And here's chapter 15. It;s a bit different than the other chapters I've written, so I'd love to get some feedback on what everyone thinks.
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Michelle was woken abruptly by the feeling of being rolled out of bed, only to wake up and realize that she was being pulled to the side by some invisible force. In her somewhat groggy and confused state she at first started to panic, not realizing what was going on, unsure why she would be pulled to one side of the yacht and concluding the yacht must be leaning on it’s side and sinking.
Just a few second’s after waking up though her question was answered when the voice of the first mate, who was in the bridge in command during the overnight crossing of the Bay of Bengal, come over the intercom.
“Sir, a ship near northern Sumatra has reported that it is drifting and under attack by pirates. We are turning north to assist.”
As he said this the yacht straightened out and the force of the turn stopped pulling on Michelle, but a cold shiver went up her spine on hearing the news. She had been worried about pirates since they left, but now it was a very real reality.
Dave immediately rolled out of bed and quickly dressed, issuing orders as he did so. “Wake everyone immediately. Have the captain and the purser meet me in the armory, and have the engineers get to the main engine room and lock themselves in until further instructions. Have the rest of the crew get everyone else to the bridge as soon as possible.”
With that he turned to Michelle, who was still rooted to the bed in fear. “Get to Keya and help her get the twins up to the bridge.”
Michelle listened and nodded, but made no effort to move, unsure what was going on. Only Dave’s yell to get moving as he walked out the door snapped her out of her daze, and she quickly dressed and left for Keya’s room.
She found Keya already up and getting the twins ready. It took just a few minutes to get some baby things into a bag before helping Keya and the twins get to the bridge. Almost everyone was there already, only Alice, Dave and the few crew members Dave had mentioned in his orders missing.
Michelle sat down in the lounge with Keya and the twins, who were awake and crying from the disturbance of their sleep. She and Keya began feeding them from bottles to help calm them when Alice arrived carrying a pair of large cases. Michelle could see a handgun holstered at her hip and she was wearing a black vest which Michelle guessed was bullet proof.
Alice put the cases on the table in front of Michelle and Keya, and Michelle's eyes grew wide as Alice handed out more vests and handguns to Eshe, Keya and several members of the crew, along with what Keya identified as a submachine gun to the first mate. It was clear to Michelle that they knew what they were doing as everyone who Alice had given a gun to loaded them and checked the safetys before holstering them and donning the body armor.
"We all took training before Dave let us carry our guns," Keya explained to Michelle, who was clearly a little overwhelmed by what was going on.
"Why are we here and not hiding somewhere else?" Michelle asked her.
"It was designed this way," Keya explained. "The windscreen and windows are bullet proof, as are the walls, and there is only one way in, and it can be locked from the inside. This way we can remain safe and at the controls if there is an emergency."
Looking around Michelle could tell this was no afterthought since there was more than enough room inside for everyone, and there was indeed only one way in. Michelle was about to ask where Dave was when she gasped as three figures dressed in black and carrying guns walked in.
So shocked was Michelle at their sudden appearance that it took several panic filled seconds before Michelle realized that no one was shooting, and that it was in fact Dave, the captain and the purser. They had put on body armor that covered them from the neck down and was, on closer inspection, a dark grey. They each had large handguns on one hip and what looked like motorcycle helmets on the other, along with with spare magazines and cylindrical devices that looked like grenades. Dave and the captain were both armed with what looked like machine guns, while the purser had held a large sniper rifle.
Everyone, save the second mate who was still in command of the yacht, stopped what they were doing and looked over at Dave as he began to speak.
"There is a small yacht nearby the has broken down and is adrift, and is being boarded by pirates. The Indonesian navy has sent a cruiser to assist them but they will not be here for over an hour so until then we are the only ones that can help. The passangers and crew of the yacht have locked themselves in the engine room but they are unarmed and one of them has been shot, so the pirates are armed. Once the three of us leave the bridge, all controls outside of the bridge and engine room will be disabled, and the bridge door is to remain locked until I give the all clear."
