The Complete Seabound Trilogy Box Set

by Jordan Rivet

  “No idea.” David took off his glasses and wiped them clean on his sweater. “Maybe he doesn’t know I’m still with you and the Lucinda.”

  Esther didn’t like this one bit. The Galaxy Flotilla had seemed so far away for so long. But now that Esther’s generator design was out there for anyone to use, any ship could travel without worrying about fuel expenditures. Including their enemies.

  “We’ll be within sight of land in three days,” Esther said. “We should be okay then.”

  “But won’t we be trapped as soon as we start up the river?” Zoe asked. “Like crabs in a pot?”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” David said. “Lucinda may be able to sail all the way to the lake, but I doubt the Galaxy’s destroyer can do it. She’s got a pretty deep draft.”

  Esther nodded, drumming her fingers on the dash.

  “And what if Boris goes after the Catalina?” Zoe asked.

  “Let’s get some of our satellite friends to keep tabs on him,” David said. “If need be, I’ll let him know I’m with you too. That ought to make us an even more attractive target.”

  “Boris wants me, though,” Esther said. “It’s personal. Maybe he won’t waste time with the Catalina.”

  “Nothing would make it more personal for him than going after your home,” David said. “Maybe we should have Marianna tell him your father is with us, try to make him think the Catalina doesn’t matter quite as much to you.”

  “That’s a start at least,” Esther said. She thought of the ship they had left behind, the place that had been her home for almost seventeen years. The Catalina stood little chance against the destroyer. Their escape from the Galaxy had been too easy. She had been foolish to think this was over. “Zoe, can you find out where the destroyer is now through the network?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Okay. I better go finish my shift,” Esther said. “Keep me posted.”

  Esther returned to the bowels of the Lucinda, trying to ignore the worry roaring through her stomach like fire in a fuel cell. As her father said, she couldn’t focus on things that were out of her hands.

  She headed back to the engine room, thinking about Captain Boris, his raven-black hair and sneering smile. He had been friends with David once. If anything, he had more cause for a personal vendetta against David than against her. So why hadn’t Boris asked about David? It might be time for her to find out what had happened between them after all.

  The voyage continued without any more messages from the Galaxy. They were still far away, and hopefully the Lucinda was getting further out of Boris’s reach every day. Zoe screened all calls, only patching people through with tech questions if they’d had prior communication. She didn’t tell anyone where they were really heading.

  The crew spent their spare time carrying out their duties and playing cards in the mess or dice on the deck. In the evenings they’d tell stories and speculate about what it would be like when they reached land. It grew warmer as they sailed south. They didn’t hear from Boris again, and they drew nearer to the coast by the hour.

  Esther got a chance to talk to Neal on the satellite phone one evening while Luke was on duty at the helm. Neal told her he hadn’t been able to catch the communications man at Lake Aguamilpa at his station since the morning after he sent out the roster. This was the longest Neal had ever gone without talking to the man. There was no way to find out whether he had gotten in trouble for sending the roster in the middle of the night. Esther wished she could speak directly to Naomi and make sure the voyage was going to be worth it. What if she didn’t want to leave with them in the end? What if it wasn’t even her? What if they had left the Catalina vulnerable for nothing?

  “I spoke to Marianna, though,” Neal said, his voice surprisingly sharp through the satellite link.

  “And?”

  “It’s less awkward to talk now. We don’t have the same chemistry that we used to, but I think we can be fr— ”

  “What’d she say about Boris?!”

  “Oh right. She says he doesn’t trust her anymore, so he had someone else fix up his satellite phone system in the destroyer. HMS Hampton, right? She didn’t know anything about his plan to come after you until the Hampton set out the same day he contacted you. She’s scrambling rumors through all our contacts about your plans, though. Boris ought to hear from multiple sources that you and the Lucinda aren’t with the Catalina, and that you’re heading for the Los Angeles area. We’re also keeping our coordinates a secret.”

