NationStates Jolt Archive

The ILNS Cork sat nestled in the cold harbor in Thule, Greenland. The town was largely unpopulated except for a Layartebian Air Force Base, which housed the 30th Bomb Wing, 163rd Fighter Wing, 52nd Logistics Wing, and the 41st Space Control Wing. Protected by a Crow missile site, the Air Force Base was heavily guarded and remained segregated from the rest of Thule, which had less than 1,500 permanent residents. Thule was, strategically, vital to the Empire and its defense but otherwise it served little purpose. Alert, to the north, at the tip of Ellesmere Island, was a Roman establishment but as insignificant as Thule was, otherwise. It was early September and the Arctic ice pack was thin but regaining its thickness. By October it would be completely ice locked and remain that way until May. It was still summer and the temperature reached a high of 42°F but it was quickly going back to 37°F. The Autumnal equinox was approaching, which meant that the midnight sun would soon cease to be and the area would be cast into darkness until the spring arrived. Regardless, it was still cold.

The ILNS Cork was a civilian vessel, registered through the Imperial Layartebian Merchant Marines and was a Baltimore class ship. A combined transport oiler / tanker, she was in port to offload a cargo and, at the same time, to take on a cargo. She was 736 feet long, 102 feet wide, and drafted 36 feet. Weighing in at 49,500 tons, usually, she could sail at 70,000 tons, max. Her crew consisted of 38 mariners, all of whom were used to traveling to Thule but still couldn't get used to the cold. Most of them were natives from New York and New Jersey, where, in early September, it was still in the 80s and 90s and summer. To them, the high 30s and low 40s that Thule had were like winter, especially when it rained and it was raining.

They were bundled up in layers upon layers of clothing and then wore rain jackets to keep the water from making their bodies even colder. Every time they exhaled, their breathes floated up towards the rain above as they watched 235,000 barrels of fuel oil drain from the oil tanks aboard the ship. For the six mariners who had to be outside during the offloading, it was hell. Those inside relished in the warmth that their LM2500 gas turbine engine provided them. What fuel they offloaded would supply Thule for quite a while, given its small population. Still, the Cork and two of her sister ships made deliveries once every three months to Thule and offloaded a full supply of fuel oil. Often, they took on cargo and transported it back to the mainland but the cargo they were set to receive wasn't going back to Layarteb. They wouldn't turn around and head back to New York or New Jersey. They were going to travel north, around the northern part of Greenland and then south, to Ireland. It meant only one thing for the men, more cold and miserable weather. The ice pack wasn't as dense as it would be and they could cut through it, their bow was reinforced for the job, which was why they were sent and none of their sister ships. They were happy the day the bow was retrofitted to have marginal ice breaking capabilities but now, with the prospect of actually having to do that, they hated it and took back everything they said.

"Could it get any colder do you think?" Marty Henry yelled across the deck as he watched the fuel flow gauge from tank number four. On the other side of the deck, his friend, James Castellano was controlling the fuel flow rate. They couldn't make the fuel come out too fast or else it could sheer the lines but, too slow, and they would be there forever. The deck was noisy and they had ear plugs in their ears and hide underneath their layers of clothing and hoods. They communicated simply by reading each others' lips and that was a difficult way to communicate, especially as they shivered in the cold rain, which was coming down in buckets and, seemingly, from the side. There was no way to stand to avoid the rain, it just pelted them.

"Not the slightest," his friend replied as he adjusted the flow. At the rate they were going, they would be done in another half hour, which wasn't going to be a comforting thought. Two other teams of two men each emptied tanks five and six. A team of six men before them had emptied one through three and now it was up to them to empty the rest. The fuel flowed into giant storage containers in the port but they could barely make them out amidst the rain and fog. The wind didn't help either and made them hide their eyes underneath protective goggles, which were fogging up constantly on them. It was a completely miserable environment and both of them now hated the fact that they joined the Merchant Marines some four years earlier. Inside of the superstructure, the remaining mariners watched gauges, television, made coffee, and hot chocolate. Some were sleeping and others were trying desperately to get warm after having spent an hour and a half outside, emptying the first three tanks. They would have emptied all six at once but the port only had three storage containers. Each container could hold 80,000 barrels of oil or 3,360,000 gallons, giving a total capacity of 240,000 barrels or 10,080,000 gallons. The Cork held 5,000 barrels short of the maximum capacity. "When we get back I'm taking the longest shower ever!" James yelled as he increased the flow to compensate for air pockets. They were pumping out approximately 18,300 gallons per minute, which was a lot of oil but it still took ninety minutes to empty each tank, that was how much oil they carried. As they did, gigantic cranes at the port were lifting six, large, metal containers into place on the backs of rail cars. These rail cars were just for carrying the containers and would move from a sheltered building out to the dock, where they could be loaded onto the ship.

