Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) (13 page)

The young men hung
on her every word. She made the adventure sound a lot more exciting than it was
in Esther’s memory. She just remembered being very focused. And scared. She had
been very scared.

When Zoe finished
her tale, Luke pretended to bow down before her.

“Cool story,
mate,” Patrick said.

“Good thing you
got away and you’re with us now,” Luke said. “I’ve heard about the
Galaxy
before. Bunch of elitist weirdos.”

“You don’t know
the half of it,” Zoe said. “I heard about some strange stuff when I was locked
up there.”

“You’ve been to
prison too?”

“Twice. For
demonstrating against the captains,” Zoe said. “No big deal.” She ate a
spoonful of her soup.

“I like having
girls around!” Cody declared.

Luke nodded
fervently. Patrick caught Esther’s eye and winked. She looked down at her bowl,
cheeks warm.

After they scraped
up the last of their fish soup with crusts of seaweed bread, Patrick offered to
show them how the metal-harvesting gear worked. The five of them made their way
out of the mess hall together, but the first mate intercepted them on their way
to the deck.

“What are you
doing?” she demanded, fixing them with her hard green eyes.

“Showing Esther
and Zoe the crane,” Patrick said.

The first mate looked
sharply at Esther. “Why?”

“General
interest,” Patrick said. “That all right?”

“Fine,” the first
mate said, “but keep an eye out. I don’t want people on deck if they don’t have
to be.”

“Is the Calderon
Group close?” Esther asked.

“We don’t have
them on radar yet,” the first mate said after a moment’s hesitation, “but they
are notorious for surprise attacks, if half the rumors are true. Just be quick
about it.”

“Yes, sir!” Luke
said. “I mean, ma’am! First Mate.”

The first mate
charged off without acknowledging him. She moved in such sharp bursts. It was
disconcerting.

“What’s her
story?” Esther asked.

“Beats me,” Luke
said. “She was already the number two when I signed on.”

“Same here,”
Patrick said. “And I’ve been with the Harvesters a bit longer than these two.”

“When did you
join?” Esther asked.

“Two years ago.”

They climbed a
ladder and emerged on the main deck. The rain had eased up momentarily, leaving
the air crisp and cold. A steady tailwind pushed them through the sea. Patrick
led the way aft.

“Actually, they
put my old ship out of business,” he said. “We were salvagers too, me and my
old man, but we couldn’t compete. They always got to the good stuff first, and
they could afford to sail closer to shore. We both ended up joining, but he’s
on one of the other ships.”

“How many
Harvester ships are there?” Esther asked.

“Not sure,”
Patrick said. “Gotta be at least a dozen by now.”

“Do you see your
dad often?”

“A few times a
year on the
Amsterdam
.”

They reached the
stern, where a huge crane loomed like a dorsal fin.

“We use this baby
to dredge metal from shallower water,” Patrick said.

He showed Esther
how it worked, and they chatted about pulleys and corrosion problems. The
Terra Firma
swayed and lurched as she
churned through the water. The sea and sky were black, the clouds hiding the
stars from view.

Zoe and Luke
climbed up to sit on the stern railing. Cody leaned against it beside them. He
gasped when Luke pretended to fall back toward the wake spreading behind the
ship. Esther caught Zoe smiling, but her face was serious by the time Luke
recovered his balance.

“They’re good
guys,” Patrick said. He wrapped his hands around a cable and leaned back on it,
flexing his arms. He had pulled his sleeves up above his biceps despite the
cold.

“You’ve been friends
for a while?” Esther asked.

“Yeah. Luke’s been
there for me in a tight spot or two, especially when my mum died. We’ve known
each other since we were kids. Got into all kinds of trouble on the
Amsterdam
whenever Dad and I were in
port.”

Now Luke was trying
to stand up and balance on the railing. It was only about six inches wide, and
he kept both hands wrapped around it, moving shakily. Zoe stopped him, then put
her hands on his shoulder, using him for balance, and stood up on the railing
in one neat motion. She lifted her foot off the edge and stretched it out over
the churning sea like a dancer. Luke stared up at her, not daring to move lest
he disturb her dangerous balance. She met his eyes, and a smile crossed her
lips.

“Why aren’t you
and your dad on the same ship?” Esther asked Patrick as they watched their
friends. She was thinking of her own father back on the
Catalina
. She couldn’t believe she was so far away from him for the
second time in two months. At least this time she knew he was safe.