  “Good,” Esther said. “Do Judith and Dirk know what’s going on?”

  “Yup. They’re cooperating. Judith’s kinda smug about going back to the isolation thing, actually.”

  “Do you think I should send the Lucinda back to you guys for protection? We’re almost to the coast, and I can set out on my own there.”

  Luke glanced over at Esther from the helm, eyebrow raised.

  “The sea is a big place,” Neal said. “We’re hiding right in the middle of the ocean. Hopefully you’ll have plenty of time to sort things out in Mexico before Boris is finished searching the California coast. Stick with the plan. We can look out for ourselves.”

  “Okay. Thanks for being my ears, Neal.”

  “No worries. Oh, one more thing. Boris is using your system in the Hampton, but Marianna says the Galaxy captains haven’t allowed any of the other ships to install it. They are dead set on staying at sea and keeping the Flotilla together.”

  “Unbelievable,” Esther said. “The people won’t stand for that forever. The ships will rust, and time’s going to run out for them.”

  “I agree. Anyway, got another call coming in. Be careful out there, Es. And come back soon.”

  “You got it. Over and out.” Esther set down the microphone.

  “Going somewhere?” Luke said.

  “Only if I have to.”

  Luke nodded, his brow furrowing.

  “David knows it might come to that, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Esther said. She and David had talked about it again the night before. They were getting good at talking. Esther was surprised how much it eased her worries to confide in him. He understood that they might have to part ways, at least for a little while.

  “I noticed the last-minute addition of that cute little speedboat in the stern,” Luke said. “Figured it wasn’t just for fishing.”

  “Yeah. If we get to the river mouth and find it’s impassable for the Lucinda, I’ll head upriver in that to find my sister. The rest of you can continue as planned.”

  “You got a crew picked out?” Luke asked.

  Esther hesitated. “My dad, obviously. We can do it on our own, but there’s space for four.”

  “Well, if you want to take Zoe, I’m coming too,” Luke said. “It’s too late for her to get rid of me now that she’s admitted how dashingly handsome she finds me.”

  “I figured as much,” Esther said. She had been thinking of Zoe, of course, and Luke was dependable, but that would leave no room for Naomi if she decided to come back with them. David would stay with the Lucinda and the mission. It would be for the best. Esther hooked her fingers in her belt, forcing away the sadness that came with the thought.

  “Don’t worry so much, Esther,” Luke said suddenly. “We’re going to reach the coast, and the river mouth will be open. All the folks you care about will be fine and dandy. You and David will spend the rest of your lives having dumb fights and being in love, and Zoe and me will get married and have seven strapping young sons. Everything that could go wrong in the world already has, so there’s no reason to worry about things that might not happen at all.”

  Esther smiled. “You’re a perceptive guy sometimes, you know that, Luke?”

  “Shh, don’t tell anyone.” Luke grinned and swept his curly hair away from his eyes. “Now go grab some shut-eye. Big day tomorrow.”

  Chapter 11—Storms

  AS THEY APPROACHED THE coast, the weather turned sour. The blue skies of their
early voyage fled, replaced by iron clouds and sheets of rain. The sea tossed angrily. Howling winds heralded a gathering storm.

  Esther went to the pilothouse to discuss their course with David, Luke, and Zoe. The swells were growing large and dangerous.

  “We can’t search for a harbor in this,” Luke said as the Lucinda pitched over the crest of another tall wave.

  “We’re so close,” Esther said. “If we get to the river before the storm, we can take refuge in the mouth.”

  “It’s not going to work,” David said. “We need to pull back. We can’t risk getting thrown onto the shore.”

  “We don’t even know exactly where the river is,” Luke said.

  Storm clouds roiled in the sky. It was an all-too-familiar sight. Esther was frustrated at the delay. She wanted to get to Naomi. She had created an entire picture in her head of Naomi’s life on land, more blurry and perilous than Esther’s life had been. Naomi still looked like an eight-year-old girl in her mind. Esther had become increasingly nervous for her sister the longer it had been since Neal last talked to the comm guy at the lake. It felt like she was going to disappear, to vanish from the face of the earth as Esther thought she had years ago.

