Terminal Island Two-Step, Part I
Posted on Sat Mar 21st, 2026 @ 9:36pm by Ensign Garabed "Garo" Hakobyan & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Keel & Commander Maxun Spello & Josef Forstinger
1,935 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Shadow in the Static
Location: Terminal Island, Los Angeles, California, Earth
Timeline: April 1944, 0350 Hours
Terminal Island never shut down. It just dimmed its lights a little but it kept humming.
The harbour before sunup was all racket and shadow. Cables whining against steel. Ship hulls tick-ticking as the Pacific night air cooled them. Somewhere out in the dark, a buoy clanged steadily like a sloppy drunk with one good idea. The gull were already at it, fighting over everything, and--in the grand scheme of things--absolutely nothing.
Freighters squatted low in the water in their drab Navy grey. Cargo nets were hanging slack like thick spiderwebs. The light from the lamps on the pier pushed back against the natural mist and went no further. Maybe they didn't care to go further.
Pier 12 was running behind.
Warehouse C-17 had a stack of crates dumped off to one side, the letters FISHMEAL stenciled in chalky white that had long bled from salt and friction. On the side of each crate was a little lotus stamp--fancy for most dock freight. Didn't belong.
Two longshoremen stood there looking at them curiously. Work was work, sure. But something was off.
"You ever seen fishmeal packed that tight?" one of them asked.
The other shrugged and nudged a crate with his boot. It barely shifted. "Smells wrong, for sure."
The first one brought a Chesterfield non-filter to his lips and grunted in agreement.
"Everything smells wrong down here," he said, striking a match and lighting the cigarette.
A forklift rattled past behind them and the men turned to give the operator the slightest of acknowledgments.
Near the warehouse door, Eddie Kline flipped through his clipboard with a cigarette welded to his lip. He was the Night Foreman. Been on the docks since before the war. His father had also worked the docks going back to the last war.
"One, two, three..." he muttered, counting with his free hand.
He stopped.
Looked again.
He spat.
"Hell."
The manifest said twelve. He counted ten.
He had already checked the pier twice. He'd done circles checking the flatbed and then lapping the dock, kicking at rope coils and anything in the shadows.
From the parking lot came the grind of tires over gravel--another shift rolling in. Another batch of sore backs, rough hands, and bleary eyes ready for the morning haul. Navy pickup was scheduled at oh-eight-hundred sharp, and nobody wanted shore patrol sniffing around asking why paperwork didn't match wood.
Eddie tore the half-smoked cigarette from his mouth and ground it under his heel.
"Fine," he said to nobody in particular. "We'll sort it."
A pair of headlights swept across the warehouse doors, throwing long shadows over the crates and further illuminating the heavy mist.
Shift change.
Work don't wait.
Tony pulled the old Ford Deuce into the cargo lot, as he had done a dozen times before. The right palms had been greased with the right amount of cabbage.
The engine was rough. Yellowed headlights. Tires chewing up the edge of the lot.
Frankie sat beside his boss, leaning back easy. Strangely, he somehow knew that Tony sometimes liked to get behind the wheel. Especially when he felt the need to think or blow off steam. It seemed to calm him. Frankie wasn't sure how he knew that--perhaps something to do with this 'enhanced' holo program.
The docks at this hour were honest in a way daylight never could be. There were no suits, no speeches. It was all just men and steel and salty air.
He waited for Tony to kill the engine.
Once the truck was in its assigned loading slot, Tony shut off the engine. Without looking at Frankie, he said, "Get out and get the back ready to get loaded." He then slid out of the truck and made his way over to the shift foreman.
Frankie pushed the door open and dropped down onto the soft gravel.
The mist was hugging the ground in the early morning and the Ford's engine ticked as it cooled, sounding tired and sleepy.
He could see a figure approaching through the mist--the foreman. Frankie turned his attention back to the truck.
The Deuce has been worked over more than once. The rear compartment wasn't much to look at from the outside--just another cargo bed with a stained canvas throw--but the boards had been reinforced and the latch a little extra thought put into it.
Frankie flipped it open and lifted the canvas.
Inside sat two long wooden cases wedged against the wheel well. He stared at them a moment.
Popping the lid of one of the cases, he examined its contents: a pair of Thompson submachine guns. Their dark metal resting in the molded cut made them seem like jewellery in a coffin. Detached drum magazines rested beside them. Tommy guns.
Letting out a slow breath, Frankie considered the holodeck program. It didn't explain things--it just dropped him into them. He had the oddest feeling he already knew how to handle the things. Which, when he considered it, was a hell of a thing to already know.
He refocused on the task and reached under the driver's seat, coming up with a revolver wrapped in an oilcloth. It was a Colt, heavy and somehow very familiar the moment he felt the stock in his palm. It fit as easily as a plasma torch.
Frankie glanced back across the parking lot to see Tony was already jawing with the morning shift foreman. He knew the man's name but he didn't know how. Lawrence.
