by Jordan Rivet
“I know,” Naomi said after a moment’s hesitation. “I think I want a fresh start. And there are too many memories at the lake. I’d like to stay with you and Dad, at least for a little while.”
Esther smiled. “Sounds good. We just have to save the Catalina first.”
The sun was beginning to peek over the treetops by the time they rolled down to the riverside. The Lucinda waited for them far enough downriver that she couldn’t be seen from the dam. They had to abandon the rough dirt road for the final yards and drive through the underbrush, bouncing and rattling along. Yvonne got the jeep as close to the water as possible and began honking the horn. Esther and the others leapt out and shouted for the crew.
A few people were standing watch on deck, and more tumbled out, rubbing their eyes and staring at the ruckus on the riverbank. In short order the crew launched the raft and sent it over to pick them up. Zoe was driving. She stood up next to the motor as she approached the shore.
“Geeze, I’m glad you got her,” Zoe said, “but couldn’t you have announced your presence a little more quietly? It’s still early.”
“The Catalina is about to be attacked!” Esther shouted. “We need to get under way now. They’re almost defenseless. Why isn’t anyone fixing the comms?”
“Didn’t know there was a problem. Cally and Dax had the night shift,” Zoe said. “I’m going to murder those two.”
“Doesn’t matter now. Boris is heading for the Catalina in the destroyer. We need to meet them at the mouth of the river.”
“All aboard then,” Zoe said. “You look terrible by the way, Esther.”
“Good to see you too.”
David and Zoe helped Esther into the raft, while Naomi hugged Yvonne good-bye by the jeep. Esther sank down onto the bench and looked back at her sister.
“You’ll be okay,” Naomi was saying to Yvonne. “Take care of the girls.”
“I will,” Yvonne said. “I’m going to miss you.”
“You too.” Naomi hugged her again and turned toward the raft.
Suddenly Thompson stepped out of the trees, his camouflage clothing making it look like part of the jungle had come to life. He had his shotgun in his hand, and with a few quick steps he moved between Naomi and the raft.
“Hold on a minute,” he growled.
Naomi and Yvonne gasped. David stepped back out of the raft onto the shore. Esther teetered on the bench, her head swimming. Zoe put one hand on her shoulder to steady her, the other reaching for her pocketknife.
“It’s all right,” Thompson growled. “I don’t want trouble.”
“Where did you come from?” Yvonne asked.
“I’ve been watching the Lucinda all night,” Thompson said. “I had to make sure they weren’t going to come back and attack the lake. Thought it would be my chance to prove I’m a better leader than Dagan.”
“The Dentist is dead,” Naomi said.
Thompson adjusted his cap. “I see,” he said. “Are you folks really just going to leave?”
“We don’t want any trouble either,” David said carefully.
“Naomi? You sure you want to go with these people? I’ll stop them if they’re taking you against your will.”
“No, it’s okay,” Naomi said. “This is my family. Yvonne can explain everything.”
Yvonne squeaked, but she nodded when Thompson looked over at her. “She has to go with them,” she said.
“There will be a power vacuum up at the lake,” David said. “If you let us go in peace, we won’t come back.”
He hesitated for a second and then lowered his rifle so it hung from his shoulder on the strap. He raised his hands in a calming gesture.
After a full minute Thompson did the same.
“Unlike the Dentist, I don’t mind contact with the outside world,” Thompson said. “Within reason. Things are going to change real quick around here, but let’s keep lines of communication open. I’ve heard a rumor that we might even be able to get our hands on a satellite phone.”
“It’s in the Bunker,” Naomi said. “Bottom level.”
“Thought it might be,” Thompson said.
David stepped forward and shook Thompson’s hand. “Let’s keep in touch.”
“Sure. Why not?” Thompson turned to Yvonne. “Can you give me a ride back up the hill? After that I’d be honored if you’d let me cook you breakfast.”
