by John Holmes
After a few seconds of stunned silence, the smaller MP reached out to apprehend me. William pushed the button on the taser, and jabbed it into his back with a crackling sound. He spasmed to the ground, and William tased him again for good measure.
Meanwhile, the bigger MP finally started to react, only to be set upon by Adam. The small Englishman jumped up on his back and wrapped his arm around the MP’s neck, then held on like a bull rider at a rodeo. After half a minute of thrashing around and comically groping at the diminutive foreigner on his back, the big soldier fell to his knees, then crumpled forward onto his face. Adam rode him all the way down.
“Bloody brilliant!” he said.
“I don’t want any trouble,” said the bartender holding his hands up over his head.
“Sorry about that” I said, genuinely sympathetic. “We’ll be out of your hair in a minute, and you won’t hear from us again.” I laid a gold broach I had been saving as currency down on the counter for his trouble, and turned to walk out.
Adam and William were taking the MP’s pistol belts and searching their pockets for other useful gear. I walked out with Ethan to search their Humvee.
No sooner had we started going through the stuff in the bed of the vehicle than the radio crackled to life.
“Any sign of him? Did you find him yet?” Came the unmistakable high pitched whine of Lt. Dimick’s voice, micro managing as always.
I keyed the button and responded in my best Chris Farley voice “Lt. Dimick, come in. We have information to suggest the fugitive boarded a helicopter bound south earlier today. Over.”
“Hahaha, I have him now. Get back to base, I’m going after him.” came the nasally, evil laugh and scheme. I turned off the radio and set about scavenging supplies from the vehicle, as Adam and William joined us.
Ethan came around the side of the Humvee carrying several cases of 5.56 ammunition. “Someone grab the SAW from the turret ring.”
Since my hands were free, I grabbed the M249, and we piled the loot into our borrowed jeep and headed for the cargo ship.
“I can tell, I’m never going to have a dull moment with you Yanks.” Adam said mirthfully.
“Yeah; you hired us to protect people from pirates, and here we go looting U.S. military equipment and escaping out to sea.” William said, calling our attention to the irony of the situation.
“At least we aren’t being impressed.” I said.
Chapter 4
My first transatlantic voyage started out uneventful enough. Despite assurances from Adam that there were no threats on board, I still couldn’t sleep that first night. (Totally because I was concerned about having zombies on board, like I had found on Sterett, and not at all because I was seasick.) Eventually, I roamed the entire ship in order to satisfy my curiosity. Once I finally found my way out of the forward cargo hold, I made my way back to the compartment where the four of us were bunking. Eventually I got to sleep.
The only other eventful thing to happen in the North Atlantic occurred the next morning when Adam brought his dog, Trooper, in to meet us. Trooper is a two year old English Beagle; short, excitable, and extremely muscular, and, like Adam, was a small specimen. No sooner had Trooper entered our room than he started baying and howling in that uncontrollable way hounds do.
Everything was fine, until someone opened the bathroom door in our compartment. Penny, my brown Flemish Giant rabbit, came bolting out, and Trooper took up the chase excitedly. If Trooper was confused about seeing a rabbit that was as big as he was, he hid it well. For thirty seconds or so, it was pandemonium in the little compartment, as the four of us tried to catch the two twenty-five pound animals which were running and jumping and ducking around our gear and the Spartan furnishings.
Ethan said, “If you don’t get a hold of that stupid dog I will shoot it; the rabbit too.”
“Don’t hate on Troop, he reminds me of our old family dog, Snoopy.”
Finally, Adam caught Trooper by his nylon harness, and I was able to corner Penny and hoist her up onto the top bunk, out of Trooper’s reach. Trooper sat on the deck and howled up at Penny mournfully, until he was removed from the room. Trooper would have to spend the rest of the voyage confined to the main deck, while Penny would rule below decks.
The third pet aboard ship retained her ability to roam free. Blur is a fat old striped cat with nine lifetimes of experience hunting mice and rats. If she wasn’t dozing in a passageway underfoot, she was a probably below deck fighting the infestation of rodents common to cargo ships like this. Ethan really took a liking to Blur, who could have cared less if everyone on board was dead. He hated Trooper, but William loved the unruly hound like it was his own.
The ship was not carrying much cargo. Container ships like this carried cargo from England all over the world, but usually returned empty. Oil tankers, on the other hand, came empty from England and returned full. Most of the oil still being produced in Canada and Alaska probably went to England, in exchange for the other supplies and manufactured goods needed to continue the war on the undead.
The voyage was supposed to take a little under two weeks. We sailed from Halifax northeast in an arc under Greenland and Iceland, towards the British Isles. In peace time, we might have made for the Clyde, or somewhere else in southwestern England, but since the outbreak began, all shipping was diverted to the one-time naval base at Scapa Flo. That was the one point of access to the United Kingdom. Incoming ships would be searched by the Royal Navy and quarantined, before being unloaded, loaded, and sent back to sea.
