The Shores of Tripoli

by Fisher Samuels

  Smith saw that Childress was still a hundred meters from the boat, but in the darkness, he figured there was a good chance he’d make it if the boat didn’t speed away. “Son of a bitch.”

  Chavez picked up the bag and held it up for Grassley to see. “Come on, you motherfucker! Come and get it!” He lifted the bag over his head and jumped up and down.

  “Leave the bags on the rocks and walk away. All of you!”

  “Almost there. He’s gonna make it,” said Williams. “Let’s move back. Come on!”

  Childress neared the Dauntless’s hull as it drifted by.

  “Come on, Tricky,” said Williams.

  Smith turned to watch. As the stern neared, Childress reached for the RHIB that was hoisted on the fantail rack. He grabbed a lifeline attached to the RHIB’s gunwale.

  “He’s got it!” Williams waved again at the Dauntless then pointed at the bags. “Let’s go.”

  “What’s he gonna do?” asked Chavez.

  Williams smiled. “I’ve got no idea.”

  Chapter 20

  Following Seas

  Childress unclipped the D-ring from the bow of the RHIB and pushed it quietly off the transom and into the water. He looked along the side of the deck and quietly made his way along the cabin.

  The Dauntless turned toward the rocks and its search lights illuminated the jetty.

  Childress pressed himself against the cabin wall and peered into the first window.

  Inside, Grassley was at the helm, Mudawar was sitting in the gunner’s chair, and another pirate was seated in the XO’s chair. At the rear of the cabin, two pirates were guarding Ruiz and MacFarland.

  Mudawar said something to the two pirates at the back of the cabin and they went out the hatch on the other side.

  Childress had no weapons of any kind, two broken fingers, soaking wet clothing and boots, and absolutely no ideas about what to do next. He thought that sabotage was probably a better plan than a solo attack. If the Dauntless had traditional propellers, he’d try fouling them by tossing a line under the hull so it would get wrapped around one of the shafts until it seized. That would buy enough time to take over the boat and wouldn’t be hard to fix. But the Dauntless had shrouded water jets instead of exposed propellers.

  He thought about getting into the engine room. If he sabotaged anything in there, it could be hard to repair the damage for the next bubble home. If, he thought, getting back to their time was even possible.

  Since Grassley was the only one helping the pirates, Childress realized that taking him out was the key. If he was quick enough, he could run in to the cabin and break Grassley’s neck before any of the pirates had a chance to react. He figured he’d be able to kill Grassley before the pirates pulled him off and killed him.

  The transmission shifted into reverse and the Dauntless slowed as it neared the jetty. Childress watched one of the pirates jump down onto the rocks while the other waited on the bow, and he knew this was his chance.

  ———————

  Smith pointed to the dark silhouette off the Dauntless’s starboard side. “Tricky cut the RHIB loose.”

  “Is he in it?” asked Williams.

  “Don’t think so. Thought I saw him going towards the cabin.”

  Williams tapped Brewster on the shoulder. “Up for a little swim, Brew?”

  “Yessir. I’ll go get it.”

  “Thanks. Watch out for those two.” Williams nodded toward the two men picking up the bags of junk they left on the rocks.

  “Roger.” Brewster crawled along the low side of the jetty and climbed into the water.

  “What do you think Tricky’s up to?” asked Marathyachi.

  Smith shook his head. “He’ll probably go in there and kill ’em all with his bare hands.”

  ———————

  Childress neared the cabin hatch. Grassley, Mudawar and the other pirate were still seated. Ruiz and MacFarland were alone at the rear of the cabin, but neither had seen him yet.

  Childress put his hand on the handle of the hatch. He thought about how he’d grab Grassley by the neck. If Grassley was buckled in, he’d fall to the ground and snap his spine over the back of the chair. If he wasn’t, he’d pull him over the back of the chair and break his neck on the ground.

  He took a few deep breaths, then slammed the hatch open and charged straight for Grassley. He caught Grassley’s neck in the crook of his arm and pulled back as hard as he could. Grassley came out of the chair and fell on top of him.