The Cork was set to take on these six containers, each one filled with some sort of special cargo. The captain and only the captain knew the cargo and, when telling the crew about the mission, he told them, flat out, "Don't ask what's in the containers. Just do your jobs!" Of course, everyone asked but got no response. Theories arose about secret government documents, prisoners, UFO parts, et cetera. None of them were true. The cargo was top secret and because of that nature, not only was the ILNS Cork taking on the six containers but they were taking on twenty additional men as well except, unlike the crew, they weren't civilians. They were all members of the Imperial Layartebian Defense Forces and when they came on board after the ship docked, to inform the captain of the new orders, none of them walked on unarmed. They carried M97A1 UMP submachine guns on their backs and some had M105A1 Tactical Defense Pistols. Because of the close quarters of the ship, an assault rifle would have been too cumbersome. The standard rifle, the M80A1, was opted out for this mission.

Outside, on the deck, the six men kept careful watch on gauges and valves. They wiped their goggles free of fog and wiped gauge covers free of rain water. On the ground, at the port, workers carefully loaded the precious cargo into the six containers. Each container, after taking on the cargo, would have a gross weight of nearly thirty tons. Each container was forty feet long, which was a standard length but, their widths were not standard. Because of the special cargo, each container was actually ten feet wide and ten feet high. They were massive and the Cork could only carry six of them in a below deck container storage area. They could carry several more above deck but, because of the nature of the cargo, they had to be as protected as possible. All the loading was done inside of the enclosed shelters at the port and under strict security. The twenty armed men stood guard as workers inside loaded the cargo. Everyone working there was sworn to secrecy but the secret had been leaked and impending doom was waiting for the ILNS Cork.

The weather wore on as the tanks emptied themselves. The rain grew colder, the wind grew stronger, and their bones ached harder. Their joints barely moved anymore as they tried their best to keep moving outside, on the deck. For them, once the pumps clanged, it was with a massive sigh of relief. The tanks were, finally, empty, all six of them. Amidst cheers, they turned off the pumps and unlatched the hoses. The hardest part now was getting back to the superstructure, where warmth awaited them. The hoses were simply thrown overboard and retracted back to the tanks. Metallic covers prevented anything from the inside from getting out as they were pulled back, to ensure zero spillage. "Race you back!" James yelled as he darted for the door. Marty tried to but slipped right off the bat, although he caught his footing. The other two man crews were already in the door when James, the race winner, got to the door. Marty was the unlucky one. He was last in but, as he came around to get into the door, he lost his footing, again.

His right foot gave way first as his left caught a pipe on the ground that he was trying to leap over it. His arms went out as his body went forward and down, rapidly. It was at that moment it seemed that everything that could get in his way did get in his way. He came down hard on the deck, hitting his left knee against a valve and breaking it clean in half. His right arm caught a chain and he had a deep laceration in his forearm when the rest of his body slammed down. He nearly knocked himself clean out when his head slammed into the ground. James saw the whole thing but couldn't help, he was too far away. "HELP!" He yelled loudly as the other men reversed their tracks and bolted down the corridors. Marty was lying on the cold ground, not moving, blood coming from his arm and from his leg. "Shit! Marty! Marty! Can you hear me?" James yelled amidst the rain and deck noise. Marty didn't budge. "Come on. Help me get him up. Watch his leg there!" He yelled as two men helped get Marty into the air. They trudged their way into the door, nearly slipping themselves, and bolted down to the sick bay of the ship where a medic was already waiting.

"Okay! What do...Jesus Christ! Get his clothes off now! Call the captain we need an evac here!" The medic yelled as he took a pair of scissors and cut his pants and clothes clean off him. Marty was shivering from the cold and now from blood loss. He had a deep wound in his arm and it was bleeding badly. That was where the medic focused. The knee was cleanly broken but the skin wound was superficial. He had to stop the bleeding and with the help of the three men around him, he went to work on the arm. Shortly after, Marty snapped to, his eyes dazed and his vision blurry. There was more bad news. The hospital on base was unable to take him due to the weather. The storm had caused flooding in it and they were evacuating. There was now, no help but on the ship. The medic didn't take the news well but he didn't let it stop him. He rushed and rushed to stop the bleeding and it took time but he managed to slow it enough before he could lose too much blood. The chain nearly cut his arm clean off, the wound would take a long time to heal but it would heal. With an IV in him, Marty would live. Once the bleeding had stopped, the medic set his leg and attended to the other superficial wounds around his body. Forty minutes later, the medic was done and Marty was alive, although it would be rough for him for a while. The pain would be terrible and morphine was his best option.

