by Anna Burke
Nasrin opened the door a few held breaths later. We trudged after her again. Twice more we were forced to hide before we made it to the hatch into the docking bay.
“This is where it gets tricky,” Nasrin said. “I’ll go first. Reya, stay here.”
Nasrin cranked the hatch. The smell of salt water wafted in, and I took a deep breath. Silence.
“How many—” Miranda asked, but Reya held her finger to her lips. Soft voices, then a thump. Reya winced.
“It was supposed to be clear,” she said. “Fuck.”
Nasrin reappeared with a strained expression on her face and motioned for us to hurry. The docking bay was a cavernous space. Water filled the lower half, and the blurred outlines of ships bobbed on the surface. Our trawler floated inconspicuously alongside them. Nasrin paused beside the body of a person I vaguely recognized.
“Is she dead?” asked Miranda.
“No.” Regret dripped from Nasrin’s voice. “But she saw me. I had to knock her out.”
Having been knocked out myself, I felt a rush of sympathy for the girl on the floor.
“It’s your call,” said Miranda.
Nasrin rubbed one of her tattoos. It was too dark to see which one, and I tried to coerce Miranda’s words into sense. What was Nasrin’s call?
“I can’t trust that Dani will forget,” said Nasrin.
“I wouldn’t ask you to come with us. You’d be giving everything up. As I said, it’s your call. I’m no longer captain of this ship.”
The kid’s face was soft in her forced sleep. She couldn’t have been much older than seventeen.
Nasrin nodded to herself before speaking. “I knew the risks.”
Reya clasped Nasrin’s arm but didn’t speak. Maybe she was worried Dani would recall her voice.
“Thank you,” Miranda said to Reya. Reya wiped tears from her cheeks with a furious swipe and put her palm to Miranda’s. They stood like that for a long moment: Miranda, hair mussed but spine straight, and Reya, fighting her emotions with a trembling lip.
“Come on.” Nasrin herded the rest of us toward the trawler. The hatch opened at her knock, and I saw Finn’s sober face waiting. Harper descended first. I followed, with Orca and Kraken taking up the rear. Miranda and Nasrin came shortly after.
“Reya will open the seadoor,” said Nasrin. “Then we’re on our own.”
“Rose, navigation. Harper, bridge.”
Harper leapt to obey. Miranda helped me down the familiar tight hallway through the cramped common area, small hydrofarm, storage room—and at last, the helm. It could hardly be called a bridge. Just two chairs and clear plex, which currently looked out into black water. Biolights outlined the seadoor.
I sat. Miranda took the wheel and guided the ship toward the door as it creaked open, her face a mask of flickering blue light. The Sea Cat blocked our view of Man o’ War as we sped into the open ocean. I longed to look back anyway. That ship—that fucking ship—had given me Miranda, but it had taken more than its share of my blood in return. I hurt everywhere. My head and my throat and my bruised body screamed at me to find the nearest hole and hide so I could at least close my burning eyes.
“Can you get us a heading?” Miranda asked. “We’ll need to stay off Ching’s radar until we’re far enough away to—”
“Miranda.” She stopped talking at the flat tone in my voice. I stared out the plex at the fathomless deeps. All that, and for what? “I can’t navigate.”
“What do you mean, you can’t navigate?”
I didn’t dare turn to her. My compass spun and spun, unable to settle, unable to align, just like the nightmares that had haunted my childhood. “I haven’t been able to since the attack.”
Chapter Eleven
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Miranda spun my chair—I’d forgotten that feature of the helm—and forced me to look her in the eyes.
“Because I’m your navigator. Your navigator, Mere.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
I stared at my lap. Her hand cupped my chin and tilted it inexorably up. I braced myself for her anger, aware that after all the times I’d accused her of lying to me, I deserved it. Instead, her lips landed on mine, gentle and chapped. I froze in surprise. She pulled away after a moment and settled back in her chair.
“This is my fault.”
I made a sound of protest.
“You really think it matters to me, after everything, whether you can navigate?”