  Grassley started flailing his arms, but his movements were purely instinctive to try and open his airway rather than fighting back.

  MacFarland screamed, and Ruiz jumped to his feet.

  Mudawar and the other pirate lunged out of their chairs, but stepped back in surprise.

  Grassley’s face turned dark red, then purple.

  Mudawar unsheathed his dagger and yelled something to the other pirate, and both reached down for Childress.

  Ruiz charged into the unarmed pirate and knocked him into the XO’s chair. He shoved the man to the ground, then punched until the man stopped struggling.

  Mudawar tried to break Grassley free, but Childress was locked onto Grassley’s neck with one arm and was pushing on the side of his temple with the other.

  Grassley’s mouth was struggling to open, and let out a weak gurgle.

  Childress roared and pulled and pushed until he felt Grassley’s neck give way. Immediately, the nerve impulses that controlled Grassley’s breathing and muscle control were cut off and his body went limp.

  Mudawar lashed out, but too late to save Grassley. He plunged his dagger into Childress’s neck and twisted it.

  Childress tried to swing his arm at Mudawar, but the white-hot pain was overwhelming. The last thing he saw was the hatch opening when the other two pirates ran in from the deck.

  ———————

  “No!” yelled MacFarland.

  Ruiz took a step toward Mudawar just as he pulled his bloody dagger from Childress’s neck. Childress’s arms fell to the cabin floor and Ruiz lifted his hands in surrender. He stepped back and went to MacFarland’s side. He helped her up and backed her towards the open hatch.

  Mudawar and the other pirates glared at them. Mudawar looked down at Grassley’s body, his head twisted to an unnatural angle.

  Ruiz and MacFarland were just steps away from the hatch to the deck.

  “You,” Mudawar said, pointing his dagger at Ruiz. “You will command this ship.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know how. I’m just the corpsman. A medic.”

  Mudawar lifted his dagger and squinted his eyes.

  “I don’t know how, I swear to God. Each person has a different job on board.”

  Mudawar glanced at MacFarland but didn’t say anything. He looked at Ruiz again and pointed at the helmsman’s console. “Tell me what these mean.”

  Ruiz looked at the console and shrugged.

  MacFarland grabbed Ruiz by the arm. “Ready to jump?” she asked quietly.

  Mudawar leaned in closer to hear.

  Ruiz nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Go!” MacFarland pulled Ruiz toward the hatch and they started running.

  MacFarland leapt over the railing with Ruiz right behind her.

  ———————

  “Two of them just jumped!” said Marathyachi.

  Williams stood quickly. “What? Who?”

  “Looked like Doc and the Ensign.” Marathyachi ran over the boulders toward the edge of the jetty.

  Brewster was almost to the RHIB, and MacFarland and Ruiz were swimming to shore 30 meters to the east.

  “What about Childress? Anyone see him?” asked Williams.

  Marathyachi yelled over his shoulder. “No sign of Childress!”

  “Oh, shit,” said Smith. He ran to join Marathyachi.

  “We gotta help him! Get on the boat!” Williams started running too.

  Brewster flopped over the gunwale of the RHIB and made
his way to the stern. He started the silenced motor and spun the RHIB toward MacFarland and Ruiz. After they were aboard, Brewster guided the bow of the RHIB against the jetty.

  Smith and Marathyachi pulled MacFarland and Ruiz out of the boat and Williams jumped in.

  “Smith! Shiv! Get in!” Williams waved his arm toward the Dauntless before they were even on board. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

  “They’re dead!” MacFarland slapped her hands on her wet pants. “They killed Tricky!”

  “What!?” Williams looked at her. “What happened?”

  Ruiz collapsed onto a boulder. “Childress killed Grassley. Then the pirates killed him. Fucking stabbed him, but he took out Grassley.”

  MacFarland tried to choke back her tears.

  Williams slumped into the side of the RHIB. “What are they doing now?”

  Ruiz shook his head. “Tried to make us drive the boat.”

  “I decided we should jump,” said MacFarland. “It’s my fault.”

