The Ebony Celeste

[Sly]

The Ibanki Archipelago is a chain of many small and medium sized islands about 500 miles off the coast of Radical City. Usually, it sees little boat traffic aside from tourists. But since Radical City succumbed to lawlessness, oil tankers traveling from the oil fields in the Desert Area to Station Square have started using it as a new shipping lane. It's now too dangerous to travel close to Radical City since the local government has collapsed.

And it was for this reason that the Ebony Celeste, a supertanker, was now traveling through the archipelago's waters. The captain, a beaver, actually didn't mind the detour so much. He'd made many runs back and forth between Station Square and the Desert Area, and the old route bored him half to death now. The Ibanki Archipelago was a gorgeous place, with the lovely green tropical islands dotting the ocean for as far as he could see.

Or at least...if it wasn't midnight. This particular run had them coming through the area while it was pitch black. A real shame. He'd looked forward to seeing the islands again.

Suddenly, the radioman barked up. "Captain sir, we've just received a distress signal."

"Who is it?"

"A fishing vessel. They say they've run aground on a rocky outcropping they couldn't see in the dark. Say they've been radioing the local Coast Guard but they've been slow in getting out here."

The captain nodded, understandingly. Up until recently, it wasn't that important having a large Coast Guard force in this area. The boat traffic used to be light around here, but the Sarath invasion had changed all that. Now everyone came through here, and the local Coast Guard was struggling to keep up with demand...between forces being drawn to help secure Station Square's coastline and having to relocate the people and resources left to this area.

"All right...send a small rescue party in two of our lifeboats. It should be enough to hold all of them."

"Aye sir."

---

The two lifeboats gunned their prop engines towards the coordinates the shipping vessel had supplied. It was hard to see in the dark with just your own eyes, so they didn't see the other ship until they were almost on top of it. As the fishers said, they'd run aground on a little rocky outcropping that just barely jutted out from the sea. None of the crew from the Celeste could get a good look at the damage though. They could only see the silhouette of the ship against the night sky. Maybe the hit had knocked out their electricity?

As they got closer, they switched on their flashlights...and something felt quite wrong. They'd fully expected a very old, rusty rig, and that's what they got. But this rig looked like it had been stuck on this rock for years. The entire hull was covered with way more rust than any seaworthy vessel deserved to have, and they could spot heavy algae below the water line that obviously hadn't been cleaned away in forever.

Suddenly, one of the crew members cried out, and then slumped over. And then another, and another, and another. When the last one went down, shadowy figures started to appear around the rusted hulk and ignited their own lights.

---

Sly grinned as he surveyed the handiwork under the lights. They'd hit all of the crew members in the rafts with sleeping darts. F4 would need them alive...for now anyway. In any case, all of the F4 troops around him, about 50 in total, emerged from the shadows of the hulk. Some started swimming out to the lifeboats to retrieve them.

Within about twenty minutes all of the F4 grunts were aboard and speeding back towards the Ebony Celeste, some now wearing the uniforms of the oil tanker workers who'd come out to "save" them. All of them were armed with an assortment of assault rifles, submachine guns, and rocket launchers.

In the meantime, Sly had injected one of the tanker crew with a counter serum for the sleeping darts, in order to wake him back up. As the man came to, he looked quite startled to see the cheetah grinning down at him with his sharp teeth.

"Who are you, really?"

"That doesn't matter," Sly said with a chuckle, handing him a slip of paper. "I just need you to relay a message back to the tanker." He wanted the tanker to hear a voice from its own crew, so they didn't start getting suspicious.

The tanker worker, fearing for his life, started to say what was on the note, trying not to choke up. "Captain, we've retrieved all of the men on the fishing vessel...and not a moment too soon. Their entire ship has just gone down. We'll have to bring them aboard for the time being."

"Roger that. It's no problem."

Sly had to resist the urge to burst out laughing at that comment.

---

Once the lifeboats were alongside the Ebony Celeste, the F4 grunts brought out a series of grappling guns, and fired them at the railings overhead. Sly went up on deck with the first F4 group, followed up by the now awoken tanker crew, and then the F4 group remaining in the boats. Within a few minutes they were at the door leading to the bridge.

Sly kicked it in and threw in a flashbang. After the blast, the F4 grunts swarmed the bridge, screaming and shouting at the bridge crew as they held their assault rifles high. The bridge crew had been taken totally by surprise, so they had no chance to resist.

The captain was brought forward to Sly, looking aghast. Sly merely gave him a little smirk. "Congratulations. You're the first ship that we've decided to capture. But if you stay quiet and obey our orders, you'll live through this."

