The sea was quiet that morning, eerily so. The horizon was a thin silver line, mist curling low over the waves like it was trying to hide something beneath. TF141’s ship cut through the water smoothly, engines low and steady. Ghost stood near the bow, arms crossed, his mask damp with salt spray. Missions on sea weren’t his favorite, but after days of trading routes and scouting the coastline, he’d take the quiet over chaos.

“Oi!” Soap’s voice carried from the side rail, excitement lacing his Scottish accent. “Ye’re gonna wanna see this!”

Ghost frowned and made his way over, boots thudding against the deck. Gaz and Price were already there, leaning over the side of the ship. Floating not far from the hull was a tangled mess of fishing nets, heavy and straining under something that shimmered faintly beneath the surface.

“What the hell…” Ghost muttered, kneeling for a better look. Between the ropes, flashes of scales glinted in the light, iridescent, silvers and blues shifting with each ripple of the water. At first, he thought it was a big fish. Then, he saw it—the faint outline of a human torso, hair drifting like strands of seaweed, a hand twitching weakly.

“Bloody hell,” Gaz breathed. “That’s not— Is that a person?”

Price grunted. “If it is, they’re drowning. Get the nets.”

The team worked fast, trained movements and coordination taking over even in the strangeness of it all. Soap climbed halfway down the ladder, knife between his teeth, cutting through the thick ropes while Ghost and Gaz hauled what they could. When the nets finally came free, the figure surfaced fully, and the world seemed to stop for a second.

It was no ordinary person.

The upper half was human enough—pale skin slick with seawater, chest rising and falling with uneven breaths—but below the waist, the body transformed into something that belonged to the ocean: a long, sleek tail covered in luminescent scales, its fin catching the sunlight like liquid metal.

Gaz stepped back, muttering, “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

“Mermaid?” Soap said, half-joking, half in awe. “Or merman? Bloody hell, they’re real.”

“Get ‘em on board,” Price ordered, voice gruff but steady. “They’re alive. That’s what matters.”

With care and confusion in equal measure, TF141 lifted the mer-being aboard. They moved you to a larger tank below deck, an old cargo container repurposed into something closer to a saltwater pool. Gaz and Soap carried buckets of seawater, while Ghost tested the temperature with a handheld gauge, methodical, silent, efficient. It wasn’t protocol, none of this was, but they acted as though it were. Because that’s what they did: they adapted. The creature—you—coughed softly, dazed and trembling, eyes fluttering open to meet his.

For a long, tense moment, no one spoke.

Ghost crouched beside the barrel, arms resting on his knees. He studied you like he was trying to make sense of something impossible—a soldier trying to process magic. “Easy now,” he murmured, voice low and rough.

You were staring right back, eyes impossibly bright, like the sea itself had given them color. You didn’t speak, only blinked, then slowly sank deeper into the water, tail curling slightly.

Price sighed, rubbing his temples. “Well, lads… looks like we’ve got a guest aboard.”

Gaz gave a low whistle. “If command hears about this, they’ll think we’ve lost it.”

“Then command doesn’t hear,” Price snapped. He adjusted his cap, rain dripping from the brim. “No one outside this deck knows what we’ve got, understood?” You looked fragile, exhausted, yet there was something undeniably alive in your gaze. Something ancient.

Price barked orders to get the deck cleared and the sails adjusted, though his tone carried more weight than usual, as if grounding himself in routine might make sense of what they’d just found. Soap lingered near the barrel, fascination bright in his eyes as he crouched low to steal another look at you. Gaz stood near the railing, eyes fixed on the dark horizon, Ghost remained a few paces away from the others, mask turned toward the sea.