Unfathomed (The Locus Series Book 1)

by Ralph Kern

  Yet he knew they had one more fight.

  And this time their enemy would be ready for them.

  Chapter 55 – Day 22

  “Heading is set, ma’am.” Donovan stood, his hands behind his back. “We’re ready to head to the locus.”

  Slater lowered herself into the watch officer’s chair and looked around the bridge. It had been hastily repaired. New windows had been slotted in, but some of the fixes had involved a less than neat solution, and cables ran between the consoles, duct taped to the floor and bulkheads.

  “Very well, Perry. Signal Atlantica and let’s get sailing, shall we?”

  ***

  “Message from the Ignatius, Captain,” Maine turned in her chair and looked at Solberg. “They are ready to go.”

  “Good.” Solberg drummed his fingers on the armrest of his black leather chair. “It’s about time we see whether this locus can get us home.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  ***

  The two ships began to move off, leaving the two fishing trawlers they had towed stationary. The coded military beacons Ignatius had left on them would mean they would be able to find them again if they needed them. For now, they didn’t want the added fuel burn towing them would entail.

  Ignatius and Atlantica began to pick up speed, the smaller, agile destroyer running alongside the vast bulk of the cruise ship like a remora swimming next to a whale.

  A hundred nautical miles away, the Titan and her escorts were joined by the light freighter containing the family and non-combatants that had been left at the container ship village.

  As one, the ships and boats of the pirate fleet turned and began steaming toward their destination.

  The two forces on an intersecting path.

  The point of meeting—the locus.

  Chapter 56 – Day 23

  “There’s nothing here, dammit.” Solberg stood staring out of the windows at the empty blue ocean. He turned and looked at Reynolds. “Nothing.”

  “Laurie only provided her best estimate of when she though the locus would arrive. It wasn’t an exact time by any stretch of the imagination.” Reynold’s face was still drawn and pale. The worry for his daughter had prevented him from sleeping for days. The old man was powered by little more than caffeine and determination to get these people safe so he could go back to searching for his daughter. “We don’t even know her margin for error.”

  Solberg began pacing back and forth before the window, shaking his head in frustration. “What if this damn locus is nothing? All we would’ve succeeded in doing is burning fuel and food when we could have been... could have been doing something.”

  “Captain, let’s just wait,” Kendricks said. “We know it’s roughly here we have to be, and we know it’s roughly now that we have to be here.”

  “And by the time we get back to the coast?” Solberg said. “We will have that much less food. The people downstairs will be eating each other.”

  “Atlantica, Ignatius Actual,” Slater’s voice crackled.

  “Yes, Heather. We know, there’s nothing here,” Solberg snapped.

  Reynolds and Kendricks glanced at each other at the shortness of the captain’s tone.

  “That’s all we’re getting, too. We’ve discussed this over here, and we feel we wait it out for a couple of days.”

  “Oh, do you?” Solberg muttered, just below the volume threshold the microphone would pick up before speaking louder. “And we’ve discussed the food situation. We believe it would be prudent to head toward the coast as per Plan B.”

  “Oh no, we didn’t,” Reynolds growled. “Look, Captain. Frankly I want to offload this ship as quickly as possible then head back west to track down the bloody pirates who have my daughter. Trust me, no one has as much incentive for the Atlantica to be safe as me. We wait here.”

  “Last time I checked,” Solberg shouted at the top of his voice. “I was captain of this fucking ship.”

  A shocked silence filled the bridge, the officers and crew either watching the interchange with horrified fascination, or busying themselves in their consoles.

  “Captain... Lars,” Kendricks walked toward Solberg. “Let’s go to your office and discuss this.”

  “There is nothing to discuss.” Solberg’s eyes were bloodshot, his face taunt, and a vein protruded from his forehead. “We make for the coast.”

  “Please, not yet,” Kendricks said gently.

  “No, now.”

  Kendricks again looked at Reynolds, who gave the slightest of nods. Kendricks returned it, then looked down.

