Endless Blue

by Wen Spencer

  Mikhail refrained from pointing out that he'd saved her first; because she was right, she could have left him laying there half stunned.

  "Oh shit, it's still coming." She jerked him to his feet again. "Come on, come on. It can climb."

  "It's a fish."

  She slammed him to the wall and pinned him there. "Why do you think you know anything? This isn't your universe! It's a rogue bio-weapon. It's fast. It's smart. It's nearly impossible to kill. And it can climb!"

  The catwalk clanged and rattled as the creature hooked a tentacle onto the railing and started to haul itself up.

  "Point taken." Mikhail said.

  The woman released Mikhail. The catwalk had ended before another set of blast doors from a fighter bay. This one, though, was sealed shut.

  "Oh give me a break!" The woman growled and threw open the access panel to the manual crank. "I don't know why I deserve all this bad luck. We're so dead."

  The creature was coming at an alarming speed, although Mikhail suspected that due to its size, any speed would be alarming. Amazingly, he'd kept hold of his pistol. Unfortunately, he'd only brought one clip with him. He had only a dozen bullets to kill the monster, and then he was out of ammo. He took careful aim for its right eye and fired. Unbelievably, the bullet ricocheted off the eye as if striking steel.

  "That's only going to piss it off." The woman growled as she struggled with the crank. "As does those pea-shooter rifles your Reds are carrying. You need something big—like a cannon."

  Judging by its speed and his experience with such machinery, they weren't going to get the door open before it was on top of them. He glanced around, trying to form a plan. He realized that the catwalk let people access boats suspended from the trusses overhead.

  There was another catwalk beside the Kingfisher, not connected to the one they were, but only a short jump away.

  "Follow me," Mikhail holstered his pistol. "We're moving to the next catwalk."

  She burst into curses but still let him pull her to the railing. "That doesn't go anywhere! That door is without power too!"

  "I have a plan!" He scrambled up onto the railing and leapt across.

  "It better be a good plan!" She landed lightly beside him. "It can jump this easy."

  "I'm hoping it can."

  "What?" She nearly squeaked the word in startled amazement.

  Mikhail scrambled onto the Kingfisher. Just escaping the beast would leave his crew endangered when they came looking for him. He had to kill it. On Plymouth Station Mikhail had spent hours climbing over the Swordfish, looking for any overlooked clues as to where it might have come from. Luckily the Kingfisher was very much a twin for the Swordfish.

  He kicked on the engine and then set it at a high idle. As he dashed for the engine hatch, the creature leaped the gap, flinging itself through with surprising grace and ease. The catwalk shook violently as it landed.

  In a cabinet beside the engine hatch, there was a heavy duty power cable with alligator clamps on one end and a crude old-fashion pronged plug on the other.

  "Here!" Mikhail called to the woman as he threw open the engine hatch. "Help me! Plug this in."

  "What?" She scrambled to his side and snatched up the plug. "Now?"

  "No. Wait for my mark."

  Attaching the clamps to the railing required getting close to the creature. His suit would protect him from both the monster and electricity. Theoretically. With clamps in hand, he ran to the railing, aware that the creature was rushing toward him.

  They reached the railing at the same time, reaching for each other with outstretched limbs. The bio-weapon was faster. It's climbing tentacle whipped around Mikhail, crushing tight, and jerked him toward its mouth full of teeth. Mikhail clamped the right lead to the tentacle holding him, but his left hand was trapped to his side.

  "Plug it in!" he shouted.

  "Are you insane?" the female Red shouted back.

  "Plug it in!" He wriggled his left hand so the metal end of the lead pressed against the tentacle.

  Apparently she obeyed him. The creature started to jerked wildly as the power surged through it. His suit screamed warnings that its ability to protect him was failing. The smell of cooked fish filled his senses.

  And suddenly he was on the floor of the ship and the creature was a still mass draped over the railing. The sudden silence was amazing.

