VII Promotion
In peril those who can, will lead.
"FRIGATING FOOL, YOU CALL YOURSELF A PIRATE?!!" Rose shouted across the deck. The hatch above them had just been slammed shot, and now they were locked inside the hold. "Head count, who is here and who is hurt, what tools have we got?" Rose her brain was running overtime, how to get out of this mess. "Michael". "Aleksey". "Jack". "Eloise". "Lester". One by one they called out their names.
"Wasn't the Chief with us as well?" Rose looked around, but the lights had gone off, and the only thing they had was the sun peeking through the cracks around the hatch.
-"He's here, Michael called out." Jan de Jongh was laying on his side on deck, uncontinuous, his shirt darkening, she could see that even within the sparse light. "Bo's'n see what you can do for him, please. Michael just nodded in response and started cutting away the shirt of the chief officer.
"It's all your fault! You should've stayed at the hatch." Lester was shouting at Jack."We never have people watching a hatch when the ship has been cleared and we go searching, and YOU said it was clear!" Jack argued back. "Both of you. Shut up. We can discuss out later who was at fault. Let's focus on getting out of here." Rose intervened
Captain Jacobson, had steered the Narwal away from the small cargo ship they had attacked when things suddenly got heated. He had only Alejandro left with him on the Narwhal. Even Bobby had gone onboard the ship as they had sailed with a smaller crew this time. "What we gonna do Cap?" Alejandro asked him. "Only two options, I'm afraid. Run or wait it out at a safe distance." Peter answered. "So only one then. We wait. Unless we attack again?" There were a few seconds of silence before Peter answered. "Not in daylight Alejandro, not in daylight."
Bobby was hiding in the cabinet on the small bridge. The crew they had previously pacified and locked up, had somehow broken out, and tried to take control back of the ship. Luckily, Bobby had just finished cutting the cables of all the communication equipment. So they couldn't call out for help just yet. Now Bobby was stuck, quite literally. He was a bit fuller in the belly than he once was, and this cabinet was tiny. He was wondering how the bucket, broom and vacuum cleaner fit on their own, and now he's in there with them. Unfortunately, though, his personal revolver was poking in his side when he was crawling around the bridge earlier to cut cables, and he had taken it off. Stupid mistake. And now it lay on the other side of the bridge from him in the windowsill. Probably already found by the crew. And he just has the wire cutters in his hand.
Rose considered it a bit of luck that all of them had their personal weapon, some knifes and Aleksey even had his Keltec KSG25 with him. A rifle Rose tested one time for fun. It was too big and heavy for her, and the resulting bruise on her shoulder had stayed there for weeks. But Aleksey wielded it like a toy.
"Chief's still uncontinuous, but I stopped his leak." Michael interrupted Rose her thoughts. "Who is still out there?" Lester asked. "Bobby, Alejandro and the cap." Rose answered. They had searched the space they found themselves in, up and down, mostly by touch. There was a door leading into the cargo hold. But the hold was pitch black. And the tween-deck right behind the door was missing! So even if they wanted, they couldn't go into the hold. It was a fall of unknown height onto an unknown surface into the darkness. They had found a broken bucket, a rope and twelve twist locks. None of them very useful. But the good news was, the engine and the generators were still off. So whatever Bobby had done or was doing, it had stopped the crew from going sailing.
"Lester, can you check with the rope if we can reach the bottom of the hold?" Rose asked. Lester crawled towards the door, there he tied a twist lock to the rope and used it as a Sounding line. A very sattisfying clonk was heard when the twistlock hit the bottom well before the rope ran out. "Sounds like steel." Lester said. He pulled the rope back up one measuring it on his arm. "Three meters. I can jump that." "No that's to dangerous. I don't want more people hurt Can't you use the rope?"
There wasn't anything to tie the rope to, so Aleksey and Jack held the rope and lowered Lester into the dark. "it looks like this is the bottom of the hold." Lester's voice came from down in the dark.
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