Compass Rose

by Anna Burke

  “Foodstuffs and scrap.”

  “I’ll send the inspector over.” The voice vanished, leaving me and Finn squinting in the brightness.

  “How are we going to get onto the station?” I asked him.

  “You’ll see.”

  The inspector was a heavyset man who looked as if he had recently lost a lot of weight. His skin hung loosely on his frame, clad in a poorly fitting Archipelago uniform, and his jowls quivered as he looked us over. His eyes held a mixture of hope and distaste.

  “You said you had foodstuffs?”

  “Grains and dried fruit. Took it off a wreck. Gotta love those storage pods, eh?”

  “A wreck?” The inspector’s gaze sharpened.

  “Nasty one, mouth of the Gulf. Fleet ship. Good fleet supplies, if you’re interested.”

  “What kind of ship?”

  “Wasn’t much left by the time we got to it. Warship, maybe, but well supplied.”

  There was no denying the gleam of hope in the inspector’s eyes at Finn’s words.

  “Did you see any other ships?”

  “Mostly the sort my crew and I try to avoid. You cut off or something?” Finn asked, playing dumb.

  “What’s it to you?” the inspector shifted his stance.

  “Might be I could fetch a better price. Any chance I could get a visit with your station’s physician?”

  “I thought you said there was no sickness onboard.”

  “I didn’t say anything about sickness. It’s my cousin here. She’s . . .” he paused and gestured at his stomach, miming pregnancy. The inspector gave me a cursory inspection. I kept my eyes downcast.

  “Let’s see what you got, then,” he said.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the bay doors, and I shared his unease. Somewhere behind those doors were pirates, and I suspected it was only a matter of time before they made their presence known.

  We had removed most of our personal supplies from the cargo bay, leaving only a few bags of grain and dried produce. The prudence of the decision became clear the minute the inspector laid eyes on the goods.

  “Is this all you have?” he asked, the hunger in his voice unmistakable.

  “For now,” Finn said. “Why, you in short supply?”

  “Where have you been, drifter?” the inspector asked with a humorless laugh. “We haven’t seen a fleet supply ship in months. We’ve had malnutrition on some of the rigs. Malnutrition, on an Archipelago mining station.” He shook his head in disbelief. It was a mark of his desperation that he spoke to us at all.

  I grunted under the weight of the grain, following Finn and the inspector across the narrow ramp and through the doors to the weigh station. The inspector logged our vessel and goods, although I noticed that he had a creative way of spelling “grain.” His careful scrawl looked a lot more like “plastic sludge.”

  The omission told me more than his recent weight loss about conditions on the station. The pirates were intentionally depriving the miners. Finn picked up on it, too.

  “It’s that bad, then?” he asked.

  “Keep your eyes where they belong, drifter.” He rang a distant bell, and in another minute two men appeared to spirit the food away. Neither bothered sparing me and Finn a glance.

  Their timing couldn’t have been better. Almost as soon as they departed, the door slammed open again, and a tall woman shouldered into the room with a thunderous expression.

  “You’re slow to report a vessel, inspector.” She drew out the last word, making a mockery of the title. Her clothes were dark, almost black, crossed with Ching’s crimson slash. I kept my eyes glued to the ground and my ears pricked.

  “It’s just a drifter tub, ma’am.”

  “How did a drifter tub make it into my bay without my knowledge?”

  “My apologies, ma’am. I thought it was beneath your interest.” The inspector’s voice trembled with forced humility and suppressed rage.

  “Nothing on this mine is beneath my interest, or beneath the interest of Ching Shih. Remember that, inspector. Now, what do we have here?”

  She stepped toward me.

  “Ching Shih?” Finn said, distracting the woman before she got too close to me. “I thought this was Archipelago territory, ma’am, or I would never have dared—”

  “Shut up.” She dismissed him with a curl of her lip and turned back to the inspector. “Consider this your last warning, inspector.”

