“Did you hear about the ship?” A frantic voice asks, nearly running past the target of his question in the excitement.

“Yeah, I’m looking at it.” Steve needlessly answers as he pulls the binoculars down from his eyes and looks at the Union secretary, Terry Fuller. What had once been a job consisting of little more than posting the minutes onto the union’s message-board had completely morphed into a complex role that required him to be in many places at once. And the change was visible in the crazy eyes that could only come from days without proper sleep.

“What are we going to do?” Terry asks, assuming Steve had taken this possibility into account somehow.

“Why should we need to do anything?” Steve asks returning the binoculars to align with his wrinkled brow.

Terry didn’t expect that option, so he wondered for a moment weather or not he heard wrong. “But, I mean…”

“We will keep an eye on ‘em. Depending on how they act, we’ll decide how we act.” Steve plainly explains without taking his eyes off the vessel which had lowered its sail and hadn’t moved for nearly an hour. “It looks to be a simple fishing vessel, there’s really no need to sound any red alerts.”

“But this means there are other people. An entire society probably. Aren’t you curious? I mean how do they communicate? Or what do they use as currency?”

Again, Steve lowered his binoculars and sent a piercing gaze to the excited young man. “Go get some sleep. You look like hell.”

“Sounds good.” Terry answers without hesitation, turning on the spot and gliding back out the door he’d come in from

Once the man left, Steve once again began to right the Binoculars to again gaze at the oddly designed boat but corrected himself as he realized the uselessness of idly watching.

“Report if anything changes,” Steve utters into the radio strapped to his chest.

“Roger.” A crackling voice answers without needing context.

Stepping away from the window Steve returns his attention to the pile of papers littering his small desk and the array of proposals submitted by staff members. His eyes glaze over at most of them.

Scalable offsite fish farms; Rejected the food situation is already handled and resources are limited.

Renovate site 6 as an outdoor theater; Rejected site 6 is a vital staging area for dry dock B.

Develop small-scale exploratory vessels; …

Steve’s pen hovered over the proposal. He read the title a few times before eventually dropping his pen and opening it. Surprisingly, it contained a good deal of pre-planning and even a handful of drafted designs. This wasn’t just an off-the-cuff idea, this had seen a few different hands by now.

And now it rested in his.

In a way, he wasn’t comfortable with this sort of power. He could see the merits of designing something they could all personally enjoy. And that feeling was amplified now by what lay miles out at-sea behind him.

On the other hand, what if not everyone agrees with the idea? It’s already difficult enough to convince everyone to keep working on the USS Clover. Taking on a sudden new project, in a completely foreign world, with extremely limited resources seems like an outrageous idea.

But what was this fire burning underneath him? He focused his gaze on the CAD drawings, “Hybrid design, interesting. Wood beams and supports with an aluminum hull. But how do you power it?”

He read further even flipping past the first couple of pages to a deeper dive into a few of the system proposals. Most of it was completely past his paygrade but there were a few familiar designs.

“Diesel?”

The document showed the entire manufacturing process of a simple diesel engine, from the exact specification of the casting blanks down to the precision of the piston rings. Every part of it seemed outrageous to him but based on the depth of the designs he couldn’t help but think it possible.

Just as he was lifting the phone to dial the number listed for the project lead, a sudden noise almost sent him leaping out of his skin.

“Sir, something’s happening. You should come out here. Quickly.”

“What?” Steve asks as he rises from his chair in picks up his binoculars. With a glance in the direction he last saw it, he found nothing. Searching around with the binoculars for a few moments the boat still didn’t appear. “What happened?”

With no response coming over the radio he eventually grunts and grabs his overalls and hastens for the door. Stopping briefly to bang on the shut door next to his office and shout about the situation to the napping Terry.

Not waiting a moment longer he bounds down the handful of flights of stairs and eventually busts through the doors out to the yard. The group of onlookers made it difficult to see the ocean at all let alone the boat. But as he got closer, he realized many weren’t even looking at the ocean. Instead, they seemed to look at something in the distant sky.

