Compass Rose

by Anna Burke

  “Get up, fleet scum. If you make me miss breakfast, I will drown you myself.”

  I blinked at my surroundings, trying to get my eyes used to the sickly green light. Miranda’s vessel, it appeared, did not have the genetically modified bio-luminescent organisms in their light tubes that I had taken for granted on the fleet. These looked like they had been harvested from some murky region of the ocean where respectable boats knew better than to sail.

  I took stock of my situation.

  My wounded hand curled protectively against my chest and the other hung limply from the coarse hammock where Orca and Kraken had deposited me the evening before. The hammock, I remembered, hung in Orca’s private quarters. Miranda was afraid her crew would harass me if I bunked with the rest of them in the common hold. I wondered if that might have been preferable to sharing close quarters with her irascible first mate.

  My tongue stuck dryly to the roof of my mouth as I sat up. The world spun into focus in time for me to see Orca standing over my open duffel, rummaging through the contents.

  “Hey,” I protested. It came out in a rasp.

  “Put these on. You stink worse than a bilge rat.” She tossed a clean pair of training clothes at me, then paused. I cringed as she scooped up the jellyfish. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Orca hefted it experimentally.

  “Do I even want to know why you have this?”

  “It’s not important.”

  Orca raised the carving to eye level. “Looks like a jellyfish. Did your boyfriend make this for you when he was high?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said in another rasp.

  “Why does that not surprise me?” Orca asked herself. “There’s water in the corner for you. You wouldn’t last a minute in the showers.” She grinned. It was not a friendly expression.

  I stepped gingerly out of the hammock, unused to the way it swung underneath me. The floor was cold and slightly uneven, as if it had been pieced together at different times by different builders, all of them falling down drunk. It was impossible to see clearly in the light, so I stopped trying and stumbled to the washbasin. A stained but presumably clean rag lay next to the large bucket of water. I scooped a handful up to drink and retched it back up.

  “It’s seawater,” I said, my nose burning.

  “Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Orca was still tossing the jellyfish from hand to hand. I splashed my face with the briny water and dampened the rag. I didn’t feel comfortable stripping with Orca watching, but I was acutely aware of the lingering smell of vomit on my skin. I shucked off my shirt and folded it neatly at my side, keeping my back to her. The cold water felt good, despite the slight burn of the salt. I scrubbed my chest, neck, arms, and stomach, but couldn’t bring myself to strip down to my underwear. My lower half would have to wait.

  I shuffled awkwardly over to my clothes and pulled a clean shirt over my head, breathing in the familiar smell of the fleet laundry. It stung deeper than the salt, and I willed a presump-tuous tear back into its duct. If this was what Comita needed me to do, then however strange and painful it was, I was determined to do it.

  “You eat well on the fleet, don’t you?”

  There was an undercurrent of resentment to Orca’s taunt. I glanced down at my bare legs as I hopped into my pants. They were slender and well-muscled. Fleet life was not soft, but compared to Orca I was plump.

  “You said something about breakfast,” I said, ignoring her comment.

  “Not that you need it.” She dropped the jellyfish back into the bag.

  I let out a small sigh of relief as it nestled back into my clothes.

  “Do I get to walk on my own this time, or are you going to put that thing back over my head?” The more I talked, the thirstier I became.

  Orca eyed me up and down.

  “The hood was just a precaution. You only need to know your way around four parts of the ship. This room, unfortunately, the mess hall, the head, and navigation. Just don’t get lost.”

  “I’m a navigator,” I said before I could stop myself. “I don’t get lost.”

  “Good. Nobody on this ship likes fleeters. You get lost, you’re not my responsibility.”

  She turned and made for the door. It had a crude bar across it for security and I noticed a shadow above the doorway.

  “You like it?” Orca asked, noticing my stare.

  “What is it?”

  “All your fancy tech, and you can’t identify a sea wolf? It’s the skull of an orca.”