  "Are you okay?" The woman pressed a hand to his neck, feeling for a pulse. Her hand was soft with fur.

  "I'm fine." Mikhail croaked and sat up.

  "That took a lot of guts." She looked at him with surprised awe. "You know, I could have done the clamps and you plugged it in."

  He wheezed out a laugh. "I had the suit to protect me."

  "Yeah. I see you don't need to be told to watch your course."

  "Captain!" Someone shouted in the distance, and came running through the darkness at a speed only a Red could produce.

  "Captain!" The Red below was Rabbit. He sounded in a near panic as he turned in place, looking for Mikhail.

  "Up here!" Mikhail called down.

  Rabbit looked up, spotted the catwalk and leaped up onto it. A moment later Rabbit was at Mikhail's side, worry on his face. "Captain, are you hurt?"

  "No." Mihkail put a hand on the yearling's shoulder to calm him. Annoyingly the hand wanted to shake. Mikhail controlled it and cleared his throat to make sure his voice stayed firm. "I'm fine."

  The woman was gone, silent as a shadow retreating before the light.

  11

  Yamato-Yamaguchi

  Paige both loved and hated Yamoto-Yamaguchi.

  The gods had smiled on the ancient spaceships. Both had landed nearly intact and within miles of each other. The colony ship Yamaguchi had the manufacturing facilities to make and repair practically anything. The battleship Yamoto supplied military power to protect a sprawling wealthy settlement. They had the means to make a beautiful city; thus Ya-ya was an opulent flower resting between the two great ships.

  Coming to the landing when she was a child was like having her eyes forced open. For the first time she realized how the other landings were built with a plethora of salvaged material poorly redesigned and haphazardly placed. They suddenly seemed as ugly as a broken hand-me-down toy that someone else had the joy of owning when it was new. She loved the landing's beauty, and hated how grimy the rest of the world seemed compared to it.

  As usual, she felt torn as they finally made the busy harbor.

  The Rosetta's engine had stuttered and stalled for the last five hundred miles. It was a huge relief to settle into a boat slip and tie off, safe. Safety was a relative word though. They had to deal with treacherous economics now instead of the dangers of open water. Everything came at a price in Ya-ya, from the pilot that came out to guide them in, to the tugboat that was eventually needed get them to the docks, plus a daily fee on the boat slip itself. She couldn't force her crew to exist without money, so she would have pay their wages. They needed food staples such as coffee, flour and sugar. The fridge, ship's intercom, and their radio were all fried. And both Turk and Ranantann were still naked.

  She set aside wages, sent Manny out with money to cover the staples, electronics, and clothes, and considered what was left. Two thousand yen. Not a sum to be sneezed at, but a new engine would run three to four times that amount. Without a new engine, the Rosetta was merely a floating house. And the longer they sat idle in harbor, the more they would have to pay.

  Orin came onto the bridge with two cups of coffee, which mean Manny was back from his shopping. "Manny says there's no news on Ethan or the Lilianna. If they survived, they didn't come here."

  "No news is good news."

  "One hopes." Orin said.

  "Once we get a radio in, we can call Georgetown—see if anyone went back home."

  Orin nodded to the wisdom of this. "How are we doing money-wise?"

  "We're not broke." Paige handed him his coin string. "There's all the cargo we were going to sell at
Fenrir's Rock. And the drop nuts we picked up." That might scrape in another thousand. "We're going to have to take some local jobs, though, before we can afford another engine."

  They went over the duty schedule. While Ya-ya was safe from storms and dangerous sea creatures, it was thick with thieves. They would have to make sure that at least two adults were onboard and awake at all times. Taking jobs to raise money would stretch them thin.

  Paige was just finishing up with Orin on the dock when Turk caught up to her. As always he drifted up close to her but stopped short of touching her. There were times she wished he would just take his distracting presence away. There were other times she wished he'd press his full body against her. Her awareness of him was so acute that even when they were inches apart, his nearness felt like a touch.

  At least he was no longer naked. Manny had gotten him a blue cotton shirt, white linen pants and leather sandals.

