Compass Rose

by Anna Burke

  According to Comita, I had been recalled to Polaris for reassignment to another ship. The recall had been sudden, and as I’d suspected, Harper had been furious with me for not saying goodbye. Comita had done nothing to allay her anger.

  My absence was overshadowed by a more pressing reality. Even though my reassignment had been fabricated, the need for trained navigators and engineers was very real. Ching had launched a series of successful raids, crippling several of our warships and coming dangerously close to some of the outlying stations themselves. Polaris had lost two crews, and resources had gone from plentiful to thin in a matter of weeks.

  And still the council dragged their feet, unwilling to risk a confrontation out of fear of losing the mines completely.

  If Ching Shih wasn’t stopped soon, there would be no stopping her.

  Skulking along the coast no longer seemed like the right thing to do. We needed a plan, some way of putting a hole in her hull before her fleet grew large enough to outmaneuver ours. But what could one ship of half-loyal mercenaries, a former Archipelagean navigator, and the admiral’s daughter do against the Red Flag Fleet? Counting Ching’s forces, which had seemed so important only a few days ago, now seemed fruitless. We knew how many ships she had— too many. Now, here we were, with a fugitive onboard and no way of communicating with Miranda.

  Miranda. I had not told Harper about that particular mess, nor did I know what Miranda would do when she found out we had allowed stowaways on board her ship. Everything had gotten so complicated.

  I dodged more towers, steering us ever farther inland.

  “So what’s up with you and Orca?” Harper asked, breaking the silence.

  “Nothing a long walk off a short pier wouldn’t fix,” I said.

  “She doesn’t seem too bad to me. I would have thought she was your type.”

  I choked, coughed, and came up sputtering.

  “Orca?”

  “Why not? She’s pretty, edgy, and clearly has mixed feelings about you.”

  “Harper,” I said, taking a deep breath. “If Orca and I were the last two people on earth, we would divide the globe down the center and stay at opposite poles. The only thing mixed about her feelings for me is whether or not she wants to kill me quickly or slowly.”

  Harper laughed, and I smiled despite myself, glad she had accepted the white lie. I had missed her.

  “What did you do to piss her off so much?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said, just barely keeping us clear of a reaching spire.

  “Uh huh. There’s a woman in this story somewhere, and I am going to find her. I know you.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” I said.

  Harper slapped my shoulder playfully.

  “Well, if you’re not interested in Orca, don’t say I didn’t give you first dibs.”

  I choked again.

  “How can you seriously be thinking about sex at a time like this?” I asked her.

  The idea of Harper and Orca was unsettling. I had no right to be jealous, I reminded myself.

  “I’ve been held in a pirate’s brig, locked away on a goddamn mining station, shoved in a container of algae and smuggled onto what I thought was a drifter trawler, all in the space of a week. I have never deserved to get laid more.”

  “While that thought sickens me more than I can possibly explain, that’s not a bad idea. Orca won’t sell you out if she’s sleeping with you.”

  “Who said anything about sleeping?”

  “There’s something in the air on this tub,” I muttered to myself as I brought the trawler around to sail parallel to the sunken continent.

  Maybe this was exactly what both Orca and I needed. Harper was a handful. She would keep Orca more than entertained, and I . . . and I would have to deal with my ruinous feelings for Miranda.

  “This means nothing.”

  Go to hell, Miranda Stillwater.

  The morning passed. Toward noon, I brought the trawler closer to the edge, back through the drowned cities until we floated between a cluster of tall structures that overlooked the open ocean.

  Finn was messing with our sonar. The display screen in the helm flickered occasionally as he adjusted the frequency, probing the depths for signs of life. A few days of this, and we would have a decent idea of the number of ships directly surrounding the mines. The rest lay in the middle of the Gulf, where Miranda would have to take her own inventory.

  “Harp,” I said as casually as possible, “what do you know about the Stillwater mutiny?”

