by Ginger Booth
“Wet blankets?”
“Try it!” Sass demanded. The man was such an ass, and that’s why she hadn’t married him, and never would! Well, at least until they’d had as many years as lovers as they spent as boss versus problem employee. Collier, not now!
She recalled the Mae West collection, flat life preservers in day-glow orange for maximum visibility. In the guttering ambiance of the console lights, she puzzled out which of its dangly bits accomplished the auto-inflate. The second pull-string rewarded her with a balloon of orange in her face as a wave rose abruptly, spitting up a spume into her face through the head hole. She batted it away at Clay’s ass.
“Put these on first, then inflate them!” With that sage advice issued, she pulled her mink off to consider how exactly to put Fidget into a vest. They were sized for grown men. She wouldn’t fit. And in these seas, at her radically different weight, she’d float away and they’d lose her forever. OK, no separate life preserver for Fidget.
“Did you get a blanket on him?”
“Yeah, but he’s still shuddering. Teeth chattering, goosebumps. Can’t talk, just grasps his blanket.”
Sass kissed Fidget’s nose. “You don’t let go! You hear me! You stay attached to a person at all times! If you get loose, you scream for help! We need to catch you again quick.” She kissed the sweet little face again. “Now go keep Melkor warm. Clay, Fidget can help!”
She passed the mink over and instantly regretted the choice. Out of the three of them, Melkor was the weakest link, Fidget the most precious. But all four of them had to survive. She grimaced and got back to work. They needed to hurry.
She got a Mae West on, inflated it, and counted her stock. One was already on Melkor, one on her, and she had six spares. Not bad. She slipped out of the harness and tied five to her left elbow. Then she clambered to her knees on the seat to reach the last one around Clay’s neck. Continued pummeling from the sloshing water caused her to nearly strangle him. But she got the knack of staying upright.
Clay was still leaning over Melkor. “Clay, we have to go!”
“Go?” he inquired. “Go where?”
“Separate from the shuttle. Go! Melkor, is there anything else we can scrounge from this ship? A life raft? Food? Water?” Hm. Perhaps she hadn’t thought this through well enough.
“Got some food and water,” Clay said. “Med kit. There’s more back there.”
Sass immediately clambered over the back of her seat. She breasted three big steps through the cabin water. But lurching waves shoved her around almost as much as her feet could propel her. She bashed her knee painfully into an armrest stalk. At that point she belly-flopped and swam. Her progress was much better then.
She reached the closet, but the sporadic lurid glow in the cockpit didn’t reach the pitch dark back here. So she’d do this by feel. Still in the water, she felt around the floor, sure to be the last place Clay would have looked. Canister, canister, all these canisters are connected by a bracket – good! And I release the bracket from the closet by – bingo!
“OW!” she yelled in outrage. Judging by the force with which that canister poked her in the eye, these were air tanks. Good, she liked breathing, even if they did give her a black eye, dammit.
“You alright back there?”
“Could use some light!” she admitted. Bitching about air canisters would be ungrateful.
“Flares, waist-high!”
Sass splashed up to half-standing and felt around. Nothing felt like the expected shape of a stick of dynamite. She stood all the way and sucked in a hard breath. No matter how cold the water felt at first, now it sure felt warmer than that wind flailing at her wet skin.
Maybe she’d groped the wrong shelf. Dammit this was taking too long. “Clay! What shape are the flares?!”
“Oh! Like ring boxes.”
“Like what?”
“Those little boxes for engagement rings! Or cuff links.”
Tactile memory located one of those in an instant, while her conscious mind dwelled on how recently her beloved might have gone shopping for jewelry. Sass didn’t wear jewelry. Clay did. Stop that!
Her fingers reported what her mind should have known. She had no idea how to light this flare. “How do I turn it on?”
She missed a soft-voiced – or normal-voiced – consultation in the cockpit. Then Clay reported, “Pull-tab! Place it upright at arm’s length, then pull it.”
Well, that was a fifty-fifty shot. Heads, you lose. Sass located this ‘pull-tab’, set the box on its side at arm’s length in the water, and pulled, immediately jerking back her hand. It did nothing. Childhood years of playing with fireworks bid her step backward, not forward. No way would she touch that dud. Her early training paid off. After a slow five seconds, it spurted red fire like a Roman candle, then guttered out in the heaving water.
But in the brief blaze of light, she’d had the presence of mind to grab another and read which way was up. Then kicked herself – they were stored that way up. This time she chose a serving counter facing the closet and let another rip.
Sub-job accomplished. She could see. And she needed something to stow stuff in. Clay had left half a box of mirrored plastic emergency blankets behind. Other than that, the closet stocked useless tiny pillow cases, and sheets. She grabbed another life preserver floating by, ripped a hole in a sheet, tied that to the vest, and inflated it. Then tested her work.
By now she’d wasted enough time that Clay and Melkor splashed toward her. She let them finish securing floats to each corner of the sheet, while she finished rummaging the closet. Emergency blankets, packaged rations went in, emergency radio and neck pillows were rejects. Water! All of those bottles in. And all the flares and breath masks., and a carton of the thumb-sized mask O2 canisters. And on second thought, more sheets might come in handy. And – thank you, God! – a coil of cording.
This was the work of a minute. The men still labored to float their sheet basket. Sass stood back and considered its construction, fairly confident that the second they exited this shuttle, their flimsy boat would go ass over teakettle and they’d lose their air and water. Seat cushions were normally floats. But how…
She sloshed past Melkor, steadying herself on his shoulder, and yanked up a seat to examine. Apparently two centuries hadn’t improved on the genius of Velcro. Now if only she had her toolbelt and utility knife.
