Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:24:16 -0700 (PDT) From: resq merman Subject: Responders chapter eleven Disclaimer: The following story is a work of fiction. Certain characters are based loosely on people known to the author, other similarities to actual persons, places, and events are purely coincidental. This story also includes graphic homosexual acts, some by minors. If this material offends you or is illegal in your area please stop now. The name Aquatic Rescue Response has been used with permission of Aquatic Rescue Response of Maine. Thank you. Chapter Eleven: Nightmare Climbing over the railing Brad lowered himself silently to the gently rolling deck of the motor yacht Ellie Lane. Checking that his suppressed H & K MP-5 nine-millimeter submachine gun was ready to go he glanced at the rest of the team. The other seven fully blacked out men that completed Lieutenant Brad Pastor's US Navy SEAL boat crew were very difficult to see in the almost pitch dark. Brad gave the signal to move out. Leap-frogging from positions of concealment the eight man team moved cautiously to the starboard mid-ship hatch, their movements mirrored by the second eight man team on the port side of the vessel. Arriving at the hatch Brad's team went into a tac-stack. A tactical stack, or tac-stack, closely positioned the men heel to toe lined up ready to go through the door able to meet any resistance encountered inside. Brad keyed his throat mic and whispered. Blue ready. Gold ready. Came the immediate response. Both teams had come into position at the exact same time. Brad reached his hand to the lever to open the hatch. Just as his gloved hand closed around the handle his radio crackled to life. BLUE AND GOLD, THIS IS BLACK CROWN! ABORT AND EVAC! CODE WORD SCRAMBLED EGG! Black Crown was the call sign for the command and control aircraft, in this case a carrier launched V-22 Osprey and Scrambled Egg was the appropriate abort code word. Cursing to himself Brad acknowledged the abort and used hand signals to inform his team of the change of plans. Again leap-frogging from positions of cover the team made its way back to the point on the railing where they had come aboard. One of the men removed a black nylon rappelling rope from his gear and attached it to an upright on the railing. By letting one end of the rope down either side of the post they would be able to recover the rope the rope without leaving evidence they had ever been there. One by one the men descended back to their twelve foot inflatable boat which they had attached to the hull using a special magnetic device. Glancing over to their left the members of Brad's Blue team could just make out the corresponding member of the Gold team. With all Blue and Gold team members secured in the boats, the bow man of each boat released the magnetic coupler allowing the boats to drift away in the wake of the larger craft. The men of each boat started silently paddling away. As soon as they were approximately a mile from the Ellie Lane, the coxswains fired up the heavily muffled outboards, made a minor correction, and applied full throttle toward their rendezvous with a Los Angles class attack sub. By the time they got to the sub it would be over the horizon from the Ellie Lane. None of the men felt much like talking, even to speculate why they were told to abort. As they neared the pick-up zone the light chop had progressively gotten worse and was now running two to three foot swells with an occasional six foot swell. The two boats were about five hundred yards from the rendezvous coordinates when a very slow moving periscope surfaced not more then one hundred feet from them. The scope slowed more, to about four knots(about five miles per hour), just enough to maintain steerage in the worsening seas, then descended back below the surface. Almost immediately the conning tower of the sub broke the surface. Soon the sleek leviathan rose from the water exposing the fore and aft decks. Lookouts were posted and sub crewmen scrambled onto the decks in preparation to take aboard the SEALs from the inflatables. Brad's boat moved alongside the attack sub bouncing on the swells and bow wake. Lines were thrown to the sub crew and all eight men made their way onto the slippery deck of the sub, then helped pull the inflatable aboard. The boat was passed to waiting crewmen who would deflate and stow the boat and motor. The gold team now brought their boat alongside, were secured by the sub crew, and started to move from the inflatable to the sub. Six of the eight men had transferred over when to Brad's horror and that of everyone else watching an unexpected ten foot swell threw the inflatable assault boat into the air flipping it. The boat smashed against the hull of the sub landing inverted on the two SEALs and one sub crewman before slipping upside down back over the side. The crewmen manning the lines held tight as others tended to the stricken crew members. Only one SEAL was on deck and he was not moving, a corpsman rushed to his side, applied a spinal immobilization collar and started barking orders to other crewmen. The sub crewman had an obvious compound leg fracture, the bone was sticking out just below his right knee, and another corpsman provided aid to him. As the final SEAL floated out from under the capsized boat, a fast acting crewman snagged the man's webbing harness with a boat hook. With assistance the inert form of Lieutenant Dustin Marshal was pulled aboard. The Lieutenant's skull was crushed. Brad looked on in shock as he realized his step brother, best friend, and swim buddy at BUD/S was dead. HHHUUFFFF!!! Brad jolted awake dripping with a cold sweat. Luke stirred ever so slightly in the bed next to him. Silently Brad slipped out of bed to the bathroom. Cupping his hand under the faucet he gently sipped the cold water to relieve his dry throat. After toweling himself off Brad crept back into the bed, spooned up behind Luke, kissed him softly on the back of the neck as he put his arm around Luke's waist, closed his eyes, and drifted into a restless sleep trying to block out the events of five years ago still feeling somehow responsible. Thank you for reading at least this far. This has is my first story I have been confident enough of to post online. Feedback and comments are welcome, however if you feel the need to flame I will, as the firefighter I am, assume that you are on fire and take appropriate action comenserate with my training. Also, I apologize to those of you reading this story from outside the United States. Depending on your country of origin, I may or may not reply to your comments for security reasons. Thank you again. Merman_Resq@yahoo.com