At long last, home port was only a few hours out. For the last week and a half of deployment, I could not feel more relieved to be on the final stretch. Everypony on board shared these feelings. Who wouldn't be homesick after five weeks traveling at a snail's pace across hundreds of miles of deep blue? Plus, my forehead at this point was nothing more than a small bruise. That might take a few more days to go away completely.
I sat at one of the computer stations for the third attempt that afternoon, hoping to at least get in touch with Ray sooner than later. I still needed to save his phone number so neither of us would have to rely on the slow-ass mail system or through a computer for communication.
But, as expected, his account was once more inactive according to the greyed-out circle beside his name on the screen. I let off a sigh and crossed forehooves on the desk, burying my face into them. It's no use... I said, mentally. You'll have to wait a few more hours, Star, or maybe a day or two.
Just then, my ears perked as a ping noise rang in them through the headphone speakers. My head immediately lifted, and there in front of me, on the screen, was a message from Ray. In that instance, what worry I still had washed away. I could finally smile genuinely for the first time in over a month.
I sat up properly and positioned my hooves above the keyboard, beginning to type after a moment to think of what I wanted to respond with. "Hey. Can I call?" I typed.
After roughly a minute, Ray's reply came through, reading, "Not right now." I frowned at that, but then perked again when he included a follow-up message. "I can type though. What's up?"
I swiftly went to begin typing, only to stop with my hoof above the keys. Slowly, I withdrew it to ease back into the chair. What could I tell him? What should I tell him? I was right back at square one.
***
Just past sunset, while the sky still glowed a gradually-darkening blue, I ventured out, bundled up nicely, to a catwalk along the starboard side of the ship, situated a level below the flight deck. Around this time is when, at sea, air temperatures drastically drop. In addition to the constant breeze of the ocean, nights in early July rarely peak 54 degrees fahrenheit.
It was peaceful down here. Only the noise of the ocean below as the ship cuts through the ripples effortlessly, and minuscule racket from the flight deck above pervaded the moderately relaxing atmosphere. The spot, along with many others on either side of the ship, served as tranquil locations to catch some fresh air for a few minutes before somepony on duty drops by.
Of course, with my shift now over, I had all the time in the world. We would be in Manehattan in roughly two hours, just in time for the night watch to take the helm of the radar for me. Land was still beyond our line of sight and would be for some time, especially now with the dark of night settling.
As I exited onto the catwalk through a door, I stopped right in my tracks. The stallion leaning up against the railing also stopped, a burning lighter held a mere inch from igniting the tip of a cigarette in his mouth. His ice-blue gaze locked with the scolding crimson of my own, blinking a couple of times. To him, under this lighting, my form appeared pitch black from his perspective.
I stood there for a few moments, eyeballing him, only to continue up to the railing beside the pegasus as he closed the lighter and plucked the cigarette from his lips. With either of them in his hooves, they hung over the railing in his grip as he dipped his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Star."
"I'm not here to stop you, Anchorage." I replied, resting up against the railing and staring out over the darkening horizon.
He looked at me, then forward slowly. "Some habits cannot be broken, no matter how hard you try," the pegasus muttered.
"Every bad habit can be broken with patience." I stopped, emitting a nasal sigh. "Fuck, I loathe patience, and here I am lecturing you to..."
"I get it." Anchorage interrupted. If I had a second pair of eyes, they would be fixated on him right then and there. "I just..."
"You could get in trouble for even having that," I remarked, matter-of-factly.
"I know. But I couldn't leave without it. I tucked it real good when I packed." He then let off a curt chuckle. "Good thing it didn't set my bag on fire."
"No shit." I briefly darted my eyes over. I shook my head. "Just make it quick before somepony else sees you, or smells you."
Without a further word spoken, Anchorage brought both the cigarette and the lighter up. He flipped the lid to light the flame... then stopped. Like before, he held it an inch from the end of the cigarette. The soft light flickered on either of us and illuminated a very small area around and was virtually unnoticeable from a distance.
