I hated the winter months. Not because of my arthritis. Not because I had to push through the ice pack for open waters. To the contrary I loved playing with ice. I reveled in the feeling of breaking the stuff under my bow, feeling it crush under my weight, forcing it into submission. What I really, truly hated about it was why I had to push through the ice. Each year I led a fleet of small craft out into the Labrador Current, no more than 100 miles off the Quebec Coast, and had to stand by and watch these ships kill seals by the thousands. As if watching was bad enough, I had to chase away anyone who tried to stop this. The ice and sea would quickly become red with blood and I could do nothing! It infuriated me. It was illegal, I knew that. It was against the Seal Protection Act, a hypocritical law that prevented anyone from approaching within more than a 1/4 mile of a seal. Unless you were going to kill it that is!

There's one year that stands out for me. It wasn't long after I'd been put back into service with the Canadian Coast Guard. Oh, I'd heard the rumors of course so I knew she was coming. Why wouldn't she come? Illegal operations were her forte. I lost count of how many times I prayed to the Ancients though that she wouldn't. Just watching the hunt was bad enough. I didn't want to have to enforce it and worse, risk hurting her. No such luck though.

My radar picked her up long before I saw her. Visibility was down to a few hundred meters. She emerged from the icy fog like a ghost, her black hull contrasting greatly with the white of the ice around us. She had a thick hull like mine. She was no icebreaker, but being built as a North Sea Trawler had it's benefits to be sure. Jaws parted, fangs exposed, and green eyes narrowed in concentration, she forced her way through the compacted ice, heading straight towards the center of the hunt. I put my engines on standby, baring my teeth in a snarl of warning. I prayed for a miracle, that she would get the message and back off. "Back off." I thought. "Back off please!" No chance. I knew of course she would just ignore me. She, like the rest of those ships before and after her, was foolishly brave, perhaps a touch suicidal even. Did she know what she was getting herself into? "Of course she knew." I told myself firmly. "She's a veteran of many seasons here and elsewhere. She knows how to deal with my kind." I hated classifying myself that way but that's what I was. Every winter I wasn't a research ship, I was a warship. A warship who defends murderers. How corrupt is that?!

I turned my bow in her direction, my eyes going over her profile so I could remember it for future seasons. I wasn't aware that she had no intentions of leaving, let alone coming back next season. She had the lines of a north sea trawler, but with the personality of a war harden veteran. Her hull bore the many battle scars of the fights she'd been in over her long career. She was all black, save for her white muzzle which indicated her age. That and the yellow letters than ran along her superstructure, and the spikes she laid out to prevent my crew from boarding. I'd done my research so I knew she could do worse than that to repel my mounties if need be. If they did try, I hoped she would use that. I welcomed any fight she could give. I deserved it for merely being here, let alone attacking her if she tried anything.

I hoped she'd stop and observe like I was, getting much needed film of the hunt to share with the world. But I totally underestimated who I was dealing with here. She was a warrior, she fought environmental bad guys for a living. Sitting still wasn't her style.

She anchored to the flow and let a team off to get in close. I half wished she would just plow straight through the ice and knock those killers into the sea. She'd do anything shore of harming people though. I could see it in her eyes however, how much she wanted to take them in her jaws and tear them apart. I couldn't imagine the restraint she had to apply. And she'd been doing this for the last 2 decades?! Remarkable! I was reminded of a saying then, "Courage is measured not in the ability to fight, but in the ability to not fight." I marveled at her courage, her strength. If I was in her position I would've just said "enough" and had those killers for breakfast! For her not to attack, despite the fact that she clearly wanted to,and show the restraint she was showing, that took some tremendous whale balls!

I watched as her deployed team approached the hunters and that's when things went south. First the hunters typical two word vocabulary showed itself again, as it did every year. When it came to people and ships like her, they only had two words to say. "Fuck you!" was shouted over and over again. Then a fight broke out. If you could call it that anyway. It was an absolute smack down. Her crew showed the same restraint and allowed themselves to be beaten. I wondered if the ship herself would do the same if I attacked her. The very thought made me feel sick. If I was forced to attack a helpless ship...

My own crew had control of my engine plant and I'd learned long ago not to fight them. The resulting punishments weren't worth it but this time I thought it just might be. For now though, all I could do was wait as I plowed towards her, hoping and praying that the ice crunching beneath my bow wouldn't become her hull if we collided.

