“It’s good to see you, Cortez. Anything to shut his pompous ass up.” Arnold greeted Cortez with a handshake.
“Eh, he’s just worried about his little girl. Can’t blame him, really,” Cortez said with a shrug. “He’s still an asshole.”
Raeni escorted the two soldiers over to the captain. “Miller, Radzinski, I’d like you to meet my husband, Captain Kayembe.”
The captain turned from his station. His broad shoulders filled out his pressed white captain’s uniform; the clothes were spotless, as if they’d just come from the cleaners this very morning.
“My queen.” Captain Kayembe beamed at the sight of his wife, and he greeted her with a quick peck on the lips.
“If that will be all, Captain?” she replied, not waiting for an answer. As she neared the door, she turned back around to address her husband. “Dinner is at six. Don’t be late.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” The captain turned his attention to the newest members of his ship. His smile was gone, a sternness in its place. “Now, which one of you is Captain Miller?”
“I am, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Miller shook his hand. The captain’s grip was strong and firm. “This is quite the operation you’re running here. I have so many questions.”
“I’m sure you do, Captain. All in good time. Cortez here tells me that you’re responsible for saving nearly twenty lives out in that hell.”
“I wish it was more than that, sir. We lost a lot of good people along the way.”
“Friends of yours?”
“Some, yes.”
“I can see that loss troubles you. Your pain lets me know that you are indeed a good man and perhaps even one that can earn my trust. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Miller, trust is a commodity severely lacking today. I’d say that’s a currency far more valuable than any you are likely to find aboard my ship.”
“Sir?”
“The intricacies of life aboard Haven are not important right now. What is of the utmost importance and why I wanted to see you before you got settled in was that I’m in need of good men—good men that I can trust. In the short time that you’ve known each other, Cortez has already vouched for you. That’s high praise and not lightly earned.”
“Thank you, sir.” Miller turned to Cortez and nodded in thanks as well.
“Cortez broke protocol by going back for you.” Kayembe held his gaze upon the team leader. “An act he would never have done had he not seen your worth. You see, the safety of every man, woman, and child aboard this ship runs paramount to anything else. Had Cortez perished rescuing you, that would have been a blow this ship would not soon recover from. So when I say the man has vouched for you, you can appreciate the magnitude of that statement.”
Miller stayed silent.
“I’m sure that Cortez has no doubt explained to you the importance of our little excursions?”
“He has.”
“And you’ll agree that the well-being of this ship should take precedence over any one person’s desires?”
“It’s something I struggle with, but yes, I agree.”
“Captain, if I may,” Cortez interjected.
“By all means.”
“Back at Poseidon’s Rest, I watched Miller let someone go, someone who was obviously very near to his heart. He could have fought against it, but she made up her mind, and he knew that letting her go was the best chance his people had for survival. And it worked. Almost all of them made it to the ship.”
Miller had his own assessment of the situation. “I’ll be honest, sir, if we hadn’t stumbled across your men, I’m not sure any of us would have made it out of there alive.”
“You see, that’s what I’m talking about, son. Making the right call in the face of overwhelming odds. Against everything you hold in your heart, you know what decisions need to be made, and you act. That is why I need men like you at my side. I’m going to come right out and say it. I’d like you to join Cortez’s team. The both of you.”
“Yes, sir.” The offer required no thought on Miller’s part. “I think I’d like that.”
“And you, Mr. Radzinski, you’ve been awful quiet.”
“Just taking it all in, boss.” All the platitudes hoisted on Miller by men they only just met did nothing to change Radzinski’s perspective. “I’ll have to think about it, Cap’n.”
“I hope that you do,” was Captain Kayembe’s only response for the stubborn Marine before he turned to the team leader. “Cortez, if you don’t mind, could you explain the logistics of our excursions to these men? Perhaps give them a better feel for what they’d be risking their lives for.”
“Absolutely, sir. Well, we call them excursions. We are on a cruise ship, after all. When the ship was merely a floating hotel before the crisis, the guests would take jaunts to the mainland or get off on an island to sightsee or to shop. Those trips were called excursions. It’s that simple.”
“I gathered as much.” Miller nodded, satisfied, as if a personal theory had been proven true.
“We go ashore on a regular basis for any number of things. Food and medicine are priority, always. We’ve even set up a few hunting parties with varying degrees of success. Fresh beef or poultry is always nice. Whatever we can find, though, we’ll bring back if we can. You might be surprised how many chickens and cows we’ve found just wandering around now with no one to keep after them. We even emptied a koi pond once before we had the fishery to rely on. Meat is meat, right?”
“Certainly,” Miller answered. “My group and I ate horses for a month before we met you guys.”
“See what I mean? You’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity. That’s what being part of an excursion team is all about. But yeah, there’s other things we keep an eye out for, too. Case in point, the odd lonely survivor here and there—or in your case a huge group of them. There are always fuel issues, and depending on what comes up mechanical-wise, sometimes we need parts. Repairs do need to be made from time to time. It’s a full-time job keeping this ship running. Just ask Ames from mechanical when you meet him. Sometimes we even bring back entertainment if we have the time to spare or room in our bags.”
