Virus

by S. D. Perry

  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday—fucking VHF fifty-mile-range piece of shit—”

  Blip. Foster felt her heart stop, then speed up violently. It wasn’t her imagination, it was a solid return. “Wait a minute! I’m picking up a contact, could be a ship in the eye with us . . .”

  She could feel the change, feel everyone’s sudden attention turn to her as she double-clicked the cursor on the pulse-generated object and read the coordinates.

  “Distance twelve miles bearing zero four eight degrees. Speed—zero knots, appears to be dead in the water. And it’s big.”

  She looked up, studied the intent and hopeful faces of the men on the bridge, and felt like laughing. “Really big,” she said.

  “Hail ’em,” said Steve, and she grabbed the mike, flooded with a relief so great that she could hardly breathe. She saw Woods cast a guilty look around the bridge and then walk out quickly, probably to tell Everton. Fuck him, she was too excited to care.

  “Ahoy vessel at latitude twenty-nine degrees forty-eight minutes south, longitude one seven nine degrees twenty-four minutes east, this is Sea Star; we are twelve miles northwest of your position, come back!”

  They weren’t going to die. The tug might sink, but they now had somewhere to go.

  The whiskey was gone; it was time.

  Sarah smiled up at him from atop the pile of papers, just as perfect and beautiful as he remembered. He hoped that she’d be there, waiting for him in whatever came next. Or maybe he’d just be dead; either way, he’d be free from having to face a dismal future, any chance of peace he could have had lost to him now.

  Everton slowly picked up the loaded .45 caliber revolver and pointed it to the right of his forehead, afraid but ready. He could feel trickles of sweat slide through his hair, gray hair on his old, tired head. Old and tired and drunk, that was Captain Robert Everton. He didn’t think there would be time to feel pain; just a burst of sound and he could escape from this cruel and merciless life . . .

  He closed his eyes and there was a knock on his door.

  “Captain. Captain!”

  Woods. Christ, what timing!

  “I’m busy,” he said, and waited for the helmsman to leave, the cool barrel still pressed to his skin. Insult to injury. Even this last privacy was denied to him, a parting shot from Whomever ran this show.

  “There’s a ship with us in the eye! Twelve miles out, dead in the water!”

  Big fucking deal, some other poor bastard caught in the storm, like I’m gonna give a rat’s ass when my life is—

  Dead in the water. Everton blinked.

  A ship that wasn’t moving. Perhaps because the crew had bailed out or been taken by the typhoon, leaving their vessel behind . . .

  Everton lowered the weapon and tried to focus his bleary thoughts on what this meant, what it could mean.

  Salvage, reward money, navigational equipment. Expensive equipment. A ship . . .

  “Dead in the water? I—I’ll be there in a moment,” he said, and he heard his helmsman’s footsteps scurry away.

  He stood up too quickly, felt the cabin wobble and then reestablish itself. He holstered the side-arm and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, then hastily pushed the stack of papers and photos into a desk drawer.

  He ducked into his private head and splashed water across his face and into his mouth, blotting his skin with a hand towel. The polished steel mirror reflected back a presentable visage—tired-looking, ragged around the edges maybe, but it would do.

  Everton didn’t even bother locking the door behind him, too eager to get to the bridge. He heard and felt the engine fire, a low hum beneath the sagging deck of his ship as the crew prepared it to move; it was a sound he had almost given up, that he’d been seconds from giving up forever, and now he knew that it hadn’t all been for no reason. It was like—a test, a crucible that he had almost failed. He felt himself sobering with each step, felt his shoulders fall back and his vision clear as he walked through the tight corridor and out onto the top deck.

  A second chance, it’s a sign, another moment and it all would’ve been over—it has to mean that it’s not over for me. I can feel it.

  He strode towards the bridge, feeling strong and reasonably steady by the time he reached the door, propped open in the thick humidity of the typhoon’s eye. The entire crew was assembled, and he decided that it would be best to reassume command as though nothing had happened. Yes, that was best; he had made a mistake or two, he was only human, they’d understand. Hard feelings would be overlooked, they were all adults, grown men—well, and Foster, but one female voice wouldn’t influence opinion, especially when she’d proved herself to be such a poor navigator. They’d probably be thankful to have a leader again, someone to take control.

