Supernova EMP- The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  The cabin below was large and ornate, but nothing like the stateroom above. Like life, the further down you went on the scale, the less you had to play with. The boys eyed their guns like they didn’t really know what to do with them, and Josh gave them a couple of sentences of instruction. “Don’t hold it too tightly. Point and squeeze. Aim low, because the barrel will move up of its own accord and you’ll rake more of your target. Start at the head and you’ll be chewing up the ceiling. Got that?”

  The boys nodded their understanding, but they still looked terrified.

  Poppet was clinging to Joey, sobbing into his shoulder. “What’s the plan?” Josh asked Joey.

  Joey shook his head. “I’m deferring to you, Mr. Interloper. You got us all out of that situation up there. So, you got a plan, I wanna hear it.”

  Josh thought fast. “We need to find somewhere to hole up. Somewhere where they can’t drop onto us from above, like here and the next level up. How many of them do you think there are? I can’t know how long it will take them to regroup unless we have an idea of numbers.”

  Joey shook his head. “We never saw them all together. We would just come across them when they went for us. We had the upper hand when we were the only ones with the guns, like I said. This is a whole different ballgame. Lazzy thought there might be as many as fifty, and I think after today, if we’re including the ones we’d already offed in that, there may be twenty left. Twenty-five. They got into the armory, which is why they’re coming for us mob-handed,” he finished.

  “Okay, there’s one level of cabins with verandas we can drop down onto. I suggest we go over the rail again, get inside, and then make our way down through the ship before they pick up our trail again.”

  “Why go down?” Poppet asked. “Surely, it’s better to go up?”

  Josh shook his head. “The guys with the guns are up here, and we’re too exposed. There may be places easier to defend below. Well, at least I hope so. These cabin doors aren’t going to keep back a determined raccoon, let alone a guy with a gun.”

  Joey nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  On the next level down, the sliding door to the cabin was locked. Before Josh could tell him not to because it might give away their position, Joey shot the lock out and slid the door back with a crash. He was not a sneaky-sneaky-catchy-monkey kind of guy.

  The corridor outside the cabin was lit in sections by open doors to trashed cabins. They turned left, Josh going first, followed by the boys, with Poppet and Joey bringing up the rear.

  Every twenty yards or so, Josh made the others stop and listen for any sounds of movement. There was nothing to be heard. Well, not anything human, that was for sure.

  “It’s too much of a risk to take the main stairs.” Josh said as they reached the door into the stairwell. “If I was trying to catch us, I’d post guards on the main staircases and just wait for us to rock up.”

  Joey nodded his agreement. “So, how we gonna get down to the lower levels?”

  Josh rubbed the side of his head, trying to genie a thought from the lamp in his head. A sign on the wall told him that they were traveling in the right direction to get to one of the Empress’ galleys. “Okay. It’s a long shot, but I think I have an idea.”

  “No way. Not for all the sham-pag-nay in France,” Poppet said, looking down the shaft now that Josh had levered out the guts of the dumbwaiter and exposed the thirty-foot-deep hole running down three levels to the second-class dining room.

  “Look, there are plenty of hand-holds on the wall. It’ll be like climbing a ladder.”

  “Well, you go first,” Poppet said. “So, you can break my fall when I drop, Mr. Interloper.”

  “Okay,” Josh said, and, slinging the Heckler & Koch strap over his shoulder, he climbed into the dumbwaiter shaft. The walls were ribbed and it was small enough for him to steady his back against one smooth wall to climb down the ribs perfectly safely.

  “See?” he called as he went, moving down surprisingly fast.

  Still not convinced any more than before, Poppet hitched up her evening dress and climbed into the shaft, copying Josh’s technique with the wall and the steel ribs. Her arms trembled, and the alcohol in her system might have been making her more unsteady, but it was also giving her a little Dutch courage. She was breathing hard, her face determined and her eyes fearful, but she was making it down the shaft after Josh.