“We weren’t
getting on so well at the time,” Patrick said. “Too much time together on a
small boat, I think. Luke was the one that got me to patch things up with him.
We leave messages for each other at his mum’s stall in the
Amsterdam
Bazaar now. We’re making plans to go back to Australia
one day.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s about time,
don’t you think?” Patrick said. He scratched at the reddish stubble on his
square jaw.

“Probably is,”
Esther said. “What’s the plan?”

“We just need to
save up enough for the fuel. We still got our old boat at the
Amsterdam
. We figure she can make one
more big trip, then we’ll be back on land for good.”

“Sounds like quite
an adventure,” Esther said, remembering the voyage to land that David had
proposed. Why had she turned him down?

“Yep. We’re almost
there,” Patrick said. “I won’t mind leaving the Harvesters behind.”

“They don’t seem
so bad.”

“Yeah, well . . .”
Patrick trailed off. He hooked the cable back into place. “We’d better get back
below deck before the first mate catches us out here. You don’t want to be on
her bad side.”

“I’ll take your
word for it,” Esther said.

“Come on, you
three,” Patrick called. “Let’s head in.”

Zoe stepped
gracefully off the railing. Luke tried to help her, but she let go of his shoulder
as soon as her feet reached the deck.

“I’m beat,” Zoe said.
“Gotta get rested up for more bilge work in the morning.”

She traipsed off
without even bidding Luke good night. She was strutting a bit, though, and Luke
was watching her with stars in his eyes.

When they returned
to their cabin for the night, Esther lay on her lumpy bunk thinking about what
Patrick had said. Yes, it was about time for people to start heading back to
land. She hoped Patrick and his father would find a way to make it happen. If
all they needed was fuel, maybe she could help.

They
had to find the Calderon ship soon. She wanted to go home.

Chapter 16—
Sand Queen

At noon the next
day, the news spread through the
Terra Firma
like fire in a fuel cell: “Someone spotted a Calderon
warship booking it west.”

“We’re in for a
fight, boys.”

“They won’t know
what hit them.”

“Finally! We’ll show
’em who’s in charge on the New Pacific!”

A heavy cloud
cover still hung above the iron sea. Esther wasn’t sure how far they had
traveled. The sun’s absence made it difficult to get her bearings. She had
reported their position to Neal on the satellite phone that morning, but she
wasn’t sure if it was doing any good.

The rain continued
intermittently, and the gloom had started affecting morale on the ship. It was
a relief that something was finally happening.

“You better get
ready, girls,” Luke said.

He had come to
confirm the news with Esther and Zoe, who had been discussing the rumors by the
starboard railing. Luke tapped his foot and stared across the water, a dark
ring of sweat forming on his uniform.

“Oh, we’re ready,”
Zoe said. She pulled out her pocketknife and flipped it back and forth through
her fingers.

“Careful. You
don’t want to hurt yourself,” Luke said.

“I know a thing or
two about knives,” Zoe said, then flipped it down so it sunk deep into the
plank between Luke’s feet.

“Hey! That’s
dangerous.”

Zoe batted her
eyelashes at him. Esther suspected that Zoe really liked Luke. Teasing him
seemed to have cheered her up a lot over the past few days.

“What’s the plan,
Luke?” Esther said. “You guys have a protocol for engaging other ships?”

“Uh, we’ve had
some training exercises,” Luke said. “Theoretical stuff mostly. Our contact
says the ship is alone. But the Calderon guys are normally the ones attacking.”

 
“We’re not going to sink it, right?”

“That wouldn’t do
your friend much good, would it?”

“No.”

“I think Captain
Alder is smarter than that,” Zoe said.

Luke opened his
mouth to respond, but a voice cut him off.

“Get moving, you
lazy scum!” The first mate stormed across the deck, brandishing a large machine
gun not unlike Dirk’s. Her arms seemed to quiver with energy. “Don’t just stand
there staring like rockfish. We need all hands. The ship’ll be in range soon.
We only get one chance. You two”—she jerked her head at Esther and
Zoe—“do your part, or stay out of the way. Can you shoot?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Zoe
answered, snapping to attention.

Esther nodded,
though she felt less confident. She knew the basic idea.

“Then get your
butts to the armory.”

