by Anna Burke
“She wanted to see how I was liking being second to the Second Mate,” I said. It was partially true. “Walker must have given her a report recently, because she sat me down and asked me a bunch of questions about my skills and how I was handling the pressure of being a quartermaster.”
“She is going to promote you!” Harper said with a gasp and a toss of her head. The toast she gave me this time had none of Comita’s reserve.
“Maybe,” I allowed, “but Harp, think about it. She’s not going to give me Walker’s position. What if she wants to move me off ship?”
It was so close to the truth that it hurt. Harper’s hair swung around her face as she settled back in her seat to consider this possibility. A lump formed unexpectedly in my throat, and I took another sip to fight back the onslaught of unspoken words.
The North Star was my home, for all that I sometimes felt out of place. Harper’s friendship more than made up for people like Maddox, and I liked serving under Comita. Walker, too, had always been kind to me. His bright smile thawed the ice in the other sailors’ glares, and he managed to discourage the low muttering of the other quartermasters without picking favorites. In another few years, I promised myself, their resentment would fade. They would forget about the young upstart from Cassiopeia who bypassed the training protocols and slipped into the helm.
All I had to do was stay.
Or, I could risk everything on a mission that Comita didn’t dare share with the rest of her crew, including her own daughter. I wished I could spill the truth to Harper. I wanted someone else to tell me which was the right decision.
“She wouldn’t,” Harper said. “You’re too valuable. You’re practically magic.” She grinned at me.
“If she did offer me a position off ship, though, what would I do? I can’t leave the North Star.”
I ran a finger around the rim of the glass. My quarters had plastic cups. Perhaps there was some merit in being the admiral’s daughter after all.
“Sure you could. If you could be a navigator in your own right, wouldn’t that be worth it?” Harper’s eyes avoided mine.
“Only if you were my Chief of Engineering,” I said, reaching out to give her shoulder a playful punch.
“The way you steer, you’d need me.” She smacked my hand away and scowled.
“I thought you said I was magic.”
“I said you were practically magic, not magic. Otherwise you would have seen this coming.” She leapt to her feet and dragged me out of my chair, play wrestling me onto the ground and forcing another foul mouthful into my throat.
I choked on the bootlegged liquor and my own laughter.
• • •
Harper. Comita. Miranda.
I let the last name roll around in my mouth, tasting it as if I could learn something about the mercenary by repeating her name. The weight of the decision before me made my bed all the more appealing, and I curled up beneath the sheet for a few more moments as anxiety flooded me like water into a bulkhead.
The hiss of the showers slowed, marking the dwindling passage of time before I had to report to the dining hall for breakfast. I crawled out of my bunk, shouldering the weight of my dread, and splashed some water onto my face. It tasted vaguely salinated, as always, and I ran my wet hands through my hair before glancing into the mirror.
I frowned at my reflection. I kept my black hair short, although not as short as Comita’s. Disobedient curls stuck up at odd angles and I splashed more water on them, following up with a comb. I didn’t know why I bothered, really. It would dry however it liked. I would have to get it cut before I left.
If I left, I corrected myself. I hadn’t made up my mind yet. Comita had been right to give me more time, despite my hasty words the night before. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if their color would mark me as an outcast on a mercenary vessel the same way they did on the North Star.
Against my dark hair and brown skin, my eyes burned with a strange amber unlike anyone else I had met in the Archipelago. The dark ring at the edge of the iris only emphasized the feral gold at the center.
I didn’t like looking at them.
“Yellow-eyed drifter,” Maddox called me. I had never seen a case of yellow fever, but I knew that it was the whites that turned yellow, not the irises. None of the drifters who came to Cassiopeia would dare bring an infected person close to a station.
