The planes swooped in low and unloaded bomb after bomb onto the pirates. These ships lacked shields, so they blasted to pieces in marvelous displays of wood and metal that were visible in the reddish light of fire.
The ships were quickly overcome by the flames, and I could see tiny individuals abandon ship, diving off one after another. The living US Navy would’ve rescued them, per the Geneva Convention. What would the Rickover do?
One by one, the jets returned to the flight deck, filling my chest with the wonderfully deep vibrations I’d come to love about carrier life. Sailors still ran around the deck, ignoring me where I stood next to the entrance to the hangar bay.
There was a high whine of cord being let go through a pulley, and then a splash from somewhere unseen. A boat’s motor turned on, and then another. Two small motorboats zipped away from the ship, racing toward the sinking pirate ships. They were rigid-hulled inflatable boats, or RHIBs, and armed to the teeth with both mounted weapons and highly-trained security forces who surely had no problem denting someone’s face with the butt of a rifle.
I leaned on the rail and watched them, smiling despite the violence. Hashem knew, I loved the Navy. I loved ship life, the tight structures and flawless logistics that kept thousands of people afloat on a craft built for intimidation. I’d loved it from the second I’d stepped on the Taft and inhaled the metal, oil, and salty air. I loved the camaraderie that came with being in a profession as old as time. I loved the silly traditions and somber lore, the call of sea birds and the creaking of the ship. I loved it all. It made sense that I’d wound up on a ghost ship. The navy was in my soul.
But my soul was not at peace as long as Commander Gagnon was angling for my necklace. Strange and evil things were afoot on my ship. There was little I could do in the light, since I was not high enough to command anyone or anything. I was enlisted, and not even the highest enlisted in my department. There was a reason why the greatest pieces of nautical literature—heck, even stuff like Star Trek—were about the captains and commanders, all bedecked in gold and braid. They were the natural choices for main characters.
If I could not operate in the light of the bridge, then I would operate in the shadows of the engine room. I was more comfortable there, anyway. I was a nuke.
I pushed away from the rail. It was time to slip back into the shadows.
14
I shook Rielle awake. “Psst. Hey, wake up. I need you.”
Rielle lifted her head from her thin pillow and blinked at me several times. “Are we under attack again?”
“No. But it’s important. Get dressed.” I looked at the rest of our sleeping berthing mates. “I’ll tell you the rest when we’re alone.”
It had been a few hours since the security forces had returned in their RHIBs with a handful of pirates in custody. Rumor had it that the rest of the pirates had refused to return, instead opting to stay afloat on bits of flotsam. Since the Oceanus had no Geneva Convention, they’d been left there.
Rielle slipped into her trousers and thick sweater, the quartermaster office’s answer to coveralls, and pulled back her long blonde hair into a ponytail. When she was done, I opened the door and beckoned her to follow me.
She yawned. “I take it this is urgent.”
“It is. Quick, get in the head.” I opened a women’s restroom door. They were completely unnecessary for us, and therefore one of the few places I could rely on us not being overheard. It was a wonder that the ship even had them. When she was in, I shut the door. “I’ll be blunt: can you get me the paper nautical charts from the quartermaster’s office? He has them, right?”
Rielle startled. “Uh, yeah. I don’t think I’m really supposed to, but I guess he never said I couldn’t.” She eyed me suspiciously. “Why?”
“Captain Hollander told me directly that we weren’t in a thousand miles of a weak spot, but I saw one with my own eyes a few hours ago. He also said that nobody on board can read the charts, so we’re sailing blind. I’m going to take a whack at it.”
She stared at me, raising an eyebrow. “He told you that nobody on board can read nautical charts?”
“Yes.”
“That’s total crap. I’m a quartermaster. I can read nautical charts. It’s part of my job.”
“What?” My exclamation echoed around the tiny room. I cleared my throat. “I mean, what? Then where did he get the idea that nobody can?”