  “Woods, what the hell are you doin’? Let’s go." Baker was trying to give orders, and Everton stepped onto the bridge to relieve the man of the burden. The engineer had a temper, but he’d have cooled off by now; everything had changed.

  “Why isn’t this thing moving, Woods?” he asked smoothly.

  He could feel the weight of their stares, all of them, but he remained focused on the helm, exuding a calm confidence in his position as captain. They didn’t have to love him to respect his orders; his earlier lapse of reason could be explained, when they were out of danger. He just had to be rational and firm, give them cause to look up to him again.

  Captain Everton nodded to Woods, and the helmsman grinned and nodded back.

  “Fuckin’ A, Captain,” he said, and turned the wheel, steering them towards salvation. The waterlogged Sea Star started to move, picking up speed easily as they made their way through the fog.

  Everton walked to the wing bridge, already imagining the possibilities; even a tug the size of the Sea Star could make up for a lot . . .

  A dead ship, no crew to lay claim—it was the answer to everything.

  • 7 •

  The Sea Star chugged heavily along into the thick fog; white-gray clouds of solid mist enveloped the boat as they moved through the eye, curling lithe fingers around the hull, beckoning them deeper. Richie breathed it in, imagining that he could smell the bottom of the sea in the white air. It was a dark and musky, salty odor, like the typhoon had opened the womb of the ocean, forced her to expel secrets from deep inside. It was . . . really interesting.

  Richie felt good. He’d been pretty high all morning, and already the whole sinking thing was fading behind him like a bad dream; he’d been able to keep himself kind of Zen, living in the moment—the sun, the water, all that happy-crappy. Still, it had been unnerving, and he was glad to be able to kick back for a while, enjoy things without that nasty business looming in front of him. The admiral’s brat had finally done her goddamn job, the captain was back (though he stank like he’d just crawled out of a distillery, no shit), and they were gonna be riding home in style.

  He stood at the bow with Hiko and the engineer boys, all of them peering out into the dense fog; Woods and that rich bitch were up on the bridge and the captain was standing on the flying wing, back in the saddle like some whacked-out Ahab; every ship needed a captain, even shit-faced. Besides, who was he to talk? They were gonna survive, that was the thing. All was well and cool with Mrs. Thomas’s boy Richard.

  He stood in between Hiko and Squeaky, Steve off to the side. The young engineer caught his gaze and jerked his head towards the Maori.

  Oh, right! Steve had been talking about all that tribal shit earlier and Richie had volunteered to ask about the name; the engineer seemed concerned that he’d offend the guy.

  With tatts like that, how could he possibly get offended? Must be bothered all the time, tourists and all . . .

  “So, Hiko. Baker says all Maori names mean somethin’. That true?”

  Hiko stared into the fog. “Yeah.”

  Steve jumped in. “Sooo . . . what does it mean?”

  The tall deckhand shrugged, started to say something, and then Foster yelled out from the bridge
.

  “Dead ahead, three hundred yards!”

  “Woods, hail it!” Everton called back.

  Voices carried well in the eye, something to do with the pressure change. Richie’s ears had been popping all day. He could hear Woods easily from the bow, their resident bootlicker; guy was an ingratiating little suck-up, always reminded Richie of one of those kids that all the other kids avoided on the playground—

  —like “Hey, wait up, guys! Don’t ditch me!” Richie grinned to himself. That was Woods, all right.

  “Unidentified vessel, this is the Sea Star approaching you from the northwest, three hundred yards out. Come back.”

  They all strained to hear a response; nothing. Everton suddenly screamed down to the four of them like they were a mile away and deaf.

  “Dead ahead, three hundred yards!”

  No shit, el capitán; damn. The man was soused, straight up; probably seeing double, too.

  “I don’t see anything,” Hiko said quietly.

  The fog was solid, all right, but there was a sloshing off to their left, water against something . . .

