmed down a bit. He walked past captain Boomer and suddenly felt as if he had forgotten something, as if he had seen something he should’ve noticed but failed to completely understand.

“Don’t move an inch cap, or it’ll be the last thing you do.” Captain Kinsley now no longer had the time to think about it as he felt the barrel of a spark-pistol poking into his back.

Before he could even give the order immediately every redcoat onboard of the ship aimed their guns at captain Boomer and his crew. The Marleybonian ship had already noticed and started to alert the other ships and the base of the now impending danger aboard the trading ship. Amongst all this chaos lieutenant Watson was the only other person besides the captain that felt as if they were missing something. This was too easy, they had an officer as a hostage but that was it. All that that would do for them was prevent the other ships from opening fire. Time now became the pirates” greatest enemy as the other four ships would start blocking the escape route of the trading-ship and then it became just a matter of time until the pirates would surrender or kill the redcoats and the captain and as a result would be blown to bits instantly by the other ships. Other options didn’t exist as the frozen gate would never open for pirates even if a captain was held hostage. The captain had the exact same thoughts as the lieutenant, this could not be Napoleguin’s ploy, this was far to flawed a plan.

“This is futile, you’ve doomed yourself by coming here, the gates will never open and my men will never allow you to retreat or move forward. Surrender and you may be spared from the worst fate.”

Captain Boomer still standing behind the captain could not help but let out a loud laughing voice.

“To think that things would be this simple, you really must have had a long night if you are so oblivious to everything around you.”

The captain suddenly felt that feeling again as if he had forgotten something and then it hit him. The redcoats that went to inspect the cargo hold!!!!!

Before he could say anything the redcoats that had returned from the cargo hold suddenly aimed their guns at the other redcoats and shot down those that aimed at captain boomer and the pirates closest to him. After that with incredible speed the other redcoats onboard of the trade-ship were shot down and the redcoats on the other ship could not do anything but watch helplessly. Lieutenant Watson and captain Kinsley could not believe that they and all the other men had missed something so obvious. Had the night really been that long? Had they really been so tired that their vision had become so clouded that they had missed the simple fact that twenty men descended into the cargo-hold and twenty other men had come out. Unfortunately both the captain and the lieutenant didn’t have the time to mourn for the lost soldiers or blame themselves for their predicament as from beneath the deck had now emerged what looked like an army of pirate dogs. They quickly jumped on the other ship or swung across using the ropes from the mast. This resulted in a huge battle on top of the deck of the Marleybonian battleship. Guns fired, blades swung and pierced, redcoats and dog pirates fell overboard and from amidst all this all the captain and the lieutenant could think about is the distance between them and the other four ships. If the ships could block the pirates” escape-route if the men onboard could hold out long enough then this would a victory for the navy no matter what happened.

But captain Boomer had been right, the night had been too long. The men were too tired, ever since Napoleguin’s escape the men’s shifts had been doubled, now this was starting to show as they were losing to these well rested and well-prepared dog pirates. Before the lieutenant was able to give any kind of real orders to the men on board were either killed or subdued. With the other battleships still closing in captain Boomer quickly gave the order to completely take over the battleship and disconnect from the trading-ship.

“Alright men let’s become part of history! Set sail for the gate!”

Now having fully taken control of the Marleybonian battleship the dog pirates set sail for the frozen gate with the other four battleships closing in on them from the left, right and behind. The base at that time had already been alerted and the towers had aimed their cannons at the approaching ship. Dozens of spyglasses had their gaze fixed on captain Boomer and captain Kinsley. The instant that captain Kinsley would disappear out of sight or die would be the moment that the guns would open fire and destroy the marleybonian ship. The ship was now within firing distance of the gate and it looked as if they wouldn’t open for the approaching vessel no matter what.

“Looks like you overestimated my worth as a hostage.” Said captain Kinsley as they were approaching the closed gate.

“You’d be best in just surrendering and accepting your fate with some dignity.” Said Watson, who was now placed down next to the captain onboard of the marleybonian ship.

“You still think we are just some second-rate pirates who thought it would be easy to break through your pretty little gate don’t you?” Said Boomer with an amused tone.

