by Jordan Rivet
She took three steps up to the dais and stood at the edge of the table. The woman who reminded her of Judith sat on her right and the youngest man, Boris, was on her left.
“Excuse me, um, Captains, sirs. Could I speak with you for a moment?” she said.
“And who are you?” The woman turned in her seat. Her nose was hawkish, and on closer inspection she didn’t look much like Judith after all.
“I’m Esther Harris. I’m from the Catalina.”
“The what?”
“The Catalina, Veronika. You know the little stranger ship?” said Captain Ryan from across the table. He didn’t acknowledge that he’d met Esther before, but his smile was indulgent.
“The loner? What of it?” Veronika’s voice was haughty, and she looked at Esther as if she were a sea slug.
“The Catalina, my home, is in serious trouble,” Esther said, fighting down her nerves.
“Well, that’s unfortunate. At least you’re here, and at a Crown dinner no less,” Veronika said, looking around as if trying to find the culprit who had let Esther in.
“My friends and family are low on fuel and water and they need your help,” Esther said.
Veronika waved her hand dismissively and turned back to her glass.
Esther faltered, but pressed on. “Our desalination system was badly damaged before the storm. We desperately need parts to repair it.”
Captain Ryan gave her a smile that didn’t seem entirely unkind. “We have our own vessels to look after. Your people should move onto Galaxy ships. We could show them an extravagant way of life here. We’re building a new civilization on the sea, you know.” He raised a glass to his lips.
She addressed her plea to him. “They can’t. They were lost at sea in the storm. I need you to send a search party after them. You have smaller vessels to spare.”
Veronika rolled her eyes, and one of the others, Philippe, chuckled before turning back to his plate.
Captain Ryan continued in the same kind though condescending voice. “Why would we risk one of our ships to go searching for a lost vessel? You’re welcome to stay, of course. I’m sure you could find something to do on one of our cruisers. Or maybe a cargo ship would suit you better.”
Esther put her hands on the table and leaned forward. “I’m responsible for the people on board the Catalina. They need help. Please let me trade something or work in exchange for your assistance.”
Veronika arched a very thin eyebrow at her. “You sound like your captain. Judith, is it? She was so persistent. Got rather tiresome at our dinners.”
“What if we promised to stay with the Galaxy?” Esther said. “The Catalina can add manpower and resources to the Flotilla if you send a ship after her with water and fuel. You’d have another cruise ship in your flotilla.”
It was what the captains wanted anyway. Esther would deal with the consequences of such a promise later. They had to help her.
For a moment, Captain Ryan seemed to consider her offer. His eyes glittered, no doubt tempted by the prospect of adding another ship to his empire.
Then the man on her left with the raven hair spoke for the first time. “I know who you are.” His voice grated like a pipe being dragged across the deck. “You’re the mechanic girl David Hawthorne was telling me about. Quite persistent, aren’t you? I hear you’ve been sneaking around the oil tanker. Isn’t this her, Hawthorne?”
Esther turned to see David standing beside her. He wore a black shirt like the ones the waiters were wearing.
“Yes, Boris, this is her.” His expression was unreadable.
“Did he tell you what I need?” Esther asked, praying David hadn’t sabotaged everything. Her heart crashed like waves against a hull.
“He said you were . . . tenacious. But he didn’t tell us you’d be bothering us over dinner tonight. Or did it slip my mind, Hawthorne?”
The look Boris tossed over his shoulder at David was barren and dangerous, despite his smile. His teeth were very straight and as white as Captain Ryan’s hair.
“I didn’t know she’d be here,” David said. He stood stiffly, as if he were part of the structure of the ship.
Esther felt numb. “You can’t just let them die!” she implored.
“We don’t owe you or your friends anything,” Boris said. “It’s their own fault if they couldn’t adapt to life on the sea.”
Captain Ryan looked back at his glass and shrugged. Veronika pinched her lips tighter.