Blushing and sputtering, Yvonne made room for Thompson in the jeep. She waved to Naomi and Esther and drove the jeep through the brush toward the road. The growl of the engine faded as they headed back toward the lake.
David offered a hand to Naomi and helped her climb into the raft. Zoe fired up the motor and drove toward the Lucinda, waiting for them on the river. Faces lined her railing as the crew watched them approach.
“Sounds like you’ve got a story,” Zoe said. “I’ve been sitting here staring at the shore for a week. That’s the last time you get to go on an adventure and leave me behind.”
“Agreed,” Esther said. “But it’s not over yet.”
They reached the Lucinda and climbed aboard. Esther wanted to kiss the deck she was so happy to be back on a ship. Naomi looked around shyly at the crew, who had gathered to stare at her. Esther nudged her reassuringly with her uninjured arm. She noticed that they were almost exactly the same height.
Then their father limped out of the pilothouse, leaning on his walking stick. Simon stopped when he saw Naomi and Esther. He stared at them for a few moments, and then he dropped the walking stick and covered his face with his hands. Esther gave Naomi another nudge, and she walked forward to hug their father for the first time in nearly seventeen years.
The crew cheered. Esther reached for David’s hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
Simon held Naomi’s face in his bandaged hands and whispered something Esther couldn’t hear. Then he was waving her forward, holding both of them tight. Their family was together again. The bullet hole in Esther’s arm burned like a lightning strike, but she let her father hold them close.
Then she pulled back, wiping away the tears with her good hand. They had one more family left to save.
“Let’s go help the Catalina.”
“You guys go below and get some rest,” David said. “I’m taking my baby back from Luke. We’re on our way.”
Chapter 37—Seabound
THE CREW WORKED QUICKLY. David and Luke got the Lucinda under way. Anita extracted bullet fragments from Esther’s arm with a pair of pliers and then sewed her up as best as she could. While she worked, Esther sat with Naomi and her father, side by side on a single bunk, and filled him in on everything that had happened. It helped to distract her from the pierce and pull of the needle and thread. Then Naomi told her story.
She cried a bit while she talked. There had been dark roads as she found her way through the ash-drenched wreckage of the world. While Esther and Simon had spent a storm-swept, uncertain life at sea, Naomi’s life had been one of dust and thirst and blood. And along the way the Dentist had been her only anchor.
“So . . . your mom wasn’t with you the whole time?” Simon asked.
“No. She waited in the reception area while I was in the dentist’s chair,” Naomi said. “I don’t even know if she made it out of the waiting room when everything happened. We couldn’t get to it when we dug out. I’ve always assumed I was the only survivor from our family.”
“We thought so too,” Simon said. He touched Naomi’s hair, as if to confirm she was really sitting next to him. “I wanted to go back for you, but I thought there was no way you could have survived. I’m so sorry.”
“You had Esther to look after,” Naomi said.
“Yes.” Simon smiled. “And now Esther’s looking after us.”
Esther grimaced. Anita had just tied off the last of the stitches. “I’m doing a bang-up job,” she grumbled. “This hurts like hell.”
“So we’re go
ing to help the Catalina, which is your main ship, right?” Naomi asked. “And Captain Boris is after it?”
“Yeah. He’s mad because we stole this ship, the Lucinda, a couple of months ago,” Esther said. It had begun to dawn on her that they were heading toward a battle they might not be able to win. The Lucinda was armed and faster than the destroyer HMS Hampton, but Esther didn’t think they could defeat the Hampton in a head-to-head conflict. This could all end here anyway. She looked around at her reunited family, wondering if she should leave them at Emilio’s village. This was her fight—hers and David’s. At least her father would still have a daughter now. She owed it to all the people on the Catalina to help them if she could.
“He’s able to chase us now because he’s using an energy technology Esther invented and shared with the world,” Simon said. “She’s turned out to be quite handy.”
“The Dentist knew about that,” Naomi said. “He tried building one for his secret bunker, but he didn’t want to let anyone else hear about it.”
