Compass Rose

by Anna Burke

  “You sure? You seem a little jumpy.” She smirked.

  She knows exactly what she’s doing to me, I realized. And she’s enjoying every fucking second of it.

  It was too much. I stepped away from her, mentally berating my body for its delayed response. Moving away from Miranda was the last thing it seemed to want to do, but I was done being toyed with. I’d spent the better part of my life at the mercy of someone else’s game.

  I was a Polarian Fleet navigator. I had self-respect.

  “Water’s too calm,” I said, glaring at her.

  “I thought you liked calm seas.” She tilted her head.

  I felt Kraken’s covert observation as he adjusted a few knobs.

  “Calm never lasts for long.”

  “So you prefer a challenge?” Her smirk deepened.

  “I prefer to know what I’m dealing with.”

  I want you, Captain, and I think you like that just a little too much. The thought rang with an unpleasant truth.

  I was an idiot. I’d trusted Annie, and look how that had turned out. I was a tool to Miranda, and just because we would both enjoy it if she used me didn’t make me any less disposable when this was all over.

  “I’m not judging. I like storms, myself. All this waiting around drives me crazy. Got anything for me, Kraken?”

  “Patience, woman,” he said with a grumble. “I’m only on the first net. You’ll know as soon as I do.”

  “You might want to step back,” Miranda said to me as the net spilled its contents into the ship.

  I stumbled into her as a wall of spray soaked my clothes. She caught me about the waist. I felt the vibrations of her laugh against my back and I yanked away from her, my insides writhing with self-loathing and desire.

  Absurdly, I missed Orca. She, at least, was honest.

  I distracted myself with the contents of the hold. The nets had been full, and their close-knit fibers glistened wetly in the sunlight and cast strange shadows over the murky soup slopping around the hold. Seaweed floated to the top, looking gray and diseased, and sure enough, there were several fleet supply capsules amid the sludge. I didn’t look too closely at some of the other, fleshy looking objects. If there were bodies, I didn’t want to know about them.

  “How does that turn into something like this?” I asked, tapping the plastic railing.

  The idea of the briny plastic sludge fueling our 3-D printers was as remote as the idea of solid earth beneath my feet. I knew it existed, but I couldn’t imagine it.

  “Beats the shit out of me,” Kraken said. “I just deliver.”

  “We’ll do another haul overnight, but I want to get out of here in the morning before Ching Shih gets wind of us. If she’s got someone following Orca, she’ll send out another scout, and I don’t like the idea of Mercy knowing we’re here.”

  “You sure you don’t want to be found?” Kraken said. His tone was slightly suggestive.

  I glanced at Miranda, who was watching me. I wanted to suture her eyebrow back down to a normal position. Something about the way she arched it made my stomach perform acrobatics.

  “Once was enough,” Miranda said.

  Kraken’s snort of laughter echoed in the hold.

  His words drove home something else. Miranda knew the enemy. Knew her well enough that random pirates like Kira and Jeremiah associated Miranda with Ching Shih.

  Then there was the disconcerting matter of Miranda’s mark, which was infamous enough that it had given Jeremiah pause, even though the pirates had outnumbered our tiny crew ten to one.

  The line between Miranda and the pirates blurred still further, and I hated myself for being so blind.

  Miranda Stillwater. Her name sent alarm bells off in a distant part of my skull.

  “Excuse me, Captain,” I said, deciding I needed a break from her blue eyes and her mocking smile.

  “You’re not dismissed.”

  I froze. Anger won out over desire, finally clearing my head.

  “What do you need, Captain?” I said, remembering her earlier threat to throw me overboard if I did not follow orders.

  “Miranda.” Kraken’s voice was quiet, calm, and with a hint of warning.

  “From you? Obedience. Come with me.” The look she gave Kraken was defiant.

  He shook his bald head as she left the hold, leaving me fuming and confused.

  “I told you. She can be a real bitch when she’s drifting.” His eyes measured me and for a moment I thought he was about to say more. He didn’t.

