Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) (11 page)

“All clear,” Zoe
said. She stayed by the door, knife in hand.

Esther went to the
porthole in the far wall and pushed it open a bit further. The portside
promenade was almost empty, as far as she could tell. There were a few men
toward the stern, but they weren’t looking her way. She pulled a long antenna
from the top of the satellite phone and stuck it as far out of the opening as
it would go. She dialed. The device emitted a high-pitched shriek. She switched
it off, almost dropping it in her haste, and held her breath, waiting to see if
anyone had noticed.

The promenade
outside the porthole was still clear. The men had moved farther aft. Esther
dialed again and pressed her face against the glass, ear to the speaker,
keeping the antenna as straight as possible. After a moment there was a click
and then a burst of static.

“Neal? Can you
hear me?” She wasn’t sure how the device was supposed to sound. She moved the
antenna as far out of the window as she could, trying to get a clear line of
sight to the sky. “Neal? Do you copy?”

“Esther! This is
Neal, over.”

“We’re on the
Terra
Firma.
You got a reading?”

“Give me a
sec—”

Esther felt the
ship swing in a slow, wide turn.

“Okay, I got you
about five miles southwest of the Coalition. That accurate?”

“No, we’re just
pulling out now,” Esther said. “You might be able to see us out the window.
Rust. I was hoping this would work.”

“It’s okay.
Give—”

Neal’s voice was
lost in the static.

“I lost you. Neal?
Neal?” Esther fiddled with the antenna, wondering if she should try calling
again.

The voice returned.

“. . . what I
said.”

“What? Didn’t
catch that. Repeat,” Esther said.

“Give me another
call in an hour,” Neal said, “and I’ll see if I can plot your movements. The
GPS map is off by a few miles, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use the info.”

He’d explained to
her how plotting their position by layering the coordinates over the skewed
satellite map would work. She wasn’t sure she understood it, but she trusted
him.

“All right. Anyone
know we’re gone yet?”

“Nope. I’ll wait
until you’re well away before I break the news,” Neal said.

“Thanks. We owe
you,” Esther said, breathing a little easier.

“Talk soon. And be
careful.”

Esther switched
off the satellite phone and pulled the antenna back in through the window. And
not a moment too soon. A green-clad crewman stomped along the promenade toward
the porthole. Esther closed it seconds before he passed.

When she had told
Neal she was going to join the Harvesters to rescue David, Neal had suggested
she take along one of the phones he had been working on with Marianna.

Most of the old
mapping data was useless, but Neal said Esther could at least contact the
Catalina
in an emergency. Not that anyone
on the
Catalina
would be able to do
much for her and Zoe of course, but Neal could also relay any news of the
Calderon Group to them. Maybe he’d hear something useful from one of his
contacts. Esther doubted the officers of the
Terra Firma
would share much information with her.

She put the
satellite phone deep in her pack and stuffed it as far underneath the bunk as
she could reach. The choking of the engines had cleared a bit. They were
underway. Zoe stretched her long limbs and returned her sharpened knife to her
belt.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,”
Esther said. “Let’s see how this piece of junk operates.”

Chapter 14—
Terra Firma

They reached the deck
in time to see the upper skeleton of the
Amsterdam
shrink behind the veil of
rain. Drizzle coated Esther’s face, cold and slick. She shivered, pulling her
jacket closer. There was no turning back now.

The
Terra Firma
pitched through the rough
seas, her deck brimming with shouts and activity. The main boom had come loose,
and sailors darted about, trying to secure it. The first mate yelled at them,
her voice hoarse. She quivered with energy, as if she could explode at any
moment. It only took two people to secure a boom, but there were four men on
the job, with a fifth hovering nearby. Other sailors milled around, like Esther
and Zoe, without any obvious duties. The crew seemed far too large. Esther
remembered Rachel saying the Harvesters had been recruiting.

The ship felt fast
after the slow drift of the
Catalina
, despite the seemingly poor
condition of the engines. They burst over the waves, feeling the slap of the
sea against the hull. The movement was exhilarating, but Esther couldn’t shake
the fear that they would be too late to help David. She wanted to shoot across
the water like a hydrofoil, give that Calderon ship no hope of escaping.

She wished David
were here. She wanted to know whether he thought the Harvesters were
trustworthy. How would he handle the first mate? What would he do to ingratiate
himself with Captain Alder? She couldn’t forget the way the captain’s face had
changed when she argued with him about bringing more companions. She would have
to be careful around him.

Esther and Zoe
stuck to the shelter of the upper deck and walked aft, hoping to avoid the
first mate. Under a suspended lifeboat, they found another dice game.

