Burnt Sea: A Seabound Prequel (Seabound Chronicles Book 0)

by Jordan Rivet

  Chapter 13—The Beach

  Judith

  The atoll was invisible until they were almost on top of it. It was a tiny island, no more than a flat stretch of sand, with a few wind-ravaged trees hanging on for dear life at the center. Debris was strewn across the beach: parts of ships, dead sea creatures, even a four-door sedan. The largest piece of debris was a huge cargo ship, broken into two pieces, sitting halfway in the shallows and halfway on the beach.

  “There she is,” Michael said. He stood beside Judith as they approached the little island. He had stayed close to her while they made plans to retrieve the fuel tanks from the wrecked cargo ship. He was capable and straightforward, with an easy sense of self-assurance. “I’m glad to finally be doing something,” he said.

  “Me too,” Judith said. She met his eyes and couldn’t help blushing and looking down. Get a grip, Judith. He’s not that hot. It had clearly been too long since she’d met any attractive men. He wasn’t the type of guy she usually liked anyway. He was too much of a jock. This was no time to be thinking about his piercing eyes and square-jawed good looks.

  “Some of that stuff on the beach could come in handy,” Judith said briskly. “We should gather whatever we can when we go in for the fuel.”

  “There should be plenty of room in the lifeboats.”

  “How close can we get to the atoll?” Judith asked.

  “It gets shallow pretty far out,” Michael said. “We’ll have to go a few hundred feet at least to get to the beach. We gotta move quickly before the sailors back on Guam figure out what we’re doing.”

  “What will they do if they find out?”

  Michael hesitated. “Let’s just not let them catch us.”

  Fifteen minutes later the crew lowered three lifeboats full of storage containers and people into the sea. Each one was partially enclosed and designed to hold up to 150 people. Now twenty or thirty crew members and former passengers climbed into each boat to help with the salvage operation.

  Michael followed Judith and Nora into the third lifeboat. She felt keenly aware of him as he reached behind her to hold on to the bulkhead, the muscles in his arms bulging when they hit the water. She almost wished he’d gotten into a different lifeboat. He threw her off balance, and she hated being out of control. He was what she would have called a distraction a lifetime ago.

  The lifeboat motored toward the shore. The water was murky, churned up by the recent storm. The clouds, as gloomy as the water, swirled unnaturally with purples and grays. Even the equatorial sun didn’t quite shine through. Cold sea spray coated Judith’s face, but she couldn’t wait to walk on solid ground for a little while.

  When their boat reached the sand, Michael and a few others leapt out and pulled it further up the beach amidst the junk. About eighty people had volunteered for the salvage team. They scattered like pigeons to collect usable debris and edible seaweed. Nora headed for what looked like a pile of sandy circuit boards.

  Judith walked a little slower, savoring the feeling of her feet sinking into the sand. The ground felt like it was moving beneath her. She made tracks with her running shoes in the shifting sand. Michael waited for her where the wet sand met dry.

  “Want to come with me to the cargo ship, Judith? I could use a hand.”

  “Sure.”

  “Nothing like a long walk on the beach with a cute girl,” he said, stretching his arms high over his head as if he planned to put one around her.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Judith said wryly. She pulled at the salt-stained sweatshirt she wore over the mismatched yoga pants. Michael winked at her.

  She followed him across the sand, picking her way around broken propellers, waterlogged suitcases, and a tangled clump of iridescent jellyfish. The beach smelled of oil and rotting fish. The detritus was a mix of things that belonged on land and things that belonged at the bottom of the sea. There was even the carcass of a small airplane half-buried in the sand.

  Judith climbed over part of the plane’s wing and stifled a scream. Michael ran back toward her.

  She fought nausea as she tried to scrub her shoes clean. She’d stepped directly onto a bloated body in the shade of the aluminum wing. It was a man of indeterminate age. His flesh had gone soft and porous, and his face looked chewed and pocked. His lids were open, but his eyes were gone. Judith refused to look at the place in his side where her foot had landed.