  A half-sunken lifeboat drifted by, barely visible even a few feet off the deck. It was upside down, floating like a dead man in the shrouded waters.

  “That ain’t ours,” Hiko whispered. He sounded nervous, and suddenly Richie felt his high disappear into something less mellow. Something like fear, and he was caught off guard by how hard the emotion hit him.

  He could feel the ship, hidden just in front of their searching gazes like an unseen ghost. There was a soft creaking that made Richie’s stomach knot, a forlorn and desolate sound in the silence of the eye. Something big, really big, a dead ship cloaked by the jealous mist, a monster waiting to spring . . .

  Paranoid much? Chill on that shit, jumpin’ at shadows like some puss—

  Richie wanted to laugh at himself, but he suddenly felt like one of those dudes from a horror flick; he had a very bad feeling about this. And for just the barest fraction of a second, even though it would’ve meant certain death for all of them, he wished with all his heart that Foster’s screens had stayed blank.

  Steve watched it appear slowly, a gradual thickening of the heavy fog into a light gray wall that loomed over them. The Star inched closer and suddenly they could all see it: the heavy white hull of a mammoth ship, towering and ghostly in the still air.

  Jesus, look at that!

  The tug veered slightly and they headed along her starboard side, the Star dwarfed by the ship—it stretched on seemingly forever, hundreds of feet long, the full length of it lost to the creeping mist. Woods pulled back a little and the perspective widened, giving them all a clearer feel for the sheer immensity of the silent monster.

  It was hard to study the ship objectively, the fog separating and re-forming between the two vessels in a way that gave only murky flashes of the top deck. It was easily the size of a passenger liner, but outfitted for a purpose that Steve couldn’t figure; he could make out what looked like a giant reception dish, one, two of them, each as big as the bridge on the Sea Star. Bigger. He saw a massive crane, the damaged rigging swaying and creaking in the heavy air. There were support towers for several antennas and other devices of various sizes, pipes and beams hanging awkwardly in disrepair; he recognized a few of them, but the designs were strange, some of the mechanisms completely unfamiliar. In fact, the multileveled deck was covered with equipment he didn’t know. It was military, had to be—but he didn’t see armaments of any kind; it didn’t make sense.

  She had obviously been through the storm, the water damage unmistakable—but there was also a dark residue on parts of the deck that looked like ash, wide patches of the uniform white paint blackened by fire or electrical burns.

  —but it’s superficial, all of it. Why aren’t they answering? Where are they? Even a typhoon wouldn’t be much of a threat unless they lost their rudder; she’s gotta weigh upwards of forty thousand tons.

  The Sea Star crept along, the crew silent and uneasy as they studied the lifeless ship. Foster had walked out onto the foredeck and stood with them, as had the captain, sporting binoculars and a bullhorn. There wasn’t a single light blinking, no sound except for the creak of loose riggings, no sign that anyone was aboard. The effect was dramatic and overwhelming, a gigantic vessel alone, deserted and dead.

  “The lifeboats are gone,” Richie said quietly, almost whispering. He sounded as freaked out as Steve felt. “All of them.”

  The Star edged up to the stern of the ship and Steve squinted at the lettering across the white hull, red and illegible. Foreign, it looked . . .

  “It looks Russian,” Foster said, and started flipping through the book she carried. Steve saw it was a copy of Jane’s, and was glad that at least one of them had thought to bring the thick manual of listings out.

  Foster stopped on a page, looked at the red lettering again and then back down. “The ‘Akademic Vladislav Volkov, Missile and Satellite Tracking Ship.’ Forty-five thousand tons full gross. Length, six hundred forty-two feet. Propulsion, two steam turbines, nineteen thousand horsepower. Seventeen knots top speed, fuel capacity not known—ship’s complement, three hundred. Armament, none . . .”

  Steve watched as their helmsman deftly maneuvered the Star around the ship’s bow, still awestruck by the size and unnerved by the deathly quiet. Foster continued, reading quickly, her voice low.

