by Eric Vall
Paige wore dark-blue skinny jeans, hiking boots, and a tight-fitting zip up sweatshirt that showed off her perfect figure. Her long brown hair was down around her shoulders, and it hung down her back in a cascade of chestnut waves, but I saw a hair tie on her wrist, so I knew that wouldn’t last too long.
Bailey had on a pair of dark-green cargo pants, her green Chuck Taylors, a black hoodie, and her gray beanie. Her shoulder-length blonde hair poked out the sides of her hat and framed her face in the most adorable way.
And last, but not least, was Tara, who wore a pair of tight-fitting jeans, hiking boots, and a gray tank top that showed off her cleavage, with a dark-green zip up hoodie overtop of it. The piece de resistance, though, was a genuine Naval Captain hat that sat atop her pretty platinum-blonde head.
“Where did you get that?” I laughed and reached out to touch the black bill of the hat.
“I borrowed it from the Captain,” Tara replied with a grin, and she turned to the right, then left, and struck a pose. “You like it?”
“You went all the way inside and found the Captain just so you could ask to borrow his hat?” I asked with an amused smile.
“You act like you’re surprised,” she said as she adjusted the hat. “I wanted the whole experience, you know.”
“I don’t know if it’s a pregnancy thing, or if you were this weird before,” Anna chuckled and rolled her eyes.
“Definitely weird before,” Paige snickered.
“You guys are just jealous because I’m the only one with the hat,” Tara sniffed.
“Yup, that’s it,” Anna said with mock seriousness. “You hit the nail on the head.”
“It looks good,” I said with a smile. “Now, are we all ready?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Tara said, and she held up two fingers in a salute.
“You know you have on the Captain’s hat, right?” Paige asked.
“Whatev.” Tara rolled her eyes and opened the door to the jeep. “Now I’m not going to let any of you wear it while you take your turn driving.”
“I think you steer a ship, not drive it,” Paige said, and she pursed her lips in thought.
“You steer a car while you’re driving it, don’t you?” Tara asked pointedly.
“Get in the car,” I laughed and shook my head.
The sun was high in the sky as our small convoy made its way over to the water. We parked the jeeps and took turns using the inflatable rafts to get out to the ship.
Once everyone was on board I met Hammer and Minji in the command center so we could get started. There were two other SEALs there who I recognized from a couple of days before. They were the ones who’d originally helped Minji navigate the ship to where it was now.
One of them I thought was named Pike. He was tall, with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a mean five o’clock shadow.
The other, I recalled, was Smith. He looked similar to his companion, but his five o’clock shadow was a full blown beard, and his eyes were brown instead of blue.
“Tav, you remember Smith and Pike,” Hammer said with a gesture toward the men.
“Of course.” I nodded. “Let’s get this started.”
“Right,” Pike said, and he flipped a couple of switches on the large dashboard, but then his eyes narrowed in on something, and he turned back to Hammer. “You all took this to the ambush point and back yesterday, right?”
“That’s right.” Hammer nodded. “Why?”
“There’s no fuel missing,” the man said, and he pursed his lips. “By all rights there should be at least a small amount gone.”
“Could it be malfunctioning?” Paige asked.
“I don’t think so.” Pike shook his head.
“We should go check this out,” Smith suggested.
“I think that’s a good idea,” I said.
I was already slightly worried about fuel since the ship needed such a large amount, but I knew it was important everyone at least know the basics of how to get it moving, and how to steer it. Nobody would get an extended amount of practice, just enough to be able to get out of danger if necessary.
However, that now depended on what was going on with the fuel.
The girls, the SEALs, and I made our way down to the lower level of the boat so we could get a look at the fuel system. On the way there, we passed some Navy guys and civilians cleaning up the deck of the ship. It was a bloody mess, and I knew it would probably take all day to get it looking decent.
Once we got down to the fuel system, Pike and Smith started to look around, though I wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking for. We were surrounded by plasma weapons and tanks, which only reminded me that we needed to tally them up before day’s end as well.
“What’s going on?” I asked after a minute. “Do you see any leaks?”
“No leaks.” Pike shook his head and crouched down by a large pipe. “I think I know what’s going on, though.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Come look,” he said, and he pointed to one of the large tanks near him.
I walked over and crouched down next to him. At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but then I saw it. The pipe he was looking at was connected to the large tanks of plasma fluid.
“They rigged the ship to run off plasma?” I asked with narrowed eyes as I continued to inspect the setup.
“It looks like it.” Pike nodded.
“The stuff is highly combustible,” Smith said. “And those NKs are assholes, but they’re not stupid. I mean, the plasma weapons they’ve built are incredible. I’m not surprised they’d be able to do something like this.”
“You’re right,” I agreed, and a smile came over my face as I realized something. “That’s great for us, though.”
“Why’s that?” Bailey asked.
“Fuel,” Anna and I said at the same time.
“Right,” I chuckled. “We have enough plasma liquid to last a long time here. And once this war is over, engines powered by plasma can help us rebuild fast.”
“And besides, it doesn’t seem to use a lot of it,” Paige said. “The tanks are nearly full still, and they’ve probably come all the way from the west coast.”