With that he stepped up to the first mate at the helm and gave him some brief instructions before he, the captain and the purser stepped out of the bridge, with Alice locking it behind them with solid looking latches that ran along the top and both sides of the door. It was a quiet, tense few minutes that followed before the first mate announced they were five miles away and they would be running dark from then on.
With that, the few lights there were on the bridge went out, and the only sources of light were the faint glow of the dimmed bridge controls and a pair of dim red lights on either side of the lounge. Outside was just inky blackness.
There was very little sound too, only the faint fizz felt throughout the ship as it traveled at speed and hushed murmurs from some of the people waiting in the lounge. Michelle was still nervous even though this seemed to be a well rehearsed operation, and started chatting with Keya to take her mind off things.
"They've done this before, haven't they?"
"No, but they have trained for it," Keya explained. "The captain was a commander in the US Navy, and was the captain of a destroyer until he retired. The purser was a sniper in the British Army's SAS until an injury forced him to retire from active duty, and he is still a world champion marksman. Plus the head engineer was in the US Air Force and the first officer was in the Canadian Army."
"Was Dave a soldier?" Michelle asked, even though she had never heard anyone mention him being in the military.
"No, he wasn't, but he has done work with military and police contracts, and went through the US Army's boot camp, as well as training with police SWAT teams and military special forces units," Keya explained. "Plus he has been interested in weapons, the military and martial arts since he was a young boy."
"I guess he's pretty well qualified then," Michelle said, still nervous but starting to feel better now that she knew Dave and his crew could handle themselves in a gunfight. “What about you, Eshe and Alice?”
“None of us have the training that Dave and some of the others have, but we’ve been taught how to handle firearms,” she replied. “We each have our own guns, and we take care of them and train with them with the help of Dave and the others.”
“Does Rachel have one?”
“No,” said Keya. “She has always been too nervous around them. But she might be interested in learning if you did it with her.”
Michelle had never before seen a gun except when she saw a cop, let alone handled one, and in the midst of the situation they were in now, she couldn’t decide whether she thought it would be a good idea to learn or not. But any consideration she might have given it went out the window as she heard the first mate’s voice call out from the helm and felt the ship slow down.
“Everyone hold on and close their eyes,” the first mate said. Michelle grabbed the table she was sitting behind and held more tightly to the young twin she was holding as she covered his eyes with one hand, and closed her eyes tightly. She heard a sudden roar and sensed a bright light through her eyelids. Opening them slightly, she saw twin streaks of light that she guessed could only be some sort of missile rocketing away from them in the rough direction of the pirates and the disabled yachts they were boarding.
Seconds after the rockets were launched, the yacht made a sharp 45 degree turn, putting the other ships off to their side as the missiles exploded, looking like fireworks and clearly illuminating the disabled yacht and the pirate boat about a mile or so away. They gradually started to circle the two boats as the first mate began hailing the pirates, trying to encourage them to leave without putting up a fight. Michelle and most of the others moved to the windows where they could see the other two boats in the distance.
“What if they start shooting at us?” Michelle asked Keya as they looked out.
“They’re too far away to hit us with the weapons they are likely to have,” Alice answered instead, standing next to Michelle and holding the hand of two of the kids. “Plus, this ship is almost invisible to the naked eye at night when the lights are off.”
“Don’t forget, the windows are bulletproof,” Keya added.
“Oh yeah”, Michelle said, feeling better about staying and watching at the window. There were some faint flashes from the other boats, which Michelle guessed was the pirates firing their weapons, but there was no indication of any rounds hitting the yacht. Several seconds after, however, there were several sharp thuds heard somewhere above them, followed a couple seconds later by a brief flash at the stern of the pirate’s boat. As they watched, a faint wisp of smoke could be seen from near where the flash had been seen.