“He said he didn’t trust it,” Esther said.
“He didn’t trust it in the hands of his people,” Naomi said, “but he definitely wasn’t stupid. He knew how useful it was. He didn’t want his people to be able to drive away whenever they wanted because of an abundance of fuel. I can’t believe that was yours, Esther. And you gave it away?”
“Yeah, that’s a long story. It helped our enemy, but it won us some . . . friends.” Esther stared at Naomi without really seeing her. Of course. If she didn’t feel like her arm was about to fall off and her brain dissolve into a shell-shocked mush, she would have thought of it sooner. “I have to go up to the pilothouse. Time to call in the cavalry.”
Anita helped her up the ladder while Naomi went to rest. Their father hobbled to his own bunk to lie down as well. There would be more time for them to catch up later. Esther would make sure of it. Meanwhile, she had to make a few phone calls.
The satellite connection was spotty as they sailed further away from the lake, running back toward the sea. But whenever they had a clear signal, Esther called everyone she could think of. Everyone who had asked for her advice on how to install their systems. Everyone who had mentioned how useful it was. Everyone she had met on her journeys of the past year. She called the Calderon Group and the Harvesters. The aircraft carrier. The Sebastian. The Scurvy Sea Dog and the Santa Anna. Every ship that had ever stopped at the Amsterdam Coalition. She knew they wouldn’t all come, but she had to try.
As they sailed back toward the sea, she begged every ship she reached to set their course for the mouth of the Santiago River. The Catalina was on her way there. And so was Boris. She called in every favor she could think of, banking on the goodwill she had begun building up the moment she transmitted her invention across the airwaves.
And the other ships answered. They sailed across the sea, fleeing the life of isolation and distrust and conflict they had lived since the disaster. They owed Esther for their mobility. And now they were coming to help.
For three days and three nights the Lucinda sailed and the Catalina fled. Other ships reported in whenever they caught sight of HMS Hampton. And other ships headed toward them. Neal blasted the coordinates for a rendezvous point across the airwaves. The ships converged on the river mouth on a point almost within sight of the shore. They drew together, ready to help the Catalina through her darkest hour.
Esther’s arm was in agony, but she barely slept, barely looked away from the river as they sailed onward. Isadora, their river guide, took the helm at night, trusting her instincts and experience to get them through the dark. The haunted bridge town slid past them in the blackness. By day the jungle on the riverbank gave way to rolling fields and scrub. Abandoned farms sprang up and faded away around them. They were almost there. It was going to be very close.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, the Lucinda approached the cargo ship blocking the mouth of the river. The Santa Julia was waiting for them. Emilio had been keeping watch, ready to let them know at the first sign of the Catalina or the Hampton.
The tide was approaching its highest point. They would be able to slide right past the cargo ship. They helped Isadora totter over a wooden plank to the Santa Julia to return to her people. Esther had tried to get Naomi and Simon to go with her and wait safely in the village on the hill, but they refused.
“Not after I just got my daughters back,” Simon had said. “We’re with you.”
Emilio waved at them from the deck of his ship. Simon pointed at Naomi, smiling broadly. Emilio clapped his hands and smiled back. They lost sight of him as the Lucinda pulled forward. They sailed slowly past the swirling waters around the drowned cargo ship and the names of the dead.
The Catalina was supposed to be waiting for them at the rendezvous point just a mile away, beyond the reach of the breakers. They were almost there.
But as they pulled past the cargo ship and headed for the invisible line where the river met the sea, they heard the first shell.
“It’s time,” Esther said.
She returned to the pilothouse and stood beside David. Her arm was in a sling, and she wouldn’t be much use on deck.
The rumble of explosions floated across the water, faint still, like distant thunder. Somewhere the battle had begun.