Back in the bridge, the captain was relieved to hear that Marty was going to live. "Thank the Lord. When we get to Ireland, we're going to see to it that he's in a hospital. We have no other options right now. Do we have enough on board for him to be comfortable and okay?" The captain asked the medic as he lit a cigarette. The medic followed suit and shook his head. "Good. That's a good thing. We're loading the cargo now and we should be underway in about seven hours."

"Got it." The medic left and went back to sick bay to make sure that Marty was alright. He was coherent, although the morphine was making him very groggy. He would be in and out of consciousness for the next seven hours, mainly due to the morphine. The IV in his vein would keep him stabilized while his body regenerated the blood he lost. He had received a transfusion during the ordeal and it was working well with him. James was there by his side, completely shaken up over the ordeal. "It's not your fault,"

"Come on Doc, I challenged him to the damn race!"

"Listen if you're going to sit around here and be depressed then go jump overboard. I've got enough to worry about. He does too! So either get over it or get out. Now if you're going to stay here help me clean this mess up!" The medic said as he exhaled through his cigarette. He was a corpsman in the army during the Conquests for a few years and he knew how best to deal with shock trauma, especially when people thought they were the cause of someone else's injury. There was a lot of cleaning up to do. There was blood, there were supply wrappers, bandages, etc. They had to clean it all up and sterilize the room and they had to do it fast.

Seven hours came and seven hours went. The cargo was loaded safely on board the Cork and the crew of the ship went from thirty-eight to fifty-eight. The extra twenty men were elite members of a special detachment of the Imperial Layartebian Air Force. They were a security team that guarded special shipments. Usually, they traveled inside of cargo aircraft, particularly C-26B Condors, C-29A Condors, C-17B Globemaster IIIs, and C-5M Galaxys. On those flights, they usually transported documents, decommissioned nuclear weapons, chemical warheads, biological warheads, and, on two occasions, parts of a crashed aircraft that weren't of "this" world. Now they were guarding another secret cargo that was on nobody's radar. The six, huge crates loaded aboard the ILNS Cork were under lock and key. The only way into the cargo hold was guarded, at all times, by two of the men. Two others were close by and all of them carried their weapons with the safeties off. They had memorized the layout of the ILNS Cork from bulkhead to bulkhead, deck to deck so there was no way of realistically getting to that cargo.

As the captain put the ship to sea, the elite unit's team commander showed himself onto the bridge. "Captain. We're underway?"

"That we are Major. That we are. Are your men comfortable?"

"Yes they are captain. Are we looking at any delays along the way?"

"Well the Arctic ice is beginning to harden again so we're going to do our best. Our bow is reinforced for ice breaking so we won't have a problem there but we won't be making full steam, that's for sure."

"Granted. Listen I know you know how important our cargo is and that it gets there on time."

"Major. I'm going to do my best to get it there. I'm told not to ask what this cargo is and I'm not going to ask. However, this is my boat. We're not going to get there any faster than we can get there and unless we do it by the book we could jeopardize whatever you have in there. So, with all due respect, butt out Major."

"Noted Captain. I'll be down by the cargo if you need me." The soldier got the hint from the captain that this wasn't going to be a rushed job. They were going to get there safely and without incident, regardless of how long it took them.

Navigating the large cargo vessel out of the harbor was a dangerous task. Ice floated by and dangerous currents washed against the side of the vessel and pushed it the way they wanted. The Cork could easily overcome them but it took some careful piloting and the captain was the captain for a reason. He knew how to pilot the Cork through the keyhole of a door if he had to and he would never rub the sides. He carefully put those skills to use as he shouted commands to the pilots, telling them how much power to provide the screw and what degrees to move the rudder. It was a precise art that he eyeballed the whole way and, despite the terrible weather, he was accomplishing the task with some sort of ease. Despite his professional ability, his pulse was raised as he concentrated on how to maneuver the 736 foot vessel. Without the crude oil in her tanks, the Cork was almost a thousand tons lighter and the additional cargo did not add much weight at all, only around forty tons per container.

Fully loaded with fuel of her own, the ILNS Cork could go for eighty-five hundred miles at an average speed of fourteen knots. Because of the treacherous passage to the north, the vessel wouldn't be moving that fast at all. Careful maneuvering got her out of the harbor in just under twenty-five minutes and began its transit north immediately thereafter. The waters were black, icy, and unforgiving. The crewmen managed to stay inside while the vessel pushed through rough seas at six knots. Outside, foam and mist from the storm sprayed cold and icy water all over the vessel as it pushed hard through the waves, rolling right and left as the waves beat on its hull. Weather reports showed that the storm was worse to the north and the ship was heading right into it. The wave heights would only increase as the ship headed into wind speeds of at least sixty miles per hour and wave heights of twenty-nine to forty-one feet. They were still hours away from it and while they headed north, they prepared the ship. They could go through the storm, that wouldn't be a problem. The storm would be a category ten on the Beaufort scale, just two degrees lower than a full-blown hurricane and two higher than a gale.

