There were some things that went on that were never safe, smart, or sound, but yet still went on. The trade in illegal drugs was one of these things, as the consumption of it in the United States was a major driving factor in this. It made people quite willing to get involved with the organizations that were smuggling drugs, which ranged from Opiates to Cocaine and even Marijuana, though some of the latter was starting to decline as more states legalized Marijuana, and there were a variety of routes. One of the most complicated routes went by sea, as regardless of what one may think, the navies of the countries in South America, Central America, and Mexico were not incapable and neither were their abilities to aid in trying to intercept these sorts of shipments, particularly when the US often also had their own Coast Guard, or its officers, either directly helping or serving as advisors to their southern neighbors in dealing with these drug smugglers.
This was then something that came about as one speed boat made its way up the western coast of the Americas and was intended to sneak its way into a set of docks in Los Angeles where it was to meet with those working the docks that were already in league with the organization that sent the supply. The ship had a shallow draft of no more than five feet and covered about one hundred feet in length and four point five feet in width, with only one foot reaching above the surface of the water, assuming the seas were calm. With an enclosed lid for the pilot house, near the rear of the ship, it looked almost like a black futuristic three-man submarine with heavy plexiglass windows instead of a periscope. The idea was to avoid detection, and its own board high-speed motor could power the craft along at well over 50 knots in lower gears and pushing 80 knots in high gear... though, only for short distances.
This made for a rather slow route up the coast and only stopping at select points, either busy harbors where there were bound to be areas where they could sneak in unnoticed or more secluded areas away from traffic where business could be done more openly. This allowed for the three-man crew to get out, refuel their ship, and dispose of any waste that they couldn't just dump while at sea. Though the drug lords figured that the smell of feces would overpower the smell of cocaine that was in a compartment in the ship's bow. The crew, meanwhile, seemed willing to put up with this, as the run would potentially earn them a fair amount of money, and in pure theory they could also enter specialized "drag races" at certain points that added a degree of "credibility" to their voyage.
Though, these efforts didn’t necessarily work out completely well and as the ship raced up the western coast of Mexico, it ran into a storm that was also coming ashore at the same time. It raised the waves and rocked the small boat that was never intended to be a stable platform, as that would risk slowing it down should they need to outrun a patrol ship. After going up and down a few swells, it soon saw water come in through the seams of the closed windshield door. It could keep most water out, but not a lot of it… and particularly not in a storm that was swamping the craft.
“This is not going to work,” the pilot said to the ship’s “captain” as he looked over his shoulder, “the waves are getting worse.”
“We can’t land here,” the captain answered looked over to the engineer who was also handling the engine, “can the ship hold?”
“Maybe… provided the waves don’t get worse,” the engineer spoke, “though, I’d agree that it would be safer to come ashore.”
"Can't, there was that patrol ship we passed just before we entered the storm, and they may be trailing us," the captain answered, "we need to get further north to where the shelter area is... where the ship can be hidden..."
That didn't sit well with either the pilot or the engineer as the pilot could see the rising waves and the engineer had been involved in the construction of the ship. Based on what the pilot reported of the storm and what he could feel as they went through the rough seas, sometimes even gaining air as they went over a swell, that the speed boat was actually reaching the limits of what the hull could withstand. It wasn't like a major warship or passenger liner where there was a lot of effort to assure durability, either for the purposes of being a safe weapons platform or to be safe while considering the ship's size and its passenger's comfort.
The small speed couldn't take much more, and that was soon proved as they went over another massive wave that left the boat airborne for a few seconds. It landed rear first and then snapping down as though the stern was focus of that tipping point. It then brought a tremendous amount of force on the bottom part of the hull as it was slammed against the next rising swell of the sea and sent all three men tumbling to the floor of the boat. There was also some cracking that was heard as they landed and as the engineer looked up, he could see that some of the floor in the boat was cracked and some water was starting to seep in and they were starting to rise up another swell, with the bow going straight into it. This was bad and would only make the stress fracture in the hull worse, as gravity would surely pull the ship apart.
