Save the Manatee!

15: Search

(June 14, 2015)

"Dipper! Wendy!" Despite Ford's caution to be quiet, Mabel yelled the names as the rubber raft sped into the darkness. She stood beside Mermando's tank, and in a stunned voice she said, "Grunkle Ford, Dipper and Wendy got into the raft with Grunkle Stan!"

"What?" Ford grabbed the binoculars and raised them. "I can't see them . . . Mabel, we can't do anything about it now. Stanley will keep them safe."

Mabel sounded as if she were on the verge of hysteria: "But—you said the guys on the boat might have guns! They could get shot, they could die, Grunkle Ford, they could die out there!"

"Stanley will—"

"Mabel!" Mermando said. "Help me into the water now! I must be there to open the teleportation portal. Help me, now. Rapido!"

Mabel gulped and in a panicky voice blurted, "I—how—Grunkle Ford, help us!"

He locked the wheel and came over to the tank. "Yes, yes—do I, uh, pick you up?"

"Yes, you could do that. I am not very heavy. Or you might just open the gate there and roll me onto the deck as the boat is heading down a wave. I will go into the water. Quickly, please!"

Ford opened and tied off the transom gate and then collapsed the side of Mermando's canvas tub. The water—and Mermando—spilled out on the deck. "Ready," Ford said. "One, two—push!"

Mermando rolled, with a flip of his tail splashed off the boat, and immediately rose to the surface. "Mabel! I will try to help as much as I can! If they can free Sirenia, I will have to teleport with her—manatees cannot do it on their own! Farewell for now! Look for a message from me!"

"Hurry, Mermando!" Mabel said. "Make sure they're all safe! Please!"

Creaking and squeaking like a dolphin, Mermando leaped free of the water for an instant, plunged down again, and vanished in the dark.

Shaking, weeping, Mabel said quietly, "If you ever loved me, please help them. Please bring them back."

Minutes crawled by as the orcas, moving slowly now, towed the Stan O' War II even closer to the Triton Trident. "I'll start the engine the instant they're all back aboard," Ford said. The deck lights of the freighter shone, and a blue-white searchlight swept up and across the clouds. "Now they want to be seen," Ford muttered. "That must mean that the yacht is approaching."

Though her hands were shaking with anxiety, Mabel used the powerful binoculars to study the freighter's rail. She saw, or at least thought she saw, darting, black silhouettes against the lights—but she could make out no detail. Stan, her brother, and Wendy? Or sailors from the freighter, armed with guns, hunting down the three? She shifted her weight from foot to foot, wanting to know what was going on over there.

"Come on, come on, come on," Ford repeated, as if it were a prayer.

"What's taking them so long?" Mabel asked. "Maybe they've been cap—"

A boom! thudded across the water, and a moment later she felt the pressure wave squeeze her lungs. She screamed, "They shot them!"

"No!" Ford shouted. "Not a gun. That was a bomb! Look—fire!"

The ship's horn blasted, seven quick times and then a prolonged whonnnnnk!

"Did Grunkle Stan do that?" Mabel asked. "Blow up the ship?"

"Maybe. Though the plan called for stealth. But then, Stanley is notably unpredictable."

Mabel looked through the binoculars again. Now the red glow of fire coming from the starboard stern of the freighter—the side away from them—showed her a little more detail. "They're putting a boat into the water!" she said. "It looks like—no, it's not them, it's the people from the ship. About a dozen of them, I think. Where are they?"

The lawnmower-sound of a marine outboard began, and Mabel saw the lifeboat clear the stern of the freighter and vanish behind its bulk, sketched in red by the fire that was still mostly invisible on this side of the wounded ship. "Where are they going? Did they blow up the ship and leave Dipper and Stan and Wendy on it?"

"I don't see why they would," Ford said. "Maybe the Agency somehow smuggled an explosive aboard. The sailors in the lifeboat might be trying to get to the yacht."

"Listen! What's that?" Mabel asked as a chattering series of pops came over the water.

"That's gunfire," Ford said. "But it's not coming from the Trident. Further away. I don't understand—"

A second fiery explosion burst out, this one right at the rear of the freighter—by then the Stan O' War II had nearly reached its turning prow—and Mabel felt a painful pressure wave in her ears. "Grunkle Stan!" she yelled into the night. "Where are you?"

Something metallic clunked on the deckhouse roof, and more falling fragments clattered on the deck. "Debris!" Ford yelled. "Wait—the orcas have let go, we're just drifting. Mabel, I'm going to start the engine. We have to fall back a little in case the whole thing blows."

"We can't leave them!" Mabel climbed up on the rail, but Ford grabbed the back of her life jacket and hauled her down.

