***Chapter 15
Spider was startled from a rumbling noise that suddenly made the container vibrating and shaking. Charge gave a little moaning sound and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, looking as astonished as Billy felt himself. They must have fallen asleep somewhere in the night while waiting. He tried to stand up but gave up after a few attempts. There was no use, the container now heeled from side to side, it was worse than the last storm they had experienced with the Hammersley. Charge clung to the wall opposite off him.
"Sit down and make sure you stay away from the cargo." he advised the seaman.
"What's happening? What's that noise, Charge?"
"I think they just lifted the container."
"What!? Why? They don't have to do that to get us out of here, do they?" Spider tried again to get to his feet.
"Seaman Webb, sit down already!" Andy ordered him a little annoyed. "You just get yourself hurt. I'm pretty sure they don't know there's someone inside so they won't be careful."
That didn't help at all to calm Spider down. He was experiencing a little hangover, hadn't slept well and now he was informed that there was no rescue but that the container was just to be loaded onto a cargo ship. The bosun's mate started hammering at the wall.
"Hey there! Open the door! Get us out of here! Help!" But there was no way the yelling could be heard outside over the noise the crane made. Billy looked at Charge for help.
"We should have called Robert!" the engineer finally said. "He was here just minutes before we came. He sure knows the containers he'd looked at! Why didn't we thought of that before?"
"I don't know." Although the young sailor tried really hard, Charge could hear the repressed panic in his voice. "RO's just not the person I think of when being into trouble like that I guess." Spider admitted while Charge stumbled to his feet and fiddled around with his mobile.
"Hurry up, Charge! If they load us onto a ship nobody's ever going to find us again. And only if we're lucky we end up in PNG. God knows where they're going to sent that stuff."
Andy finally managed to dial and waited impatiently for the radio officer to pick up the phone.
At the bridge RO sat in his chair in front of the com console trying to finish the sudoku he had started the day before. It was a tricky one and he seemed to be stuck. Maybe I should ask Bomber. She's good at it. But the chef wasn't available she was preparing breakfast for the crew down at the galley. If he wrote down a seven there and a three...no that wouldn't work out. Irritated he put the pencil down and looked at his watch. Time to wake up the crew anyway. He reached over to pick up the ship's radio when his mobile rang. It was Charge. Robert was surprised. Shouldn't the engineer be at the engine room right now?
"Good morning Charge. What is it? Why don't you just use the radio or come up to the bridge yourself?"
There was some static hiss and then he could here Charge's voice. "RO? Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I can but there is a lot of static noise. Where the hell are you?"
"RO? If you can hear me, we are at the container terminal. It's Spider and me! They're loading the container we're in. It's the blue one you looked at last night!"
Robert tried to decipher what Charge was yelling. There were some words he'd got. Container, Spider, last night. What the heck was he talking about?
"Charge? Can you repeat what you just said?"
There was only the static crackle. "Charge?" RO looked at the display, the connection was cut off.
"And? Did you manage to tell him?" The heeling had stopped and Spider was pacing up and down in the small space they had. "What'd he said? They coming?"
Charge shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not sure how much he'd understood. The connection was very poor and I'm not able to get through again."
Sara struggled and coughed as she fought for her life. The pillow Walker had had in his hand had sent her adrenaline levels go through the roof. The man had sat on the bed and bent over, she still had the smell of his cheap aftershave in her nose. The grinning was gone he'd looked almost a bit sorry and was deadly serious when he'd said:
"It's a shame you know? You're such a beautiful girl. And a really skilled diver, I could've used someone like you in my crew."
"Never! I'd rather go swimming with the sharks!" Sara had spit, finally getting her voice back. Surprised by herself she had registered a growing anger that slowly replaced her fear. I could be on my holiday right now. But that bloke hit me, tried to drown me, shot at me and now he's here again! The thoughts swirled through her head, flashes of pictures, faces, feelings from the past few weeks. That just can't happen! I want my life back!
The pillow was pressed on her face, she tried hard to push it away. Relax, you're a good diver, you know how to hold your breath her bleary brain contributed. While her body was fighting for air, an other part of her brain wondered if stupidity was the first sign of suffocation and whether it would hurt to die like that. Maybe if I hold still he will go away? I don't think he will make that fault again. With a last effort Sara managed to get her unharmed arm out of Walker's clutch and launched a desperate punch at the man trying to kill her – again. But he had suddenly disappeared somehow and Sara, caught up in the momentum, rolled over the edge of the bed and hit the floor. She let out an anguished cry when she touched the ground injured shoulder first. Alarms went down, beeping and rumbling noises of a fight mingled to a cacophony that together with the pain threatened to let her head explode. Sara crawled to the wall and pressed her back against it for support. She assumed a foetal position, legs brought up as tightly against the abdomen as possible, arms wrapped around the head. Her brain was no longer able to cope with the surrounding environment and in essence shut down temporarily. The woman closed her eyes, trembling vigorously. Please let it stop she prayed while in the deepest part of her brain a thought came up. Why are there fighting noises?
When they'd opened the door, the two nay officers needed only a second to connect the dots. The man being at the bedside trying to suffocate the young biologist sure wasn't the uncle. "Get help!" Mike ordered and jumped at the assassin pulling him off the bed. Kate made sure he could handle alone before turning and going to get some help as ordered.
The two man wrestled, both equally trained it was hard to say who would win the fight. Finally the CO managed to hit the other one with a punch that throw him against the wall. Going after him he stopped short hearing a scream from behind the bed. Although leaving Mike unfocused for a just a second, it was enough for Walker to stand up again and – hearing the uproar closing in outside – push the officer out of the way, leaving the scene after throwing a last vicious look at the woman sitting at the floor.