  All three of us released our breaths when the woman left the room, and the station master slumped in his seat.

  “She’s a real piece of work,” Finn said.

  “She’s a Red Flag Fleet officer. They’re all like that.” He paused. “Did you really not know that Ching controls these waters?”

  “Nobody sees a drifter, inspector, so it’s best that drifters see as little as possible. Noticing things gets you noticed. However,” Finn paused, as if weighing something in his mind, “I might have exaggerated the degree of my ignorance.”

  “I’ll take you to the physician, then,” the inspector said.

  “How many of those Red Flag sailors do you have on your station?” Finn asked as we navigated tight corridors with oppressively low ceilings.

  “Fifteen, but it’s enough. Their raiders are never far off.”

  “How many of those are there?”

  “Hell if I know. Too many, and they’re building new ships, too, using Archipelago supplies, not that the Archipelago is doing much to stop them.” He spat.

  My skin crawled at the thought of more of those sleek black vessels preying on the fleets.

  We passed a few miners on the way, beaten-looking men and women who stared at us with dull eyes. The ship’s doctor didn’t look much better. Her black hair was disheveled, and her office offered little in the way of comfort.

  “What’s this?” she asked the inspector. “You know we don’t have any supplies to spare.”

  “They brought grain, Dr. Torres, and dried fruit.”

  She let out a sigh of relief that nearly deflated her, and I worried that she might collapse then and there.

  “Well then. What’s the problem?”

  “She’s pregnant,” the inspector said, much in the same tone of voice he might have used to describe a growing rat infestation.

  “And I suppose you want me to do something about it?” The doctor sounded tired.

  “No,” I said, trying to sound meek and ashamed. “Just want to see if everything’s okay this time.”

  Finn winked at me when the other two weren’t looking.

  “All right then,” the inspector said. “We’ll be right outside.”

  The doctor smiled at me once the door was shut, and I sat on the examination table, my heart beating too fast. Doctors kept careful records. If anyone knew the condition of the miners and the pirates, it would be her.

  “Lie back for me,” she said.

  “What station are you from?” I asked as she pressed on my abdomen.

  “Andromeda.” She continued her examination, and I tried not to flinch as her cold hands touched my breasts. “You’re not pregnant.”

  “What?” I feigned surprise. “I just hadn’t had a period in a few months, so I assumed . . .”

  “Could be malnutrition,” she said, looking me up and down with a crease between her tired eyes, “although you look healthy enough.”

  I could hear the unspoken words as clearly as if she had spoken out loud. But you’re a drifter, so you must be deprived of something.

  “As long as I am not pregnant, I don’t care.”

  “Bad time to bring new life into the world, anyway,” she said, and the bitterness dripped through.

  “My family trades with Andromeda sometimes. If—” I paused for effect, adopting an even more hesitant tone. “I’ve heard what’s going on. Nobody looks at drifters. If there is anything I can do, any message I could send, I don’t think anyone would mind.”

  I avoided looking directly in her eyes, but I could feel the sharpn
ess in her gaze. She stopped her examination.

  “That could be dangerous for you,” she said. “If you’re caught with a message, people might think you were a spy.” Again the undercurrent surfaced.

  Are you a spy? Her thoughts echoed in the cool, white room.

  “Just something small. You wouldn’t have to write it down or anything. Do you have family there?”

  “I do.” Her breathing changed. It was subtle, but I guessed that her heart rate was significantly higher now than it had been when she started the exam.

  “I can’t read anyway, at least not very well,” I added.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.” She paused, clearly thinking hard. “If you go back soon, tell the station master that Doctor Torres has a message for her sister. Tell him to tell her that I am safe, for now, but that she . . .” She paused again. “That she should be prepared for the worst. And tell him to tell my husband that I love him and the boys very much, and that I will miss them.” Her voice broke.

  “I will do it,” I promised.