  “Come on, Judith.” Michael put his arm around her shoulder and turned her firmly away from the corpse. “Don’t look at it. We have work to do.”

  She stared at him, trying to find her voice.

  “Don’t say ‘it.’ Say h— ”

  She couldn’t finish. She ducked beneath Michael’s arm and threw up on the sand. Tears filled her eyes. Why was everything so horrible? She wanted to wake up, to know for certain that this nightmare was over. She couldn’t take it.

  “You’re okay,” Michael said, almost humming the words. He patted her on the back. “Let’s focus on the fuel. We can do this.”

  Slowly she straightened and wiped her mouth on her sleeve, mortified at her reaction. But Michael simply offered her his hand, and they picked their way toward the cargo ship lying further along the beach. He talked to her in that same low hum, almost like he was speaking to himself.

  “You’re okay. We can do this. You’re okay.”

  The hull of the broken cargo ship loomed above them, barnacles covering it like a layer of crumbs. Judith ran her hand along the hull as they walked toward the opening, feeling the rough creatures under her fingertips. It was cold in the shadow beneath the hulking vessel, but it felt stable, real.

  There was a gap midship, as if a giant child had broken the ship apart like a toy and dropped it in two separate pieces, slightly out of alignment. The second piece lay mostly in the water, and the waves slapped against its sides.

  The smell of oil was heavy here. The barnacles beneath Judith’s fingers became slick and dark the closer they got to the break.

  “Will there be any fuel left?” Judith asked.

  “Cargo ships have built-in tanks,” Michael explained. “Those are busted, and we wouldn’t be able to get them out anyway. But this baby was transporting additional fuel in tanks lashed to the deck.” Michael bent to roll up the legs of his trousers before splashing toward the partially submerged half of the ship. “A few of them were still okay when we spotted the wreck yesterday.”

  “How will you get the tanks down?” Judith asked. “They must be really heavy.”

  “The ship has a crane. If we can get it working, we can lift the tanks directly into the water and tow them behind the boats. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to siphon the fuel and carry it in trips.”

  “That could take days.”

  “We don’t have days.”

  Judith and Michael were the first to reach the cargo ship, but soon about twenty other crew members from the Catalina gathered in its shadow, including Reggie. Nora joined them too but immediately climbed into the cargo ship and disappeared into the deckhouse, muttering about computer equipment. Reggie quickly took charge and designated roles for the crew. Judith kept a lookout on the horizon for any signs of the navy, while Michael and the others climbed into the dark interior of the ship. Water rushed in and out of the lowest level where the break was. It was a dark cavern that must have been one of the ship’s main fuel compartments. It was empty now except for the rushing, oil-slicked surf.

  Judith could no longer see the cargo ship team from her post on the beach. From this angle she couldn’t see the crane or the fuel tanks at all. She surveyed the atoll. The other people from the Catalina picked up scraps and called out to each other.

  “Can we use this?”

  “Is this seaweed edible?”

  “Help me carry these tires, will you?”

  They looked to be in better spirits than she’d seen them in days, even though their hopes of landing in Guam had been dashed. Having solid ground to walk on certainly improve
d morale. They had already nearly filled one of the lifeboats with salvage.

  The Catalina herself floated beyond the breaking surf. Judith remembered when she’d first seen the ship by the dock in San Diego. She was still bright white, but the boarded-up windows of the dining hall scarred her surface. She showed the wear from their journey, just like her people.

  Clanging came from within the cargo ship, then a screeching mechanical sound. They must have found the controls for the crane. Someone out of sight swore theatrically.

  The dark sky swirled. Wind swept the beach, driving sand into Judith’s face. She pulled the arms of her sweatshirt over her hands and held them up on both sides of her face. She shivered, not for the first time wishing for the safety of her little apartment back in San Diego, with its grimy counters and flimsy walls. She missed the simple problems: whether or not she’d get the right job; whether or not her professors would like her papers; whether or not her roommate would wake her up when she came home.