"You can't go in the water! Listen to me! We're not leaving! But we have to get some distance in case the ship blows up!" The engine coughed and caught, and he spun the wheel. The boat turned, rocking badly as it caught the incoming waves on the beam. "We won't go far."

As he throttled back, the third and loudest explosion came. Ford stared across the water, dancing now with red reflections of fire. The freighter was three-quarters on toward them, flames shooting high, clotted smoke red in the night billowing upward, the hull listing sharply. "We're drifting back toward it," Ford said. "About three knots. Must be a strong current!" He increased throttle until the boat seemed to hold its position.

"Dolphins!" Mabel yelled. Waves of them sped from the direction of the sinking ship, back past the Stan O' War II, excitedly chattering. She leaned over, screaming,"Wait! Stop, wait! Help! Where are our friends? Stop, somebody! Why won't they listen to me?"

"Mermando's not with them now," Ford told her.

Then, from the darkness, they heard a faint, gravelly voice: "Ford! Where the hell are you?"

"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel yelled. She looked around, found the bullhorn, and called, "Right here we are! Come this way! Follow my voice that I'm talking to you with through this thing!"

Ford switched on the running lights. A moment later, Stan appeared in the yellow rubber raft—which began immediately to drift away from the boat. Rocking on the waves, Stan shook his fist at the darkness. "You no-legged, air-breathing, live-young bearing, milk-producing, warm-blooded coward!" he bellowed. "Get your assless body back here! I'll tear you a new blowhole! Ford, my motor just ran off!"

Ford turned the boat again, touched the throttle, and brought the Stan O'War II alongside the drifting raft. Mabel threw a line, Stan grabbed it and pulled close, and then he clambered aboard and tumbled over the railing, shivering in his wet suit. Mabel wailed, "Where's Dipper? Where's Wendy?"

"In the water, I think," Stan said, panting for breath. "That fershlugginer ship got torpedoed! Last one blew us off the deck. That stupid porpoise caught me in the raft, but didn't wait around for Dip and Wendy! We gotta go save them!"

"Oh, my God!" Mabel said. "Look! The ship's sinking!"

They all stared. The stern of the ship went down until the bow stood up at a sharp angle, dark against the burning diesel fuel, like a knife slipping backward into the water. "Let's go, Ford!" Stan said. "We gotta save those kids!"

"Did—the manatee?" Mabel asked.

"Yeah, yeah, those dolphins and whatever made this big kinda revolvin', glowy galaxy thing in the water, and we dropped her right into the middle of it. I think that's the doohunkus that flies them back to the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe the kids landed in it, too, I didn't see."

"Then Mermando will take care of them," Mabel said. "But we can't take that chance!"

"Agreed." Ford pushed the Stan O' War II to go faster.

Stan went into the cabin, came back in his pea jacket, and broke out the searchlight and swept the beam over the water. Nothing but floating debris. Mabel, sobbing, went into the deckhouse and came back holding Wendy's trapper's hat. She fondled it as though it were a kitten. "Be all right," she begged it, or maybe the night. "Please, just be all right!"

"Holy Jamoley!" Stan yelled. "What's that?"

The yacht now was speeding away from them, maybe a mile or more distant. A shaft of brilliant white light stabbed from the heavens and locked on it.

"The helicopter!" Ford shouted. "It finally got here!"

Stan grabbed the binoculars and stared at the yacht. "Cheese and crackers, they got machine guns on that damn boat! I can see the muzzle flashes. They're tryin' to shoot down the chopper!"

The helicopter pilot must have been aware of the peril, because the aircraft swung rapidly away. "Take the wheel," Ford said. "I have to call them. They can search for the kids!"

He dived into the wheelhouse. Stan gripped the wheel and increased the throttle. They sped past the burning patch on the ocean and saw no sign of life.

Mabel gripped the fur hat and sank to her knees. "God, please, please, please," she begged. "Just let them be all right!"

Ford's voice came from the cabin: "Two teenagers, a girl, older, a boy, fifteen, in the water! There's a strong current bearing north from here—they may have drifted!"

"Ford!" Stan bawled. "Tell 'em they got life vests with GPS trackers!"

Ford relayed the information: "They're both wearing life jackets equipped with SRS trackers. You should be able to pick up the signals with AIS, if they were able to activate the devices." A moment later, he came back on deck. "A Coast Guard vessel is going to intercept the yacht," he said. "International waters, but this is a hot-pursuit situation. The helicopter crew's trying to pick up the tracker signals now."

Stan asked, "Can you pick 'em up?"

"Maybe, if the kids remembered to pull the cords and activate them—and if we're within four miles. The helicopter's altitude makes it more likely they'll hear them before we do. Look for the flashing beacons, too—red lights, regular blinking pattern."

Stan, at the wheel, kept sweeping the surface with the searchlight. Ford sought the GPS signal.

And Mabel prayed.