The captain spat in Sly's face. It took him by surprise for a moment, although afterwards he just chuckled and wiped it from his face. "Thank you. You've just volunteered to be the first hostage to die, if it ends up coming to that."

In any case, Sly stepped past him and went to the radio. "Attention Coast Guard....do you copy?"

There was a perky female voice on the other end. "Yes sir...is there any problem?"

"Why yes. We are pirates and we have just taken over the Ebony Celeste. For the safe release of the crew and the ship, we demand one hundred and fifty million rings in bearer bonds be delivered to us...by the owner of the vessel or any other party. Our coordinates are at the following location. You may drop the money in by parachute. Any attempt to board the Ebony Celeste, or attack us as we leave after receiving the money will result in the deaths of hostages or possibly the detonation of the ship's cargo.

"But I assure you that if all of our instructions are followed, the hostages and the ship will be returned peacefully. We do not want to kill the crew of this ship if we do not have to. We are only interested in the money."

And with that, he cut the transmission. Sly was excited about F4's new pirating division, but he was also very nervous...now that he'd made the opening moves of this operation. All that was left to do for the moment was sit and think...maybe about what could go wrong. Still, this looked like just the prime money-making opportunity F4 needed after so much bad luck before.

Meanwhile, the other F4 members were already moving to plant the bombs on the oil tanks, in addition to rounding up the rest of the crew.

[Qesun Vendak]

The warm air was welcome, and the night breeze felt wonderful as it passed through his hair. It was only two more things QJ could add to the list of things to smile about right now. After months living in his parent's house again after losing his job in Radical due to the rampant lawlessness caused by Sarath's attacks, he'd finally found a job again. Furthermore, not only did they employ him, they passed him a ticket for a nice little passenger ship and sent him on his way towards the Desert Regions to join a dig over there. It's not often one gets a vacation before doing one's work! Not like they had much choice. There was no airstrip that major airlines could use now that Radical's airport was unavailable. The only way out there now was by boat.

Granted, it wasn't entirely true that it was a 'vacation.' They gave him work to do while he was on the way there. It was sitting in his room waiting for him when he came back. Translation and deciphering work based off of pictures taken from the site he was headed to. Still, when he wasn't working, he could find something to enjoy. It wasn't a large ship, but it still had some things to do. Like swimming in the pool or enjoying the view of the islands. Or in this case, due to the time of the night, just taking in the excellent weather that graced the area and a view of the stars unobtainable in the city.

[Sly]

"Sly...we have another ship on radar," said the F4 member who'd taken over the radar station.

"Already?" Sly sounded mildly surprised. "Well...we only did just capture the ship. They probably don't know about what's going on yet. Unless they get uncomfortably close, just leave them alone. But I suppose we can put a man or two out there with the RPG-7s just in case."

The radar man nodded and started talking into his radio.

[Qesun Vendak]

In the bridge of the Azure Wake

"Captain George," a female ermine at one of the consoles states, grabbing the attention of the captain. The older Lion looks up from his own screen at the ermine's prompt, and with that she continues. "There's a tanker sitting not far off. I've been kinda watching it while we've been passing through. They've not moved in a while."

The Captain nods so the crewman can know she was acknowledge he heard her before drifting into thought for a moment. It didn't take him long to come up with the next answer. "Try a few frequencies, see if you can hail them. See if they need any assistance. Perhaps they're having engine troubles or something. I'll adjust our route that way in case they've lost their radio or something"

The crewman nods and turns back to her station, flipping through a few common commercial frequencies. "This is the Azure Wake to nearby Tanker. Are you in need of assistance?..."

-----

Qesun was too lost in the stars for a while to notice anything. Admittedly, he didn't know there wasn't anything to really clue him off that anything was really there. His first clue that anything was up when he noticed, even when looking up at the stars, that the ship was turning. He looked over from the seat he was on to the ships heading, trying to spot what invoked the change of heading. When he spotted the few visible lights of the supertanker, he sat up. 'Huh. I wonder what's up.'

[Sly]

Sly received the Azure Wake's message on the radio. For a moment, he pondered what he should do. The way he saw it, he had four options for how to respond. Say nothing. Lie. Tell the truth. Or attack.

In the end, he decided lying. However noble it was to people, this world was full of stupid wannabe heroes and do-gooders. Saying nothing would encourage them to probe further, and a threat might embolden the crew on the other ship to try something very dumb...which would result in needless deaths and injuries for both sides. That was something he wanted to avoid.

