Swim

“UNKNOWN SHIP APPROACHING AT HIGH RATE OF SPEED!” Elon shouted from the east side of the command deck. “SKIMMER CLASS. INTERCEPT IN LESS THAN 30!”

Alber stood stoically in front of the masterboard of his ship, turning his head eastward to acknowledge the information by nodding towards Elon’s station.

“Just one sir. We should be able to manage….” Dozembe whispered from his position just behind his captain.

Alber could sense a hint of both hopefulness and uncertainty in his Second Bar’s voice, and turned to face him with orders.

“Issue the ‘huddle’ order. I want all non-combat transport crew inside and in position for ‘last ditch’ protocols if necessary. Have both combat teams on deck and in defensive positions. Non-aggressive posture……”

Alber paused and glanced back out towards the black, muddy ocean their ship was slowly pushing its way through.

“But Dozembe….”

“Captain….”

Alber spun around again, and the two men locked eyes for a moment.

“Ready the rail guns.”

Despite the fact that Dozembe towered over half a foot above his captain, meaning he always found himself looking down at the man giving him orders, Alber’s words came in a such a low, violent tone they made Dozembe feel half his size.

“It will be done sir” Dozembe responded, quickly turning to head towards the door of the command deck.

———————————————————————————————————————

“Young man have you ever SEEN someone who’s ended up in the Pacific 100 kilometres from shore? 50 kilometres? 10!?! I can assure you, the closer you get, the WORSE the situation becomes. Here. Let me SHOW you all….”

With that, the Delivery-Teams-Director of the ‘Southern Peru Estuary Works; Shipping Division’ or ‘SPEW-S’ as many in the freelance transportation industry had taken to short-handing the name, flicked through several disgusting pictures of people and animals in various states of decay. All of the photos were pulled straight from the internet, having recently been taken by both shoreline cleanup crews and various anonymous sources all over the western coastline of the Americas.

It was so common for dead marine animals, and indeed human beings — both ‘free transporters’ and migrators — to be pushed onto the shore by the sluggish ocean current that still churned beneath the ‘skilm’ — which is what most people had taken to calling the ‘water’ along the coast — that few in the room, and indeed in the world, were even moved by the images any longer. It was simply a fact of life for most now. Most water wasn’t safe. It was no longer even ‘water’ in the sense that previous generations would have known it. That’s why companies like SPEW were doing so well. However, it also made them hell-bent on their deliveries being completed, at any cost, and by any means. An enormous segment of the population in the Americas, at least those without access to the few, increasingly precious in-land aquifers, relied on the coastal network of water production, recycling, and delivery services for their entire existence. SPEW and their ‘family’ of water providers were in control of, and ultimately responsible for the survival of millions of people and industries. — “A conflict of interest to say the VERY least….” Alber had thought to himself the first time he sat in on a delivery briefing.

The D.T.D. followed up his slideshow of wonderful, uplifting images with some even more inspiring shots of people in intensive care units in a variety of SPEW’s private hospitals along the West Coast Shipping Route. His intention here was to remind the Captains and SB’s in attendance that a ‘man overboard’ is, in almost all cases, also a death sentence, regardless of the time spent in the ocean and whether or not the crew member could even make it to a hospital. Essentially, the company was exonerating everyone from the responsibility to save lives, or look out for anyone but themselves. In fact, that was simply the most economical policy and business practice, and SPEW was quite transparent about it. A dead freelancer meant a small payout to their beneficiaries, which amounted to little more than what they would have been paid for the delivery, and many freelancers didn’t even bother, or have beneficiaries to register. Meanwhile, a ‘saved’ man would require intensive medical care immediately, and should they somehow survive, surgeries, treatments, and usually some addition to the minuscule disability provisions granted to them by their local governing body. All those costs would eventually need to be recouped somehow, which meant a tighter squeeze on working crews, timelines, and the pockets of communities receiving the shipments. Really, if there was any kind of accident, fewer crew members making it to the finish line meant that literally everyone was better off. Yet there was still intense competition to be selected for deliveries by companies like SPEW, and the captains who ran shipments for them. After all, it paid well compared to most other work, and was one of the few jobs that everyone knew wouldn’t, and couldn’t possibly be eliminated.

“At the distances from the shoreline we travel, the water, IF we can call it that…. I know you all use the word ‘skilm’ now….. but WHATEVER you want to call it…. it is so toxic that even IF you somehow manage to swim through the sludge, your probability of survival is below 15%. The varying levels of toxic, and in some cases radioactive materials building up along shallow waters on the coastline continues to grow with each passing month. Of course, your chances of survival drop in relation to this as well. REMEMBER - There are no heroes out on the ocean. There is cargo, and there is crew. There are pirates, and there is You. YOUR PRIORITIES ARE ——”

The D.T.D. waited for someone to finish his thought, staring out at the room of captains and SB’s who were seated in neat rows as if they were in a classroom from a century ago.