“I—”
“Neptune, Rose.” She shook her head. “You deserve better than me.”
“What?”
The twisted smile on her lips was somber. “I failed you. I failed everyone, but you—I was supposed to protect you, and I’ve hurt you more ways than I can count.”
Dehydrated and exhausted as I was, her words still managed to break me. “You haven’t.”
It was a lie—she had hurt me, over and over, and I’d hurt her. This life allowed for little else. Still, the remorse in every line of her body was a balm, and I let it soothe me as we sailed deeper into the night.
“We’ll navigate the old-fashioned way. Stars and charts. But you—if I’d lost you—” Her voice broke.
“You didn’t.”
“I’m so bad at this. At loving you. I want—” She couldn’t finish, and her sharp inhale carried an edge of tears.
“You’re perfect.”
She wasn’t. I wasn’t. That didn’t matter right now as her world collapsed around her. My world remained, because everything and everyone I needed was with me on this ship.
“Fuck. Rose, what am I going to do?” Biolight flickered along the strong curve of her jaw, which she’d clenched so hard I feared she’d crack it.
“We’ll figure it out.”
“My ship—”
“Is gone.” I hadn’t intended on being so blunt. My head ached, and my heart ached, and everything had gone so wrong. “But we’re alive.”
I reached for her hand and wound my fingers through hers. She squeezed them, and I thought about the first time I’d seen her. She’d looked untouchable, and desire had eclipsed me like a summer storm. I thought of all that had happened since. Annie. The Gulf. Orca. Kissing Miranda on the deck of the Sea Cat beneath the endless sky. Choosing her, over and over again, regardless of the cost.
“Besides,” I said, the words rising from a place beyond the reach of my damaged brain. “I don’t think anyone really deserves anything. We take what we can get.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall. Days of imprisonment sent a last stab of adrenaline through my body, warning me danger was near, but it was just Nasrin. “Water and some crackers. Kraken’s cooking something for later.”
We accepted the flasks and the crackers. I softened the over-salted wafers in my mouth with water before swallowing, as my throat was too sore for their rough edges. Sugar hit my bloodstream and some of the haze around my vision cleared. I focused on the water beyond the helm. The small compass on the dash pointed east.
“We should go south,” I said, tapping it.
Miranda didn’t argue. She adjusted our course and drank her water slowly, probably wishing it was rum.
“Will she send someone after us?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
I heard the undercurrents in her voice. She didn’t know, because she’d underestimated Ching, and she could never be sure of her again. Her lapse in judgment had cost her everything.
Well, not everything. The trawler hummed, and the sound was familiar and welcome. Something equally familiar brushed against my leg.
“Seamus.” Miranda scooped him into her arms and clutched him to her chest, her eyes closing as she buried her face in his ruff. He purred loudly enough to overpower the sounds of the ship. I watched them for a while. Miranda, stroking her cat. Seamus, fat and content, kneading her arm with his large orange paws. His tail flicked periodically.
We were on our own. This trawler was no longer a vessel used for missions, irritating
in its claustrophobic confines but convenient for its speed and camouflage, and easily forgotten once we returned to the main ship. Now, it was our world entire, presuming we escaped any boats Ching sent after us. And Nasrin—had she really known the risk of helping us? What about Reya? What would Ching do to her if her role in our escape came to light?
••••
With the ship on autopilot and subbed at a depth I hoped would bring us near a swarm of camouflaging siphonophores, Miranda and I trudged down the hall to the common area at Kraken’s summons. I stared at the table. Roaches, boiled and smelling like heaven, sat on beds of seaweed. Orca, Harper, Finn, and Nasrin already sat around the table. Kraken handed me and Miranda plates and motioned for us to squeeze in as best we could.
I fell upon the food like a shark. The roach’s meat was tender and sweet and salty, and I cracked the carapace with my hands to suck out the tender flesh. Even Orca dug in with the enthusiasm of the starved. The seaweed crunched between my teeth. Food. Why had I ever taken it for granted?
Kraken poured small measures of rum for everyone but me. When I looked at him, blinking blearily, he tapped his head. “You’re in no shape to drink.”
