Supernova EMP Seriries (Book 4): Final End

by Hamilton, Grace

  Halley slapped his forehead. “I know. Someone, get me a mallet.”

  A mallet was found and brought to Halley.

  “What are you going to do?” Josh asked. “Threaten to smash its face in if it refuses to work for you?”

  Halley gave Josh the kind of look you’d give to an unwanted puppy before you sent it for a swim inside a bag of bricks. “Watch and learn, o ye of little faith.”

  Halley lifted the improvised copper cage from the compass, addressed the mallet to the side of the compass like a golfer getting ready to tee off, and then smacked the side of the compass for all he was worth. The first blow tore one side of the apparatus from the plinth, and the second sent it flying through the air to clang onto the deck and roll to a halt eight yards away.

  “There,” Halley said. “That should to it.”

  “You mean destroy it?” Donald commented. “Guess we’re stuck with the shadow stick now.”

  Dropping the mallet like it was a discarded apple core, Halley went to the compass and picked it up. “They make these things to last, Donny, to last.”

  Halley had taken to calling Donald “Donny” in the last couple of hours. Josh could guess where the sarcasm and niggling was coming from. When Josh had told Halley what had happened to his sister and how she’d died in the castle, Josh had been stunned that the professor had taken the news without so much of a flicker of emotion. He’d just nodded, pushed up his glasses with his index finger, and gone to stand by the gunwale, looking out over the gray sea as the light of dawn began to ratchet up.

  But the tenseness in his voice, the quickness to irritation, and the sarcasm which was bleeding from him at almost every turn gave a lie to the outer stoicism he’d affected at the news of his sister’s death. Inside, Josh could tell Halley was stewing, and the emotional response was coming out of him like steam through a failing gasket.

  Halley bent his head to his task and, within minutes, the compass was surrounded by copper wire and the Faraday-like cage around it was in place. As Josh and Donald looked on with pure amazement, the needle on the compass began to twirl, then stabilized. When Halley turned the device in his hand, the needle stayed true as the dial rotated beneath it.

  “North,” said Halley quietly, pointing off into the distance. Poppet ran forward and hugged the professor as he held the compass out of her way and her shoulder skewed his glasses to one side.

  There were smiles and generous laughs all around. Even Josh, who felt Storm’s absence as a hollow in the middle of his chest and a snaky anxiety in his gut, felt that this was a step forward. “It’ll make navigation all the easier once we’ve gotten a fix on our position from charted objects on the shore,” Poppet said.

  This popped a few balloons as the laughter died and expressions dropped. And so Poppet began to explain, “The compass working is fantastic, but we still won’t know where we are. There are a bunch of charts in the captain’s cabin. Remember them from before, Josh?”

  Josh nodded.

  “We need one that shows the coast and some objects on shore, or a buoy, so that we can triangulate a fix based off the shoreline and know which heading to take once we’ve decided where we’re going to go.”

  “Go back towards shore now? Are we even sure…?” Josh couldn’t help the concern rising in his voice.

  Poppet affirmed what she was suggesting with a nod. “I know it’s risky.”

  “More than risky. Gabe’s Harbormen are bound to be watching the shore for us.”

  “But once we’ve got a fix, we can head wherever we want. It’s worth the risk for now.”

  “And if can get the engine working, which I think I can, then we’ll be able to get away pretty quickly,” Halley said, looking up from the compass. “All we need to do is decide where it is we’re going, and, Josh, I’m pretty sure I can get us there.”

  They convened a meeting in the captain’s cabin, pulling together Donald, Maxine, Poppet, Josh, and Halley, who still cradled the compass like it was his newborn child.

  Ten-Foot had stayed out with Tally and the others, keeping the Sea-Hawk running through the waves on half-sail.

  “Dark Point,” Halley said. “We should head for Dark Point.”

  Josh and others had never heard of it.

  “Small Caribbean island in the Bahamian chain. There was a small naval facility there in the past, set into a natural harbor which will be a good place for us to head for and hole up away from Gabe’s influence. It’s about fifty miles east of Miami, so no more than two days’ sailing from Jaxport if we get it right. There’s also a lot of jungle covering which’ll give us plenty of good eating.”