  I strained my eyes to see in the light, forgetting my thirst for a moment. A whale skull. A real whale skull. I wanted to ask Orca where she’d gotten it, but the smirk on her face shut me up.

  I decided she had to be around my age as I trailed after her and down the hallway. She walked with the arrogance of someone who knew how to beat the shit out of others, but her skin was still fresh beneath the scars and tattoos.

  The hallway was a mockery of fleet order. Curtains of shells, bones, and ragged cloth hung across doorways, and I glanced into several large rooms full of hammocks that looked like a crude version of the common bunk where I had spent my nights in fleet prep school. Merc crew members were up and moving, shouting at one another and emitting a distinct odor that made me doubt the efficacy of the showers.

  Like Orca’s room, the floor was composed of patchwork plastic. Here and there, grates spanned several feet of flooring, and I caught a glimpse of the lower levels and the tops of hurrying heads. The walls of the hallway writhed with pipes, which snaked haphazardly around doorways and hatches, casting sinuous shadows in the eerie glow of the dubious bio-light tubes.

  The hallway ended with a catwalk and a flight of open stairs. I swayed as we passed the landing, noting the long drop into the poorly lit darkness that extended below. Above, bright sunlight flared in the distance, forcing its way into the bowels of the ship. I shuddered as I realized I must have passed this way the night before with my face covered. The walk was narrow and the railings looked like they would give way if a cat brushed against them.

  There were cats, too. More cats than I had ever seen on a fleet ship. We only kept a symbolic few, as the mice and rat populations were carefully restricted to the elite ranks of rodents who had survived a rigorous campaign of baiting, trapping, poisoning, and predation. A black and white tom stared at me from the shadows, and a ginger twined her narrow body between the railing’s supports, unfazed by the drop beneath her.

  Orca mounted the stairs lightly. Her feet moved surely up the flights while I struggled to keep up on my sore ankle. I kept my left hand on the rail, as my right ached, and tried to make sense of the ship’s organization as we climbed. It was impossible, which unnerved me more than the dark looks my new crew shot me.

  “Rumor’s true, Orca?” someone asked.

  “Fleet’s finest,” Orca said with a shrug. Measuring eyes weighed me, and I wished I were taller, stronger, and significantly more intimidating.

  I kept my eyes on Orca’s back and followed her up.

  The mess hall was more organized than I’d anticipated. The lighting was better, for one thing, and the tables were laid out with familiar structure. The round captain’s table was on the far side of the room and long tables with benches filled the rest of the space. Orca made her way to the captain’s table and gave me a sidelong look.

  “Don’t get used to it,” she said as she pointed at a chair. “One wrong move, and you’ll be sitting with them.” I followed her pointing finger to the nearest table, where a group of sailors stared at me with open dislike.

  So far, this was turning out to be more like the fleet than I’d expected. I forced myself to meet their eyes before I turned away. Fleet Prep had taught me many things, among them that showing weakness was a sure way to get beat up in a dark corner.

  The tray Orca handed me was battered and old, but clean, and I stood beside her in line for the kitchen window. A bowl of s
ome sort of grain mash plopped onto my tray when my turn came, along with a tall glass of lemon water. My stomach dropped. Lemon water was a scurvy ration, which we reserved for long missions. It didn’t bode well for the cuisine.

  Orca saw my face and laughed.

  “Used to better?”

  “It’s fine,” I said, wondering if I could manage to hold my tray and down the water at the same time.

  The mash was tasteless. I missed the rice pudding I had toyed with only yesterday, and wondered what Harper was doing. I concentrated on that thought as I spooned the stuff into my mouth. At least the mash was warm.

  The captain’s table filled up during the course of the meal. Kraken joined us, seating himself on my other side. I eyed his tattoos. They were even more lifelike in the brighter light. I thought about asking him what his position was, until a tentacle rippled over his bicep.

  We were sailing southwest, away from the fleet, and the sunshine I’d noticed in the stairwell meant we’d outdistanced the storm during the night. The memory of the waves made my stomach clench.