  "Did you get new clothes too?" His gaze went down over her slowly.

  She had changed into her best kimono, a brilliant red furisode with peonies. She had gotten it second hand, as new it would have cost a hundred times the price. "No, this is old. And it's annoying to wear." She held out her arm and loosed her sleeve to show off the fact that the sleeves trailed the whole way to the ground. "I only break it out when I'm going to be spending a long time on land."

  "It makes you even more beautiful."

  Damn the man could go through all her defenses and make her blush. Other people would have said "you're beautiful in it," as if implying that beauty lay only in the garment.

  "Thank you." She distracted herself in gathering up the sleeve again. "Here, this is yours."

  She handed him the coin string she had tucked into her sleeve. His was the last she had to give out before leaving.

  "What are these?"

  "They're yen. It's the coins that they use as money here. You do know how money works?"

  He frowned at the money so intently that it was easy to see he was puzzled by something. There were times he was so easy to read, while other times he continued to mystify her.

  "They have how much they are printed on them. See, here's a one on one yen. A five on five yen. And these are fifty yen. Five yen can get you lunch or a taxi ride. Fifty yen will get you some boots if you want, or a good knife."

  "Why are you giving this to me?" he asked.

  "That's your pay. Twenty yen a day for every day you've been on the Rosetta, minus out the cost of the clothes we've given you."

  "You're giving me a salary?"

  The total look of bewilderment on Turk's face made her laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. Five minutes in a kimono and she was slipping into old habits. "Yes. For the work you've been doing. Fishing. Cooking. Cleaning. Keeping watch. It's not as much as I would have liked but we're tight on money right now."

  "Why are you paying me?"

  "Because you're part of my crew—for as long as you want to be." The last few days had been a torture of temptation; she resisted because she didn't want to be heartbroken if he left when they reached Ya-ya. It had been fairly obvious that he loathed fishing, and it would be a while before he could cook a meal himself. "If you don't want to save with us," she forced herself to add, "You could look for a job here in Ya-ya; newcomer Reds are well-thought of as guards. If you sign onto another ship, stay away from those out of Mary's Landing."

  Turk jingled the coins, scanning the city as if with new eyes. He was considering going.

  The other annoying thing about the kimono was that it made her take little steps, as if the clothing was designed to force women to be demure. She started down the dock toward where the Rosetta's launch was tied off, going as fast as the tight hem allowed.

  And yet another thing was it made men pay attention to her. Of course, that was the whole point of the kimono. The length of sleeves and style of the garment denoted the age and martial status. Hers was a loud and clear advertisement that she was a woman over twenty-years old and available for marriage. The men working along the dock all paused in their work to watch her move past them.

  It also seemed to work like a magnet on Turk, as he drifted along side of her. "Where are we going?"

  "We? We are going nowhere. I've got errands to run."

  "You can barely move in that. You're asking for trouble."

  "I can take care of myself."

  He gave her one of his long dark looks. "I can wander around lost by myself, or you can let come with you and show me the city."

  Damn the man. He made entirely too much sense.

  * * *

  This was the much talked about Ya-ya? There had been something vaguely surreal about sailing toward the great spaceships stranded in the ocean, rising like cliffs out of the water. Turk had expected that once in the city, with the buildings closed in around him that the sense of the unreal would fade. It would be like any other spaceport he'd been in. However, everything about the town was so alien to what he knew that it felt like he slipped into a dream. Unlike space ports, there were no skyscrapers to balance the massive spaceships. The city was of stone buildings, none over three stories tall. The spaceships loomed like mountains, shrouded in a morning fog. Boats slid in and out of the fog, horns blaring, a cacophony of tones and timbres. Obviously established before the United Colonies adoption of Standard, all the signage was in ancient Japanese. And the animals . . . There were never animals at spaceports. Ya-ya had a nightmarish zoo of strange creatures roaming free or sitting in cages, adding their calls to the noise of the ships.