Finally arriving at the radio voice’s owner he grabbed at his overalled shoulder. “What the hell’s happening? Where’d the ship go?”

Jack Larson, current head of groundskeeping had been a confidant and friend since long before Steve was elected as a Union Rep. He was one of the few people he ate with and often acted in a second-in-command capacity.

“The ship?” Jack asks, shaking off the hand and pointing. “Who cares about the ship? What the fuck is that?!”

Following the direction, he was pointed towards Steve finally understood why so many people had gathered. The interest in the ship was one thing. But to see something as unexplainable as this is entirely different.

Backdropped by the white of a distant cloud sat an impossibly black line floating in place high up in the sky. It looked like a line of dead pixels in the rendering of the sky.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“When…”

“Someone pointed it out about five minutes ago,” Jack reports without taking his eyes off the strange anomaly. “And it’s getting bigger. Like, longer. It was just a speck at first.”

“What in the world.” Steven mutters mostly to himself.

“The boat’s still there.” Someone who seemed to hear Steve’s earlier question points out. “But they look spooked too, they raised sail.”

Lifting his binoculars Steve confirms the presence of the boat. Taking a mental note of its direction he turned his attention back toward the strange floating object.

A few shouts began resounding as something changed with the object. Aligning the binoculars Steve barely catches sight of the object rapidly swelling around the bottom. As more and more of the inky substance gathered, it formed a tear drop that separated and plummeted toward the ocean. Just as Steve began following with his eyes, another streak of black burst from the anomaly.

More shouts and gasps began filling the yard as what looked like a dart flew from where the dot had once been. For a moment it looked completely out of control as it hurdled through the sky but after a short second the bolt began to gain control.

Its trajectory made it look like it would crash deep into the forest but as soon as Steve assumed that, it began to shift.

“It’s being steered.” Someone in the crowd concludes aloud. Many around him had made similar assumptions. But that gave them no better understanding of what it was.

“Is someone filming?” Another voice shouts.

Steve hoped so as well. But there was no point worrying about that now. The question was where is this thing heading?

“No...” Someone mutters as they trace the path with scope. The dart wasn’t heading towards shore anymore, it was now directed at the slowly escaping sailboat.

Jack seemed to notice a moment after but wasted no time, he gripped the metal grip at his waist and lifted his arms to align his iron sights.

“Stop.” Steve reacts forcing the weapon toward the ground. “You think shooting at…”

The sound of shattering cut the words off his tongue, in the split second he had taken his eyes off the dart, it accelerated as if planning on piercing through the craft, however moments before impact it made a sharp turn. It soared in a smooth arc for a moment before eventually settling in a direction along the coast seemingly ignoring them.

“What can we…”

“Training skiff would be fastest. Follow it with a rescue pod with med staff.”

“Do it,” Steve instructs. Turning away from the ocean and hastening towards the emergency clinic.

His radio began blaring with action. Jack had given the instructions and even assigned team leads.

“Ninety seconds on Medstaff.” A voice echos both from his radio and from within the door he wrenched open.

“Where’s the extra cold gear?” Steve says noticing the rack of overcoats emptied as the team rapidly readied for the rescue mission.

“Gimmie a break.” A bleach-blonde ‘Chad’ laughs as he zips his coat with a shake of his head. “We don’t have time for this, outta the way.”

“I did fifteen years volunteer search and rescue…”

“I wouldn’t give a shit even if you could bend over and shoot a rocket. Now move.”

Pushing past Steve without hearing a word of his protests he gripped a doorknob and shouted a final order to the rest of his team. “On board in fifteen seconds. Heard?”

“””Yes sir!””” Unified voices respond as they make their final preparations and follow Chad through into the vehicle bay.

Being left last, the newest recruit awkwardly makes her way over to follow but she found her path blocked by Steve.

“Hand it over.” He says with an outstretched hand.

Glancing at his open palm and down at her hastily zipped jacket she pauses a moment as she decides what to do.

“Sir, I know all about your history. I know you are probably more capable of helping than I am,”

Nodding Steve begins to console the girl with a few encouraging words but she cuts off his words.