Drifters, with their tiny trawlers and family sized vessels, operated under the radar. They were technically not part of the Archipelago, and owed our city stations no allegiance, but they depended on trade with the outlying stations for seeds and medical supplies. None would risk exile by bringing an infection to our floating ports. They raised the yellow flag of fever and drifted by themselves until the sickness passed. A black flag meant the whole vessel was contaminated, either by one of the ocean’s many fevers or the bleeding sickness that hemorrhaged life out of every orifice. I shuddered, glad of the contamination protocols that kept the stations quarantined in the event of an outbreak.
I hoped the mercenary vessel had similar protocols.
I pulled on my uniform, rolling the sleeves up past my elbows, then took a deep breath and checked our direction. The light filtering through my ceiling was bright, and we were headed northeast. I felt a sudden urge to be on deck, assuming we were in clean waters, letting the sunlight and wind burn away the vestiges of the night before. The rum and the bootlegged liquor had left a gummy film over my body, like the slippery, burning flesh of a jellyfish. Maybe there would be a swarm on the horizon. Then I would have a day’s work ahead of me, plotting coordinates and helping Walker run risk analysis. It was not the sort of thing I would normally wish for, but there was nothing normal about my thoughts this morning.
Breakfast was rice pudding. I toyed with it until Harper’s raised eyebrow forced me to shovel the bites into my mouth with mechanical precision. At least Harper wasn’t chatty, I told myself. The dining hall was packed with the rest of the day shift. I glanced around me, trying not to feel like I was saying goodbye.
“What’s gotten into you?” Harper asked as she cleared her tray.
“Just a little hung over,” I lied.
“Lightweight.”
She pushed back from the bench and took her tray up to the compost, leaving me alone with my rice pudding. I prodded the remains of the gelatinous mass, picturing the rice paddies of Polaris and the freshwater fish that swam through the shallows. I might never see them again.
Perhaps, I thought, I should have gone into aquaculture or hydroponics, instead of navigation.
My internal compass twitched. Sunlight streamed through the windows, but to the east the winds were shifting. I could feel it in the currents. A storm was coming. I abandoned the last few bites of my breakfast and cleared my tray, avoiding the eyes of the other sailors on my way to the compost chute, which smelled strongly of last night’s fish.
Harper met me at the cafeteria’s noxious yellow door with a yawn.
“See you tonight?” she asked, preparing to descend the tight stairs to the lower levels where she spent her days. I nodded mutely, suddenly unable to force words out of my tight throat. She rolled her eyes at me and turned to leave.
“Harp,” I called after her. She stopped and I took a hesitant step forward.
“You’re being weird, Rose.”
I pulled her to me in a tight hug, squeezing some of the breath out of both of us. Her head barely came up to my chin, and I rested my cheek against her sleek hair, trying to make sense of my tumbling world. Harper tolerated this for a few seconds before pulling away.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, letting my arms drop to my sides. They hung there limply while Harper stared at me.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Storm’s coming. I have to get to the helm.”
I could feel her eyes on my back the entire length of the narrow hallway.
Walker was waiting.
Sunlight drenched the helm, which ju
tted out from the submerged body of the ship like a knife handle to give us 360 degrees of unobstructed ocean. Charts covered the table in the center and the ship’s computer hummed quietly, salt water coursing through the conduit wires to the wave-generated battery in the ship’s belly. I could feel the pulses. The computer reminded me of a giant octopus, with its tentacles hooked into every system onboard. The electrical impulses sometimes interfered with my inner compass.
“There’s too much water in you,” one of the fortune tellers on Cassiopeia had told me as a child. I was inclined to believe her.
“Rose,” Walker said in his gently authoritative tone. I stood to attention, noting the presence of my two fellow quartermasters. Neither glanced my way. As always, their resentment was palpable.
I wondered if Walker knew about Comita’s secret request. His warm eyes met mine, revealing nothing.
“At ease. Take a look at this.” He beckoned me over to the central table.
“Are the barometers getting any low pressure readings?” I asked him, eying the computer’s glossy screen.
“Not yet, no. You picking up on something they’re not?”