  “Captain, under Crystal Ocean’s policy 4.12, I am formally relieving you to undergo a medical assessment with Dr. Emodi. This is a temporary relieving of command until that assessment is complete.”

  “Liam, no one memorizes fucking policy numbers. You’ve researched this, haven’t you?” Solberg hissed. “Planned for it. You’ve been waiting for the slightest excuse to take over.”

  “Lars, you don’t look well. Please, I’m your friend. Just go get seen by the doctor. You’ve been carrying the weight of command for over three weeks in the most testing of circumstances. If you just get some rest, you’ll be back to the grouchy captain we know and love.” Kendricks gave a reassuring smile.

  “Don’t fucking patronize me.” Solberg looked around the room, his attention focusing on Kelly Maine. “They won’t accept your command.”

  “4.12 isn’t optional, Captain. Once it’s invoked, you must present yourself for assessment. If I’m found to be wrong, I’m sure I’ll be suitably punished. But there is no debate. You need to report to Dr. Emodi,” Kendricks said quietly.

  “No, I do not. As I recall, the policy requires the concurrence of at least one other senior officer,” Solberg’s voice strained with forced civility. “What say you to all this, Kelly? This, and I choose my words carefully here, mutiny?”

  Kendricks looked at Maine, his teeth clenched, willing her to support him.

  “As the staff captain said,” Maine said slowly at first, her voice becoming firmer. “Things are getting to you, sir. I must concur. The policy is invoked. I now follow Acting Captain Kendricks’s orders.”

  Solberg’s mouth opened and closed in incredulity. Without a further word, he stormed to the door and jabbed at the keypad. With a rumble they opened and he swept out.

  “It had to be done, son.” Reynolds walked to Kendricks and laid a hand on his shoulder. “It had to be done.”

  “Then why do I feel like a goddamn mutineer?” Kendricks whispered.

  “Secure it, Captain,” Reynolds said. “You have a job to do. Now be about it.”

  Nodding, Kendricks walked to the command seat and lowered himself into it. “Kelly, reopen the channel to the Ignatius.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Channel open.”

  “Captain Slater? This is Acting Captain Kendricks. I have assumed command of the Atlantica.”

  There was a pause on the radio before Slater’s voice crackled through again, “Understood, Acting Captain. And what is Atlantica to do?”

  Once again Kendricks looked around the room. The faces of the bridge staff were uncertain, scared at the drama they had just seen unfold in front of them. The world had just changed for them again. He needed to give them an objective. Something to do. Right now, that something was simple.

  “We wait.”

  Chapter 57 – Day 23

  “Boss, we’ll be in range of Atlantica’s radar shortly,” Titan’s captain looked at Vaughan across the map table. “She will undoubtedly inform Ignatius. And then, we could be in trouble.”

  Vaughan leaned over the table, pressing down on it so hard his knuckles were white. This was the critical part. Too soon, and they would be engaged in a standoff while the locus appeared, to do... whatever it was going to do. Too late and they might miss it.

  “Is there anything strange? Odd? No matter how small,” Vaughan finally asked.

  The captain glanced around the bridge, before shaking his he
ad. “It seems not.”

  “Then let’s hold position here. While our radar has a longer reach than Atlantica’s, we have the advantage.

  ***

  We must be there, Grayson thought as he looked out of the portholes along one side of the ship. The sea, which had previously been sweeping by, had come to a halt. Atlantica was stationary other than the near imperceptible motion of the ship in the water.

  What he didn’t know was where his compatriots were. Had they pursued Atlantica and Ignatius? Or had they retreated to the safety of the island to consolidate their gains?

  He had an easy solution to find out. Get out his CB and give a test call. Grayson looked around the room and saw there was scant opportunity. The conditions were so crowded with the bustle of humanity in here, he would be spotted or overheard in a heartbeat.

  They hadn’t been allowed out for the better part of a week. Grayson wasn’t overly given to claustrophobia, but some of the others in here clearly were. Arguments were starting to occur more and more frequently. Not even the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay had been treated like this.