“Come on, Esther, I’ll show you out.” David reached for her arm.
She wrenched it away. “I’ll show myself out when I’m ready. Look, we’ll do anything. What will it take to buy your help?”
“We’re not interested in anything you have to offer,” Boris said. “Forget the Catalina. They’re lost already. Hawthorne, would you mind?” Boris was already turning his attention back to the dessert.
David took Esther by the arm, his grip stiff. She fought against him, but the unfamiliar shoes and her injured foot prevented her from pulling away. Before she knew it, he had her by both arms and was carrying her off the dais. Blurry faces turned toward them from all across the restaurant. The Morrisons and Dax’s parents stared at them, openmouthed. Dax hunched beside them, looking miserable.
David’s hands tightened on her arms as she struggled all the way to the door. “Stop fighting me, Esther. I’m trying to help,” he hissed.
“Like hell you are. Put me down.” White-hot anger had replaced the ice in her chest.
When they reached the double doors, David pushed her through, and she scraped roughly against the intricate gold design. He put her down as soon as the door swung shut behind them. She turned around and slugged him in the face. He staggered, and she almost got past him, but he leaned back against the doors and caught her arm as she swung at him again. For a moment, their eyes met, their faces nearly nose to nose, then she kneed him in the balls.
“Ugh, Esther, I have a plan. Oh God.” He crumpled to the ground but leaned against the doors to keep her from getting back into the restaurant.
“You could have let me try without stepping in like that,” she shouted. “What’s it to you if they help me?”
David tried to speak, but he was still wheezing.
“It’s my fault the Catalina is in trouble,” she said, choking back the lump in her throat. “I won’t stop until I save them, so you should just stay out of my way.”
She considered kicking him, but he was already down—and she didn’t think she could balance on her precarious shoes long enough to do it properly.
“I . . . have . . . a plan,” David gasped. “I was going to tell you. I knew the captains wouldn’t help, so I’ve been trying to think of another way. I didn’t want you to talk to them and ruin it. Ugh.” Tears leaked from his eyes. “We need the element of surprise to pull it off.”
Esther folded her arms. “Why should I believe you?”
“You have to trust me. I know what we need to do. I was just trying to work out how.”
Esther stared at him for a long moment. His face was still red, and his glasses had fallen sideways. He still hadn’t had the crack repaired.
“What’s your plan?” she said slowly.
David sat up and met her eyes. “You need to steal a ship.”
Chapter 22—The Plan
ESTHER AND DAVID STOOD on one side of Marianna’s satellite center, Neal and Marianna on the other. A line drawing of the Galaxy’s configuration was spread out on the table between them. David and Marianna were engaged in a heated argument that had begun almost as soon as he and Esther returned from the Crown.
“If you think we’re going to trust you, you captain-loving bastard,” Marianna hissed.
David scowled. “At least I have a useful idea. I haven’t just been shouting up to antique satellites, hoping someone will pick up the signal.”
Marianna leaned forward, crumpling the edge of the map beneath her fists. “I know you, David Hawthorne. You’ve threatened me before, t
ried to intimidate me into keeping inconvenient reports quiet. You’ll do anything to keep everyone sedated.”
“I did my job,” David said, “but it’s different now.”
“Is it? How do we know you’re not going to send Esther and Neal off to die at sea, problem solved?”
“I confirmed with two reliable sources,” David said. “They’re moving a load of RO filters on the Lucinda tomorrow afternoon. It’s the perfect opportunity.”
“They need more than filters!” Marianna countered. “They need fuel and food and probably some rusty pipes or something. Don’t you know anything, you overprivileged windbag?”
David looked genuinely surprised at that epithet.
“Why do you keep saying ‘they’? Aren’t you coming with us?” Neal asked, turning to Marianna.
She stared back, her mouth still open midrant.
“Look,” Esther cut in, “none of this matters if we can’t find the Catalina. How are the communications coming?”
