The Dauntless was slicing through the calm of Lake Champlain's morning when Wayne's sonar pinged. Something massive moved below—too big for sturgeon, too fast for debris.
Wayne, excited, shouts "Contact! Whatever that is, it's bigger than any fish I've seen."
Spyder leaned over the screen, coffee forgotten. "How big are we talking?"
Wayne tapped the display."Twenty, maybe thirty feet. Moving at… damn, that can't be right. Fifteen knots and accelerating."
Spyder grabbed the throttle. "Let's see what's down there."
But the Dauntless, stubborn and slow, couldn't match the shadow's pace. The “school-of-fish-that-wasn’t” vanished before Fred could even stretch its upgraded claw. Wayne was still muttering about "that lever’ll work next time," and Spyder was staring at open water, jaw tight with a familiar itch.
Spyder grumbles "We're not slow... but we're not fast. Not fast enough."
The Dauntless bobbed in a mild morning chop, the last hot coffee having gone cold on the rail.
Spyder leaned over an engine cowling, frustration thrumming through his fingers as he stared out at the empty horizon where—minutes, hours?—before, the Impossible had vanished like a joke cut off mid-punchline. "If this boat were lighter..."
Wayne, up to his forearms in cable clamps, rolled his eyes: "If I was lighter, I'd go faster. That's physics, not fixing."
Spyder continues his thoughtm "No—if the boat wasn't in the water, she'd be flying, wouldn't she? Less drag, less slog."
Wayne straightened, a little grin squinting the corner of his mouth. "You want me to stick airplane wings on your shuttlecraft, Captain?"
Athena, perky and just a bit smug: "I have compiled four hydrofoil design options and three potential eulogy templates, Captain. Would you like to review them alphabetically or in order of hull integrity?"
Vanessa took a slow sip of her coffee, watching the two men slip into their favorite argument—engineering versus common sense. "Let's try it Wayne's way this time. I still remember the 'waterproof' coffee maker incident."
Wayne cracked his knuckles, yanked the tarp off his toolbox, and set to work. "We'll need an aluminium plate, more angle-iron, a hacksaw, and hope. Spyder—start stripping the ruined tie rods and that spare heat shield from under the rear locker. And don't whine about my welds."
Wayne lays out foil arms on scrap plywood, torching the lines so they'll curve up, dolphin-style. Fred holds parts steady, its electric whirr underscoring half the build. Spyder splices recycled 10-gauge wire to a relay box, mapping signals from helm controls to Athena's new “WING CONTROL” software module. Athena scolds them for using repurposed machine screws, then quietly rewires her own diagnostics for “Performance: Reckless.” Vanessa photographs the carnage, posting “Engineers gone wild” to a boating forum as proof-of-life.
Soon, aluminum foils gleam at the gunwales, fore and aft; steel brackets glint at the hinge points. Spyder attaches home-printed stickers: LEFT WING, RIGHT WING, with little starship insignias. Wayne rolls his eyes but leaves them.
The crew crowds the helm.
Wayne points Spyder's attention to a chrome-trimmed knob, freshly installed. "That's your trim. Just, for Pete's sake, turn it slow."
Spyder: "Define ‘slow’..."
He pushes forward—the Dauntless begins to rise onto the foils, humming like she's discovered rock'n'roll. Spyder, grinning too hard, gives it another nudge.
The boat jumps. For one wild, perfect moment, all gravity is suspended, and Dauntless is impossibly airborne.
Wayne, clinging to the dash: "I said SLOW!"
Vanessa, with a grin on her face, howls with laughter.
Spyder, grinning from ear to ear: "Did we just fly?! Cuz that was cool !"
Wayne, still clinging to the dash: "I DID say SLOWLY!"
Spyder, still grinning "I DID ask you to define slowly"
Athena, unflappable as ever, announces "First airborne event recorded, Captain. Would you like me to mark the GPS, adjust beverage protocols, or notify Starfleet Command for you?"