With teeth bared and eyes narrowed I approached swiftly, watching as her team ran back towards her. A group of my mounties disembarked and captured a few of them and I resisted the urge to snatch them up and feed them to the seals myself. It was quite clear to me and to everyone else who was at fault here. The hunters had started the fight and the hunters were the only ones who used force. I snarled at the injustice of it all. The sound was misinterpreted by the other ship. Now she gave me her attention. She returned my snarl with one of her own. The very sound of it chilled my blood. Though somewhere in the back of my mind I knew she wouldn't fight me, the sound made me think she would. I could see it in her eyes, the fire of battle. She would protect her crew from my efforts. If I tried to arrest them, she would stop me. Then reason returned and I continued on, ignoring her warning. The nudge came unexpectedly. As I closed in, she moved forward blocking my path and tried to shoulder me aside. The brief moment of contact allowed me to get a feel for her strength. She had very little of it. Either I had gained a few tons on the summer salmon run or she had lost some. Feeling her ribs just beneath her hull I assumed the latter. Her hull itself was well kept and maintained but underneath, she was a weakened floating wreck. The mere effort of shoving me aside had her gasping for air, nostrils flared, jaws parted, and tongue lolling. Her eyes rolled around her head in her exhaustion. Fearing I would hurt her, I backed off. Watching her collapse on the flow, suffering through a coughing fit as she struggled to regain her wind, I realized she wasn't just weak, she was ill. Very ill.

My medical training took over then and I brushed my bow along her side, trying to ease her coughs while at the same time, getting a better feel for what might be bothering her. What I found, both scared and astonished me. This ship was suffering from terminal lung cancer. It was well advanced too by the looks of it. Already I could feel the tumors growing out of her lungs and latching onto the rib-cage where they grew out of her hull. A few were giants and some had already cracked open, bled, then closed again.

"How long?" I asked her.

"A year if I don't push it." She rasped. "But that's not gonna happen."

"Why in the hell would you come down here?!" I chastised her, the healer in me coming out. "If you're that ill why confront me. You can barely push me aside."

She looked at me. That sincereness in her green eyes still haunts me to this day. "They need me." She replied.

I swallowed hard. Being in the service I always felt I'd give my life for my country, just as any other ship would. But looking at her now I realized I could never have that courage. Here was a ship who was giving her life, for a cause that seemed so small, so insignificant, that she had to work twice as hard to even draw attention to it. Unlike the service, it was a thankless, risky job that offered little reward. Very few ships could do it. But she could, and it was killing her.

Her voice brought me back to the present.

"What was that?" I asked gently.

"Finish it." She rasped.

"What?!"

"I came here knowing I wouldn't come back. Just finish Amundsen." She replied.

"I-I can't..." I whimpered.

"Of course you can. You have no trouble killing anything else." She retorted.

I winced at that one but it was well deserved. "It wasn't by choice." I sniffed. "I'm a research ship in the summer."

"And a killer in the winter." She finished.

I sighed, conceding defeat. Whatever I wanted to believe I couldn't argue with the truth. Regardless of my intentions or my feelings, the fact was that every winter I helped keep this awful practice going. I hated it, truly hated it with a passion but what could I possibly do? I couldn't stop it! I wished I could though. Oh how I wished I could! I gazed down at her, her frail form huddling on the ice.

Getting my jaws around her, I lifted her up. She gave a slight squeak of pain which I apologized for, before I rested her against my side. "I want you to run." I whispered.

"What?" She murmured.

"Run, damn you! You have to get out of here!"

"I-I told you. I have no plans of leaving. My crew knows this and supports it." She replied.

"So you condemn them to a life behind bars?" I asked.

"They're in the right and they have the evidence. The stir from this will create an uproar." She sounded a tad bit smug but I figured she'd earned the right.

"Well then, why not cause an even bigger stir." I suggested.

"How?" She asked.

"By running. You know you can't escape. So I'll catch up to you, we'll collide and I'll take you back to port as my prisoner." I replied.

"Amundsen, that's the craziest suggestion I've heard thus far and I've heard quite a few of them in my time." She chuckled, looking me in the eye for the first time. "Let's do it!"

She took off, her engines whirring. I gave her a minute start before giving chase. She wasn't a fast ship. She could only go about 9 knots at full power, 12 if she pushed it. And pushed it she did, pushing through the ice with sheer desperation. Her jaws were parted in a pant and I knew she had to be in a lot of pain but she kept on going. I had to admire her toughness.

Eventually though, she began to wear herself down and I caught up. She still kept going though and I came in from the side, knowing that colliding was the only thing that would stop her. I crossed her bow, deliberately slowing down to give her the time to collide. She reversed her engines, eyes closing as she braced for the impact she knew would come. With an awful screech of metal we hit.

Her yowl of pain still ringing in my ears I instantly grabbed her, tying a rope around her rudders to keep her from escaping.

"Did I hurt you?" She murmured.

I look myself over. I'd lost some paint in that incident but I felt no pain. "Not even a dent." I replied sympathetically. "You should've bit me when you came in, then I'd have a battle scar to show off."

Knowing I was trying to keep the mood up, she laughed and replied "You're worse than Westra."

"And who's Westra?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

"My apprentice, she'll be the lone flagship when I'm gone." She replied.

I nodded. "I'm sorry it had to be this way." I said.

"So am I." She agreed. "You would make a great addition to Sea Shepherd."

"I doubt vigilante work is my forte." I answered and she laughed.