"We're damaged," the pilot said slowly as he placed his hand into the water, just as the bow went up the next wave and the cracking sound grew louder as gravity was already beginning to pull the ship apart. Particularly when most of the ship's cargo, the cocaine was in that section and weighed more than the three men and what provisions they had.
"Worse, we're sunk," the engineer spoke as the cracking grew louder and he could see the crack in the hull grow bigger and drawing more water in.
The three then forgot all about the cocaine, the patrol ship, or even the storm. They fumbled with the latches designed to hold the windshield lid and eventually got it open, allowing rain to fall in and wet their faces and adding to the water that was coming in from the growing crack at the base of the ship. From there, they jumped out and began to swim away from the ship in the hope that they wouldn't be sucked down with the ship. They managed to move away and could only watch as the destruction of the speed boat completed. The ship snapped, practically in half as it went up and down the swells and with the weight of the cocaine adding stress to the bow that the damaged hull couldn't sustain. Some of the bags of cocaine fell out into the ocean as the ship sank, but the three crew were past that point, and a new problem soon arose...
"I can't swim!" the pilot spoke and began to panic. He didn't want to go down with the ship, but in the rough seas and a fair distance from shore things didn't look well, either.
His partners were soon caught in his thrashing and would be facing something rather difficult, not knowing that they weren't the only ones in the area... as a lone Green Sea Turtle was swimming. It was a relatively decent size for an adult, and at a point in its life where it would be more herbivorous, but the storm had been wild underneath the water and had created a current that had pulled it away from the route it would have preferred. It faintly saw the speed boat sinking into the Pacific Ocean, but soon also saw something that looked soft and fleshy just floating at the water near where the surface was and looked like a big square of jellyfish. The bite went well, but the cloud of white in the water did not bode well...
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The next morning brought modest sized patrol craft to the same area, and it served in much the same way as many US Coard Guard ships did, though, this one flew Mexico's colors. They'd already had tips of an all-black speed boat heading up the west coast of their country and had initially tried to intercept it, and only found that they were easily outrun by the speed boat. The one thing that saved them was the arrival of the storm that had hit their west coast at around the same time. The patrol craft was forced to return to harbor, but the radar contact of the speed boat, regardless of how small it was, indicated that it was headed right into the storm, and had the potential to drive it into shore. Now, with the storm largely passed, they were coming into the same area.
“Any sign?” came a question to one of the men looking out over the water with a pair of binoculars.
“No, sir,” came the response from that lookout, “no sign of the ship in the water… though, if they went into shore… they may not be ready to come out again.”
“If they made it through the storm… they could be well up the Baja coast by now,” the first man grumbled.
“Given how bad the storm was… it wouldn’t surprise me if the ship was sunk, sir,” the lookout answered, “even at a distance… it didn’t look all that big when we first spotted it before it went into the storm… a storm that we decided to take the side of caution on.”
The first man nodded for a moment, even as a radio call came in. He could hear another officer answering it. For the moment, he paid that no mind, as he was hoping the lookout had been able to see something. There was a quiet aspect of this, but it was soon overtaken by a barking of orders from the captain. That brought that officer back inside the ship. The officer looked to the captain and decided to report what the lookout had or had not seen.
"The lookout has not seen any sign of the speed boat, sir," the man reported, "though he speculates that it might have gone down in the storm."
"He may be right on that," the captain spoke without missing a beat as he turned to the officer, "we've just gotten a radio call in from the shore. We have a sighting of three drowned men laying on a beach and there are some bags of a white substance, likely cocaine, near them. There is also a sea turtle laying near the bags of cocaine."
"On a beach, sir?" the officer asked, "wouldn't the lifeguards and police be able to handle that?"
"From the report there isn't much of a beach... it's narrow and with a pretty good-sized cliff right above it," the captain spoke, "our orders are to move in and put ashore our officers to secure the area and provide at least some area control until police can find a way down to the beach. And it's not that far away from where we are now."