  Josh reached the bottom of the shaft without incident and opened the hatch into the serving area of the second-class dining room. Where the shaft had been almost dark, with only the high portholes in the kitchen wall to throw off illumination, the second-class dining room had nothing like a second-class set of portholes. The walls along the starboard side of the Empress were nearly all glass. And as Josh got his bearings, he could look out over a wide expanse of the sky and the calm curve of the sea… and the approaching sails of the Sea-Hawk cutting across the waves.

  Josh punched the air. Well done, Tally Standing! Well done, indeed!

  Poppet, breathing heavily, came out of the hatch and slid her backside over the stainless-steel work surface. Josh helped her down, and in less than a minute, the other three were through and staring with open-mouthed delight at the Sea-Hawk. Still a mile away at this time, but holding full sail and eating up the distance at a good rate.

  “Sorry, Ten-Foot,” said Banger, “I guess I had you all wrong.”

  Josh let it go. He didn’t have the wherewithal to argue with the boy. He guessed he’d find out what was what when they got back onboard… which was the newest problem they’d have to deal with right now. How indeed were they going to get back to the Sea-Hawk without getting themselves killed in the process?

  “If we go to the decks, they’re bound to have people posted there. If we try to climb down the Jacob’s ladders or the cargo nets and their sentries see us, they’ll just shoot at us from above.”

  “Can’t we just jump and swim?” Banger asked.

  Josh shook his head. “We’re still about fifty feet above the water here. You jump from this height, and you don’t get it right, you’ll hit the water at about fifty miles an hour, or worse, crash into the hull. There’s a reasonable chance that whichever of your limbs are broken will not be able to assist you in swimming because you’ll be unconscious and already drowned.”

  “Right,” said Banger, “now you put it like that, I guess jumping isn’t the best idea.”

  “The Jet Skis,” said Poppet suddenly. “There’s an open area at the back of the boat. When we’re anchored off an island or beach, they launch Jet Skis from it for people to ride. I saw it on the introductory video playing when we first got to the stateroom.”

  Joey shook his head. “You idiot broad, there’s no power; nothing works. You’re not going to be able to get down there and just kickstart a Jet Ski!”

  Poppet cut daggers at Joey. “I know that, you blue-pill-taking old con-jool-gal fraud! On the video, there was also a rack of dinghies. Big ones. Enough for five people, easy-peasy.”

  Joey boiled.

  Josh nodded. “Okay, but just one problem. No more dumbwaiters to get us down to the Jet Ski stage, and they’re bound to have the stairs staked out. We’re stuck on this level unless we can find a way further down.”

  Joey ruffled his hair, and the boys looked at their guns with expressions to suggest they were doing complicated math.

  Josh looked at the stainless-steel work surface. There were trays of cutlery, several sinks, and deeper trays holding long-handled ladles and serving spoons, and beneath the work surface were piles and piles of neatly folded, white linen tablecloths, neatly embroidered with the monogram of The Empress Line.

  “Okay. It’s a long shot, but I guess that’s all we got left.”

  “Why me?”

  “Poppet, you’re the lightest. We can lower you down and you can see if you can get access to the Jet-Skis.”

  “You really want to hang me over the side of this boat, and lower me down to the waves on a tied-
together length of tablecloths?”

  “Yes, Poppet. That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  Poppet looked at Joey. “You want me to do this?”

  Joey glanced at Josh, who nodded and then fixed his eyes on his wife. “Yes, Poppet, I want you to do this.”

  “Joey, I want a divorce.”

  “As soon as you get down to the Jet Ski level, I will be happy to sign away half of everything I have.”

  “Seventy-five percent.”

  “Sixty.”

  “Sixty-five.”

  “Done. But I get the house in the Hamptons and the gold clubs.”

  “Whatever. Done.”

  Josh and the boys had finished tying the tablecloths together and had a length of material near fifty feet long. They’d left the second-class dining room and traveled as far as they could along the corridor, until they’d reached the stern of the Empress.

