“Help!” My shrill scream echoed in the small brig.
A burly Seaman rushed down the stairs, a key in his hand. “Out you go. Follow me.”
“Hey, who are you?” Wayne demanded. “I’ve never seen you onboard before.”
But I was already halfway up the stairs, just a step behind the Seaman, who wore no name tag. He sprinted down a passageway, then another, and then down a ladder-like staircase.
I slid down the rails, the friction producing less heat than what was burning brightly in my chest. It was spreading downwards into my legs now, and up into my neck.
At the bottom of the stairs, he pointed. “Go to the engine room. You’ll know what to do.”
And I did. Like the north end of a magnet pulled to a south end, I ran like the wind down the passageway. Invisible hands were the wind in my sails—my legs moved faster than they’d ever been able to in life. I could literally feel the heat spark into energy in my muscles, making them move like they never had before.
Silver, sparkly tendrils of light began to seep from my fingers.
I shoved the door open, surging into the engine room. Ahead of me, the engines and generators roared away, churning power into the electrical systems of the ship and propelling the enormous vessel through the water.
Power.
That’s what was in me. Pure, undiluted power. I slammed my hands onto the largest generator, closed my eyes, and willed the power to flow out of me.
A flood—no, an avalanche—coursed out of my hands and into the main power lines of the ship. The lights overhead brightened to eye-watering levels, and beads of light danced in the exposed wires overhead. A musical hum of a million voices sang in happiness as they flew through the lines, finally where they needed to be.
I rested my head against the generator, that beautiful, beautiful machine. The pain was gone. A tear escaped my eye, and then I was wheezing from laughter that mixed with my tears.
Rachel Goldstein, naval nuclear electrician, had just powered an aircraft carrier once more.
7
The Master at Arms shut my cell’s door again, though this time without slamming it. “Just stay here, okay?”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Nothing to unload anymore. Keep the light on, though.”
“Okay, but we turn the lights off at Taps so people in here can sleep. That’s in about five minutes.”
“Fine.”
I sat on the thin mattress of the small bed, then laid back and stared up at the cracked ceiling of the isolation cell.
The Master at Arms—Master Chief Buntin, I’d been told—hadn’t said much when he’d hurried into the engine room, his drones hot on his heels. He hadn’t pointed a gun at me or threatened me with dismemberment. He’d simply stared at me in shock. When I asked what was up, he’d blurted the reason: nobody had ever survived absorbing that much magic. Raw magic ripped ghosts apart.
Wayne had said that I’d dropped a payload of magic onto the flotilla, but the full meaning of that hadn’t registered with me when he’d said it. Yet, unbeknownst to me, I’d held the sphere in my hand and had somehow absorbed some into my body.
And my body had converted it into power. Not “captain of a ghost ship power” power. Not “I’m a superhero, hear me roar” power. But engine power. Generator power. Rachel-Goldstein’s-professional-specialty power.
Pouring all the power into the generator had felt right. Familiar. As regular and normal as the other routines that had made up my life. I was made for it, though I couldn’t begin to guess who had made me this way, and for what purpose.
Hashem, maybe?
Now, there was an idea. Perhaps Hashem had elected to keep me out of paradise because my job, as it were, was not over. My earthly job was, but my spiritual purpose stretched beyond that. He’d given me a calling that I’d followed, and it had taken me here.
The intercom whistled. “Taps, taps, lights out. Maintain silence about the decks. The smoking lamp is out. Now, Taps.”
The lights dimmed.
Now that I was in my quiet isolation cell, away from my friends, I was clear-headed enough to push all the emotion aside and truly ponder my new paradigm.
The ship had said that she needed me. Was this the reason? Did she need a nuclear electrician—or three? Wayne had said that the engineers had been depleted, and he was obviously not up to snuff if he was spending half his days in the brig.
The door to the isolation wing opened, and masculine footsteps came toward my cell, followed by the tip-taps of high-heeled shoes on steel. The lights turned on again.
I sat up as my door was opened by none other than Captain Gorman. Nurse Dot, the brunette, stood behind him. He was holding a thick leather-bound book.
“Captain Gorman.”
“Petty Officer Goldstein. May we come in?”
“Please.” I stood, and the pair came in, arranging themselves on the other side of the small cell. “How can I help you?”
Captain Gorman surveyed me with his usual calm. “You’ve had a busy day, Petty Officer. First you escaped onto the Taft and fought a fairy, and then you stole one of my cargo planes and detonated several dozen class-a storage spheres, thereby destroying a small fleet of pirates. All within…” He removed a gold pocket watch from his pocket and flipped it open. “…six hours.”
Dot lifted a slim finger to her lips and demurely coughed, but I saw the mirth in her eyes. She was a good ole’ Southern rebel, no doubt about it.
Captain Gorman put his fob back in his pocket. “I’m sure you’re wondering why we’re here.”
“To yell at me, right?”
To my surprise, Captain Gorman sat on my bed and patted the spot next to him. Dot settled on the small stool and straightened her roomy white skirt.