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Below decks, the warmth of the ship had kicked in and flooded the corridors and bulkheads with impressive amounts of heat. It was one of the ways that the ship kept its giant LM2500 gas turbine cool. Almost all of the heat it generated was pumped throughout the vessel to provide heat and it pumped a lot of heat out of the vents of the ship. Deep in its hull, where the heat was pumping hard, the crew members sat in the lounge area, talking about the latest sports, the upcoming World Cup, and general conversation. They were joined by several of the soldiers who were aboard. They were going to be in close quarters for a few days, perhaps even a week, depending on the condition of the ice, so they needed to have some sort of relationship built up between them. The unit was more used to short flights with busy flight crews than a long cruise on a ship that was largely automated. Some of the men were fast asleep in the bunks, huddling underneath sheets and covers and underneath vents. Others were on the bridge, the engine room, and the rest were either around sick bay or in the lounge.

Over a twenty-five hundred miles away, deep underneath Governor's Island and the Upper New York Bay, the General of the ILAF sat down at his desk and looked around the fortified concrete room. He picked up the phone and looked at a clock on the wall that displayed various times around the world including the time in Greenland. "It should be underway," he thought to himself. He leaned back and removed a folded piece of paper from his desk drawer and picked up the secure satellite phone. He dialed the special number written on the piece of paper and waited for the satellite to connect. It was highly encrypted and it put him directly in touch with the commander of the unit aboard the ILNS Cork. "Major. Yes this is 'Fishmeat.' How is the situation? Good." He put down the phone and smiled. Everything was going as planned and he leaned back and lit a large, fresh, Cuban cigar. If only he knew...

"Where's the ship now Admiral?" The Director of CEMA asked as he lit a cigar in the darkened meeting room in an underground silo about twenty-five miles northeast of Layarteb City. The General of the Air Force had just been informed of the plan and he was in disagreement from the beginning. He thought the transit would be safe but he was left out of discussion for the mission simply because some of the members were beginning to distrust him. He felt this and questioned them but, this being their first meeting for months, he decided to let the issues rest for now while they carried out a masterful scheme.

"Currently the vessel is transiting the Nares Strait, along the Greenland coast, heading around, towards Ireland."

"Alright. When are we striking?"

"Well she's got twenty-five hundred nautical miles in total. The plan calls for the team to take action when the vessel reaches the Lincoln Sea. From there, they are going to travel the vessel in international waters towards the Kara Sea. She's got Layartebian colors so we don't expect a hassle. As she nears the Russian and Cottish territories, obviously, she'll begin to be shadowed but unless they plan to board here there isn't much they can do. The ship is going to stay out of any territorial waters to prevent this." The Admiral continued, answering the question posed by John Patrick.

"Very well. It's just a waiting game now."

Far, far, far away, the ILNS Cork was moving through a full fledged storm and its speed had diminished to three knots as the waves battered her hull, pouring frigidly cold water on her decks along with chunks of ice that were drifting in the sea. Soon, the strait would become a sheet of ice as the North Pole began its winter. This was, really, one of the last trips anyone could make through the strait. Icebreakers had moved ahead of the Cork and done some work through the ice but it was thickening. They wouldn't be able to return this way, they would have to go through the Atlantic Ocean to get anywhere.

On board, the crew members kept up their duties both on and off the watch. The sick bay had been cleaned up and back in order and Marty was conscious although heavily medicated. He would pull through, that was the plus side. He was still very weak and he had a long way to go but the doctor would tend to him carefully to make sure that he survived through the journey until Ireland, which was still pretty far away. At their rate it would take a long time for them to reach Ireland. The doctor hoped that as the ship neared the other side of the Greenland coast, a helicopter could be dispatched for a medical evacuation, perhaps to Iceland.

At the cargo hold, a new batch of men traded off and assumed their four hour shift. The men would take turns pulling four hour shifts and, because there were twenty of them, they would, in effect be able to rotate five shifts before they had to resume the order giving the men four hours on and sixteen hours off, enough time for rest, relaxation, and sleep. It was tiring to stand at attention for four hours, weapons armed, guarding the cargo but they were used to it. Sometimes they took flights for double, triple, or even quadruple that amount of time and there wasn't much rest or relaxation aboard those jets either. The cargo ship was spacious, it had bunks, it had heat, and it was a very safe way to travel.