“Doesn’t anyone
work around here?” Esther muttered.

Luke was holding
court with Cody and half a dozen other young sailors. They reminded Esther of a
school of fish circling crumbs.

“Those bastards
are sneaky,” one of them was saying.

“You sure Rawlins
said we get to fight?”

“Come on, dude.
Tell us the whole story.”

Luke held up his
hands. “Now, now. One at a time.” He was obviously enjoying himself. “This is a
very important mission we’re on. And don’t you forget we’d still be floating at
the
Amsterdam
if
I
hadn’t brought it to the captain.”

“That’s whaleshit.
You were the errand boy,” said one of the men.

Luke tossed the
dice cup at him. “I’ll have you know it was my good
lifelong
friend who came looking for
me
and—”

Cody looked up
then. His round face went pink at the sight of Esther and Zoe.

“It’s the girls!”
he said.

“Hey, Luke. Cody.”

Esther leaned
against the lifeboat winch while Luke introduced them, shifting under the open
stares of the men. He rattled off a round of names, pointing at each sailor in
turn, but the only ones she remembered were Terrence and Patrick, because they
were the final two. All the men wore dyed green uniforms, and some, like Cody,
had added pockets or patches. She guessed that the oldest of the bunch was still
under thirty years old.

“Are you all
settled? Is there anything we can do for you?” Luke asked, directing his
question to Zoe.

She regarded him
without smiling, until he blushed and dropped his gaze.

“Do you know
anything about our duties?” Esther asked.

“Your first shift
is tomorrow morning,” Luke said. He retrieved the dice cup from where it had
rolled across the deck. “I checked. You can just chill for now.”

“Do you know how
far behind the Calderon ships we are?” Esther asked.

“Patrick reckons
we’ll catch ’em in a day or two.” Luke nodded toward the fair-haired,
square-jawed man nearest to them.

“That’s quick,”
Esther said. “The other ship had a big head start.”

“We’ve got the
advantage because people don’t normally give chase,” Patrick said. He had a
trace of an accent, possibly Australian. “Those Calderon guys won’t be
expecting us to fight back.”

“We’ll show them who’s
boss in the New Pacific,” said Cody.

“Damn right we
will,” Luke said.

Patrick high-fived
him, and the other men hollered their agreement.

“Good,” Esther said.
At least they were enthusiastic.

“You guys have a
lot of fighting experience?” Zoe asked.

A flash of color
filled Luke’s cheeks. “We . . . Some of the men were involved in the
territorial skirmishes before the Harvesters swamped the competition. That was
before I joined up.”

“How about the
rest of you?” Zoe asked.

“I’m new too,”
Cody said, twirling the dice around in his fingers. The dice bore several deep
scratches that must surely affect their balance.

“We’re all new
recruits,” said one of the other sailors, whose name Esther couldn’t remember.

“So you don’t know
how to attack and board another ship?” Zoe asked.

“Not really,” Cody
said.

“And the Calderon
Group does it all the time?”

“Sure seems like
it,” Patrick said.

“Great. Sounds
like we picked some good allies,” Zoe said.

She pulled the
knife from her pocket again, tossed it in the air, and caught it nimbly by the
handle.

Luke recovered his
bravado and drew himself up. He was barely an inch taller than Zoe.

“Hey, we’re going
to outnumber them, and we’re well armed. It’s not like you know anything about
fighting. You live on a
cruise
ship.”

The other men
snickered.

“We’ve seen a bit
of action in the past few months,” Esther said.

“Yeah? What kind?”
Patrick asked.

“I killed a man
yesterday,” Zoe said with no pride in her voice.

Luke swore. “You
are
a badass.”

The group fell
silent, some looking to Esther for confirmation. She nodded. The men turned
their attention back to Zoe as if she had transformed into some sort of
tropical fish.

“You don’t know
what it’s like,” she said quietly.

She looked
troubled, but the men seemed to take it for stoicism. They waited for her to
speak again. Esther was pretty sure Cody was holding his breath. Zoe merely
continued to play with her knife.

Patrick
interrupted the group’s appraisal of Zoe and came over to Esther. “I heard
Rawlins say we’re after some sort of tech,” he said. “Do you know what it’s
for?”

“I know the
basics,” Esther said. “It uses algae to produce enough fuel for frequent
travel.”

Luke shot her a
look behind Patrick’s back. It was just a quick jerk of the head, but Esther
realized she had said more than these men were supposed to know. Cody looked
nervous too. Maybe the officers had told them not to talk about the technology.
They seemed to rule with a different sort of iron fist than Esther was used to
with Judith.

