Jack Birkenhead Jr. was on his dad’s pirate ship. He heard drunken yelling blasted into his ears. His dad came and shut them all up. His dad went down to him.
“Are you okay?” Captain Jack Birkenhead asked.
“I don’t know if I can be a captain like you. I don’t know if I can command people like you can. I don’t know what I can do,” he said.
“You know that I will stop being their captain in a few days, son.”
“I know… I just don’t know what will happen. Maybe they will hate me.”
“Are you scared?”
“No, I’m not scared, just—” As he was talking, an enemy ship came up to them.
“Fire the cannons!” the captain said.
“Yes sir!” they replied.
Jack stood there, mesmerized at how his dad commanded respect.
“C’mon,” said a fellow pirate.
Jack ran up to the firing area. He grabbed a cannonball and slowly walked over to the cannons. The cannonball was so heavy he didn’t know if he could hold it. He felt it slowly loosening from his grip. He put the cannonball in the cannon and it blasted him back. He felt like every step was him being tied down on an anchor. He had a headache and stumbled back. He felt like thousands of thoughts were racing through his head all asking him for attention. He felt like his throat was closing up. He barely stumbled back to the safe area.
“Where is my son?” the captain announced.
“Back at the rooms below deck!” the pirates replied. Jack thought that if he was a captain, he could never have this power.
“NO!” he heard the pirates screaming. He ran above deck (he wanted to think it was dramatic running, but it was really just a slow limp). When he finally got above deck, he saw his dad, the thing he loved most in the world, captured by the enemies.
“Give us the ship and destroy it or we will keep your captain hostage.”
“No, don’t do it-” yelled the captain, but he was cut off when they knocked him unconscious.
“If he dies at their hands then we will fulfill his last wish. Never surrender!” the pirates screamed. The enemy ship sailed away.
“You are the captain now,” the pirates said to Jack. “I will get him back no matter what.” Jack said. “Let’s do this!”
Jack felt guilty his dad was captured because of him and he was going to get revenge.
“Can we track my dad?” Jack asked his fellow pirates in their meeting room.
“Yes and no,” answered their chief tracker. “We can track the ship but we can’t track your dad. We just have to hope that they keep him on the ship.”
“Where are they?” Jack asked.
“They are probably in the crystal cavern.”
“Where is that?”
“That’s where they sacrifice.”
“Bring us there NOW!”
They journeyed to the crystal cavern, but while they were adventuring they encountered the pirates again.
“Blood!” the enemy pirates screamed.
“Give me a sword,” Jack said to his fellow pirates. One of them handed him a sword. (Jack was excellent in the art of sword fighting.) Jack then jumped onto the ship.
“Where is my father?” Jack asked the pirates.
“Why would we tell you? You only have a sword. We have 24 people and we can just capture you?” the pirates responded.
“You have left me no choice,” Jack said. He jumped forward and started to attack the pirates one by one. Jack sliced and diced. He didn’t kill anyone, he just cut their weapons in half and knocked them unconscious. When he had defeated everyone except for the captain of this ship, he put his sword blade to the enemy captain’s throat and asked, “Where is my father?”
“Below dec—” The pirate was cut off when he saw Jack’s pirates on deck.
“WHERE?” Jack yelled.
“Below deck.”
“Thank you,” Jack said as he threw him off board. Jack and his crew went below deck to find one room locked. He sliced the door in half with his sword. He smelled the fragrance of lavender showing that the most important people on the ship lived in this cabin. He saw a painting of a man and a woman together. On the side of the room, he saw two well made beds and two pillows with a lace trim on the side. The roof of the room was a brownish-green and some parts of the roof were broken. The floor was a sage color. At the front of the room was a mantle piece flooded with different trophies and spoils of war. At the very top of the mantle, he found a golden crown which had a different gem on each spike.
Jack snapped back into reality. He looked in front of him and saw his dad tied up and heavily gagged. Two men with shotguns were standing near him. Jack instinctively threw his sword at the first man. The man reacted, but not fast enough. The sword pierced him and he fell to the ground. The second man, in an instant, aimed his gun at Jack. Jack started to run but before he could do anything, he got shot and fell to the ground. The second man tried to reload, but Jack’s crew brought him away and back to their ship.
Jack’s eyes fluttered open and saw that he was back in his bed in his room on the ship. He couldn’t believe that he was a captain now.
“Tsk, tsk,” said the doctor. Jack looked up to see their doctor cutting open his leg. He tried to stay calm.
What would my dad do? Jack thought. He would keep calm because he was a captain and ask what was happening.
“What is going on here?” Jack asked.
“Do you not remember? You went on their ship and defeated all their pirates, but when you went to the room, your dad was in it and you froze and got shot.”
“We need to go back and save him!” Jack screamed. “Because it is my fault that he got captured,” he said quietly.
“You cannot do anything now,” the doctor said.
