Chapter 1

—

I found the little police boat in third street. Don't ask me how it got there. All I knew was it had a full tank of gas and two personal oars. It was small, light on its… keel, I guess, and fast. Just what we needed to run the blockade.

Let me back up a bit. The Fleet of Fog had held the entire world hostage for about two years now. We'd recently gotten word that Japan was making headway in weapons development, but they couldn't mass produce. Me and my team, known simply as Red, have been put in charge of running the blockade and bringing word (and food) to Los Angeles and San Diego; both cities had another blockade of bandits and criminals on the land side. Since we needed to be able to run the ocean blockade anyway, we decided to ignore them. For now. So we decided to run the San Francisco blockade.

In the meantime, I had been looking for a small boat for myself and the rest of the team. Being the only one crazy (or stupid) enough to volunteer to run the blockade, it needed to be all of the things I listed above. And after a week of looking, I had found the perfect one.

I keyed the mic on my long range walkie-talkie. "This is Red one to Red team, repeat, Red one to Red team. Do you copy me? Over."

Eriko responded. "Dammit Colton. Cut the radio jargon. We don't have time for that. What's up?"

"I found the perfect boat. Meet me at the GG in 5 minutes."

This time Kira replied. "We'll be there in 6 because of your radio crap. See ya then."

I laughed. I turned the keys in the ignition, and it turned over on the first try. I drove the boat down the streets till I got to the bay. Then I turned west and headed for the south side of the Bridge. I got there in about 4 minutes, leaving me with time to kill. So, I took out my Glocks, took them apart, and started methodically cleaning them.

Eriko and Kira showed up in about two minutes. I guess they were serious about the whole 6 minutes deal. They laid down the packs of food, then sat in the only two remaining chairs. We nodded to each other, and I put my guns back together. I turned the engines back on and then we went over the Bridge.

Yeah I said over. Sea levels had been rising due to global warming. Now you understand why having some unknown alien force owning the Oceans is a bad thing.

We saw the first destroyer around one minute after that. There were only three ships. The two destroyers, and one massive heavy battleship. It was a Pennsylvania class, and she always had all 12 of her main cannons pointed into the bay.

The destroyer saw us, definitely, but didn't open fire. The destroyers had strict orders to only target incoming traffic, while the battleship would take care of outgoing traffic.

Needless to say we were scared. Although, not as scared as we were determined, so we pushed on.

Less than thirty seconds after the destroyer signaled the battleship were we taking fire. For three minutes I successfully piloted us through the flack, bobbing and weaving. Right as we were almost away though, one of the shells hit right behind us, causing me and Kira to be launched out of the boat.

Eriko ran to stern, looking out for us. As soon as I surfaced, I saw we were too far away to swim there in time for us to get away without them seeing us.

"Eriko, get the hell out of here!"

"Fuck that man, you guys are like brothers to me!"

"Doesn't matter! I may be a Navy dropout but I'll be damned if you'll forsake the mission for us! Go! Before they get here! We'll make sure they don't follow you!"

"Damnit Colton! FINE! But if I come back and you haven't done some Jack Sparrow type escape I'll pull a Will Turner and rescue you!"

Then he got away as quick as he could.

—

As soon as he was out of sight we saw the battleship. Instead of shooting us, though, it pulled up and a rope was dropped.

"You first," I said to Kira. He nodded and started to climb. As soon as there was enough room I followed after him.

We got up on deck, dripping wet, pissed, and scared. There was no crew. It seemed as if the entire ship was the alien. We decided to head to the bridge, just to see what was going on.

On our way there we saw no signs of life or habitation. When we did make it to the bridge was when we finally saw someone.

She was beautiful. Bright red hair, with clothing straight out of my closet it seemed. She was staring out the forward viewport, and she had this holographic ring around her which I only assumed was how she controlled the ship.

Kira stepped forward. "Hello, who are you?"

She didn't even turn around. "My name is T-100, first of a long line of heavy battleships in the northeast pacific theatre." She finally turned around, and I saw her vibrant green eyes, although, they were looking disdainfully at Kira. "You, are an idiot who tried his luck against me in a small 11 foot long skiff. Why, pray tell, did you give up your freedom for this?"

Kira and I noticed that she thinks the skiff sank. I walked forward and spoke up. "Simple. We are Human. One of the crowning achievements of the human race is that we never give up, and always keep trying. No matter how bleak, no matter what the odds; some human, somewhere, is going to try."

She looked at me with a lot less hatred than Kira. "I will take that into account. For now, you two are confined to the bridge. I have a call to make."

She turned back around. "AB-300 and 301; I am taking two prisoners to the Fleet Command." She paused, presumably to listen to a response. "Their loss this quarter should prevent any further blockade runs. You two can handle them if they do, also."

We gave each other a look, while the woman turned to look back at us. "You two. Follow me."

She led us down corridor after corridor, until we reached two large rooms.

"These are my 'captain's' quarters and such. This will be where you stay for now. We are heading to the fleet command south of the islands of Hawaii. There you will be court-martialed for crimes against the Fleet of Fog. That is all I can tell you."

We watched her leave, and then felt the ship lurch forward.

"Well. She's a bitch." Kira said finally.

"You only say that because she didn't fawn over you like the rest of the female population."

"Oh shut up, dust head."

"Don't call me dust head, dumbass."

We both laughed, until we remembered where we were.

Kira broke the silence first. "Do you think Eriko will make it?"

"Dunno. If he does make it past the LA blockade once, he won't be able to do it twice. Which means he'll have to fight through both land-side "toll booths". And since we didn't bring cash the first group will take all of the leftover food and he'll have to walk back to SanFran."

"Well, he'll get to one of them. How do you think the Japanese are gonna get their new weapon here anyway?"

"I've actually heard rumors. My old CO told me that there are rumors of a Fog ship that turned traitor."

"Whoa… that's intense. Do you think I could use my amazing powers of persuasion to get 'T-100' to turn traitor?"

"Unlikely. She obviously hates you. As to why I have no idea. But she seemed to like me."

"Wishful thinking." Kira scoffed. "You haven't had a girlfriend since you were 18. How are you going to 'woo' her?"

"The same way I 'woo' anyone. By being honest. Now, you stay here, I'm going to the bridge."

It took me a couple minutes to get there, and when I did I found her standing there, almost completely motionless. However, parts of the ship's navigational controls were constantly in motion, but no one was touching it.

"How do you pilot the ship?" I asked.

She turned around and tried to glare at me, but looked away. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I figured you never said we had to stay in our rooms indefinitely, and you never answered my question."

"Fine. To answer your question, I control the ship in much the same way you control your body: I just do it. Could you honestly explain exactly how to walk to someone who cannot?"

"Well, no-

"Then I rest my case." She sighed. "However, it is possible for a human, or crew of humans, to use my controls to control the ship. This has only been done once before, and the entire affair was a disaster for the Fog."

"What happened?"

"In short: all but three of the ships who interacted with one human turned traitor, two didn't because they were destroyed before they could, and one simply is far too angry at the first traitor to do so. Yet."

"Wow. How many total traitors?"

"Five. A submarine, a heavy battleship, a destroyer, and two fast battleships. In that order."

"Must be frustrating."

"It is! They have one interaction with a single human and they're instantly traitors!"

"I was actually saying it must be frustrating that they now have friends while you're stuck here following orders."

"That too- Wait!"

She turned around, with a terrified look on her face. I had my finest shit eating grin on.

"If you need a human, I'm always here… because, y'know, I'm kinda trapped."

I turned on my heel and walked out, grin still plastered to my face.