“Actually, Petty Officer, I’m here to talk to you about what happened in the engine room earlier. I’d suspected as much before, but now I firmly believe it’s why you came to this ship. Can you describe the sailor who freed you from your cell in the brig?”
Slightly startled by his casual demeanor, I gave real thought to the question. “Um… tall, I guess. Muscular. A Seaman.”
“But what were his features? His coloring?”
“He was… um…” I faltered. Now that it was put to me, I couldn’t remember what the Seaman had looked like. Not his skin color, eyes, hair, anything. It was as though someone had gently erased that part of my memory from my brain.
Dot smiled at me. “When I died, all those years ago, I woke up in a ship even older than this. It was the USS Shadow back then. There was a Seaman in the room with me who told me that I was going to be the first real, proper nurse on board. But I can’t really remember what he looked like… because he wasn’t really there, you see.”
I rubbed my forehead. “What do you mean?”
Dot leaned forward and took my hands in hers. “It was the ship, sweetheart. It speaks to you. It speaks to me. It’s in our heads. It’s alive, an ancient vessel that takes new forms as needed. I brought the Shadow into the new world with me, and it turned into the Saint Catherine. I was born on Saint Catherine’s Island in Georgia—it took that little piece of my heart and built an aircraft carrier out of it. And today the ship freed you and led you to the engine room. That’s where you’re supposed to be. You and all the others are meant to bring the new ship into a new age. The nuclear age.”
I pulled my hands out of hers. “What does this mean?” My eyes flickered to Captain Gorman. “And what’s the book for?”
“The book is the official roster of all sailors stationed on the Saint Catherine. I’ll be completely honest with you: the ship can’t upgrade unless you sign it. The others have already, and they’re getting settled in their berthing spaces right now. But the ship still hasn’t upgraded. We’re waiting on you.”
I studied him. “There’s a ‘but,’ isn’t there?”
“But, if you sign it, it means that you’re going to be on board for a long time. Dot and I have been with the Saint Catherine for a lifeti
me, and time works a little funny here. It can feel longer when you don’t actually age.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And I’m not in trouble because of the bomb thing?”
There was hint of a smirk on his face. “Not unless you want to be. We are en route to fight a large sea dragon, and punishing you all is more trouble than you’re worth, right now.”
Sea dragons. I wasn’t even shocked anymore.
I considered that, and thought back to all that Wayne had said. I’d interrupted him during a crucial moment, and I had the sense to not make any decisions without all the information.
“What’s the fog?” I asked, looking back and forth between them. “Context being, what happened to the last skipper?”
Captain Gorman blinked quickly. “You’ve already heard about that?”
“Uh huh. Explain.”
Even Dot looked uncomfortable. “We don’t fully understand it. It’s... well… a fog that appears and disappears in the night. Sometimes sailors say they can hear someone calling for them, and…” She put a hand to her throat.
“They disappear and never return,” Captain Gorman finished. “We don’t know what happens to them.”
Interesting. Even we, the dead ones, had a death of sorts to look forward to.
“So that it’s, then? If we stay on the ship, we can renovate it and make it a nuclear aircraft carrier, and then we’ll sail around the Oceanus until possibly the end of time.”
“Not the end of time,” Captain Gorman said. “Everyone goes into the fog, in the end. Or they die in battle, but even then, we don’t know if that’s true death.”
“Will I ever see my family again?” The question came out before I could stop it, but I meant it all the same. I could put up with almost anything as long as I knew I’d see my family some day. It was the naked hope of reconciliation that brought me through the dark nights of deployment. If I could just know that I’d hug my mother again in the afterlife, I could fight any war they pointed me at.
Captain Gorman paused, and then said, “There is an island, at the edge of the known world. We call it the Far Island. It is said that it’s the portal to the… the beyond. It’s shrouded in fog, probably the same fog that takes sailors. If you go there, you may one day be reunited with your family. But nobody ever comes back from there, either.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the phone. There’s a place I can go to now? I don’t have to wait for the fog to take me?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m not signing that book. I’ll help you fight the dragon, but I’m not staying on the ship. I’m going home.”
And that was that. I would not spend untold decades, or even centuries, on a ship when I could go to the real afterlife. This was my hard limit. My life had ended on a sour note with my parents, and I had to make it right. This was the first step.
They both exchanged a sad glance, then nodded. “Fine,” Captain Gorman said. “Then you get off at Port des Morts in two days.”
8
“Okay,” Bickley said. “Let’s try this again, and this time I want Torres to direct the magic into the generator.”
It had been a day since we’d been freed from the brig. Bickley, Torres, and I were standing in the engine room by the main generator. We’d asked for a lone glass sphere of magic to practice with; it was now in a spindly metal perch that allowed us to touch it without jostling it too much.
Wayne had been condemned to the laundry when it became clear that his services were no longer required in the engine room. The other engineers had perfected a complicated process that involved placing the magic spheres inside a special machine, but without the old team, it had been left to Wayne to do it all, and he was… well, not the most responsible.
Cue the ship shanghaiing us.
Torres took my hand in her right one, while I slipped my free hand into Bickley’s. Torres touched a finger to the sphere.
“I love the humming,” she murmured. “It’s like music.”
