[b]Halifax[/b]

"Sweet mother of god... She's a big fucking thing, eh?" Two fishermen were sitting on the edge of a downtown pier, attention fixed on the waters below them. Below them, bobbing happily in the diminishing swells, was a massive female seal. Or maybe not so massive, no one living could remember how big seals had been before the war. 

"Reckon the family could eat for a week off of her." Said the second man, though neither moved to try and grab their fishing gear. Any sort of hunting within the are controlled by Nature Trust was tightly monitored and controlled. Largely because, and likely for good reason, everyone was desperately worried about any sort of food shortages as had happened in the old days when the Grand Banks had been fished to extinction. 

"The Wardens would be a tad pissed, I imagine." The first said and they both glanced around guilty. The Wardens, once the Canadian National Parks Warden Service, had survived the war and now served Halifax as the R.C.M.P. served Toronto. Unlike the R.C.M.P. however, the Wardens wore dark green and had a mandate more focused on protecting resources within the Gulf of Saint Lawerence, and less on criminal offences, that was left to the Royal Constabulary. 

"Did you hear they caught some more blue lobster?" Once a delicacy, the blue lobsters were becoming more and more common this far north. There was speculation, largely on the part of the Wardens, that this was because the waters were slowly clearing. So much of the major debris was to the south and since virtually no notable human settlement remained north of The Trust, little pollution was getting into the area. 

The sound of a ships bell drew their gaze to a two masted brigantine sliding into port on the oncoming tide. Her sails were a dull red and the name "[i]Eye of the Wind[/i]" was still stencilled onto the bow with copper letters. She was a sleek ship, and one of the smaller ones in the fleet. She also served the primary enforcement vessel for the Wardens as she was damned fast. 

Like most of the wooden ships salvaged from the old days, the [i]Eye of the Wind[/i] had been upgraded to meet her new challenges. Thin steel plates, enough to stop small arms fire, covered her upper hull. The wood hull itself was thick enough to stop any bullet, but the metal served to protect the crew as well. Not built for cannons, she instead mounted two ballista launchers that could hurl explosive charges, a laser mounted in the bow, and a pair of machine guns. By seagoing standards, she was among the most heavily armed ships afloat. 

Crew moved about the deck, sailors in their bare feet, white pants, and blue jackets, Wardens in their green, and officers in the dark blue jackets of their trade. A crew of sixty souls who fiercely protected the regions trade and resource interests. 

The [i]Eye of the Wind[/i] coasted slowly across the waves toward the Naval Base, two other Royal ships lay alongside already and lines soared out from them to the new comer so she could be pulled alongside. Another day, another bottle cap or two.