They sailed across the wide river delta toward the sea. Fog hung low over the horizon, glowing as the afternoon sun struggled behind its veil. David leaned into the wind whistling through the bullet holes in the screen. His glasses were still cracked. They’d have to do something about that someday.
Zoe was on standby at the radio. Luke had gone to help with the weapons. Cody and Anita and Dax and Cally and the others would be out there too, preparing to make a final stand to protect their home. Esther had wanted to make Cally and Dax, the youngest among them, wait below, but they deserved to be on deck. The Catalina was their home too.
Esther squinted into the haze. The fog bank drifted lower over the water like a cloud of ash. They couldn’t see any other ships yet. There was another boom, another shell. They had to be almost there.
They sailed straight. The Lucinda tossed in the choppy water as they crossed the border between river and sea. Waves burst beneath their hull. They were almost to the coordinates Neal had sent out. The Catalina had to be there somewhere. Where were the other ships? Booms shuddered somewhere on the cloaked sea. Were they already too late? Esther willed the view to clear.
“We can do this, Esther,” David said, keeping his eyes fixed on the fog-laden horizon.
“I love you,” she said.
Then a shell exploded directly in front of their hull.
“It’s the destroyer!”
“Damn Boris,” David said. “His timing is horrible.”
He spun the wheel, swerving the Lucinda hard to avoid more shells. The destroyer loomed suddenly before them off their starboard side, large and gray and dangerous. It was a hulking, luminous mass. The big gun on the prow pointed directly at them. David turned the Lucinda into the mists and fled before it.
“I still can’t see the Catalina through all this soup,” Esther said.
“Where are the others?” David asked. “We could use them right about now.”
“Maybe no one came,” Zoe said.
“They’ll be here,” Esther said.
She kept her eyes peeled. Boris knew they were there now, but the Lucinda was agile. She darted back and forth in the coastal waters, skirting around the larger warship, enticing it to follow them like a sailfish teasing a shark. The Lucinda’s draft was shallower than the Hampton’s. She could get closer to the shore, maneuvering around the heavier, slower destroyer. Further in the waves crashed roughly against the land. They were perilously close. It was dangerous for them, but it was worse for Boris.
Another shell landed in the sea, not as close to them now.
“I’ve got an answer for him,” David said. He grabbed the intercom. “Fire at will.”
Gunfire ripped
the fabric of the mist.
“Hold!” David said.
Then he turned the wheel hard again. By the time the Hampton answered his fire, the Lucinda had moved away again, further out to sea. David turned the Lucinda and raced parallel to the shore. They sailed into the fog, searching the ghostly soup for other ships.
“Wait. I see something!” Esther peered through the fog, gripping the dash with her good hand. The wound in her other arm ached as her muscles tensed.
Slowly a white-gray shape emerged from the mist. It was the Catalina. She tossed in the waves, dangerously close to running aground. Her decks looked top heavy above the churning surf. Esther had forgotten how big she was. How battered and beautiful.
“She’s listing badly,” David said. “She’s been hit.”
“Are we too late?”
“Can’t tell.”
“We aren’t too far from shore,” Esther said. “She just needs to hold on a little longer. Ready, Zoe?”
“Ready!”
Zoe put a hand on her headset and hit a button on the control panel, engaging the satellite network. She switched on the mic. All their friends should be able to hear them.
“This is the Lucinda. We’re at the rendezvous point. We have a visual on the Catalina. Approach the Hampton.”
They waited for a crackle through the speakers, but there was nothing.
“Where are they?”
The Catalina lurched in the waves before them. The fog lifted a little. The Hampton closed in again, speeding out of the haze, its massive shape looming above the Lucinda.
David spun the wheel and managed to get between the Catalina and the Hampton, their small, sleek ship the last bastion of defense between the Catalina and a final killing blow. The destroyer swung around, no doubt readying another shell, all its guns trained on them.
This was it. They were going to be blown from the water, destroyed within sight of land. Esther gritted her teeth for the first impact.
Then another shape emerged behind the destroyer.