“WELL???? Who’s been in here before!? I recognize some of you. Some of you who’ve made the trip more than a few times, and still sit here ready, and clearly capable of making it again…… YOU!” He pointed directly towards Dozembe. “I’d recognize a tank of a man like you anywhere. Gotta be one of the biggest crewmen we’ve had on any of our teams. SO. Knowing you’ve been in here BEFORE…. Possibly several times, what is Priority ONE????”

Dozembe looked to Alber on his left with very little enthusiasm or appreciation for this D.T.D.’s approach to the briefing, which amounted to little more than yelling and attempting to intimidate the transport leads into completing their deliveries ‘no matter what.’

“Priority One. Get your ship and cargo to it’s destination” Dozembe offered.

“Priority TWO?” The D.T.D. demanded.

Dozembe, still unenthused with being the one responsible for listing the priorities, inhaled sharply and answered, “Priority Two. Defend the cargo and ship, unless it is impossible to do so without losing either.”

“AND with any means at your disposal….” The D.T.D. added. “And FINALLY…. if both priority one and two are being adhered to, tertiary priorities are the health and safety of yourself, your crew, and the ship’s maintenance. Of course, as the heads of your transport teams, your health and safety come first. You are not only needed to command all actions on-board, but are also the only ones privileged with the navigational information and PoD required to complete your deliveries. This is, of course, to ensure minimal opportunity for information leaks that could put the cargo, or you and your crews, at even further risk.”

“Thank Poseidon they’re concerned for us….” Alber mumbled under his breath to Dozembe.

“EXCUSE ME CAPTAIN…… CAPTAIN……… YOUR NAME?”

“Alber. This is my 19th tour. I’ve been in your briefings once or twice before…. You don’t recognize me?”

“No. I am afraid I don’t. I see a great MANY captains come through here each month.”

“I’m sure you do.” Alber conceded, nodding with a smirk.

“Well, Captain Alber ‘no last name,’ if it IS your 18th tour—”

“19th”

“19TH!” He shouted. “You clearly know VERY well how important it is to maintain strong leadership over a transport crew, and a tight hold over the information about your delivery. Otherwise, I doubt you’d be here…. Few freelancers manage to hit double-digits, let alone CAPTAIN that many deliveries.”

“A lot of luck” Alber shot back quietly. “Oh, and Dozembe!” He reached out and patted the hulking man to his right on the shoulder. “He’s been with me since the beginning of all of this. I think he just scares the shit out of most pirates, so we rarely get boarded or even threatened…… but that could also just be because he likes to stand on the deck naked at sunrise and sunset every day.” The rest of the group laughed as Dozembe shoved Alber with his elbow and shrunk down in his seat a little from embarrassment, though he was still the most prominent man in the room.

“A joke. I’m sure you’re sense of humour has helped you through many challenging moments, Captain, but some of these men…. MOST of these men, are leading for the very first time. They don’t know what to expect OR what they may face. So perhaps you could let me do my job and finish briefing you all so that you can get your nav info, select your crews, and get your ships ready as soon as possible.”

“As soon as possible? The pirates really don’t care if we rush or take our time…. they’ll still be there. They’ve got nothing else to do. And the skilm certainly isn’t going anywhere…. But carry on” Alber waved in the D.T.D.’s direction, “if you think it’ll help.”

———————————————————————————————————————

Alber glared at the monitors above the masterboard on the command deck.

“Give me Portside views on two screens, cargo deck from front…. tower perspectives on the other two” he demanded. “I want visuals on the skimmer and it’s crew from the moment they get within 50 feet of the ship to the moment they leave.”

“If they leave……” Elon added quietly from the radar and comms station.

“Elon…. Enough” he glared over towards Elon, though the man never turned around to look at him. “We’ve been through this before” he said turning his eyes back towards his monitors, “You know we can manage this.”

He paused briefly, considering the variety of outcomes before him and his crew, many of which he was sure they hadn’t even considered. “Send word to Vancouver central, let them know the situation and that we may be delayed……. or entering their ZoP with a tail.”

“Absolutely sir,” Elon responded, straightening up in his seat, “Still just the one skimmer on approach, tracking no other threats in the immediate area.”

“Very well, keep an eye.” Alber watched the silent monitors as both of the ship’s defense crews took up positions on the cargo deck, exchanging places with the freelancers who were headed to the interior of the ship. Dozembe was speaking with the First Badge of the defense forces, probably explaining that Alber wanted the rail guns primed, but not targeting yet.

“Jorge” Alber called into the direct-link he’d just picked up from the row of neatly organized and labeled d-links on a small stand next to the masterboard.

“Here Captain” Jorge responded almost instantly.

“Status of last ditch preparation?”