  “How do you know so much about it?” Donald asked skeptically.

  Halley pushed up his glasses. “I had a vacation home there. You don’t work twenty years in TV without some rewards, Donny, and to be honest, I’d really like to be back on familiar ground for a couple of days. My sister loved it there. I’d like to bury her memory there if I can’t bury her body there, if it’s okay with you.”

  Donald said nothing, but Josh could see in his eyes that he understood completely where Halley was coming from. He’d only recently buried his own wife, after all. Around the table, surrounded by the creaking of the Sea-Hawk, Poppet began rolling out the charts and discussing with Donald the best plan of action.

  Maxine took Josh to one side, her face colorless. “Do you think this is a good idea? Leaving Jaxport so far behind?”

  Josh shrugged. “I don’t know what else we can do for now. You saw what Storm was like, what he was saying and how much Gabe has gotten into his head. We need supplies. We need ammunition. And we need to rest, get our strength back. If we don’t, then we’ll have no chance of getting into Jaxport and taking Storm back.”

  Maxine’s face was grave. “I know that we had to leave him there for now. But Halley’s vacation island? What if we get there and the crew and the others decide it’s safe and worth staying? What if they refuse to go back to Jaxport because it’s too much of a risk? Have you thought of that?”

  Josh had to admit that he hadn’t. “We’ll find a way to persuade them, I promise.”

  Maxine’s eyes fell, “I hope you’re right, because right now, I don’t think you’ll be able to do it, and I wouldn’t know where to start trying.”

  10

  The probationers had turned into quite the team, Maxine observed. She knew that Josh had had the devil’s own job of keeping them out of trouble when they’d been on his caseload back in North Carolina. The trip they had taken with him on the Sea-Hawk had been a last chance saloon for some of them—especially Dolan ‘Ten-Foot’ Snare.

  From Josh’s descriptions of them before, coming now to the tight-knit, well-drilled crew who were steering the Tea-Clipper with consummate skill, taking in and putting out sails, working the rigging and generally being an effective ship’s crew, there was no end to how impressed Maxine was; her admiration for what they’d become went beyond measure. That they were enjoying it, too, was a bonus. They were away from Gabe’s influence now, and although not all dangers had receded, there was an easy atmosphere between them which contributed greatly to the smooth sailing of the ship.

  Maxine was still pretty much convinced that, once the crew made it to Dark Point, that would be it and they would see the island paradise for what it was… a chance to start again in a world that had gone wrong for them twice. Already, Maxine had heard snatches of their conversations as they’d pulled sails and ropes. Dotty-B, all sable hair and glossy skin, was looking forward to a Caribbean beach—a world so far removed from her own upbringing as to be talked about in the hushed tones of contemplating an alien planet. Puck Gathers’ family had come from the Caribbean ‘a million generations ago,’ and he liked the idea of going back there and seeing where his distant family had originated—even if they had been slaves. Maxine got the impression he was proud of his heritage. And pride was something that, in the past, she knew had been at a premium for these kids.


  Scally Lish had explained to Maxine that Gabe’s Harbormen had kept all of them on the Sea-Hawk so they could be sailed out at a moment’s notice. They’d been guarded pretty much since the boat had been captured, but when Ten-Foot had made it onto the boat on the night of the Jaxport attack, he’d killed the three guards with his gun and knife before they’d had a chance to raise the alarm. They hadn’t expected him to have changed sides in the way he had.

  That accomplished, Ten-Foot had gotten their small crew to make the ship ready while he’d prepared his thermite signal to float away from the Sea-Hawk, using it to draw Josh and the others towards it.

  Maxine had taken to Scally quickly, liking her quick wit and her wide, bright smile. She knew a little of the problems she’d left behind when she’d made that fateful trip out into the Atlantic, but now the girl was coming into her own with the others. Maxine could tell that Josh was just as moved and impressed as Maxine was by the way the group had come forward and coalesced into a unit since the Barnard’s crisis had unfolded.