The fierce, Arctic storm battered the ILNS Cork left and right but she stayed afloat and braved through the waves. The cargo inside was safe and held down tightly, all six containers barely budging as the ship rolled from port to starboard, forward to aft. The cold, black and foamy waves crashed over the bow as the vessel tore through the storm. Inside, the major of the unit was just finishing up his duty shift and was looking for the captain, partly to apologize for his remarks earlier and also to challenge him in a game of War. He had heard that his men had already lost two games of War to the men of the ship and then heard they were champions at the game. Despite it being luck, they seemingly always managed to squeeze out a win.

As the major went looking for the captain, eight of the twenty men under his command all looked at their watches. Based on the calculations and speed, they would be in the Lincoln Sea within the next twenty-four hours. Once they got out of the storm, they could heavily increase their speed for a few hours before they began to hit denser ice packs. Once they got that far, they would have to slow down severely but that was when thing would change quickly for the crew and the ILNS Cork. The eight men were all an Illuminati Ghost Warrior team. They were the fifteenth of now twenty-four teams. Four had been captured or killed over the years since they first began their operations after the RLA were dissected and destroyed.

As the vessel tossed and turned, the eight men made their way to a quiet area of the vessel, far from the containers and far from the crew. The team commander was a unit commander within the twenty man unit that consisted of two eight man teams and a single four men support team. The two eight man teams were the main teams and they were tasked mainly with whatever objective the unit had but the four man team was a flank team. They could maneuver quickly and they could provide a lot of extra support for both teams if they were engaged. It just so happened that the Ghost Warriors were all on the same team. They had been recruited from within and they had done an excellent job keeping them quiet and their presence unknown. They were placed on board the ILNS Cork for a reason and they were placed there on purpose. The Illuminati wanted them to take the boat and they could. They could easily eliminate the twelve men in their unit and the thirty-eight, unarmed men on board the cargo ship. Once they seized the ship, they would receive further orders.

"Alright gentlemen. We're down to the final hours now." The commander said as they shut the doors to the small area. "I just want to go over everything before we commit to this." He continued. "You two are going to sweep the bow and the container area. As quiet as possible and make sure you watch each others' backs. You two are going to be mid-ship support. Depending on who needs it, that's where you are going. You two are going to be structure and area striking while we go after the captain and the major. Chances are they'll be near each other. Everything goes quietly. Keep that in mind. Do not open fire unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything is going to echo here so make sure it's quiet. Hide bodies if you have time but this is going to be a fast moving operation so that's secondary. Knives and piano-wire are preferable. Don't make it messy, make it quick. No heroics here we've got a serious cargo to try to secure, which means that we need all eight of us alive. Is that understood?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Alright. Let's stay quiet until then alright." They left the area, unseen and the commander went up to meet with the captain. He would secure his spot near the major and the captain for as long as he could and, if he could help it, he would be there when the battle began to put a bullet in both of their skulls.

The ILNS Cork was nearing Cape Sheridan, which sat to the northeastern corner of Ellesmere Island, just a few miles east of Alert, a permanent Roman settlement just 522 miles from the North Pole. The island was Layartebian but the small, Roman settlement, had a long history and they hunkered down as the Arctic storm raged hard, putting everything and anything in the way of the ILNS Cork as it pushed towards the Lincoln Sea. It would soon be there and the storm was beginning to dissipate as it moved closer to the cape. They were in the Robeson Channel, which was just 50 miles long and between 11 and 18 miles wide. Except for August, it was largely impassible due to the Arctic ice pack. The small channel was Layartebian territory and it was a frequent channel for Layartebian submarines to move through as they went into and out of the Arctic Ocean, which was why it was lined with SOSUS sensors and various other detection systems, which could make sure that nobody trespassed where they shouldn't.

Most of the crew members aboard the ship were sleeping, including the Ghost Warriors. They were done plotting, everything that needed to be done was done and now it was just a matter of time before they would storm the ship, guns blazing, and take control of the ILNS Cork, her cargo, and have the entire world in their palms.

The Ghost Warriors prepared to strike as the ILNS Cork moved into the Lincoln Sea and picked up its speed to 9 knots. It could, the water was much calmer and the ice chunks were much less dense. The ice pack was getting thicker by the day and the ILNS Cork was making a hurry through the Lincoln Sea, pushing up the speed as she traveled through much calmer waters, the storm having passed to the east of them, dissipating over Greenland. It was clear skies ahead, even if they were a grayish color.

Below decks, the men went about their business as the Ghost Warriors got into position. Their watches ticked away as the time grew near. The team commander had positioned himself and his backup within visual reach of the captain as they played a game of war. As they did, the commander's radio came alive. All of guards were on the same frequency so code words were absolutely necessary. "Lieutenant. We're going topside for a smoke. Relief is posted." The radio chattered and the team commander laughed. "Those two think the Arctic is the most beautiful place in the world. I can't entirely blame them but its just too damn cold."