  The Lucinda rolled sideways in another wave.

  “Can you see the shore?” Zoe asked. She had a map in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other. “The coastline is pretty steep on this old map. We should be able to see the cliffs by now.”

  “If the cliffs are still there,” David said.

  “Man, it’s getting dark out there,” Luke said.

  “Got anything on radar yet?”

  “Nothing.”

  “All right, cut the engines,” David said. “We need to wait until this clears.”

  Esther gripped his arm. “But if we can just get to the mouth of the river—”

  “I said cut the engines, Esther. We wait until we’re clear.”

  The horizon was a smudge of gray and black. The rain swept away any identifying features. Esther leaned toward the windscreen, trying to make out some sign of land. Wind hissed through the bullet holes in the thick glass.

  “We should be able to see it,” Zoe said again.

  Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the tossing sea in front of them.

  “Wait, are those breakers?”

  The shoreline suddenly appeared before them. There were no cliffs. It was a flat, wasted expanse of gravel and rock, as if the entire coastline had been washed away. The land was so low they almost hadn’t seen it at all. Lightning cracked again, revealing just how close they were to running aground.

  “Pull back!” Esther shouted.

  David was one step ahead of her. He sprung into motion, putting full power into the forward thrusters.

  “Come on, come on!” Sweat poured down David’s forehead. He gripped the controls like a lifeline.

  The Lucinda teetered before the shore, lurching atop the swells. The land before them was a threatening, unassailable mass. They could smack against sand or rock any minute. But then a retreating wave sucked them farther away from the beach. David’s knuckles whitened against the wheel. The next wave tossed them forward. Again, Esther was sure their hull would strike the shallow seafloor. Then the waves sucked them out again.

  “We have to get away from here until we find the river mouth,” David said.

  “We’re supposed to be a mile out still,” Zoe said. “I don’t get it.”

  “Doesn’t matter right now. Alert the crew.”

  They battled against the swells and the looming shore. The Lucinda caught in a seemingly endless cycle of waves, pulling the ship closer to the land, breaking against the treacherous coastline, and pushing it back again.

  The tossing of the sea was violent, raucous. A storm far out to sea was made of deep rolls and colossal waves. They could ride it out as long as they stayed upright. But this storm was a jagged, jarring affair. Each wave smacked against the land, uneven and angry. The breakers were rough and unpredictable, and the tow of water was nearly as dangerous as the crashing of the waves. Any second they could be dashed against unseen rocks. The wind raged and howled, tearing around them like a sea demon.

  They fought their way back out to sea. The storm still raged further from the shore, but it was safer than this.

  Hours passed. No one slept. Those who weren’t on duty held on to their bunks to keep from pitching against each other. Esther tried to rest for a while but soon found herself back in the pilothouse, standing watch as David fought the sea. Her father was supposed to be on lookout duty, but that would mean tethering himself to the crow’s nest and risking being struck by lightning. Esther had made sure he was taking shelter belowdecks. When she left him, he was doing what he could to keep people calm as the storm raged.

  The waves became so erratic that the crew began to get sick. David had to leave the pilothouse more than once to vomit over the side, his face as pale as his hair. Esther had never seen him seasick before, but this storm would get to anyone. Luke took the helm whenever David had to leave, but he too was barely holding on.

  In the early hours of the morning the weather began to calm. They had gotten far enough away from the coast to escape the dangers of the rocky bottom and nearly invisible shore. As far as they could tell, they hadn’t hit anything.

  The seas were still unsettled, throwing deep, rolling waves beneath the hull of the Lucinda. But the winds had calmed, and light began to peek out over a long gray bar on the horizon. Land.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Zoe said as the light strained through the ravaged clouds. She and Esther were back in the pilothouse with David. Luke had gone to rest for a while. “Our maps are wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Either the shore has changed more than we thought or we’re in the wrong place. I can’t make sense of anything here.”