The officer nodded and the ship rapidly moved about on course changes that the captain ordered before the officer came in from talking to the lookout. As they came in, the lookout did catch sight of the cliff with some onlookers at the top of the cliff looking down to a very small beach area before that near vertical rock face. It wasn't a spot where anyone would stop to go swimming or anything, simply because getting up from the beach would be near impossible... and jumping down would likely hurt. As they came close, the ship's doctor and a small team came up to the bridge and were then assigned to a small rubber boat that was launched from the ship. The team included the officer... And they came up on a rather dark looking scene. The three men were face down and there was no sign of any breathing.
The doctor stepped off the rubber boat while some of the men began to move about securing the area. The doctor moved and checked the pulse of the three men and frowned as he looked to the officer.
"Are they..." the officer asked.
"They're dead," the doctor sighed, "no breath... and they're also cold. So... they've probably been dead for a while."
"Wouldn't being in the water have made them cold?" the officer wondered.
"Partially," the doctor spoke, "but if death was recent... they'd still have SOME heat on them, despite having been in the ocean."
"Hey! I think the turtle is still alive!" came a call from one of the others drew their attention.
They turned to move to the men, who had found the bags of cocaine that had washed ashore. One was torn open and had a live Green Sea Turtle with its head and one flipper wrapped up in the plastic. It had clearly bitten into the plastic bag and likely injected some of the cocaine in the process, probably thinking it was a jellyfish. Unfortunately, the plastic bag wasn't a jellyfish, and the cocaine could be a poison in too large a dose. Though, the turtle did seem to still be alive as occasionally it moved a flipper.
"Hopefully this isn't like the Cocaine Bear," the one security man from the ship commented.
"It already isn't," the doctor gave a groan, "that movie takes a LOT of liberties... like exaggerating the size of the bear and putting it close to the maximum size for the American Black Bear. The actual animal was MUCH smaller and only around 175 pounds... and it DIED of an OVERDOSE from eating the cocaine. There was no bloody rampage. In this, this turtle seems to have avoided that fate..."
"Must be cold blooded, takes longer to process," the security man commented.
"Maybe... though, I'd be more inclined to believe that it didn't eat all that much," the doctor spoke, "from the news reports... it would appear that the bear gorged on the cocaine it found... well above what even an addict would take, thus why the bear died of an overdose. This turtle must not have eaten all that much and really only became trapped in the plastic. In this its fortunate not to have drowned as our three drug smugglers have."
"So... what do we do?" the officer wondered.
"First... I think we get the plastic off of it," the doctor spoke, "then I think we get the Animalians on the horn... as I'm not a vet... and we can't say on how much cocaine the turtle actually ate or how medicines we'd use to help people would work. From all the theories... an Animalian would respond similarly to a Human."
The others nodded, though, that'd still have to wait...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"You didn't have to come with me," Harold commented to his partner for the afternoon, "I know you're busy with your own work."
"This turtle the Mexican coast guard found is another sea turtle, even if not a Leatherback... I would like to be there for her," Topanga as she kept her beak fairly straight as she walked along with the male Sea Krait Animalian.
The pair had flown from Mieni to Mexico after the reports came in that the Mexican coast guard had found a Green Sea Turtle beached and wrapped up in bags of cocaine, or at least in one bag. It had been alive, and vets were called in to keep it alive, but reports soon followed that even as the turtle recovered, it remained extremely lethargic and wasn't eating much. And at times, it's body shook, almost as though it were going through the symptoms of withdrawal after eating some of the cocaine from the bag it had bitten into. The only option that the vets ultimately felt was there to prevent the turtle from succumbing to the effects of the drugs it had ingested was to uplift it, and thus sent out a call to Mieni. The main Horizon offices in Lyre, or Jeremy's office at Dino City were closer, but because the animal to be uplifted was a sea turtle, they went to Mieni, given that they were more of Animalia's sea creature representatives.
As they came into the facility where the sea turtle was held, they were met by a small team of vets who were waiting for them. They looked nervous and looked to Topanga first.
"You will be uplifting the turtle?" one of the vets asked to Topanga in English, but with a heavy Spanish accent.
"No, that will be done by injection, which Harold will handle," Topanga answered putting a flipper like hand, "I'm here more as an assistant and at least being another sea turtle, even if not the same species as the one you've rescued."
"I see... do you have medical experience?" the vet asked.
"Some..." Topanga answered, "though much of that will be handled by the staff on Mieni."
