In the late summer of 2026, two energy tankers bound for American shores became the latest vessels in a long history of maritime vulnerability — this time not to weather or pirates, but to lines of malicious code. Federal agents boarded the ships, including the massive crude carrier VL Prosperity, after cyberattacks silenced their communications and reached into propulsion and navigation systems mid-Atlantic. The incident has drawn investigators toward Iran, though attribution in the digital realm moves slowly, and it has forced a reckoning with a quiet truth: the ships that carry civilization