Hurricane Fever (6 page)

“They coming right at us,” Delroy shouted through the cabin at Roo, right before he reached the door leading out to the front decks.

Roo zipped the suit up. “Shut the door. Do
not
come out front.”

Delroy did so, and then Roo slid the door leading out front open with a grunt. The wind hit him, shoved him back off his feet for a second as it battered the bright orange suit.

He leaned forward into it. As usual, it felt like sticking his head out of a car on a highway. He had to strain to slide the door shut behind him, then he leaned into the driving rain as he staggered up the deck.

Forty-mile-an-hour raindrops stung his face. But it was the gusts that he had to watch out for. Sudden blasts of air that would knock him back on his ass if he wasn’t careful. Take him right overboard if he was unlucky.

He crouch-walked his way along the netting and looked up through the howling, painful rain as he got to the starboard bow’s windlass.

A bowsprit glinted, catching light cast by still-standing streetlights from the road leading down to the bay. The bowsprit was a stainless-steel spear of platform and railing that jutted out from in front of the motorboat coming right at the
Spitfire
.

“Not this ship,” Roo said as he gauged the direction of the incoming, storm-powered missile. “She ain’t yours to have.”

He pulled a carbon-fiber machete out from where it was strapped in a holster next to the
Spitfire
’s own stainless-steel bowsprit. The edge, microscopically thin and diamond hard, could cut through anything on the ship. He kept it up here to cut through fallen rigging, even a mast, in weather like this.

Roo cut through the anchor chain on the deck with a hard chop. The metal links parted and rattled off across the deck into the water.

The anchor off to the side, stopping them from swinging around, took up the tension. The spidersilk rope snapped tight and threw off drops of water.

The motorboat lolled, drifting with the surge of roiling water coming in through the cut. The bow dipped and the ship yawed, not quite making up its mind where it was going.

Roo stared at it. Waiting, waiting. Watching the ship grow larger and larger, waiting for that gut feeling …

… there. He chopped the rope, burying the machete into the deck a little and swearing.

Spitfire,
no longer held in place by the starboard anchors, swung in an arc to port. Roo yanked the machete free of the deck and sprinted back to the netting. He bounded over and across to the port bow and windlass.

He let the chain out, leaving the port anchor over to their side take the full brunt of holding the catamaran in place.

The maneuver swung them even farther away from the wild boat in the dark. It roared past, fifteen feet on the starboard side, a ghost ship that madly flung itself into the mangrove roots just behind them. And that was where it remained, waves holding it in place as they slammed against the side of its hull.

Roo relaxed for a moment, until he saw the forty-foot monohull coming in next. It was driven toward them by the same waves that had hurled the motorboat at them.

For a moment it looked like it would swing right on past them as well.

But then it shifted course. Almost like it knew where to go.

“No no no no.” Roo tried to will the yacht away from them as the red hull, lit up by the jagged streaks of lightning, swept closer.

It turned at the last second, giving Roo a stupid sort of hope. It crossed their bows, a sleek sailing ship out of control and ungraceful with its sides to the waves.

And then hit the anchor chain.

“Ras
…” Roo swore.

Spitfire
jerked and shivered. The spidersilk, strong as it was, still twanged and shot apart, cut clean by the other ship’s keel. Then it snapped loudly enough to rival the thunder.

But the chain held.

The other ship, its rudder tangled up in the chain, spun so that it faced the mangroves. Side to side, the
Spitfire
and the monohulled yacht slammed against each other. Fiberglass shrieked and tore. Crunching sounds shivered through the portside hull of the catamaran as Roo ran up to the bowsprit.

It was three seconds, and an eternity, before he reached the anchor chain and cut it loose.

The chain yanked free, a section of it flailing back like a mace and striking him.

The wind knocked out of him, ribs bruised or possibly worse, Roo fell back into the netting between the catamaran’s hulls. Freed of all restraints both ships spun as they swept toward the mangroves, still locked in their creaking, hull-ripping embrace.