“Might be a storm headed our way,” I said, glancing out at the peerless blue sky.
“Storms I can handle. This is more concerning.” He pointed a thick finger at a chart. “One of our scouts reported some unusual activity.”
“What kind of activity?” I examined the chart. It was of an area of ocean some fifty miles east, between us and the Gulf of Mexico.
“A transport vessel reported something tonal. It wasn’t like our sonar, but it was definitely code. Whatever it is, it is closer than usual, and we didn’t get a good sighting.”
“Could just be drifters,” a quartermaster named Marjory offered.
“Or pirates,” suggested Sam, the other quartermaster.
“Could very well be pirates,” Walker repeated, looking up at me. “Pirates that are subbed deeper than we thought possible, and far too close for comfort. Rose, I need an estimated trajectory based on these coordinates, and I will keep you up to date on anything our scout can send in.”
“What about that storm, sir?” I asked.
“I’ll have someone report it to Polaris and have the ship prepped to sub,” Walker said. “In the meantime, I need you on this, Rose.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I took a seat at the table and pulled the charts closer, running my hands along the printed plastic maps.
Deep-subbing pirate ships were bad news. It almost eclipsed Comita’s request, and I spent the morning charting possible courses and trying to determine how long it would take the pirate vessels to make contact with our supply line. The trouble was, if they had technology we didn’t know about, then I had no way of calculating their knots, which meant that at best I had a vague window of their arrival— if they meant to attack at all.
I looked up from the chart in time to catch a glare from Marjory that I wasn’t supposed to see. I ignored her. Marjory had been forced to split her duties with me when I graduated, and I couldn’t blame her for her resentment, even though it stung. At least she had a good reason for disliking me, unlike Maddox.
I rubbed the web between my forefinger and thumb, feeling for the shift in currents that indicated the shape of the coming storm.
There was a slight tug to the east, a catch in the currents that suggested the beginnings of a hurricane. Out here in the soup, monster storms formed overnight, turning the summer seas into boiling cauldrons. Even subbed there were still risks. A storm might delay a pirate attack, even if their vessels could sub as deeply as ours. On the other hand, it would also provide ideal cover for their movements. Comita was right. We needed more intel. I bit my lip in frustration.
“You’re a navigator, Rose. You see several possible courses and you take the one that makes the most sense.” Comita’s voice echoed in my ears, shadowing the bright sunshine with the memory of our conversation the night before. Nervous sweat pricked my armpits.
There was only one possible course.
Chapter Three
Comita was an active admiral.
Technically her office was below the upper helm, in a circular suite that commanded almost the same view as Navigation, but in practice she roamed the ship, acting as both captain and admiral as she kept tabs on her subordinates and made sure everything operated as it should. Tracking her down was easy enough. She left a trail of hyperefficient sailors in her wake, all of whom cast the occasional anxious glance over their shoulders.
I found her on the upper deck, examining the hydrofarms.
Most of our staple provisions were grown on Polaris, but the ship produced fresh greens, fish, and edible algae for its crew. Unlike the gardens on Polaris, this hydrofarm was built for function, not form, and the uniform lines of plants did little to soothe my anxiety. I passed through rows of green until I was within earshot of the admiral and the technician making his report.
“. . . trace elements of toxicity in the first purification cycle, but we get it all out by the third,” the tech said. Comita looked up as I rustled past an army of collards.
“Thank you, Jerome,” she said to the tech. “Compass Rose.”
“Admiral,” I said.
“Excuse me, Jerome. I look forward to reading your report.”
Jerome gave her a salute as Comita strode out of the garden. I nodded at the tech and followed, breathing in the humid air. Comita’s short stature was less evident here among the many rows of lettuce, spinach, and kale, and I followed her with my pulse pounding in my ears. She led me out of the greenhouse and through the ship’s less traveled passageways. These narrow hallways were usually reserved for the maintenance crews, and they were full of exposed pipes and the hiss of water and recycled air. I was out of breath by the time we returned to the lower helm.