“I guess they hit the engine,” Alice said.
“Why would they do that?” Michelle asked her.
“To keep them from using the boat to try to board us as well,” Alice explained.
“Do you have training like Dave’s?” Michelle wondered, since it hadn’t been mentioned when she was talking with Keya earlier.
“No,” Alice replied with a small laugh, “they explained the plan to me earlier when I was getting our guns.”
Michelle keep looking out the window, silent as she wondered what was happening. They kept slowly circling the two boats, which were now slowly drifting farther out to sea, keeping a steady distance of about a half mile or so between them. After about 10 minutes of this, with no more shots having been fired on either side, Michelle felt the yacht slow and finally stop, still about half a mile away from the other two boats.
She watched as a shadowy shape slipped through the waters between them, heading towards the stranded boats. “What is that?” she asked.
“Dave and the Captain are boarding the pirate ship to make sure it is disabled,” Alice explained, “then they will go to the other yacht while the purser covers them from here.”
Michelle started getting nervous hearing that. She knew Dave was the type to stop and help, but why did he have to put himself in danger? “Will he be ok?” she asked nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Keya told her. “The armor he is wearing is something he and his engineers came up with, and can take a direct hit from almost any weapon a person is capable of carrying.”
“But what if the pirates have one of those weapons?” Michelle asked, still concerned over his safety.
“The only things it can’t protect protect from are RPGs and other explosive weapons,” Alice told her. “The problem with those is that they are likely to kill the person using it in a small space like a ship, so pirates generally don’t use them.”
Despite their assurances, Michelle was still worried. She watched out the window, where nothing much seemed to happen until suddenly some bright flashes were seen in one of the windows of the yacht followed immediately by two more thuds from above them, followed again by nothing. The wait seemed endless to Michelle but in reality it was only about 15 minutes later when the first mate finally gave everyone the news they had been waiting for.
“They secured both vessels and neutralized all the pirates. Dave was hit, but he is uninjured.”
It was over.
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Michelle was woken abruptly by the feeling of being rolled out of bed, only to wake up and realize that she was being pulled to the side by some invisible force. In her somewhat groggy and confused state she at first started to panic, not realizing what was going on, unsure why she would be pulled to one side of the yacht and concluding the yacht must be leaning on it’s side and sinking.
Just a few second’s after waking up though her question was answered when the voice of the first mate, who was in the bridge in command during the overnight crossing of the Bay of Bengal, come over the intercom.
“Sir, a ship near northern Sumatra has reported that it is drifting and under attack by pirates. We are turning north to assist.”
As he said this the yacht straightened out and the force of the turn stopped pulling on Michelle, but a cold shiver went up her spine on hearing the news. She had been worried about pirates since they left, but now it was a very real reality.
Dave immediately rolled out of bed and quickly dressed, issuing orders as he did so. “Wake everyone immediately. Have the captain and the purser meet me in the armory, and have the engineers get to the main engine room and lock themselves in until further instructions. Have the rest of the crew get everyone else to the bridge as soon as possible.”
With that he turned to Michelle, who was still rooted to the bed in fear. “Get to Keya and help her get the twins up to the bridge.”
Michelle listened and nodded, but made no effort to move, unsure what was going on. Only Dave’s yell to get moving as he walked out the door snapped her out of her daze, and she quickly dressed and left for Keya’s room.
She found Keya already up and getting the twins ready. It took just a few minutes to get some baby things into a bag before helping Keya and the twins get to the bridge. Almost everyone was there already, only Alice, Dave and the few crew members Dave had mentioned in his orders missing.
Michelle sat down in the lounge with Keya and the twins, who were awake and crying from the disturbance of their sleep. She and Keya began feeding them from bottles to help calm them when Alice arrived carrying a pair of large cases. Michelle could see a handgun holstered at her hip and she was wearing a black vest which Michelle guessed was bullet proof.