He needed to get back to the cockpit and use the engines to pull them free. They could spend a night up against the mangrove roots. But not with another ship on top of them, he thought. But Roo struggled to draw a full breath.

And then, Roo saw the two masts above him strike.
Spitfire
’s shivered and gonged. But the other ship’s mast had had enough abuse for the night. It just splintered.

It broke in a half, upper section dropping right for the net.

Roo scrambled back, machete still in hand and held out like a shield as he got clear.

This was bad. This was really bad.

The mast punctured the netting. But Roo was already up and on the port deck. Shattered glass exploded from the front-facing parts of the cabin. One of the spreaders on the mast punctured the port deck.

Bound together in the embrace of rigging and mast, they all swept into the muck of the mangroves.

Roo shoved his way along the railing, rabidly chopping with the machete at the debris on deck. The rigging was easy, on his hands and knees he got most of that cut away and thrown over into the now-empty space where the netting had been. Getting the mast was like chopping down a tree, though. He hacked at it for a solid minute, lost in a world of piercing rain, wind that slammed and howled at him, and the steady sounds of violent crunches, until the damn thing parted with a screech.

Roo slid mast and rigging off the deck and down into the water between the two bows where the netting had once stretched.

As he pushed the last length of mast away, the other boat slammed into them again. Roo, leaning hard to push debris, fell forward. He grabbed the ruined remains of netting dangling from the deck to stop himself from plunging into the water between the
Spitfire
’s hulls.

His feet dangled for a moment, and he strained, trying to pull himself back up on deck. But it was wet, and slippery. Every time he got a good handhold the ships collided, knocking him back down.

His back ached from all the cutting and shoving. His fingers quivered.

Maybe, Roo thought, he should let go and spend his strength swimming for the mangroves.

A hand grabbed his wrist. Roo looked up as Delroy pulled him up onto the deck. The boy had pulled the top part of his survival suit off and was soaking wet, but he’d done that to put on a pair of gecko-finger gloves.

“I told you to
stay in the cockpit!
” Roo shouted at him. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

Delroy held up both gloved hands in reply. “Even this wind couldn’t knock me off the mast if I climbed up with these.”

Roo pushed him toward the cabin.

Delroy was right. The bio-mimicry in the gloves kept you stuck hard to anything, as long as you pressed the gloves to the surface in the right way. Delroy was always using them to goof around, climbing the mast to jump off into the water.

“You need to listen to me,” Roo said in the main cabin. The soaking wet main cabin. The wind blew rain in through the shattered front windows.

“I could see you in trouble,” Delroy said. “Say what you want; I couldn’t just stand and watch you hanging there.”

And they didn’t have time to argue further. They were staggering around as the other ship slapped hard against theirs. Roo passed into the cockpit and flicked the engines on.

In full reverse he scraped and shuddered away from the other boat. Once free, it blundered into the mangroves, and Roo let
Spitfire
do the same.

The mangrove roots, though, had give and flexibility. The catamaran bounced off them as the waves shoved them.

“Pull your suit all the way on,” Roo warned Delroy. “Leave the gloves.”

And then he ran down into the
Spitfire,
flicking on lights and destroying his night vision as he looked for leaks. None of the sensors scattered all throughout the bilges were pinging the cockpit with alarms, so that was good.

Most of the damage looked like it was above the waterline. A puncture here or there. The plastic weaves mixed in the fiberglass on the modern hull had flexed, most of the horrible sounds had come from the other ship.

Roo let out a deep breath and climbed back up to the cockpit.

The winds had fallen. The storm, just in the last hour of madness, moving on.

Then the water alarms started pinging with gentle urgency. In the cockpit a schematic of the ship showed leaks in the port hull, forward and middle.

“We taking on water?” Delroy asked. “Should we get in the dinghy and head for the mangroves?”

The catamaran began to automatically pump water out of the bilges. Roo squinted at the readouts.

They’d spent a night in the mangroves once. Last year. In a full hurricane. Far more windy than this. And it hadn’t been fun. Roo had resented every minute away from the ship.