  Williams looked at the Dauntless, still drifting at idle along the jetty. “They don’t know how to drive. Good call.” He nodded, reluctantly. “Good decision.”

  “We can still get them,” said Smith. “What kind of weapons did they have?”

  MacFarland stood. “They’ve got our M-4s and M-9s. Seems like they know how to use them. Got a few swords and daggers, too.”

  “What do we got?” asked Williams.

  Smith shook his head. “Not a damn thing, skip.”

  “Fuck it,” said Williams. “Might be our last chance.”

  ———————

  Mudawar smacked his palms on the railing when he saw the two swimming away. He went back into the cabin and stepped over the two bodies laying behind the middle chair. “Throw these into the sea.”

  Mudawar studied the central console that Grassley used to control the boat. The boat was still rumbling from deep below, but he had no idea how to control it like Grassley had. He put his hands on the two things that Grassley used regularly: the ship’s wheel and the two throttle controls.

  He rested them there for a moment, as if waiting for the boat to understand what he wanted it to do. After all, Grassley had been able to control it so precisely. He spread his hand across the hard black knobs of the throttle assembly, and thought of what he’d seen Grassley do numerous times. He slammed the knobs forward and the Dauntless rumbled. The bow of the boat lifted like a great wave about to crash on the shore, and the stern dug into the water just like his father’s boat did when it was destroyed. But the boat wasn’t sinking. It was speeding up.

  Each of the pirates inside grabbed for something to hold on to as the Dauntless accelerated. Mudawar gripped the wheel with both hands, leaving the diesels on full power. If he understood the readings on the display, he would have known that the Dauntless was accelerating though 15, 20 to 25 knots.

  The Dauntless sped past the seawall and threw a growing wake upon the jetty rocks. The rumbling in the belly of the boat grew louder and louder. Mudawar gripped the ship’s wheel tight, and it grew stiff in his hands from the pressure building on the hull as it accelerated.

  Ahead in the distance, Mudawar saw the white waves lapping against the dark rocks of the jetty, arcing out into the sea and cutting directly ahead of his path.

  He’d used other ship’s wheels before, but none were as small as this one, and never at this great a speed.

  He gripped the wheel and turned it gently to his left. The Dauntless responded by quickly dipping to its port side. Suddenly off-balance, Mudawar leaned harder on the wheel, and it spun even more. The Dauntless dug in to a hard port-side turn at just under thirty-five nautical miles an hour.

  ———————

  Brewster twisted the throttle to reverse as soon as he saw the Dauntless turning toward the RHIB. “Hold on!”

  The Dauntless was spinning at nearly full-speed, but only faced in the RHIB’s direction for an instant. It turned toward the jetty, still at full-throttle, then straightened, and then spun back to the starboard side.

  “No! No! No!” Williams leaned up in the RHIB and watched the Dauntless heading straight for the sharp, black rocks of the jetty.

  The Dauntless neared the jagged boulders, the twin diesels growling as loud as they’d ever heard them.

  The Dauntless spun again to its port side, but it was clear that it was too late. It was less than a boat-length from the jetty when it straightened, and appeared to be going at its full speed of nearly forty knots.

  The bow leapt into the air an instant before they heard the sharp, piercing sound of cracking metal and crunching rock.

  Williams watched the water fly off the stern of his ship. The Dauntless flew away from him, rather than slicing through the water as it should have. It flew above the rocks and the water like a speed boat in some contrived Hollywood stunt. But it didn’t happen in slow motion. Just as quickly as it shot up, the Dauntless started tilting to its side and falling back down.

  In this instant, Williams thought he’d see that movie-perfect jump over the jetty and landing. Instead, he heard another mix of crunching rocks and thundering metal. The Dauntless skidded on the boulders of the jetty, first forward, and then down to the side. It slid on the rocks for what to Williams seemed like an eternity. It sounded like every car crash he’d heard in the movies with breaking glass and squealing tires and broken bones. It sounded horrible. It sounded like the Dauntless was no more.

  It sounded like he’d never get home.