  My heart ached for her, even as her words chilled my blood. Be prepared for the worst. The worst what? That Dr. Torres might die, or that the Archipelago was in even more danger than I realized? I did not dare ask. She would be a fool not to suspect me already, but she seemed willing to take a small risk for the sake of hope. Pushing her further could jeopardize everything.

  “Thank you. Do you know how to avoid pregnancy?” she asked, her voice now brisk and businesslike.

  I allowed her to give me a lecture on contraceptives and tried to glance around the room.

  It had been ransacked thoroughly and put back together, judging by hastily repaired cabinet doors and cracked jars. Meticulously labeled shelves stood empty, and I would have bet my dinner that her supply of antibiotics and medications was similarly depleted.

  Medicines would be the first thing pirates would go after, of course. Medicine, food, weapons, and the materials to make more weapons.

  Finn greeted me cheerfully enough when I finished up my visit with the doctor. The glint in his eye told me that he, too, had learned a few useful things during my appointment. My heart beat uncomfortably fast. I had never been good at acting, and the past few minutes’ performance was taking its toll on my nerves.

  I hid behind Finn as we walked back to the bay. A burly miner with a pinched face had just finished depositing our newly purchased supplies in the Sea Cat’s cargo hold, and two others stood guard by the door.

  “Not like we’re going to cause you trouble, mate,” Finn said to the inspector.

  “It’s not you I’m worried about. Check your ship for stowaways before you sub.”

  My jaw dropped. It would take a lot for an Archipelagean to stow away on a drifter vessel.

  “They won’t get far,” Finn promised, and I pictured Orca dispatching any miner who dared slip aboard her ship without a flicker of pity.

  Despite the precariousness of our position, I was curious. I had never seen a mining station before, and so far this one was looking a little too much like a regular fleet station for my liking. I wanted to see the mines themselves, a wish that I had the sense to hope was not fulfilled, as the only way I was likely to see the mines now was as a slave to Ching Shih.

  Finn and I helped load the rest of the cargo, and I watched the inspector’s face as we shut the trawler’s hold door. Hope faded from it, and I had a feeling that he truly believed he was going to die here.

  “Next time you’re feeling down,” Finn said as we made our way back to the common room to report, “just be grateful that you’re not a miner.”

  Finn’s report corroborated mine. Ching Shih had stripped the mining station of anything valuable, and was giving her crews what they were apparently calling the “Archipelago treatment.” Good food, medicine, and the means to get more of both.

  “She can’t make up for a lifetime of depravity,” Finn said with a dark look in his eyes, “but she sure as hell is trying, and it shows. Your Archipelago isn’t going to be dealing with the usual buccaneer scum. She wants her crews to be well-rested, well-fed, and well-armed.”

  “All at the expense of the miners.”

  “You really think they were treated all that well before?” Orca asked.

  She looked pissed at having to wait around. Luckily for her, her favorite punching bag had just returned, although I didn’t think either of us was willing to risk another physical bout anytime soon.

  “Better than this,” I said.

  “Second-rate grain, second-rate drugs, second-rate doctors. I’ve been raiding these supply lines since I was a kid. The mines get shafted.”

  “Nice one,” Finn said, nodding at the pun.

  Jeanine elbowed him in the ribs and he shut up.

  “It’s a high-risk job,” Kraken said. “No use putting resources into something that isn’t going to last. I’d do the same. What I wouldn’t do is abandon them to Ching Shih.”

  I kept my mouth shut. Defending the Archipelago’s somewhat questionable human rights record was not my job, even if it was my first instinct.

  Orca took the first shift at the helm. I knew I needed to rest. We would be nearing the coasts soon, and there would be no time for sleep for me then, but I walked past my bunk and toward the helm anyway.

  • • •

  “What do you want, jelly?” she said, looking up as I slumped into the chair beside her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That is pretty obvious.”

  I recoiled at the sharpness in her words.

  “Well what do you want, then?” I asked.