  “They’ve done a lot better without me than they did with me there,” Josh said ruefully, but not without a hint of good humor. “I don’t think my next work appraisal meeting is going to reflect well on my abilities.”

  “You got them as far as you could, Josh,” Maxine replied, watching as the sails billowed in the afternoon sun and the Sea-Hawk was tacked back into the wind, turning port and then starboard in succession to move against the natural propulsion provided by Mother Nature. Halley was down in the engine room again, trying to get the motor to work and drive the prop shaft. Maxine had been down a couple of times to see how he was getting on with Jingo, Karel, and Donald, but there had been much cursing and frustrated shouting the last time she’d stuck her head through the hatch. There was a near full tank of diesel to supply the engine with fuel, but the electronic starter and management system had been fully fritzed by the Barnard’s event, and from what she’d seen and heard in passing, it was going to be the mother of all jobs to get that unit going again. Best to leave them to it, Maxine thought.

  Tally and Henry had searched through the ship’s stores to make an inventory of food. The Sea-Hawk had been well provisioned with canned food, dry goods, and plastic containers of fresh water. Ten-Foot had told them the ship was being made ready for the Harbormen, at Gabe’s orders to sail up the East Coast and see what could be salvaged or stolen from the coastal towns they came upon. So much for that plan.

  Now, inventory completed, Tally and Henry were at the prow of the Sea-Hawk, looking out across the gray waves since the clouds had bubbled up to glut the sky around them, hazing out what sunlight there was into an indistinct blob of gold beneath gauze, and in the lull while the clipper headed back to what they thought could be an approximate direction for land—so that they could make use of the charts in the captain’s cabin and hence move on to Dark Point—Maxine’s daughter and the young red-headed boy had been almost inseparable. As Maxine looked on, Tally put her hand on Henry’s shoulder, and his eyes looked anywhere except at hers. Maxine fancied she could see a reddening in the boy’s cheeks. It was understandable if there was some feeling developing between them, she thought, and from what she’d seen of this young survivalist named Henry, her Tally could do a lot worse if she was aimed at finding someone to hang her heart on for a while.

  “They’re getting on well,” Josh said, viewing the same scene that Maxine was. “I hope his intentions are honorable.” Josh grinned.

  “Are any boy’s?” Maxine countered with a similar grin. Josh’s head turned as if he had to check to make sure she wasn’t being serious.

  “Hey, I was honorable!” Josh defended himself as Maxine detected the mock indignation in his voice.

  “Yeah. At first.” Maxine winked. “I’m not sure we can say the same for the first time you took me home in your beat-up Honda.”

  “I’m saying nothing,” Josh said quietly.

  They laughed at that. It was a moment to savor, Maxine thought. In all this craziness, their conversation here and now was something normal and real and simple. Two people who loved each other watching two others who were heading that way. Maybe there was hope to find in all this horror after all.

  Life goes on.

  Poppet joined them and hooked a thumb towards Tally and Henry. “Shall we tell them to get a room? Or do you think they’ll want to do that thing from Titanic first? ‘Jack! Jack! I’m flying!’”

  Tally and Henry stayed at the prow for some time while Maxine, Josh, and Poppet helped out around the rigging with the probationers—Maxine literally learning the ropes. Scally taught her how to tie off a line so that it didn’t slip. Dotty-B showed her the best way to haul a sail, and then Goober Nash explained the finer points of how to sail into the wind with the sails turning on the masts, the boom coming across the rear of the ship and causing her to duck several times as the shadow moved over her. Meanwhile, the crabbing progress the Sea-Hawk made—like a fly making a zig-zag walk up the surface of a window—sent them into the teeth of the freshening wind.

  Halley and Donald came up top after another hour, but their faces told Maxine that they’d still had had no success with the engine. Halley’s battery-operated buzzer and the cage around the compass were one thing, both being reasonably low-concept solutions to particular problems, but the engine was proving to be a whole other level of difficult.

  Donald sat down with a huff on a crate as Maxine and Josh approached. Halley was scribbling on paper held on a clipboard with a pencil.