Alice put the cases on the table in front of Michelle and Keya, and Michelle's eyes grew wide as Alice handed out more vests and handguns to Eshe, Keya and several members of the crew, along with what Keya identified as a submachine gun to the first mate. It was clear to Michelle that they knew what they were doing as everyone who Alice had given a gun to loaded them and checked the safetys before holstering them and donning the body armor.
"We all took training before Dave let us carry our guns," Keya explained to Michelle, who was clearly a little overwhelmed by what was going on.
"Why are we here and not hiding somewhere else?" Michelle asked her.
"It was designed this way," Keya explained. "The windscreen and windows are bullet proof, as are the walls, and there is only one way in, and it can be locked from the inside. This way we can remain safe and at the controls if there is an emergency."
Looking around Michelle could tell this was no afterthought since there was more than enough room inside for everyone, and there was indeed only one way in. Michelle was about to ask where Dave was when she gasped as three figures dressed in black and carrying guns walked in.
So shocked was Michelle at their sudden appearance that it took several panic filled seconds before Michelle realized that no one was shooting, and that it was in fact Dave, the captain and the purser. They had put on body armor that covered them from the neck down and was, on closer inspection, a dark grey. They each had large handguns on one hip and what looked like motorcycle helmets on the other, along with with spare magazines and cylindrical devices that looked like grenades. Dave and the captain were both armed with what looked like machine guns, while the purser had held a large sniper rifle.
Everyone, save the second mate who was still in command of the yacht, stopped what they were doing and looked over at Dave as he began to speak.
"There is a small yacht nearby the has broken down and is adrift, and is being boarded by pirates. The Indonesian navy has sent a cruiser to assist them but they will not be here for over an hour so until then we are the only ones that can help. The passangers and crew of the yacht have locked themselves in the engine room but they are unarmed and one of them has been shot, so the pirates are armed. Once the three of us leave the bridge, all controls outside of the bridge and engine room will be disabled, and the bridge door is to remain locked until I give the all clear."
With that he stepped up to the first mate at the helm and gave him some brief instructions before he, the captain and the purser stepped out of the bridge, with Alice locking it behind them with solid looking latches that ran along the top and both sides of the door. It was a quiet, tense few minutes that followed before the first mate announced they were five miles away and they would be running dark from then on.
With that, the few lights there were on the bridge went out, and the only sources of light were the faint glow of the dimmed bridge controls and a pair of dim red lights on either side of the lounge. Outside was just inky blackness.
There was very little sound too, only the faint fizz felt throughout the ship as it traveled at speed and hushed murmurs from some of the people waiting in the lounge. Michelle was still nervous even though this seemed to be a well rehearsed operation, and started chatting with Keya to take her mind off things.
"They've done this before, haven't they?"
"No, but they have trained for it," Keya explained. "The captain was a commander in the US Navy, and was the captain of a destroyer until he retired. The purser was a sniper in the British Army's SAS until an injury forced him to retire from active duty, and he is still a world champion marksman. Plus the head engineer was in the US Air Force and the first officer was in the Canadian Army."
"Was Dave a soldier?" Michelle asked, even though she had never heard anyone mention him being in the military.
"No, he wasn't, but he has done work with military and police contracts, and went through the US Army's boot camp, as well as training with police SWAT teams and military special forces units," Keya explained. "Plus he has been interested in weapons, the military and martial arts since he was a young boy."
"I guess he's pretty well qualified then," Michelle said, still nervous but starting to feel better now that she knew Dave and his crew could handle themselves in a gunfight. “What about you, Eshe and Alice?”
“None of us have the training that Dave and some of the others have, but we’ve been taught how to handle firearms,” she replied. “We each have our own guns, and we take care of them and train with them with the help of Dave and the others.”
“Does Rachel have one?”
“No,” said Keya. “She has always been too nervous around them. But she might be interested in learning if you did it with her.”