“Both freelance shifts fully accounted for. My shift is with me in Port-Forward, and I placed Yuwell in charge of organizing second shift in SB-Forward.”

“Good. If we should need to follow last ditch protocol, Yuwell and yourself will be responsible for sealing and disengagement. Ensure the freelancers understand that they will be left confined until recovery…. At our current location and speed, any actions this severe are unlikely to be required, and if they are, the recovery teams should manage to arrive in a matter of hours anyways.”

“Would it be best not to mention it for now though?” Jorge questioned. “I mean, the potential anxiety and unrest could be a problem…. you know how freelancers get about this st——”

“No.” Alber cut Jorge off. “It’s better for them to know and be prepared for the worst. If it doesn’t happen, so be it. If it does…… I’d want to know ahead of time. Wouldn’t you?”

“Fair enough sir. I’ll speak to my shift, then inform second shift and get Yuwell up to speed on his responsibilities.”

“Carry on.”

“Skimmer has arrived!” Elon called over from his station. “Starboard side, mid-ship, matching speed…… no access lines attached yet.”

As Elon described the pirates’ location, Dozembe came scrambling back onto the command deck announcing “Rail guns primed, both defense squads stand ready at mid-ship locations.”

“Great Dozembe, thank you. Elon…. Is Vancouver aware?”

“They are Captain” he responded. “Vancouver station deems our current threat a level blue…. They won’t be sending or prepping anyone on their end without a drastic change in the situation, or a serious distress call, but they are actively monitoring for both from us.”

Alber took a deep breath and sighed a little. “Understandable. Increase speed to 85% of full-burn, let’s try and get to that ZoP as fast as possible…. And let’s see what they do on that skimmer.”

———————————————————————————————————————

Being as successful as Alber, which really just meant surviving for long enough as a freelancer that you’d moved into a Captain’s chair, was a rare feat. It was even more rare for a Captain to survive and continue to ship as long as Alber had. He had counted thirty-four deliveries as a freelancer, with multiple companies, before someone at SPEW had taken notice of his record and offered him a ‘permanent captaincy’ in their organization. The fact that he’d now managed to survive eighteen deliveries for SPEW, completing fifteen of those without losing a ship and nine without losing any cargo whatsoever, had him in extraordinary company. This company-wide prestige and experience had also earned Alber some recognition in the highest levels at SPEW, and he was one of the few captains who’d been given certain liberties with regards to his routes and his crew.

He was one of the only captains in the entire industry who was known to use, or had even been given permission to use the same command crew for every delivery he made. Most organizations viewed this type of continuity as a risk, believing that captains and their crews would either become complacent and lazy, or might plan their own ‘inside job,’ so it was rarely permitted. However, after completing several of his early deliveries as a captain with a combination of Dozembe, Elon and Jorge on his command crews, Alber approached the Directions Board for SPEW about the benefits of the four of them becoming a permanent command team.

He had chosen to request permanent command crew status during the debrief of a delivery that had gone extremely badly. Alber had not only lost a ship and the vast majority of the water he was delivering, but thirty out of the forty-five men on board were either killed outright, or thrown into the skilm. Almost everyone who heard about his unusual request was stunned by his choice of timing, assuming there couldn’t have been a worse time to try to justify another ‘exception’ for himself. However, just the fact that he was willing to continue as a captain was shocking to the Directions Board, as he had already completed more deliveries than most managed in a career, so granting his request was ironically viewed as a ‘win’ for the organization.

As he and his new team achieved more success together, they were granted even more freedom in terms of their timelines and routes, as it was assumed they must have known something about successful shipping that few other captains and crews could grasp. There was almost no explanation for their level of success…. or survival. So, out of curiosity, on their fourteenth delivery, Alber directed the ship out towards open water for a leg of their journey. The frequency of marine life washing up on shore due to ‘skilm poisoning’ suggested that there were still healthy regions of ocean that were also shallow enough to support marine ecosystems, and Alber wanted to know how far out they would have to go to find them. So, he and Elon developed and submitted an ‘exploratory route’ that would branch further away from the coastline as they neared one of the most heavily pirated legs of the WCSR. They argued that testing this route could eventually help the organization overall by protecting the product, ships and crews more successfully, with ‘minimal impact to delivery times,’ which of course, was the ultimate concern of SPEW’s DB.

The first time that the team ventured out on this route, so far that they could no longer see the coast, they were in shock at the extent of the skilm’s reach and how gradual the dissipation really was. They had gone far enough that the water had begun to look blue again, but it still carried dingy, murky wisps of skilm that streaked, almost smoke-like through the deep blue. Hesitant to test the water in any physical way themselves due to what they knew skilm could do to a person, they retrieved a few samples of the water in steel canisters and sent them to an amateur research lab at a Long-term Education Center in Seattle after completing their delivery.

