There was nothing but black surrounding Marek, and though he couldn’t see anything, it was immediately obvious that he was underwater. The coldness and swirling waters encased him, completely disorienting his senses. His ears were in pain, so he knew he must be a good distance beneath the surface. Already, his lungs were burning for air, and he felt panic setting in. What the hell just happened? He tried to focus and calm himself, remembering that he would naturally be buoyant. All he had to do was remain motionless, and he would begin heading towards the surface.
So, he relaxed. While it was impossible to tell if he was heading upwards, he logically knew he must be. Still, his panic was steadily rising as his brain began commanding him to breathe.
After a few seconds more of pitch blackness, he saw a faint light, and began kicking towards it. Another couple of seconds later, and he burst through the surface, instantly taking a satisfying gulp of air. Sure enough, he was in the middle of the ocean, surrounded on all sides by slowly rolling black waves. But where was the yacht? And where were his friends? Everything was being lashed with rain, and lit by a slender white moon hanging above in a starless sky. A different moon, Marek noticed. The fog, which had been nigh impenetrable moments before, had all but vanished, except for a few small pockets off to one side of him.
What the hell do I do? He thought helplessly. A futile question, given where he found himself. What exactly could he do? Just pick a direction and swim? He had to do something – but all the options seemed pointless, and would probably only lead to him exerting a lot of energy for no discernible gain. His mind was racing through all these thoughts when something in the distance caught his eye. A small-looking object was bobbing around on the waves, its metal structure reflecting the moonlight slightly.
No way, Marek thought. It seemed way too convenient. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him from trying to capitalise on what he thought he saw. Somehow, there appeared to be a boat in the distance.
Straight away he began to shout, raising and waving his arms as best he could, when he could, though they barely seemed to pop over the tops of the waves. He began to swim towards the boat, shouting all the while. Like hell he was going to let this opportunity slip past him, and just float around in the ocean until he drowned or starved, or something ungodly ate him for a snack. He didn’t particularly want to dwell on the fact right now, but the ocean (or more specifically, what lurked in the ocean) unsettled him. He pushed the half-thought away, determined to focus on getting the attention of whatever it was he had seen.
The object grew steadily larger, seemingly on a gradual course towards him. Sure enough, it was a small boat, and it eventually drew close enough that he could make out tiny figures on board. After a few more minutes of shouting and slapping the water, doing all he could to draw attention, he noticed a flurry of activity on the ship, and it swung straight towards him. They had seen him.
As they got closer, Marek could get a proper look at the boat. It appeared to be about 15 metres long, with a hull of smooth dull grey metal, and was cutting through and over the water like a speedboat. The middle of the boat was a raised metal structure, which was presumably the cabin, though Marek’s attention was quickly grabbed by what looked to be gun turrets of some kind at both the rear of the boat and the top front of the cabin area. Well, that’s quite weird, thought Marek. Some kind of replica, perhaps? Unless a war had broken out overnight or something, which he doubted. Anyway, he would surely find out soon enough.
The engine, which had been droning louder and louder as the boat grew closer, began to wind down in pitch as whoever was driving killed the throttle while the boat drew alongside Marek. Feeling pathetic helplessly treading water, Marek began to swim the distance to the side of the ship, which was now looming large over his head. Too large – the top of the slippery metal hull was way above his arm reach. Just then, a figure appeared from the deck overhead, and an arm thrust itself down over the side towards Marek.
Marek gratefully took the hand, and immediately felt himself being pulled up swiftly towards the deck in a firm grip. Before he knew it, he had tumbled over the railing and onto the deck. As he lay catching his breath, he noticed by the bright lights illuminating the deck that he was surrounded by a few people, who seemed to be appraising him with marked incredulity.
Marek looked first of all at the person belonging to the hand that had hoisted him up, who was now crouching a couple of metres away. He saw a solidly built man with a square face, and a crop of straight hair the colour of dark red rust which fell all the way down to the base of his neck. There was a weathered roughness to his face, but his grey-blue eyes looked kind. The bottom half of his face was covered in a sleek beard that cascaded down towards his collar, and was topped by a rather long moustache that swung out on each side into upturned points. The man looked to be in his forties, and was wearing a dark green army jacket and a utility belt of some kind, matched with similarly dark green pants and brown leather boots. It was difficult for Marek to gauge his size at the moment, but he definitely seemed above average. There was something intimidating about him, though Marek also got the feeling that the man wasn’t going to pose a danger to him – he had just saved him, after all.
