by Jordan Rivet
Captain Alder held up a hand. “Now, now, Liana,” he said. “Let’s not get carried away.”
Esther and Zoe exchanged glances. Liana must be the first mate’s first name.
Captain Alder continued: “You are mercenaries. Name your price, and you’ll be compensated for your troubles.”
The captain’s voice had a calming effect on everyone. The captives looked up, naked gratitude in their eyes.
“But sir, we really don’t know what Burns was planning,” said the young man.
Captain Alder smiled like a favorite uncle or a pleasant schoolteacher.
“Ah, but you know the Calderon Group. You at least, young lady, are not a new crew member. I’ve seen you before. You are going to lead us to a Calderon rendezvous point.”
“Sir?”
“Better yet,” Captain Alder said, “you will lead us to the Island.”
The woman paled, her voice catching. “The . . . the island, sir? What’s that?”
“Rawlins?” Captain Alder said.
Rawlins reached over and dug his hands into the young woman’s thick hair. He pulled it back slowly while the Harvester woman held her down.
The captain continued to smile. “I know more about the Calderon Group than you might realize, young lady. I know you have a base on some rock somewhere, and you are going to show me where it is.”
The woman stared at the captain, whimpering. Rawlins continued the slow pressure on her hair, pulling her skin taut against her skull. Tears poured from her eyes.
“We have to stop them,” Esther said to Zoe. She grabbed a heavy scrap of metal from the bucket and started forward.
“You can’t,” Zoe hissed, clutching Esther’s arm with viselike fingers.
“This isn’t right. We asked them to do this. They’re torturing her.”
“We can’t interfere. We promised to follow orders,” Zoe whispered. But she too stared at the poor woman as Rawlins’s grip on her hair tightened.
With a sickening rip, a clump of the woman’s hair pulled from her scalp. The woman shrieked like metal ripping apart. Zoe let go of Esther’s arm and reached for her pocketknife.
“That will suffice, Rawlins,” Captain Alder said.
Rawlins released the woman’s head, a bloodied knot of hair sticking to his bony fingers. The crew shifted uncomfortably, no one daring to speak. Luke’s face was pale beneath his curls. Cody turned and vomited onto the deck. Esther felt sick herself. It was her fault: the captives, the battle, the dead officers in the bridge. She’d started down this path to get David back—and this was only the beginning.
“Now then,” Captain Alder said. “You will come with me to the bridge and tell me how to get to the Island.”
The prisoner sobbed as the first mate and the muscular woman lifted her to her feet, but the captain ignored her.
“Toss the other one overboard.”
“What?” the young man shouted, struggling beneath Rawlins’s weight.
“You said yourself you don’t know anything. You’re of no use to us.”
“Wait, stop, please! I’ll do anything!”
The young man was crying openly now. Rawlins lifted him by the arms and dragged him toward the railing with the help of another crewman. The captain turned and walked slowly, stiffly back to the bridge.
They could hear the young Calderon man screaming for help long after the splash.
Chapter 18—After
Esther and Zoe found Luke, Cody, and Patrick hunched over a meal of boiled crab legs in the mess hall that evening. They picked at the scarlet shells, their faces grim. The Terra Firma had changed course an hour after Captain Alder and the first mate disappeared into the bridge with the prisoner. No one had seen her since.
Esther tossed a handful of crab legs onto a plate and sat beside the men.
“What do you know about this Island?” she asked.
“Just rumors,” Luke said. “Not sure it exists. I almost thought the captain was joking earlier. Almost.” Luke’s easy smile was missing. He tossed a shell back into his bowl and sucked crab juice off his fingers.
“So it’s a base or something for the Calderon Group?” Esther prodded. “Is it literally an island, made of rocks and everything?”
“That’s the rumor. They found an island tall enough to handle the storm surges, and they’re building some sort of headquarters there.”
“What for?”
“Who knows? A rendezvous point? Training? Storage?”