The directors at SPEW were impressed with the new navigational adjustments Alber and Elon had made. It had only resulted in one extra day of travel, while also avoiding one of the most dangerous regions of the organization’s shipping routes. So, they actually asked Alber and his team to attempt it again, in the opposite direction, as a second test of it’s long-term viability as a permanent shipping lane. What was of much greater interest to Alber and the others, were the results from the water inspection at the lab. By all metrics, the results suggested that the levels of skilm at the distance from shore they had traveled would just cause rashes and inflammation, and any long term damage would be highly unlikely. Alber, Elon, Jorge, and after voicing some uncertainty and concerns, Dozembe too, all agreed to extend their route just a little farther out on the next trip that would take them south.

“We are going to swim in the ocean.” Alber had said to them as he casually sipped a coffee on the morning they were discussing the results of the inspection. “We are all going to swim.”

———————————————————————————————————————

“Captain” Dozembe started, “What do you think they are waiting for?”

Alber stared intently at the monitors in front of him, not ignoring his Second Bar, but not answering him either. He had heard the question, he just had no answer. A typical skimmer of pirates would attempt to get from their craft onto the main deck of the ship they intended to capture or steal from as quickly as possible. The potential for falling into the skilm, or being attacked from above and having their only means of escape or survival damaged, was too great to waste time. It wasn’t unusual to see skim-riders launching access lines at the main deck of a ship while still approaching it so that they could begin their climb immediately once their skimmer had matched speed and magnetized to a carrier. Recently though, some bands were employing what the company had taken to calling ‘climbers.’ Using a miniature, handheld version of the magnetic technology employed by their skimmers, pirates could climb the side of a carrier like a spider. This allowed them to quickly spread out across a ship’s hull as they clawed their way up towards the main deck. It also meant more of them could attempt to board a ship at the same time. However, what the three men were currently watching was neither of these strategies.

Alber held his silence for another minute or so, which felt like days to the rest of the command crew. The only noise on the command deck was the low hum of the electronics, and the whine of the enormous engines that continued to desperately push the carrier forward.

“They aren’t waiting for anyone are they?” Alber finally asked.

Since he hadn’t directed his question to anyone in particular, the command deck remained quiet until Dozembe pushed for more clarification.

“Waiting for…. Who? Us? To approach them to negotiate?”

“Reinforcements…… Elon, wide range scan for anything moving on the surface of the skilm from here to the shore. I mean anything.”

“But captain, that will include…. Hundreds of objects. It will be impossible to differentiate between mo—”

“Well then you better get some help deciphering what’s what out th——”

“CAPTAIN!” Dozembe urged, pointing at the monitor with the starboard deck feed. “I think combat team A-A is moving to intercept.”

Alber gritted his teeth and turned back from issuing commands to Elon to peer at the video feed following combat team A-A. They had originally taken up an appropriate defensive position on the starboard side of the ship around the stair access to both the command deck and interior, as they had been instructed to by Alber via Dozembe. Now they were moving into aggressive positions, leaning out over the starboard side of the ship with their guns pointed down towards the skimmer.

“What the HELL are they doing!” Alber growled. “They were specifically left with instructions NOT to engage unless we were boarded AND attacked.” He shot a fierce looks towards Dozembe, “Is that not right?”

“It is. I told them your orders as you gave them to me. This is…. Their own initiative.”

“GOD I hate platoon leaders who think they understand how this works. This could spark aggression from that ship…. And others that we don’t even know about yet. Don’t ANY OF THEM understand what the consequences of fighting out here on the open ocean can result in?” The command crew stayed quiet as Alber continued to fume. “Our goal is to AVOID combat and confrontation at ALL COSTS…… IS IT NOT? ISN’T THAT HOW WE’VE STAYED ALIVE?”

The question was posed to no one in particular, as everyone on the command deck had been with Alber for at least six consecutive deliveries. Most of them had gone smoothly, even when they had been boarded or captured. Alber had found, and would consistently argue with directors at SPEW as well, that it was easier to negotiate with boarding parties and sacrifice a small amount of cargo to ensure safe passage for the ship and whatever cargo they salvaged. Neither the delivery crews, nor the pirates themselves really wanted to engage in combat, especially when they knew that any damage to ships meant that they would almost certainly die in one way or another. Alber also noted that, in most cases, what the pirates requested, or could even manage to carry off, was minimal. They only ever approached with skimmers, and unless they were going to attempt to take an entire ship, that meant that the amount of cargo they could manage to haul back, along with themselves, would have a minimal impact on the overall shipment.

As Alber’s eyes remained fixed on the burgeoning problem leaning over the starboard side of his ship, Dozembe and Elon both shot each other a sideways glance. Elon slowly shook his head to indicate he ‘didn’t like where this was headed,’ but Dozembe, confident as always, made a gentle downward motion with his hand, hoping to communicate to Elon he should calm down and stay focused on his task.

