At 06:59:50 AM, the heavy timber rub-rail of Harbor Tugboat Marrow-09 groaned against the creosote pilings of Slip Four at Pier 14.
Elena Rostova pulled the starboard throttle lever into full reverse for two heartbeats. She killed the last of the vessel’s headway until the sixty-foot iron hull rested dead-even with the concrete wharf apron where Pier 14 met the District 9 canal slipway.
“Dead slow and settled!” Elena called out through the open wheelhouse window. She locked the brass engine telegraph onto STANDBY -- MOORED.
On the foredeck bulwark, Marcus “Mac” Cole coiled his legs and leaped across the eighteen-inch strip of churning black water onto the wet concrete dock. His steel-toed work boots struck the granite curb with a solid, ringing thud.
Moving with thirty years of waterfront muscle memory, Mac whipped the three-inch tarred hemp bow-hawser around the cast-iron mooring bollard. He leaned his broad shoulders back against the strain and locked the line down with three figure-eight hitches using his re-attached naval-brass left arm.
“Bow fast!” Mac bellowed over the rising four-thousand-one-hundred-and-ninety-six-hertz hum vibrating through the dock pilings. “Stern spring-line coming over!”
Julian Vance braced his boots against the aft bit on the tugboat’s deck and heaved the coiled stern line across the gap. Mac caught the heavy hemp loop in mid-air with his right hand. He snubbed it tight around the rear cleat and kicked the steel locking pawl home on the pier capstan.