  “Compass Rose. Now,” Miranda ordered.

  I followed, holding on to a sharp reply by the skin of my teeth.

  • • •

  Clouds built like ancient empires on the horizon as the sun set over the Gulf. The sound of the hatch sealing behind me severed any feelings of connection with the rest of the ship, along with any hope of escaping my captain. She walked to the prow and stood against the sun, her hair burning a deep, dark red in the light. I crossed my arms over my chest and refused to be drawn in by the sight.

  “Someone should be at the helm,” I said.

  “The trawler will be fine for a few fucking minutes.” Miranda’s voice carried the same edge as it had before the swarm, a restless cocktail of danger and uncertainty.

  “Do you need a drink, Captain?”

  The poorly concealed mockery in my voice made her back stiffen. She turned slowly, her face not nearly shadowed enough to hide her anger.

  “Do you have a problem, navigator?”

  “I do, actually,” I said. I had a lot of problems. I am far from home, surrounded by pirates, and in serious danger of falling in love with you.

  The ring on her thumb sent a flash of reflected fire into my eyes. Roman numeral two. The symbol of Gemini station.

  The pieces fell into place, filling me with a disconsolate rush of betrayal.

  The leader of the Gemini mutiny had been a young Gemini Fleet captain. Her name came to me in the soft rush of twilight. Stillwater. Miranda Stillwater.

  I was subordinate to a traitor.

  Worse than that, worse than the knowledge of the blood on her hands, was the knowledge that there was a part of me that didn’t care who she was or what she had done, which made me just as much a traitor.

  I had thought I felt the pain of betrayal, hanging from the ladder with Annie above me, plotting how best to finish me off. I had thought I’d known loneliness, too drifter for Polaris, and too Polarian for the mercenaries.

  I knew nothing.

  The wide sky and the purpling clouds filled me with an incomprehensibly bloated sense of loss.

  “Name your complaint, Rose.”

  She was so beautiful, and so arrogant, standing with her boots sure on the slick deck and her body equally sure of her position beneath the heavens while I spun like a compass needle, seeking north and finding nothing.

  “You’re Miranda Stillwater, leader of the Gemini rebellion,” I said, throwing the words at her like knives.

  She plucked them out of the air.

  “That’s what this is about?” Her face registered genuine surprise.

  I took a step back. My ankle hit the railing as she moved closer.

  “You’re a traitor.”

  “And you took my oath,” she said, her own anger warming to mine. “What does that make you?”

  “An idiot,” I said, shaking with rage. A bead of sweat ran down my throat and between my breasts.

  “And I am your captain. Will you serve?”

  I lunged. There was no thought behind it, only blind pain and weeks of Orca’s conditioning. She grabbed my wrists and held them above my head, the muscles in her arms rippling with strain.

  “Will you serve?” she repeated.

  I struggled in her grasp, the feeling of helplessness fueling my anger, and refused to respond.

  “Does Comita know?” I asked, wondering if I had just given Ching Shih the keys to the Gulf.

  Miranda knew more about fleet patrol patterns
at this point than most fleet patrollers, thanks to me, and if she was Miranda Stillwater, then she was capable of anything. For all I knew, she had been communicating with Ching Shih this whole time.

  “Of course. It’s a simple concept, Rose. Captains call it leverage.”

  She let me go, and I rubbed my wrists. Red marks stood out on my skin from her fingers.

  “Comita is blackmailing you?” I asked as I backed away from her, trying to catch my breath.

  “Not exactly.”

  She pressed her advantage, backing me closer to the edge.

  I tried to dodge out of her way, but her foot snaked out to hook mine. I landed hard, several barnacles gouging tracks down my back. Miranda stood over me with that infuriating smile.

  I had never hated anyone as much as I hated her right then. Nor, despite everything, had I wanted anyone or anything more.

  “Done?” she asked as she offered me a hand.

  I decided to try the trick that had worked with Orca. I took her hand and pulled, bringing my foot up into the back of her knee and collapsing it. She fell onto me, catching her palm on the barnacled deck and letting out a colorful curse.

