"Wake up, Yunus Captain, there's another one above our ship," the deck chief Suat said, diving into the captain's cabin.
The captain, who drank raki too much the previous night, barely opened his eyes and said, "Did you stand up for prayer? Where's Semih?"
"The ship is upside down in the air. God save us from disaster," said the deck chief Suat.
Yunus Captain took power from his elbows and stood up, saying, "Don't drink that shit. At least you don't do it, chief."
"I swear on Koran, I didn't drink anything. It's like someone put a mirror in the sky. Come and see for yourself."
"Did Semih see?"
"I was surprised to see the ship in the sky, and I didn't think to go to him in the first place."
Yunus captain put his slippers on his feet, found his tracksuit, quickly put it on, and stood up. Because he was hungover, he could barely balance; his head hurt like it was going to crack. Together, they exited the cabin, went through the narrow corridor, climbed the iron stairs with handrails on either side and climbed to the upper deck.
It was just getting bleached outside, and there was really another one of the same ships up there. It was upside down in the sky, as the deck Chief Suat said. It looked like someone from the sky was holding a giant mirror above the ship. The captain could see the ocean flowing from both sides with the ship above. For a moment, Yunus Captain was afraid that the ocean waters above would drain on them, rubbed his eyes, and saw that nothing had changed.
Because he cared more than anything about keeping staff morale high, "there's nothing to worry about. Let those who make this game for us afraid. I'll rip out their lung," he said.
At this time, second captain Semih also came to them and saw the second freighter above. He felt the failure of not reporting the incident that occurred during his bridge guard before the deck chief.
Yunus turned to second Captain Semih and asked, "What do you say to this, Semih? When did this ship land on top of us?"
"I think he just showed up. I asked about our boy's homework to my wife on the phone. Our conversation either lasted two minutes or didn't last."
Yunus guessed that Semih had corresponded with one of his lovers during the night; they might even have virtual sex; however, he did not take it on because there was an urgent matter that they had to deal with.
"A patrol plane with a mirror under the United Nations has landed on us. They're checking with scanners to see if we're carrying chemical weapons. Keep the crew calm and make them don't disturb their work. I don't want any gossip. They will leave after a few hours when they're done," Yunus Captain said.
The captain's words surprised deck Chief Suat and second-in-command Semih, looking at the captain in the mirror above, assuming that what he said was true.
"Don't gawk, Suat; go to the lower deck and explain the situation to the crew. Put a guard on the head, on the port and starboard sides, and at the lower warehouse's entrance. Don't let them slip; if I catch them, I'll rip their lungs out. We'll assess the situation at the captain's mansion. Semih, go and wake up the chief engineer, Emre. Get him upstairs now. My head hurts like a crack, have the chef bring a painkiller upstairs. I haven't washed my face yet; look what happened to us."
As he walked to the captain's mansion, Yunus thought about what might be on the hill. He didn't think of any possibility, except that it was an operation of the Chinese intelligence service. He thought it strange that his aides believed the lie he had made up so that the crew would not be alarmed.
When the captain went to his mansion, he realized that the ship's phones were not working. The internet they received via satellite was also cut off. He guessed that those behind the mirror had powerful signal jammers. He got up and walked to the helm in distress, took the binoculars from the coffee table, and looked up. He shuddered when he saw a copy of the ship above in the captain's mansion looking at him through binoculars. He shook his head slightly without taking his eyes off the binoculars. He made the same move as above. There are no worries; there's a mirror between them; their intentions are to surprise us, he thought.
Five minutes later, they were sitting around the table with Chief Engineer Emre and first officer Semih, trying to guess what had happened to them. He swallowed the painkiller brought by the dishwasher, who also saw the service of the ship's managers, and said, "who would do such dishonor?" he asked. A smart and dignified man, Chief Engineer Emre was the one the captain trusted most on board.
" Let's send a flare-up, and if it hits, we'll know there's really a mirror on the top," Emre said.
"It's doubtful whether the flare will go up to that height," Semih said.
"If the Firecracker doesn't catch up, I'll shoot with a gun," he said, his head still aching as if it was going to crack.
On the upper deck, they fired first the flare and then the captain's gun. Since they couldn't figure out exactly where the bullets were going, these trials did nothing but confuse them more.
The captain had the trouble of not sharing the possibilities in his mind with his colleagues. It had been twenty years since he started working for the National Intelligence Agency. No one knew about his situation except his shipowner boss, who was again an agency member.
Emre, the chief engineer, asked, "I wonder when and how exactly did this mirror land on top of us? Does it surround the whole world, or does it just stand on top of us? What's the point of those who sent this here?"