  More crew sat at the table. They greeted Orca and Kraken and ignored me. None of them wore a uniform or any signifier of rank, but each moved with the self-assurance of authority. One man carried a whip at his belt. The coiled lashes had a pinkish tint that I told myself couldn’t possibly be blood.

  I finished my food quickly, afraid to ask for more, and sipped at the last of the water in my glass. Orca was talking with a tall, dark haired woman about people I didn’t know, and Kraken sat in stoic silence. I didn’t think he was much of a morning person. I gently probed my bandaged hand beneath the table. It stung and throbbed, but I felt significantly better with food and water in my system.

  “Captain on deck,” someone called out from the far end of the mess hall.

  The grain mash made a bid for freedom in my belly. My back was to the door and I didn’t dare turn to stare as Miranda entered the mess hall, but I could hear.

  The initial respectful hush was replaced with the kind of banter Comita didn’t stand for. I couldn’t make out her words through the strange buzzing in my ears. She laughed at something someone said, and the sound sent a chill down my spine. I squeezed my bandaged hand to clear my head.

  She passed very close by my chair. The wind from her passage left a hint of fragrance— salt, sweat, and a floral scent I couldn’t identify. It reminded me of the gardens on Polaris in full bloom. Orca straightened beside me, and even Kraken looked up from his bowl.

  Miranda stood at her chair for a moment, glancing around the table. Her scars were more apparent in the light, but they didn’t detract from the striking beauty of her face.

  Beauty? I asked myself. The last thing I needed was to start thinking about Miranda as anything other than a mercenary captain.

  I wished there was more water in my glass.

  “Looks like fair weather today,” Miranda said, spooning up an unappetizing mouthful of the same slop the rest of us were eating.

  My eyes were torn between the drippy, grayish-brown mash and the fullness of her lips. The contrast was disorienting.

  “Annie must have had a rough time coming in last night,” a tall man with long dreadlocks said.

  “Annie? Nah. She knows what she’s doing,” said Kraken.

  “Any sailor would have struggled out in that soup.”

  “Not Annie.” Kraken’s voice brooked no arguments, but the man persisted.

  “It was risky, bringing a boat in like that.”

  I felt Kraken stiffen next to me. The rest of the table glanced at Miranda. She took another bite of mash, apparently unconcerned.

  “Just because you couldn’t handle it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t,” Orca said with a smile. Something about the set of her jaw reminded me of the skull hanging above her door.

  “Has nothing to do with what I can and can’t handle. It’s risky, taking a boat in like that for something so . . .”

  He trailed off and looked at me. I willed myself not to flush. I was used to this, I reminded myself, and met his dark eyes.

  “If you have something to say, Andre, spit it out.”

  Kraken’s voice sank another octave, which I would not have thought possible. I could have sailed across the tension at the table. Miranda pushed her tray away slowly, and ran a hand over her tightly braided hair where it lay heavily against her hemp shirt. Andre glanced at his captain. A vein in his forehead pulsed.

  “It just seems like a big risk for one girl.”

  Around the table, the subtle shift in postures suggested a few others shared his opinion.

  “You think I risked a vessel on a girl?” Miranda said. Her voice was low and calm. Andre’s forehead vein jumped again. “If you wish to call a vote, I can see you have some support.” Miranda looked slowly around the table. Her eyes passed over me without stopping.

  “We just want to know,” he began, but at the sudden withdrawal of interest he amended his speech. “I just want to know, as your Chief Mechanic, that the risk to one of my boats was worth it.”

  “One of your boats?”

  “Our boats, Captain. Yours to command, mine to keep afloat.”

  Miranda smiled at his words. Like Orca, her smile had teeth.

  “Compass Rose,” she said, catching me off guard.

  Her eyes harpooned mine, and my breath caught in my throat. I didn’t want to swim in these waters. I was pretty sure there were sharks.

  “Captain,” I said. The word burned in my mouth like the brand on my hand.