“I’m sorry cap but we here ain’t no amateurs. Every pirate in Skull-Island knows that the gates of Polaris will never open to pirate scum like ourselves. That said, whoever said anything about open?”

“What on earth are you talking about? How else are you going to get through if you’re not going to open the gate?” Said Captain Kinsley with an astonished voice.

“Who knows? You know cap you really have the wrong idea about us. We here ain’t the people that you should be worried about, it’s the guys that I owed a favor to that really know how to create problems.”

The captain seemed to be completely overtaken by the response from captain Boomer but before he could ask what Boomer meant the conversation was interrupted by a loud bang coming from the gate.

The frozen gate itself is a large iron gate which opens outwards with the royal crest of Marleybone engraved in the middle. The gate itself is made to withstand blows from warship’s cannons but has one weak spot. The hinges! Behind the gates to utter disbelief from the Marleybonians the hinges of the right half of the gates simultaneously blew up with a loud bang. It didn’t even take a minute before the entire right gate broke off from the structure holding it and crashed down with a loud bang creating what now was a large hole in the once proud frozen gate of Marleybone. The pirates now cheering and roaring with delight starts sailing through the gate knowing that the other four ships behind them could not possibly pursue them as there was only room for one ship to pass through the gate at a time and they would be too busy bickering about who would pursue them first.

At that time in the HQ of the base the commanding officer and his second in command could not do anything but gape in disbelief at the scene which had now unfolded before their eyes. Commodore Johnathan and his head-captain Drake were standing in the commodore’s office looking through the window at the Marleybonian ship which had now passed through the gate and was making its way towards the stormgate in the middle of the island.

“Should I give the signal to fire at will, commodore?” Captain Drake seemed eager to destroy this threat with his bare hands judging from how his hands were twitching in anger.

“No we can’t,” said commodore Johnathan with a calm voice. If we fire at them now it will go down in history as Marleybone regarding the pride of one single base and its reputation as being impregnable as more important than the life of one of its officers. Issuing a gag order to such a large group of soldiers is also impossible.”

“But at this rate we will bring shame to her majesty’s navy for failing to protect our men in Polaris from pirate scum.” Captain Drake seemed disturbed and enraged by the relaxed attitude of the commodore.

“Don’t worry as long as I am the commanding officer here not a single ship will ever penetrate our defenses and live to tell the tale. No we will play this differently; let them think we have lost. After all since you are so eager to kill them yourself, how about you taking command of our base’s hunter?”

“With pleasure sir,” said Drake with a broad grin on his face and a loud roaring voice!

“You are allowed to pursue them as far as our borders in Polaris if necessary but you must not open fire on them until they have entered the stormgate. After that you are to issue an immediate order to your men to keep quiet about what happened and instruct them to tell the men at the base that they saw how the pirates killed captain Kinsley thinking that they had no further need for him. However in the event that you are able to destroy the pirates but still save Kinsley’s life there will be a promotion and letter of recommendation waiting for you back at the base.”

“I won’t disappoint you sir,” said Captain Drake and left the room while shutting the door behind him with a loud bang.

A thousand marleybonian soldiers were stationed at the base and not one of them wasn’t aiming a cannon at the ship or standing next to someone with a spyglass or looking through one themselves. More than a decade of proud marleybonian protection and discipline was all for naught as the ship had now approached the stormgate and was ready to enter Polaris and all those soldiers could do was watch helplessly and pray that the destroyer would catch up with the ship and sink the pirates.

The destroyer had now left port and started pursuing the pirate ship. The huge destroyer dubbed “the onslaught” by the navy was well equipped to easily sink two ordinary battleships and fast enough to catch up to one in an instant. As the destroyer closed in more and more you could start to feel a feeling of relief amongst the men as the destroyer had always been their ace, the symbol of the pure and unmovable power that was the frozen gate but all that they could do now was pray as the pirates had reached the stormgate and disappeared in a flash and soon after the destroyer as well.

Commodore Johnathan during all this had been as is expected of a commanding naval officer, calm collected and knew from the very beginning that the pirates” attempt to invade Polaris was doomed to fail. One his side the commodore had an entire army, hundreds of cannons and of course one of the deadliest ships in the marleybonian navy. All the commodore could think about is the reason as to why the hinges of the gate were blown up. Were there soldiers who were bribed to set off explosives on the gate or was the base infiltrated if so than surely these men still were somewhere on the island.