It surprised me only a little to see the flame survive for that long without blowing out itself against the wind. After about a minute, it did at last, all in the blink of an eye and a whisk of smoke. Just like that, the flame's sudden absence seemingly snapped Anchorage out of a trance. He shut the lid slowly, holding the lighter flat in his hoof now, and spat the cigarette right out of his mouth to let it fall into the water below. My head turned a little, looking at the greyish-white pegasus with an inkling of confoundment.
Anchorage twirled the lighter slowly in his hoof, almost unnoticeably curving his lips in a shallow glower as he examined the stainless steel construct of the tool, engraved on its forward face, a lopsided anchor with three chain links attached and hanging from the loop; his cutie mark.
"My stepfather gifted me this for my 21st. Didn't actually start using it 'til the middle of February." His teeth then grit slightly. "He wanted to relate to me so badly that he tried to get me to smoke. And he was successful." Anchorage lifted his gaze just a little to the water as it passed by ever so slowly, dark and cold under the post-dusk sky.
He wound his hoof back and tossed the lighter with the throw of a baseball pitcher out of sight, watching as it splashed a good twenty yards away. "Meh. Sea Current would not have wanted that."
Watching him discard both raised a sense of satisfaction. I blinked a couple of times in silence, before speaking. "Your father?"
The pegasus returned a slow, gentle nod, leaning up on the railing beside me once more. "Yeah."
"I'm sorry," I briefly said. No other words were needed then.
"It's okay." Anchorage replied, shallowly. "It was his decision to do what he did. I have no choice but to respect that decision." I opted to keep quiet then, doing so to avoid uttering the wrong words, and continued to listen. "And I have to respect that he wouldn't want me to smoke in his remembrance, too."
I quietly asked, "Is that why you started? Did it... was it helping? With the pain?"
A gentle nod followed. "Yes. A little bit." His frown became slightly more discernible.
I had to feel for him. By what little he has described his late father, it did seem like the two shared a robust relationship while he was still around. Something I could only wish for, but never receive. I decided to maintain small, harmless questions. "How long did you know him?"
"Sixteen years. He... it happened three months after I left for the Junior Reserves. The lieutenant commander in charge of the camp pulled me from class one day, I had no clue what the hell was goin' on, and... he..." Anchorage swallowed heavily as his eyes glassed over, voice cracking heartrendingly. "He... told me what had happened back home."
My ears fell as his voice audibly fell apart, his heart shattering into pieces. I knew it upset him last deployment, but never that it affected him this much.
He wiped at his cheek and sniffed heavily, his nose clogging. "And... it happened a whole week before the news came. S-so, seven days my father was dead, and... I didn't know until then. Seven days my m-mother and I could have held each other while they buried him."
"That's..." My ear twitched. "I'm sorry, that's a little fucked up. Why did it take so long for you to find out?"
He shrugged, letting his ears fall back. "That's Gander Cove for you. But, you know, they decided to wait on some of the services until I got back. Memorial, three volley salute... heh, they actually did that from the ship. That was neat to watch."
I responded with a comprehensive nod, facing off the catwalk for a minute. "Star, I..." Anchorage paused, maw open. I looked back at him. What he was about to say hesitated to emerge, until he turned and looked me dead in the eye. "I was scared."
That came off as a huge shock. "You, scared?" I cocked my head. The white pegasus arched his eyebrow at that, and I dismissed the jestful behavior. "Who wasn't?"
Sighing, the sailor gazed back out to sea and to the sky of alternating blues off on the horizon. "It sort of gave me memories of the East Conflict back in 2007, when Dad had to sail out on a new destroyer at the time. First of its class, fastest of its kind, sturdier, packed a bigger punch..."
"I don't recall any of that much. What happened?" I questioned, genuinely curious. After all, I was only twelve at the time and didn't hear much of news headlines.