  But perhaps there was an opportunity to turn this pressure kettle to his advantage.

  Standing from his camp bed, Grayson marched determinedly toward the two security officers standing by the doors, gazing in a bored but watchful way over the room.

  “I want to see the captain,” Grayson said loudly as he approached.

  “Please, sir. Sit down,” the security officer said.

  “No, listen up. We’ve all been stuck in here for what? Five days now?” Grayson turned and gestured toward the throng, some of whom were looking up at the sound of Grayson’s raised voice. “We need fresh air.”

  “That’s right, we’re not animals,” a voice called from the crowd.

  From behind him, Grayson could feel the mood of the crowd starting to take a darker turn. Stepping closer to the young woman in the security outfit, he said, “Look, these people are going to boil over. Get your captain down here and start allowing people up on deck or something bad is going to happen.”

  The woman gave a terse nod and reached into her pocket for her phone.

  ***

  “Jesus, how could we forget about them?” Kendricks muttered to himself. “We have nearly two hundred people shoved in there.”

  He slowly massaged his temples with his fingers, thinking quickly. The people in there needed to have somewhere to stay even though they had a suspect in custody, although Kendricks had his doubts about Brew.

  Roger Brew was clearly petrified. After a day of denials, the man was agreeing with whatever they put to him, but then was unable to fill in the specifics.

  So far, he had admitted he had blown up the Ignatius, but couldn’t tell them how he had gotten the explosives nor how he had gotten them on board the destroyer. In other words, he was just saying whatever he thought the questioner wanted to hear.

  The bottom line was, Kendricks suspected someone may have used Brew as a patsy, planting the evidence on him.

  But even if someone, or several people in the bingo hall were involved, the majority undoubtedly weren’t.

  And they had been stuffed in a room and forgotten about.

  First big decision, Liam. Let them out, or keep ‘em stuffed in there? He leaned back and sighed.

  “The refugees?”

  Kendricks turned and looked the drawn face of Reynolds. “Yeah, the refugees. We... I need to decide what to do with them while we’re waiting.”

  Reynolds stepped toward the window and gazed through it. The sun was starting to set and the sky was darkening over the empty sea.

  “Not easy, is it?” Reynolds looked at Kendricks, smiling tiredly. “Being in charge, that is.”

  “Not at all,” Kendricks agreed. “We have hundreds of people, most if not all of whom are innocent, stuffed in a room because of a security threat when we already have someone in custody. They’re about to riot if they don’t get some fresh air. What do I do, let them out?”

  Reynolds eased himself into the chair next to Kendricks. “One year, I had a stint lecturing at the HMS Collingwood for the International Ships Command Course. Captain school, basically,” Reynolds spoke slowly. “The subject of one of my lessons was that command never comes easy. Never has and never will.”

  “Some take to it more naturally than others, though.” Kendricks gave a rueful smile.

  “Oh, I agree. Some have aptitude.” Reynolds shrugged. “Most don’t although, to a certain extent, it can be learned. You know, I joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1982. I did my course at Britannia and as part of that we had to do what we called initial fleet time... in other words, serving on a ship. I got lucky, or so I thought. I drew a position on a destroyer, the HMS Sheffield, a pretty plum posting. Do you know what happened that year?”

  Kendricks shook his head. “Other than the fact I was at school?”

  Reynolds gave a brief smile before letting it drop away. “The Falklands War was declared. So there was me, young dumb and full of cum, as you yanks would say, sailing off to war. It was a tough conflict, one of the few times in recent decades where two sides have fought with anything close to parity. Sure, there’s been plenty of wars since, but without devaluing the efforts of the brave sailors and soldiers that fought in them, during the Falklands we didn’t have much of a technological edge over the Argies. Hell, we didn’t even have any supersonic fighters in the theater. Anyway, Sheffield was ordered out to act as a picket to defend the aircraft carriers. The problem is, we got hit and hit hard by an Exocet missile. It was madness in the ship, Liam. The electrical system controlling the emergency vents was hit, so the corridors filled with smoke. The water main was smashed, so we couldn’t extinguish the fires. Everywhere were the cries of the dying and the injured.