  “She’s fitted for scientific purposes. Their biggest. Forty-two labs, five machine shops outfitted with advanced robotics . . . The three dishes can maintain simultaneous communication with several spacecrafts.”

  Everton raised the bullhorn and shouted suddenly, making them all jump. “Ahoy, Vladislav Volkov! This is the captain of the Sea Star! Anyone aboard? Ahoy!”

  They all waited, Steve stifling his anger for Everton; the man reeked of whiskey and hadn’t even bothered to apologize for being an asshole—not that Steve would’ve forgiven him. At least he had acted like an actual captain since he’d emerged from his private party, although Steve was going to watch his every move until they got out of this; Everton was unstable, he couldn’t be trusted.

  There was no answer from the Volkov, nothing but the hollow creak of shifting equipment. As the Star came along her port side, they could all see a lifeboat hanging from the davit, half submerged. There was a hole in the bottom. Steve saw the third satellite dish; the giant unit had crashed to the empty deck.

  Everton turned to him, grim and authoritative. “Baker, break out flashlights and walkies . . . and bring a shotgun.”

  Steve hesitated, then nodded. At least the captain was thinking; they were about to board an apparently unmanned Russian vessel, and there could only be a couple of reasons for her abandonment.

  Insanity. Mutiny. Mass murder . . .

  He didn’t like it, but there was no other choice. He took a last look at the forsaken Volkov and then went to get what they’d need, hoping that the ship was truly as deserted as she looked. And he was going to break out every weapon they had, just in case.

  Foster stared up at the Russian ship as the Sea Star slowly approached, trying not to think about the Mary Celeste. It had been her favorite story as a child, endlessly fascinating; she must have heard it a hundred times, lingering over each mysterious detail. Now, though, she wished she could forget it; she was anxious enough, watching the port hull of the deserted Volkov slide closer in the softly lapping water. She should be happy, elated; they’d found a way out of the mess Everton had gotten them into . . .

  . . . but what happened to the crew? What could have induced three hundred people to abandon a ship that wasn’t sinking?

  In November of 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste had set sail from New York to Genoa, carrying nearly two thousand barrels of alcohol and manned by a crew of eight. In addition were Captain Briggs, his wife, and their young daughter. Five weeks later, the ship was found about six hundred miles west of Gibraltar, the cargo intact, the hull undamaged—and no one aboard. Story
had it that the tables were set for dinner, a child’s toys were found on the captain’s bed, and all of Briggs’s personal effects were still in place. There was no evidence of violence, no apparent reason for abandonment; they were just—gone.

  And this ship, is that what happened here? Or are we going to find bodies stacked in the hold, the mad killer still aboard, hiding somewhere in the dark . . . ?

  Foster folded her arms tightly, feeling chilled and apprehensive. She and the rest of the crew had assembled on the starboard deck of the now distinctly sinking tug, all except for Woods; he and Hiko would stay behind while the rest of them boarded the Volkov and investigated.

  Looking up at the lifeless vessel, Foster wished she could pass on the opportunity herself, but they’d need her to check out the navigational equipment. The ominous enigma of the Celeste had been exciting to her as a child, but she was an adult now; things like this just didn’t happen, shouldn’t happen.

  Steve had been passing out weapons and small bags of equipment and had stopped in front of her. She took a pack, nodding, and then he held out a somewhat battered-looking .32 caliber Colt semi-automatic, meeting her gaze with an expression she couldn’t quite read. He looked nervous but steady, and she relaxed a little. She wasn’t alone in her unease, at least. And it wasn’t like there were any other options open to them; the Star wouldn’t last much longer.

  Foster reluctantly took the offered weapon, checked it, and put it in her coat pocket. She knew how to handle guns but had never liked them much—particularly not when she might have to use one.

  Richie stood behind her, a shotgun gripped loosely in one gesturing hand. “I don’t care what Jane says, I studied ships like this. This is a fuckin’ spy ship, man. They’re not gonna like us comin’ aboard.”

  Foster reached out and grasped the barrel of his firearm lightly, pushing it away from herself and the others. For someone who was supposed to know weapons, the man acted like an idiot.