  After about fifteen minutes Michael and a few of the others climbed back out of the beached ship. Two of them carried a pile of thick chain between them. They set to work disentangling it on the beach.

  “We got the crane to work,” Michael told Judith. “But the tanks are tied down good. The crew just got the first one loose.”

  The team brought the first stretch of chain nearer to the ship. There was a shout from the upper reaches of the wreck. A screeching, creaking sound. Then a massive shape loomed above them, swinging out over the side of the cargo vessel. The fuel tank teetered in the space between ship and sky. Whoever was controlling the crane eased it into position slowly.

  “Watch your head.”

  “It’s huge!” Judith said.

  “Each one holds over nine thousand gallons, and there are half a dozen of them up there,” Michael said. “We should be able to sail for a few more days on that.” He called out instructions to guide the tank further out over the water.

  Judith held her breath as the massive shape swung above them, swaying in the strengthening breeze. It was about the size of the fuel tanks pulled across the highways of California by big tanker trucks, easily the length of several normal cars.

  With a frightening creak the crane eased the tank even further out over the water.

  “That’s good,” Michael shouted. “Bring her down!”

  The tank lowered, getting closer and closer to shallow surf beside the broken ship. Judith tensed, afraid to move an inch.

  “Release!”

  The tank splashed into the shallows beside the cargo vessel. Michael and the others hurried forward to keep it from drifting away. They wrapped some of the chain around it, linking it like a harness. Michael patted the tank affectionately.

  “So far so good.”

  “These things are heavy,” Reggie shouted, leaning over the edge of the cargo ship above them. “We better bring the lifeboats over to pull. I don’t think we’ll be able to push it far even with the whole team.”

  “I’ll work on that,” Judith said. “You guys get those things off the ship.”

  “Roger that,” Reggie said, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Let’s get the next tank moving.”

  “Right behind you,” Michael said. “This is going to take a while.”

  “Um, guys?” Judith said. “We don’t have a while.”

  She had just looked up to see a massive storm cloud trundling toward them.

  Simon

  Simon watched the storm grow from the bridge with Ren and Vinny. It hovered above them, a roiling, turbulent mass. Funnel clouds spiked down, and the sea rose up to meet them. Simon flashed back to the terrifying moments in San Diego when the ash roared above the city. The sea between them rolled, gelatinous beneath the darkening sky.

  “Is it going to hit us?” Simon asked.

  “Sure looks like it,” Ren said.

  “Any chance you can outrun it?”

  “This atoll is going to make it tricky. If we get stuck, we’ll be in real trouble. To be honest, Simon, I’m not experienced enough to pilot under these conditions.”

  “You’ll have to try, Ren. First we need to get everyone off the beach.”

  “We should pull up the anchor,” Vinny said. Sweat formed rivulets on his brow. “We don’t have time to wait for the lifeboats.”

  Simon hesitated for a fraction of a second.

  “No,” Ren said, standing up and pushing back her chair. “We can’t leave them.”

  “I agree, Ren,” Simon said quickly. “Don’t worry. Fire up the engines, but wait for my signal.”

  “Aye aye, captain,” Ren said. She scowled at Vinny before turning her attention back to the looming storm.

  “Wait a minute. That’s what we need,” Simon said. He clapped Ren on the shoulder and headed for the exit.

  Captain Martinelli’s quarters were located just behind the bridge. His spacious accommodations included his cabin, accessible from the bridge in an emergency, and the elegant Captain’s Lounge. There, he would entertain VIPs and perform the public relations part of a cruise captain’s duties.

