Being picked up and carried off by a dragon-girl hadn't been on the list of things Jason ever expected to happen to him in his life. It was... uncomfortable. Almost like falling in a parachute, but with much more jerking up and down, back and forth...
The boat was tiny compared to the cargo ship; they should've seen them coming regardless, but smoke was rising from the deck somewhere; clearly Clone had created a distraction of some sort. When Emerald released him, he rolled onto the deck, she flopped down, clearly wings a bit strained but still fine, and he smoothly rose to his feet... much easier drop than a parachute.
He glanced back, giving her a thumbs-up gesture, before drawing both handguns; a new, silenced 10mm handgun that was his first trial run of making a silenced weapon, and the 40mm grenade revolver he'd built. Most of the guards should be at the incident Clone had created; more would be at the bridge. So... bridge first.
As Jason approached the bridge, Emerald soon picked up behind him; her own handgun out, a classic tenner, though it looked a bit fancy; did she actually have it gold-plated? Embossed? Strange. He almost absently shot the two guards outside the bridge, cleanly hitting each right as he came around the corner. The silenced pistol wasn't completely quiet; but over the noise of the ocean and all the yelling up at whatever the source of the smoke was, it was quiet enough the captain and his men didn't notice a thing... until they were looking into the two red glowing eyes mounted to Jason's helmet.
He was tempted to just use a single frag grenade, clean out the room; but they were planning to let the crew drive away in this thing... So. He walked forward into the bridge, taking quick, precise shots; men falling, each hit almost instantly fatal. There were screams of fear. Ducking behind consoles. A few fired bursts of automatic weapons at him, but Jason simply ducked behind a console, let the rounds paint the wall.. and then stood up to shoot the man in the throat while he was trying to duck down and reload.
The bridge was rapidly cleaned out, one target at a time, until Jason reached the captain; a tall, fit man with dark skin, a bushy beard, and otherwise bald in a dark green uniform; sitting in his chair, glaring at Jason. "You work for one of the buyers, don't you. Decided to cut out one more middleman? Always how it works with this bullshit. Figured it'd be my turn someday."
Jason laughed. "Nah. Actually, I'm here because of one of the middlemen you cut out. Turns out that if you try to cheat everybody, sometimes you run into someone with friends. Sucks, doesn't it? They tell me you didn't even pay the crew on this trip, just made them work at gunpoint, huh?"
The captain frowned. "Well... no. We do it sometimes. Pick up a load of idiots on the dock, hungry, desperate. Feed them, give them place to stay. No freeloaders here. You can work, or you can swim. Why pay the rats? If they are sick of it, they can leave at the next dock."
"You know what? I'm not gonna kill you. I think I'll let the rats handle that for me. I'd stay still though, if I were you." He raised his handgun... and made four shots. Despite the captain's jerking movement after the first shot, each hit precisely; shattering first his right knee-cap, then his left.. then each fore-arm. Leaving the man bleeding and groaning in pain in his chair. "Wha... why... you fucker..."
Jason tapped his helmet, looking around the room. That made... nine guards. Out of fifteen. A couple might be asleep, the night shift. The rest would be up front at the distraction. Well. On to the next batch. He glanced back at the dragoness following him; she seemed mildly concerned at what she'd just witnessed, but took it in stride. "Emerald, could you drag the captain out on the deck for me, please? I'm heading down to take care of any sleepers before I hit the front and don't want him accidentally touching something important."
From that, he turned, heading downstairs into the crew quarters. He'd never been on a civilian ship this big before; only Navy vessels. Without Clone's directions, he probably would've ended up in the engine room, or somewhere else useless for his purposes. Thankfully.. he was able to find the guards quarters; a series of small chambers, each with a simple bed, a dresser; not too bad. No cruise ship, but he'd slept in far worse in the desert.