  “Which direction are we sailing?”

  “South southwest.”

  “What direction is the major current?”

  “Northeast.”

  “What are our coordinates?”

  I glanced around the table, my mind running through the calculations and barely seeing the faces of Miranda’s crew.

  “Between 23.6, -40.7 and 24.2, -40.9,” I said after a moment.

  “Annie.” Miranda raised her voice loud enough that the mess hall quieted.

  Annie appeared a few moments later. I recognized her from the night before. Her black hair was graying and her dark skin had seen plenty of weather, but there was nothing fragile about her wiry frame.

  “What are our coordinates?” Miranda asked her.

  “23.7, -40.7,” Annie said.

  I was startled at my own accuracy. Even for me that was a good guess. The storm could have knocked us much further off course than I’d allowed for.

  “Compass Rose, what would you say the wind direction was?”

  “West, between 15 and 20 knots,” I said, feeling for the slight pull that indicated a misalignment with the current.

  “How far are we from your fleet?”

  “That depends on their trajectory, the storm, and whether or not they changed course, but they can’t be more than 50 miles in any direction, and only 45 due east if they have to fight wind and current.” The answers spilled out of me.

  “And that,” Miranda said to the table, “is why I risked one of Andre’s boats in a hurricane. Thank you, Rose. Annie.”

  Annie frowned slightly at me as she left. It was the friendliest look I’d received so far.

  The familiar feeling of suspicious eyes raked over me from elsewhere around the table. Orca was staring at me with a mixture of surprise and distrust. Andre’s vein pulsed in double-time. Kraken glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, which was unsettling in itself, considering the larger eye tattooed around it.

  Miranda, I realized with a leap of my pulse, looked more than pleased. A satisfied smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she observed the reaction my words had stirred.

  “She’s got eyes like a Sea Wolf,” someone said under their breath. Miranda spoke before I could identify the whisperer.

  “Orca, Compass Rose, with me,” she said, standing. “The rest of you get back to work. Unless anyone else has any more questions?” Silence met her words, and her eyes simmered with controlled
anger as she looked squarely into all of their faces. I was glad her eyes avoided mine.

  “Come on, fleet scum,” Orca said, rising to follow her captain. Kraken stood as well, a giant shadow looming on my right.

  • • •

  I could feel the eyes of the entire mess hall on me as we walked out. I kept my own eyes straight ahead, glued to Miranda’s back. It was certainly distracting enough. Her shoulders were broad and muscular, and she walked with a confidence that made Orca’s swagger look like a posturing kitten. I was already thirsty again by the time the doors swung shut behind us.

  Orca glanced at me with a frown, then at Miranda.

  “Do you want me to hood her, Captain?”

  “No. I don’t think a hood can confuse our new compass.”

  Kraken laughed behind me. The sound was so low that for a moment I thought it was the ship’s machinery. Orca flushed and glared at me.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  We followed the same corridor Orca had taken me through that morning. I braced myself for the catwalks and the stairs and tried not to let my limp show.

  We climbed right into the sun. I blinked as the light grew brighter and brighter and kept one hand on the rail for guidance. The top of the stairs branched into six possible directions, each leading to a door. The roof was composed of a liquid level, judging by the watery brilliance, and I guessed that it was a part of their passive desalination system. Even with the liquid barrier, the heat from the concentrated sunlight made beads of sweat break out on my forehead.

  The door Miranda chose opened into another bright room. I tripped in surprise as my eyes traveled upward. A tower jutted out of the roof, encased in thick, clear plastic. The bow side of the tower narrowed to a point, allowing it to cut through water and wind, and a ladder was mounted on the stern side opposite.

  I eyed the ladder where it descended into the middle of the room with an unpleasant suspicion. The rest of the room was devoted to shelves and small tables with charts and maps, but Miranda walked straight up to the ladder and began to climb. I tore my eyes away from the muscles in her arms and followed, vowing not to glance up.