All of a sudden, with a grumbling roar, those engines came to life.
We cheered when we first heard that coughing growl. “Go, Jimmy! Go!” Madison screamed.
She grabbed the back of the Captain’s chair and I gunned the motors to warm them up. Those twin diesels had a lot of power and I was saying silent thanks that we were able to find as much gas as we did. I threw the Horner forward by shoving the throttle balls out and up as much as I dared.
The Horner seemed to jump a bit as she pulled away from the docks and the Colony for the first time in years. It occurred to me: maybe she was happy to finally get out of the house. The full power of the ocean had us … it felt like the trip out on Ignacio’s little pilothouse. With the Horner yawing and pitching, I honestly saw her as a boat for the first time instead of a dirty bunkhouse.
The E-ring decks were about fifty yards away from us when I spun the wheel hard to the right and eased the throttle up. Madison and I both cheered again as we surged forward … we were on our way. Obviously, we had no idea what was about to happen.
Our current position is: 35°31'6.91"N 121° 5'14.02"W
Chapter Seventeen – Into the Storm
We were a few minutes into our trip and the lights of the Colony were still pretty close. I had a few minutes to think about what just happened. I looked at the compass – we were facing east when we left so all I had to do was turn the rudder until the compass was pointing north and then keep it there.
Rain was pounding against the windshield and the sound of the water ticking against the glass was all I could hear … then I heard the CIWS guns go off. The initial joy of surviving everything that had just happened was making me smile like crazy while trying to hold the wheel steady. When I heard the guns, I recognized them immediately … there’s no other sound like that. The smile dropped off of my face.
The sound of the rain against the glass returned and then I heard it again. ZhhhbbBRaap! With the sounds of our engines to drown it out, I had no idea where the pirates were. I didn’t know if they were on the far side of the colony or if they were right next to us getting ready to board. They could be twenty feet away pointing a gun at my face and I wouldn’t be able to see it in this weather. In the excitement I totally forgot about them but now I was terrified. We’d left the safety of the Colony, such as it was, and now we were just one big bright cork floating in the ocean. Would they come after us?
We were moving north and the Colony lights were barely visible through our right windows. Not much was showing through the darkness and rain but a burst of fire caught my attention. I watched the line of tracers again disappear far out into the water. I guess you could tell that they were pointing away from you because you could see a line of them. I wouldn’t want to know what they look like when they come straight at you.
“How do they know where to shoot?” Madison asked.
“They must have night vision,” I said. The difficulty of steering the boat kept me distracted and I ended up ignoring the next few bursts. “Wish I knew what was going on.”
“Don’t you have the radio that talks to the Phoenix?” she asked. Oh yeah, the ship-to-ship intercom … I forgot about that. They issued a bunch of walkie-talkie and console sets to people a while back and Dad made us learn how to use them. If you had to talk with Pac Fish, using the radios was a lot better and faster than tramping around the docks to deliver a message. I had her look for it while I kept my eyes on the darkness outside. It’s a big ocean but who knows what was out there in all this? We had a GPS unit mounted to the console – I farted around with that for a few minutes to figure out how it worked. After a few minutes I had the display working correctly. We were east of San Nicolas Island and south of the Channel Islands. We wouldn’t have to worry about rocks or anything for a while.
I heard a lot of noise behind me. Now that the Horner was moving, we had a new problem I hadn’t thought much about. Since she was, as I mentioned, a big, dirty bunkhouse … we didn’t have a lot of secured storage. All the dishes piled in the sink had slid out to explode onto the floor of the galley. In the salon, all kinds of clothes and junk were swimming back and forth on the deck. I could hear the contents of the Junk Room crashing around below. Since I was in the Captain’s chair, the motion of the ship didn’t really bother me. Once you left that chair, though, you were subject to all kinds of things to stub a toe or bang a shin on. The galley cabinets popped open and merrily dumped cans of food all over the place. No time to worry about it now.
Madison had to use her hands to steady herself while she looked for the radio. Two geological ages later she returned holding the little console radio as her prize. “Not sure how well it’ll work,” I said. “Supposed to be good for two miles and I know we haven’t gone that far.” The batteries were still good and it as soon as it crackled to life we found out how things were going back home … back on the Colony.
“Pirates bearing 315 … forward gun, do you see it? About 1500 yards?”
“I see it, stand by…” I turned to look at the sudden shaft of pink light that appeared through the rain.
“There’s another” – we heard them say – “closer to us at 180.” Another line, this time from the other side of the ship, appeared and then sank out of sight. So far, the pirates were attacking from the north and south ends of the Colony. I was silently applauding whoever decided to attack from where we weren’t. I turned the boat to face farther east and get us away from the action. The calls of ‘pirates sighted’ and responding bursts were coming faster now and we continued listening to the radio as it all happened.
“Gotta keep these bursts short … only call out the ones we can hit.”
“They’re getting closer to E-ring now, is it time to sink the ships?”
“Give it a few more minutes … did I see a ship leave?”
“Yeah … I saw one. Idiots were out there on the E-ring … they must have been there the entire time.”