“There was a warship in the region when the storm hit,” Neal said. “They saw the Catalina yesterday morning.” It was notoriously difficult to get anything out of old navy ships. The ones that hadn’t gone completely rogue were paranoid about sharing information. “Marianna managed to charm the comm officer and got the coordinates. They were heading east.”
Esther felt the sea-deep pressure that had been sitting on her chest for days ease a little. “Why didn’t you tell me that the second we walked in? Neal, that means they’re alive!”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “It means the ship was moving almost two days ago. That’s all. Why didn’t they send out a distress signal when they saw the warship on radar? Something is wrong.”
Esther couldn’t dwell on that. “At least it gives us somewhere to start.” For the first time, she felt hopeful, and there were tangible steps they could take. “David, when do you—?”
“Just a minute,” Marianna interrupted. “We are not starting anything until Hawthorne tells us who his ‘reliable sources’ are.”
David nodded. He had rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt and unbuttoned the collar. He spoke calmly, despite Marianna’s opposition. “I went down to the engine room of the Mist after Esther left for the Crystal. I got an earful from the head machinist down there about morons wandering through his facility, but I told him the captains needed a report on the lower decks. He let me into the hold through the engine room entrance and mentioned there would be a load of filters going over to the desal facility on the Lucinda. I confirmed the information with Boris, one of the captains, this afternoon.”
“Aha!” Marianna said. “You and Boris. Of course. You’re friends, aren’t you?”
David missed a beat. “We had a falling-out. It’s been all business lately.” He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand.
Esther wondered when David had talked to Boris about her. Boris’s remark still stung. She had to regain control of this situation. “Tell me more about Lucinda,” Esther said.
She wasn’t completely sure they should trust David’s plan. He might screw them over, but the Catalina was running out of time.
David pulled another diagram from beneath the map. It was a hand-drawn image of a ship with an impressive amount of detail, every deck and porthole labeled and measured. It was the same style as the drawings Esther had seen in David’s cabin. “She’s a Cyclone-class patrol ship,” he said. “One of the most beautiful ships we have. One hundred seventy-nine feet. Three hundred thirty-one tons. Max speed is thirty-five knots. Diesel propulsion and three thousand three hundred fifty shaft horsepower. Designed by the US Navy, but they lost her ages ago.”
Marianna scoffed. “They don’t use Lucinda for deliveries.”
David nodded. “You’re right, of course, but the ferries took a serious hit during the storm. They’re using every available vessel to get the grunt work done. That’s why the machinist told me about it in the first place. It’s unusual.”
“You want to steal a warship?” Esther said, liking this plan more and more.
“She’s fast and light, and she’ll be able to handle the open water. Plus she can outrun the destroyer if they come after us.” David grinned.
“Rust! The Galaxy has a destroyer too?”
David nodded, and there was a light in his eyes, a spark of passion.
“Of course,” he said. “But they aren’t using high-quality fuel. The captain’s an idiot, so the destroyer’s not running as fast as she should be. Lucinda can take her.”
“What about crew?” Neal asked.
David shrugged. “Well, since we’re stealing her anyway, we might as well take a few of her men along.”
“And have them throw us overboard the second they realize how few of us there are?” Neal asked. “What do you think we should do, Esther?”
The door burst open.
“Esther’s been arrested!” Dax shouted. He made a beeline for Neal and Marianna. “I just got away. Things looked like they were going well with the captains and then that smarmy . . .” Dax noticed David and jumped a foot backwards, where he collided with Esther.
“Calm down, Dax. I’m all right,” she said.
“Oh my God. I’m sorry, Esther! I wanted to rescue you, but my mother—”
“She didn’t need rescuing. She can take care of herself, and I was trying to help her. Talking to the captains at a Crown dinner was a terrible idea,” David muttered.
“I’m so confused.” Dax slumped into the swivel chair by the radar screen.