“Let’s take a walk on deck,” Comita suggested. “We are far from any reported dead zones, and air toxicity levels are normal.”
We would be in full view of Navigation from the small deck at the base of the helm, which made me uneasy. I blinked into the harsh sunlight as she flung open the hatch. The deck was damp with spray, although the textured surface gripped the soles of my boots firmly, and the wind caught at my clothes and buffeted them around my legs and waist. Comita’s short cropped hair barely stirred as she beckoned me over to the starboard side.
The first traces of clouds floated on the horizon, gathering strength in thin wisps. Sunlight gleamed off the smooth surface of the water, refracting on the glass of the helm at our backs and the roofs of the hydrofarms ahead. Comita leaned against the starboard rail and looked out over the quiet sea.
“There is nothing unusual about a captain consulting a navigator on a clear day,” she said in a measured tone. “And no one will hear us here.”
The implication that someone might be listening made my skin itch.
“It won’t be clear for long,” I told her, pointing at the sky.
“It never is.” She smiled thinly. “So, Rose, do you have an answer for me?”
“I do,” I said. The next words caught in my throat and my hand clenched the rail. “I will do it. Anything for the fleet, and the Archipelago.”
“I am glad you feel that way. Not many would, in your position.” She met my eyes. “There is something else you should know. I will have no way of communicating with you directly while you are with Miranda. All communication will have to go through her, so watch what you say.”
“You don’t trust her, Captain?”
“She is a mercenary. I don’t trust anyone off of my ship, let alone a mercenary, and neither should you. Do your job, play it safe, and keep your eyes and ears open. Miranda has too much riding on this to renege, but there is always something beneath the surface. War is an iceberg. Remember that.”
“Yes, Admiral,” I said, not bothering to point out that neither she nor I had ever seen an iceberg.
“There is one more thing. You will no longer be under Polaria
n Fleet protection once you leave this ship. If word gets out that Polaris has undermined council authority, things will get complicated. For all intents and purposes, you must act as a member of her crew. If you are captured by another fleet, you will be on your own. Don’t let that happen. If it does, do whatever is necessary to escape, and we will deal with the consequences later. There is no need for you to lose your life at the hands of your own people. Don’t make me say this twice, Compass Rose. You are a rare sailor. I would not see you drowned.”
She turned away from me before I could see her face, leaving me speechless. “You leave within the hour. Pack your things.”
“Within the hour?” My voice squeaked. I had assumed that I would not leave until tomorrow at the earliest, if not a week from now.
“This storm and Walker’s intel changes things. I want you safely to the parley point and my vessel back to the North Star before this hits. You won’t have time to say goodbye to anyone, and the fewer people who know where you are, the better. Do you understand?”
“No,” I answered truthfully. I didn’t see how telling Harper my whereabouts would put Comita at risk. Harper was her own daughter, and was hardly likely to betray her mother to the council. A slight frown creased Comita’s forehead.
“What did I tell you about politics last night?”
“That they don’t make much sense to people like you and me,” I repeated.
“The same can be said of certain orders from your admiral.”
There was no mistaking her meaning. I clicked my teeth shut on my questions, stinging slightly from the reprimand.
“Report to the helm as soon as you are packed. Take clothes, and nothing more. I will have a scouting vessel ready for you, and all that you will need to serve under Miranda.”
• • •
My bunk had never looked so bleak. I stood in the doorway for a moment, then grabbed my fleet-issued hemp duffel and shoved my training clothes into it. There was plenty of space left over. I paused. The only other clothes I owned were fleet uniforms. Somehow, I didn’t think that would go over well on a Merc ship. I fingered the soft hemp trousers and the loose shirts in my drawer, then left them there. Instead, I picked up the small, crude carving Harper had given me one year for my birthday. It was supposed to be a jellyfish, but looked more like a drowned mushroom.