  David took the charts from Zoe. “Could be either one,” he said. “If the weather has been like this a lot over the years, the coast must have taken a beating. We could be in exactly the right place, but the shape of the land has changed.”

  “Well, we’re looking for a big-ass river,” Zoe said, “and it’s not here.”

  “So what do we do?” Esther said.

  Zoe threw up her hands. “Sail along the coast until we find the mouth?”

  “Which direction?”

  “Hell if I know,” Zoe said.

  Esther groaned. “Salt.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Esther felt a sea-deep weariness from the night’s watch, but as the sun crept further up, the sight of the land transfixed her. The coast beyond the bow was flat and indistinct. With the sun in her eyes it was hard to make out the details, like it was just another mirage.

  “It’s very flat, isn’t it?”

  “We were supposed to have arrived near the hills surrounding the river mouth,” David said. “Flat isn’t good.”

  Esther took Zoe’s binoculars from the dash.

  “I can’t see any trees,” she said. “Aren’t we supposed to be in a jungle region?”

  “I think it’s safe to say we’re not near the river,” David said. “According to our charts, there’s a flatter region far south of the river’s mouth. We could be there, but that would mean we’ve overshot our mark drastically. I thought our navs were better than that. If we’re actually north of the river, it means the coastal topography has changed a lot. That’s kind of in line with what we heard back in the early days, that the seas had gotten so bad they were destroying anything on the coasts. And the river itself could have been rerouted.”

  Esther blew out a breath. “You think we should sail south?”

  “I do,” David said, “but it’s a gamble either way.”

  “Let’s do it,” Esther said. “I’ll gamble. Anyway, our destroyer friend may turn up further north.”

  “South it is,” Zoe said. “I hope you’re right.”

  As they sailed they eased closer to the coast again, w
atching for any signs of the river—or of life. By the time the sun climbed halfway up in the sky, everyone who wasn’t on duty had gathered on deck. They were tired after their night in the storm, but no one could resist the pull of land.

  Cally and Dax, their fingers reddened from scrubbing the salt off the decks, stood together at the railing. Cody hovered nearby, studying the shore. Simon climbed up to the crow’s nest. His scarf flew in the wind, green against a gray sky.

  Esther joined the others on the deck, and they watched the coast together. They drew closer. The land that appeared flat as glass from far away was actually quite rocky and strewn with debris. Decayed ships littered the beaches hundreds of feet inland. Twisted pieces of metal stuck out of the sand like whale bones. Driftwood and seaweed mingled near the waterline, alongside huge knots of rubber and plastic.

  There were things on the beach that hadn’t come from the sea: cars and tires, a refrigerator, a collection of school desks, even what Esther recognized as a streetlight. It reminded her of childhood games of Red Light, Green Light with Naomi and their neighbors in the cul-de-sac.

  Beyond the tangled detritus, scraggly trees and bushes began to emerge. The vegetation was untouched, and it was slowly pushing back against the advance of the sea. There were no signs of any new settlements, however, only the wreckage of the old world coughed up across the shore.

  The crew fell silent. Esther had expected to see something besides total destruction. Neal’s communications on the satellite network had given her hope. She had imagined people rebuilding on land, humanity reemerging after near extinction. Irrationally, she had thought they might even find a town or two by the beach. But as she stared at the blasted shore, she remembered just how close to annihilation they had come.

  When the sun was directly overhead, they reached the mouth of a river. The banks were wide and shallow, as if the river had flooded repeatedly over the years. The water had retreated somewhat, leaving vast mudflats scattered with seaweed. Esther was surprised to see so much seaweed simply lying there. The people should be collecting it for food. It would rot if they left it. Maybe any people living near the river didn’t eat seaweed. Or there were no people at all.