by Anna Burke
They called me “jelly” because my father was a drifter, and jellyfish ride the currents, unwanted wherever they go. Harper was the only one to soften the nickname.
“He calls you jelly because he’s jealous. Get it? Jelly?”
“Please, never abbreviate your words again. I get enough of that in the helm,” I’d said, but I’d been unable to hide the smile that followed me around the rest of that day.
I smiled again at the memory. Harper would be furious with me for leaving without saying goodbye. I could leave her a note, but that would be in direct defiance of Comita’s orders. I chewed my lip. Comita would tell Harper something, but would it be the truth?
There was nothing else to pack, except a few toiletries. I straightened the sheets on my bed and hoisted my bag. It was depressingly light.
My head felt tight as I ascended the stairs to the helm for what might be the last time. I clutched the duffel tightly in my fist and hoped nobody would ask me any questions. For once in my life, Maddox didn’t appear to torment me when I wanted it least, disproving my theory that he could smell my misery from across the ship. The only people I passed were sailors about their business. I avoided their eyes and walked more quickly.
I took the back passageways again. The bio-lights illuminated the tubes and pipes twining around each other like the eels in the salt pools on Cassiopeia. I didn’t see any more captive jellyfish, although the water in the light tubes was slightly clouded. The storm was going to be massive.
After the dimness of the hallways, the light in the helm was blinding. My eyes watered, and I blinked the false tears away. Comita was waiting with a handful of burly sailors I recognized by their uniforms if not by name.
“Fair seas, Compass Rose,” Comita said.
Her stern tone was at odds with a roughness that disarmed me. She cleared her throat, and for several moments I was afraid I might actually cry. Comita had shown more emotion toward me in the past twenty-four hours than in my entire time onboard the North Star.
“This way, navigator,” the largest of the sailors said. He had a flat face with a flatter nose, and his dark hair was slightly gray at the temple. The woman beside him was only slightly less intimidating, with biceps that were at least as thick as my thighs. The third sailor was another man, unremarkable except for a livid scar that ran the length of his face and neck.
These were no ordinary crew members. These were SHARKs, the Archipelago Fleet elite. I felt very small and fragile standing before them.
The woman held a thick binder, which I assumed enclosed copies of the charts I’d need to navigate for Miranda. It looked tiny next to her Amazonian figure. She tossed it to me, and I caught it awkwardly with one hand and packed it in with my clothes.
“All right, people, let’s move,” said the woman.
I was jostled between the two men as we exited the helm, and my stomach clenched as I realized where we were going.
The vessel bay was accessible by several routes. There were stairs and passages within the ship, and then there was the Ladder. I hated the Ladder. It was, more accurately, several ladders, but they all plunged down the side of the ship, pausing occasionally to allow room for a maintenance hatch. The fact that the ladder was fully encased in clear plastic several inches thick did not diminish the terror of descent. With a long drop below me and the pressure of the ocean all around, it was, in short, a thing of nightmare.
Rung after rung passed beneath my hands. One of the maintenance hatches had been used recently, and the maintenance tech had not bothered to take the time to wipe the water from her boots. My hands slipped on the wet rungs.
I lost my grip twice, catching myself both times just before one of the SHARKs could reach out and steady me. I was shaking by the time we reached the door that led to the vessel bay level. It opened into a tight tunnel, which did not ease my growing claustrophobia, and we had to pass through several more hatches as we navigated in between the bulkheads. The muscles on the female SHARK bulged as she turned the hatch wheels. I tried not to stare, but she caught my gaze and winked.
Despite everything, I blushed.
The last hatch led to the vessel bay. Here, the scouting subs bobbed in a pool of salt water, charging their batteries, along with some flotsam and the inevitable rogue jellyfish. Each vessel was sleek, designed for speed beneath the waves, and thick cables bobbed along the surface. I was reminded yet again of the sinuous eels of my childhood. Like some of the eels, these cables were also electric.
One of the subs was fully charged and disconnected, and a few techs were busy putting the finishing launch preparations together as we entered. The bio-lights were dimmer down here. I wondered how they were able to see what they were doing.
Maybe they would make a mistake, I hoped, and I would be forced to delay my departure.
My eyes found the doorway to the inner decks at the top of a long flight of stairs. I stared at it, willing Harper or Comita to step out and tell me that this was all a misunderstanding, or in Harper’s case a prank that had lost its humor. I was prepared to forgive her, as long as she emerged soon.
The seconds ticked by and the SHARKs joked with the techs, making their own operational sweep of the vessel.
“Come on, navigator,” the woman called out. “We’ve got coordinates to catch before this motherfucker blows.”
I tore my eyes away from the doorway and clambered awkwardly into the sub. Inside, the bio-light was even dimmer, if possible. I waited for my eyes to adjust before finding a low bench on the far wall alongside the instrument panels. There was a small window there, and I sought out the dwindling doorway again as the SHARKs piled in and the sub dropped through the first level. I heard the dock seal up, and then the gate below us opened into deep ocean. The sub whirred away and slipped easily into the nearest current.
“Make yourself useful, navigator,” the woman suggested.