“We’ll keep an eye on them while we do our practice runs today,” I said. “I’m sure the ship uses more than our weapons, but there should still be more than plenty.”
“Soooo, does this mean I can drive the ship now?” Tara asked with a grin.
“I suppose so,” I laughed. “Let’s go.”
I felt relieved as we made our way back up to the command center. I’d been concerned about the ship using up all our fuel if we needed to take it on a lengthy journey, which might be the case considering we would be heading down to Georgia as soon as we took out these Boston assholes. Now, we didn’t have to worry about running out of fuel anytime soon.
Using the plasma to run the ship would cost us a small amount that could be used for other purposes, but it was worth it in the long run. The faster we could get down to Georgia, the better.
Once we’d taken care of that, it was time to actually get the training started. Tara insisted on being first, of course.
“Sit here,” Pike instructed her.
Tara eagerly sat down, then she looked around, clearly confused as to where the steering wheel was.
“Um, excuse me,” she said in her best sweet voice. “But there’s no steering wheel thingy here. You know, the ones you see on ships in movies and stuff. Like Pirates of the Caribbean, have you ever seen that? You know what I’m talking about?”
While she talked she held her hands up and acted as if she were steering and spinning an imaginary wheel in front of her.
“I do,” Pike laughed. “But no, there’s no wheel like that here. It’s that joystick in front of you.”
Tara looked at the joystick used to control the rudder, and her face fell flat. She was thoroughly unimpressed.
“Hmm,” she said, and she pursed her lips. “Not ideal, but alright
.”
The girls and I couldn’t help but snicker at her disappointment, but then she shot us a death glare that quickly quieted us down.
The navy guys walked us through everything very slowly, and eventually, Tara got her chance to steer. They had her push all the correct buttons to get the ship moving and let her go a few hundred yards before telling her good job and moving on to the next.
The platinum-blonde didn’t seem as disappointed to get out of the Captain’s seat as I thought she’d be. After she’d realized there wasn’t a wheel I think she’d lost interest. We each took our turn to navigate the ship for a few minutes, and once I was confident that everybody knew all the basics, I grabbed Paige and Minji and headed down to the supply room to take inventory.
I was eager to get a tally of all the supplies we’d gained. Once we knew exactly what we had, we’d be better able to formulate a plan of attack using their own weapons against them.
On the way there, though, I decided to take us by the Captain’s quarters.
“Where are we going?” Paige asked when I made a left hand turn into the barracks.
“I want to see if the Captain has anything important in his room,” I explained. “I figured Minji would be able to translate anything we come across.”
“Oh, good idea.” Paige nodded as she continued to follow me.
The hallway was still filled with dead bodies, and it smelled like rancid, burned flesh. I held my breath as we stepped over the deceased soldiers on our way to the Captain’s chambers.
The two guards Tara and I had taken out just a couple of days before were still there, so I kicked them out of the way as best I could and stepped into the room.
The Captain was still in the same spot near the bathroom door. Dried blood was splattered on the walls all around him, but I just stepped over him and walked to the side table near the bed.
I used the barrel of my gun to rifle through the contents of the drawer, but I was disappointed to not find anything that looked like orders of any kind. There weren’t any pieces of paper at all, just some cigarettes, a lighter, a half full fifth of Jameson whiskey, and a sock that I didn’t even want to think about touching.
“Anything?” Paige asked. The brunette stood by the small wardrobe and went through it with her hand over her mouth to keep the putrid smell of the room at bay.
“Nothing here.” I shook my head.
“Or here,” Minji said, and she popped her head up from where she’d been crouched down so she could see under the bed.
“We’ll come back and check again once the bodies are cleaned up,” I said, and I felt my nose wrinkle with disgust. “But for now, let’s head down to take inventory.”
“Sounds good to me,” Paige agreed.
We rushed toward the door, but just as we were about to step through, the ship jolted, and we were slammed into the doorjamb. I grabbed onto Paige and Minji to protect them, and my shoulder hit the wall with so much force it felt like I’d just tried to ram a door down, and unsuccessfully at that.
“What the hell was that?” Paige asked.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The ship was still moving quickly, I could feel that, but the jolt was over so I released the girls and tore down the hallway, over the dead men, to the deck of the ship.
“Something’s wrong,” Anna said as she, Tara, and Bailey ran over to us from where they’d been cleaning up.
I looked out in front of the ship and saw we were headed straight for shore. The ship was going at a much faster pace than it’d been when we were practicing.
Another jolt caused us all to fly into the railing, and I grabbed on to steady myself.
I used one hand to reach down to my hip and pull up my walkie talkie.
“Hammer!” I yelled. “What the fuck is happening!”
There was no response.
“Hammer!” I yelled into the walkie again. “Lieutenant, what is the status?”
Anna’s green eyes caught mine, and they were filled with fear. The ship felt like it was slowing down, but it was still headed right for shore.
“The controller joystick is stuck,” he responded after a few more seconds.
“Fuck,” I cursed and looked at the girls seriously. “Hold on.”