  Chapter 21

  Shipwrecked

  Williams felt nauseous. The Dauntless wasn’t moving, but the diesels were still screaming at full throttle. It was canted to her starboard side, her bow pointed down to the water like a dying fish trying desperately to return to the water.

  “No. Oh, shit.” Smith fell back against the gunwale of the RHIB. “Oh, shit,” he repeated.

  Brewster stopped the RHIB and dropped his head. In the darkness, seeing only the shadow of the Dauntless laying on the rocks looked as bad as the crash sounded. He wished it were daytime so he could see how bad the damage actually was.

  The diesels continued to roar and white smoke started pouring from the stern.

  “Brew, get in there!” Williams pointed. “Now!”

  “It’s overheating!” yelled Brewster. He twisted the throttle and pointed the RHIB at the shipwrecked Dauntless.

  Williams grabbed onto the gunwales at the bow and crouched like he was ready to leap when they got close enough. He looked back over his shoulder. “I need you all to go with me! First one to the helm shuts down the diesels!”

  Brewster slowed the RHIB, but not enough to keep it from bouncing off the boulders just below the stern of the Dauntless. He nudged the throttles up again and pushed the RHIB against the rocks.

  Williams jumped on the slick boulders and hoped they were covered with seagrass rather than oil from the Dauntless.

  Smith, Marathyachi and Brewster jumped up behind him. They climbed the fantail platform and pulled their way through the hot white smoke pouring from the twin exhausts and up to the cabin.

  Williams climbed in through the open cabin door, struggling to keep moving up the canted deck.

  Mudawar was holding on to the helmsman’s chair with his head down.

  Williams climbed past him and zeroed the throttles. He ignored the overheat alarm icon and tapped to shut down both diesels.

  Mudawar patted his waist sash looking for his dagger, but it was gone.

  Williams looked at Mudawar still clinging to the chair just above him. Mudawar had wrecked his boat, killed at least one member of his crew, and may very well likely have ruined any chance he had of getting home to his wife and daughters. Williams clenched his fists.

  “Get the guns!” yelled Smith. Brewster and Marathyachi followed him inside and grappled with the dazed pirates laying in a heap at the low corner of the cabin.

  “Aw, jeezus!” yelled Brewster. “They killed them! Killed them both!”
He saw Grassley and Childress in the bottom of the pile, lifeless. He screamed and started swinging wildly at the already subdued pirate next to him.

  Mudawar stood unsteadily, holding on to the chair with both hands. Williams grabbed him by the collar of his tunic, and pulled.

  Something dripped onto Williams’s hand, but it was too dark inside to see what it was.

  Mudawar slumped toward Williams. His grip on the chair loosened and his head bobbed.

  More warm drips fell on Williams’s hand. Williams pushed Mudawar past him and toward the cabin wall.

  Mudawar fell against the wall, then collapsed to the carpeted floor.

  Williams tapped on his control panel. In the red cabin lighting, he saw the large gash that ran across Mudawar’s temple and forehead. At the back of the cabin, he saw that Smith, Brewster and Marathyachi had secured the other pirates. He also saw the bodies of Grassley and Childress.

  Brewster whimpered. “What the fuck do we do now?”

  Williams straightened. “We get her back in the water and get the hell out of here.”

  ———————

  MacFarland stopped as soon as she saw the Dauntless laying on the rocks.

  “Son of a bitch,” said Watts.

  It looked like Watts was ready to pass out, and MacFarland felt him swaying. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get up there.”

  Chavez, Brewster, Smith and Marathyachi followed, carrying Rogers in the litter over the rocks.

  “How bad is it?” asked MacFarland.

  “Haven’t even looked yet,” said Chavez.

  “It’s bad,” said Brewster. “Should’a heard it.”

  “We don’t know yet, Brew,” said Smith.

  “I know it’s bad. We’re not getting off these rocks.” Brewster stopped.

  “Keep going. We can’t stay here.”

  Brewster took a step and tripped on a boulder. “I can’t fucking see. How are we gonna get off these rocks?”

  “Just move. We’ll figure it out,” said Smith. “Unless you’re giving up on going home.”

  Brewster glanced back at Smith and kept walking.