"You got that right." The captain replied.

"Yeah go ahead and freeze your nuts off."

"Will do sir." That meant everything was set. Nobody would think anything of the conversation except that two people were going for a smoke and they were being laughed at for it, that's it. As they did, the commander resumed playing, throwing down a queen and taking the captain's jack, a good card to have. As they did, the two men, who were going topside for a smoke, rounded a corner. They were fast approaching the backup position, which had two guards stationed there. They would sit there and provide "hidden" backup if necessary, protecting the rear flank of the two men guarding the cargo hold. "I forgot my light. You got one Jones?" One of the men asked. Behind him, his partner had a spool of piano wire ready and he had his knife in his hand, using it to clean his finger nails. It was a common thing for them to do so, again, nobody thought of anything.

"Yeah right here." He leaned over to reach into his pack and that was the last thing he did. As he did, the Ghost Warrior thrust his knife hard into the back of his neck. At the same time, the other one threw the piano wire around the neck of the other guard and tightened hard. It took less than a minute to kill both of them and with that, they would move up to the cargo hold next. Carefully, they shoved the bodies into the cabin they used as a rest point and shut the door. Then, they set off again and moved towards the cargo hold. Both of them put their weapons away and rounded the corner.

"Go ahead. Too cold to smoke. We're on duty now. Major says he wants to see both of you about some money you owe him." The Ghost Warrior said as he fiddled with his pistol, putting it back in place. Nobody noticed the suppressor attached to the end of it, which would work to deaden the sound severely.

"What money?" One of the guard's asked skeptically.

"Beats the hell out of me. I'm just the messenger."

"Our shift isn't over for another forty-five minutes. He sent you two to relieve us for that long?"

"Yep. Orders are orders."

"How come he didn't tell us?"

"His radio is broken."

"How'd that happen?"

"He lost another game of War. You know his temper. Go on and hurry up, you don't want to piss him off more."

"I think you're just trying to fuck with us." The guard said jokingly although he was growing more and more serious by the minute. He was suspecting something and with two of the twelve honest ones still alive, they were a big matter in the defense of the cargo. "You've got some bet going don't you?"

"Damn. Caught us. Yeah. Sorry. We bet the Major we could get you to leave your post."

"What's the prize?"

"Two hundred. Four-way split if you comply?"

"And get chewed out?"

"No. No. He won't."

"Says who?"

"He told us." Just then an echo of gunshots sprang through the bulkheads of the ship. Inside the superstructure, one of the Ghost Warriors dropped his knife and alerted another of the guards. He took a pistol shot right to his neck and fell there. As he did, the Ghost Warriors' radio came alive. "Superstructure! Ben's down!" The two Ghost Warriors stopped quickly as the two guards caught on right away but before they could do anything, the one Ghost Warrior quick drew his weapon and fired two shots, close together, into each of them. Both rounds penetrated their throats and dropped them right away. As they fell to the ground, the Ghost Warrior put more bullets in them, this time right in their skulls. As the cargo hold was secure, the Ghost Warrior holstered his pistol and squeezed his microphone. "Lieutenant. We've got a situation here. Rebel forces have broken into our team. Two at the cargo hold were trying to steal the cargo. Neutralized. We'll hold here."

"Roger that. Fighting in the superstructure. Targets neutralized here." In reality, they were confusing the "good" guys by acting as them. As they did, the five living Ghost Warriors were shooting and killing the crew members and the other unit personnel. The gunshots echoed all over the ship and echoed right into sick bay, where the doctor was filling out some paperwork about the accident that left Marty crippled when the gunshots echoed. Immediately, without a second thought, he barricaded the door at the sick bay.

Mutiny! He thought, wondering what the cargo really was. Quickly he dashed back into his own room, which was accessible only through the sick bay, and opened his safe. Inside was a small pistol that he smuggled on board along with three magazines of .45ACP caliber ammunition. He also had a satellite phone, which he often used to call back home. He quickly activated it and now waited. It would take a minute or two to find the satellite. A wireless dish on the hull of the ship, solar powered, began to move by inches here and there, searching for a signal. As it did, the shooting only got louder. Marty was still completely unconscious and he wasn't a threat. He hoped that whoever was part of the mutiny wouldn't take Marty's life, he was completely useless.

With bangs and crashes at the sick bay door, the doctor rushed a type-written message and hit send. Because there was no signal it gave him the option of sending once a signal was found. He clicked yes on the small laptop like device and hid it underneath his desk. He rushed back out of his state room and took up a defensive position, his pistol cocked, loaded, and ready. It was an old Colt M1911A1 with seven rounds loaded and he had another fourteen rounds in two magazines that he had in his pocket. He fully expected to be safe in the sick bay but he wasn't. He settled his sights on the door when everything went upside down on him. There was a loud explosion and he felt a giant pressure wave against his chest. Moments later he was upside down, his ears ringing, and his nose bleeding. His pistol had fallen away from him and he moved his vision, which was blurry, slightly, to see that the door to the sick bay had been blown clear off its hinges and was sitting against the wall, still smoking. Three men entered and two of them were armed. The other was bleeding from his neck.