With the exception of a minor hurricane, the first ten days of the trip passed uneventfully. We didn’t have any special jobs on board, but we helped out as best as we could. I spent most of one day replacing burnt out halogen light bulbs. The others helped out too, as lookouts. One day we repainted a compartment, first chipping away the old paint and rust, then putting an endless number of coats of different stuff, probably all lead based, on the bulkheads.
The food was some of the best I’d had in a long time. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried Bangers and Mash, but it is to die for, especially after living off of MREs and expired C-rations.
We had plenty of time for exercising, and Trooper would run with us for endless laps around the main deck. He didn’t much care for pushups and sit ups, and he couldn’t do a flutter kick to save his life, but he loved getting in our way as we tried to do them. Ethan threatened to shoot Trooper nearly every time he saw him, but William wouldn’t let him.
We spent hours at a time throwing a football I had saved around the main deck, in the age old past time of the Szimanskis. Adam started out throwing like a girl, and almost lost the ball over the side, but he got pretty good at it eventually. He tried to teach us the European version of football, but it didn’t involve throwing anything, and none of us were ever able to get the soccer ball away from him.
It was the best fun I had had in a while being on the ship, but as the voyage neared its end, we were all starting to become restless.
Chapter 5
The closer we got to Scapa Flo, the tenser Adam got. Being focused on our own backyard for so long, I had no idea what was going on in the outside world. Russia was a mess. The southern breadbaskets were overrun, while large parts of the population and military had escaped to the inhospitable North. Now they were starving, and looking for a safe place.
England was the closest safe place left. The Royal Navy had been at an all time low, old ships were being decommissioned while new ships were delayed because of cost overruns. Then the dead rose. Now the Royal Navy was responsible for keeping the rest of the world out while the Royal Army was fighting in Europe.
Visibility was low; it was a typical foggy day in the North Sea. We were all on the bridge, watching a radar blip move closer to us. The captain had already called the Royal Navy, and we were close enough to the Flo that they might be able to help us.
“Let’s go get ready, in case something bad happens” Adam said.
We filed down the ladder a few decks to our compartment, and pulled our MOLLE vests over our heads.
I grabbed the SAW, since my 9mm carbine wouldn’t do nearly as much good against the living as it did against the dead. It was quite a bit heavier than I was used to. I went to grab the ammo for it, only to find that all but one belt was empty. I looked over at William and Ethan, who magically had full magazines.
“What? We were running low.” William said, in defense of my scowl.
Ethan reminded me, “Do you think it’s easy for us to get 5.56mm these days?”
“Besides, you didn’t tell us what to pack, just that you needed us immediately.” William said, to seal their defense.
Adam added “If we don’t scare them off with the first belt, chances are we will be in trouble anyway.”
Just then the ships announcing system crackled to life. “Counter piracy team report to the main deck. Crew report to your assigned positions. Suspected pirate vessel still on approach. They are not answering our hails. Royal Navy has been notified.”
We arrived on deck, and were joined by the members of the ship’s crew who had volunteered to be a part of the counter piracy detail. Adam had trained the half dozen or so sailors during his previous voyages on this ship, and they were ready to go, each with a vest and FAL rifle. Adam was similarly armed.
We set up around the superstructure at the aft end of the ship. Everything forward was just cargo. The living spaces, engineering, and bridge were all at the stern of the ship. William was a level higher than the rest of us, with his scoped rifle. We set up pre-positioned pallets and steel plates around us, to provide protection from small arms. I mounted the SAW on a post one of the crew had welded for this exact purpose. My carbine was beside me if I needed it.
A black shape started to resolve out of the fog on our port side. It was many times smaller than the cargo ship. Trooper appeared next to us. He pointed his body at the ship like a greyhound at the starting gate.
Up on the bridge, the captain was alternating between trying to hail the other ship and pleading with the Royal Navy for help. As the approaching ship grew closer some of its features became visible. It was an ocean-going trawler; old, beat up, and rusty. People were running around on its deck. It was heading directly for us.
The deck under my feet began to shift as the captain turned us away from the pirates. Adam sprinted for the bridge. If we continued to turn away from them they would land at our stern where we were.
A few seconds later, and the big ship started to come around the other way, as Adam directed the helmsman to point our bow towards the smaller vessel. They were too nimble to hit, but hopefully they would attempt to board at the bow, away from us rather than near us.
The trawler was less than a thousand yards away. I squeezed the trigger and put a line of tracers into the water across its bow. The crew of the trawler was running around like ants, but they hadn’t opened fire yet. I fired a second burst across their bow again, with no response. They just kept bearing towards us.
“They can’t damage us, or they’ll never be able to sneak into England. They want to take the ship unharmed, radio the navy that the pirates fled, then smuggle themselves into the Flo, ” said Adam, who was back at my side.
