Bornhölm, European Federation, May 2035
Clara Alma is the captain of the ferry that connects the island of Bornhölm with Sweden and Denmark. I stand beside her on the captain’s bridge, overlooking the deck below, crowded with cars and passengers. As she walks me through the ship’s controls, I can’t help but admire her effortless command of the vessel.
We laugh at the coincidence that we share the same birth date. But while I was just an infantryman, she was already captaining a Swedish CB90 combat patrol boat.
“Our ‘mother ship’ was stationed an hour off the Polish coast,” she recalls. “That’s where we’d refuel, get maintenance done, or just stretch our legs. Up to that point, the only real combat I saw was north of Hamburg, after NORTHAG collapsed and the city came under siege. We covered the retreat from the shore—took shots at the crabs with our 20mm. Even used the gun like makeshift artillery, lobbing grenade rounds into the city outskirts.”
“What did you do before and after that?” I ask, as she takes my hand and shows me how the keel works.
“Mostly patrolled the coastline, reporting enemy movements and concentrations. But a lot of the time, we were stuck waiting near the mothership for refueling—patrol boats were low on the priority list. Every now and then, we handled insertions and extractions for Special Forces. Watching them before and after a mission was always something. The moment we were five minutes out from the beach, they'd collapse on the deck or in the cabin, out cold.”
“What kind of weapons did you have onboard?”
“Two .50-cal machine guns, a 20mm cannon, and an MK19 grenade launcher. If a banshee got too close, we could take it down—shot nine of them during the war. But tripods? No chance. Best we stayed well away from shore.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Sometimes, we’d find people stranded on the beaches,” Clara says. “Different groups had been watching us for days, waiting for a chance. When they spotted us again, they’d wave anything they could—shirts, flags, even their arms just to get our attention. We’d get as close as we dared, make landfall, and load them in. Rescued 246 people that way.”
She pauses, a faint smile crossing her lips. “We kept a log of their names. Some of them still send me postcards or messages now and then. Funny thing is, those are the only messages I get these days.” She laughs, but there’s something wistful in it.
“What did you think of the Navy’s strategy—strong-arming coastal cities?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Oh, that was way above my pay grade. Beyond my military knowledge at the time.”
“Forget strategy. Just tell me how you felt about it,” I press.
Clara exhales, her fingers tightening slightly on the helm. “You had to be really motivated. Not to give the orders, but to be one of the marines getting sent ashore—to capture a port city, then fight like hell for a week, losing friends, only to be told to get back on the ship and do it all over again in a few weeks. I won’t deny it relieved pressure on the front lines. But even now, it still feels so damn wasteful.”
“We gave those folks all the support we could,” Clara says. “We’d park offshore and just start firing—anything we saw, we hit it with everything we had. We even modified our ship, doubling up the machine guns on the port side just for extra firepower. Had another zodiac with us, loaded with spare ammo for the 20mm cannon. All of it just to ease the pressure.”
She exhales, glancing out toward the horizon. “Not that there was a city left to save. By the time we pulled out the last soldiers, it was all rubble. They’d set their charges before evacuating—blow the whole place once it was overrun. We’d even bring two, sometimes three ATACMS, leave them near the center. Once everyone was out and the city was crawling with crabs and whatever else… they’d remote-detonate the lot. If you ask me, those missiles were better spent on the Hatcheries.”
“Did you ever see them?” I ask.
Clara nods. “Only when we patrolled the right stretch of the Polish coast. Those things needed a lot of water, but you couldn’t miss them—towering structures, like coral formations but... unnatural. We’d call them in and let the big guns handle it. Either a frigate or a destroyer would move in and hammer them with naval fire, or they’d just send a cruise missile. But napalm? That worked best.”
She leans on the helm, eyes distant. “You could hear the eggs popping from miles away, like popcorn. Sometimes, the heat forced them to hatch too early. The things would squirm out, half-formed, dying in the sea as they thrashed, desperate for warmth. Crabs are already ugly as hell, but a premature one?” She shakes her head. “Now that’s a sight you never forget.”