The Orion
James Morgan
Looking around at the crew, I can see it in their eyes: they’re disheartened. Exhausted. The bitter cold has settled into their bones. Frost clings to brows and lashes, and breaths rise in ghostly wisps against the dark gray sky.
We’ve been sailing north for days, cutting a slow, tense path through waters choked with ice. Nothing out here but the wind, the creak of the hull, and icebergs as tall as church spires.
Every man on this ship has pulled his coat tighter, tugged woolen gloves over half-numb hands. It doesn’t help much. Their hands still tremble as they grip their rifles, gloved fingers twitching near triggers, eyes searching the fog like hunted animals.
We’re tracking a vessel rumored to have rammed a ship belonging to the British Royal Navy. A bold act. A reckless one. Whether it was piracy or some other madness, no one knows. The attacker didn’t linger. No boarding, no stolen cargo—just a brutal strike and a hasty retreat.
Midshipman Smith stiffly approaches me, muscles slow from the cold. His breath billows as he exhales into his freezing palms.
As he stands beside me, Smith discreetly looks around, making sure no one is within earshot.
“Do you really think they went this far?” he asks quietly, as if afraid of the answer.
I don’t answer, not with words. Keeping my eyes on the water, I raise my frozen brows. That’s all I can give him—anything more might spark doubt or dissent. He reads my face and gives a stiff nod, already regretting asking.
“Right. I guess I’d better find a warmer coat,” he mutters, more to himself than to me, and turns to disappear below deck.
As he goes, my eyes catch sight of young Adam, the cabin boy. He’s barely more than a child, huddled in a threadbare coat two sizes too big. He clutches it closed with both arms, trying to still the chattering of his teeth. His cheeks are raw with windburn. My gut twists—he’s too young to be out here like this, but poor Adam has no home to return to. None of us do, but we sure as shit didn’t sign up to freeze to death chasing shadows across this frozen hellscape.
I glance up at the quarterdeck where the Captain stands unmoving, his gaze fixed dead ahead. Perhaps he’s frozen solid, and someone should check on him. His posture hasn’t changed in hours. His coat flaps in the wind, frost crusting the brim of his hat. He looks like a statue, carved from the ice itself. Determined to chase this ghost ship into the jaws of the Arctic, even if it means losing half the crew.
Beyond him, the sea stretches to the horizon, broken only by massive towers of floating ice. The Northern Lights ripple overhead, their green glow casting an eerie sheen across the ice fields. It’s a haunting sight—beautiful and terrible. Otherworldly and highly unsettling. We don’t belong here—this is a land for creatures, not men.
It was sights like this—raw, untamed, and terrifying—that drew me to the Hunter’s Fleet in the first place. I could’ve joined the Navy. It would’ve meant structure. Security. Prestige. But that world was a gauntlet of rules, titles, and coin—things I never had. Positions in the Navy were bought more often than earned. Not here. Here, you bled for your place. Plus, the Fleet uniform is far more flattering.
I got here the hard way, like most aboard The Orion. Through grit. Through pain. Through hard fucking work. I earned my sword. I earned my rifle. And now I serve as Master of Arms in a fleet few even believe exists.
The International Pirate Hunters Fleet—a name spoken in whispers. A myth to most. No one knows how it began or who began it. Some say it was founded by a king betrayed by his brother. A mad monarch who built a navy from the bones of his fortune to hunt his blood across every ocean.
Others say pirates themselves started it—two friends turned enemies. One sought redemption, offering his ships and loyalty to the crowned heads of the world in exchange for aid in purging the seas.
The stories change with the teller, but at their core, they all share the same truth: two men opposed, and a fleet born of vengeance or virtue—perhaps both.
At the heart of the legend is the Admiral. Not an admiral—The Admiral. A figure chosen by the fleet itself. A nameless leader above leaders. Few have seen him. Fewer still claim to have spoken with him. I haven’t. I’ve only been aboard The Orion for a year. They say you must serve ten as a Captain or rise to the rank of Commodore to even be considered for the position. They say that, but then, they say a lot of things. The Admiral is shrouded in more secrecy than the Fleet’s own origin, more legend than leader.
There are three Commodores, each commanding three ships. Nine Captains in total. That’s the order. That’s the chain.
I glance at our Captain again and wonder how he ever got to his post. Maybe he earned it. Maybe not. But he doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Just keeps staring into the ice like he’s expecting something to appear. Right now, I’m starting to think he’s a damned fool leading us all to oblivion.
Maybe I could be Captain one day. Maybe. If I live that long. Right now, I’m not convinced I’ll survive the night.