They eventually made their way into an internal pen that was sort of fenced in. The vets there had brough in a large feeding through that would normally be used on a farm and filled it with water. Topanga noted that they'd also put a large rock for the turtle to rest on and made one end of the through shallower than the rest. It would be easier for the sea turtle to breathe there, though Topanga didn't want to have to tell them that sea turtles, regardless of species, were more than capable of sleeping out in deep waters and coming up to the surface to breathe... just like whales did. However, the sight of the Green Sea Turtle was enough to quiet any notions of that sort on Topanga's part. The shock and surprise made Topanga drop the duffel bag that she was carrying that would provide clones for the new Animalian once the sea turtle was uplifted, largely as the theory was that this Green Sea Turtle would change in much the same way that Topanga had, which would mean that her shell would not be something that covered up the "naughty bits" the way the land Turtle Animalian's shells did.
But the turtle did not look particularly good. A lot of the color had seemed to have drained from its scales and it only slowly blinked its eyes, barely noticing anything as Topanga and Harold looked at her. The turtle's rear flippers also shook a bit, even while floating in a resting position.
"Has she eaten anything?" Harold asked.
"Not much... and likely what has been eaten was only just enough to stay alive and not much more," one of the vets spoke, "and other than that... we haven't gotten much of a response. Almost as though the effects of the drug are still killing her... even with her stomach being pumped."
"Well... we don't know how much she ingested before your coast guard rescued her... or how long between when she'd come in contact with the cocaine and when she was found," Harold spoke, "if the smugglers..."
"The coast guard told us they drowned when their speed boat sank, and likely spilled the cocaine out into the sea," the vet said, "and I think they're running missions to recover the boat for right now... assuming they can find it."
Harold sighed heavily at that. That really only left uplifting the sea turtle.
"Well... the uplifting should heal the physical issues that would come from ingesting the cocaine and even from the affects of withdrawal," Harold spoke, "if we could get her onto the floor here... and perhaps hold her down so I can deliver the shot."
"And after that?" the vet asked.
"We leave," Harold spoke, "Topanga will stay as she is already a female Sea Turtle Animalian."
They then went to work, and the sea turtle didn't struggle. In fact, it barely even responded, though its rear flippers did still shake quite a bit. Once on the floor, Harold quickly went about his work to deliver the injection for the Animalia Virus and gave the sea turtle both doses. From there, the others left as Topanga was left standing there and watching as the sea turtle began to shake a little more, though this was soon bringing in additional changes. The rear flippers retained a more flipper-like shape at the feet and toes, but the limb also lengthened to allow for the development of actual legs. Similar changes were happening with the fore-flippers, as the tips began to fan out into webbed fingers, much like Topanga's.
That let the sea turtle begin to stand up. It was a bit shaky, but Topanga remembered similar sensations when she was uplifted, years ago, now. As the new Sea Turtle stood up, Topanga watched as the other Sea Turtle Animalian's hips and butt began to flare out, while her shell moved to be a more covering sort of shell in a way that was different from other Turtle Animalians. The shell was also different from Topanga's with visible hard scales that were there as well. It was a different kind of shell from Topanga's, which was more of thick leathery skin with some osteoderms. It left Topanga wondering if this Green Sea Turtle Animalian could remove her shell like the Land Turtle Animalians could simply because of the differences in their shells, but that would be something to figure out later.
"That... feels... better," the new Green Sea Turtle Animalian said slowly in Spanish and turning to see Topanga there and exposing how the part of the shell on her front had seemed to form into an almost corset like shape to lift up the new Animalian's generous bosom.
"Uh... I don't speak Spanish," Topanga said in English, "I know English... and a couple of the Polynesian languages."
"You're like me!" the Green Sea Turtle Animalian said in Spanish.
"Do you know English?" Topanga asked, "and you will need clothes... even as a Sea Turtle Animalian."
Topanga then tugged a bit on the collar of her shirt to draw attention to it, which the Green Sea Turtle Animalian did notice.
"A shirt!" she said in Spanish.
"Yes, a shirt," Topanga said in English, "and you're going to need one.... and I need a translator."