He walked down the line, not even bothering with most of the doors; he could tell before he opened them what he'd find inside; and when he found the right ones? A slow, cautious opening. A single bullet; much louder here, in the more compact spacing of the crew quarters. Could've awoken the others.
Sure enough, the second man was already out of bed, scrambling for his gun, when Jason reached his room. Hmm. The bullet wouldn't go through the door? That's a shame. Should've brought his rifle, but he wanted to save the weight on Emerald; he'd left his armored vest behind for the same reason; would suck to get shot right now. He waited outside the door for the man to open it; and sure enough, not even bothering to dress, the guard charged out, gun in hand, in just his boxers... and immediately collapsed as a single bullet entered the side of his head.
Eleven down, four to go.
****
For Clone, creating the distraction had been easy. He'd taken a sack of oil-soaked rags, dumped them out somewhere unimportant; namely breaking open a cargo container filled with designer clothing and stuffing them inside; then lit it aflame. Guards and crew combined had come forward; some milling about uselessly, staring, others trying to put out the fire with the pumps; seawater spraying in; but the guards kept stalling them, trying to keep them from completely flooding the container and ruining all of its contents.
He pretended to be helping, of course, while quietly sabotaging the efforts. He saw Emerald dropping Eyeball off, and knew that this particular band of suffering was almost over... and these efforts in this irritating ship would be worthwhile after all. This body had been worked half to death, and even if he had hundreds of them, he could still feel them all.
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When the first guard watching the crew extinguishing the fire collapsed, he ducked for cover behind one of the other cargo containers. Most of the crew didn't realize what was going on until the last guard collapsed; and when they saw the chrome-helmeted, glowing-eyed figure of Eyeball drop down from the top of a nearby container, some backed away. Others grabbed nearby implements to use as weapons; and Clone stepped back out.
"Eyeball, my friend!" He stepped forward; the other crew all looked at him as he advanced, but most of the panic subsided. "It is good you answered my call! Are they all gone?"
"Only one survivor. The captain; I shot his arms and legs and Emerald pulled him out on the deck. If you find yourselves in need of an extra anchor, or a bit of shark-bait..."
One of the crew-members laughed, and slapped Clone on the back. "This is your american friend? Then... the ship is ours?"
"My friend gets his pick of the cargo... not much, he came in a much smaller boat... then you get paid, and yes... the ship is ours. I would like to nominate myself to be captain Sergei, but I think we should hold a vote after settling with them, yes? And shut that container. The fire will go out once the air is gone, we don't need to save that clothing garbage."
There was cheering, laughter. A few of the crew headed towards the bridge to go 'take care' of the captain, and set the ship on a new course. While Eyeball and Clone walked along the containers. "So. A few of these have cheap electronic junk from russia. While a few have clothes and the like.. the bulk of them actually have glass, if you can believe it. Everything from teapots to plates. Bunch of garbage. Our boat isn't big enough for a whole container, but..." He stops.
"This one? This one should be worth something. But... its secure. And fragile contents. I'm thinking we want the Butcher for this, yes?"
Jason looked the cargo container over carefully. If he blew it open... thousands of fragile electronic devices of a completely unknown sort would be scattered into pieces across the deck. If he made a very precise shot, here... Hmm. Chancy. A millimeter the wrong direction and shrapnel would be bouncing around inside the container, destroying god knows what.
"Sure. We're hours from anywhere important, and nobody's calling for help. Lets let the Butcher have a whack at it."
After a few minutes; and Clone and Jason working together to haul the enormous pre-teen up on a cable; they had him on the spot, hacking open the crate with his machete. Inside... were stacked numerous boxes. Some had radiation symbols on them. Others, various words in russian; which, of course, only Clone understood, but seemed excited by. Another, long, dark grey box looked like it could fit a small car; and had a 'Danger' symbol on the side, and electrical warnings.