The armory was a
whirlpool of clattering metal, clicking magazines, and shouting crew. A paunchy
man in an ugly brownish-green uniform shoved guns into their hands. Esther’s
was like obsidian—cold and heavy.

She asked how to
use the weapon, but the man just growled, “It’s semiautomatic and loaded. An
otter could fire that thing. Move along.”

They jogged back
up to the deck, where Cody had joined Luke at the starboard railing. They
trained their eyes on the horizon.

“Any minute now,”
Cody said, his voice breaking a bit. A sharp line of sweat cut down the side of
his face.

Esther’s hands
shook, the muzzle of her gun vibrating in her hands. She wasn’t ready. She had
never fired a gun before. Why did she think she could go after the Calderon Group?
None of the Harvester men seemed to know what they were doing either. This was
going to be a disaster.

The sea was a
dreary smear of gray, empty so far. The crew waited, breathless. The engines
grunted. Wind cut against the hull and whined through Esther’s hair and jacket.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Zoe reach over and squeeze Luke’s
forearm.

The horizon line
remained uninterrupted, blurry with the motion of the sea. Then . . .

“There she is!”
someone shouted.

“That’s a Calderon
ship all right.”

“You think they
seen us?”

“It’s the big
one!”

Esther squinted.
Finally, a darker patch of gray detached from the sea: a ship growing larger in
the distance. Slowly, the hull took shape, the turrets and portholes coming
into focus as they sailed nearer. It was the warship that had moored beside them
at the
Amsterdam
.

The first mate
stalked the deck. She ordered the crew to keep their guns low so the men on the
Calderon ship wouldn’t see them. There was a chance they’d been tipped off
already, but so far the Calderon ship wasn’t getting any further away. They
didn’t appear to be running. Maybe they didn’t know the Harvesters’ intentions.

Esther lowered her
gun, keeping her foot on it so it wouldn’t skitter away as the ship swayed. She
felt calmer without the weapon in her hands. The Calderon warship drew closer.
They were near enough to see the details now, even the name
Sand Queen
scrawled on the hull. A few
figures moved across her deck. Soon they’d be close enough to fire.

Suddenly, the
Calderon ship leapt into motion. It began to pull away.

“They’re running!”
The first mate’s voice cut through the wind. “Damn it. Full steam ahead, boys!”

“They must have
figured out who we are,” Cody said nervously.

“This is it!” Luke
clutched his gun tightly. “Time to show them what we can do.”

The auxiliary
engines kicked in. The Harvesters abandoned all pretense of innocence and
sailed full tilt after the
Sand Queen
.
Sea spray cascaded over the decks as the
Terra
Firma
cut through the rough waves. The warship fled before them.

“Can we catch
them?” Esther asked.

“Captain won’t
give up now that he’s got them in his sights,” Cody said.

Wind howled in
their faces. Tension gathered like a rain-black cloud. Their prey was escaping.
No!
Esther thought.
David is on that ship.

Then the
Sand Queen
swung around in a wide turn.

“They’re coming toward
us,” Esther said. “And fast.”
They’re not
going to run. They know they’re more than a match for the Harvesters.
Suddenly, everything was happening too quickly.

“They’re
attacking!” Luke said.

“Things are about
to get stormy, boys!” said another voice, its source lost in the wind.

The enemy charged
them head-on. Light rippled across the Calderon sigil. The red crab looked
angry against the steel. Gunshots split the air. Esther hit the deck, dragging
Cody down with her. Bullets ripped into the hull and pinged off rivets. The
Terra
lurched sideways, but the
Sand Queen
kept coming.

Sailors shouted,
shuffling backward.

“They’re going to
ram us!”

“Get down!”

A boom echoed
across the water, followed by a violent splash.

“They’ve got a big
gun!”

Another boom split
the air. The entire ship shuddered and creaked.

Luke stared wildly
from a few feet away, body pressed to the deck. “We’ve gotta fire on them!” he
shouted, voice ragged.

Esther didn’t
answer but released her grip on Cody’s arm and shuffled forward to get a better
view of the attack. In the fore, a handful of sailors opened fire on the
Calderon ship.

“Look out!”

As the ships
converged, a shell shrieked through the air and landed squarely on the upper
deck of the
Terra Firma
. Debris
cascaded through the air. Esther ducked, but a heavy piece of metal slammed
against her shoulder. Pain rippled down her arm. She didn’t have time to raise
her gun.