"I'm coming back, sweat-heart. Promise."
Mike stumbled to his feet and shook his head. He had hit the chair while falling and felt a little dizzy. Kate rushed in a doctor and a nurse at her heels.
"You ok?"
He nodded. "Yes, I'm fine. He got me by surprise 'cause of..." The CO remembered the cry he had heard and quickly surrounded the bed. He knelt down next to the shaking woman and carefully laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Miss River?" he asked and hardly managed to get out of the way when she made ready for a blow.
"Go away! Just leave me alone, please!" Sara was crying now and all of a tremble. Mike wasn't deterred by her behaviour. He'd seen enough people being in a state of shock to know what was going on so he simply hold down her hands so she could not hit him and gently stroke her back.
"Sara, look at me. It's Mike Flynn. You remember? I'm the CO of HMAS Hammersley. Calm down, everything's fine, no one is going to hurt you."
Slowly the struggling receded. Encouraged Mike continued.
"See Kate's here too. We don't let that man come close to you again."
Sara finally gave up her resistance and lifted her head still crying. Tears were running down her cheeks and she had to blink several times to clear her vision. Gradually realization was dawning and she managed a faint smile.
"Always there when someone's in need of help, Lieutenant Commander? How do you do that?"
The X chuckled relieved that Sara seemed to be ok. "It's from force of habit I guess. We can't stop him even if it gets himself into trouble."
The nurse had turned off the alarm and now stood next to the red haired woman, ready to gave her a helping hand. Together she and Mike helped Sara onto her feet and back to bed. "Just take it easy." the doctor said when Sara wanted to sit up again. "Please lay down for a minute. I just want to sure you're ok. You shouldn't be up and running around at all, you know."
The Biologist sighed. "That decision wasn't exactly left to me. I'd preferred something different, believe me!"
Kate had to force Mike to wait outside with her while the doctor had a look at Sara, making sure everything was alright. The tall sailor hesitated to leave the room but Kate pushed him softly to the door.
"Come with me, Mike. We wait outside. That one is a real doctor, he won't try to kill her, I promise."
Bomber reached the bridge without losing some of her precious cargo. Happy faces greeted her when she came up the last few steps.
"Bomber, you're fantastic." One of the young sailors on watch took a mug out of her hands and served himself with a sandwich.
"I know!" She grinned and continued her tour, handing out coffee and sandwiches for the sailors who couldn't leave the bridge for breakfast. When she reached RO, she only had one sandwich left. "I'm sorry, Robert, it's one with butter and cheese. But I can bring you something else if you want to?"
The communicator didn't look up. He had written down some words and now stared at them like he could force them to make sense. The chef glanced over his shoulder.
"What's that all about RO?" she asked curiously.
"I don't know." he admitted and deep in thoughts took the sandwich. Before Bomber could say anything, he bit off a fair chunk and spit it out almost immediately. "Is there butter on it?" he asked making a face showing his disgust. Bomber held up her hands in defence.
"Don't you be mad at me, I warned you. Just listen the next time I tell you something." She handed him a mug. "Here, to wash it down."
Trying to be composed she couldn't help laughing. She had never seen someone being so demanding concerning his eating habits before she had met Robert.
"Anyway, what's with that notes you were staring at?" The young woman quickly changed the subject before the other one could notice her amusement.
"Tell me, have you seen Charge or Spider this morning?" Robert answered with a question on his own.
Bomber thought for a minute. "No, why?" she answered cautiously wondering what Robert was up to.
"Charge hasn't shown up yet, normally he should be on duty. But he is not. And I got a weird phone call just some minutes ago I'm still trying to make sense of. I think Spider's with him but I've already sent someone to see if at least he's at the Hammersley."
Bomber was concerned now. It was neither like Charge or like Spider to arrive late for duty. Some movement outside at the docks got her attention.
"There's a cab coming, maybe that's them."
"Let's hope so. Otherwise we have to inform the CO." Robert mumbled and stood up. Together they watched the closing in cab from the bridge wing. It stopped in front of the gangway. Impatiently the two sailors waited for the passenger to get out.
"That's not them." Bomber said when the door finally opened and a single sailor got out, pulled a sailor's kitbag from the rear seat and entered the gangway. He looked up at them and waved.
"Good morning Swain." Bomber greeted back. "Listen, have you seen Spider or Charge?"
"Not since yesterday. Sally and I left before them. Why?"
"We can find neither one of them. And at least Charge should be here, he's on duty." Robert answered.
That caused frowns. "I'm with you in a second." the coxswain answered and hurried off to get his stuff squared away.
On his way to the bridge, he met the bosun standing in the passageway outside the galley, a cup of steaming tea in his hand.
"Swaino, good you back. Listen, I've a horrible headache and was wondering..."
With a wave Chris interrupted him. "Sorry mate, that has to wait. Have you seen Charge or Spider? Robert says he can't find them and Charge should be on duty right now."
Peter shook his head. "No, haven't seen them since yesterday night. They must have left shortly after me. Spider was paying when Bomber and I left. Back at the ship I went straight to my rack." The sailor grinned. "I guess we celebrated Bomber's win a bit too enthusiastic."
Chris rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I can vividly imagine. Come to the bridge, let's see if RO has found them now."
Following his crew mate up the stairs Buffer asked: "CO and X already back? They know?"
Swain shook his head. For now, I just hope they don't. Chris was fairly sure that Charge and Spider wouldn't go AWOL on purpose but they had seemed pretty drunk last night.
:-) please tell me what you think