“Hard to say. We knocked out the transponders on all five ships, so they won’t be able to track us that way.”
“Five ships?”
“All the surviving black rafts,” Victoria said. “They’re all here.”
“It’s a regular flotilla,” Catfish said.
Sands whistled. “So as far as the Six Hundred knows, their plan to sink the ships was successful.”
“We hope so.”
“Well, it was good thinking anyway.”
“Don’t tell me. It was Ahmer that thought of it.”
Sands looked at Ahmer, who was trying not to beam too proudly. Sands gave him his best fatherly nod.
“But even if they can’t track us,” Catfish continued, “we need supplies. We’ve got about three hundred thousand hungry convicts on five ships—and now that they’ve gotten off Process, ain’t none of ’em too keen to get back on it.”
“So what needs to be done?”
“You tell us.”
Sands immediately got the implication. “You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, Brother.”
“Are we?” Victoria fixed a fierce gaze on him that affected him like no other. “The only thing keeping these people in line right now is fresh food and the hope that their hero—The Sandman—is still alive to lead them.”
Sands was about to reply, when Rashid pushed open the door. Bao, Desmond, and Lani stampeded in after him.
“It’s true!” Desmond exclaimed.
Lani shouted Sands’ name and practically leaped into his arms. The bear hug she inflicted on him sent knives of pain through his cracked ribs.
“Okay, okay,” Sands said, his voice between a grunt and a plea.
Coming to herself, Lani quickly backed away. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” she said demurely.
“We all are,” Bao seconded.
Sands gave them a wincing smile.
Rashid pressed Sands on the shoulder, grinning down on him like a pleased midwife.
Sands patted his hand. “Thanks, Doc.”
From outside there was a rumble, the sound of thousands gathering and voicing their excitement.
“Sounds like the word is out,” Catfish observed.
“I’m no leader,” Sands protested.
They all looked at him, their expressions saying otherwise.
“C’mon, man, I just came out of a coma!”
“Yesterday you came out of a coma,” Rashid corrected. “Today you’ve only been—” He turned to Catfish. “What is the military term?”
“Goldbricking.”
“Yes. Goldbricking.”
“Thanks, Doc. Call it what you want, but I need to get my strength up. I don’t know if I can even stand.”
“Bullshit,” Catfish countered.
“But—”
“They just want to see you, Sands,” Victoria said gently. “You don’t have to say anything.”
Sands turned to Ahmer, but there was no help there.
“They’re waiting for you, Sands.”
Ahmer offered Sands one of his crutches. What could he do but take it?
Sands swung his legs over the side of the bed. He felt a twinge of pain, but his limbs cooperated as they hadn’t before. He pulled himself up on one crutch, Ahmer slipping an arm around his side. Sands draped one trunk-like arm over the young man’s narrow shoulders, and together they took their first awkward steps toward the hatch.
Moments later, they emerged from the Command Deck, like twins, clutching each other and their crutches as they made their way out onto the gangway of the Bridge. Catfish and the others followed closely, ready to bear them up if they stumbled, but trying not to be too obvious.
The top deck was flooded with Inferno inmates—thousands of them, it seemed, with thousands more undoubtedly watching on the monitors below decks. Sands saw in the distance the same scene reflected on the decks of the other black rafts, all lined up within a few hundred yards of one another.
As Sands became visible over the rail a massive cheer went up. It echoed across the waters, from one ship to another, and the inmates began chanting his name, just as they had done so many times when he appeared in the Arena.
Overwhelmed, Sands hung back, but Ahmer and his other friends pressed him forward with silent encouragement.
“All you have to do is wave,” Victoria said in his ear, but Sands noticed that a microphone had been set up at the rail. Waving wouldn’t be enough, he thought. They wanted to hear something.
He stepped to the rail and took the microphone.
Another cheer went up, greater than the first, hitting Sands like a warm updraft that buoyed him up. He raised his hands for silence—a gesture he had never seen elicit among the raucous Inferno inmates anything less than louder choruses of jeers—but silence they gave him.
In a long, still moment, he could hear nothing but the lapping of waves against Inferno’s hull and the keening of seabirds.
“I, uh—”
There was no amplification. Bao stepped up and adjusted the mic. Sands tried it again.
“I’m not much on giving speeches.” It wasn’t a rhetorical ploy. Sands really had no idea what to say.
“That’s okay,” a voice down front shouted. “Dregs ain’t much for listenin’ to ’em!”
Laughter from those within earshot. Ripples as others repeated the quip. Sands smiled with them, holding up one hand in acknowledgment.