  “Do you never pay attention in class? It was a nasty piece of work. My mother was angry about it for months. She couldn’t believe that they would react like that. I overheard her talking to Admiral Gonzalez about it, once.”

  “The rebels?”

  “The rebels? No. The Council. They threatened to sink the whole station if the leaders didn’t turn themselves in, and once they turned themselves in, the Council killed them, and some of their families, too, just to make a statement.”

  I flinched.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.” My heart stuttered in my chest. “What about Stillwater’s family? Where are they now?”

  “They killed some of them for sure, but I think there’s a sister left alive somewhere. Rumor says she married off station before that, so she got off lightly.”

  The helm spun around me. I hadn’t wanted to believe Kraken. I hadn’t wanted to accept that the commanders I served could justify that level of brutality. The thoughts I had pushed down, or chalked up to too much rum and a faulty memory, rose up around me like wraiths.

  I had grown up on a border station like Gemini. I knew what a raid could do. If someone like Miranda had galvanized Cassiopeia, would I have gone along with it, assuming, of course, that my mother hadn’t done everything in her power to get me off the station at a young age? I had a feeling I knew the answer.

  And yet I had accepted the official story, hook, line, and sinker, without a single hesitation. Even when I had confronted Miranda, it had never occurred to me to ask why she’d done what she did. I had assumed I knew her and her motives, and been so preoccupied with what her identity meant for me that I hadn’t stopped for a second to think about what it meant for her.

  Miranda was not just a bloodthirsty mercenary out for a profit, who had seduced me to suit her own ends. She was a woman who was willing to put herself on the line again and again to defend her home, even when that home had cast her out, and even if it meant going against the very people who had saved her.

  Although, I reflected as my clenched right fist ached at the pressure on the scar tissue, there was definitely a thirst for blood in there somewhere. Normal captains didn’t mutilate their sailors to make a point.

  Then again, maybe I would if I found out that after the Council had tried to kill me, they had killed my family.

  “Are you okay, Rose?”

  I was not okay. If what Harper said was true, I had misjudged Miranda. Badly.

  • • •

  The cold prick of the knife against my throat was a reminder that letting down my guard had deadly consequences. I edged up in my seat, obeying the insistent pressure of the blade, and turned to face a stricken Harper.

  “John,” she said, “what are you doing?”

  I froze. John was the name of the SHARK who’d accompanied her. I hadn’t given him a second thought since we’d locked him in the cargo hold, something I suspected I was about to regret.

  “All right, Merc scum,” he said to me, unaware of the irony in his words. “You’re going to get us the hell out of here and back to the Atlantic, or I will kill you and everyone else on board.”

  He reeked of fresh blood, a coppery raw smell that flooded my nostrils.

  Fear stabbed my chest. Who had he hurt? I couldn’t remember who was on guard duty.

  “John!”

  “Shut up. I told you I’d get you back to your mother, and that’s what I’m going to do. We don
’t have time to waste playing nice with Mercs and pirates. This lot will turn you in faster than you can say ‘parley.’ Trust me. I’ve met their type before.”

  John had been left in the dark about our true purpose. It was a strategy that had seemed wise at the time, in the event he was recaptured, but there was one major drawback: he didn’t know we were on the same side.

  Listening to the venom in his voice, I wasn’t sure it would have mattered either way.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to buy myself time. “I’ll take you back. Is anyone else hurt?”

  “That’s not your problem.” The knife pressed closer, stinging as it parted the first layer of skin.

  “It’s not as simple as just leaving the Gulf. There are patrols—”

  “Just. Do. It.”

  I swallowed carefully and sat back down in my chair. It seemed unlikely that John had managed to subdue the entire crew. If I stalled long enough, one of them would act.

  “You don’t understand,” Harper began again, but she stopped as I cried out in sudden pain.

  The SHARK’s knife bit deeper, and blood ran freely down my neck to pool between my breasts. Stars danced in the corner of my vision.

  “Oh, I do, and your mother will be getting a full report, you can bet on that,” he said.