“So we need to find it,” Esther said.
Luke spat out a shell fragment. “If they really do have a headquarters,” he said, “it’d be the logical place to take your inventor friend.”
“Do you think it’s real?” Zoe asked. She ripped a claw off a crab segment and dug her fingernails into the shell.
“If it’s not, I’m sure the captain got the truth out of that poor girl,” Patrick said, scratching at his chin and glancing around the mess hall. Most of the crew were focused on their meals, heads lowered, faces obscured.
“That was . . . not what I expected from Captain Alder,” Esther said quietly.
She couldn’t erase the image of the sailor’s hair coming away in Rawlins’s hands from her mind. She had never seen such cruelty before. The last vestiges of security she’d felt with their allies was gone. They were not safe here.
“I always thought the first mate was the harsher of the two,” Luke said. “Now I’m not so sure.”
Cody had stopped eating altogether at the mention of the Calderon girl. The skin of his forehead folded in a deep frown.
“What’ll we do if we find this Island?” Esther asked. She had to focus on the practical: strategies, information, a puzzle to solve. She had allied with the Harvesters, and it was too late to do anything about it now. Their performance in the battle that day didn’t give her much confidence in their ability to assault an island base. “I assume it’s well fortified?”
“That I don’t know.” Luke picked up another crab leg. “It’s all well and good to get the coordinates, but if the rumors are true, it’s damn near impenetrable.”
“Maybe Captain Alder will try to trade,” Zoe suggested.
“Nothing on this ship is worth as much as that technology,” Esther said. The officers might not want the crew to talk about the technology, but she didn’t care what they thought anymore. “Burns wouldn’t trade David for an entire tanker of crude.”
Zoe leaned over and whispered, “It might be time for you to use that trump card of yours.”
Esther frowned, a knife of guilt twisting in her stomach. She didn’t want to think about the “trump card,” as Zoe put it—about the fact that she knew how to build the tech they were chasing. The Harvesters were dangerous, yes, but she had sent them after the Calderon Group under false pretenses. It didn’t matter whether or not they’d been planning to chase them anyway. What else would she be willing to do to rescue David Hawthorne?
She tried to push away the thought. Holding her hand in front of her mouth, fingers still coated in crab juice, she whispered back, “They’ll never agree to trade it. They’ll do anything to keep the tech from the Calderon Group.”
Luke glanced up, but Esther didn’t think he’d heard them. She’d lost her appetite in any case.
The shift bell sounded.
“I’d better get to work. I’m doing maintenance on the pump system tonight. Catch you later.” She tossed the last of the crab shells into a cracked bucket beside the galley door.
Patrick stood too. “I’m on duty in the armory. I’ll walk with you.”
Zoe stayed behind, shuffling a little closer to Luke. Cody still hadn’t started eating again.
“What did you think about today?” Patrick asked as they headed out the door. “I mean really?”
“It was a mess,” Esther said. “There’s no way we would have beaten them if the Sand Queen had been fully manned.”
Patrick sighed. “I know. We got lucky. I killed someone, though.
My first.” He slowed at the entrance to the armory and leaned against the bulkhead. For once he wasn’t trying to show off his biceps. “Feel kinda rotten about it to be honest.”
Esther wasn’t sure what to say to that. Patrick was looking at her as if she could say something that would make it all okay. Something that would tell him this war was the right course of action. But she was haunted by what she had done in the heat and fear of that moment when she lit the dynamite. Yes, it had been a battle, but that didn’t make it any better. She didn’t know what was right anymore.
“I helped the first mate blow up the bridge,” she said finally, remembering the sickly smell of the burned bodies. “There were three people inside.” Her stomach turned at the thought.
“You mean the lovely Liana?” Patrick winked, obviously trying to lighten the mood.
The effort was strained, but Esther appreciated it. She sighed heavily and forced a grin.
“Yeah. She’s a catch, that one.”