  Donald looked haggard and frustrated. “It’s not the engine itself that’s causing the problem. If we can get the system running, then the fuel injectors will pump diesel into the chambers automatically and we’ll get the propeller running. It’s getting the glow plugs and the battery isolated so we can get the engine to heat up and turn over in the first place that’s the issue. There are no blowtorches on the boat to heat the engine block, and short of setting a fire around it, we’re stumped. Completely stumped.”

  Halley continued to scribble. Josh shook his head, and Maxine shrugged. If it was a wound that needed debriding or redressing, some stitches removed, or a treatment plan for a burn victim, Maxine would have been on it like Flynn. But engines? She knew where the fuel went in, and how to change a tire, but that was the extent of her knowledge. Maxine smiled wryly. Perhaps all this basic survival stuff was something she really should have looked into before the fan had gotten covered in doo-doo. It would have prepared her so much more for the privations and crisis to which she’d been presented with.

  Maybe in the next life, eh?

  “Who has a hair dryer?”

  Everyone looked up as Halley almost screamed at everyone at the top of his voice, continuing, “I need a hair dryer! Is there one on the boat? Anywhere! The place is full of women, so surely one of you has a damned hair dryer!”

  At the prow of the boat, Tally raised her hand. “If my stuff is still in the dormer, then I have one…”

  “Well, get it, and get it now! Donny, up you get, we need to find where the inverter is on this thing! And, crew! We need more wire! More! Strip it out of the lighting system or take it out of the galley. Get it from anywhere except the engine compartment. I get the blower to work, we can heat the air intake on the engine, find a way to crack the engine over, and adiabatic pressure in the piston head will do the rest! Come on! What are you waiting for? Move! Move!”

  But no one was moving. Halley looked like he was about to stamp his feet like a toddler throwing off his first tantrum, but he wasn’t getting the attention he’d been aiming for. In fact, no one was paying attention to Halley at all. Everyone could see that Henry was pointing off into the distance, ahead of the Sea-Hawk.

  “There,” Henry said as Halley’s voice died in his throat. “I can see a sail.”

  Ten-Foot brought them the bad news as Josh, Donald, Karel, and Maxine discussed courses of action in the captain’s cabin. Charts curled disregarded on the table. The oil
lantern attached to the ceiling swung back and forth as they waited for Ten-Foot to return from the deck where he’d been surveying the other ship through Donald’s binoculars.

  “It’s Gabriel, all right,” Ten-Foot said. “It’s the Grimoire, the three-master he used to capture us and the Sea-Hawk in the first place. They have a lot of guns and some cannon, and it’s a fast ship. Easily as fast as the Sea-Hawk. Unless Halley gets that engine working...”

  The mood in the room clicked inexorably down in ratchety notches. The air felt like it had been sucked out of the cabin. Spray was peppering the glass in the windows as the wind whipped in to cut the tops off the waves the Sea-Hawk sliced through. It felt like bad weather was arriving, both inside and outside. There were concerned looks around the table, and then Josh motioned Ten-Foot to sit down and pushed a mug of coffee towards him. Ten-Foot drank a little of it, seemingly to prepare himself for what he still had to say. “Gabe got Dotty-B and the others to train another crew while I was away, up north in Cumberland. The Grimoire cut towards us as soon as we sighted them and they sighted the Sea-Hawk. They haven’t tried to signal and we haven’t signaled them. They know who we are, though, and we know who they are. There’s a battle comin’ if we don’t stay out of range.”

  Josh’s initially recovered mordant mood tipped into the gray again. The Barnard’s effect had robbed him a little of the sharpness he needed to focus. He rubbed the back of his neck and squeezed at the tension there. Oh, for a day of rest and sleep. Oh, for a sense that things could calm down for just a few hours.

  No. You don’t have the luxury of rest. Snap out of it. You know the nova is tricking you. Fight it.

  “Are we taking evasive action?” Josh asked, rolling his shoulders as his hand fell away from his neck. There was rust and slag in his mouth. He poured himself more coffee from the pot in the center of the captain’s table.

  Ten-Foot drained his mug. “I’ve ordered the Hawk around, and we’re back to running with the wind.”