Chapter 2

The sky was clear and the waters were calm. “Where to, Captain,” asked Samuel. To which Alim replied they should head west. “When the sun began to set we will already be going after it.” He took in my crew for a moment, all familiar faces. There was Cyborg Cynthia, the navigator, who had one of her arms and half her skull replaced with cybernetics after she was wounded in the last war. Sid the Slender, skinniest man he knew, but he could eat you out of house and home and beat down the biggest of men. Tammy the Tacky, she always wore the gaudiest things, but was a crackshot with a pistol. Rupert was the cook. He had no nickname. Then there was Samuel, the captain’s first mate, and the lovely Lacey. Of course there were more, but these were the ones he had come to know the most intimately.

            Alim found Lacey staring back at the slowly shrinking land they were leaving behind. “Miss it already?”

            “No,” she said. “In fact, I’m glad to be rid of it. All the politics and the properness was boring me to death. My whole life was planned out for me.” She turned to look at me. “And now I’m free and everything feels so wide open.” She came dangerously close. Alim could smell the lavender perfume on her skin. “We must still be discreet, Princess. Though my crew and I are close they are still loyal to the country and its laws.” A frown came upon her face. “Well, when I am in charge in the new land the law will have to change.”

            “Captain, look!” One of the crew members pointed in the direction of the starboard bow. A dense fog had appeared from nowhere. “It’s gonna get us!”

            “Slow down the ship and post two men on the bow as lookouts,” the captain ordered. “We don’t want to run into anything this early in our quest.” The crew members quickly obeyed his orders. Where had the fog come from? Alim looked up and noticed that the sky had also turned a steel grey. Samuel had appeared by his side. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

            “Well, keep it to yourself, Sam. We don’t need you spooking the men and women.”

            Then the fog overtook the ship, but it was no ordinary fog. As soon as it covered the ship the whole crew began writhing on the deck. Some were screaming in pain while others were laughing hysterically. Alim’s head was pounding and his eyes were watering. Through his blurry vision he could just make out the shape of the princess. He tried to call out her name, but only a weak moan escaped his lips. Slowly, painfully he crawled over to where she lay. This can’t be the end, he thought. Then everything went black.

            When the crew came to it was night. The sky was clear once again and the stars shown brightly. Lacey awoke with a groan. She had never been exposed to such discomfort in her life. Is this what it was like to be a sailor? It didn’t matter. She would go through much worse to be with Alim. She had already disgraced the family enough to be banished for him. Lacey looked around and, although she was not yet familiar with the crew, could tell something had changed. They looked the same but seemed to be acting slightly different. Even she had changed but couldn’t pinpoint how.

            Alim sat up and shook the cobwebs out of his head. He turned to the princess who was looking at him with concern. “Are you alright,” he asked. “I’ll be fine,” she replied. “What about you?”

            “I’ve lived through worse.” He stood up, or tried, only to falter. Two of his crew caught him by the arms before he fell backwards. With their help he was able to steady himself. “Report!” The two crewmen looked at each other as if they were unsure of what to say. “The fog is gone, Captain. Everyone is accounted for and okay, for the most part.” Alim eyed the man suspiciously. “What do you mean ‘for the most part?’”

            “Well,” the crewman began as he broke eye contact with Alim. “It’s Sam, sir. He’s undergone a radical change. The doctor is tending to him in the infirmary.” Before the man had even finished speaking Alim was rushing below deck to see Sam with Lacey trailing behind him. He burst through the infirmary door unprepared for what he was about to see. A man-sized yam lay on one of the beds. “In the name of the Seven Gods! Is that you, Sam?” The yam turned to face the captain. “It’s me, Alim.” Alim came closer to Sam’s bedside. “What happened?”

            “The fog,” Sam said. “It changed me, changed all of us somehow. Can’t you feel it?” Alim swallowed hard. He didn’t want to admit it, but he did. His first mate was proof of that. “Get some rest, buddy. I want you back on duty in the morning.”

            “Aye, Captain.”

Alim turned to the doctor and pulled him aside. Whispering so Sam couldn’t hear he asked the doctor how Sam really was. Doctor Lazarus shrugged. “Physically he’s is fine. He’s got the body of a yam in his prime, but I can’t predict the mental repercussions that becoming a different species will have on him. He may adjust, or he may just go apeshit and kill us all.”

            “Is that your professional opinion, Doctor?”

            “Yes, it is.”

            “Then have someone keep an eye on him round the clock ‘til morning.”

            “Aye, Captain.”

            Alim and Lacey returned back to the deck where he tracked down Cyborg Cynthia. “Cynthia, where are we?”

            “Honestly, I don’t know, Captain.” She took out a map and found a flat surface to unfold it on. “There’s no telling how long we were unconscious or how far the boat sailed without someone manning it. We’re lucky the ship didn’t crash into anything. I couldn’t find any physical landmarks, and I don’t recognize any of the stars above us.”

            “Damn.”

            “What are your orders, Captain?”

            “We continue onward. It’s our objective to conquer new territory, and we are definitely in new territory.”