“Well,” said Finn, finishing his dinner and looking around at us. “Just like old times. You all look like squid shit.”
“Thanks,” said Orca. Harper remained quiet at her side, holding her injured hand out of the way as she struggled to eat with her left.
It wasn’t like old times, though. Jeanine was dead. Finn met my eyes and smiled sadly.
“We all need to rest,” said Kraken. “But we’ll have to do it in shifts until we’re clear. Captain?”
Eyes turned expectantly to Miranda, who ate stolidly, more machine than woman as she chewed.
“I’m stepping down.”
“The fuck you are,” said Orca.
She chewed, swallowed, and looked up. “Fine. Then here is my last order: elect a new captain from amongst yourselves.”
Silence rang around the table, punctuated by the sound of Miranda tossing back the rum and setting her cup down on the chipped surface.
“No,” said Orca.
“As first mate, you’re acting captain until then.”
Orca gaped. I didn’t know what to say. Miranda’s hand was on my thigh beneath the table, and her grip was steady. She was sure in her decision. Harper nodded slowly, and to my surprise, so did Kraken.
“As you wish,” he said. “Orca, arrange the shifts.”
“But—” She paused and beseeched Miranda one last time.
Miranda gestured for Kraken to pour more rum.
“Okay. Finn, Nasrin—you’re in better shape than the rest of us. Finn, take the helm. Nasrin, you’re on call if anything goes wrong.”
“I’m a bartender.”
“Now you’re general crew. Shadow Finn and Harper and learn what they do. Do you have any experience in hydroponics?”
“More than in engineering.”
“Then you’ll also help Kraken in the grow tanks. The rest of you, get some sleep. What’s our heading?”
This last was directed at me. “South.”
“Just south?”
“For now, just south, and keep us low.”
“I’ll clear up,” said Nasrin. She stood, and next to Kraken she looked small—despite the fact that her biceps dwarfed my thighs.
The bunks beyond the common room were narrow and designed for one. I made for the berth I’d slept in before, but Miranda caught my arm and pulled me down beside her. Seamus leapt up to make a place for himself between our feet as she tugged the curtain over the alcove.
We still stank. We were still lost. But as she covered us with a light hemp blanket and tucked her arm around my ribs, I felt momentarily anchored.
••••
Life aboard the Sea Cat settled into a pattern. By night I checked our progress against the stars and compared it to the charts, my hands clumsy on the tools and my brain still slow to function. I woke in the afternoons with Miranda, who shared the night shift with me, and we took inventory. Kraken’s foresight and Nasrin’s intervention had supplied us with most of what a small craft needed: breeding pairs of roaches, stable algae stocks, 3-D printer, clothing, rum and a still to make more, grow tanks filled with seaweed, clothing, soap, and, of course, a cat to deal with any furry stowaways.
Harper’s wound, however, was a problem. The one thing we didn’t have an immediate supply of was antibiotics. She removed the bandage our first full day. It stuck to her skin. Beneath, the red stump of her finger was dark with gore, and I saw bone. I tore my eyes away. I could not plug my ears from her curses. She growled as Kraken washed her finger first with boiled water, then an iodine scrub, but the skin around the site was redder than I thought it should be.
“How long until we have a penicillin culture?” I asked Kraken when we were out of earshot of Harper and Orca.
“At least a week.” His expression was grim, and he frowned at the bloody cloth. “And if it gets into her bloodstream, she might not have that long.”
“At least we know how to make it, now,” I said. He’d wrested the supplies from the main ship over the prior weeks, and I could have kissed him for his foresight.
“Let’s hope so.”
We were in the small galley kitchen off the common area, which was barely big enough for Kraken, let alone us both. I checked no one was nearby. “Miranda’s serious about stepping down.”
“I know.”
“But she’s—”
“Let her be. There are limits to what a person can lose.”
“Then who should we vote for?”
“That’s up to you.” He ruffled my hair and pulled clean boiled bandages out of the water with a pair of tongs. “Just as long as it’s not me.”