I stumbled to my feet and approached the navigation panel. Coordinates mapped themselves onto the computer screen, glowing with the same blue green light as the bioluminescence in the bio-lights around us.
I hadn’t navigated for a sub before. It took me a few minutes to orient myself, which the tightness in my head impeded. It wasn’t the pressure change, although that took some time to adjust to as well. I missed the North Star already.
The blinking lights on the screen were no match for the sun or stars. I tried to block out the morbid jests of the SHARKs and concentrate on the currents, feeling the way they nudged at the sub. The female SHARK even let me take the wheel, which momentarily dispelled all of my fears and misgivings. The sub handled more lightly than a fleet vessel, and the power mechanisms were slightly different. I glanced around at the various instruments, trying to make sense of things.
“How does it work?” I asked.
“Are you a navigator or an engineer?” Flat Nose said with a sneer. “There’s a manual in here somewhere. A little light reading for you.”
I shut up after that.
The parley point was two hours away, past the range of Fleet sonar, which would give the vessel just enough time to return to the North Star before things hit the soup topside and docking grew difficult even beneath the waves. The SHARKs gradually fell silent, hulking in the small space like their namesake. My thoughts turned toward Miranda.
Miranda the mercenary. Mercenary Miranda. It had a nice ring to it, if a slightly ominous one. How had Comita made contact with her? What exactly was I supposed to be doing onboard her illegitimate vessel?
Miranda was the mercenary spy, I tried to reassure myself. I was just the navigator. My lip twitched in bleak amusement. I had been on a ship long enough to know a shifting current when I felt one. Things were never quite that simple. Few roles were as important as a navigator’s. The captain called the shots, but the navigators told the captain where to sail.
If Miranda sank, I sank with her.
“We’re almost there,” I said, keeping my voice flat.
“Alrig
ht, kiddo,” the SHARK woman said. “Here’s how this is gonna go down. We’ll breach and dock against their vessel. It should be a small one, an intermediary, if they follow the rules of parley.”
“Which they never do,” the scarred SHARK added.
“We hand you over,” the woman continued, “unless things look soupy, and then we’ll try to bail.”
“With or without you,” the scarred SHARK promised.
“We bail with you. You are the mission priority as long as you’re on this sub.” The woman ignored the other man’s comment. “All you have to do is sit tight, look pretty, and try not to piss off the Mercs.”
She winked at me again, bringing on another blush. I hoped it didn’t show in the half dark.
“All right then.” Flat Nose stood and cracked his knuckles, stretching out his trunkish forearms. “Let’s get wet.”
My stomach plummeted as the vessel rose. The water was definitely getting murkier outside the window, and I resumed my seat while the pros took over. I felt the vibration of a water horn through the sub’s wall, and knew that we’d been hailed by the other vessel.
Panic tightened my throat. This was not how things were supposed to be. I was going to be second mate one day, and Harper was destined to be chief of engineering of the North Star. This was wrong. It was all wrong. I didn’t care about supply lines or politics. Comita could find someone else to wage her war on the sea and on the pirates. Politics were above my pay grade, and espionage was nowhere in my job description.
That wasn’t true, I thought with another wave of dread. It was in there, with firm warnings about how dabbling in intrigue would end up with me taking a long walk off a short pier.
I whimpered deep in my throat as the surf frothed against the window.
“Looks like your ride is here, kid.” There was a thump as a line hit the roof of the sub, and the SHARKs piled cautiously out of the hatch. It was only after the last one vanished that I noticed how heavily armed they were. My teeth began to chatter.
“Hey-oh,” a strange woman’s voice called.
“Parley,” said the female SHARK.
“You got the navigator?” The stranger asked.
“You got any manners?” The SHARK shot back. “We’ll need some proof before we hand her over to you.”
“Here— signed and sealed by Miranda herself.” There was the sound of someone spitting, and the bump of two vessels docking.
“No need to tie us on. We won’t be staying for a drink,” said the female SHARK.
“Too bad. There’s a big old cocktail all around you, and you look a little thirsty,” said the mercenary. I didn’t like her tone at all.
“I’ve got orders not to kill you, scum, so shut your mouth before I make my admiral wish she’d drowned my mother before I was born,” said the SHARK woman.
The mercenary laughed before replying.
“Your mother was too ugly to drown. Ocean spat her right back out.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Sounds like you’ve met her, seas save you.” The SHARK woman laughed along with the mercenary. “Anyway, looks like this checks out. Hey kid!” She leaned down the hatch. “You’ve got some new friends out here anxious to meet you.”
I didn’t piss myself, which is all I could say about my courage as I climbed the ladder. The clouds were mounting heavily now, and the waves had turned into swells. A small vessel bobbed alongside our sub, its battered hull more rust than steel.
On it stood a group of people I could happily have gone a lifetime without meeting up close. Tattoos covered most of their available skin, and there was a leanness to their bodies that suggested hunger more than discipline. None of them looked happy to see me in my clean fleet uniform. I counted six sets of scowls, each unique in its expression of distaste.