  I could smell her, brine and hibiscus and the underlying scent of sailor’s sweat and Miranda herself. Her braid slid off her shoulder, hanging over me like a lifeline. I had an absurd recollection of the children’s story about the princess in her tall tower, letting down her hair for her prince— only Miranda was the sort of woman who would have chopped off that braid and propelled herself down the wall at its expense, and I was no prince.

  You should have let yourself drown, I told myself.

  My heart pounded with leftover adrenaline and the intoxicating effects of the weight of her body on top of mine. The evening sky blazed behind her, setting fire to the distant banks of clouds. I listened to the sound of her breathing slowing. Mine remained ragged, drowning out the slow lap of the waves against the hull. Neither of us moved.

  My captain was Miranda Stillwater, and I was a drifter half-breed out of her depth.

  The sunset bled into Miranda’s eyes, bathing the blue with the same fire that washed the horizon, and her slightly parted lips looked almost innocent, stripped of arrogance by her landing.

  Looking into her eyes was a mistake.

  The current that leapt between us was paralyzing. The boat dropped away from me, and I hurtled into blue at a speed that ripped the breath from my throat. Falling. That was what they called this.

  The sky faded, its brilliance nothing more than a backdrop as the moment stretched out between us. I tried to control my breathing and failed. My chest rose and fell at its own rapid pace, brushing against her with each inhale. Miranda would have to be blind and deaf not to notice. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the pulse in her throat quicken.

  “Rose,” she said, her voice rough and lower than normal. “There are things I can’t tell you, but you have to trust that I am on your side.”

  My inner compass quivered and settled, discarding true north to point at the place in her chest where I could feel her heartbeat racing mine. I couldn’t answer. I felt as if I’d swum three miles. There wasn’t enough air in the world to fill the space inside of me, and I felt as empty and limitless as the fading sky.

  I bit my lip, hoping that the prick of pain would bring me back to earth. Miranda glanced down at my mouth. Her eyes turned a darker shade of blue, and a flush rose along her skin, making the scars stand out in stark testimony to her emotions. When she raised her eyes back to mine, the look she gave me sent a deep tremor through my body. My heart kicked things up another notch as I reeled from the aftershock.

  I don’t care who you are. If you don’t kiss me, I will die. The certainty of the thought eroded any last shred of reason.

  Her name spilled from my mouth, and she caught it with her lips, sealing it between us as she kissed me. She tasted like salt air and something far sweeter, soft and fierce and real.

  She started off gently, her restraint evident in the way her breath caught and her body shook. Her hair brushed my neck, sending another shiver through me. I wanted to wrap her braid around my fist. I wanted to feel her full weight along the length of me, heat and muscle and skin. More than that, I wanted to forget about who she was or who she had been, and I really didn’t want to think about what either of those things could mean to me.

  She took my lower lip between her teeth, and my resolve broke with a low moan. It was a sound I had never heard myself make before, and it was as startling as it was thrilling. I pulled her face closer to mine, barnacles biting into my shoulder blades as I charted a determined course into oblivion, taking my captain with me.

  Miranda cast off her restraint and with it any doubt I might have had about how this woman could command a ship of surly mercenaries with a single look. The wind tugged at my curls and she collected my surrender with her mouth while the pollution of past centuries swirled around us.

  • • •

  “We have to stop,” Miranda said, rolling off me. I blinked at the stars overhead, feeling dizzy. The sky had lost the last bit of light, and the waves lapping against the ship’s hull were swiftly losing the tranquility of twilight. Sea Cat had strayed slightly from her course, thanks to the nets that were once again flung out behind us, and my mind hazily set about running the corrections.

  My lips felt bruised and swollen. It was past time to start searching for Man o’ War, and far past time to sub. Any number of things could have killed us while we lingered topside, from hydrogen sulfide to methane bursts and giant squid.

