'What? Oh. We'll take this beneficence and forget about the other. Steer for the target.' Nadif listened to the engines for a few seconds, then shook his head with mild disgust. 'They're too noisy,' he tsked. 'Drop speed to one third. After all, it's not like they're not heading our way anyway.'
D-1, MV
'Mrs. Liu?' Kosciusko queried over the intercom.
'Here, Skippah,' came a lilting voice back.
'You understand the mission?'
'Sho' t'ing, Skippah. You say which side. I swing containah ovah. I wait. You tly ram mothafuckahs. You say drop. I drop.'
'By George, I think she's got it,' said Boxer. 'I also think she's been listening too closely to the deck crew's invective.'
'She's loaded every container and piece of heavy equipment we have aboard,' the captain answered. 'Flawlessly. She's always had it.' He heaved a sigh, 'And, yes, she picked up the slang pretty quickly. I think she thinks ‘mothafuckahs' is a term of endearment . . . '
Kosciusko picked up a small radio from a charging station not far from the ship's wheel, and then turned toward the hatchway.
'Where are you going?' Stauer asked.
'Tight timing,' the captain explained. 'Hard to control from here. I'll let the helm know when.'
The bow of the target loomed above the small pirate craft. The target was maybe seventy-five meters off, making way slowly.
'Speed to one quarter,' Nadif ordered, very quietly. 'Gently now, gently. They don't know we're here and I don't want them to until we're swarming over them. Grapple, ladder and tie off men forward . . . quiet, damn you!'
Even this close, the pirate was hard to see until Kosciusko pulled on his NVGs. If there'd been much distance between the two vessels, depth perception would have been an issue. As was, with the Merciful well elevated over the pirate, gauging distance was relatively easy.
The pirate was veering to come alongside his ship to starboard. Possibly, thought Kosciusko, to pin us and prevent escape. Possibly, too, as an instinctive move to avoid being silhouetted by any light on the shore. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
He glanced down and said, softly, 'But you're going to die harder.'
In his goggles the captain saw two men, one to either extreme side of the pirate craft, spinning what he suspected were grappling hooks.
'Mrs. Liu?' he whispered.
'Stan'ing by, Skippah.'
'Starboard side. Amidships.'
'Logah.'
The gantry began to whine as the Chinese woman moved it slightly forward while pivoting the crane to the right. The wheel bearing the cable, too, squeaked as the steel passed over it.
Nadif gave the order, 'All stop . . . astern, half power.' At the slow speed of the merchie he thought to match its speed to allow his men to grapple and board. Once he was grappled, of course, the target would provide a perfect match for course and speed, at least it would once the One Born Every Minute was swung around and tied off with a heavier line.
'What's that sound?' Nadif asked of no one in particular. It seemed to come more or less from above and drew his eyes upward. There, he thought he could see, or almost see, a head looking down at him.
'No clue, boss,' the helmsman answered. 'Maybe routine . . . oh, shit!'
At his helmsman's cry, Nadif looked down again. The target was turning. Worse, the wash was suddenly spurting rather higher than it had been, even as the port side seemed to boil.
Without another word, effectively on autopilot, Nadif's hand reached over and pushed the throttle fully forward. The engines, not that well maintained at the best of times, began to give whatever they had to give.
First, however, they had to overcome the rearward inertia. For a long moment, therefore, the yacht hardly moved at all.
'Hard right rudder! Full starboard bow thruster!' Kosciusko ordered into his hand-held radio. The captain kept his enhanced vision on his intended victim. He could see, or perhaps only sense, that the pirate below was straining to avoid being rammed.
'But you're not going to make it, you bastards.'
By inches and by feet, the Merciful's bow closed on the pirate.
Nadif knew, within a few moments, that he was not going to be able to avoid the merchant ship's bow completely, not with this boat and these engines.
'So let's limit the damage.'
Limiting the damage, in this case, consisted of keeping the merchie from harming the engines or propellers, or crushing in the gunwales or hull. Shoving the helmsman off to one side, Nadif took the wheel himself and twisted it hard to port, to spread out the coming blow. It was almost enough. The impact, when it came, was still on the starboard quarter. He and all his men were thrown from their feet as the yacht was struck and then partially lifted up on the bulbous bow. Several screams from the port side told that a number of men had been pitched overboard. They were cut off as the merchie forced the yacht over them, driving them under, probably with serious injuries.
Nadif struggled to his feet and returned to the wheel, though he kept his eyes locked on the hull scraping by his own vessel. He noticed that the merchant vessel's water line was well above the surface, indicating a very light load. Well, maybe we won't have lost much of a haul. As a good seaman, even though one who had never been in quite these circumstances before, he intuitively analyzed the forces in play.
I'm pinned against that hull by its swing. But its swing is greatest and strongest here. If I can force my way back, I've got a fair chance of breaking free and away, especially since their rudder's swinging their stern a lot more than their bow. I don't know what I'll do about the men overboard.
He snarled up at the ship looming over his own. Damned idiots! Do they think they own the sea? Don't they realize there are other boats on the water?
Cursing that he'd missed-Well, not quite missed, and it was only a best hope, anyway-Kosciusko raced to a point just forward of the gantry's base, then stuck his goggled face over the gunwale once again. To his right, a container swung slightly from port to starboard and back again. It reached, on the middle of its swings, just overboard. Doors on both ends swung freely.
'Stand by, Mrs. Liu,' he repeated into his radio.
'Still stan'ing by, Skippah.'
'Then . . . Mrs . . . Liu . . . on my command . . . DROP, DROP, DROP!'
The yacht was taking on water, yes, but nothing the pumps shouldn't be able to handle, at least for while. Nadif hadn't been able to break away from the merchie. He had his rudder hard to port but as the One Born Every Minute attempted even a minute turn, the swing of the merchant ship cancelled it, pinning it to the line of the merchie's hull as that hull continued to scrape by. That said, as he neared the stern Nadif could feel the force exerted against his boat lessening.
Nadif was pretty sure his own hull was at least slightly sprung. Not too bad for the pumps, though, or that