So, picking up the microphone, Sly spoke in a slightly upbeat, calm voice. "This is the Ebony Celeste. We're having some engine trouble. But don't worry. Our machine shop on board is handling everything very nicely." Then he paused for a moment to consider how long the other ship would probably need to leave the area. "I suspect we'll be down for about an hour...maybe two. But it's nothing we can't handle."

He thought that sounded noncommittal enough for the other ship to leave...

Then he switched off the microphone and spoke to the other F4 members in the room. "Tell the men out on deck to make it look like they're just inspecting something. Keep the rocket launchers and AKs out of sight unless the crew of the other ship looks like they may try to board."

After arriving at their posts, the four F4 members (in the uniforms of this ship's crew) , hid their weapons in two cabinets that stored emergency fire-fighting equipment. They started walking around and looking at other equipment and whatnot.

[Qesun Vendak]

"Affirmative, Celeste. We'll be on our way then. Azure Wake out." After switching off the mic, the crewman turns back towards the Captain. "Seems like they're fine, sir. They have their machine shop working out minor engine troubles."

"Thank you, Regina. Right then," Captain George responds, quickly moving on. "I'm going to get us back on our original heading. No reason to loose time for no reason now."

-----

Just as casually as the ship had changed its course originally towards the tanker, it shifted back onto its original course. Qesun just stared at the other craft as they left it be. On one hand, things looked well enough. However, his curiosity was biting at his ankles. He just wanted to know what happened, simple as that. On top of that, though, something left him feeling uneasy about it. He couldn't tell what at this distance, but those crewmen on the deck had just shoved a few things that they were holding into various chests on their ship. For all he knew, that was actually completely normal and fine, but he never could drop gut feelings that easily, even when they were wrong. Perhaps later on he would find out what, if anything, was up. For now, though, he turned about and went inside, heading for his room to find something else to think about then his gut and his curiosity.

[Sly]

Sly relaxed a bit when he saw the other ship was leaving. Looks like he'd just spared them all from a needless confrontation.

[I suppose you could have the Coast Guard issue a bulletin over the radio to all ships in the area...which would alert them to what's really happening on the supertanker.]

[Tech Rathgen]

Tech, on a tourist boat not too far away, was reading a book in her not so revealing bikini. Then the director called for her and she marked the page.

Tech smiled brightly. "Okay, I'm ready to act."

She walked into the closed area of the set. She was right at the very end of the ship to do a scene in the movie.

The director told her and the other actor how they wanted the scene to play out.

Tech and the male actor got into their places. The directed cued the action.

Tech looked down at the water and cried. "I'm a beast, a hideous beast. How could anyone love someone so damned ugly."

The other actor entered the scene. He asked. "What's wrong?"

Tech looked at the male's eyes and then returned to watching the water. "Why...in the hell...do you care?"

He asked a little more sternly. "Are you planning to jump?"

Tech said something that wasn't in the script and sighed. "That's the dumbest idea since I had the charges drop."

The director cut and then talked with Tech about how they would fit in a flash back.

Tech smiled. "You'll figure it out."

[Sly]

(I think me and Tech will just go back and forth until Qesun jumps in again. We'll try not to get too far ahead.)

"Another boat?" Sly's face twisted in annoyance, before he gave a little sigh. Well, anyway, he planned to approach this one the same way as the other boat. Stay silent unless hailed, and when that happened give them a reason to just move on without coming closer.

They still hadn't finished securing the entire ship yet, and he didn't want trouble until they were ready. He never thought so many boats would be in the area at this time of night though...

[Tech Rathgen]

Tech was reading a book again while waiting for the director to set up the scene.

When it had been officially set up, they asked her to continue the movie without anymore flashbacks.

The director told Tech what he thought she meant about dropping charges and told her to do it exactly like that.

The director said action.

Tech grabbed some cardboard lightning bolts and began to throw them at a cardboard bank.

Tech laughed insanely. "I'm not that innocent."

The director noticed the boat was speeding up and cut. He received a call about another movie in progress on the boat they were on.

The director screamed. "Well, can't you tell them to wait? I'm not done making my movie. Oh yeah, well you tell those dirtbags that we don't need another SPEED movie, especially one that's just going be a boat racing to a glacier for two hours."

"Calm down sir."

"No you calm down! I didn't waste money on some boat to make a movie just so another movie can crash this boat! So you can tell those suckers to go to hell!"

The director hung up. "Okay Tech, we'll just hurriedly get rid of this stuff and then we'll get back to the movie I wanted to make in the first place, a movie without flashbacks. Okay, guys, get the scene set up."