“You’d be a good captain.”
“As I said—as long as it’s not me.”
Ching’s ships did not appear behind us, and as the days passed and we saw no one, I began to hope that at least that problem was temporarily resolved. Tending to the trawler required all of our efforts. Miranda worked as hard as the rest of us, scrubbing the floors and the tanks and taking her turn cleaning up, along with assisting me in navigation. She rarely spoke. At night she held me, and while on Man o’ War she’d slept in my arms, content to be vulnerable only in sleep, I let her cling to me now and clasped her hand in mine over my breast. I knew without asking that her embrace was an apology. I should have protected you, it said, and I failed.
I knew the feeling. Finn’s forced cheer haunted me now as surely as Jeanine’s disembodied head had haunted me in the days following her passing.
Sometimes the heat of her stirred a part of me that had been broken with my head wound, but there was something too vulnerable about her lips on my shoulder as she slept. I let the longing pass. Things were not fixed between us yet.
And Harper grew worse.
••••
“Call a vote,” Miranda said to Orca over the evening meal, which for me and her was the first of the day.
“Not yet.” Orca glanced at Harper, whose eyes had a feverish shine. “I can’t focus.”
“All the more reason to call a vote.”
“She’s got a point,” said Kraken. “We’ve had time to think about it, and the sooner we elect a captain, the better for all of us. Harp included.”
“How does a vote work?” asked Harper. Was I imagining a scratch in her voice? A catch in her lungs?
“Normally, someone’s nominated. But I say we just cast lots. No offense, but no one’s going to nominate anyone with you here, Miranda.” Finn looked to Miranda for confirmation.
“Lots are fine.” Her hands didn’t shake. Was she really going to let this happen?
“Great. Here’s how it works. Everyone gets . . .” he cast around, and then reached for his chopsticks. “A lot. Put it in the cup of the person you want. We’ll vote one at a time, privately.”
It seemed fair enough. I select
ed a chopstick and looked around at my crew, trying to imagine one of them as my new captain. I couldn’t. Miranda was my captain. Nobody else had demanded my loyalty in love and blood, though Orca had certainly shed her fair share of it in the ring. Voting for anyone besides Miranda felt wrong on every level. I decided I’d wait to see who the others chose and go with the general consensus.
“Rose, you first,” said Orca.
Damn.
The empty common room felt even smaller than normal with its battered table and chairs. Miranda had overturned her cup. I brushed the cool plex of its base with my finger. I both understood her decision and yet didn’t. She felt as if she’d failed so completely she no longer deserved the title, but wasn’t turning it down a form of surrender? Miranda Stillwater didn’t just give up. I refused to believe this had broken her. Fuck Ching. Miranda would be back. In the meantime, I had no choice but to play along. The bamboo chopstick slid over my fingers as I tapped it against my thigh.
Kraken had asked me not to vote for him. Nasrin was a bartender, and while I liked her, she didn’t know enough to captain a ship and hadn’t planned on coming with us in the first place. Plus, even though she’d freed us, she’d also put us in the brig in the first place. Finn was a brilliant translator, but not commanding, and still wounded from grief. Harper—Harper was a leader. I hesitated, my stick absurdly heavy in my hands. Harper or Orca. My best friend or my . . . whatever Orca was to me.
I’d sailed beneath Orca on this ship before. That, more than anything, settled my mind. My stick landed in her cup with a hushed clatter, and I left the room.
One by one, my crewmates filed in to cast their votes. I toyed with the ring on Miranda’s hand. Orca would be chosen. There was no other logical choice, though Kraken was a viable second. It had to be Orca.
Miranda voted last. She pulled her hand free from mine and walked into the common room, shutting the hatch behind her. We waited in the hall.
“I forgot to say, if you elect me, I’m taking away your rum ration,” Kraken said.
“Good thing I didn’t vote for you then,” said Orca. I wondered who she had voted for. Harper? Herself? I’d never asked if that was an option—not that I would have put a lot in my own cup. Only an idiot would elect me, damaged as I was.