“Probably the same place he heard that there’s no weak spot for a thousand miles, don’t you think?” Her eyes glazed a bit as she thought. “I wonder if… wow. I should’ve been more suspicious.”
“What happened?”
“I was assigned to the galley when we came onto the Rickover. All the quartermasters were assigned somewhere else, but the other rates got to stay in their job. I thought it was unfair, but I didn’t question it. But yeah, there’s a half dozen of us, and we all know how to read nautical charts.”
I digested that. “You think someone’s been feeding lies to the captain, taking advantage of his ignorance?”
“Either that, or he’s pulling it all out of his ass. Is he the kind of person who’d do that?”
“No. At least, not that I’ve seen.” There was a tense silence. “So basically, we’re sailing around the wild ocean, with no idea where we actually are, unable to chase down pirates, and not taking advantage of the weak spots.”
“Sounds like.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
I cracked open the door and peered out. “I think it’s time to take a look at those charts.”
I unrolled the largest of the charts on the table, smoothing out the edges. Rielle held a small flashlight, the only illumination in the dark spare office we were in.
“Okay, what can you see?” I whispered.
She sighed. “Without knowing our location, it’s just another map. It might as well be a map of Yukon Territory for all the use it is to us.”
“Okay, well, how about this,” I said, pointing to a narrow strait on the east end of the map. “Is that Gibraltar?”
She stared intently at the map, her eyebrows drawn together. “Yes.”
“Since we’re traveling at about, oh, thirty knots, where might we have gone in the last three days? If you can’t calculate our position, then try to figure out the outer limit of where we could plausibly be.”
She handed my the flashlight. She dragged her finger back and forth across the map, humming in concentration. She traced a long line north to south. “Here. My educated guess is that we haven’t gone past this longitude, and if that’s so, then we’re near one of these three weak spots.” She indicated three points marked in red ink, each with a number next to it and a coordinate. “See these numbers? They correspond with these three points here.”
She pointed to three other points in the ocean, each with a matching number and the coordinates of the first three. “The first weak spot of the three connects to a point in the Indian Ocean. The second—” She pointed to the edge of the map. “—pops out in this part of the ocean, which roughly corresponds with Ohio, I think. There’s no North America in the Oceanus. And the third one pops out here, where the Chesapeake Bay is.”
I stared at her finger, which was hovering over a small notation on the map: Hampton Roads.
Ice shot down my spine.
“Hampton Roads,” I whispered. “Rielle, that’s my home. That’s what the region is called, Hampton Roads. The ‘roads’ refer to all the waterways there.” I took in several deep breaths. “Back on the Saint Catherine, Captain Hollander told me that the pirates were planning an attack on Virginia Beach.” I gulped. “I bet you anything we’re near the third weak spot. They’re patrolling these waters because they’re gearing up for a major operation.”
She looked at me, nodding. “Okay, I believe you. But why? What would pirates want from Hampton Roads?”
“What do pirates always want? In the living world, they want money, ships, all that.”
“Pirates here want magic.”
“Is there any source of magic in the living world? Anything substantial, worth mounting an attack for?”
She thought. “Well… sort of. It’s us. People. We die, and sometimes we become ghosts here. Sailors aren’t the only ghosts. There are islands all over the Oceanus where people end up seemingly at random. And it’s easy enough to make a ghost.” She gave me a knowing look.
“You kill the person.” My voice was barely audible. “Hashem help them.”
She quickly rolled up the map. “How many people are in Hampton Roads?”
“Over a million,” I said, leaning against the wall to catch my breath. “It’s a huge population center.”
“And you said that there are lots of waterways, right?”
“Yes. That has to be why they chose that weak spot. They’ll pop out in their ships and set sail up the bay and into the rivers. There’s tons of watercraft on the water there at any given time. Docks, moors, everything. People on the beaches…”
My family’s wealth was derived from beach-front real estate. Goldstein Group owned half of the Virginia Beach boardwalk. My parents were in the line of sight of brigands.
