"Fifteen degrees to starboard! Now, you old fool!"
At Hugo's roar, the old helmsman didn't just flinch, he acted. It was as if Hugo's voice had bypassed the man's fear and wired itself directly into his muscle memory. He spun the heavy oak wheel with a desperate, frantic strength, the spokes blurring in the dim light of the storm.
"Squeak--creak--"
The rudder assembly groaned in protest, the sound echoing through the ship's hull like the cry of a dying beast. Every man on deck held their breath, their hearts hammering against their ribs in time with the thudding of the waves. The Sea Serpent's bow struggled against the chaotic cross-currents, its port side almost scraping the frothing edge of a minor whirlpool. The spray was so thick it was like being pelted with gravel, but the ship's nose eventually swung, precisely aligning with the narrow, deceptively calm lane of water Hugo had pointed out.
"Hold her steady! Don't let the lee side catch the swell!" Hugo shouted.
His eyes were no longer those of a drowned pauper. They were fixed forward with the predatory intensity of a hawk. In his mind, the "Great Navigator" system was working overtime, processing a deluge of environmental data that would have driven a normal man mad. Wind velocity, thermal gradients, current vectoring, it all swirled into a golden thread of logic that only he could see.
The moment the hull slid into the stable patch of water, the violent pitching of the ship subsided. It still swayed, but the frantic, bone-jarring vibration that threatened to shake the Sea Serpent to pieces had vanished.
"By the powers..." Gibbs whispered, his lone eye wide as he looked at the water surrounding them. "We're in. We're actually inside the Graveyard, and we're still floating."
The pirates on deck stood like statues. They had expected to be ground into splinters the moment they crossed the threshold. Instead, they were gliding through the eye of a needle. Captain Barbossa's fingers were white where they gripped the quarterdeck rail, his gaze fixed on the back of Hugo's head. His mind was a whirlpool of its own, confusion, suspicion, and a growing, terrifying realization that this boy knew more about the sea than every captain in the Caribbean combined.
But the relief lasted less than a minute.
Ahead, the two massive, opposing currents Hugo had been tracking finally met. They collided with a roar that drowned out the wind, sending a vertical wall of spray fifty feet into the air. It was a natural barricade of white water and jagged foam. Behind that barrier, the surface of the sea dropped away into a massive, slow-rotating vortex, a maw so large it could have swallowed a Man-o'-War whole.
"It's a dead end!" the old helmsman shrieked, his voice breaking into a sob. "Look at it! The currents are folding in! We'll be swept straight into the mouth of the beast!"
The spark of hope that had briefly ignited in the crew was snuffed out instantly. Panic, cold and sharp, returned to the deck.
"Shut up!"
Hugo didn't turn around. He didn't even raise his voice to a scream, yet the command carried a weight of authority that silenced the helmsman as if his throat had been cut. The entire deck fell into a heavy, expectant silence. Every pirate, from the trembling Billy to the calculated Barbossa, looked to Hugo.
At that moment, a translucent notification flickered in Hugo's peripheral vision.
[System Alert: High-Density Current Convergence Detected]
[Maneuver Recommendation: Hydrodynamic Lift (The Slingshot)]
[Success Probability: 64% (Skill: Basic Seamanship applied)]
"Ten degrees to port! Lower the main sail! I want every inch of canvas catching the gale!" Hugo commanded.
"What?" Barbossa lunged forward, his face a mask of shock. "Lower the sail? In a gale like this, with a wall of water ahead? That's suicide, lad! You'll drive us straight under!"
"That isn't a wall of water," Hugo snapped, finally turning his head to glare at the Captain. His eyes were bloodshot and fierce. "That's an upwelling current. The two streams are hitting the shelf below and forcing the water upward. If we hit it with enough speed, the lift will carry us over the convergence zone before the lateral currents can catch the hull. If we go in slow, we're torn apart. Now, do you want to debate physics, or do you want to live?"
Upwelling? Lift? The terms were gibberish to the pirates, sounding more like witchcraft than seamanship. But Hugo's conviction was absolute.
"Move, you lazy scoundrels!" Hugo roared as no one moved. "Do you want the abyss to take you while you're standing still? Execute the order!"
"Do it!" Barbossa suddenly bellowed, his voice joining Hugo's. He didn't understand the logic, but he understood the look in Hugo's eyes. He had seen that look in the eyes of men who had seen the face of God and lived. "Lower the mainsail! Give him the wind!"
The pirates scrambled. Gibbs and a few others threw themselves at the lines, fighting the wet, heavy rope. As the corner of the great sail dropped and caught the full force of the storm, the Sea Serpent lurched forward with a violent, terrifying surge. It was as if the ship had been kicked by a giant.
Billy clung to a mast, his eyes squeezed shut as he whispered prayers to a heaven he had long since abandoned. The ship shot forward like an arrow, the bow cutting through the grey foam at a speed no sloop of its age should have been capable of.
Then, they hit the convergence.
The bow didn't dive. Instead, a massive, invisible hand seemed to reach beneath the keelson and hoist the ship upward. The pirates felt their stomachs drop as the sensation of weightlessness took hold. The Sea Serpent literally "jumped," its bow rising so high that the men on deck could see nothing but the bruised, spinning sky.
The ship traced a perilous, graceful arc over the boiling intersection of the currents, soaring across the lip of the great whirlpool. For three seconds, they were airborne, a splinter of wood defying the gravity of the ocean.
"Bang!"
The ship slammed back into the water on the far side of the vortex with a force that sent everyone sprawling. Planks groaned and several bottles in the cabin likely shattered, but the hull remained intact. As the spray cleared and the pirates scrambled back to their feet, they looked behind them.
The great maw of the Devil's Triangle was receding. They had cleared the convergence.
"A miracle..." a young pirate whispered, sinking to his knees and staring at Hugo. "He's not a man... he's the Sea God's own kin."
The deck was silent for a heartbeat, and then a roar of deafening, hysterical cheers erupted. Men embraced, weeping with the raw adrenaline of survivors. Their gaze toward Hugo had shifted from suspicion to a fervent, cult-like worship.
Barbossa stood by the helm, his hand trembling as he wiped the salt from his beard. He looked at Hugo, standing thin and battered against the wind, yet possessing a presence that dwarfed the ship itself. He realized he hadn't been dealing with a lucky navigator. He was dealing with a monster of the sea.
"It's not over yet!" Hugo's voice cut through the celebration like a cold blade. "The core of the storm is still ahead, and we've only just cleared the first gate. Everyone back to your posts!"
"Yes, sir!" Gibbs shouted back instantly. There was no hesitation, no question of rank. "The hull's holding! Small leaks only, already being tended!"
"Good," Hugo nodded. He turned, his gaze sweeping over the crew before finally settling on Barbossa. The silence between the two men was thick. Hugo didn't blink. He didn't ask. He stated.
"Captain. For the remainder of this passage, the command of this vessel stays with me. I will see us to Tortuga, or I will see us to the bottom. But I will do it my way."
Barbossa looked at his crew, seeing the way they looked at the stranger. He looked at his ship, which was still afloat only by Hugo's grace. He took a long, slow breath, reached into his belt, and placed his hand over his heart in a gesture of grim respect.
"The ship is yours, Hugo," Barbossa said solemnly. "Lead us out of the dark."