The ships sailed
straight for each other, prows aimed like arrows at each other’s iron hearts.
Esther grabbed the railing.

“Hold on. This is gonna
hurt!”

Then the two ships
crashed into each other.

The impact sent a
shock wave across the deck. Metal sang with the vibrations. Esther lost her
grip on the railing. Luke swore. Anyone not already on the ground fell to their
knees.

In the commotion,
men leapt from the
Sand Queen
across
the two tangled prows. They spilled gunfire across the
Terra Firma
’s deck. The attackers swept forward, gunning down
anyone who tried to stand in their path.

Esther lifted her
weapon, but the safety was stuck. She fiddled with it, disoriented by the pain
in her shoulder. Cody wasn’t faring much better. His safety was off, but he
stared wildly, unable to pull the trigger. Around the deck other young
Harvesters cowered or shot wildly. There was no organization, no sense of
control at all. This was a disaster.

But Zoe kept her
head.

“Follow me!” she
hissed.

She grabbed Luke’s
arm and crawled forward. An enemy with a machine gun ran near her, eyes on the
upper turret. She tucked herself into a ball and rolled, sweeping his legs out
from under him. Before he could rise, she buried her pocketknife in the back of
his neck. Luke followed her lead and tackled the knees of another gunman.

The two moved as a
unit to attack another Calderon assailant from behind. Jolting out of her
stupor, Esther rose to her knees, but her gun jammed again.
Salt
!
Panic stabbed at her. She darted to the shelter of the lifeboat winch. She was
out of the line of fire for the moment.

Calderon and
Harvester men struggled on the foredeck. There weren’t as many as Esther had
expected. She spotted Patrick swinging his gun like a club. Cody had managed to
get his gun pointed over the railing, and he was spraying bullets randomly at
the nearby hull of the enemy ship.

“You! Help me with
this!” the first mate shouted. She was dragging an armload of dynamite through
the path cleared by Zoe and Luke. Esther slung the useless gun across her back
and ran to help her lift it.

“We’re not going
to sink the other ship, are we?”

She had to get
David first.

“Shut up and help
me,” the mate barked.

Esther’s knees
buckled under the weight of the dynamite, but she kept pace with the taller
woman. The mate grunted an order as they reached the tangled prows. Other
Terra
crew members ran forward to cover
them, firing across the deck. Esther and the mate charged onward.

“Heave on three.”

They shoved the
pile of dynamite over to the deck of the
Sand
Queen
and followed after it. Esther vaulted over the railings, remembering
too late that her shoulder was injured. The ships shifted apart, revealing a
gap of white foam between the hulls far beneath them. Her boots hit the deck of
the Calderon ship.

It looked almost
empty compared to theirs. It was a bigger, wider vessel than the
Terra
, making it more obvious that there
weren’t many sailors aboard. Half a dozen men fired at the
Terra
from the upper decks. The first mate took out two with her
sidearm before they realized she and Esther were on board.

“Get the
explosives to the bridge. Move!”

More Harvester men
jumped from the
Terra
to the
Queen
. Esther dragged the dynamite as
fast as she could. Gunshots rang around her. She prayed wildly that none of the
shots would land on the bundle.

She half expected
to find more fighting men boiling out of the hold, where they’d been lying in
wait, but the first corridor was empty. Emergency lights guided their path into
the warship.

“Where is
everyone?” Esther asked as she and the first mate carried the explosives up a
steep ladder.

The woman swore.
“This is a skeleton crew. We’ve been played.”

“What?” Esther
nearly lost her grip on the dynamite.

“I’d bet my ship
it’s a decoy,” the mate said. “The inventor isn’t on board.”

“We have to look.”

“Not until we take
out the officers.”

Both women knew
instinctively how to get to the bridge in the warship. They carried their load
up another ladder to a heavy steel door.

“Get ready to
shove it in. You got a light?”

“Yeah.” Esther
pulled her work lighter from her back pocket. “Wait. What if David’s in there!”

“That’s a risk
we’re going to take, unless you want this ship to run again. Get that lighter
ready.”

The first mate
kicked open the bridge door. Esther lit the fuse and shoved the dynamite as far
inside the room as she could. She caught a glimpse of surprise on the faces of
the men and women inside before the mate shoved the door closed again.

The
two women ran back toward the ladder as the explosion blocked out all sound.