  I could feel the hatred radiating from his body. It enfolded me in its sticky miasma, familiar and cloying. I knew that kind of hate. Nothing Harper could say or do now would change his mind, even if the evidence was overwhelming. He’d staked soul, pride, and life on it.

  I knew what I had to do.

  The trawler creaked as I turned her toward the Gulf. I needed my concentration on John, not an impending impact.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice oddly calm despite the searing pain in my throat. “I’m taking us back out. I’m going to have to hug the coast, but I should be able to get us to the straits in two days.”

  “Two days?”

  “It’s a trawler, not a fleet sub.” I hoped he hadn’t noticed the acceleration we’d used to escape the shoal of squid.

  His knife slipped as he cursed. It was all I needed.

  Drilling with Orca hadn’t been a total waste of time. I ducked out of his reach, earning myself another graze, and reached for my own knife. I was no match for a SHARK, but I had the element of surprise on my side for the next few seconds and I sliced at his legs from beneath the shelter of the chair.

  “Harper, run!” I shouted.

  She didn’t listen. Her fist collided with his face, and I heard her grunt as he retaliated. I lashed out again, taking him in the thigh, and ducked just in time to avoid his knife as it whistled past my ear.

  Harper was unarmed. I didn’t think he would kill her, but I was not willing to risk it. I charged him headfirst, knocking his knife out of his hand and sending us crashing into the wall.

  He didn’t stay down for long. His arm whipped around my throat, squeezing hard, and I forgot about the knife in my hand as I fought for air.

  Go for the legs. Miranda’s voice drifted through the rising veil. I kicked his knee, colliding with his kneecap and earning me a split second of release. I drove my knife into his other thigh and shoved Harper toward the door.

  She took the hint this time, and ran. I followed, wheezing, and nearly collided with a bloodstained and wild-eyed Orca.

  I heard the knife whistle again. If he hadn’t already tried to decapitate me once, I might not have reacted as quickly, but my body remembered that sound. Orca’s eyes widened as I flung myself into her, sending us tumbling to the ground. The knife quivered in the wall where her face had been a moment before, and then Harper’s hand was on the blade and my heart broke as I heard it whistle for a third and final time, thrumming straight into the throat of the Polarian SHARK. The life gurgled out of him as he hit the floor, and I forgot myself just long enough to rest my head against Orca’s shoulder to block out the sound.

  “Hey there, fleeter,” she said, patting me on the back. She helped me up, keeping an arm around my shoulder with the same awkward tenderness she’d shown me in the showers after beating me to a pulp.

  Harper stood still as stone. She stared at the dead man on the floor, her hand still half outstretched in testimony to the fatally accurate throw.

  “Harp.”

  She turned to look at me, eyes empty and staring.

  “I got this.” Orca squeezed my shoulder once and stepped toward Harper, helping her lower her arm. “Rose, close his eyes.”

  I obeyed, kneeling next to the growing pool of blood. His eyes were green and bloodshot in his lined face. I touched the still warm skin and recoiled. Bile rose in my throat. Only the thought of Harper behind me kept me from spewing all over his corpse. I gagged and deposited a small pile of vomit out of her line of sight.

  “You’re here,” Orca was saying to her when I finished. “You’ve got your feet on the floor, sailor, and calm seas ahead. Look at me. There. That’s better. It’s like that the first time. It’s supposed to hurt. You’re paying the blood price. Only thing worse than killing someone is getting killed yourself, or watching someone you love die when you could have done something to stop it.”

  I let her words wash over me as I stood behind my best friend and the woman I’d once fantasized about stabbing. I had saved her life, forcing Harper’s hand. That there had been only one course was not a comfort.

  Orca led Harper and me to the common room where she sat Harper in a chair and turned to me.

  “Finn’s hurt. I need you with me.”

  I nodded, steeling myself under her gaze.

  “Bastard got the jump on him. Sealed off the hold, locking Jeanine and Kraken in the engine compartment and took me by surprise.”