The jolt of magic from the sphere coursed through us—but this time, with the concentration of three nukes to contain it, we were able to control it. Like a solid rope, we were yoked together by the raw magic. Though it begged to be unleashed, we were the masters, not the other way around.
“I can feel it changing,” Bickley said. “It’s subtle, but it’s definitely taking a different form.”
I could feel it, too. It was almost as if the magic were leveling up, growing bigger and badder, but still definitely a version of itself. I was listening to instincts I did not know I had, and those instincts told me to be very, very gentle as I manipulated the magic inside me.
“I’m about to direct it into the generator,” Torres said. “Careful… careful… okay, let it go.”
I released the magic and pushed it into her. She touched the generator, and it hummed a little louder than before. But this time, the lights didn’t brighten, and there were no curious luminescent beads moving along in the wires. As amusing as that had been, I suspected that I’d nearly overloaded the system and made the ship go dark.
Bit by bit, the magic swirled out of me and into Torres, like a bathtub-full of water circling a small drain. It was peaceful, almost. Relaxing. We were the power people, just doing what we were made for.
“Goldstein, you’re next,” Bickley said.
I placed my hand on a sphere and let the magic pool in my stomach. I was about to redirect it into my coworkers when I felt the magic slip into my legs and arms. Once again, my limbs felt amped up, like I could run a marathon in an hour. I’d felt that way when I’d been freed from the brig by the ship’s avatar.
“Hey, I want to experiment with something,” I said, bouncing on my heels a little. “Stand back.”
Bickley shook his head. “Let’s not—”
I shot a blast of magic into my legs at the same that I jumped. Instead of going up six inches, I blasted into the air several feet, banged my head on a pipe, hit a generator on the way down, and landed with a thud on the floor.
Ouch.
Torres and Bickley burst into laughter. Torres helped me up, still laughing, and cuffed my ear. “You looked like someone had placed a trampoline beneath you.”
I rubbed the throbbing spot on my scalp. “Well, now I can say that I survived something Rollins didn’t.”
They laughed harder. “Dark, Goldstein. That was dark,” Bickley said, handing me a sphere. “No more experiments, if you please.”
We all grinned and shook our heads at the funny moment, and I stepped up to the dais. Time to be serious. I took Torres’ hand in my own and opened up the connection.
“Hey, everyone!” Commander Hollander called from the doorway.
Moment over.
Cursing, I severed the connection to Torres and whipped around. “We’re a little busy here, Commander, as you can see.”
Commander Hollander cocked his head. “What are you doing? It looks like a kumbayah circle.”
Bickley placed a firm hand on my shoulder and steered me behind him. “We’re practicing converting magic into useable energy for the ship. We’re the only ones who can do it.”
Commander Hollander walked up to the generator and patted it appreciatively. “I never got to see the engine room on the Taft, being in the air wing and everything. We always wondered what you nerds got up to down there.” Immediately, his eyes widened. “I—I’m sorry, that came out wrong. That was unkind.”
“We were refining uranium,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Commander Hollander looked stunned. “Really?”
“No. We nerds were completing a series of highly-complicated procedures designed to ensure that the uranium within the two nuclear reactors was bombarded with the correct amount of neutrons, thereby making sure that we didn’t kill everyone within five hundred miles. When we weren’t doing that, we were studying how to do that better, so your butt had the power to fly planes. What were you doing?”
Ugh, this guy. Every single thing about him was
sticking in my craw. He’d killed me, refused to accept agency for that act, and now he was trying to get us to warm up to him like nothing had happened. Here I was, dead and still somehow in an engine room, listening to the man who’d killed me call me a nerd. In my space. In my domain. That was like me going up to the air wing office and calling all of them “jocks in flight suits,” which is definitely how much of the Taft had felt about the air wing. You weren’t supposed to actually say how you felt about other rates.
Commander Hollander sighed. “Remember to call me ‘sir.’ I was providing air support for operations overseas, Petty Officer. Let’s not play this game. I came down to get to know you all a little better, since we’re spiritually connected.” He patted the generator again. “Like this. This is important to you, so I want to know more about it. This engine has, what, eighty thousand horsepower?”
“That’s a generator, sir.”
He held his hands up. “Are you still angry about the accident? Is this what this is about?”
“You killed me, you dickhead!”
Torres grabbed my hand and dragged me behind another generator, a reproving look on her face. “Don’t talk, just walk.” She didn’t stop until we were on the other side of the room, where she turned around and faced me. “Rach, for the love of God. He’s an officer. You gotta be respectful.” She frowned and shook her head. “Why are you being like this? You’ve never had a problem with military bearing before.”
I crossed my arms. My friend was not this daft. “He killed us. As far as I’m concerned, he’s bupkis to me.”
Torres’s chagrin morphed into surprise. “It was an accident. Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Hold on to hatred. You might as well hate the storm from that night. I’m surprised to hear this from you.”
I wasn’t going to be chastened by her. “I’m on my way to Port des Morts, and there I’m going to catch a boat to go to an island where I may or may not ever reunite with my parents. Don’t you see how messed up this is? It’s his fault. He killed me. He’s why—”
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