“Which boat was it-new contact on zero-niner-six!” An answering ‘got it’ and burst from the CIWS followed this announcement. I realized that they had seen us and if they were going to sink the E-Ring, we got out of there just in time … maybe with only minutes to spare. So far – contact was north and south and I knew that wouldn’t last. I eased the throttles up to move faster but even then, I knew we wouldn’t be out of the danger zone before morning. No sleepy-time for Jim-Jim tonight. The radio crackled again.
“Was that Rick’s boat? The Horner?” My heart leaped into my throat when I heard the question.
“Yeah … think so. His kids are on board the Phoenix, right?”
“We’re checking…” A few minutes from now – they would realize we that we were not aboard the Phoenix. What would we do then? The grumbling of the engines was becoming hypnotic and I noticed Madison’s eyes beginning to droop. The full scope of everything that had happened hit me like a wave … all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep.
In between the contact reports, I could hear that they were still looking for us. “The Horner C crew isn’t in the mall with the rest of the civilians.”
“Roger that – coordinate with Rick and do a sweep of the entire ship.”
Rick … they must be referring to the Trash Man. The Security team would eventually figure out that we were the people they saw leaving on the Horner. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about it but other people could. Pacific Fisheries had several colonies along the coast north of here. We were not out of the woods yet.
I pushed it out of my mind and continued piloting the boat in the storm. The rain lashed against the windscreen and I could hear the rough water slapping into the hull. Late at night on a dark sea with no one to talk to is the perfect time to imagine every worse-case scenario you can think of. I kept thinking of the fiberglass hull parting under the heavy seas and leaving us with half of a life-jacket to cling to.
Madison brought me a raggedy old t-shirt and held the wheel while I mopped the drying blood off of my face. I
spat dried blood out … My mouth tasted like I had been sucking on rusty metal. I checked my loose teeth again and was grateful to find that none of them felt loose after all. I had simply imagined it.
For the next hour the boat pushed north on the same course as that run to Mugu Rock last year with Mitch. The radio had better range than advertised … we were able to continue listening to the Battle of the Phoenix. Every time we heard the “contact!” and “got it” calls … someone was dying. Even if he was a pirate – he was still a person. How are you supposed to feel about that? The sound of the CIWS guns faded out after a while and that was fine with me. I never wanted to hear that sound again as long as I lived.
“We’re losing the battle, chief.”
“I know it – set condition Delta.”
“Condition Delta, sir?”
“Yes…remove D-ring.”
I started to cry when I heard that. They were going to shred every boat that was still moored on D-ring and E-Ring to create a buffer between themselves and the boarding pirates. They may not have guns as powerful as the ones mounted on the Phoenix but they were a hundred times more mobile. That old tub was powerful but it couldn’t corner like an old Sea-Doo. It was just a matter of time before someone slipped in with explosives or took aim with a surplus bazooka round.
But still … they were going to do this? They were going to destroy people’s homes? This is where our friends lived. I know some of them are weirdos but most of them were good people who didn’t deserve this. Everything I knew about the Colony, even what I hoped would remain after the Meltdown, was gone forever.
I know the Colony wasn’t much to begin with. My initial impression of the place was to call it ‘the garbage on top of the water.’ That’s how everyone describes it when they first arrive. You have to look for a while to see how people relied on each other and to see the community. Ethan, Stacy’s Dad, was the one who got started talking about how the Colony was a boom town ‘from a social standpoint.’
“A what?” I had asked.
“A boom town. Like in the Gold Rush Days,” he replied. Back then, he had explained, towns could grow overnight when they discovered gold and disappear just as quickly. It takes a certain type of personality mixed with drive and weirdness to carve out a living in a place like this. People have to be willing to live and operate in a way they had never known before. “It’s always a surprise to me,” Ethan had said, “that people could abandon something they had worked so hard to create.”
“But they do,” I said. He nodded and took a sip of the beer he was holding.
We were sitting in wheelhouse of a boat that was part of a failed social experiment. We were leaving it and our friends behind to face an uncertain future. On top of that, our neighbors were in danger because of things that my father had done. The sum total of the loss and the shame of how things were ending brought the tears to my eyes. I couldn’t help feeling very glad that we were away from the immediate danger. I couldn’t help feeling very guilty, too.
I looked to my left and saw that Madison’s eyes were drooping. Knowing how tired I was, I was afraid that if she dropped off I would fall asleep as well. Stopping for the night was out of the question. That might give the pirates all the time they needed to catch up to us. “Talk to me, Mad,” I said sharply as she was about to doze off. She jumped and sat up, rubbing her eyes really hard.
“I’m tired,” she complained.
“Me, too. We can’t go to sleep yet … I need you to talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Anything – just pick a topic. I need you to talk to me so I can stay awake and we can get away.”
“Can’t I get 20 minutes?” she whined.
“If I go to sleep, we sink or we get boarded by pirates,” I replied. Madison’s eyes widened in fear. “Talk to me … about anything.” She let a few moments go by in silence and I looked toward her in frustration. “Well?”
