The Complete Seabound Trilogy Box Set

by Jordan Rivet

  “There’s a crew that’s talking about doing salvage runs on land. Says he knows a safe harbor.”

  “The guy might be a charlatan.”

  “But think of the adventure!”

  They rehashed the rumors they’d heard that day and made plans for who to talk to next. Esther’s responses were noncommittal. She’d tell them about the Metal Harvesters some other time. She couldn’t shake the image of the tall woman leaning against David’s arm at the Rusty Nail and the way his steps had weaved as he led her up the gangway to his ship.

  Esther felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and it made her furious. She felt angry, hurt. She swallowed the last of the chocolate-covered squid and curled up in the corner of the booth. She let her friends’ chatter lull her to sleep.

  After midnight an alarm sounded. The Mermaid Lounge was dark and at first only a groggy rustle followed the piercing of the siren. Then a red light swept across the floor from the windows.

  “Esther, wake up. Something’s happening.” Zoe crouched by Esther’s side, prodding her with the handle of her pocketknife.

  “What? Is that our horn?” Esther rubbed her eyes as the red light swept over them again, flashing like lightning in Zoe’s hair.

  “It’s coming from the Amsterdam. I think there’s a fire,” Zoe said.

  Esther fought through her fatigue, remembering with dread the last time she was awakened by the smell of smoke. A fire on an oil rig was nothing to shrug off, even though the drill was long silent. Esther pulled on her boots and joined Zoe, Anita, and Toni at the window.

  “What’s going on out there?” Toni said.

  From their angle, they only had a partial view of the oil platform. Their window was on the starboard side, facing the open sea. Small, dark boats skipped past in the darkness. The shadows thrown onto the waves by the red searchlight made them look larger than they actually were. The siren wailed.

  “I think people are fighting over there.” Zoe pressed her face against the thick glass, trying to see sideways to the hulking platform.

  “Isn’t this neutral territory?” Toni asked.

  “What do we do, Esther?” Anita whispered.

  The other two turned and looked at her too.

  “We need information,” Esther said. “We can’t get mixed up in someone else’s fight.”

  She remembered what the big-nosed food vendor had said about the Calderon Group and the Metal Harvesters. They shouldn’t get involved with anything between those two.

  “Let’s go to the bridge,” Zoe said.

  They pulled on their jackets and dashed out of the Lounge. That’s when their own horn blasted: two calls, as if they were facing a riding storm. That would summon only the people who were on duty that night. Hopefully the others would remain safely in their cabins.

  Judith, Dirk, and Neal were already in the bridge when they arrived.

  “What’s going on?” Esther asked.

  “Looks like some sort of skirmish,” Neal answered, pulling back one ear of his headphones. He wore sweatpants and no shoes.

  “Any danger to us?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to raise someone over on the Lucinda. They might have a better view.”

  Esther felt a sliver of ice in her chest. “Lucinda isn’t answering?”

  “I’m sure Hawthorne’s fine,” Neal said. “Don’t worry.”

  “We have other people on the Lucinda besides Hawthorne,” Esther said. “What does the Amsterdam say?”

  “They keep telling us to stand by.”

  Dirk and Judith were engaged in a fierce, quiet argument. They hadn’t acknowledged the newcomers. Dirk’s shoulders tensed, and he glowered alternately at Judith and the Amsterdam.

  Outside the forward windows, the rigging looked strangely still in the red of the searchlights, despite the alarm bells ringing around the Coalition.

  Then a blinding fireball ignited atop the oil rig. The sky erupted in an explosion, and a rumble like thunder rattled the heavy windows of the bridge. The Catalina rolled in the shock wave, knocking them off balance.

  “Salt! What was that?”

  Esther shook her head to clear the fuzzy ring of light from her eyes. A fire burned in one quarter of the platform. Pops rattled through the night.

  “News coming in from the Amsterdam,” Neal said. He listened to the headphones for a second. “We’re under attack! The rig rep says to send crew to the deck to ward off boarders.”

  “Dirk, get the crew armed,” Judith said, pulling herself up. “Make sure everyone else stays below.”