“You’re lucky we found you, kid,” the man said. “We heard you eventually, but I don’t know how Beck even saw you in this light.” He gestured over to a slender young woman leaning against the boat’s small cabin, dressed in nondescript green fatigues. She had her arms crossed, and a strange expression on her face. Marek could tell she was analysing him – though as to whether it was going positively or negatively, he couldn’t say. The girl’s features were delicate, with a narrow chin and sharpish nose. Perhaps her most notable feature was that her right eye was green, while her left eye was hazel in colour. While different in colour, they both displayed an incisive quality that made Marek feel like she was seeing right into him. A curtain of straight, jet-black bobbed hair framed her face and fell down to dangle just above her shoulders. Although she looked to be in her early twenties at most, something told Marek she wasn’t as delicate as she looked.
“Name’s Keresi,” the man said, thrusting out his hand, and Marek switched his attention back to him. “Welcome to the Iron Sparrow.”
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So, the ship had a name. Then again, Marek thought that was relatively normal for boats, even small ones. ‘Iron Sparrow’ though? That seemed like quite a strange one.
The man continued speaking. “Beck, well, I already mentioned her… and that there’s the Captain. Captain Horrendous.”
Marek almost laughed out loud. Now he knew this definitely had to be some kind of reenactment taken too far. After successfully suppressing his laughter, he turned his attention towards the final figure Keresi had pointed out. Hanging back, almost blending into the shadows near the front of the boat, stood the Captain.
Like Beck, the Captain also had black hair, though his was slightly wavy and unkempt, and restrained under a fancy hat which looked like a Napoleonic admiralty cap, or something similar. His brown eyes were clear and deep, his nose straight and strong, and he had a beard of short stubble under a plain, slightly longer moustache – one that was decidedly more regular-looking than Keresi’s somewhat extravagant affair. He was dressed in a dark grey officer’s uniform, though again it looked to Marek like something from the 1800s – it made a fine match to his hat. A white cape with gold and black epaulettes and a high collar was draped over his shoulders.
Overall, he looked pretty much like a joke, though admittedly mostly because his entire getup was so anachronistic. Definitely a history buff gone too far, Marek thought… yet something about the Captain’s demeanour also made him take pause. Logically, he wanted to believe this was all a joke or act of some kind, but his gut was starting to tell him to take things more seriously. The Captain just didn’t seem like a person wearing a costume. Instead, he seemed serious, authoritative and in command.
“Well,” said Keresi, “that’s all of us accounted for – and now who might you be? It’s alright, we’re not military.”
It took a while for Marek to respond, as if he was waking from a daze. Everything in his mind seemed topsy-turvy, and he felt like he didn’t know if he had just begun dreaming, or had woken up.
“Marek.” He said after a moment. “My name’s Marek.”
“Marek,” Keresi repeated, “now that’s a normal enough name. So, tell us Marek, what are you doing out here in the middle of the ocean by yourself? Do you have a boat nearby?”
Marek considered Keresi’s question for a moment.
“There was… an accident.” He said slowly. “I was sailing with my friends, and there was an accident.”
“Alright,” said Keresi, “an accident. Is your boat nearby somewhere?
“No.” Marek didn’t know how he knew, but he knew the yacht was nowhere near. “It’s… gone. There was a storm, and the mast snapped. I don’t know where it went. Into the vortex, I suppose.”
Keresi looked around uncertainly at Beck and the Captain.
“A vortex… now, I’m not calling you a liar, but there hasn’t been a storm around here for about a week.”
Marek scrunched his face. That wasn’t possible. Was Keresi lying?
“There must have been, I was just in it…” He was about to explain everything that had happened when he thought better about oversharing with these effective strangers.
The Captain strode over slowly, deliberately, and stopped just in front of Marek. “I don’t feel any ill-will from him. Still, we can’t be sure he’s not a spy of some kind. I think it’s best I keep him under watch until we get back to Nouméa, then we’ll hand him over to the military. They can worry about finding out exactly who and what he is.”
Marek was confused, but now made the executive decision to just go along with all this – whatever it was that was happening. Just until they got him back to some kind of civilisation, and he could find a phone and get some help. Hopefully, he had just stumbled across a couple of reenactors taking things too far.