“I need to do something—”
“YOU GOT SHOT! You cannot do anything now unless you want to get killed. You need to heal,” the doctor commanded.
Jack waited there and fell asleep. He slept for 16 hours. When he woke up he still had a wound, but they had finished the surgery and he could move. Jack left the operating table and went to the battle meeting room.
“Where are they now?” Jack asked as he limped into the room.
“They are in the delta stream and moving to the cavern,” Brokeon, their tracker, said before he saw Jack coming into the room. “You can’t fight them,” Brokeon said to Jack. “You will just get killed. We have lost one captain today and we won’t lose another.”
“How are they already at the delta stream?” Jack asked.
“You have been out for 16 hours,” Brokeon replied.
I can’t be the captain, but I will have to keep this crew alive until I can get the real captain back. I am a temporary replacement for the real thing. I cannot lead them, Jack thought.
“We need to go to the cavern. Take the beta stream, then switch to the Iota, and after 31 km go to the alpha stream.”
“It seems we have a captain after all,” Brokeon said.
After 8 hours, both of the ships were at the mouth of the cave. They started to fire at each other. Jack and Brokeon jumped off and landed into a pool of water. They quickly ran from the water to the entrance of the cavern. Jack looked into the cavern to see his dad tied up at the back of it. He ran forward even though his leg was injured. The cavern looked unreal. On the floor there were brilliant shining blue crystals. There were potholes and in the middle there was a stream with steaming blue water.
“Leave him alone!” Jack screamed at the top of his lungs. Brokeon tried to calm him down, but he couldn’t do anything. He was carrying a long and bent wooden pole from the ship.
“Use it to hop over the boiling water with it and free your dad!” Brokeon said while giving Jack a sword. Jack used it and jumped over. As he flung himself over he heard a crack and snap. Brokeon then used it.
“So they can’t get back,” he said. Brokeon knew it would crack. He started to jump over, but he thought he would jump over and be safe. As he was jumping over, it snapped. As he was falling instead of saving himself he took out the last piece of it and handed it to Jack. Brokeon fell into the steaming water. Jack fell to his knees, screaming. He then started to run over to the two men and his dad. To any normal person with an injured leg, after being splashed by boiling water and running on crystal they would fall over and die, but not Jack. Jack was fueled by anger and sadness. He was faster than he had ever been, even with a shot leg, and he crossed the 100 meter gap in a matter of a few seconds. Jack was only armed with a sword and piece of wood, but he was going to save his father. The two men next to his father were the same two men that had shotguns before. Behind the two men was a massive chasm and a drop so deep that no one could see the bottom.
“I see you are the person that stabbed me with a sword,” the first man said to Jack. He had a massive patch on his chest that was bandaged up and blood was seeping through. Both of the men were in fancy clothes.
“I see you are the person who shot me,” Jack said to the second man. As the man was looking at Jack’s leg, Jack swung the piece of wood and got the gun stuck in it. Jack immediately pulled it back and grabbed the gun. He then smacked the first man in the wound with the piece of wood and backed away. The first man fell into the chasm and now Jack had a shotgun and sword.
“Your shotgun isn’t even loaded,” the second man cackled. “I knew he was going to die.”
Jack looked at the gun and realized it wasn’t just a shotgun, it was a bayonet. With the bayonet, he cut his dad free while keeping his sword pointed at the second man.
“Why haven’t you just shot me?” Jack asked the second man.
“Because you remind me of my son.” The second man snapped back into reality and aimed his gun at Jack. By this time the captain was free and had the bayonet in his hand. Jack lunged at the man and pushed his gun downwards with Jack’s sword. The captain stabbed the man’s arm with his bayonet. The man screamed and shot the captain, who fell to the ground. Jack rushed to his side. Jack felt that his dad was alive and before he could get up he felt a cold metal circle placed on the side of his head. The gun.
“It’s over, little boy,” the man said. He was about to shoot when Jack stabbed him in the chest. The man fell backwards but he was still alive. Now, Jack had lost his immediate adrenaline and his leg wound was starting to hurt again. With every step forward, he felt a jolting pain in his leg that stretched up to his chest. The man was also in pain, but was able to shoot Jack’s hand. Jack dropped the sword in the chasm and fell down to his dad.
“Now it’s over,” the man said. Before he could shoot Jack, Jack took the bayonet from his dad and stabbed the man who fell into the chasm. Jack carried his dad and they limped back to the river. Jack saw a bridge made by his fellow pirates over the boiling river. All of them were singing in celebration that their captain was saved and mourning that Brokeon had died.They walked across the bridge and the captain muttered something. Both of them dropped a gold coin in the water to commemorate Brokeon, and got back on the boat. As they were on the bow of the ship the captain said, “Remember you were going to take my place? Well now you did, captain.” Jack Senior and his son, the new captain, both smiled.