My fists clenched, and I took another steadying breath, then stood up and looked at Rielle. “Someone is hiding this from Captain Hollander, and I’ll bet my magic cradle it’s Commander Gagnon.”
Rielle pondered that. “That’s… not exactly hard to believe.” She sat down in the folding chair, and I sat next to her. “Listen, I don’t want to fan any recent flames by speaking ill of my officers—”
“Rielle, I get it. Just tell me.”
“Commander Gagnon was the captain of our ship for about a month before the attack in Port des Morts. She was the XO before that, but Captain Kellerman was killed in Scylla’s attack. In fact, a ton of people were lost. Our defenses were down, and nobody has been able to figure out why. We were slammed with pirates every month for nearly a year, too.”
“Commander Gagnon was the one who told you to report to the galley, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Was your navigation team taken, like ours was?”
“The main navigation team, a ton of the officers, and a lot of the security forces. And we were already low on manpower.”
“Just like the Saint Catherine. I think both ships have been fighting a war of attrition, and I screwed it up by suggesting that the ships combine forces.” I pounded a fist into my other hand. “Maybe that’s why the ship needed us. It needed to upgrade into a proper, modern warship.”
Rielle slid the map back into its tube. “We’re duty-bound to report this to the captain. I say we forget the chain of command and go straight to him. Hell, knock on his stateroom door and get him out of bed. Considering the substance of the report, you won’t get reprimanded. I’ll go with you, even.”
I shook my head. “No. Commander Gagnon is circling. We need to approach him quietly without attracting any attention. Go back to bed, and I’ll talk to Chief Bickley. He’ll go to the captain, arrange a meeting sans Gagnon, and we’ll get this squared away.”
She looked doubtful, but nodded once. “Okay. We don’t speak a word of this, yeah?”
“Right.” We pounded fists. “Let’s go.” My hand was on the doorknob when I paused, an idea coming to me. “Hey, where are the pirates who were taken into custody? The brig?”
“I think so. Why?”
“If Gagnon is playing dirty, then maybe one of them knows about it. We can get them to snitch on her.” I opened the door. “Act casual.”
After stowing the nautical charts in Rielle’s locker—we figured they were in danger of being tossed overboard—we strolled down the long passageways toward the brig. If the head Master at Arms was around, we’d say we were visiting Wayne, who was back in there for making moonshine in the laundry room.
However, the security officer wasn’t at his post when we arrived at the enormous steel door, nor were any of the other security forces present. That was the first oddity.
The second was that the door was ajar.
“That’s not suspicious,” Rielle murmured. “Come on, let’s say, eh, we heard your friend yelling for help.”
“He’s not… oh, who cares? Sure, we heard my friend yelling for help. Actually,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. “Go back to berthing. You’re not getting hurt on my account.”
“But—”
“Please don’t make me make that an order.” She was a second class petty officer, so I could do that, if I wanted. She didn’t really offer me any protection, so taking her with me wasn’t worth the risk.
She heaved a sigh, and then hurried away toward berthing, throwing a chagrined look at me over her shoulder.
When she was out of sight, I cracked open the door and cupped a hand around my mouth. Make this good, Rach. “Wayne? Is that you? I heard someone yelling for help! I’m coming down there!”
I ran down the steps, my heart pounding away in my chest. Nutty as it was, I loved a good adventure, and this was—
Blood was spilling out of the cells. All of them.
I raced to the first cell and yelped, jumping back from the doorway. Three fairy pirates were lying on the floor, dead as doornails, their bodies leaking blood from multiple bullet wounds.
Each cell contained several very bloody, very dead fairies. They’d been shot in their heads and torsos, and all were leaning against the far bulkhead, as if they’d been cowering away from the shooter.