“That’s right,” he said, his voice suddenly full. “They call us Dregs.” He clapped Ahmer on the shoulder. “They call us Drones. We’re the expendables. The disappeared. The throw-away people. That’s how the world thinks of us. But when I look out at you, you know what I see?”
He paused. The whole ship seemed to lean in to catch his next words.
“I see an army.”
He didn’t know where the thought came from, but the instant the cheers began, he knew he had chosen the right words.
“They tried to lock us away. They tried to control us. They tried to kill us. They tried to forget us. Why? Because they’re afraid of us. They’re afraid of power in the hands of the people. And you know what I say to that? They’d better be!”
The cheers were reinforced by the stamping of feet. The whole ship trembled.
“That’s right.” Sands was feeding off their energy now. His reluctance was forgotten. His pain was forgotten. “They tried to forget us. But I’m telling you right now—we won’t be forgotten!”
Sands pounded the rail with his fist. “They want a fight? I say let’s bring it! I say let’s take it to them before they take it to us! Let’s hit ’em before they know what’s hit ’em! They like to play battle? Let’s give ’em WAR!”
The thousands erupted. Sands pumped his fist in the air, punctuating each thrust with the shout of “War! War!” until they took up the chant.
He nodded with satisfaction. It was all he had, but maybe it was enough. Letting his crutch fall away, he turned and marched, with all the poise and dignity he could summon, back onto the Bridge.
The instant he was out of sight, he slumped. Catfish caught him, bearing up his full weight until Desmond could push the Captain’s chair forward and help ease him into it.
“I’m all right,” Sands said. “Just need to catch my breath.”
Bao brought him some water. Sands took it and gulped it down.
“Thanks.”
Rashid bent down to check his bandages, to make sure they were still in place. Lani brought him a damp towel, applying it to his forehead and the back of his neck. They all buzzed and fretted over him like so many nursemaids—all but Victoria.
Hands on hips, she said, “Nice speech. What now?”
“We head north.”
“North?”
“You know,” Catfish said, “we’re almost at the Pole already. We keep headin’ north we’re gonna wind up goin’ south.”
“That’s right. To the scene of the crime.” Sands was exhausted. The chair held him so fast, so
comfortingly, he wondered when he would ever be able to get up out of it again. But his mind was clear. Out on the deck, when his mouth had seemed to talk faster than his brain could think, something snapped within him. He felt like he knew just what to do.
“What scene of what crime?” Catfish asked.
“The one place nobody will think to look for us.” He waited until they all finished looking questions at each other.
“Korea.”
“Korea?” Catfish echoed. “As in South Korea?”
“North Korea.”
“Ain’t you heard, man? The whole peninsula’s been nuked. I’m talkin’ burnin’ rocks and boilin’ seas. Sodom and Gomorrah-style Biblical destruction.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Well, I seen it on the tee-vee, so it must be true.”
The others all looked at one another as if they thought Sands had lost it. It came down to Ahmer to speak up for him.
“Sands is right. They said Seoul and Pyongyang were hit. That’s two cities. Not whole peninsula.”
“But the President—” Lani began.
“Don’t call him that.”
Sands regretted his sharp tone, but it made him smile to see how quickly Ahmer was there to give Lani’s shoulder a consoling squeeze.
“Well, one thing is certain.” Everyone was surprised to hear from Rashid. “No one with any sense will be going there. Sometimes, the hunted can only survive by going where the hunter fears to follow.”
Shrugs and nods of reluctant assent went up all around.
“The way I see it,” Sands said, “if Hell is all they’ve left us...We’ll take it.”
Catfish was out of arguments. He turned to Bao and Desmond. “You heard the Commander. Turn her north. Set a course for Korea.”
He looked at Sands and shook his head. “I’ll pass the word to the other ships’ captains. I don’t know how I’m gonna explain it.”
“Just give ’em the course, for now. If you want, you can tell ’em we’re using what’s left of the ice caps to discourage others from following. Leave off the part about Korea. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, after I’ve gotten my strength up, we’ll call a meeting and I’ll put it out there myself.”
“Okay, Sands.”
He saluted. Surprised, Sands skipped a beat before he saluted back. Catfish turned and headed for the comm.
It took an hour to get the five massive ships up to full power and turned in the direction of their new course. They lined up, with Inferno taking the lead, in a tight vee formation, six football fields between ships, two miles from nearest to farthest. With their sterns turned against a golden sun that rested low on the horizon, the ships’ five shadows stretched long before them, like the strides of giants across the waters.
THE END
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Inferno 2033 Book Two: Perdition Page 16