Thorne: Far Horizons –3
By Atonia
Part 1
The man sat dosing in his seat in front of the wheel, and except for a fog bank that had formed off in the distance there had been nothing to catch his attention all night, and so he caught a nap. Below deck two men slept in separate quarters and one down in the crew’s berth. Two more had taken up the sofas in the lounge area. The other berth in the crew’s area had been outfitted with a hospital gurney, its wheels removed for the time being. In it drifted Terry Thorne, he was never really asleep nor awake.
The loud explosion knocked the man from his seat and he rolled and covered his head as the roof over his head fell down upon him in pieces, the second explosion took out the navigation system and the chair he’d been sitting in, he was bleeding from several wounds, none serious, and he pulled himself along underneath the debris to the steps.
Scrambling up from the main deck came two men with guns drawn but what they saw gave them reason to pause and wonder, for the Surprise lay at their side gun portals open.
“What the fuck?” someone yelled from the deck. The man on the steps slid down to the deck, a little dazed and unbelieving at what he was seeing.
The sleeping crew member stumbled up the steps running into the two men who occupied the bedrooms below decks.
The brass colonnade was still smoking at his side when Captain Jack Aubrey picked up the speaker horn and called out to the men on the deck of the yacht to surrender.
“Is this some kind of fucking joke?”
“Where the bloody hell did it come from?”
Emerging from the stairs the young crewman put his hands up and stepped away from the two men behind him.
“Watch those two that just came up, Jack.” Dino said in his ear.
“Jack called out the order and it was passed down the line, hooks where thrown at the yacht catching it and securing her to the Surprise.
“They mean to board us.” One of the two men at the top of the steps said. “It’s something out of a nightmare.”
Planks were run out. “Lay down your weapons,” Jack bellowed.
Jack’s Marines crossed over to the boat and took care of the men on the deck but two of them had slipped down the stairs as Dino and Jack came across. Dino had no weapon and one of the Surprises gave him a pistol, he held the unfamiliar weapon in his hand following Jack down the stairs, Jack with his sword drawn moved through the lounge to the steps that led down to the lower levels.
They were arguing, “I didn’t sign on for murder.”
“Just do it or I’ll finish you right here.” He pointed a gun at the man’s head.
The male nurse, for he was a nurse, nervously prepared the syringe.
“Hurry they’re coming…”
“No…I can’t it doesn’t matter now anyway we’re all dead.”
A shot rang out down the last set of steps and Jack came at a run with Dino on his heels. “Drop it.” Jack said to the man with the syringe in his hands. The man looked at him strangely smiled and raised his gun, Jack nearly sliced his arm off but it was the pistol that killed him.
“God almighty,” Dino dropped the pistol ; he was amazed at who fell forward. He dragged him out into the passageway and picked up the gun.
Jack was trying to get the handcuffs off Terry’s wrists beating the chains with the hilt of his sword. Dino told him to stand back and he shot the handcuff releasing one end from the bed and did the same to the other side. Help arrived with Bonden and several behind him were dragging the two men from the passageway. He attacked the cuffs around Terry’s ankles with his knife until they released.
Jack carefully picked Terry up and carried him to the top deck where Dr. Maturin and Padeen waited. Padeen took him across the perilous planks to the Surprise and down into sick bay. The prisoners were already on board when Jack and Dino walked back across the planks to the Surprise.
“You have not retrieved the bodies?” Jack looked at Dino.
“For what purpose, Jack, that man with the syringe was a traitor.”
“Very well, we’ll sink her.” He gave the order and she was broadsided.
Dino was breathing fast as he punched his cell phone, “Wyatt…we got him…it was Lester had him on the boat. He suffered a de facto death penalty. He may not have been working alone, there’s somebody else walking around London.”
Jack went down to sick bay, “Stephen, have you ever seen anything like it?”
“He’s been heavily drugged, Jack I had Padeen lash him to the bed because I don’t know what will happen when he wakes up. He watched Jack walk over and rub his hand over Terry’s head and over his sweating brow. “I’ll stay with him but he is going to need his own medical.”
“I understand, we will proceed with the utmost speed.” He turned and went back up on deck passing Dino.
“Still out?”
“Yes, I fear it’s not good, Dino he needs medical attention, more than I can provide here.”
Dino went down to see Terry and found Dr. Maturin moping his brow with a wet cloth. “What do you think Dr. Maturin?”
“I think he’s been dealt a bad turn, some kind of drug, see here on his forearm puncture wounds.”
“Oh fuck,” Dino rubbed his face he’d seen that kind of tracking before. “There were syringes in a trashcan I wish I’d thought to pick it up.”
“Do you know how many even a guess?” Stephen asked.
“Oh jeesh, six, eight I don’t know…a lot.” He remembered he was supposed to call Max or Toni and pulled out his phone and walked away to the other side of the room.
He called Max because he wasn’t sure what he was going to say.
Max was sleeping on the pullout sofa in Terry’s office and he stumbled to the desk where he’d left his phone. “Yes?”
“Max, Dino here we got him, he’s alive but Max he ain’t well. They’ve been shooting him up with some kind of drug and he’s well out of it right now.”
“Where are you?”
“Shit I don’t know out on the ocean somewhere, Jack’s bringing us in. I’ll call you when we get close, you might want an ambulance standing by.”
“That bad…thanks Dino, yeah call me when you get close…Jack okay?”
“Oh yeah you mean you can’t hear him? He’s on deck giving orders like crazy and we got prisoners too. Not the really bad guy, he went down with his boat.”
“Sounds like you’ve had quite a night.” Max squinted trying to read the clock on Terry’s desk.
“It has been something to remember, I’ll talk later, Max.”
Max found his glasses, it was 5:30, he’d promised but he hated to wake her this early…just more time to worry. Drugged, he made a face that’s why he wasn’t there, why he couldn’t feel his presence. Max went into the kitchen and put the kettle on for an early pot of tea, found Toni’s crackers and put some on a plate for her. Nothing fancy he plopped a tea bag in a mug…it was too early for niceties. For himself he spooned coffee in a press and waited for the water to boil. Once he had drinks in hand he took them in her bedroom and placed them on the bedside tables went back for her crackers and plopped down in the bed beside her, they weren’t morning people, never had been.
“Toni, Toni wake up love.” He gently touched her shoulder.
Toni rolled over on her back and blinked, “Max…Max, what are you doing in bed with me?”
“Waking you up and drinking coffee…they found Terry, he’s alive if not well. He’s been drugged, Toni. Jack is bringing them in.”
Toni pulled herself into a sitting position, “He’s okay isn’t he?”
“As far as I know yes, Dino said he was out of it so I guess until he wakes up…but Toni it’s not like it was the last time…I’d know if it were.”
“Well, what happened where did they find him?”
“In a boat on the ocean now you know as much as I do, drink your tea.”
Toni’s mind was beginning to turn now, he was alive and he was with Jack. She picked up her tea cup, “But how did…”
“Umphrf”
“You are so helpful.”
“I know.”
“When you humanize will you tell me everything that was said?”
“Yes.”