“Why do you have to get drunk all the time?” she asked. Ouch.
Trust your sister to find the one thing you don’t want to talk about right after you get through telling her that she has to talk to you about anything. Classic. I put my head down on the cool aluminum of the helm and groaned. Is this what they mean by ‘be careful what you wish for?’ She wouldn’t accept a groan for an answer.
“Well?” she mimicked me. Very annoying.
“I don’t know.” I kept my eyes on the windshield so I wouldn’t have to see her staring holes through me.
“Where are we?” she asked.
I looked at the GPS. “About ten miles north of the colony.”
“Are there any islands out here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why do you do it, then?”
“Do what?”
“Drink.” I grumbled again and asked her to find me a Coke or something. She dropped away wordlessly and disappeared. I wish Madison hadn’t brought it up. The drinking was something that I did and then didn’t do and after it happened it was like I had been watching someone else. Getting drunk or high was like taking a vacation from me. It felt so out of character to me that it was like I was watching it happen to someone else.
But what did all that mean? I’d get hammered and then I didn’t want to drink ever again … until the next time. What was wrong with me? I got depressed thinking about all the mistakes that my Dad had made. What would keep me from following in the same loser path that he was on? Dad’s little scams had graduated from painfully embarrassing to irresponsible and dangerous. He clearly hadn’t been thinking about us when he did it. Dad was doing what he did best: thinking about himself. Madison reappeared with an open can of Coke that we could share. I reached for it and she pulled it back, taking a sip first. Then she held it out of my reach … I knew what was coming.
“So?” She wasn’t about to give this up.
“I don’t know why I drink,” I said, half in frustration and half in surrender. I admitted to my little sister the thing I wasn’t able to say to myself or anyone else before: I had no idea why I drank. “I don’t know why I do it and I’m sorry every time.” I looked at her and then added, “You should know that I love you more than I like to drink but sometimes it ain’t enough.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. The older I get the harder it becomes,” I said. “The older you get the more you see that everyone else makes excuses. Excuses for not trying hard enough … excuses for giving up when you know you can keep going. Everyone does it … even Mom.” Madison was aghast.
“No she doesn’t!”
“Sure she does.”
“She does not.”
“Does, too.”
“Whatever…” She gave me a dirty look and we continued on in silence. This was frustrating because I was fighting fatigue and I knew she was, too. In the back of my head were all the problems that could still be waiting for us. We were definitely out here with no protection and no help. It’s terrifying at any age but I was 15. I was a kid. What made me think I could do this?
It’s times like this that I usually get dark and depressed about everything. Anyone would have trouble surviving the last few hours like we did. Would they also have the crushing weight of their own problems making them feel like this was going to be yet another item in a long list of failures? All of this negative junk was making me upset and Madison could see it in my face. Falling apart was definitely not an option right now.
Stop it, I told myself sternly. Whatever else happens, you still managed to get away. You and your sister are still alive because of that. Dad would often say that ‘hindsight is 20/20.’ I guess I’ll know better for the next time me and Madison have to bust out of a fishing colony ahead of a bunch of Mexican pirates. In case you’re wondering: yes, I am being sarcastic.
I had to knock off this constant stewing in my own juices and just try to do the right thing now. That was the only way we were going to get through all of this. I pushed all of the mental debate out of my mi
nd and checked our heading, the GPS and the depth finder. I wanted to know if we were about to run this old tub up on the rocks.
As time passed, I felt calmer. I was piloting the boat, I could see my compass and my GPS … we were doing okay. I had done well so far and I would probably be able to handle whatever came after this. What would getting upset accomplish, anyway? I was a teenager steering a boat for the first time, a beat-up yacht, in a horrible storm. Of course I was having a hard time … this is a hard problem.
All of the negative stuff in my head gradually dropped off. It didn’t matter whether I sucked or not - I had to do this because no one else could. Our lives were in my hands. The thought got me out of my slacker funk and focused on the problem of saving our necks.
On the radio, the Colony was dying. They turned our friend’s boats into confetti but the pirates kept coming. When I had a second, I leaned my head as far as I could out to the starboard to see if I could see anything. There was an orange glow on the horizon. That had to be the E and D-Rings sinking into the ocean.
We listened to the fight as long as we were in range of the radio. The pirates boarded and among other things, they were looking for Dad. When they couldn’t find him or the Horner, they started trying to fight their way aboard the Phoenix. Security tried to hold them off but the pirates weren’t leaving this time. I guess there was some vicious fighting at the A-Ring gangway. The Dixie Star was somehow damaged or sunk in the process. I couldn’t make much sense of it from what they were screaming to each other. Finally, someone on board the Phoenix decided that enough was enough.
They cut loose their moorings … the big crossbars that attached the Phoenix to the rest of the Colony and then, they gunned the engines. It must have been quite a sight to see: that big old iron hulk smashing through docks and boats. The Phoenix was a military ship – a destroyer – and it was designed to take a beating. I didn’t have to be there to imagine the shriek of metal on metal as it cut through the docks.
Flotilla Page 26