"I ain't about to say war, but... it was a type of war where you don't shoot at anybody, you just stalk them until they flee. But then it... took a turn." Anchorage continued, finishing with a notable edge to his tone. I blinked a couple of times, nodding for him to go on.
With a shaky sigh, he resumed. "My dad's ship struck an old minefield from the early twentieth century, laid by the griffons in an attempt to sink Yak ships and stop them from crossin' the Antlertic. Took out four of our ships, including his. One was all it took, and it went down."
"I presume that all led up to... that... happening?" I commented cautiously.
"For sure." He shook his head slowly. "Fifty-six dead, over four hundred injured. Three years to build the ship, only to be sunk six months underway. This is the kind of shit they scrape under the rug and dangle above the heads of history buffs."
"Must be why it was only in newspapers, never talked about it in school." I glanced toward the west, drawing in a deep breath as I stretched a bit. "Mine would have been all over that shit. He lives to hear if we are at war with someone."
"I'm sorry to hear that," he flashed a look my way. "It would have taken a while for all of the details to be pieced together to implement it into the curriculum. Probably the school year after."
"I was on summer break at the time. I think."
"Really?" he looked over, shocked. "My town has school in the summer, and we have winter breaks."
"We had those, too, but they last two weeks. Mainly for Hearth's Warming." I shrugged. "I'd have enjoyed a summer-length winter break."
The pegasus beside me beamed a sly grin. "Shoulda moved to Gander Cove then."
"Hah, if only. Hell no, my dad would make me swim around the island every day. Twice."
He nodded. "Yeah, probably." After a couple moments of silence, Anchorage proceeded to jump back to the previous subject, half-glowering. "I just... worry about my mother."
I glanced over at him briefly, only confirming that something else was bugging him. "Yeah?"
"I... had some thoughts. Late night thoughts. And a few weird dreams." His head dipped to rest on his hooves along the catwalk railing. "I wondered what would happen if those ships picked up on our propulsion issue, if they were waitin' on some order to strike, and... how Mom would react if the news broke. My mom, she... well, she still has my stepdad. So, at least if somethin' happened to me, she wouldn't be alone."
"But she would still be devastated regardless. As far as you've made me aware, you are the only family she has left. And she is the only family you have left. You're irreplaceable."
Anchorage lightly shrugged. "She's the only blooded family I have left. Blood isn't what makes a family, anyhow. I figured that out not long after I joined."
I smiled faintly at that. "Ditto." My focus shifted over to him while he continued to stare at the water. "What about your stepdad, though? Other than... you know, him giving you a lighter with your cutie mark on it, what's bad about him?"
"He's... not a bad pony," Anchorage said with a sigh. "He makes an alright stepfather, has good intentions. I just..." he stopped, gaze lowering to the water churning below the hull. "Nothing and no one can replace what my biological father and I had."
"I understand that well." My head bobbed in a gentle nod, sighing and shifting a little. "I wish I could have had that with mine."
Anchorage lifted and turned his head. A faint, yet genuine smile appeared on his muzzle. "Look on the bright side, you haven't lost your mother. At least you can maintain a relationship with her and, you know, talk and whatnot."
I nodded a second time in agreement. "Yeah, I guess. Speaking of which..." My hoof reached into my blouse pocket, withdrawing my phone and tapping the squared button near the bottom of the screen to light it up. "Still no reception. Promised her I would talk every day on deployment."
"For security procedures, phones don't work on the ship. I mean, ya have wifi and all that fancy shit so you can do whatever it is you do on the internet, just can't talk to nobody. No cell towers out here."
"Yeah, kind of figured that out on my own. Thanks," I rolled my eyes and tucked the phone away. "Whatcha gonna do when we make port?"
"Me? Locate a bar, get drunk, eat a pizza, then sleep. Sleep a lot. With vicodin."
Sorry, Anchorage, I might have to copy your idea on my own. "Sounds like a plan," I chuckled, looking down the hull of the ship, in the direction of our current heading. "Can't wait to walk on solid ground again."
