Terminus Part I: The Journey There (Draft)

Chapter 61: Snyke's Penitentiary

 After the Global Government had wrestled themselves out of the Dark Ages, they were free to run the world with an iron fist. This came in the form of two new prisons: Fort Tartarus and Snyke's Penitentiary. For now, we focus on the latter, and its inception. It all started with William Snyke.

"Load up the gold, Alistair, we're shipping off!" said a pirate captain. "You, cabin boy, fetch the rum. This be an occasion fer drinking."

The cabin boy, William Snyke, age eighteen, had been looking for honest work when the crew had kidnapped him. Hearing the captain's orders, he obliged, and boarded the ship with the rest of the crew. At that point in his life he was looked down upon by the pirates, and written off as unimportant.

That was all about to change on this next voyage.

For as long as pirates have been active, the captain was always elected by the crew. If the majority of the crew was unhappy with the current captain, they could elect a new one and mutiny. As it happened, this particular captain, Holvas 'the Heartbreaker' Holmes, was a pirate of some notoriety at the time, though his career would be lost to history.

In any case, the rations for this voyage had been poorly spaced out, and the crew was starving.

"Oh, we ain't got no food, we ain't got no good captain, no sir!" said Alistair, the first mate.

"I say we mutiny!" said Grubb, the helmsman.

"He's under-qualified, but so are all of you," said William.

"Get a load of Silverbeard over here. What would you know about running a ship?" asked a crew mate.

"Not much, but I know how to ration food properly, how to divide up money, how to conduct business..."

"Can ya even swing a sword, ya blundering squid?" asked Alistair. "Yer got scrawny arms and no fight in ya, I can tell."

"I can learn to fight, but give me a break, they don't teach you how to fight in high school."

"Yeah, sometimes I forget you just got out of school," said Grubb. "But yeah, we can change all that. Ye got my vote."

"Yer wilding, Grubb. I'm first mate, I should be the new captain," said Alistair. "This cabin boy lead you downward to disaster, I do reckon."

Alistair and William began their campaigns, to convince the crew that they should be captain. All of this was conducted secretly, to prevent Holvas from catching on.

The time came to elect a new captain, and William surprised no-one, coming out as the crew's favourite. Even Alistair had voted for him, and conceded defeat.

A new era began as the young cabin boy became the new pirate captain, and they prospered under his leadership.

"Hey Alistair, what does 'Silverbeard' mean?" asked William.

"It's a term for rookies. The idea is that if your facial hair hasn't grown out, then you haven't been on the sea long enough to get any silver. So you haven't got a beard or silver, so you get called Silverbeard to mock you."

"I see. Though, I have grey hair, so I could actually have a silver beard. You know, Blackbeard made a name for himself on the colour of his beard."

"If you want to try growing one out and owning the name, I'd commend you for it, but it would be tough to change the meaning of an established word."

"Well, that just means I've got work to do."

The years went by, and William Snyke did indeed grow out a long, silver beard. He also became a proficient fighter and a decent threat to the established order. Things changed forever one fateful day, when he was thirty-five.