  If the remaining crew and passengers were hunting them, they weren’t making a very good try of it, because they reached the back area of decking without incident. From here, they could no longer see the Sea-Hawk, but when they’d left the dining room, it had been just three quarters of a mile off the starboard bow, heading on a direct line to the prow of the liner.

  Josh looped the cotton rope under Poppet’s arms and secured it with three thick knots in the material.

  “You’re gonna be fine,” he said.

  “There’s too much hopefully in your tone, Mr. Interloper, far too much hopefully. Gimme some certainty. Hopefully, I got coming out of my wazoo. I’m up to here with hopefullys, and I’m sick to my stomach on maybes.”

  “You’ll be fine, Poppet. We will not let you go. All you have to do is get onto the Jet Ski deck, and tell us that it’s okay to climb down. That’s it.”

  The boys and Joey held onto the makeshift rope. “Over you go,” said Josh as Poppet pressed her body against the rail.

  “The sea looks an awfully long way away,” she said quietly.

  “The faster you go, the nearer it’ll get,” Josh said.

  With one last sharp look, Poppet hooked a leg over the side and allowed herself to be lowered.

  As the boys and Joey played out the tablecloths, Josh went back across the lower deck to see if anyone was approaching down any of the three corridors that fed onto their vantage point.

  Nothing to see here.

  Josh went back to the rail and looked over the side. Poppet was digging her fingers into the rope, and she had both of her eyes screwed shut like Lemming had on the Jacob’s ladder. She was already a good thirty feet down, though, sliding over the smooth metal of the hull, gently turning on the improvised cotton rope.

  “What can you see?” Josh called down.

  “Nothing! I have my eyes closed, you idiot!”

  Josh shook his head. “Open them, please. You’ve gotta be near the opening by now.”

  As he watched, Poppet opened one eye and took in her surroundings. Below her, the waves lapped lazily at the base of the hull. There was no breeze to speak of and the waves that broke against the metal ship were weak and tame. Josh thanked whichever facet of Neptune was looking after them today.

  “I can see it!” Poppet called. “Another five feet and I’ll be able to get inside!”

  The boys and Joey played out more of the makeshift rope. They were getting dangerously close to the end of it. It was secured against a metal pole that went up to the ceiling that covered back of the deck. The pole was bolted into the deck at the top and bottom, and looked sturdy enough for the job at hand, but they were running out of line.

  “I’m in!” were the last words they heard from Poppet as the line went slack and was pushed out of the opening to dangle above the waves. “Okay, boys, make like Spiderman!” The color drained from Banger’s face at the thought of going over the side.

  “It’s this or we’ll leave you to the crazies,” Joey said, pushing the boy to the edge.

  With a gulp, and a prayer to the heavens, Banger went over the side and began to lower himself down, hand over hand.

  Lemming went next as Banger slithered inside the ship on the lower deck.

  When the rope was finally clear, Joey pushed Josh to the side. “You go next.”

  “No, Joey, you go.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Mr. Interloper.”

  Suddenly, bullets crashed into the deck and tore up the wood near their feet, spitting from the corridor to their right. Joey returned fire at the same time, kicking Josh towards the rail.

  Such was the force that Joey pushed him with, the rail bit into Josh’s back and he cartwheeled directly over it.

  22

  “Mom, I just want to die.”

  On the outskirts of Cumberland, Maryland, Storm was so unwell that Maxine thought she was going to lose him there and then. Without the medication needed to ward off the side effects from the chemotherapy, Storm’s condition had worsened over the last few days—to the point where it was as much as he could do to lift his chin off his chest as the buggy ran along the highway, and this only to tell her that he would rather be dead than alive like this.