“THOSE IDIOTS!” Alber shouted, which broke Dozembe and Elon’s kinaesthetic conversation. “THEY’VE OPENED FIRE.”

“Non-lethal rounds Captain.” Dozembe offered hopefully. “It is just to scare. Drive them off.”

“WE’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE…… GAHH” he let out a frustrated grunt. “Why they aren’t even climbing yet, I don’t know. But when they get up here, they aren’t going to be in the mood to negotiate.”

———————————————————————————————————————

A smile slowly crept across his face as he leaned over the guardrail on the main deck of the SPEW-Clarissa. It was simply astonishing to Alber to see the deep, clean blue of the ocean. It was something he truly thought he’d never see this way again. There had been a time where he’d grown certain that it wouldn’t even be possible for any areas of it to have escaped the poisoning that had overtaken the heavily-traveled waters of the shipping lanes he spent the vast majority of his time roaming. Then again, he was no expert on ocean currents and convection cycles, so he still really had no understanding of how those processes played a role in the skilm piling up along the coasts of continents, while vast, seemingly infinite stretches of the dark blue continued to be what they always were. Not that it really meant anything for the health of the planet, or any of the species that continued slowly deteriorating and heading towards extinction on it…. Including his own.

“We’re in just as much trouble as all the rest” Alber thought to himself. “The only difference is…. We’re also the cause.”

In spite of the upsetting ruminations, which he’d pondered many times before this day, the smile still hadn’t left Alber’s face. He couldn’t wipe it away, not with Dozembe floating freely by him on a life preserver, one arm raised in triumph and holding a canteen of what Alber knew was some kind of sweetened liqueur. Elon and several other crew members were taking turns jumping in and out of the chilly, dark waters from the SPEW-Clarissa’s skimmer. They were enjoying the cycle of being hit by a refreshing blast of cold ocean water before climbing back onto the skimmer and allowing the sun to dry them off, only to be pushed to the brink of sweating in a matter of minutes.

“Attention crew!” Alber called over the ship’s comm system. “All those currently remaining on board the Clarissa are now in defiance of direct orders. You will be summarily charged with disobeying your commanding officers, and be thrown overboard for your crimes.”

Alber could see the delivery crew members that were taking turns jumping in to the water off of C-Skim1 with Elon laughing and shoving each other around, while the few remaining crew members on board who’d been charged with clean-up duties after lunch finally came up to the main deck. They patted Alber on the shoulders and shook his hand as they passed by before riding a few of the extending micro-ladders down towards sea level and jumping off of them into the water. As Alber climbed into C-Skim2 he instructed the Clarissa’s VI system to lower it to sea level. He was taking it down so that they’d have more than just one skimmer out on the water for crew to dive and swim off of, and so all of the crew in the water wouldn’t have to pile on to a single skimmer. As he prepared to descend, Sergeant Cefrousi approached the guardrail and saluted him.

“Captain. Me and my men will stay on board to monitor radar and ensure the safe extraction of your crew from the waters should anything go wrong. Or should any of your equipment malfunction while off-ship.”

“You know…. You really don’t have to Sergeant. We have several micro-ladders extended, so worst case, if everything — command comms with the ship, our skimmers, direct-link comms with you and your men — somehow fails at once, we’ll just climb back up those. I’m sure your men would love to touch the ocean as well. How many combat teams will be able to say they’ve done that? …….However, they are under your command, and I leave those decisions to you of course.”

“All things being equal Captain…. If there’s something we don’t understand about these waters, and you and your men are affected, at least my men and I won’t have been in them with you. There will still be someone to get us home.”

“Fair enough Sergeant. Sound the recall at 15:00. I know we need to get back on course…… and I’m not worried about cutting the swim short. This won’t be the last time we do this.”

“Captain” Cefrousi said, saluting again and turning back towards his men who had begun gathering on the main deck.

As the C-Skim2 lowered towards the water, Alber was beside himself. The closer he came to touching the surface, the more unbelievable it was that this still existed, and that he was experiencing it. Once the skimmer had touched down, he circled around to pick up the ‘clean up crew’ who’d been the last in, and had no skimmer or life preservers for themselves. They’d been swimming for a few minutes already and he was certain they’d be cold enough to need to get out into the sun again, so he had them jump on board before he headed over towards Dozembe. The giant man’s head was tilted back, and his triumphant drink-holding hand had dropped to his side, resting the canteen on the life preserver. Alber wasn’t sure if he was sleeping or just enjoying the float, but he skimmed close enough to spray wake from the skimmer’s jet all over his Second Bar, one of the only friends he really had.

“Lazy as always Dozer!” Shouted Alber. “So lazy you can’t even be bothered to move when your showered in some icy Pacific!”

