“Alrighty, just perform as you would back at the restaurant and you’ll be fine.” Boss is giving us the usual fancy catering event run down/pep talk. Only, this time you can tell he’s extra nervous. Maybe, it’s because we’re on a boat. A mid-sized yacht, to be exact, catering some high end party for a client with 4 o’clock cocktails and glitter. There’s a guest list of about 12, not including the ship crew and my fellow busboys. I don’t know much about the owner of the yacht, only that I’m getting paid well for only a few hours of work. It’s not like we’re venturing far either, just a couple of miles from shore. Not complaining about it, though.
After a bit, I’ve done my rounds and decide to go on break, passing my tray over to Dawn, who doesn’t look too thrilled to have her break come to an end. I’m sitting starboard, which is the right side of the ship, when I see a passenger throw half of a sandwich over the edge.
“Hey!” I shout, and jog over. “You can’t do that. You’re on this boat so show some respect to the waters it’s in. If you need a trash can, just ask where to find one.”
The fancy dude shrugs, not embarrassed, “Sorry.”
Ughhhhhh…absolutely no remorse.
I bump into my (temporary) crewmate Andre and tell him about the sandwich thing.
“Anything I should do about it?” I ask. I don’t know the ship’s regulations for this stuff.
“I mean, there’s a fine for things like that, but honestly just leave the guy alone. It’ll look bad since we’re kinda doing the same thing he is.”
“What?”
Andre gives me a confused look.
“Sorry, I forgot you’re new to the crew. Here, I’ll show you,” I follow him around to the side of the ship, curious. Some people push past us to get to the next event, drinks in hand. Based on the noise, there’s a DJ.
Andre leads me through a door, and we get to a part of the ship that’s not nearly as well kept as the rest. I have no idea where we are, but I’m not about to ask since I saw Dawn getting teased earlier for being a landlubber when she didn’t know the difference between the bow and the stern.
“They should be dumping any minute now, when most of the guests have gone to the other half of the ship,” Andre says, and walks to one of the windows in the room. I don’t respond to him, my attention stolen as I watch untreated orange and brown sludge wade into the ocean.
——
Up above me, I watch a shadow ooze out from the other, larger one I’ve been stalking. It’s no big vessel, like the one we took on last week when one of its nets tried to grab one of the males, but it’s a threat nonetheless. I call out into the ocean for my pod to join me, then venture to figure out what we’re against. Disgusting, discolored material clouds the water as I swim closer to the surface to check it out. It’s another dumper, this one with the bad stuff. You can tell it’s nasty when it still has chunks in it, slowly floating toward the sea floor or sitting right on top. I go back down to where part of the pod has gathered and report my findings. Nami, one of the females of the group, decides we should move in.
I see Tilly start to open his mouth on my right, and I ram into him. He shoves back and I remind him not to eat foreign objects, especially since Sammy died last week after eating a tube shaped item. He doesn’t respond to that. We break through the surface, and Nami calls out the signal to get in positions with a series of clicks. We assume our usual spots. Another orca and I go to bump the left side; Tilly heads to the right and Nami and the rest mess with the underside of the craft. Now we just wait to attack.
——-
Eventually, the dump slows to a trickle, and I hear a noise like it shut off.
“Well, now you’ve seen everything this ship has to offer,” Andre says.
“Everything it has to offer?!” I’m so confused. This has to violate every code this ship has. I know the rules for our restaurant waste, and stuff like this wouldn’t fly on any level. Why wouldn’t they just treat it? Does the owner really not care that much?
“You can’t just-“
THUD, something crashes into the boat. Something large. CRASH, it shakes again, and I hear drinks fall over. There’s confused, slightly panicked voices, and the DJ stopped. Andre bugs his eyes at me, and we jog back to the main area of the ship. He moves off somewhere, so I’m left on my own. BANG, tables fall down and I fumble to grab hold of something as I’m thrown into the door of one of the cabins. I jangle the knob and shut myself inside. Eventually the rocking stops, so I exit the room and promptly throw up. We get out of there quickly, arriving at the dock in roughly 10 minutes. I mingle with the guests, trying to figure out what happened. All I found out is that there were black fins.
———
“Hey, look at this report. It’s about that ship we were on for that party,” Dawn says, waving her phone at me.
“Oh, yeah?” I’ve had my fill of boats for a while, but I’m interested to see what they think happened.
“Apparently these Orcas attacked us. Their psycho or something. The news is calling them Vigilantes, seeking vengeance on humans over ocean pollution. Our ship wasn’t the first attacked.”
“Dang”
“Yup. No one’s died yet, but these killer whales can mess your ship up pretty good.”
“I like these whales. That owner deserved it.”