  “We can run to the cabins to warn any stragglers,” Toni said.

  She and Anita darted for the door.

  “We should get down to the deck, Esther!” Zoe said, tugging on her arm. “We can fight.”

  But there was a commotion outside the port window. Esther rushed to the far side of the bridge. Beyond the Catalina’s foredeck, people darted back and forth across the Amsterdam platform. Esther pressed her hands against the glass, focusing on the patrol ship bobbing beside the Catalina. Dark figures were boarding the Lucinda. They scuttled across her narrow prow like crabs. Where were their defenders?

  David had better be out of bed, Esther thought, fear gripping her like a vise. He had to be okay.

  “Let’s go, Esther!” Zoe shouted.

  “Right.”

  “Be careful,” Judith called as they dashed from the bridge.

  Esther and Zoe ran down the stairwell and out onto the foredeck. The night was cold as a razor. The siren wailed a warning. A dozen skirmishes had broken out around the oil platform. People fought with pipes and clubs. Knives flashed in the searchlights. Boots pounded on the decks of the surrounding ships.

  None of the fighting had made it onto the Catalina yet, but their gangway still connected them to the platform. They rushed forward. They had to get it up before anyone came aboard.

  “Look out!” Esther grabbed Zoe, pulling her to the ground as a ball of fire flew toward them.

  “What was that?”

  “Flaming oil!”

  Another fireball streaked through the night. Liquid light spread in a patch on the deck.

  “Get back inside!”

  “We have to put out the fire,” Zoe said.

  “It’s not catching,” Esther said. “The deck is fine. We have to move!”

  They clambered backward to shelter in the forward entryway. Esther pulled the heavy steel door most of the way closed. The metal rattled as something collided with it, launched from the darkness.

  Esther peeked around the edge of the door. Men were climbing onto the Catalina across the gangway they hadn’t been able to pull up in time. Their weapons glinted in the light from the fireballs streaking through the air.

  “We’re being boarded,” Esther said. “We have to do something!”

  “This should help.” Dirk had appeared behind her with a machine gun.

  “Where did you get that?”

  He ignored her and shoved the barrel through the gap in the doors. “Get ready for anyone who tries to sneak around the side,” he said, and then he let loose a round.

  The gunfire rattled Esther’s ears. She couldn’t see anything. More shouts from outside. A woman shrieked. Esther pulled a heavy wrench from her tool belt.

  A metal-hafted hammer swung around the edge of the door, wielded by a ropy pair of arms. A man had managed to get around the side of the ship out of Dirk’s line of fire. The hammer pounded down on the barrel of the machine gun, throwing Dirk off balance. He cursed as the hammer swung again, this time directed at his head.

  There was a flash of metal. The hammer wielder beyond the door screamed and dropped the tool. A pocketknife was embedded in his wrist.

  Esther gasped. “Zoe! You—”

  Zoe leapt forward and wrenched her knife from the man’s wrist. The knife dripped red. The man stumbled away.

  “Thanks, mate,” Dirk growled.

  “Hurry, there are more of them,” Zoe sa
id.

  She swiped her knife against her leggings to clean the blade and handed the hammer to Esther. It was cold and heavy in her palm, matching the weight of the wrench. Dirk’s gun had jammed with the impact of the hammer. He struggled with it as Zoe and Esther ran out onto the deck.

  Two figures lay on the deck, one moving feebly. Bullet holes pocked the deck around them. The man Zoe had stabbed shuffled toward the gangway, clutching his bleeding wrist. Another shape lurched toward them, taking advantage of the respite from Dirk’s gunfire. It was a man armed with a long-bladed knife. He stalked toward them, teeth bared.

  “Take the right,” Zoe whispered to Esther as she ducked to the left. She jabbed her knife and danced back and forth, distracting the intruder.

  Esther watched her friend, stunned for an instant, then jumped into action.

  They fought the man together, Zoe jabbing at his arms like a stingray, and Esther swinging the hammer and wrench to fend off the long knife. The hammer was unwieldy, but Esther was strong from years of working with heavy machinery in the engine room. The wrench was like an extension of her hand. She barely dared to breathe, afraid the knife would cut through her defenses at any moment.