With Marek’s fate settled, Beck slipped away into the cabin. Keresi stood up with a groan and a few cracks of his joints before he too disappeared into the cabin. It was now just Marek and the Captain left on the deck. Marek was definitely going to keep his mouth shut regarding any more of his own personal details or story, but he couldn’t resist questioning the Captain.
“‘Captain Horrendous’ – that can’t be your real name.”
The Captain looked at him and shrugged. “It is to you.”
Well, true enough. Marek had no reply to that.
“I am sorry about not trusting you, Marek, but we can’t be too careful.” The Captain said.
“That’s alright,” Marek replied, the words coming out automatically before he could think.
“The ocean is strange tonight,” the Captain mused, looking over the side of the boat and ignoring Marek’s response entirely.
Marek glanced over the side. The ocean was burbling like a cauldron of black ink, covered by webs of cresting silver seafoam that reflected the light of the thin moon above. The fog, which had been far off when he first emerged from the dark waters, had now creeped up to surround the small ship, which remained stationary. Marek couldn’t see more than a few dozen metres – not that there was much to see, anyway. At least the rain had stopped. The ocean did seem rather strange, he supposed, but then Marek also wondered when the ocean could ever be described as normal.
“So…” Marek began again, “The Iron Sparrow, huh?” He gave the Captain a sidelong look. “Couldn’t have picked anything more intimidating?”
The Captain breathed in deeply before replying. “Like what?”
“Just off the top of my head… Iron Hawk, Iron Falcon, Iron Raven… the list goes on.”
The corner of the Captain’s mouth twitched in what might have been the beginnings of a smile. He waved his hand dismissively. “All too predictable,” he said. “I don’t want people to know we’re formidable. Better for them to underestimate us – it gives us the upper hand, and an element of surprise.”
Marek arched an eyebrow incredulously as he eyed the Captain over. “Oh, don’t worry. I think people will underestimate you no matter what.”
The Captain squinted at Marek perceptively. “Well, when you get your own ship, you can call it whatever you want.” He pointed to a spot on the deck. “Now get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a big day for you.” The Captain threw over two bundled-up blankets.
Marek nodded, putting one of the blankets under his head for a pillow as he unfurled the other and threw it over himself. Well, I guess I’ll just sleep on the open deck then, he thought sullenly. He closed his eyes, and despite all the recent craziness, he quickly drifted off to sleep as the boat continued to rock endlessly over the waves.
----------------------
The two men sat across from each other at their usual table at the Bolthole, a dim bar in the heart of Naval Station Pearl Harbour. Like usual, Calden Moss Anthony was sipping a glass of Vat 69, neat. He was young and trim, and smartly dressed in a black suit. A pair of glasses sat perched in front of piercing brown eyes, under voluminous slicked-back black hair. His counterpart across the table was older, pushing late middle-age, and was rotund in the particular way that a casual access to excess generates. Though also dressed in a suit, Herabee Ragbar Scarf was rather more dishevelled looking. His coconut-brown hair was in need of a trim, and resembled a coconut not only in colour but also in the tufty, straggly quality of its fibrous shell. Like Calden, he also had his usual drink in front of him – a Macallan on the rocks. The two men, high up in obscure offshoots of US intelligence, had been meeting regularly off the books for some time now, in order to discuss the latest happenings in the war.
“The scouts planes returned to Nouméa early this morning.” Calden said, putting down his glass attentively, so that it lined up perfectly with its wooden coaster. The air in the bar was thick with cigarette and cigar smoke.
Herabee took a small sip of whisky before replying. “Indeed? And what did they see?”
“Fog.” Calden’s reply was barely a syllable, but Herabee felt his throat clench.
“Indeed.” Herabee’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“A spreading, persistent fog,” Calden continued, “originating several hundred kilometres north of Vanuatu.”
Herabee considered this. “So then… it’s begun?”
Calden nodded slowly. “The early signs do point to this being the fog we’ve anticipated. The Navy pilots say they saw… things… in it.”
Herabee stroked his large, jowly chin. “So, it appears our ‘friend’ in the Program was correct. Perhaps not crazy after all.”
Calden nodded, swirling a mouthful of whisky before swallowing it with a slight grimace. “Herabee, my dear friend… I think everything is about to change.”