"Let's check the camera footage. There's no camera facing up, but you'll probably find one with a proper angle. I'll meet you at the captain's mansion in ten minutes. Tell Ahmed not to delay our breakfast any longer. My head does not work when I am hungry," the captain said.
"Who's got anything to do with iron ore? It's ridiculous," Emre said. He did not know that they were carrying iron ore onboard, as well as the rare elements of Tulium and Terbium. These elements used in the defense industry have recently become the keystone of the US-China competition. Turkey has been secretly drilling the embargo that China is trying to impose on the United States in this regard, both for commercial gain and trying to approach the Western bloc again. Captain Yunus believed they were facing an operation by the people's Republic of China Intelligence Service. In recent years, many legends have been produced about this secret organization, about which nothing is known, including its name. There was talk of technologies that defied physics laws developed by China. Still, no one had a clue about the content of these technologies.
The captain searched his room for painkillers in the form of lozenges, which he bought from Hong Kong last month. He found the bottle under his bed, took two dragees from it, and threw it in his mouth. He washed his face with cold water and looked at his image in the mirror. He thought of jumping into one of the lifeboats and going out to sea. If they got far enough from the ship, they could reach the limit of the mirror.
Semih and Emre were not in the captain's mansion; they were trying to put one of the lifeboats out to sea on the lower deck. How could they not have thought about it before? It was an obvious solution. He stopped the ship's engines and went down.
Yunus Captain and Semih began to move away from the ship by lifeboat to reach the mirror's border. On the way, Semih admitted that he had a long conversation over his mobile phone with one of his lovers the previous night. It was a mandatory confession; he knew that the captain would detect what he had done during the security cameras' seizure. He did not tell the captain that after two hours of arguing, the conversation ended with a virtual sex session supported by naked camera footage. The captain could not detect it from the camera footage.
Twenty nautical miles from the ship, they finally found the edge of the mirror. They liked to see the sky covered in fragmentary clouds again. It did not escape the captain's attention on the way back that the mirror had lost its sharpness. It was as if the mirror was slowly evaporating.
When they returned to the ship, they were greeted by Chief Engineer Emre. "I sent my drone behind the mirror, there's nothing up there," he said with pride of people who had done a great job.
Semih was most pleased with this news because the fear that he would be fired for negligence had gnawed at him all morning. Although he did not love Emir as much as his sins, he could hug and kiss him at that moment. To be sure, "Did it just walk through the Mirror?" he asked.
" Yes," Emre said proudly, "as soon as you went to sea, I thought of my drone lying like a lamb in my cabin. I ran and found the drone in the cabin and went up to the upper deck. I activated the device and upgraded it to full throttle. At one point, I thought he'd hit the mirror and come back, but when he disappeared, I knew he was behind the mirror."
" I've never heard of a mirror that can be passed through," Semih said.
"They created a stable force field that also blocked communication. But I don't understand how they did it. I think someone from outside the world did it," Emre replied.
"And what were their intentions? Are these aliens so interested in iron ore?"
"I couldn't figure out what they were up to."
A vague suspicion suddenly arose inside Yunus Captain. He left his colleagues and went down the iron stairs. He passed through a narrow corridor that smelled of rust and went down to the floor where the rare elements were found. He immediately ordered the guards at the warehouse's door to return to their main duties; painting and scraping. He opened the locked door of the warehouse and entered. The lights of the warehouse lit up, sensing that someone had entered, and the captain pulled the faint smell of moisture in the air into his lungs, heading to the chests where rare elements were hidden inside them. As he approached the crates, the distress inside him grew. His entire body was covered in sweat. He picked up the magnetic handle hidden in the closet's bottom drawer in the corner, approached one of the crates with heavy steps, and lifted the lid. He hovered the magnetic handle over the iron ore block. The magnet grabbed a piece the size of a tray and moved it. The captain lifted up the piece the magnet had caught and looked inside the iron ore block. There was a big gap where the rare element packages were supposed to be. At that moment, he felt the pain of his head intensify again. He opened a second crate and checked it out. The view was the same. He closed the chests and returned to the captain's mansion and did not say a word to the ship's crew about the theft they had suffered.
The captain wrote a detailed report about what happened and forwarded it to the National Intelligence Agency via encrypted communications. Agency officials did not tell the Yunus Captain that two more ships had been robbed that day using the same method. How the virtual mirror in the sky was created was never understood. It remained a mystery whether the heists were carried out by an intelligence organization or members of an unknown civilization from outer space.
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