  And the most dreamlike thing of all: Captain Bailey in a silk kimono sitting beside him. He had thought that maybe his desperate situation had made her seem more alluring that she truly was. But watching the men of the city react to her, he knew it hadn't been his imagination. Captain Bailey was as stunningly beautiful as she appeared in his eyes.

  The coins she'd given him had holes punched through their middles and they were strung on a piece of leather. He fingered the strand like a rosary.

  She'd paid him.

  He'd thought that Captain Bailey had claimed him as her family's property when she rescued him off the civ rafe. All the kindness and patience the crew had shown, he'd discounted as simply taking care of their belonging. As a final blow, Bailey had told him that he was free to leave if he wanted. He nearly bolted, like a zoo animal who sees only a chance from a cage. Running just to run would be stupid. Where the hell would he go?

  When Mikhail freed him when Turk turned eighteen, Turk had had years to consider what he wanted to do with his life. Like Bailey, Mikhail had pointed out alternatives to staying with him. To Turk, though, there been never any other sane decision except to stay with Mikhail. It went beyond the affection and respect that they had for each other. Much as Ivan would never admit it, Turk was Ivan's son. As with Mikhail, Turk's every waking moment as they grew up had been dedicated to understanding politics and the art of commanding others. As a lone Red, the best Turk could have hoped for would have been the Red commander of a modestly wealthy man. With Mikhail, he would be part of ruling an entire empire.

  If the Svoboda had landed safely, nothing would have kept Turk from searching for Mikhail. But all odds and indications were that the Svoboda had sunk after hitting the floating island. There was a slim chance Mikhail could have survived that disaster, but Mikhail had a tendency to self-destruct when life slipped out of his control. A helpless Mikhail tore himself apart with self-recrimination. Since Mikhail maintained a stonewall façade of strength, it'd be unlikely that anyone but Turk would notice him falling into suicidal despair . . .

  Turk stopped himself. Mikhail is dead. The question is what do I do now?

  He glanced at Captain Bailey sitting beside him. She'd been good to him, as had all her family. Even when he thought they'd enslaved him, he'd begrudgingly grown fond of them. With the Baileys, he'd lucked into a safe haven. But life on that boat—the hours endlessly focused on the act of barely surviving. Did he want to resign hi
mself to that?

  Then again, did he want to throw himself into the complete unknown and trust he would land as safely a second time? He didn't like to think of himself as a coward, but after his brush with the civ, that idea scared him. Besides, giving himself time to learn the world before making a choice would be wise.

  They turned a corner and the canal widened in front of a busy stone plaza. Actual land rose beyond the plaza in the form of a tree covered island. The dock was crowded with small boats. Captain Bailey found a space between two boats and guided them up to the dock. She lifted her chin to indicate the ropes coiled at the bow. "Get the rope and tie us off."

  The crew of the Rosetta been drilling Turk on tying knots until he was sure he could tie them in his sleep—which was probably the point.

  Bailey waited until Turk tied the boat off before cautiously picking her way to the bow. The kimono was lovely but obviously impractical. She was going to have a difficult time stepping up and out of the boat. He reached out and swept her up. She laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck to hold on tightly. "I told you it was a pain to wear."

  "Why wear it?"

  She glanced into his eyes, lips close enough to kiss. Something like desire filled her face, but then she blushed and dropped her gaze. "Because I was coming here; a kimono is proper dress. Because I like to wear pretty things now and then."

  He put her down, reluctantly. It had felt good to hold her; she had been surprisingly light, warm and soft. As his hands slid over her bottom, he could tell that she wasn't wearing her normal modest underwear. He tried not to think about what she may or may not be wearing under the kimono. There was something good and pure in the way that she blushed; he didn't want to sully that.

  He focused instead on the other people. The women all wore colorful kimonos. The cut of the men's clothing varied, from something that looked like a male version of the kimono to his own new clothes. He and Bailey, though, seemed to be the only non-Asians in the plaza.