"Alright. Lets get all the small and mid-sized boxes onto our boat, and unpack the bigger ones, get their contents out." Jason walked up to the largest box, with the electrical warning on the side. If he blew the thing open, he would find a cylinder inside; more compact than the box, easier to carry... but his helmet would die. He wouldn't die himself, but whatever it was must be reasonable delicate, and probably discharge all its voltage into the cargo container if it were broken.
"Leave the biggest box... the one with the electrical label... intact, but break open the rest of the big ones and unload them. Get everything out to the smaller boat." Butcher did most of the heavy lifting that followed; the crew mostly helping with hoisting things down, one crate at a time.
When it finally came time to move the largest crate, however, Eyeball saw his helmet go out suddenly, the HUDs dying. He turned to the container. "Hold up! Don't move it right.." Whoever was shifting it either wasn't paying close enough attention... or ignored him. A sudden, visible spark... and the helmet died.
He pulled the helmet free, grumbling. He was like thirty feet away at the time, what kind of shock did it give off? When he looked into the container, Butch was glancing back at him, looking slightly singed and embarassed. "Ahh... Sorry, Eyeball. I was picking it up and may have accidentally cracked it open."
"Its alright, Butcher. We'll see if it can be salvaged back in vegas. Just lower it down the side." He backed away as the figure moved the enormous box, swinging it over his head. Jason was wearing a simple sports-band on his head to keep sweat out of his eyes, so it probably covered his third eye... but still. Unprofessional to be just bare-faced on an op like this. He was trying to... build a brand, sort-of?
As Butcher lowered the container down to the smaller boat on a chain; Emerald and Clone at the bottom doing what limited guiding they could; one of the other Clones; the one on the ship's crew; ran up to him, grabbing his shoulder. "Eyeball! The ship. Her electronics are fried! The motor is running hot, but we can't steer. The crew think the captain left some sort of trap in case we killed him in his sleep."
Jason glanced at the cargo container... and at the box Butcher was dropping down to the boat. Well, fuck. "Alright. I'd planned on leaving at this point, but... at the current speed, how long til the ship goes aground?"
"Two, maybe three hours and we'll be embedded in someone's beachhouse."
The crew were mostly in a panic. Running, yelling. Their earlier elation had vanished. Jason climbed atop one of the containers, firing a shot into the air... only to realize how ineffective that was when your pistol was silenced. He glanced at Clone.. who nodded, and fired his own gun.
The panic didn't settle; but they grew quiet, turning to the duo. "Alright, people! The ship's electronics are dead, the engines are on full and she'll be aground in three hours. If you have any ideas how to steer the ship, shut down the engines, or otherwise slow her down, talk to... Sergei here. We've got plenty of time before this becomes a crisis, and a boat handy to get people off. Not all of you will fit, but we've got life rafts and time. If you don't know anything about how to help, help those who do. We're gonna take an hour. Do everything we can to save the ship. Maybe my friend Butcher can give us some time by bending a few rudders by hand, who knows. If we can't save the ship in an hour, we'll loot what we can, abandon it, and get the hell out."
The men seemed to be listening; paying attention; and immediately gathered around Sergei. Jason couldn't understand some of the words; most of it appeared to be in Russian or some other language he didn't know; but Jason was confident something would work out. He headed over to the edge, checking on the other boat, he waved down at Clone and Emerald; Clone waved back, and steered the smaller boat back and forth, just to demonstrate it worked properly. He could see Emerald, pulling out an inflatable raft, getting things set. Good. Well, one way or another, Jason would be fine; and they shouldn't have any problems getting the crew off, and a good payday out of it besides.
Just in case the ship couldn't be saved... while the experts were doing what they could to save it... Jason decided to take a little walk among the cargo containers... and look for good loot.
***
Two and a half hours later, an older couple sitting at their beach house, relaxing and having margaritas, watched with horror as the massive form of the SS Elbe came barreling down on them... digging a long furrow in the beach, and coming to a stop just a few feet from their front porch, crushing their gazebo.