Ash Ketchum: Battle of the Ampere

Ch. 34 Yachts and Fishing Boats

I'm not sure why Raihan didn't just stay at the villa with us, but he didn't.  He usually just showed up when we needed him--like for my climbing practices.  The next day we found an abandoned metal storage shed closer to the house.  I went there twice a day until I got my time down to just twelve minutes.  Serena started coming with me to watch.  Or maybe just to feel like a cheerleader again.  She was good at that.  She even made up a cheer.

Go Ash. 

Climb that wall. 

Reach the top

And please don't fall. 

Goooooooo, Ash!

Then she'd do this little kick thing.  Raihan just looked at her like she was crazy.  Truthfully, her cheering was counterproductive.  The first time she did the whole cheer, I started laughing so hard that I fell ten feet.

The next three days were an emotional rollercoaster for me.  At one moment I imagined us sinking the boat, escaping, and flying home, having saved the country of Tuvalu, wherever that was.  The next moment the whole thing looked like a suicide mission. 

On the morning of the third day, Raihan came in while we were all eating breakfast.  Serena had made French toast and fried Peruvian bacon, which was so thick it looked like ham.  "You're early," I said.  "I thought we were going to eleven."

"Get something to eat," Serena said.  "Help yourself, I made a ton."

Raihan looked at us seriously.  "The Galactic fleet is in port." 

We all stopped eating.

"All of them?"  Clemont asked.

"Yes." 

"I want to see it," I said.

"You will soon enough," Raihan said.  "When we attack." 

"I need to see it before then. I need to see it in daylight."

"That's risky."

"Unlike sneaking aboard and sinking it," Clemont said.

"I have to see it," I said firmly.  "I need to know what I'm facing.  I need to visualize the attack."

Raihan looked unsure. "I will have to see if Dodds can come.

"We don't need Dodds," I said.  "I just want to see the boats for myself."

"Me too," Calem said.

"And me," Serena said. 

Raihan looked at us for a moment, then said, "Very well. I must make arrangements to capture our sailor's uniform, then I will be back."

"Don't forget his magnetic key," Clemont added.

"Yes. And the key. Then we will go visit the Galactic."

* * *

Raihan returned to the house around five in the afternoon.  All five of us were waiting for him in the front room and walked out to meet him before he reached the front door. 

When we were in the van, Serena said, "Raihan, did you set your sailor trap?"

"Si, senorita."

"What are you using for bait?"  she asked.

"A pretty woman, of course."  Then he added, "It works every time."

"Worked for me," Clemont said, looking over at Korrina.  She smiled at him.

"Wow," Serena whispered to me.  "Just wow."

Raihan drove north up the Pacific coastline about twenty miles before we came to a solitary cliff overlooking the Port Callao harbor.  We reached the port after the sun had begun making its descent, turning the bay a hue of golden rose. 

After Raihan was completely certain that we were not being watched, he retrieved a pair of binoculars from beneath the van's driver seat and we walked out to the edge of the cliff and got down on our stomachs.  The Callao bay stretched out below us, bustling with barges and cranes, navy ships, yachts, freighters, and cruise liners.

"That's a lot bigger than I thought it would be," Serena said.

"Port Callao is the largest seaport in South America," Raihan said.

"What does Callao mean?"  Clemont asked.

Raihan looked at him.  "This you do not know?" 

"Nope," he said.

Raihan nodded.  "Neither does anyone else."  He pointed to a of ships a few hundred yards north of us.  "They are there, all together," he said, handing me his binoculars. 

Even without the binoculars I recognized the vessels.  It was impressive to actually see all seven boats of the Galactic fleet together-impressive and terrifying.

The Ampere was in the middle of the fleet and wasn't hard to pick out. It was the coolest boat I had ever seen—the kind of craft Clemont would have cut out of his Popular Science magazine and pinned him to his wall. 

What made it even more fascinating was knowing that Hatch was somewhere on that ship.  I just wished that I could throw a massive lightning ball and blow the ship and Hatch off the planet. 

"So that's the Ampere," I said.

"Yeah," Raihan said. 

"I told you it was cool," Korrina said.

"The space shuttle is cool," Clemont said.  "That thing is freakin' epic."

"And we're going to sink it," I said. 

"It's kind of sad in a way. Like blowing up a cathedral."

"More like a house of horrors," Korrina said. 

"They are docked close together for protection," Raihan said.  "You can see the guards have blocked off the entire shoreline."

Clemont grimaced. "If we scuba dived in, we'd have to swim at least a half mile underwater." He was the only one of us who had actually scuba dived, and that was during a highly supervised excursion on a family trip to Hawaii. "That won't be easy."

"What part of any of this is easy?" Calem said.

"I'm just saying, it's going to add at least an hour getting there and we'll all be exhausted when we do.  And by the time we blow the ship and get back to shore, the place will be crawling with military.  How will we come ashore?"

"We'll have to set a longer delay on the explosive's timer," I said.

"Which gives them more of a chance to find it," Raihan said.

"And where do we put the scuba tanks while we climb the boat?" Korrina asked.

None of us had an answer. I looked back out over the fleet. "What are those boats out there?  The little ones behind the fleet."

"Fishing boats," Raihan said.

"They're close to the ships," I said. 

Korrina had the binoculars and was looking out at the boats.  "That one's not even a hundred feet from the Ampere," she said.

"They don't suspect them," Clemont said.

Raihan smiled.  "I think we just found our way to the Ampere."

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