“We’re in shallow water, already up against the roots with
Spitfire,
” he said finally. “Let’s keep the pumps running and stay put. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning, once the storm finishes blowing itself out. Come help me board up the cabin.”

Even taking on water, the catamaran had a lot of natural flotation built in. It would take more than a few holes to sink the
Spitfire
.

7

The worst of the tropical storm passed. The winds had died back; they’d screamed themselves hoarse.

Aboard the
Spitfire
the pumps strained, not built to keep up with this much water. There were two holes punched into the inner part of the port hull, a present from the end of the mast Roo had cut up and shoved overboard. It had gotten trapped in the shallow mud just under the two hulls, one end buried and the other waiting to skewer his boat.

But all that flotation built into the hull kept the hull buoyant. And the flow of water rushing in had a stabilized a bit.

“The wind died out,” Delroy noted. “What you want to do?”

Roo looked out at the harbor. Three yachts lying against the mangroves, and the motorboat half sunk in the mud. The calmed water looked safe.

“Motor us out into the middle of the inner harbor, and hold the position,” Roo said. “I’ll get the patch kit.”

Once he came back out from the storage lockers in the starboard hull, Roo found that Delroy had moved them away from the mangroves. It was risky, he thought, as he got into the dinghy with the duffel bag holding the patch kit. By the mangroves, the catamaran couldn’t sink more than a couple feet before grounding. The boat could always be rescued.

Out here, now, the only thing above the water would be a mast if the ship went all the way down.

Roo clipped a few emergency lights onto the side of the dinghy and pulled himself along the hulls.

He unzipped the emergency patch kit, and jammed the nozzle of what looked like a fire extinguisher into the two gashes. When he triggered it, foam gushed in, expanding quickly until it spilled back out of the broken hull and Roo stopped pumping it in.

The foam hardened up in minutes. Roo knocked at it with his hands, checking to make sure it was solid.

“How bad is it?” Delroy asked when Roo came back up and slid the door into the cockpit.

Roo grabbed his shoulders and smiled for the first time in hours. “We still afloat, right?”

Delroy grimaced, not quite playing along with Roo’s heartiness. But Roo could feel his nephew’s shoulder’s relax slightly.

He clapped him on the back of the neck. “It’s calm enough. We have a dinghy we can jump in if she starts to sink. Let’s see if we can get
Spitfire
up to Independent Boatyard in Brenner Bay.”

“The patch’ll take it?” Delroy asked, still seeking assurance.

“I don’t know,” Roo said, honestly. “We won’t know unless we try, and if the patches get knocked loose, we’ll turn back into a harbor and tie up. But I want to get
Spitfire
out the water. I want to start working to fix her. It might be the wrong decision, but it’s a decision. It’s better than sitting here waiting to see what comes next.”

He nudged Delroy out of the way and took the wheel, pointing
Spitfire
out of the inner harbor.

This time out he didn’t head back out to open water, but stayed between Water Island and Crown Bay, pumps still working at full capacity as they started emptying the bilges instead of struggling to keep up.

He spent all morning staying close to the coast as he passed Hassel Island and through Charlotte Amalie harbor itself. People were out, checking around. Cars moved along the harbor front road. Dinghies began to leave docks to motor out to anchored boats, concerned owners checking them over.

Damage on shore didn’t look too bad. Some downed trees. Power lines. Roo noticed some roofs missing solar tiles. The worst of it seemed to be the leaves, stripped bare of the trees. It left the island looking somewhat grayish.

Then it was past the cheerfully painted pastel-colored condos and the gleaming white hotel complex of Frenchman’s Reef, and farther along the coast, pumps and motors straining, until they reached Brenner’s and navigated through the increasingly browning water into the boatyard.

Roo greased a few palms ahead of time via e-mails and shuffled money, and by the time they arrived a massive crane on wheels waited by the haul-out slip for them.

By sunset
Spitfire
was up on wooden blocks in a corner of the boatyard, batteries all but dead from lack of sun and overuse, dripping water out from around the pieces of now dislodged foam.