Play@YSDC

As Zara hides the object somewhere in the bowels of the boat (seagoing vessels always seem to have bowels) the others head for the allegedly distressed Soviet vessel. As they approach, they can see that the Russian boat is, indeed, listing in the water, and seems headed for the bottom. It could be worse; the sea isn't very deep here, and it's not terribly far from land, but the water is quite cold. Some of the men aboard the fishing vessel are climbing into a life raft; others are scrambling to try to keep the boat afloat. A few are on deck, waving at the investigators. It'll take cool nerves and a steady hand to bring the vessels together, and to get the men aboard the UN boat.

“Be on your guard,” P declares to everyone in general. “I shall offer my assistance to the captain as we hove to.”

Unless Zara pilots the boat, Liz will guide it into position. If Zara does pilot the boat, Liz will help the sailors aboard.

We'll give both a shot. 2d20the dreaded 20!

Zara is able to steer the boat so that the two vessels are in the perfect position for transferring personnel from the sinking boat. All are taken aboard, but at the last moment, Liz slips on the water-soaked deck as she is helping one of the Russian sailors. He falls into the sea, waving his hands and shouting in his native language.

--can't swim--

(This seems to be a surprisingly common flaw among sailors.)

As if that were not enough, he suddenly plunges below the surface, as if something pulled him down.

Gripping her dart gun, Liz dives into the water to rescue the Russian sailor, glad that she's still wearing her diving suit.

Rescue is going to take both DEX and STR2d20

The diving suit proves to be too much of an encumbrance for Liz to reach the Russian, who sinks out of sight. Strangely, his body does not stop when it reaches the bottom, but sinks beneath the rocks and sand, producing a swirling movement of the water that sends fish scurrying away, except for those who suffer a similar fate, disappearing from sight.

Unable to do anything further to help, Liz gets back aboard the boat.

As the other Russians are taken aboard the UN vessel, a whirlpool forms on the surface of the water at the point where the unfortunate fellow went down. Although quite small, it seems to form the same kind of funnel as the fabled Maelstrom.

“Most disturbing,” mutters P.

Ignoring the Russians, hands flicker over the ship’s sonar equipment as he tries to get a reading on the source of the whirlpool.

"We have to get out of here!" Liz calls to Zara. "That whirlpool could sink us too!"

As the boat backs away carefully from the whirlpool, sonar reveals that the phenomenon continues down for some depth, then abruptly turns to the east. Once the signal reaches the coast of Sakhalin Island (at what must some distance below the ground) it is impossible to detect it, no doubt due to the way it bounces off the (underwater) solid landmass of the island.

The rescued Russians, kept warm with spare blankets and plenty of hot coffee, eventually tell their story. It seems that a beam of bright blue light struck their vessel, coming from somewhere near the UN boat. (It was too short in duration to tell anything else.)

The captain of the fishing boat, although grateful for the way he and his men were saved, seems to harbor a suspicion that his rescuers had something to do with the incident.

"I have heard of an American invention," he says cautiously, "no doubt to be used as a weapon against the forces of liberation in Southeast Asia. Have you come here to test this 'laser' on us?"

“I’ve no idea if our American friends are capable of such things or not, but the direction of the whirlpool would suggests a different source.”

He smartly taps the sonar screen with his pen.

“Sakhalin island, not Guam or Hawaii, hm? May we drop you Russian fellows off somewhere?” he asks, suddenly changing the topic in a bid to be rid of this distraction.

"We're British anyway, not Americans," says Liz, tactfully neglecting to include Zara. "It wouldn't surprise me if they had lasers, but we haven't got any. There must be a third party involved. We'd hardly risk our lives to rescue you if we'd gone to the trouble of sinking you. If you'd prefer to go to Japan, we're not far from Hokkaido. The food there is excellent. I'm sure you could later be repatriated back home, if you wish." And if they wished to defect, that option was open to them as well. She left that unspoken, but there was no need to say it.

After much discussion among the Russians, they elect to be taken to Hokkaido. The voyage to the city of Wakkanai, the northernmost community in Japan, is a brief one. On the way, the boat passes close by the small, uninhabited island of Benten-jima, known for its colonies of sea lions and seabirds. The tiny piece of land, just half a hectare in size and rising only to a maximum height of twenty meters, is worth a look under normal conditions, like a snowy hill floating in the ocean. What makes it particularly interesting at this time is the fact that there seems to be someone lying on the rocky beach (if one can call the miniscule bit of flat land on the shore by that term) and no boats nearby.

Liz uses a pair of binoculars to get a closer look at the person on the beach. "Could be someone shipwrecked," she says.

“Perhaps it’s the Russian fellow we were unable to save, somehow washed onto the islet,” muses P.

“Either way, it seems we must play the rescuer again, hm?”

d20

Even with binoculars, the constant movement of the ocean and the mist that frequently reduces visibility in these chilly waters makes it impossible to determine anything about the person on the island. The rocky, irregular coastline of the place, without any kind of natural harbor, makes landing there quite tricky.

"We're going to have to approach," says Liz. "I can't make out any details from here, but whoever it is may still be alive. I hope the sailor I couldn't rescue survived, but this is pretty far from where the boat went down."

"Maybe I can re-jig the ship's sonar to scan the jagged coastline for rocks," says P. "Then we can edge the ship closer and effect a rescue."

INT 15 + 1 = 16d20

ping . . . ping . . . ping

The altered sonar set is able to locate a safe harbor for the boat, which happens to be located almost one hundred and eighty degrees from the human figure seen. It will take some careful scrambling over slippery rocks to reach the person.