“But I also know you’re even more capable of helping here than I would be.” Patting his shoulder, she wastes no more time stepping around Steve and pulling the door shut behind her.

“Cheeky one,” Steve mutters after hearing the Bay door open and the roar of an engine pulling away.

Everything happened so quickly that it was hard to even understand what occurred. One moment they’re happily fishing along the eastern side of the jetty, and the next seconds their winds shifted drastically. Harris assumed it was a storm so they opted to cut the lines and go home satisfied with their haul. But by the time they set the new bearing and adjusted the jib, everything changed. A roar began to shake through the wind growing louder and louder by the second. Noticing came far too late.

A blur of black careened towards the hull of the ship, only missing by a matter of inches. But the gap mattered extraordinarily little, a shockwave erupted from the object as soon as it passed-by, turning the entire bow of the ship into nothing but splinters.

The blur spent no time inspecting the damage. As soon as it demolished the ship it zipped away along the coast in the direction of Irais.

Truly it would have been pointless to wait around. With such massive damage to the bow of the ship, there was no recovery possible. What little remained intact dropped like a boulder as the water poured in. Survivors had to scramble out of the wreckage or join it at the bottom of the sea.

Surfacing was just another hell though. Screams of agony filled the air. Chunks of flesh bobbed along with the waves, only occasionally vanishing as adventurous predators inched closer.

Minutes felt like hours as the survivors awaited their imminent turns to sink into the sea. If there was any relief to the terror, it was the moment that blood-loss finally silenced one of the loudest wails.

Prayers met the lips of the religious few and swears met the rest, but as the minutes ticked by a new sound replaced the drone of their thumping hearts.

“Anyone alive and hearing me?!” A voice shouts with digital amplification.

Searching out the source over the cresting waves was easier said than done, but as soon as they began excusing it as a mere hallucination, a bright orange boat entered their view. It was small, low to the water, and seemed to flex over the waves as if climbing each crest with powerful ease.

“One over here!” A voice shouts pointing over to the port side of the dinghy. A small ring was thrown from the ship and teams began pulling in the line. Another survivor was spotted soon after, and the action was repeated.

Ten minutes, and a half dozen rescues later, the long pill-shaped rescue pod arrived, and everyone in critical condition was carefully transferred one by one.

After a final pass turned up negative for any more survivors, the rescue was considered concluded, and the boats turned back to shore.

A mix of shock, confusion, and anxiety made the journey a noticeably quiet one. The only unruly one was the map-reader Harris, but a couple of CC’s of Ketamine made the EMTs’ jobs a lot easier. Chad wasn’t known for his bedside manner for a reason.

Again, you really can’t argue the results though.

The medical pod was lifted from the ocean first and immediately loaded onto its trailer which raced it back to the Clinic. The Dinghy was retrieved next, and the few survivors who hadn’t gotten dazed yet immediately did as the complex came into view.

It felt as if they had stepped foot into an entirely different world as they peered around all the unfamiliar machines and structures. Finally, the crane cleared the side of the dinghy’s trailer and began lowering them slowly to rest safely back on dry ground.

It almost felt unreal to set unsteady foot on the massive stone pad beyond the sides of the boat. A few even fell to their knees in appreciation of the ground under their feet. By now a small group was forming with more coming by the second to see what was going on.

Eventually, Steve arrived and quickly stepped through the crowd to see the faces of the sailors they’d been able to rescue.

Seeming to notice the respect garnered by the man, Captain Karis righted himself and stepped forward to meet the leader of their saviors.

“Thank you,” Odin said lowering his head as far as he physically could. “We would have surely died without your rescue. We are all forever in your debt.”

“I only wish we could have done more,” Steve mutters thinking back to the moment Jack had pulled his handgun on the mysterious object.

“No, your rescue could not have come at a better time.” Odin reiterates trying to prove the depth of his appreciation. But Steve was hearing none of it.

“Are we still satisfied with that eight-month delay?” Steve asks no one in particular. But those around him who caught the comment boiled in agreement. He made no further mention and instead issued a few instructions to the remaining medical staff who were tending to the smaller cuts and injuries.