  The man met their blows with his blade. Then he launched a direct assault on Esther. She swung both of her weapons forward as he attacked, striking his shoulder with a dull thud. The man cursed, and the knife dropped out of his hand. Zoe leapt in and held her pocketknife to his throat.

  “What do you want?” she shouted. “Why are you attacking us?”

  Eyes wild, the man clutched at his shattered shoulder. He seemed to be trying to raise his arm. Before he could answer, another explosion ripped through the night, rocking the Catalina. All three of them fell sideways. Esther’s knees slammed into the deck and she lost her grip on the hammer. The shock wave came from the direction of the Lucinda this time.

  Esther regained her balance, ears ringing. She had to help Zoe! She whirled around. Her friend knelt on the deck, staring at the man they had been fighting seconds ago. He lay on his back with a long gash across his throat. He was dead. Acrid smoke drifted up the side of the Catalina. Black tendrils haunted the deck.

  “What happened?”

  “My knife slipped,” Zoe whispered. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “He was attacking our ship. He had a knife too. It wasn’t your fault.”

  More of the crew joined them. Dirk and a handful of others clattered down the gangway to the Amsterdam platform, weapons in hand. Reggie and Wong prowled across the deck, prodding the fallen assailants.

  “The Lucinda is on fire!” someone shouted.

  Esther leapt up and rushed to the railing.

  The fire was in the Lucinda’s pilothouse, and smoke hampered her view. Esther searched for David’s blond head and arrogant posture, but there was no sign of him. The Lucinda’s crew rushed around the deck, hauling water and emergency fire retardant to put out the blaze. She wanted to help them, but she had to make sure the Catalina was safe first.

  The wailing of the alarm from the Amsterdam ceased suddenly, leaving a ringing in Esther’s ears. The strangers had stopped trying to board the Catalina. Fires still burned on the Amsterdam, but there were no more explosions, no more gunshots. Smoke thickened above the water. The fighting was over.

  Esther realized her hands were shaking. She laid the hammer on the deck and returned the wrench to her tool belt. She felt fear sinking in now that the fighting was done. They had been attacked! Who would want to fight them? And at the Amsterdam no less!

  She returned to where Zoe knelt by the man she had killed. Blood stained the deck, pooling within an inch of her purple tunic. Esther put a hand on Zoe’s shoulder. Comforting her friend helped to calm her own racing thoughts.

  “It’s okay, Zoe.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  Zoe looked shaken, and her usual energy had disappeared. They had seen friends killed over the past few months, but neither Esther nor Zoe had ever taken a life before. Esther didn’t know the right thing to say in the circumstances. How were you supposed to respond to something like this?

  “He would have killed us,” she whispered after a while. “Come on. Let’s make sure everyone’s all right.”

  People worked to control the fires that had spread across the Amsterdam during the fighting. Rain began to pour from the heavens. Smoke billowed above the platform. More people emerged from the Catalina, looking confused and scared. The crew stayed on high alert, guarding the gangway with a motley assortment of weapons clutched in their hands.

  Esther wanted to check on David, but Reggie called for her and Zoe to help him move the bodies to the Amsterdam platform. None of their attackers had made it past the Catalina’s foredeck. Two fell to Dirk’s machine gun, and the one Zoe stabbed in the wrist had disappeared. Last was the man Esther and Zoe had fought together. They dragged him toward the gangway by the legs, leaving a smear of blood and rain in their wake. Esther noticed that his boots didn’t match.

  Reggie kept shaking his head. “It makes no sense.”

  “I know,” Esther said. “Who’d violate a neutral zone like this?”

  “Not that,” Reggie said. “It makes no sense for them to board the Catalina. Why send four people to attack an entire cruise ship? They must have known we’d have some sort of defenses. And she’s not an easy ship to sail, if they wanted to steal her.”

  “You think they were after something else?”

  “Well, if they were trying to hijack her, they didn’t try very hard.”