The final cell contained only Wayne’s remains. My first guess would’ve been that he’d shot himself. He was lying on the tiny bunk, a single bullet hole in his temple and his hand limp over the side. The gun had clattered to the floor out of his hand—or so it appeared.
But I didn’t believe that for a second. Not Wayne. Not the guy who’d sat with me over dinner. And how’d he even get one of the fairy’s guns? Because it had to be the gun of an enemy, if the bullet had killed him. And if that was so, why hadn’t the security forces properly searched the pirates?
None of this made sense.
The door to the brig opened, and heavy footsteps came down the stairs. Certainly that had to be Chief Buntin.
“There’s been murders!” I shouted. “I heard a sound and I came down to check! I’m coming out with my hands up!”
I stepped out of the cell—and stared directly down the barrel of Commander Gagnon’s gun.
She had just overtaken Scylla as the woman I hated the most.
“Who knows you’re here?” she asked, her voice like ice.
“Everyone in my berthing,” I lied, never taking my eyes off the gun. “And I told Torres to tell Chief Bickley that I’d heard a commotion.” It took every ounce of self-control in my body to not rattle off the name of every sailor I knew.
“Then this will have to be the hard way. Give me the magic cradle, if you please, and as you do so, say aloud that it’s mine.”
“Okay. I’m going for the necklace now. No sudden moves, see?”
I removed the cradle, only able to absorb a tiny shock of magic before she brandished the gun and said, “Don’t even think about it.”
I moved my hand away from the glass and removed the chain from my neck. “It’s yours now. Here you go.”
Never taking her eyes off me, she placed it over her head and tucked it securely beneath her collar. “Thank you for seeing reason. Start walking up the stairs and head for the stern. If you so much as sneeze, I’ll shoot you and say you attacked me. Keep your hands where I can see them at all times.”
There was no reasoning with a maniac, especially a maniac with a gun. I squared my shoulders and climbed the stairs, my feet heavy but my chest airy with fear and adrenaline. Please let someone see that I’m not okay. Please let someone ask me if I need help.
But nobody did. It was night, and most people were in their berthings, offices, or attending duties, never sparing either of us a glance as we walked all the way to the
stern of the ship.
I opened the door to the deck that led to the far back rail, and I could see a lookout standing at the same place I’d been when I had seen the pirates hours earlier. As soon as the door was shut behind us, she shoved me into a dark corner. “Stay here. Don’t you dare breathe a word.”
I was too scared to even nod. She stalked off toward the lookout. She caught his attention, then exchanged a few words with him. He nodded once and sprinted to another end of the ship.
She was getting rid of the potential witness.
I put a hand to my chest. “Okay, okay, think Rachel, think,” I gasped. “Just run and tell Bickley. Run and—”
She turned and faced me, then beckoned. Trembling, I walked to her, bracing for the bullet I knew was coming any second. Of course she’d killed the pirates and Wayne, but why? What did she stand to gain from their deaths?
Her gun was low at her hip, unobtrusive but still dangerous. “Captain Hollander has been telling me about you,” she said. “The pretty little nuke who lost it all when she died in the tragic accident.”
How the hell was I supposed to reply to that?
“You weren’t even going to stay on the ship. You were going to go directly to the Far Island. But you stayed, and now you’re screwing everything up for me.” Her voice had become a hiss.
“I… I…”
“Jump, Petty Officer. Jump or be shot. It’s up to you.”
“No!” I took a step back. “I’m not your enemy! The necklace thing wasn’t personal!”
“You’re my Jonah, Rachel Goldstein. You got on this ship and threatened everything. You know what happened to Jonah, don’t you?”
She seized me and clamped her hand over my mouth while I thrashed wildly. But she was taller, wider, and stronger, leaving me hopelessly outclassed. I tried to grab her gun, but one good bang against the railing sent my senses spinning. I felt my body lifted up, and then—
Down.
Down.
Down.
Sea of Lost Souls Page 15