“It’s too good man. Too good. Scorching sun. Cool water…. WATER HA HA!” He finally yelled. “Get in man. Turn that skim off and jump. Nothing compares to this. Hydra-facilities at home, they feel almost fake ya know? We always said that. Now I know it. Don’t think I can ever go back…. Just leave me. Right. Here…….” Alber remained standing on the C-Skim2, smiling at his friend floating nearby.

“I can do that you know…?”

“Alright, well……. Fill this first” Dozembe added, raising his canteen back into the air, and finally raising his head just enough to shoot a wide grin towards his friend.

———————————————————————————————————————

“I still don’t understand what they are doing captain” Elon muttered from his station. “Scans still show no sign of reinforcements coming from any direction, nearest surface level disturbances are other shipping vessels kilometres away.”

“The combat teams do not scare them. They don’t even seem like they want to climb and board us” Dozembe added. “They are happy to sit alongside the ship with those barriers shielding them.”

“From both the combat teams’ rounds, and direct view of our video feed…. If you’d noticed.”

“I can send a drone to get us a better view of what is happening on their skimmer if you like captain?” Elon offered.

“Yes, do that. Keep your distance. I don’t want them feeling more threatened than they already do thanks to Sergeant Thal’s team raining those pellets down at them. They won’t know if we intend to fire shots from the drone or not and may shoot it out of the air…… or begin their assault.”

“Understood sir” Elon said, motioning towards the tech specialist to acknowledge that it was, in fact, their responsibility to do as Alber had instructed.

“Dozembe.”

“Captain.”

“Do you mind running down to…. You know what, nevermind. I’ll do it.”

Alber whipped around and rushed past Dozembe out the door of the command deck and down towards the main deck, leaving the tall Second Bar staring at Elon, who had whipped around in his swiveller to watch their captain run out the door. This also meant that, technically, Dozembe was in charge of the command deck. All he said as the others looked towards him was “As you all were,” after which he turned to watch the monitor showing his captain, and friend, leaping multiple steps at a time towards the starboard side of the main deck.

“SERGEANT!” Alber called as he neared the bottom of the stairs.

Thal glanced over at the sound from his position behind his row of soldiers, who were all still leaning over the starboard guardrail and firing off intermittent bouts of pellets to keep the pirates from climbing.

“SERGEANT!” Alber shouted again as he neared their line. “This needs to stop. They aren’t trying to climb. Something else is going on here.”

“Captain. All due respect. They aren’t trying to climb because they know my boys will knock them unconscious and into the skilm with these rubber pellets. Don’t know why we even need to go non-lethal. They fall in because we give them a concussion…. They’re as good as dead anyways.”

“Well Sergeant, while in typical circumstances I would agree with you and leave you to your duty, this group has shown no sign of trying to climb. Even pirates under fire eventually know they need to decide to fire back and push for a climb, or abandon the att——”

As Alber was finishing his sentence, the skimmer pulled away from the ship and began to flee.

“You were saying Captain?” The sergeant said in a slightly arrogant tone, unapologetically revealing the feelings of superiority and pride he and so many others of his rank shared.

“I…… It just seems odd that they——”

“SIR! SOMETHING ON THE HULL SIR!” One of the soldiers that had been leaning out over the edge called back.

“What?” Thal questioned, his arrogance vanishing almost as quickly as it had surfaced.

“What is it!?” Alber asked as he got between two soldiers and leaned out over the edge to try to see it.

“Captain!” Dozembe called over the ship’s comm system. “Back to the command deck. Now!”

Alber glanced up towards the command tower, starting into a full sprint towards the stairs without even saluting or acknowledging the sergeant and his team before leaving the area. He reached the bottom of the stairs, grabbing the railing on each side with both hands and heaving himself, several stairs at a time, back towards the command deck high above. About halfway up the stairs the entire ship shook — BOOM — which threw him into the railing and onto his knees on the sharp steel staircase. If it hadn’t been for the intense ‘Boom’ that had coincided with the thrust of energy, he would have assumed they’d been hit by some rogue wave or ran aground because someone wasn’t paying attention, but that sound told him it could only be one thing. — “They just blew apart our ship.”

When he got back onto the command deck Dozembe was already waiting with an explanation.

“I am sorry we did not call down immediately captain. We could not understand what we saw at first.”

“STARBOARD SIDE TAKING ON SKILM & WATER. WE ARE MISSING A GIANT CHUNK OF OUR HULL” Elon blared from his station.

Dozembe began to state the obvious. “The pirates. They strapped bombs in sequence. That’s why they did not care to board.”

“STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY TOO WEAK TO KEEP PACE — KILLING ENGINES” the engine manager called out overtop of the chaos in the command deck.

“Acknowledged. Is it patchable? I want an assessment ASAP. If we can, get the repair team on that hull breach so we can make it to shore.”