“Entertainment?”
“You know, like games, electronics, sports equipment. That sort of thing. It’s important to keep the people occupied. We can’t have them working twenty-four hours a day. They’d mutiny.”
Talk of mutiny snapped Radzinski from his boredom. “I can imagine.”
Cortez ignored Radzinski’s attempt at disruption but still shot the Marine a side-eye. “And of course, last but certainly not least, we’re always on the lookout for more weapons. You don’t want to find yourself unprepared while on the shit end of a standoff with a hungry group of marauders. Weapons can be a good deterrent, but not always.”
The mention of violent marauders took the two soldiers back to their time on the road.
“Yeah, we had a run-in with some of those,” said Miller.
“It didn’t go so well for them,” Radzinski added.
“It didn’t go so well for us, too, if you remember.”
Cortez continued. “You’ve had a look at how we operate out there. We have each other’s backs, and that takes priority. No hot-dogging or showboating, or you’re off the team. At the end of the day, the entire team coming home alive is the goal. Everything else is secondary.”
“And what’s the reasoning for keeping the ship so far away? That’s got to be a drain on fuel running the motorboats back and forth.”
“Oh, it is, and fuel is something we discuss constantly. Early on, we tried to dock in port, but it almost led to disaster when a group of assholes decided they wanted to take potshots at the ship. We learned then and there to stay as far away as possible but still close enough to make excursions feasible.”
“Any casualties?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. One of Naomi’s acclimation society girls took a bullet to the neck. She was just minding her own business in her quarters
when it happened. She bled out before anyone knew that she was missing.” Cortez moved past the grimmer aspects of early ship life. “We like to stay anchored in an area for as long as it takes to know that we’ve found all we think we’ll find, and then we press on. Usually a week or two of daily excursions, sometimes more. The teams run in shifts—three days on land, three days in de-cons, three days off. This system worked efficiently when we had three teams. Someone was almost always out on the road, minus sailing days, of course.
“The excursion team scours the target for supplies, leaving caches along the way. Then we gather them up on our trip back for pickup and radio in for an ETA. The system is straightforward and efficient. Like I mentioned when we met, the team’s safety comes first. We’ll leave an entire score behind when weighed against potential injury. The rotation still works with two teams; it only means we stay in each location a little longer. But in the case of Poseidon’s Rest, we riled up the natives, so our scavenging had to be cut short. We’ll probably return when things settle down, but there’s no guarantee. We’ve been slowly making our way north since this shitshow began. Eventually, we’ll make the turn and head back south. The captain doesn’t want to winter in colder waters.”
This revelation perked Miller's ears. Turning around would eventually mean passing Poseidon’s Rest again, as long as they continued hugging the coast. Even if they didn’t agree to stop, getting off the ship with an excursion team somewhere in the vicinity could give him the chance to search for Soraya. The prospect of returning to Poseidon’s Rest was something he couldn’t pass up. He was already on board as far as joining Cortez’s team was concerned, but if a return trip to where he last saw Soraya was possibly in the cards, he’d make sure to push for it the best he could.
“Excursions don’t always go according to plan, but you’re aware of that. For instance, we’ve been attacked multiple times by the living. The dead, of course, are a constant threat. Don’t tell Vadim. There was one team, though, that never returned. I led a search party, and for two days we looked with no signs of a struggle, nothing. It’s like the earth just swallowed them up.”
“Could their boat have sunk?” Radzinski suggested.
“Not likely. There would have been at least some debris, you know? Something would have washed up, but no—no sign that they ever existed. They were friends, too, man. I still think about it. Anyway, enough with the Debbie Downer routine. That’s about all I got on excursions. Is there anything you think you need to know?”
“Not about excursions, no,” said Miller. “I think I’ve got that covered. Watch each other’s backs and get home safe. What I don’t understand, though, is how this ship is even running. You should have run out of fuel months ago, even if you were just idling most of the time.”
“That’s a common question among newcomers, amigo, and one that’s way above my pay grade. For that, I’ll turn you over to Arnold. That’s his department.”
Arnold was a trusted confidant to Captain Kayembe and similar in age. The men grew close after years at sea. One was a seasoned captain who bore the burden afforded by his near-celebrity status. The other was an experienced engineer who largely went unnoticed due to the mundane nature of his duties.
“Despite our circumstances, you are still aboard a state-of-the-art vessel.” Arnold remained excited about his work and its technological wonders despite nearly two decades in the field. “Haven was the first in a line of experimental cruise ships that run primarily on solar power. Under normal conditions—cruising speed, idling, anchoring, and docking at port—the ship functions one hundred percent on self-generated power supplied by an array of solar cells built into the superstructure. These solar cells are augmented by a series of wind turbines you’ll notice on the uppermost decks.” Arnold pointed to a set of turbines just off portside that blended well into the surrounding décor.