“Well, I’m glad you made it through,” Patrick said.
He put his fingers under Esther’s chin for a second and then disappeared into the armory before she could react.
Esther went to the engine room and quietly got to work on the pump system. She knelt on the greasy floor, wrench in hand, and made her way down the line of connections. Her shoulder ached from where she’d been hit by the flying piece of metal. She must be growing an impressive bruise. But her hands felt sure and strong again, no longer shaking as they did when she held that gun.
As she worked, she listened to the late-shift engine crew talk about the events of the day. The fight hadn’t been as big as they expected, but their small successes made them itch for more. They were already boasting about what they would do when they reached the Island. With each blustering statement about daring deeds, Esther thought about David, alone on the island or on a ship far away. She had killed for him today. Why was she getting so deep into this for him? Why couldn’t she walk away? Their situation was becoming more dangerous by the minute, and she didn’t even know if he’d be happy to see her.
She thought back to when David had abandoned the Galaxy Flotilla to help her rescue the Catalina. At the time, deep down she thought he was doing it for her. But what if she was wrong? What if she made it to Calderon Island and he mocked her, wondering why she’d bothered when he had found a new group to represent? He was used to speaking for others rather than himself. He had tried to break away by leaving the Galaxy, but maybe he’d happily go back to being a cog in another big machine.
Or maybe he was already dead. The thought sent panic up her spine worse than any fear of rejection.
“Got a man on the mind?” a voice boomed.
Esther jumped, her wrench clattering to the floor. The engine room boss, Jacques, stood over her. He was a man of extremes, either red faced and swearing or stern and quiet as he surveyed his workers. She hadn’t even heard him approach.
“Why do you say that?” Esther asked, retrieving her wrench.
“You got that look in your eye. Is it one of our rust-beaten scumcanoes? You know Patrick is a heartbreaker. Don’t waste your time with him.”
“It’s not Patrick.”
Jacques harrumphed. “Whoever it is would be damn lucky to have you mooning over him. You’re not a girl who moons easy.”
“I doubt he cares,” Esther mumbled just a little too loud.
“Aha. It is a man. I can always tell.”
“Can you tell if it’s hopeless?” Esther asked. “I might never see him alive again.”
“I heard you were here for some lost love,” Jacques said. He bent down to check the pump Esther had been working on. “Didn’t think it was true. Why do you think you won’t see him alive?”
“No one knows how to fight on land anymore.” It had been bothering her since she heard about the Island. The Harvester men hadn’t been especially skilled in the sea battle. They wouldn’t be any better on land. “Do we have any chance at all if we assault the Island?”
“Now wait just a salt-burning minute,” Jacques said, and he actually smiled. “Some of us were in the goddamn US Navy long before the volcano and the storm surges and the whole hell-on-earth thing. We’re not all as green as rusting sea cucumbers.”
“Did you ever storm a beach? In a real battle?” Esther asked.
“Not me, no, but the navy trained us for this shit. Anyway, if all accounts are true, we won’t be storming a beach. We’re in for some rock climbing.”
Jacques stood, and his bones creaked. Esther wondered how old he was.
“Do you think the Calderon Group would kill prisoners?” she asked.
“We know what our own beloved captain will do,” he answered after a minute. “Think it would be any different for the rust-eating Calderon Group? They’re all alike, these men with power. Depends on how much the prisoner is worth. I hear your boy is valuable to more than just you.” Jacques thumped her on the shoulder, sending fire through her bruise, and turned to go.
“And if the prisoner turns out to be not as valuable as they originally thought?” Esther asked.
She tried to pose the question casually, but Jacques stopped short. He looked back at her.
“Now why wouldn’t he be valuable to them?”
“Just a hypothetical—”
“You know better than most how valuable that technology is,” Jacques said. “This isn’t your first time working an engine room.”
“I know. I know. It’ll change everything.”