“What’s your stake
in all this anyway?” Patrick asked, leaning against the winch beside Esther.
“Rawlins said your boyfriend was kidnapped.”

“Rawlins talks a
lot of shit,” Luke said loudly, rattling the dice across the deck. He still
looked uncomfortable.

“He’s not my
boyfriend,” Esther said. “I owe him. He helped me save the
Catalina
a while back.”

“So . . . you
don’t have a boyfriend?” Patrick asked.

Esther blinked.

“I was wondering
who’d ask first!” Cody hooted.

Patrick grinned.
“Well, Luke already claimed the tall one.”

“Excuse me,” Zoe
said dryly. “No one claims me for anything.” She rounded on Luke. “And you’re
delusional if you think you have a chance with me, asshole.”

“Wow. Hey, that’s
a lot of hostility there,” Cody said.

“Look out, mate.
She might stab you,” said Patrick.

Zoe threw a loose
punch at him, but she was smiling again.

The other guys
went back to their game.

“Can I have a go?”
Esther asked, gesturing to the dice.

“Sure. Know the
rules?”

Patrick handed her
the dice cup. He had an easy smile. The thin layer of stubble on his chin was
reddish, despite his blond hair.

“Yeah. You’re
playing Splash, right?”

Reggie had taught
her how to play ages ago, but their dice had cracked from too much use. Esther
dropped a nut from her pocket onto the pile in the middle, took the dice, and
rolled them across the deck. The clatter was lost in the patter of the rain.
The dice showed all evens. Cody groaned and pushed the pile toward her.

“Wanna play
again?” she said.

They played dice
until the bell rang for dinner. Esther and Zoe followed Luke’s group to the
mess hall, where they helped themselves to clumps of overcooked shrimp and
found seats at one of the long tables jammed into the space. It was crowded,
but most of the sailors didn’t pay any attention to Esther and Zoe. They
blended in well with the young crew. The men were a little rough around the
edges, a little earnest. There were women too, though only one for every three
or four men. The women dressed just like the other sailors in their mishmash of
dyed green uniforms.

Over dinner Luke
tried to impress Zoe with stories of the pirates and drifters he had met on the
Amsterdam
. She greeted his attention
with indifference, which just made him try harder. Cody and Patrick sat on
either side of Esther and questioned her about life on the
Catalina
. In turn she tried to find out more about the Harvesters’
plans. They explained that the
Terra
Firma
was the head ship in the Metal Harvesters conglomerate.

“Captain Alder
will call the other ships to join us if there’s going to be a fight with the
Calderon Group,” Patrick said.

“What are the
other ships doing now?” Esther asked as she peeled the shell off a shrimp.

“Salvaging metal.
We got a few that go in close to shore, and one that specializes in wreck
diving.”

“How do you have
enough fuel for that?”

“Metal is
valuable,” Patrick said. “We trade it for diesel. Mostly at the
Amsterdam
.”

“Captain Alder
must do well out of the arrangement if he’s in charge of all the ships.”

“I don’t know
exactly what he gets. The ships are pretty independent. They pay into the
central pot and agree to help each other. It’s not a military.”

Patrick offered her
his last shrimp.

“No, thanks,”
Esther said. She found Patrick’s choice of words interesting. “Do you think
this will turn into a full-blown war with the Calderon Group?”

“If it does, we’ll
be ready for it.”

“But how do they
know where to look for them?”

“The captain has
his ways.”

Esther frowned.
She wished she had better information. Maybe Neal would be able to find
something out. She missed being able to pop up to the Tower to listen to the rumors
he had picked up on the radio. The ocean was a big place. They could travel
forever without finding the Calderon ship that had stolen David. Either that or
she and Zoe could end up in the midst of a war, one they weren’t prepared to
fight. She didn’t think any of these young sailors were ready to
fight—and maybe to kill—either. Not that she had been ready for it
when she and David hijacked the
Lucinda
a few months ago. They did what they had to do.

When they returned
to their cabin and settled into their bunks, Esther asked Zoe how she was
feeling about what had happened during the attack. She couldn’t believe it had
been less than twenty-hours since then.

“It’s strange,”
Zoe said. Her voice floated through the darkness from the top bunk. “I can’t
even picture his face. All I can see is Eva.”

She was quiet for
a moment. Esther stared at the bent slats of the bunk above her. The
Terra Firma
creaked and groaned as they
sailed onward. Voices from sailors on the night shift filtered into their
cabin.

“I’d do it again in
a heartbeat,” Zoe said after a while. “We have to survive and protect the
people we care about. It’ll be easier next time.”

Esther
rolled over and burrowed under her threadbare blanket. She feared Zoe was
right. It would get easier—and there would be a next time.