“Our original goal—consumption-wise—was to only use the fuel supply in emergencies: to quickly move out of the way of inclement weather or to avoid a collision. Both of those scenarios can be avoided for the most part with a well-trained bridge crew, which I’m proud to say Haven has in abundance.” He motioned to the dozen or so workers currently manning their stations. “We were one of three test ships whose purpose before the crisis was to see how long it could sail on pure battery power. Believe it or not, we’ve only had to tap into the fuel reserves twice since this madness began. Now we fire up the engines once bi-weekly to ensure everything remains in working order. We of course quickly power them down after. Even so, fuel is still a finite resource. We only use it for excursions, and even then, we’ll most likely be switching over to sheer manpower in the not too distant future.”
“Oars?” Miller asked.
“Yes,” Cortez answered. “We’ve practiced a few times, and it works, only slower. Much, much slower. Four men row my team to shore, then return to the ship to wait for us to call. Of course, they would deploy the gas boats for a fast extraction if necessary.”
Arnold continued. “Before the crisis began—prior to the outbreak—there were two other test ships out there, built exactly as Haven. One was on an Alaskan voyage, the other on a European tour. It’s unknown if the other captains heeded the call to return to port in those earliest days of the outbreak. That was around the time when Captain Kayembe docked at St. Lucia to pick up his family. We were only there briefly. The captain feared local authorities would try to seize the ship on orders from the company that owned it. After that, he went radio silent.”
With that, Captain Kayembe returned to the conversation.
“So you see, Mr. Miller, we are all merely small cogs in a larger machine that keeps humanity going. Each piece is vitally important to the whole. It’s a view I wish Vadim and others like him could see, but no matter. I am tasked with a singular purpose, Mr. Miller: to keep safe as many souls as possible for as long as I can until this plague has run its course.”
“You really think there’s an end to this thing?”
“I truly believe that.” Captain Kayembe was dead serious. Not an inkling of doubt showed on the man’s face. “Now, will you help me see this goal through?”
“I will, sir. You can count on me.” Miller didn’t hesitate.
“And that applies to the both of you, I presume?” Captain Kayembe turned his gaze to Radzinski, who remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the proceedings.
“Like I said, I’ll have to think on it, Cap.”
“Well, each man has his own field to sow. I hope to see you both again. Miller, it was a pleasure, but I must return to my duties. As I said, this ship doesn’t run itself. I look forward to our next meeting. Cortez, that will be all.”
“Captain.” Cortez nodded.
Cortez escorted Miller and Radzinski from the wheelhouse. The trio walked the brightly lit halls of the upper decks and spoke briefly before Cortez dropped them off near the pool area.
“That went well, Miller.” Cortez was in high spirits. “You made an impression on the captain. That means something.”
“Yeah, he’s a real boy scout,” said Radzinski. “I think I’m going to sit this one out, though.”
Miller ignored the jab. Cortez didn’t. “Look, Radzinski, I can’t make you help us, and quite honestly, I don’t want anyone on my team who doesn’t want to be there.”
Radzinski remained silent, though his displeasure for the conversation showed.
“But I will offer you a bit of free advice.” Now Cortez had Radzinski’s attention. “You don’t have to join my team, but find a way to contribute because the alternative you may not like.” Cortez opened the patio doors for them. They were once again bathed in sunlight and surrounded by the sounds of laughter and play. “This is as far as I go. I have to meet someone who will be wondering why I haven’t checked in yet. Get yourselves a drink. You’ve earned it. Gentlemen.” He sauntered off down an adjacent corridor and left Miller and Radzinski alone to determine their next course of action.
&
nbsp; CHAPTER SIX
Infirmary
A set of doors slammed against the walls of the infirmary—rattling the contents of nearby shelves and startling the resting patients—as Jeremiah burst into the facility. “Aiko?” he shouted.
Before him was a room full of beds and patients in all stages of care. Nurses dressed in green and blue scrubs turned from their stations or patients. They were startled by Jeremiah’s entrance, and before any of them could respond, a light-coffee-skinned doctor hurried up to him.
“Shh, enough of that,” she scolded behind a British accent. “I have sick patients here.”
“Jeremiah, what’s wrong?” Aiko said as she appeared from behind a drawn curtain. She was dressed in scrubs as well, and it appeared that she had also been given the opportunity to bathe during these long hours since they had last seen each other.
“Aiko, I… When we were rushed out of de-cons, I had no idea where they’d taken you or what happened. No one would tell me anything, and I thought…” Jeremiah was uncharacteristically emotional.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” said Aiko in an attempt to ease the man.
“Well, ladies, that’s my cue.” Genevieve waved herself off. She left the way they had come with a nod for Jeremiah, who didn’t return the gesture. He stood, unmoving and in stunned silence, just inside the entrance to the small hospital.
Aiko led Jeremiah farther into the facility. “They cleared me early to watch over Casandra. Todd didn’t like it, but Doctor Nazneen insisted.”
“Your wife has been invaluable these last two days.” Nazneen was polite and soft-spoken—now that Jeremiah had calmed, anyway. She wore a white lab coat over purple scrubs. A stethoscope was draped around the back of her neck, and her pockets were overflowing with various implements of the trade.
“We’re not…” Jeremiah attempted to correct the doctor’s terminology regarding his and Aiko’s marital status, but Aiko quickly stopped him.
The Roaming (Book 3): Haven's Promise Page 6