The ocean doesn't care about you.

It's not your enemy, and it sure as hell isn't your friend.

It's just there, silent and endless, stretching past the horizon.

People think they understand it because they can chart a course, read a tide, plot a point on a map.

They don't.

The ocean keeps its own secrets.

And sometimes it lets you see one.

We had planned a trip across the Atlantic.

I captained the M.V. Red Sabre for almost 15 years now,

moving small cargo from one port to another, keeping to tight schedules and predictable routes.

I initially started in the Navy, but that life was a long way behind me.

My crew is small, just four of us.

Fewer men means fewer costs, but it also means fewer people to rely on when things go wrong.

We were three days out from Spain.

It was the middle of the night, somewhere past oh 200 hours, and I was still awake in my cabin, staring at the same navigational chart.

The radio crackled once, then again.

A voice was trying to push through the static.

It came through the comms, a weak, staticy voice repeating the same sequence over and over again.

Mayday, Mayday, this is the perdition, position, latitude 35, longitude...

I cut out again.

I sat up.

The perdition?

...