  “It wasn’t your watch,” I pointed out. “We all need to sleep at some point.”

  Finn lay on the floor in the cargo hold, his body slack and his chest rising and falling slowly. I didn’t see any marks on his body, but I didn’t like the color of his cheeks.

  “Head shot,” Orca said, kneeling beside him. “Looks like he got hit in the temple.” She pressed her fingers to his throat. “Slow, but steady. Not a good place to get hit. Grab me a blanket.”

  “Should we move him?” I asked when I returned.

  “No. He might be hurt somewhere else. You sit with him and shout if he wakes up. I need to go unlock Kraken and Jeanine from the hold. Jeanine can relieve you once she’s out, and then I need you at the helm.”

  I nodded, squatting by Finn on the cold floor.

  “Oh, and Rose?”

  I looked up at her. Her thin braids framed her face, casting a bar of shadow across her eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the captain,” I said, not feeling quite noble enough to give her the satisfaction of settling her debt that easily. The hurt on her face was worth it, despite the twinge of guilt. I stood up, feeling the wound on my neck gape open again, and grasped her forearm.

  “Neptune’s balls, Orca, you Mercs have no sense of humor.”

  She glared at me, and then her lips twitched and she squeezed my arm back, breaking into the first genuine smile I’d put on her face.

  “You had me there, fleeter.”

  “Had to happen eventually.”

  “You know,” she said, giving my arm a little shake. “You’re like a barnacle.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re a pain in my ass, but you’ve grown on me.”

  I sat back down next to Finn with an odd feeling in my chest. A man was dead, Finn was badly injured, Harper was in shock, and I was lightheaded from blood loss and adrenaline, but the strange little smile on my lips was not a product of hysteria. I didn’t know what was more unexpected— that I had finally won Orca’s respect, or that she had won mine.

  Maybe something good had come out of our ill-fated tryst after all.

  “Finn!” Jeanine burst into the cargo hold and collapsed next to him, running her hands over his
face. “Finnegan, baby, Davy Jones don’t need you like I do. Wake up, baby, wake up.”

  “He hears you talking to him like that, he will,” I said, mostly to myself.

  “Damn straight I will.” Finn’s speech was slurred, but coherent. “Took you long enough to figure out you can’t live without me, woman.”

  “Don’t make me knock you back out, now,” Jeanine said, stroking his hair. I patted Finn’s other arm and stood to go.

  “Not so fast, jelly.” Jeanine peeled her eyes away from Finn long enough to look at me. “You need to get a bandage on that. Make sure Orca patches herself up too.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  It was a promise that was easy to keep. Orca thrust a bottle of rum and a clean bandage at me as soon as I entered the common room. Harper looked a little better, if grim, and she snatched the medical supplies out of my hands and proceeded to pour alcohol over the wound with an efficiency that brooked no argument. I hissed in pain and squirmed until she swatted me.

  “Make sure she gets taken care of too,” I told her, pointing at Orca when I finally escaped her less-than-tender ministrations.

  I found Kraken in the hallway to the helm, mopping up the blood and vomit. He measured me with his dark eyes and leaned on the mop. It looked like a toothpick in his grasp. Something about his gaze undid the composure I’d managed to cling to.

  “It’s my fault,” I said, wondering and not wanting to know where he had put the body. He grew up trawling, and there were stories about drifter dead that I didn’t like thinking about, even if I didn’t believe they were true. Especially because he was the cook.

  “How is this your fault?”

  “If I hadn’t let them stay—”

  “Compass Rose, you’re a navigator. Orca is the skipper, and she let them stay. Finn let his guard down. Jeanine and I got ourselves locked in the engine room. Your friend Harper killed him. Not much blame left over for you.”

  “It could have been one of us dead, instead of him.”

  “Yes. Would you do it differently? Would you send them back to the mines to be interrogated? Tortured? They would have killed him anyway. They might have spared the admiral’s daughter, but there is a big difference between ‘alive’ and ‘unharmed.’”