  Since being forcibly removed from duty six days ago, Captain Martinelli had been locked in his quarters. Vinny had been bringing him his meals and making sure he had plenty of water. He hadn’t been allowed to speak to anyone else. They had left the entryway between his room and the Captain’s Lounge open to give him more space, but metal taken from room service trolleys barred the other entrances. Simon removed the interlocking pieces one by one and knocked on the door to the lounge.

  “Enter.”

  “Captain Martinelli? The ship is in danger, and we need your help.”

  “Simon, how good of you to visit. A drink?”

  The captain stood before the huge picture windows spanning one wall of the lounge, swirling cognac in a glass. His uniform was soiled, but every button and fringe was in place. He’d combed down his hair since the last time Simon saw him, but this only served to accentuate the madness in his eyes. There was a stale, putrid scent in the room, like rotting food and illness.

  “There’s no time, sir. We need you to get us out of the path of a big storm. We’re near an atoll, so we don’t have much room to maneuver between the shallow water and the storm.”

  “It’s magnificent, cognac. Don’t you think so, Simon? My father abhorred the stuff, but my elder brother introduced me to its finer points. Do close the door. No need to let in a draft.”

  “We have to go now. Ren can’t do it on her own.”

  Simon crossed to the window and looked down at the beach. The people from the Catalina gathered around the broken cargo ship, and some had climbed up to its main deck. A huge tank swung dangerously from a crane clinging to the top of the wreck. Another tank was already in the water, with another group holding it steady in the breakers. One of the lifeboats approached, already piled high with salvage. Judith stood a little apart from the crowd, directing the lifeboat into position. The crew moved forward and began securing the first tank to the lifeboat with some sort of chain. They must be planning to tug it toward the Catalina. It looked like a very slow process. Didn’t they see the storm approaching?

  “My elder brother was a ship’s captain too, you know.” The captain took a sip of his cognac and reached for a cigarette. It must be one of his last ones. “He got me my first job. That was with Galaxy Cruises on one of their smaller models. I worked my way up from there, for half a dozen different lines, and now here I am. My own ship.”

  “Your ship is going to run aground if you don’t help us sail it away from here,” Simon said. He couldn’t see the hulking storm cloud from these windows. The sky had grown darker above the atoll. A flash of lightning sent shivers across the water.

  “I got her through the Sack of San Diego,” Captain Martinelli said. “That has a nice ring, doesn’t it? A suitable legacy. If people ever write about these days, I hope that’s what they’ll call it. Sacked by the insides of our own planet rising up to obl
iterate us. It’s a wonder the human race has lasted this long. If I were Mother Nature, I’d have wiped us off the surface ages ago.”

  “Sir, we still have a chance to survive,” Simon said, turning away from the window. He couldn’t believe he’d once thought this man looked like a hero.

  “Survive?” Captain Martinelli chuckled. “What is the point of this survival you speak of? The world is ruined. We should go down with dignity.”

  “I’m not ready for that,” Simon said. “There’s nothing dignified about sinking in a storm after our own military refused to help us. We have to fight for ourselves for as long as we can. Will you help us?”

  The captain sighed and turned away from the window. Lightning flashed behind him.

  “What exactly do you expect me to do?” he said.

  Judith

  The salvage team loaded up their spoils and brought the lifeboats closer to the wrecked cargo ship. They secured the first huge fuel tank to it with the chains they’d found on the cargo ship. Then one group gathered around the tank to hold it still while the second tank was being brought forward and secured. Judith stood apart from the group and directed the operation. The tank was too big for the people on either side to see each other. They stood knee-deep in the water, holding it steady until the second tank was in position. It was a miracle they could get the huge things to move through the water at all.

  When the two tanks were secured, the first group piled into the lifeboat and fired up the motor. The tanks bobbed heavily in the waves, creaking against their chains. The lines tightened. Would it work?

  Water and spray churned around the motor. Judith held her breath. Then the lifeboat began to move. It chugged slowly away from the beach, pulling the tanks behind it like a pair of trailers. Its progress was laborious, but it was moving. The teams remaining on the beach cheered.