“Sir, Private Smith here, there’s an officer here who wants to make a report.”

Commodore Johnathan seemed overtaken from the stupidity of those words. What officer in his right mind would be stupid enough to think that the commodore was in the mood right now to hear obvious reports about the state of the base or its men?

“What officer thinks he has a high enough rank to come and pester me with such trivial things right now?“ Sneered the commodore with a highly dissatisfied tone.

“Private Smith entered the commodore’s office and with a very careful tone answered. “Head-captain Drake, sir.”

If you have never seen a dog utterly dumbstruck before but you have one than go out and play fetch with it. The face it makes when you pretend to throw the ball and it looks at you not understanding where it went is very much like the face commodore Johnathan made when he heard those words.

Charlatans often say that the secret behind a magic trick often lies in the surprisingly obvious part. Smuggling goods into Polaris never was as hard as Marleybone always thought. It was common knowledge in Skull-Island when the guards would be most vulnerable because of their long shifts. However, when smuggling someone and not something that was a different matter. From the beginning it was obvious that getting through the frozen gate in a pirate ship would be impossible and even if some miracle occurred and you’d get through you would be sitting ducks for the marleybonian ships who would instantly be able to spot an intruder. Thus the answer was obvious; you had to enter Polaris with a marleybonian ship.

The next step was figuring out how to get such a ship and there still was the matter of the gate not opening. The frozen gate itself was nearly impregnable but it had one weakness, the night. Completely monitoring the entire island and everything around it at night became impossible. Thus Marleybone put up a lot of floating lanterns on and around the Island which made slipping by unnoticed for a large ship impossible. The same was true for the Island itself, the commodore had stationed a large number of redcoats on the island itself who made it impossible for a large army to go undetected. If the commodore was ever asked what that meant for enemies who attacked in a small group than the commodore would simply answer; “what can a small group of people do.” Little did he know that the answer to that question is; that depends on the group.

Two teleportation spells (one for each of the hinges) from Cassandra, some of the finest explosives made by Catherine and some handy lock-picking and infiltrating from Remi were all it took to get into the base and blow up the hinges. After the crew had infiltrated the destroyer all it needed to do was wait for the redcoats on board to get ready to set sail. Usually you would expect that in a fight between an entire crew of redcoats and a small pirate crew the winner would be obvious but the redcoats were taken by surprise, were unprepared and tired and the pirates were used to fighting as a group. Taking off was all they really needed to do after that with the destroyer serving as their cover and the gaze of the entire base fixed on the pirates not a single soul suspected that the base’s ace in the hole was the pirate’s trump card. By the time that the base had figured out what exactly had happened the pirates had been long gone and were now in the coldest realm in the spiral “Polaris.”

“Ha, ha ha, what I wouldn’t give to have seen the face the commander of the base made when he figured out what happened.” Captain Boomer had been laughing ever since they had entered the stormgate. The ships were now floating near the stormgate of Polaris. Captain Kinsley and Lieutenant Watson had already been dumped onto a slope and set adrift when the ship was in the middle of entering Polaris, now the ships were connected and John, Roger and I myself had gone aboard to congratulate Captain Boomer and ourselves with a successful operation.

“usually I’m sure we could have agreed on a price and I would have sold you one of Cassandra’s vision spells but I’m afraid that we don’t have the time right now,” said John with a smile on his face.

“To think that that favor I owed you would lead to me ending up in the history as one of the only pirates to ever outsmart her majesty’s navy and live to tell the tale.”

“Speaking from experience it’s not that difficult to accomplish,” said Barkley jokingly.

Boomer looked at Roger with an offended face. “Barkley.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up!”

 
 

Pirate Game Fan Fiction Index

The Pirate101 Fan Fiction Archive is where we showcase the wonderful Pirate adventure stories of players like you! Please read our game fan fiction submission guidelines to submit your Pirate story. You must include a Title and Character Name for Author. If you are under 13 years of age, ask your parent or guardian for permission to send us your story.

 

More Cool Stuff from Pirate101 Fans