  Reggie dropped the body of a woman beside the others. Her thick black hair fanned out from her glassy-eyed face. Reggie cursed under his breath.

  Zoe bent down to close the woman’s eyes. “We weren’t the only ones that got attacked,” she said.

  “No. Looks like they hit half a dozen ships, plus the platform,” Reggie said, coughing in the smoke trailing over the deck. He surveyed the Amsterdam in the predawn haze. “Not sure about the cargo giants. Maybe these guys were just supposed to keep us from helping anyone else.”

  “The Amsterdam has always been a safe haven,” Esther said. “Why would someone destroy one of the only completely neutral places we’ve got?”

  “We don’t know that’s what they wanted,” Reggie said. “Those explosions were big, but they were nowhere near the bazaar.”

  “You think they were a distraction?”

  “Maybe, to keep us away from whatever they were really after.”

  Esther swallowed hard. The attackers could have wanted anything from the trading hub. Fuel was the most likely candidate, but no one would know for sure until the smoke cleared. It was what they had done on the Lucinda that worried her.

  As morning broke, the remaining ships took inventory, counting their cargo and their dead. Large quantities of supplies had been stolen from the Amsterdam stockpiles. The oil platform remained intact, but tension shivered through the gathered ships, ready to erupt like a volcano at any moment. A persistent curtain of rain coated the sky, blocking the sun. Theories abounded over what the attack had been about. Were they only after supplies? Was it a takeover attempt? A provocation?

  But only one thing Esther cared about had been stolen during the attack. David Hawthorne was gone.

  Chapter 10—Abduction

  ESTHER HAD GONE OVER to the Lucinda as soon as she finished helping Reggie. She tramped across the platform in the pouring rain, telling herself she was checking on the ship, but she had to make sure David was okay too. She owed him that much. She only hoped she wouldn’t run into his copper-haired companion from the night before. But when she pushed open the door to David’s cabin, it was empty.

  Diagrams of the Lucinda covered the small desk. A hand-drawn map fluttered on the floor when she opened the door, as if someone had tossed it aside as they dug through his papers. Esther had never been inside this room, but she knew David was neat and organized. The bedsheets were rumpled. She couldn’t tell if the bunk had bee
n slept in or searched. David’s boots lay on the floor beneath the desk, one sock hanging out of them. He only owned one pair of boots. The room was still, quiet as a sinking ship.

  Esther checked every cabin and compartment on the Lucinda, asking any crew she came across whether they had seen David.

  “Not since yesterday in the bazaar,” said Adele, one of the former Galaxians, who also lived on the Lucinda.

  “He was talking to the rig boss,” said another crewman, “but that was around lunchtime yesterday. Don’t know if he came back last night.”

  “Thanks. If you see him, would you tell him I’m looking for him?”

  “Sure thing, Esther.”

  She searched the public areas of the oil platform next, though she didn’t think David would have gone off into the Amsterdam without checking in. Worry burrowed into her. What if he had been hurt in the attack? If he went overboard, she might never know what had happened. He had to be here. Unless . . . What if he’d been forced to leave his cabin? A grim possibility arose in Esther’s mind, making her pick up her pace as she scoured the Amsterdam for any sight of him.

  There were armed sailors everywhere, stalking through the rain and glaring suspiciously at each other. She couldn’t get near the other ships without people shouting at her to stay back. She asked one of the rig officials whether he had seen David, but the man just shrugged.

  “People are staying close to their own ships,” he said. “I’d look for him there.”

  “I’ll try again.” Esther hesitated. “How about a woman with coppery hair. She’s . . . pretty, I guess.”

  Esther didn’t like the idea of grilling David’s admirer about his whereabouts, but she had to explore every possibility.

  “She with the Calderon Group?”

  “Is she?”

  “Maybe I’m thinking of someone else. Sorry,” the rig official said. “I been running around like an eel with my head chopped off. No time to pay attention to that kind of thing.”

  As the official rushed off, Esther realized she wasn’t far from the old drill floor at the center of the platform. She had always been told to avoid this area, but it was the only place she hadn’t looked for David yet. She crept toward it, her hand wrapped around the wrench in her belt.