Alber shot the command out like he’d been in this situation hundreds of times. No one would be allowed to know how terrified he was of the options he assumed were left. Then, without even indicating the change in subject, he turned to Dozembe and asked “But WHY? Why blow a hole in the hull and then…… leave? So we can’t make it to shore?”

“Another organization captain? Is the competition so fierce now?”

“No there’s no way” Alber said confidently, but far less certain than he sounded. “The organizations all have agreements in place…. And if anyone began contracting pirates to do this kind of thing, that would be the end of everything. We’d be looking at a complete free-for-all. In terms of crew casualties, loss of product, and ultimately, the impact on the general population as more shipments failed or were destroyed, the costs would just be way too high. It can’t be that. There must be….”

“CAPTAIN!” Elon called again from his swiveller. “I’ve got something on radar…. somehow……. Rising out of the skilm.”

“It’s a sub.”

“A sub?” Dozembe questioned.

“I am willing to bet you anything Dozembe. It’s a submarine.”

“Confirmed captain. Submarine has breached off the port side. I’m thinking it’s been with us for a while. It’s impossible to track a hull shape like that through the skilm. I had registered some anomalies, but not necessarily anything that would have indicated a moving ship…. More like land mass spikes or skilm density shifts. Certainly nothing consistent enough to suggest we were being followed.”

“We can’t move fast enough to get to port, or even to shore safely. But they can drag us there, especially if they pull from the side without the breach.” Alber said, talking out loud to himself and almost disregarding Elon’s last confession.

“They never intended to board us. They probably didn’t even have weapons on board that skimmer to fire back at Thal…. They came here to immobilize us for their mother ship.”

“Captain” Dozembe cautiously called from behind Alber.

“We are going where they want to go. They’ve figured out how to take entire shipments now. We’ve got to——”

“Captain” Dozembe said again, with a little more stiffness in his voice. “We need a plan. What is our goal now? Last ditch????”

Alber snapped out of it and looked up at his Second Bar, his closest friend, “No. We can’t last ditch. The security holds in the bow are useless if these pirates are just going to take the whole ship. We don’t know where the ship and the crew sealed inside at that point would even end up…… the pirates could eventually break into the bow or just leave the crew to starve, and I don’t even know which fate would be worse.” The command deck was quiet for a few moments. No one had ever encountered a situation like this, and no one was ready to suggest any alternatives.

Suddenly, the only real option hit Alber.

“We need to drop the skimmers. There’s not enough space in the pods for everyone on board to get to shore. SPEW only cares about saving, or at least getting the command crew off-ship in extreme circumstances. Everyone else is replaceable to them. We know this, but I don’t agree, and right now we need to get everyone off this ship.” Dozembe nodded at him, and after a quick ‘ok’ from Elon, he started barking orders.

“Dozembe, you get to Thal, have his men prep both F-Skims on the starboard side, leave the port side skimmers, the pirates can’t see us start to evacuate.”

“Elon, contact Vancouver, let them know what is going on — Full crew is coming in hot. Combat specialists and delivery crew on overloaded skimmers, command deck crew in pods. We’ll have a full report on arrival.”

“Jorge!” he yelled, picking up the d-link from his now-toppled selection of d-links along the masterboard.

“I’M HERE! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???? I managed to seal off the ——”

“That’s great! I knew you would” Alber cut him off abruptly. “But right now I need you to belay any and all last ditch protocols. Get both delivery crews to the main deck. You’re overloading skimmers and riding with a combat team in each.”

“What? You don’t want us in the bow? That sounded like a massive explosion…. It couldn’t have been the engines or fuel source…. we’d all be dead.”

“Yes it was. And you’re right, we would be dead. It’s pirates.”

“Did THEIR skimmer explode!?”

“NO! Jorge. They blew a hole in this ship. They destabilized the entire hull and we can’t force ourselves forward without potentially breaking apart or sinking. A submarine is coming to tow this thing to wherever the hell they want to take it!”

“Whoooo is thiiiis?”

“JORGE - NOT TIME FOR A JOKE! Get both crews to the main deck. STARBOARD SIDE ONLY. You need to be off this ship in less than 2 minutes.”

“Consider it done. What about command?”

“We will still use the pods. You’ll be able to cruise the coast and make it to the ZoP, but you’ll have to send rescue teams back to this area for us, we’ll only be launched to shore.”

“Count on it my friend. We are on our way up.”

After that Alber looked to the rest of his command crew and ordered them down to the two pods designed to fire out of the stern of the ship. Typically their pods would be masked by the churning waters from the ship’s engines, but right now, the SPEW-Forester’s engines were silent. The monitors in front of Alber displayed, what suddenly registered to him, as a variety of strange scenes for a common delivery run.