We drift forward, our hull groaning as it scrapes past a sheet of ice. The silence is oppressive, broken only by the crack of shifting bergs. Then—a whistle. Sharp and urgent.
Heads snap up to the crow’s nest. From his high perch, the watchman points a rigid arm starboard, and every eye on deck follows the gesture toward the horizon.
At first, there’s nothing. Just fog, thick and unnatural, roiling low across the water.
Another whistle.
Three blasts.
A ship.
Shouts erupt across the deck as a silhouette surges from the mist. A vessel, fast and low. Its prow cuts the water like a spear. The bow is carved into the shape of a monstrous sea beast—a dragon, its jaws open wide.
It’s them.
The ghost we’ve been chasing.
But it found us first.
The ram hits amidships with a sound like a thunderclap. The Orion shudders. Men scream. Rifles clatter across the deck. I’m thrown to my knees as the ship lurches sideways, my limbs too frozen to catch myself.
Some of the crew fire blindly into the smoke. Others scramble for cover, gripping railings or diving to the deck. We lurch to a grinding halt, the groan of ruptured timbers echoing through the hull.
I push myself to my feet, and the world holds its breath. The air turns thick and heavy, pressing down on everyone, a silent, unmoving paralysis that grips us all in dread of what comes next.
Then comes a sound—metallic, rhythmic, unnerving. Deep clanking, like the slow churn of massive gears turning somewhere below us. It vibrates in the bones, mechanical and deliberate, a harbinger of something worse.
And then—fire.
Flame bursts from below decks—a torrent, spewing from the dragon’s open mouth. It sweeps the deck in a wave of searing heat. Oil-fed, pressurized—a weapon designed to kill ships, not just men.
The fire spreads fast. Wood screams as it blackens and buckles. Men catch fire where they stand, their coats igniting like kindling. Some throw themselves overboard, screaming, their bodies trailing smoke as they vanish into the freezing dark. Others stumble blindly, burning, until they collapse in silence. The air fills with noxious smoke and panic.
I scan for the Captain. Gone. No orders. No command. The hunt is over.
It’s survival now.
I rush to the lifeboats. The hoists are frozen solid. I draw my blade and hack through the ropes. One boat crashes down into the sea, smashing into the men already flailing helplessly in the water.
“Fuck.”
The enemy vessel lurches away, its ram sliding free from our shattered hull with a sickening screech. Water surges in through the jagged wound, rising fast. How can an enemy ship have such technology? Only the Fleet has such contraptions.
On the enemy deck, I spot him. Him? Here? How?
He stands there, arms crossed, grinning like a man who’s just sunk a legend. He watches us with the calm detachment of someone admiring his handiwork, pointing, even laughing. That face.
I know it.
Years have passed, but I haven’t forgotten. I never would. His face twists my stomach into a knot of cold rage.
My hands move on their own to swing my rifle into place, planting my feet, ignoring the tilt of the deck. He sees me take aim. His smirk falters, his eyes narrowing in sudden recognition. He knows I never miss.
I squeeze the trigger.
A deafening explosion rips through the ship before I can see if my shot hit my target. I’m lifted off my feet as flame and splinters fill the air.
Then—water. Ice-cold. It slams into me like a stone. The shock of the cold steals my breath in an instant, seizing my chest in an iron grip.
Instinct takes over. I force my limbs to move. Find the surface. Follow the bubbles.
I kick upward through the freezing dark. The cold chews at my joints. My lungs burn. Then, finally, air.
I break through with a gasp, the night sky swirling overhead.
“Morgan!” Smith’s voice cuts through the chaos somewhere behind me.
I twist in the black water, choking down oil-fueled, smoke-filled air. Flames roar above me. The Orion is ablaze, her spine broken, masts collapsing one after another into the sea.
Someone grabs me, strong arms hauling me into a lifeboat. I collapse onto the boards, coughing up seawater.
Around me, the survivors sit huddled in silence, drenched and shivering. Their faces are pale, lips blue, eyes hollow. But they’re alive.
Adam is there, clutching his coat, shaking, but breathing.
We stare at the burning wreck, its flames dancing like funeral pyres across the waves. Beyond it, the enemy ship fades into the fog, its silhouette dissolving like a ghost at sea. Even from this distance, we can still hear it—the deep, rhythmic clanking of hidden gears within its hull, mechanical and inhuman, like some terrible beast exhaling as it vanishes into the dark.
We survived the Dragon.
But the ocean is not finished with us. Its cold breath wraps around us like a noose. And as the wind howls and the dark closes in, I wonder—not if we’ll survive—but how long until the sea decides we won’t.