"Doc! Doc! You alright?" One of the men asked. "Doc! Wake up!" The man above him was one of the men from the team that came aboard and he was holding his submachine gun in one hand and he and another were supporting one of their buddies between them. They dropped him on a bed.

As they did, the doctor struggled to his feet, unaware that they had picked up his pistol. "What happened?" He mumbled.

"Mutiny Doc! We've got it squashed though. Some of the crew and some of the guards with us. They tried to hijack the cargo but we got them. We're okay now. But listen Ben's hit. Shot through the neck. You gotta save him Doc!"

"Where?" His head was cloudy and he almost forgot about his pistol as he looked down, blurry eyed, at the bleeding soldier. He felt for a pulse. "Weak pulse. Over there. Bandages. Get some." He said slowly, a fuzz still about his clarity. He reached down and felt around for the wound and found it. "This is a mortal wound. I'm sorry. We can't do anything. He's already lost, by the looks of it, a quarter of his blood. We don't have any more IVs left for him. We used the last one's on Marty."

"C'mon Doc. He's still breathing..." At that moment, Ben stopped breathing and his eyes widened as he stared towards the ceiling. "DOC! DOC! HURRY!"

"I can't. He's dead."

"Then so are you!" One of the Ghost Warriors raised the Doc's pistol and shot him clean through the side of his head. He was dead before he hit the ground. For added measure, they put three rounds into Marty as well, two into his head. They cleared out and moved towards the main area. The ship had been secured and the Ghost Warriors had killed and accounted for all crew members and soldiers. They lost one of their own too.

"Alright. Let's set course for point alpha." The commander said as he looked over the blood bath in the bridge. There were only seven living people left on the ship, the bare minimum it would take to keep the ship running. Two of the men were posted in the engine room, two others near the cargo, and the remaining three were in the bridge. However, due to the bloodshed, the commander had tasked the two at the cargo hold with cleaning up the bodies and putting them in one of the four freezers on board the vessel. One of them was empty, giving them plenty of room for the bodies.

They were still in Layartebian territorial waters, which included a vast portion of the Lincoln Sea and the ILNS Cork had never left Layartebian territorial waters either. Those extended out to 24 nautical miles and even at their full extent the ice was too thick. They would continue along the Lincoln Sea and push inward, towards the North Pole, going as far as they could go before their icebreaking abilities would be ineffective. They would use a combination of warm water jets to soften the ice and the reinforced bow to cut through the ice. They expected to, at the very least, get to the edge of Layartebian territorial waters, where point alpha was, just a mile and a half still inside of the waters. There, they would sit, and wait.

Unbeknownst to the Ghost Warriors though, the transmission the doctor sent had gone through. He had been a doctor aboard a submarine in his earlier days in the navy and he remembered one number more than any other number. It was a direct line to the Crisis Center within the Ministry of Defense. It was reserved only for emergency communications, distress calls, and other assorted emergencies. The doctor had used it twice in his life, to report the deaths of two sailors, both by accident. He had dialed it a third and final time in his eighteen years of service and this time he left a very short, simple, and effective message.

ILNS Cork,

North of Greenland on easterly course to Ireland.

H I J A C K E D

Unknown casualties. Unknown force size. Vessel compromised.

In just eighteen minutes of its arrival, the message had been decoded, verified, re-verified, and rushed to the Minister of Defense. He was rushing it now to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Eventually, the Emperor would have to be informed. Few people knew what the cargo aboard was but once those people realized she had been hijacked, they would act immediately.

"Alright what are we dealing with here?" The Admiral of the Navy asked as he stepped into the briefing room in the large Ministry of Defense. "We've got a hijacked ship I see?"

"Yes sir. The ILNS Cork, a merchant marine vessel. A received a distress call, you've seen it correct?"

"I have. What are the rest of the details?"

"It came from the ship's doctor over a secure channel that we use to often report on-ship deaths and for ballistic missile submarines, in case of mutiny. Apparently, on this case, there was a mutiny. The vessel is carrying a highly important cargo sir."