I pointed the weapon at their pilot house and held down the trigger. A long string of tracers leapt out over the water and collided with the trawler’s superstructure, sparking as it hit metal and shattering glass as it went through port holes.
At the first sound of gunfire, Trooper, normally aggressive, yelped and scampered below with his tail between his legs. What kind of hunting dog doesn’t like gunfire?
The rest of the group joined in. Some of the ant-like creatures on their deck fell over as aimed shots from Adam and William dropped them. Others returned fire with their ubiquitous AKs. One of the cargo ship crew was exposed, standing to fire. He took a round in the chest and slumped over. Ethan stopped shooting long enough to crawl over and pronounce him dead.
With a grinding sound, the trawler collided off our port bow, and slid down the side of the tanker. It was temporarily obscured from our view and protected from our fire. We all hoped that somehow the collision had sunk it, but then we saw grappling hooks fly up and lock onto our ship’s railing.
“Reload!” shouted Adam. “Here they come!”
Chapter 6
They started to appear over our forward railing. I held fire, because the SAW was running low. William, from his higher vantage, was landing hits nearly three football fields away as heads popped above the railing. Some others joined but were not as effective. Most of us held our fire.
The pirates put up inaccurate cover fire as they boarded. But soon, they had numbers on their side. Groups began to dart forward, taking cover behind deck fixtures, cranes, and the odd shipping containers stowed around the deck. From these positions, they were able to put up more accurate volleys.
Within a short period, they had closed the distance, and were trying to cross the last fifty yards to our position, one level up in the superstructure. Ethan was bandaging a sailor’s shoulder wound, where an AK round had made an ugly hole, and immobilized the arm.
I opened fire with the SAW again, as the pirates made a big push to cross the no man’s land between their cover and the superstructure. A few bursts, and the slide locked open, signifying my belt was empty. I switched to my Berretta Storm CX-4 9mm carbine, since the range was becoming quite close.
Adam dropped his FAL and moved to cover the port ladder with a Spas-12 shotgun. The deep boom of the 12-gauge told me that the pirates had made it that far.
A sailor got up to cover the starboard ladder, but was shot through the head as soon as he moved. I turned to cover that side, got up, started to run, and immediately lost my footing in a pool of blood. I hit the deck with a disorienting smack. If you’ve never fallen on a ship, let me just tell you: you will break before the ship will.
As I propped myself on my elbows a pirate rounded the corner on the level we were on. He began to level his gun at us, huddled behind our barricade. My carbine had been jolted out of my hands when I fell. All I could do was call out a warning.
Ethan reacted immediately and dove over top of his patient to protect the sailor. Only then did he start to draw a weapon. The remaining sailors were slow to react.
I knew I was a goner. I always assumed it would end like this, shot to death by a pirate while lying in a pool of someone else’s blood, just like the gypsy woman said. I’d like to say that my life passed before my eyes in an instant, or that I saw a flash of light, or an angel, or something.
Instead, what I saw was William, plummeting from the deck above, shouting “I’m Spiderman!” The pirate looked up just in time, like a rodent reacting to seeing a hawk’s shadow descending over him. Then with a bone shattering crunch William landed on the pirate and both of them landed in a heap on the deck.
William was able to incapacitate the dazed pirate, but a second pirate rounded the corner with my cousin in his sights. This time Ethan fired first. He didn’t have much accuracy, lying on top of a wounded sailor, but he was able to draw his pistol and level it in the right general direction without hitting William.
The second pirate ducked back around the superstructure to avoid his shots. I was finally able to regain my footing and move closer to William, who was backpedaling away from the corner.
When the pirate began to aim his gun around the edge of the superstructure, I was already there, with William behind me, his hand pressed against my back. I grabbed the barrel of his AK-47 and pushed it away from me as I rushed the corner, with William pushing from behind. I lowered my shoulder, slammed into the pirate, and drove him over the edge of the ladder, onto another pirate who was coming up. The two of them collapsed backwards in a tangled heap. William shouldered his AR, and quickly fired several shots from the top of the ladder into the writhing mass until it stopped moving.
Repulsed from both ladders and unable to assault the br
idge, the pirates’ offensive lost all of its momentum. After firing a few more covering shots, the survivors began to abandon their wounded and retreat towards their ship.
With the ladder secured, William and I returned to Ethan and the rest of the sailors. I was shocked to see that Adam had run down the ladder he had been protecting, and was now crossing the deck towards the retreating pirates. We decided we had better do the same thing, and followed him, to make sure all the pirates were repulsed from our ship. We slammed fresh mags into our guns along the way.
At the bow, we stopped, and Ethan drew his chop stick, a Ka-Bar clever he kept on hand for quick amputations, to cut their boarding lines.
Before Ethan could start hacking the boarding lines away, Adam slung his Spas over his shoulder, threw his leg over the railing, and grabbed one of the knotted ropes, like he intended to descend the two stories or so from the unladen cargo ship to the trawler.