Fishy Ship

              I dreamed that I was working on a dock in a narrow bay. The dock was pretty much a cargo terminal. There was a cargo ship coming in, and I needed to get my tug out to it to help nudge it into its berth. I carried the tug down the dock (Yes, a whole tug boat, up on my shoulder.) MS was there with a similar tug, asking if I needed any help.
              “Nope, just make sure the slip is ready.”
              I walked to the end of the dock and put the tug in the water then jumped aboard. The huge motors rumbled to life and I headed out to the mouth of the bay to meet the container ship.
              Just as I was tying off to the larger ship, I got a call on the radio. It seems the slip wasn't empty, there was an unknown vessel taking on passengers there.
              I made my apologies to the cargo transport pilot and told him to idle there for a bit, we had another ship we had to move out of the way, first.
              I raced back to the docks.
              When I arrived, M was having a conversation with the owner of the ship at the wrong slip. I came aboard and tried to diffuse the argument before it could get to the point where nothing was moving.
              “Where is the captain?” I asked.
              No one seemed to know the answer. I made my way up to the pilot house, down from the main deck and sitting a little bit out over the water. There were a couple of women there in uniforms. “Is one of you the captain?”
              “No, we're just pilots.”
              M and the owner had followed me down into the pilot house, which was now very crowded. I looked back up onto the deck full of people, then out over the empty dock.
              “Do you have everyone aboard?”
              M and the owner looked at me, “What?” written all over their faces.
              “Is everyone you were expecting aboard?”
              “Well, yes, I believe so.”
              “But, they're not supposed to be here!”
              “And ten minutes from now they won't and we can forget all about them. Right?”
              The owner looked at me, confused but slowly understanding that I was letting them go on their way. “Oh! Sure, if it isn't too late all ready.” He looked nervously out at his passengers, who, despite the fact that there was little motion were starting to look wide eyed and a little green around the gills.
              Maybe it was the gills part that really threw me off. Even in this dream world, women with gills was not an every day occurrence.
              “Get us out into the channel. M bring the tug to take me off.”
              M jumped over to the dock as the ships engines rumbled to life.
              “Thank you,” chorused from the passengers and pilots.
              “Lets see you safely out to sea.”
              “That won't be needed, deep water is enough.” The owner turned to me, now also sporting gills, large wide set eyes and an unpleasant greenish tint. One of the pilots had also joined in this not entirely pleasant fashion trend.
              “No!” The blond pilot looked at me, obvious terror in her eyes. I followed as she ran out of the pilothouse and climbed the ladder to get above decks. Several exlposions shook the ship from below and I could feel the surge of ocean into the ruptured hull beneath my feet. Water splashed up into the passenger deck and the passengers began to rip out of their clothing, arms now ending in webbed and clawed hands.
              I climed to the ship's rail, hailing M to start for us now. The pilot just about vanished in a dozen clutching arms before I grabbed her and pulled her up to the rail with me. “If you want to leave this dock in peace, you will let us go.” I pointed my emergency flare pistol at the owner.
              He growled something in no language I'd ever heard, nor would care to hear again. The passengers stopped clutching at us and backed away. While I could hear other voices now, from the waves below us. As M brought the tug alongside we were suddenly pulled down by dozens of grasping claws, the pistol knocked from my hands.
              “Jump!” I shouted to the pilot and we blindly pushed off the rail with all our might, hoping to land on the tug, rather than amongst the voices amongst the waves.
              M had deployed the airbags and cargo nets, he gunned the engines and we were pulling away even before we'd completed our first bounce.
              “Are you all right.”
              “Yes, thank you,” the pilot replied, still shaken. Her pale skin was so white it reflected the green of the ocean. I noticed she had the most enchanting and unusually wide gray eyes above her wide toothy smile.