"I am aware of her cargo, which is why I want options. I have a meeting with the Emperor in three hours and we need options. The Emperor is aware what's at stake and we need to solve this immediately and without incident. The cost of that cargo becoming unsecured could potentially cause global catastrophe." The meeting continued another forty minutes until it was adjorned and soon enough the Admiral of the Navy was sitting with the ministers of defense, intelligence, and the interior and they were aill sitting in the Emperor's office. On the way over, the Admiral of the Navy placed two phone calls and both of them concerned the vessel. When they arrived it was a short discussion. The options were presented, which included sinking the ship or a commando raid. Sinking the ship was too slow and the hijackers would know the vessel was going down. However, a commando raid was entirely different. There had been no demands yet but there would be and while the Empire didn't act on the cruise liner in late May, this time, they would. The Emperor came away from the meeting with a universal agreement amongst him and those present. Twenty minutes later, Force Falcon Team One had been called up and they were to dispatch to Labrador immediately.

BG. Delaney and his men stepped out of the small, transport plane on the tarmac at Cartwright Coast Guard Air Station. They had flown in on a C-21B Learjet 80 and were to board a Coast Guard HH-92E Super Hawk and fly out, into the cold and stormy Labrador Sea. There, they were going to board a Virginia SSN, which was headed for the ILNS Cork. Because the Cork did not have any SONAR equipment, the Virginia could move through the Labrador Sea, Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, and the straits north of Greenland and into the Arctic OCean at near maximum speed. The Virginia was under orders to make it to the vessel in three days, which meant she would never have to go slower than 25 knots. Because all of these seas were Layartebian territorial waters, the threat of hostile shipping was nonexistent and the only SOSUS sensors belonged to the Imperial Layartebian Military. Once they got into the Arctic Ocean, on the other hand, they would have to be cautious but, hopefully, by then, they would be ahead of schedule. The ILNS Cork had been located on satellite and it was moving through the Arctic ice packs but very slowly, breaking up as much of the ice as possible. Based on her course, the ILN gathered that she was headed for the northern coast, off Russia, if she could even get that far. They doubted the Cork could break through that much ice to get there and there was a theory that the hijacked crew planned to get her into the ice pack and anchor her there. Her cargo could still be devastatingly cataclysmic even there.

While on the plane to Cartwright, BG. Delaney received a phone call on a secure line. He pretended that it was their CO, giving them orders but, in reality, it was John Patrick, a fellow member of Majestic. "General. I imagine you cannot talk."

"Yes sir that is correct," he responded.

"Alright. I'll make this brief. The Ghost Warriors, Team 15, have seized the ILNS Cork and are under orders to sail her to the Russian and Cottish coast and sit there."

"That is correct."

"We have just received an emergency communique from them. They do not believe they will make it and they plan to get as far into the Arctic Ocean as possible and detonate the cargo. The cargo includes six one hundred megaton thermonuclear bombs. I am unclear as to the proper designation. They do not, as of yet, possess the detonation codes and the military is working on establishing a satellite link to the bombs to disable the actual weapons remotely but they are experiencing difficulty. It is imperative that your strike team eliminates the threat in their entirety. Is that understood?"

"It is."

"Good. They could, if they detonate them at once, melt the Arctic ice for a hundred miles. That's 7,850 square miles of melted ice. Are you aware of the repercussions of this?"

"I am."

"Good. Don't let it happen!"

"Yes sir." He put down the phone and moved himself back towards the rest of the men. "Gentlemen. It seems our terrorist friends are threatening to detonate the cargo on board the Cork. It is up to us to make sure that this does not happen. I am told they are not in possession of the detonation codes but, theorhetically, if they have begun to seek out these codes, they could have them in just five days. We've got three to get there!"

The waters of the Labrador Sea weren't calm but they weren't rough either. The grayness below was like a torret of fury as the Super Hawk flew over the waves at just fifty feet. They were flying out to meet a Layartebian Virginia class attack submarine, which would head towards the ILNS Cork, which was burrowing into the Arctic ice pack, though slowly, very slowly. Because of the sensitive nature of the cargo, the ILM couldn't risk a helicopter so close to the vessel nor could they overfly it. That could spook the hijackers and unleash armageddon. However, they could watch it on satellite and that was what they did. Satellites tasked with Arctic defense were trained in on the vessel and spent careful time watching the ship as it traversed through the ice, breaking off chunks of it and sending them floating in the cold, murky, Arctic waters.

BG. Delaney and his men were ready to go. Once they got on board the Virginia they would be out of radio contact for some time. The submarine would be making flank speed towards the target and they would come up to the surface periodically to scan for radio traffic but they wouldn't do that on regular intervals or even close. They could spend as much as eight hours at flank speed or they could spend just four. It depended on situation and how far they had gone. They had to average twenty-five knots to overtake and get to the ILNS Cork but they would be averaging thirty-five if they could, giving them extra time to play with and extra time to stop the bad guys.

ooc: I might cancel this...

[OOC: No...!]

OOC: We'll see Cot but it's boring me.