  I lay still, pinioned between the desire to lie like this forever and the dread of what would happen next. Something had to happen. We couldn’t stay here, and returning to the ship carried consequences I wasn’t ready to think about. If my hair looked anything like Miranda’s, it wasn’t something I would be able to hide, either.

  Miranda Stillwater. Gemini’s most infamous captain, and a name the Archipelago had done its best to wipe from the maps. How in Neptune’s seven seas had she survived, and what the hell was I doing in her arms?

  Miranda straightened her clothes and grimaced as her hands explored her hair. My body ached with unreleased longing as I watched her fingers quickly establish order. My own curls required more vigorous attention, and I knew my efforts fell short.

  “Captain,” I said, rising unsteadily to my feet.

  Miranda’s face looked different in the darkness, but I could feel the distance opening up between us.

  “‘Captain’ again already?” she said, a smile playing with her swollen lips.

  I looked away. “What happens now?”

  Miranda placed her scarred hand under my chin and tilted my head up. She kissed me gently, pulling out any last vestiges of resistance.

  “Nothing happens. We sail. You navigate. Right now, we eat. Later, we find my ship.”

  “But what about this?” I ran my hand down her side, feeling the curve of her hip. There would be consequences on a fleet ship for fraternizing with your commanding officer.

  “I only have one real rule on my ship, navigator,” she said, turning toward the hatch. “I don’t care who my crew fucks, as long as it doesn’t distract them from their duties.”

  Well, I thought as I watched her leave, with an attitude like that, you’ll be lucky if you get fucked anytime soon, Captain.

  • • •

  “How was that fresh air?” Kraken asked as we entered the common area. Finn and Jeanine were at the table playing cards while Kraken flipped fish over the small stove.

  “Very . . . refreshing,” Miranda said.

  I bolted for the helm, mumbling something about correcting our course on the way out. I was not ready to face the gauntlet of Sea Cat’s crew.

  I found Seamus nestled in Miranda’s chair. I stroked his chin, eliciting a contented purr from the huge tom. The corrections were minor, and I updated the autopilot for the evening with half of my brain still on the upper deck. My lips ached, a
nd there was a deeper ache in the center of my chest.

  “North, east, south, west,” I told Seamus, plopping into my chair. I clutched my head in my hands and let out a frustrated sigh. “Life used to be a lot less complicated.”

  Only a few weeks ago, my biggest concern had been Maddox. Now, I had pirates, traitors, and the fate of the Archipelago itself on my plate, and I didn’t have much of an appetite for the next course.

  Tomorrow we would leave the rendezvous, keeping Man o’ War at a safe distance as we skirted the first of the mines. Tomorrow, dawning with a promise of toxic waters and gathering storms. I needed my wits about me. I thought about the way Miranda’s lips had felt on my neck and shivered. There was little hope for that now.

  I took a few more deep breaths and stood, giving Seamus another pat on my way out. I stepped quietly, not wanting to break into the bright sphere of the common room just yet.

  “The main crew isn’t going to like it.” Kraken’s voice rumbled from the storage room. I froze, pressing myself against the wall. “I don’t care what you do, but you need to be more careful, Miranda.”

  “I am careful.” Miranda’s tone was stubborn.

  “You’re not, Mere.” Kraken sighed, and I wondered at the tenderness in his voice. “She’s dangerous.”

  “It’s harmless, and I could use a break, don’t you think?”

  “There’s only one thing that girl is going to break. You need to concentrate on Ching right now, not a pretty pair of eyes and a nice ass.”

  “Watch it, Kraken.”

  “She’s not my type.”

  There was a pause.

  “It doesn’t mean anything. She’s fleet. We have to give her back at the end of this, remember? I have no plans on getting attached.”

  Her words stung, and I recoiled at the force behind them. Recoiled, and wondered at their vehemence.

  “I hope so, Mere. Go get something to eat. I’ll get Rose. I don’t want to lose you for another two hours. And Mere—”

  There was a pause.

  “Don’t even say it.”

  “You owe me your rum ration.”

  “Like hell I do.”