“David is going to help us steal a ship so we can find the Catalina,” Esther said simply.
In that moment, she knew it was the right thing to do. They’d have to work out the details, but they had no time to be indecisive.
“Are you sure this is a good idea, Esther?” Neal said quietly.
“What?” Dax shouted.
“Yeah, now be quiet,” Esther said. “We’re working out how to get enough people to sail it. We’re not sure kidnapping the crew will work.”
Dax’s eyes widened. “Which ship?”
“Lucinda.”
“Are you crazy?”
“She’s perfect,” David said. He ran a long finger across his drawing.
Dax leapt up. “She’s Captain Boris’s pet project. He loves to send her zipping around the Flotilla. I think he actually wants us to get attacked so he can use her.”
“He’ll get over it. He still has the HMS Hampton.” David turned back to the others, all business. “Now about the crew. I think it’ll have to be a hijack job.”
Marianna shook her head, hair whipping dramatically. “They will fight you every step of the way.”
Esther nodded. She thought David was onto a good plan, but they couldn’t deal with a mutinous crew.
“We don’t have time for that kind of complication,” she said.
“You don’t need them,” Dax said. “There are enough people who want to leave the Galaxy anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Esther asked.
Dax shot a quick look at David, as if deciding how much to reveal. “I have a friend who talks about it all the time—leaving. Mind you, he wants to go to land, not another ship.”
“And there are others?” Esther asked.
Dax shrugged. “Why wouldn’t there be?”
“So, that’s the alternative?” David said. “We gather a bunch of disgruntled teenagers and hope they can figure out how to operate a sophisticated vessel like Lucinda?”
“You got a better idea? And they’re not all teenagers,” Dax said.
Esther was thinking fast. “How many people does it take to sail the Lucinda?”
“Normal crew is twenty-eight,” David said, meeting her eyes. “At the bare minimum, we’ll need fifteen besides us to keep the thing moving, unless we’re prepared to take twenty-four-hour shifts.”
Esther nodded. “That’s fifteen people who know what they’re doing. What about a captain? Are there any proper seamen who know h
ow to sail a warship and want to bail on the Galaxy?”
She addressed Dax, but it was David who spoke. “That’s why I’m coming along.” He looked at her steadily. “I don’t spend all my time just chatting with the captains. I’ve learned a thing or two about sailing from Boris.”
Esther felt a jolt of something. Excitement? Fear? It was like her body was connected to a lightning rod with a storm on the way.
“Hold on a minute. Why are you helping us?” Neal asked.
Marianna was watching David suspiciously too.
David arched an eyebrow above his broken glasses. “Maybe I’m sick of all this ‘new civilization’ rhetoric. Does it matter?”
Neal tugged on his tie, frowning. “What happens when we reach the Catalina? Are you going to drop us off with the stolen parts and sail the Lucinda back to the Galaxy?”
“And hope the captains welcome me back with open arms?” David scoffed. “I don’t know what I’ll do then, but I’m finished with the Galaxy, if you’ll accept my help.” He kept his eyes on Esther, waiting for her reaction.
What did it mean that David wanted to come with them, to abandon his position and his former life? Was this about her, after one night together? There had to be more to it. Still, this development actually made her more willing to believe David would not betray them. It was too strange to be an act. In any case, she wasn’t confident she could sail the Lucinda herself. She knew Neal couldn’t.
She nodded.
“Well, I’m coming too!” Dax stared defiantly at them all.
“Oh no you’re not. You can’t abandon your parents,” Marianna said.
Dax drew himself up. “I’m a grown man now. I live in my own cabin. I can choose to move to another ship for the girl I love, can’t I?” The effect of Dax’s declaration was spoiled somewhat when his voice cracked.
Marianna sighed. “This girl you love,” she said. “What if she doesn’t want you to come after her, huh? Maybe she was just having a little romance and wants to go back to her Catalina boyfriend. What then?”
