by C. Litka
03
With RahJen's note in my pocket, I made my way up to the overhead wharf where S&D's bumboat provider was tied up and engaged a weather beaten broad-feathered sailor by the name of YaCi, to run me out to the Lora Lakes in his small electric powered boat.
'New Chief of the Lora Lakes, are you?' he asked as he untied his skiff and pushed off. 'Who'd ya get on the lee side of to land the berth? If you don't mind me asking ya,' he added with a grin as he deftly wove his way through the throng of boats and lighters moving about in the harbor.
'It's a mystery. I've been assured that it's a promotion, so I'll not complain until I see this candidate for the breaker's yard.'
'She's a sight to behold, alright, but I'll say no more in respect for your new ship, Chief. What boat did they promote you off of?' he asked and we fell into talking shop as we made our way out of the harbor and then along the treetops to what seemed to be the far side of the islands.
'There she be,' he said pointing, as we arched over a line of trees into a sheltered bay. The Lora Lakes, along with several other similar ships, was tied up close alongside a jungle-draped point. Even having carefully prepared myself, I had to bite back telling YaCi to turn about, and grimly contemplated the rusting carcass before me. It was a typical boxy freighter with its bridge structure centered. Forward it had two side-loading cargo hatches and one cargo hatch aft. The amidships structure rose two stories above the cargo section, with the bridge and chartroom on top, then crew quarters, and below them, the boiler and steam turbine generators. Behind the bridge and crew quarters was a flying deck with two boats on davits that ended with a squat smokestack. Beneath the boat deck was a glassed and caged in deck. The stern tapered to twin enclosed propellers mounted on short wings, each of them tipped with upright steering rudders. The hull was painted black - standard for the S&D Line freighters - but was now mottled with rust and hosted a large, colorful collection of feathered lizards, some of them as large as a man, peacefully sunning themselves on it. The bird contingent seemed to have claimed the upper decks, and as we approached, they rose as one, noisily squawking their protests as they swirled around us.
'ZesRe! ZesRa, you've company!' hailed YaCi as he swung our boat around to come alongside the short gangplank.
A broad-feathered fellow poked his head out from a lower bridge portal and yelled back, 'Company you say? I'll be right down, Ci!'
By the time we were alongside, he had emerged from the dark entry port to grab the line I cast.
'Chief Engineer Wil Litang, I wager,' he said with a glance at my company cap as he deftly tied the skiff fast. ZesRe was another old sailor. He greeting me with a knowing smile. 'Come to gaze on your new charges, are we? Well, welcome aboard the old Lora Lakes, Chief. Glad to have ya aboard. And don't get discouraged, Chief. Ain't nothing wrong with Lora that a few replacement parts can't fix...'
'A few! Go sailin' ZezRe! A list as long as my arm wouldn't do it all,' laughed YaCi.
'Don't pay any attention to him. Wouldn't reach more than up to his elbow. Not the stuff what you need right off, anyhow.'
YaCi laughed. 'Maybe. But only if you wrote really small.'
The old boys were having their fun.
'Well, let's have a look at it,' I said, 'Can't be any worse than the view from here.'
'Right you are, Chief. Not worse, but much the same. Stay for dinner, will you? It can get might lonely babysitting this rusting wreck, which I mean to say, the good'ol Lora. I sailed aboard her several thousands of rounds. Know her well. There's a good solid ship under the rust. Somewhere.' And when I nodded, he called out 'Two more for dinner, Ra!'
The good'ol Lora Lakes was dank, dark, and dreary, smelling of old dinners, bird and lizard droppings, rust and dust. It was rusting inside and out.
'They didn't do much of a job laying her up,' I said, surveying the rusting engine room from the main platform. 'Didn't grease anything up at all.'
'Well, the word at the time was her next port was the breakers and so we pretty much just abandoned her. No point prettying her up for the wreckers,' said ZesRe, rather sheepishly. 'We'd been scraping by for half a thousand rounds. No budget to get anything fixed right. The handwriting was plain as rust on the hull what they was fixing to do.'
'Apparently not. Any whispers about the port as to why the change of heart?' I asked. Word would get around - even to the caretaker of this remote ship if there was word to get around.
'No idea, Chief. I'm having trouble wrapping my feeble wits around it, myself. Not, mind you, that the ship isn't fundamentally sound, it is just that after letting her run down for so long, I don't know why they'd suddenly want her back in service. Ain't no boom in the cargo market as far as I can see.'
'I guess we'll all have to wait until the Captain arrives in a few watches. KimTara is her name. I gather there's likely a connection to some important people in the company - not that I know myself. Served all my time out in the Donta's, too far from the center to ever hear much gossip. Ever hear of her?'
'A Kim, you say. That's a name that has push in this company. Still, I can't say that I've heard of that one. Probably spent all her time in the core islands. Funny her getting a wreck like this...'
'It's a mystery,' added YaCi. 'I'll be curious to find out what's up.'
I was curious as well, as in a, "What have I gotten myself into now?" sort of way. It had been a while, but I'd a feeling I'd landed on something like this before.
I stayed for a simple, but tasty, meal with ZesRe, ZesRa and Yaci, and then headed back to the cottage to think things over. The following round I stopped by the S&D office to have RahJen sign me back on active duty so I could take an inventory of what the Lora Lakes would need to sail again. I wanted my requirements in hand before the captain arrived. Riv was never at a loss to say what his engine room needed when I was captain, and it's hard to argue with an engineer with a list in hand and his story down pat. I'd take a page out of his book and have my list and story in hand. I arranged with YaCi to pick me up at the beginning of the first sleep round and spent the round going over every piece of equipment in my department, documenting every defect in the boiler, turbine, motors, pipes, batteries, and sundry other equipment, as well in the almost total lack of replacement parts and supplies. I took S&D's official list of necessary supplies as my basis and noted every deficiency. The list I made ended up five pages long, longer than ZesRe's arm.