Michelle had never before seen a gun except when she saw a cop, let alone handled one, and in the midst of the situation they were in now, she couldn’t decide whether she thought it would be a good idea to learn or not. But any consideration she might have given it went out the window as she heard the first mate’s voice call out from the helm and felt the ship slow down.
“Everyone hold on and close their eyes,” the first mate said. Michelle grabbed the table she was sitting behind and held more tightly to the young twin she was holding as she covered his eyes with one hand, and closed her eyes tightly. She heard a sudden roar and sensed a bright light through her eyelids. Opening them slightly, she saw twin streaks of light that she guessed could only be some sort of missile rocketing away from them in the rough direction of the pirates and the disabled yachts they were boarding.
Seconds after the rockets were launched, the yacht made a sharp 45 degree turn, putting the other ships off to their side as the missiles exploded, looking like fireworks and clearly illuminating the disabled yacht and the pirate boat about a mile or so away. They gradually started to circle the two boats as the first mate began hailing the pirates, trying to encourage them to leave without putting up a fight. Michelle and most of the others moved to the windows where they could see the other two boats in the distance.
“What if they start shooting at us?” Michelle asked Keya as they looked out.
“They’re too far away to hit us with the weapons they are likely to have,” Alice answered instead, standing next to Michelle and holding the hand of two of the kids. “Plus, this ship is almost invisible to the naked eye at night when the lights are off.”
“Don’t forget, the windows are bulletproof,” Keya added.
“Oh yeah”, Michelle said, feeling better about staying and watching at the window. There were some faint flashes from the other boats, which Michelle guessed was the pirates firing their weapons, but there was no indication of any rounds hitting the yacht. Several seconds after, however, there were several sharp thuds heard somewhere above them, followed a couple seconds later by a brief flash at the stern of the pirate’s boat. As they watched, a faint wisp of smoke could be seen from near where the flash had been seen.
“I guess they hit the engine,” Alice said.
“Why would they do that?” Michelle asked her.
“To keep them from using the boat to try to board us as well,” Alice explained.
“Do you have training like Dave’s?” Michelle wondered, since it hadn’t been mentioned when she was talking with Keya earlier.
“No,” Alice replied with a small laugh, “they explained the plan to me earlier when I was getting our guns.”
Michelle keep looking out the window, silent as she wondered what was happening. They kept slowly circling the two boats, which were now slowly drifting farther out to sea, keeping a steady distance of about a half mile or so between them. After about 10 minutes of this, with no more shots having been fired on either side, Michelle felt the yacht slow and finally stop, still about half a mile away from the other two boats.
She watched as a shadowy shape slipped through the waters between them, heading towards the stranded boats. “What is that?” she asked.
“Dave and the Captain are boarding the pirate ship to make sure it is disabled,” Alice explained, “then they will go to the other yacht while the purser covers them from here.”
Michelle started getting nervous hearing that. She knew Dave was the type to stop and help, but why did he have to put himself in danger? “Will he be ok?” she asked nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Keya told her. “The armor he is wearing is something he and his engineers came up with, and can take a direct hit from almost any weapon a person is capable of carrying.”
“But what if the pirates have one of those weapons?” Michelle asked, still concerned over his safety.
“The only things it can’t protect protect from are RPGs and other explosive weapons,” Alice told her. “The problem with those is that they are likely to kill the person using it in a small space like a ship, so pirates generally don’t use them.”
Despite their assurances, Michelle was still worried. She watched out the window, where nothing much seemed to happen until suddenly some bright flashes were seen in one of the windows of the yacht followed immediately by two more thuds from above them, followed again by nothing. The wait seemed endless to Michelle but in reality it was only about 15 minutes later when the first mate finally gave everyone the news they had been waiting for.
“They secured both vessels and neutralized all the pirates. Dave was hit, but he is uninjured.”
It was over.
. I am sure many people want to see more of the story so it would be a great pleasure if you would post more chapters. 