On one side of the ship, two skimmers overloaded with soldiers and crewman were being lowered at a rapid rate. He could only hope that they would stay afloat on the skilm and be able to make it the remaining hour or so to the ZoP with the fuel in their tanks.

On the other side of the ship, approximately eight lines of some kind of rigid fiber had been launched directly into the hull of the ship like missiles, about halfway between the surface of the skilm and the main deck of the ship. Alber could only picture what the arrowheads clinging desperately to the inside of the hull looked like as they splayed out on impact. He pictured them hooking into the hull of the ship like fishing lures, something he’d only seen in history vids from before the degradation of most water sources.

As he watched this all take place in real time on his monitors, he turned to his command crew and issued a final order.

“I want as many as possible into the first pod. I am going to restart the engines to mask the pods launching, and to give the pirates something else to focus on while the skimmers come around the back side of the ship to head for Vancouver’s ZoP.”

All 8 men on the deck stared at him blankly. Elon glared towards the engine manager, as if to suggest ‘That’s actually you’re responsibility.’

“Captain, as the engine manager I should be the one in charge of carrying this out.” Though he was saying it for the right reasons, the shakiness in his voice suggested he didn’t want the responsibility.

“Noted. And appreciated. You can let the SPEW-Van director know I told you otherwise. The first pod should have room for 6, which means two will have to wait for me.”

“You know I am one” Dozembe offered.

Alber smiled at him as Elon started the shut-down protocols for comms and stated, “If Dozembe offered to wait…. Then I have to as well. What would you two do without my lively conversation in the pod?” Then, smirking at them he added “Vancouver has been informed of the situation, abandoning ship has been deemed acceptable due to extraordinary circumstances. They will send rescue crews in a few hours to allow for the pirates to vacate the area. Until then, we are on our own.”

“Alright. Everyone to the stern of the ship. Pod one, launch on engine restart, pod two…. Not without me!”

The command crew rushed down the interior stairs that led directly to the emergency pods in the stern of the ship, and for a brief moment, Alber revelled in the silence and tranquility of his command deck. No noise from the engines. No screaming and shouting between crew members, no alarms, no comms transmissions, nothing left…. Just him, and a view of the skilm.

The deep, syrupy liquid his ship floated on, or more accurately, was currently sinking into, reminded him of the results that often came from both desperation, and the need to dominate or control competition. Two opposite ends of the exact same drive. Survival.

Animals simply do whatever they can to survive…. A desperate clawing for sustenance with minimal regard for the impact to their surroundings, or even their long-term survival. They are desperate and instinctual because there is no security for them. Their goal is just making it to the next moment.

“Are we any different when pushed to our limits?” He wondered out loud to himself. “Look at these pirates. This is easily the most ingenuity and desperation we have seen from them. Refurbishing an old sub and dragging a destroyed ship to shore is easier and safer than trying to take the actual functional ship…. Even though the full ship is far more useful in the long run, what is the safer, quicker move?”

He started to remind himself that a very different version of this short-sightedness had played out hundreds of thousands of times thanks to the thirst for power and status in organized human populations.

No one ever truly made decisions for the good of everyone, there was always a motive. This was the same, short-sighted drive for survival that animals displayed, just in a much more maniacal and manipulative form; Hundreds of versions of slavery had cropped up throughout human history; Kings, Queens, autocratic rulers, and political leaders of all kinds, had always, and continue to make promises and laws that either aim to subjugate others, maintain power in some way, or garner support for their continued leadership, nothing more; companies and industries have always found a way to bend the rules, break the rules, or simply pass the consequences for their irresponsibility on to society.

“Good old money” Alber glowered, as his eyes glazed over a little. “Capital…and the never-ending accumulation of it. The pursuit of endless growth. That must be the worst kind of survival mechanism. To not recognize that all you’re doing is trying to escape mortality…. Justifying the desperation and suffering……. The destruction. The SKILM! Just so you can keep pursuing the next moment.” He shuddered in frustration as he whispered his thoughts alone through gritted teeth.

The soupy skilm and the submarine floating in it off to the port side of his ship suddenly stood out to him again as his eyes refocused after his thought-tangent.

“Skimmers are ready captain…. Captain! Acknowledge. Skimmers ready to depart!” broke over Jorge’s d-link.

“Acknowledged Jorge. Once the engines restart, full speed to Vancouver ZoP. Good luck my friend.”

“Dozembe, are we packed?”

“Pod one sealed, pod two looks welcoming.”

“I’ll be there in 30 seconds.”

Alber took one last deep breath, standing alone in the silence of his command deck, and then slammed the engines into full-forward. As he reached the interior stairs, he took a final glance back out over the main deck of his ship, hoping that soon he’d be atop another, staring out not at the skilm, but at the ocean. If there was one thing that gave him peace, and the will to carry forward his own desperate efforts to survive, it was the chance to swim.