“Good luck, kiddo,” said the female SHARK. She squeezed my shoulder. “You’ll make Admiral Comita proud.”
Flat Nose thrust a rope ladder in my hands and tossed my duffel to the other deck. A huge, dark-skinned man caught it, with a smile that turned my blood to algae.
“Can you find your way, navigator?” Flat Nose asked.
I met his eyes. Beneath the cruel humor was a touch of pity. I nodded and swung out on the ladder. There was a dizzying feeling of weightlessness before the ladder caught, and then I had to focus all my energy on scaling the swinging thing and not slipping into the Atlantic. The water was darkening to match the clouds, and the spray wet the crude rungs as I dangled against the rusted hull. Large flakes of rust fell into the water as my boots scraped the side, revealing darker layers of corrosion beneath.
“I’ve had enough ladders for one day,” I whispered to myself as I climbed. Wind assaulted me in little gusts, and the spray from the surf drenched my trousers from the knee down within seconds. The rope ladder was made of tough hemp, and the fibers dug into my palms and slipped beneath my feet, making for a clumsy climb.
I was glad I couldn’t see the faces of the crew above me, or the derisive pity of the crew leaving me behind.
The top of the ladder came too soon. With an effortless motion, the dark-skinned man reached out and hauled me over the rail. I wasn’t ready for it. One of my boots tangled in the last rung and tugged free with a painful wrench. It wobbled unsteadily beneath me as he set me down, forcing me to grab onto his forearm for support. My pride wilted beneath the snort of laughter I heard from one of his crewmates.
In the unwanted proximity, I realized that his skin was actually brown, like mine. The black tone came from the grotesque kraken inked all across his chest and arms, resplendent in its glory only inches from my nose. Tattooed tentacles curled around his body with disturbingly lifelike suckers. The worst part was his face. Around his mouth, some twisted tattoo artist had detailed a kraken’s beak, and his real eyes were lost in the inky pupils of the massive squid-like orbs the artist had obviously seen in a nightmare before rendering onto flesh. I stifled a small scream.
“Welcome aboard, fleet scum,” he said cheerfully.
I stiffened my knees to prevent them from collapsing and tried not to wince at the pain in my ankle. Behind me, I heard the familiar gurgle of a fleet vessel subbing, lost to me now beneath the waves, just a dark shape beneath a darker sea.
Chapter Four
“All useless hands below,” a woman shouted, and the tattooed man shoved me gently toward the less-than-sturdy stairs below the helm.
“We’re not subbing?” I asked, hesitating as a large wave rocked the deck.
“Only way this tub will sub is if you put a hole in her,” he said in the same cheerful tone.
I didn’t find the thought cheerful at all.
“Don’t worry, kid, we’ll be back to the big ship before you can spit.”
I cast a frantic glance around at the empty ocean. There wasn’t a single ship on the horizon, only the massive thunderheads boiling into a hurricane above us.
It was almost pitch black below deck. The only light came from a huge jar of bio-light screwed into the table against one wall.
“Annie, at the helm. I’ll be right up.”
The woman’s voice was the same one that had jested with the SHARKs. I struggled to make out her features as she approached me in the gloom. She was shorter than the man, and wore her hair pulled back into a hundred small braids threaded through with shells. They clinked with her impatience as she placed a hand on the short sword at her hip. Her fingers tapped on the hilt as she stared at me.
“You’re the Polarian Fleet’s best navigator?” She eyed me up and down.
The scrutiny raised my hackles. It was too familiar.
“I am,” I said, straightening my spine.
“How old are you, five? No wonder Comita is desperate.” She shook her head, making the shells sing.
“Who the hell are you?” I said, trying to ignore the jab.
A few of the other mercenaries whooped their approval at my abrasive words. I steadied myself on my injured ankle as the woman took a step close
r to me. The half-light revealed the orcas tattooed around her biceps. Their eyes were blood red, even in the gloom.
“I am Orca, Miranda’s First Mate. And you are nobody until I tell you something different, so listen to me carefully. Miranda wants you alive and ready to work, but she didn’t say anything about delivering you untouched. Do you understand me?”
I refused to nod.
“We have another hour before we reach the Man o’ War. That’s Miranda’s ship. Don’t speak. Don’t move.”
She leaned in a little closer. I could smell the salt air on her skin.
“And if you are not the best fucking navigator that your fleet has ever seen, I will drink rum out of your skull and flog you with strips of your own hide.”
She smiled, then turned on her heel and ascended the stairs to the helm to battle the waves. I looked around me at the faces of my new crew. I wondered what they would do to me if I vomited all over their patched and salt-stained clothes. My stomach lurched threateningly.
Fleet ships were stable. They subbed beneath the worst of the waves during storms, which made for smooth sailing 99.9 percent of the time. The mercenary parley ship was a whole other kettle of fish. Sick fish. I sank to the ground and fought the urge to throw up for as long as I could.
“We got a greenie,” one of the mercenaries announced, curling his lip at me as I fought down the impulse to retch.
“Someone get her a bucket,” the giant ordered from his seat at the table. He was carving something with a sharp knife and acting like the entire world wasn’t rocking up and down.