  Maxine squeezed his hand, and told him not to worry. They would find him replacement drugs, and they would find them soon. They had taken several detours off the road to check out pharmacies and small county hospitals along the way. Those that hadn’t been completely looted of their precious boxes of antibiotics and painkillers and been burned out. The local populace, when they weren’t hiding or outside killing each other, had made the calculations that there might not be any new drugs coming any time soon—a situation that might persist for many years—and so any looting missions they’d carried out for food, ammo, and survival equipment had also included sweeps for drugs and first aid gear.

  The buggy had made good progress, though, and Maxine reckoned they were maybe five days out from her parents’ farm, but it was painfully clear that unless she got something to help her son’s deteriorating condition, Storm might just crawl away into a corner to die.

  His mouth and lips were a mass of sores, and his weakened immune system had allowed a flu-like virus to hit him hard on the second day after their gear had been stolen. This infection was in danger of moving down into his lungs, and threatened pneumonia. A scratch on Storm’s arm was also going bad. The flesh around it had become cherry red with infection, with a blister of pus forming in the center. The loss of his prophylactic antibiotics had been the greatest loss, even worse than the painkillers and steroids.

  The world was doing its best to get under both their skins and do away with them in the pre-industrial condition they found it in. Life expectancy two hundred years ago had been a damn sight worse than it was now, and with good reason—the added complication of a body made extra vulnerable by the hit Storm’s immune system had taken with the chemo for his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had dealt him the crappiest of hands from the get-go.

  As his fatigue, infections, and pain had increased, so had his inability to make any useful physical contribution to the journey.

  Maxine was left to find places to camp for the night, tend to Tally-Two, go searching in derelict houses and farmsteads for any food that hadn’t been looted, find water, and then light a fire to boil it. There hadn’t been any lucky finds for several days now, and every new day presented the same challenges as the last except in one respect… Storm’s condition wasn’t staying the same. It was worsening considerably.

  Along with all their supplies of food, they’d lost their knives, spare ammo, and firelighters. All they had by way of protection was the clip they’d had in each of their pistols, and Maxine thought them lucky to have had them on their persons when the looter had come through. Not that Storm would in any way be able to lift and fire a gun if he was called upon to do so.

  Maxine drove the horse on as fast as she could, but knew that if it threw a shoe, or went lame, even as close as they were to the farm, they might as well be a million miles away, and so she erred on the side of cauti
on for the most part. Tally-Two was getting enough feed from the roadside when they stopped, at least, and Maxine felt her legs every stop to make sure there was no heat or tenderness. “You’ll rest when we get there, I promise,” she’d whispered in the horse’s ear, but if she’d been asked, she wouldn’t have been able to conclusively say if she was talking to the horse or to herself.

  The desperate search for drugs in the last few mid-sized towns and hamlets along the I-68—with her leaving Storm and the buggy in a secluded area of forest while she hiked in, past smoldering buildings and along deserted streets—had proved just as fruitless as her other attempts. She’d scored two tins of soup and an empty canteen they’d be able to use to carry some water once it had been thoroughly cleaned, but of any useful medication to treat Storm, there had been not sign at all.

  On her way back, she’d had to shoot a snarling mongrel dog that had shot out from a burnt-out house to bark and threaten her. The kill had wasted a precious bullet, but there’d been foam and blood around the dog’s jaws. Even if it had only nipped her, God knew what infections the near-starved creature could have transmitted.

  Maxine felt ashamed that the thought of carrying the dog back to the camp to eat had even crossed her mind. And if it hadn’t been for the foam and the rabid look in its eyes, she may have done more than consider it.

  They had been avoiding the larger cities on purpose. Small towns were bad enough, but cities they passed had been burning still, great black clouds of smoke and ash belching into the sky. There had been some signs of people leaving those cities, hollow-eyed and too frightened to speak to Maxine and her son. She was glad that none of those they’d encountered had tried to take what little they did have by force. Everyone looked beaten and used up, walking along the side of the road aimlessly in little crocodile lines of refugees. Maxine had spotted a couple of riders in silhouette on a high ridge two days ago, but they’d disappeared into the haze.