  She had the lights dimmed, and I could only make out parts of her face.

  “Not this.”

  In that, at least, we were in agreement.

  “About what happened,” I began, because that was what you said in situations like this, even if you had no idea what had happened or why.

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  I wanted her to yell at me, or at least insult me. I wanted to forget how her lips tasted, and I didn’t want to think about how her body had betrayed her, at the end, all of her harsh words like fog over the water, boiling away beneath the heat of the sun.

  She, at least, didn’t deny it.

  “Good. Neither do I.”

  Silence filled the helm.

  “It’s your fault,” she said, beginning to sound a little more like herself.

  “How exactly do you figure that?” I swear I could hear her eyes rolling.

  “You show up, and everything falls apart.”

  “Orca,” I said, reaching out to touch her arm.

  She flinched. “What?”

  “I—” I stopped, fumbling for the right words.

  “She wants you, okay? Is that what you want to hear? She chose you, not me, and I fucking hate it. I hate you. I hate her. And I hate this goddamn trawler and this goddamn fucking ocean.”

  She slammed the dash, and I saw tears slide down her face in the bow lights.

  My hand was still on her arm. I should have been prepared, after kissing her, for things to be different between us, but I wasn’t ready for the rush of sympathy. I stood, and Orca— my tormentor, protector, and unlikely ally— collapsed into sobs in my arms.

  “You tell anyone about this,” she said, working through a bout of hiccups. “And I will kill you.”

  “Sure thing, first mate.”

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and straightened, her face inches from mine.

  “You know what the worst part is?” she asked, shooting me an evil smile. “It would have been good.”

  “You think?” I had a vivid image of Miranda’s face, sharp with pain.

  She looked me up and down, then sighed.

  “Maybe not. You’re still too much of a pushover.” She punched my shoulder, catching me off-guard, and I fell back into my chair.

  “Hey Orca,” I said, looking up at her.

  “If you get all mushy on me n
ow, I will stab you in the throat.”

  “Does that mean we’re all right?” I asked, holding out my hand.

  “Yeah,” she said, squeezing my forearm in the mercenary style. “We’re good. Just about everything else is fucked, though.”

  • • •

  Orca woke me for my shift with her usual charm, which was a relief.

  “Get the hell up, jelly.”

  I rolled out of bed. She had not brought me hot tea. I made a mental note to make some for Jeanine when I woke her next, in the hopes that Orca would get the hint.

  First, though, I made some for myself. The water steamed on the stove in the salt-rimed kettle, wreathing my hands and face. I breathed it in and fumbled for the tea in the cupboard. With luck, my watch would be uneventful.

  As I walked down the hall to the helm, cradling the tea in my hands, I heard a thump. I stopped, spilling near boiling liquid down my front in the process, and listened.

  Silence strung itself out around me. Then the thump came again.

  I backtracked my steps until I stood outside the door to the cargo bay. This time, I heard a slither, followed by a very low, very strained curse.

  Stowaways.

  I latched the cargo bay door and walked as swiftly and silently as I could back to the common room. The helm would have to wait a few more moments.

  Orca was still awake when I returned, and after one look at my face she woke the others. I explained the situation as quickly as I could. Orca’s expression faded from worry to irritation.

  “I thought you checked the cargo bay,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  “I did,” Finn said. “But clearly not well enough. What do you want to do with them?”

  “As much as it pains me to say this, we want them alive. The last thing we need is Ching’s sailors after us for harbored fugitives. We go in there, we subdue them, and we take them back. Got it?”

  I didn’t much like the idea of returning the desperate miners to the station, but Orca’s reasoning was sound. We couldn’t afford to attract attention to ourselves. I had the greater good to think about.

  Orca, Kraken, and Jeanine were the best fighters, so we decided they would go in first. Finn and I would guard the door in case there were more of them than we expected, for which I was secretly grateful; I didn’t want to fight, and I really didn’t want to fight my own people.