"For once, ditto." He bobbed his head in an agreeing nod. "But, you know, in all my years of loving the ocean and ships and all of that, there's one thing that stands out to me the most about that ship."
My brow furrowed, turning to look at him perplexedly. "What are you talking about? What ship?"
"The Alder," he tersely answered.
"What about it, and where in the hell did this come from?" I continued to stare in total confusion.
"Just something else I've been thinking of lately. Ship crews typically avoid tropical cyclones. It costs them time and sometimes money, but if they are offered enough by whoever it is they are shipping for, they will go to the lengths of getting their cargo to its destination on schedule and not follow designated paths to avoid the weather."
He wasn't making any sense with it. "What are you saying?"
"I'm not saying anything, I'm asking. What is it that they were transporting that it was so important to where they needed to make port by a certain time and not take the safe route to avoid the hurricane?"
My maw parted to speak, only to stop and muse for a couple of seconds. "I... am not sure. That's a good question actually. Buuut, it doesn't matter now, I suppose. All of its cargo is at the bottom of the ocean, probably rotting away at this point."
Anchorage gestured, "Now, hold on, I'm not finished. Think about those griffons we encountered."
"Yeah, I remember them." I shuddered a bit. "And?"
"They targeted the crew, not us. They were after the ship. You saw the explosives that were carefully planted in the engine room at the port aft. They were trying to destroy what ever it was that was on the Alder!"
He had a fair point, but it still didn't add up in my mind. "Well, they got what they wanted regardless. Besides, why engage if they weren't looking to kill us?"
"You're not getting it, Star. How much do you want to bet that, if they were looking for collateral, they would have killed us, too. No, there was something on that tanker that posed some sort of threat to them. Maybe we should try and figure out what was on the manifest, or... I dunno. Maybe we should talk to the captain, perhaps he knows something?"
"He can't possibly still be in Manehattan." I stated matter-of-factly, raising my eyebrow again. "It's been well over four months!"
"Not unless he's under witness protection of some sort." He shifted to face me directly. "Him and what's left of his crew. Evidently those griffons were highly trained and can get around, meaning they are just enough a threat to where they are still after them."
I started to chuckle. Anchorage coiled his head back and softly glared. My hoof waved, and I replied. "Anchor, come on, that's some of the most far-fetched shit I've heard you say by far. You know what that makes you sound like?"
"No, what?" He narrowed his eyes.
"A conspiracy theorist," I responded, far more seriously. "Come on. We were both there. They shot at and flash-banged us, that's an act of aggression on behalf of whomever it is they take orders from. Yes, they were well trained, so that rules out lingering Constitution troops and especially pirates."
I gently rested my hoof on Anchorage's shoulder. "I want answers, too. But the guesses you're making are far from educated. They just sound silly, actually."
"You know what?" the sailor lifted his blue irides, honing directly on to me. He gently smacked my hoof off of him and took a step back, scowling. "Fine, I'll do it myself. I'll read the cargo manifest if I can find it. You would be no help in it, anyway."
"Because I would much rather use logic, Anchorage. There was clearly something going on that we don't know about, but I'm not going to sit here and argue that, whoever those bird brains were, they weren't out for blood. If they were some sort of task force, where was the illegal activity? Can you explain that one?"
Anchorage raised his voice. "That's what I'm tryin' to explain here, Star! The illegal activity was the cargo!"
"Until you find something, buddy, I'll stick to my beliefs for the time being." I straightened my neck. "I don't want to fight with you. I just think... you miiiight be blowing this a bit out of proportion."
The pegasus groused and leaned back on the railing. "Fine, whatever you think." He went silent, zoning out over the diminishing view. Off in the far distance, lining the horizon, lights of gold and orange lined the gradually approaching coast. Home was in sight, and it never looked more beautiful.
After a few moments of quiet between us, he glanced over his shoulder and said, "Now I wish I hadn't thrown out that cigarette."