Jacques’s face took on a purplish tinge. “If there’s a chance that inventor won’t—”
“He’ll give you technology. I didn’t mean anything by that.” Esther spoke a little too quickly. She had a death grip on the wrench, but she forced herself to slow down and sound more girlish. “I’m just worried about him. I . . . I care about him so much, and I don’t want anything bad to happen.” She gave a tremulous smile and prayed it would be enough.
Jacques nodded but he didn’t smile again. He stomped across the engine room to check on the other workers. Esther returned to the pumps, stealing glances across the poorly lit room. Was he looking at her differently? She hoped she was imagining things.
After a few more turns of the wrench, she approached him.
“I’m finished with that set of pumps,” she said. “Do you need anything else?”
Jacques didn’t even look up. “No. Shift is up in five. Don’t worry about your boyfriend. You should watch out for yourself. Salt-burning Calderon Island is the least of your worries.”
Esther hurriedly shoved her tools back into her belt and left the engine room at a jog. Had Jacques’s tone been less friendly? She shouldn’t have said anything. She needed all the friends she could get.
Chapter 19—The Calderon Method
“Have you found out anything about the Island, Neal?”
Esther twisted the antenna on her satellite phone, still afraid the bridge would pick up the signal somehow. Footsteps tapped through the corridor outside her cabin, making her heartbeat quicken, but the promenade beyond the porthole was clear. She stuck her ear closer to the speaker to catch Neal’s voice through the static.
“I’ve got evidence of a few rock formations in your sector,” he said, “but I have no way of knowing if they’re actually where the satellite puts them. Rust! This is so frustrating.”
“Thanks for trying,” Esther said. “Things are getting tense around here. We’ve been searching the same patch of sea for almost a week. We’re getting low on fuel.”
Esther had been checking in with Neal daily since the fight with the Calderon ship. He was trying to plot their progress as they zigzagged around a relatively small area.
The Calderon captive had provided approximate coordinates, but the Harvesters still hadn’t found Calderon Island yet. Everyone on board the Terra Firma was getting frustrated, Esther included. Time might have run out for David long ago. She hated waiting, not knowing.
“They sti
ll don’t know you’re the inventor, do they?” Neal asked.
“Shh. Let’s not shout about it.” Esther scrubbed at a drop of grease that had gotten into her trousers. “How’s my dad doing?”
“Worried. Angry. You know.”
Esther closed her eyes, imagining her father doing push-ups in their cabin or scribbling in the margins of one of his books. “I’ve given him a lot of excitement in the last few months,” she said.
“Yeah, well.” Neal breathed into the receiver. “He’s still good in a crisis. Judith is pissed. Cally too.”
“Story of my life. Anyway, I’ll keep you updated, as always.”
“Be careful, Es. Over and out.”
Esther pulled the antenna back in from the porthole, put the clunky device into her bag, and pushed the bag under her bunk. She’d worked a longer shift than usual that morning. Jacques had been pulling her aside for more intricate projects lately. She was learning a lot, but she couldn’t shake the sense that he was testing her.
She pulled down the neck of her shirt to check the bruise on the back of her shoulder. The purple shades had disappeared entirely and the bruise was now yellow green. It looked like an algae bloom growing under her skin. Satisfied that it was healing well, she lay back on the thin mattress and stuck her boots over the end of the bunk, settling in for a nap.
Suddenly, a shock wave rippled through the ship, tumbling her out of bed. She landed on her hands and knees with a sharp jolt.
A volley of shouts echoed through the corridor.
“We got company!”
“All hands on deck!”
“We found the salt-loving bastards!”
Esther picked herself up off the floor as the door flung open. It was Zoe.
“We’re in for a big one this time, Esther. Let’s move!”
She reached her bunk in two long strides and began extracting weapons from their various hiding places.
“What’s happening?”
“Met a patrol of some kind,” Zoe said. “Calderon boys. The Island must be close.”
“Finally.”
