Captain Hiro Akima glanced up as the orderly ran into the bridge and hastily saluted. Captain Hiro returned the salute before barking out, "Report!"
The orderly stammered out the ill news, "It is as you feared Sir. The scroll has been found and activated."
Captain Hiro's face darkened as he bitterly spit out, "There will be no stopping the Americans now! The war is over and we are all dead men!"
With that said the Captain abruptly turned away from the orderly and the room full of officers. He stared out over the ocean before him and then up at the orange sky.
He supposed it was fitting in a way. It had been them once who had intended on unleashing the dark power that the scroll contained against the Americans. Thankfully they had been stopped, but would the Sea People be able to stop the Americans or was all hell about to break loose?
Now all that was left to do was to somehow inspire his men against the inevitable. And for what? An honorable death was the best that any of them could hope for now.
"Sir?…… Sir?"
The voice of the orderly impinged into the Captain's private sorrow. Impatiently he turned back from the forward windows to the orderly, "Yes, is there more?"
"It's not the Americans Sir, at least we don't think so."
The Captain's full attention re-centered on the orderly, "Then who?" He barked out at the man.
The orderly looked on the verge of passing out and the Captain immediately regretted his harshness, but he had to know!
In a more controlled tone the Captain asked, "Who?"
The orderly choked the one-word answer out, "Pirates."
The room went deathly still as officers and sailors alike looked at each other in horror.
The Captain silently turned back to the forward windows.
Pirates!
This was worse than being on the losing side of a war. Now everyone would die.
The Captain turned back to the orderly, "Have they headed for the city?"
"Yes Sir. They're almost there. If we had but been closer we could have been able to cut them off, but……."
The Captain held his hand up cutting off the useless words of the messenger. Without saying anything he walked from the stillness of those gathered in the bridge and out onto the swaying platform of the over deck. He stared down at the sailors working on the deck below and then out at the choppy waters beyond the keel of the ship.
What should he do?
What could even be done?
As bad and as costly in lives as his proverbial war had been between them and the Americans, both sides of the conflict had been unified in their fight against the pirates. The pirates in this Undersea world were something worse than human.