  Reynolds face took a distant look, and he paused, clearly thinking back to that day.

  “And there was me, a young midshipman with the responsibility of helping with the evacuation. I didn’t have a bloody clue what to do. All the training and procedures went out of the window. I just had to lead. Lead my people out of there. And I did, Liam, I did. I may not have followed the right procedure but I damn well got them out.”

  “It must have been awful,” Kendricks said quietly.

  “It was. Twenty brave men lost their lives that day.” Reynolds shrugged. “Anyway, a good few years later, in the Gulf War, I had my first combat command. In its own way, it was just as confusing. Hundreds of ships were involved from a dozen nations. I was so worried I had that sick feeling in my stomach. Was I taking my ship to the right place, at the right time, and doing the right thing? Had I confused any of my orders? I realized the feeling I had then was that which I had on the Sheffield. What the bloody hell do I do?”

  “You come across as so confident,” Kendricks said. “Presence, you know?”

  “Do you want to know the secret of how I do it?” Without waiting for an affirmative, Reynolds leaned forward and whispered theatrically. “It’s all a lie. I bullshit my way through convincingly, and I don’t show my worry. Whether that’s leading my men out of a burning ship as a midshipman, commanding a Type 23 Frigate in the Gulf as a captain, or telling the Prime Minister just why we need to invest in a bunch of new ships as an admiral. We muddle through, do the best we can, and show those who rely on us that we’re cool, calm, and collected.”

  “Like Captain Slater, you mean?”

  “Yes,” Reynolds said with a smile. “Although I suspect that woman has had a transfusion of ice water into her blood stream.”

  “Ha!” Kendricks laughed.” “Well, I think we better figure a way to muddle through, hadn’t we?”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  Kendricks pulled up a deck plan of the Atlantica.

  Chapter 58 – Day 23

  “You know what?” Grayson tossed the packet of cigarettes to the young woman who was trying to bum one off him. She caught it deftly. “Keep them. I think the time below has broken
the habit.”

  “You sure?” she asked, pulling the plastic packaging off and opening the packet with desperate hands.

  “Yeah, frankly the wife hates it anyway.”

  “Thanks.” She lit one of them and took a deep drag on it before breathing out a stream of smoke with a look of abject contentment.

  “No problem.”

  Grayson smiled and continued walking around the railing of the ship. It was nice to breathe fresh air. The conditions in the bingo hall had been getting pretty stale. Finally, they had allowed them to come up to the cordoned-off rear section of the top deck.

  Not to mention, I’ll hopefully find a little space to myself now.

  Grayson looked across at the Ignatius, feeling a twinge of guilt as he saw the damage he had inflicted on the warship. Her superstructure was blackened and the mast containing the complicated arrangement of radar and sensors was tilted at an angle. Stanchions, hastily welded to the superstructure, supported the mast.

  The rest of the ship bore scars, too. The gray paintwork was scorched dark where the fires from the Molotov cocktails had struck, the discoloration covering wide swathes of the decking.

  He carried on pacing around the deck, moving out of sight of the security officers presiding over them with a bored watchfulness.

  Here, Grayson thought as he reached a relatively secluded area by a children’s play area, a mess of paddling pools, slides, and plastic forts. Sitting down, he pulled out his CB and glanced around. Seeing no one in sight, he turned the knob on the top.

  “Rain,” he hissed, still looking around furtively.

  ***

  “You can help avoid unnecessary bloodshed,” Vaughan’s voice was earnest, trying to get through to his two prisoners.

  Laurie and Jack had been brought to the bridge again. The swelling on Jack’s face had started to fade, but the reddening was still a testament to his mistreatment.

  “You know, ISIL and al-Qaeda used to do this a lot,” Jack snorted contemptuously. “Getting prisoners to record little videos. The world saw them for what they were. Utter bullshit.”