Chapter 5
“What the fuck does he mean ‘stuck’?” Tara squealed as she gripped the railing hard.
“The propeller must be stuck in one direction,” Paige explained.
“I don’t mean that literally,” Tara said. “I mean what the hell is he doing to fix it?”
“I’m sure he’s doing his best,” I said. “Just hold on.”
I trusted Hammer, and I knew he wouldn’t purposefully put our people in danger. Whatever had happened up there, he was working to fix it.
“It feels like the ship is slowing down at least,” Bailey noted.
“It is.” I nodded. “I feel it, too.”
“They must have released the gas to try and stop us that way,” Paige added.
“Anna?” Bailey asked. “Are you okay?”
I looked over to see the redhead with her hands wrapped around the railing like everyone else, only she had her head down, and her body sort of limply swayed with the motion of the ship.
“Just… peachy,” the redhead breathed, and when she looked up her mouth hung open slightly, and her eyelids were heavy with disorientation.
“Just breathe,” I called to the redhead. “You’ll be okay!”
Anna didn’t respond, but she nodded her head slightly, so I took that as acknowledgment that she’d heard what I said.
The boat jerked again, and I slid forward into the railing. I was able to brace myself so it wasn’t too bad of an impact, but if we actually hit the shore, it would be a lot worse. I imagined a few people would be thrown from the ship, or at least whipped around pretty badly.
We weren’t going at an extremely high speed, but the momentum of the ship would make everything a lot worse. The vessel was huge, and if it crashed into shore there would most definitely be some damage, though to it or the shore, I wasn’t sure.
“Fuuuuuck,” Tara groaned as the ship drew closer and closer to land.
I held my body in place against the railing and braced for impact, then the boat jerked one more time, and we finally turned away from shore. There was a huge ripple from the ship turning so suddenly, but I was just happy we weren’t hurtling toward land any longer.
“Oh, sweet baby Jesus, thank you,” Tara said, and she placed her hand on her chest and looked up to the sky as the ship started to even out again.
“We’re back on course,” Hammer’s voice said through the walkie talkie. “Sorry about that.”
“Sorry about that?” Tara asked with narrowed eyes as she steadied herself back on the deck. “Did he just say sorry about almost crashing our ship? Let me see that thing, I’m--”
Tara walked over and reached for the walkie, but I held it away from her and pulled her in for a one armed hug instead.
“It’s okay,” I chuckled. “We’re alright.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the platinum-blonde muttered into my chest.
I smiled and kissed the top of her head. She was right to be upset, but everything had worked out, so there was no point in dwelling on it right then.
“Alright,” I said after a moment. “Let’s get back to work, I’ll go talk to Hammer real quick and--”
Anna threw herself to the railing and threw up loudly enough to cut off what I was saying.
“Okay, scratch that,” I said with a grimace. “Everyone except Anna get back to work.”
“Thanks,” Anna muttered as she leaned lifelessly against the railing and gave me a thumbs up.
“I’m the pregnant one, and somehow she gets out of cleaning up dead bodies,” Tara said with an eye roll. “Unbelievable.”
“You’re pregnant, not useless,” I quoted her with a devilish smile.
“Yeah, yeah,” she chuckled and turned around. “Come on, Bail
s. Let’s get some work done.”
“Minji, Paige, come with me,” I instructed.
“We can get started on the inventory if you’d like,” Minji offered.
“Yeah,” Paige agreed. “We don’t mind getting started on our own.”
“I’m bringing you in case there’s something wrong with the controls,” I explained. “Minji might need to translate.”
“Oh, right.” Paige nodded.
We walked along the deck until we came to the stairs that led up to the control room. The bodies on deck had slid around from the jerking of the ship, so there were even more blood splatters to clean up, but I’d focus on that later, right then I needed to talk to Hammer.
“Hey,” I said as Minji, Paige, and I stepped through the door of the control room.
“Hey,” Hammer sighed. “You come to lay into us?”
“Not exactly,” I chuckled. “I would like to know what happened, though?”
“You’re a better man than me.” Hammer shook his head. “I’d lay into my boys for that.”
“You already did,” Pike muttered, and Hammer glared at the back of his head.
“What was it?” I asked, thinking it was a dumb, avoidable mistake at that point.
“The controls just aren’t clean,” he explained. “The joystick got stuck, which made the propeller stick, obviously, and we had to figure out how to get it unstuck without breaking it.”
“It seems you were able to do that, though,” I pointed out.
“At the last second,” he laughed. “But, yeah, I suppose we were.”
“Look, you couldn’t have known about that,” I told him. “Better to know sooner than later, so even though it wasn’t the ideal way to test it, we know what we need to do now. And nobody got hurt. No harm, no foul.”
“I appreciate that,” Hammer said with a small smile. “I assure you, it won’t happen again. After we’re finished today, I’m going to have a couple of my men scrub this place cleaner than it’s ever been.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed. “We’re going to go do inventory, but if you need anything, let me know.”
“Alright.” He nodded.
Hammer was being hard on himself, and while I understood why, it wasn't necessary. Everybody was fine, and he’d discovered a problem we would’ve had to fix eventually anyway.