Creative Writing

Here is a very short story. www.plotstorming.com is a site for aspiring SF&F authors. One of the areas in the forum is a 'writing prompt'. The first paragraph is provided and you continue the story.

The tempest grew on the horizon. Inwardly, the captain sighed. On some occasions, it just felt like it was so much easier back when he was commandeering a spaceship, rather than just a ship. But he had to get with the times. This was the Renaissance, and the mere idea of a ship flying into space was ludicrous. He took a deep breath. Things were going to be okay. The era of spaceships would eventually return.

'Think the boat will take it?' Fraxi frowned, looking at the darkening sky. 'Shouldn't we batten down the hatches or something?'

'Batten down the hatches?' Captain Anders looked blank.

'Yeah, read it in a book somewhere, but Fruck knows what 'a batten' is.'

'We are spacers in the Imperial Navy, Fraxi. We have survived meteor storms, radiation overloads and enemy action. I don't think a terrestial shower is going to trouble us if we're adequately prepared. If the backward population of this planet can do it, then so can we. Now, if you please, give my compliments to officers Flark and Spangale and ask them to join me in my stateroom so we can prepare a plan of action.'

When the storm hit, they had secured the sloop using only as their guides basic scientific principles and common sense. Loose items on the deck were lashed down or squared away and the sails furled. Anders came up with the idea of nailing small strips of wood to the hatches to make them more watertight. Freebo, a giant from the high gravity planet of Praxis 3, was given the wheel and told to hold a steady course into the wind. After that there was nothing else to do but to ride out the ordeal and to stand ready to deal with the unexpected.

Communication on deck was all but impossible. The wind tore shouted orders across the sea and visibility was reduced to a handful of yards. Twice Anders reached out for an intercom that wasn't there. The bowsprit splintered under the onslaught of waves the size of a Tiberium cruiser. To attempt repairs under these conditions would have been suicidal so eventually, under the tearing fingers of the gale, the wood gave way completely with the a groan and a snap. In a moment frozen by lightning, Anders helplessly watched the bowsprit pass by on the starboard side.

Freebo was locked in combat with the wheel and tiring fast. Anders felt the lack of hydraulics like a missing limb . Janus was injured by whipping cordage while attempting to secure a sail which had broken free. What remained of his leg was amputated by knife on a table down below. No anaesthetic, no autodoc. Even over the terrible wind, Anders had heard his screams.

Then, suddenly, after eighteen long hours of elemental physical punishment they were through. Enormous waves silently slid away, leaving the 'Antelope' lying on a calm, obsidian sea. Under a blanket of stars, twelve exhausted spacers collapsed where they stood.

'Space travel,' Anders thought before an exhausted sleep took him, 'is for wimps.'