[On the Pier]
Szymon Makowski was running late. Usually he had a night shift, but the foreman had changed his schedule abruptly. No explanation, even less of an apology. Tucking his dad's pocketwatch into his overall's chest pocket, he puffed out a breath. The docks were busy, no matter the hour, but the energy at night was different.
It had an edge.
Walking quickly with his welder's gloves in one hand, he barely noticed the car that had pulled into the lot as he crossed it.
Another figure started to move around the area. Illuminated by naught but the glow of a cigarette's embers. It was Josef, or well, Herbert. Or Bertie, Burt, Herbie... apparently, he went by a bunch of names. It was strange that he knew that--as no one had ever mentioned that to him before. Nor that he was scheduled to have this current shift. Nor what exact place he worked at beyond the general docks. Yet he knew. Truly strange, but he didn't question it further for now. The future does what it wants, and he supposed he could play along just this once.
Adjusting his cap and rolling up his sleeves a little he took a look round the current surroundings. Should see what needs doing first.
From the other end of the dock, Eddie sighed heavily. He didn't like numbers that didn't sit right.
He walked back to the stack and counted again, slower this time; touching each crate with two fingers like a priest blessing someone on Ash Wednesday.
"One... two... three..."
The longshoremen watched him, exchanging furtive glances with each other.
"Ten," Eddie said finally.
"Maybe two got moved already," the one with the Chesterfield offered.
"By who?"
The man didn't have an answer for that. Nor did he feel like offering one.
Eddie crouched and ran his thumb along the seam of one crate. Tight boards and clean nails. No warping from damp. Fishmeal didn't get treated this carefully. Fishmeal was shoveled, sweated, then forgotten completely.
He rapped his knuckles against the wood.
Solid.
"Crack one?" the second longshoremen asked, wiping a wet nose with a knuckle.
Eddie looked toward the pier office, then toward the water, then at the approaching line of trucks easing in for a shift change.
"Not unless you want Navy brass asking why their freight's got teeth marks."
"Since when does the Navy ship fishmeal out of C-17?"
"They don't," Eddie said. "That's the point."
He stood again and flipped a page on his clipboard. The manifest paper snapped in the damp early morning air.
"Truck came in at oh-three-twenty. Driver signed. Fucked if I know how to read that scribble. Two other loaders signed." He flipped to the next page. "Twelve units received."
"Name?" the first longshoreman asked, his Chesterfield now burned halfway down.
"Juan or John... something."
Neither longshoremen reacted. There were easily two dozen Juans or Johns running freight in and out of the Island.
"Maybe he shorted it before it got here," the second man said, adjusting a black beanie.
"Then why mark twelve?" Eddie shot back, his eyes now daggers. "Paper's clean. Ink ain't smudged. Nobody fuckin' scratched nothin' out."
A horn blared out on the pier. A crane operator signaled for clearance.
Eddie shoved the clipboard under his arm.
"Listen," he said, voice dropping suddenly. "You two keep your mouths shut for now. Stack 'em neat. Don't move a damn thing unless I say. If somebody comes along asking, we got twelve. You hear me?"
They heard him.
"Yeah."
"Good."
He jerked his chin toward the lot where headlights cut through the mist.
"Shift's changing. I don't need rumours shifting quicker than cargo."
The two men went back to work, but slower now.
From the security gate, Eddie spied the throng of workers for the next shift making their way through, lunch pails and brown paper bags in-hand. Most would make their way to the building everyone called The Pavilion--where the lockers and changing rooms were located. Luckily, management had put some plumbing in a few years back so the men had somewhere to relieve themselves or even take a shower.
'Hey Ed,' Szymon called out as he approached the security gate. 'Quiet as usual tonight, yes?' he joked to ease his nerves. There was a sharp, sour scent of tension running beneath the normal urgent fug of the docks, the feeling of a wire winding up to break.
Eddie didn't smile. Instead, he looked the welder up and down like he was another crate that didn't match the manifest.
"Quiet?" Eddie said. "You deaf, Makowski?"
He jerked his chin toward the pier where a crane chain screamed against its pulley.
'Only when my girl is gossiping, yes,' Szymon grinned as he shuffled on past, trying to get a good look at the crane from behind the burly dockhand in front of him. 'Have a good one Ed!' he called as they shuffled into the distance, eventually spreading out enough that they could fastwalk as though time were against them. It always was.
Eddie spat off to the side and checked his watch.
Craning his neck, he shouted after him, "You're late!"
To Be Continued: Terminal Island Two-Step, Part II
Herbert Smith (Josef Forstinger)
Civillian
USS Astrea
Szymon Makowski (portrayed by Ryan Keel)
Chief of Diplomatic Intelligence
USS Astrea
Frankie "No Brakes" Mancini (Garo Hakobyan)
Transporter Specialist
USS Astrea
(NPC of JB Dorsainvil)
Tony "The Blade" Scarpelli (Jason Williams III)
Squadron Leader
USS Astrea
(NPC of Maxun Spello)
RSS Feed