Or a med kit. Those supplied scissors. “Clay! Need scissors.” In the meantime she pulled cushions up and floated them toward the men. When she’d worked her way around the cabin, her lover grabbed her arm and carefully placed the scissors in her hand.
“How does this go together?” he asked.
“I can give you Velcro strips and seat belts.”
“How much time do we have?” Melkor asked.
He made a good point, she conceded. “We need to be out of here before they scramble a search boat and… What do you use for a helicopter these days?”
“This.”
“Then we’re out of time. Close that up so nothing falls out.” While they did that, she stooped and cut the loose strips of Velcro from the seat frames. Those she shoved in her pocket, and gave up. “Done? Abandon ship. Um, that way.”
She pointed to the missing windscreen in the cockpit. The doors wouldn’t open without power. They each grabbed a fistful of the sheet-boat and sloshed their way forward as the flare died behind them.
These were the moments Sass dreaded as a leader. Her job was to go first, set a shining example, issue confident orders. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing. And the great outdoors yawned large tonight.
Why exactly had she longed to get up close and personal with wild and free nature again? How had she forgotten that most basic of facts – it’s big. And powerful. And the wind and waves laughed and chortled and spit at the feeble efforts of a tiny woman.
She sidled between the cockpit seats. She cautiously clambered onto the rocking console, waves splashing and attempting to wash her
feet out from under her. And the ocean slapped her right back into her lover’s arms.
“I better go first. Stand there.” He planted her and clambered onto the console, with her pushing from behind.
She knew there was a reason she liked him.
37
Dire living conditions on Earth inspired many to volunteer for space.
Clay tried to fight his way through the windscreen hole, into the open Pacific, but the waves forced him back. Sass, then Melkor, clambered onto the console and braced their feet against the seats to offer their backs as leverage.
Sass swallowed as his mass smashed into her again. And they had to get their lame sheet boat out this hole too. She and Clay might survive without it. Nothing had managed to kill them yet. But poor Melkor was a goner without those supplies. The floppy assemblage floated. If only she could get it through the hole.
Actually, maybe it was the key to getting them all through the hole.
“Ow!” Melkor complained, as Clay kicked off possibly one of his kidneys. She couldn’t see much. The one remaining battery in the console seemed to be dying. And Melkor’s butt blocked most of what little glow remained. But Clay was still fighting to enter the waves, that much was clear.
“Melkor! Let’s get the boat through.”
“But we can’t lose hold of it!”
“Counting on that,” she agreed.
Between them, they heaved it onto the console. It floated really well. Its contents probably only weighed 30 kilos or so. Minus the water, and that was the rub, because it poured water out just as fast as the Pacific poured more in. Clay moved to the side out of the way, getting battered by the heaving sea.
“Grab hold, all three of us!” Sass yelled. “Then we kick off together on the count of three! One, two, three!”
She heaved with all her might. Clay heaved harder, Melkor not so much. And the sheet-boat reached the Pacific, and nearly yanked her arm out of her socket. She let go in surprise. But she was free of the shuttle at least, into open water.
Not that open, she realized. She kicked, cautiously at first in case any segment of shuttle was in range, then harder. “Clay!”
“Here!” he yelled back. “I’ve got the boat!”
“Coming!” Melkor cried out. “Got Fidget!”
Swimming in stormy ocean was like nothing Sass had ever experienced before. She fancied herself a good swimmer once. But the constant heaving and splashing meant the water constantly slapped and slashed at her face. The breath mask was an open-intake model, designed for free exhale and intake through a porous filter. Under the circumstances, that meant every breath included salt brine and a strong whiff of dead fish. Simply keeping her head above water and her arms and legs moving was a tough fight.
But Clay and Melkor kept calling out, and so did she. After maybe five minutes that felt like an hour, she grabbed hold of the sheet boat. She managed to block herself a little sheltered air with her arms, and gasped for it, sucking it in. Then she started to cough. She pulled up the mask to cough harder and spit out water, then fastened it back on her face. She was last to arrive, probably because she massed the least.
“How are you doing, Melkor?” In the howling gale and crash of water, she only had to yell a little. All three heads were less than a meter apart, in a ring around the top of their supplies.
“Better,” he admitted. “My gills. I’ve never relied on them before. It’s…different. But my air is good. If we…run low. One of you can take my mask. I worry about your pet.”
Sass tensed. “Fidget!” she yelled.
“She’s right here. She’s warm. Can she swim?”
“Like an otter. Who knew? Don’t worry, just hang onto her. If we let go, I’m afraid we’ll never get her back.” Warm sounded awfully good to Sass around now. She was glad Melkor couldn’t see. Her skin was starting to peel off, but the ocean cold doused any burning sensation. “How’s your skin?”
“I’m fine,” Melkor assured her. “I think your mink is shedding.”
“That’s fine, she does that,” Sass assured him.
Clay cut in. “What’s the plan, cap?”
“We’ve entered the improv hour.”
“Improv?” Melkor asked.
“Means she’s winging it,” Clay growled. “Sassafras Collier –”
“Can it, Rocha. The original plan was to fly into a League air force base and – get this – change planes for America. When five jets attacked, I thought, hm. This won’t work.”
“Like that could ever work!”
“Hey!” Melkor objected.
“Oh, that was your lame-ass plan, not hers? Sorry.”
“Rocha, this is a very small boat in a big ocean. Courtesy counts. Bastard.”
“Bitch.”
“Have you two been together this entire century?”
Clay: “Yes.”
Sass: “No. I slipped him for twenty years in a penal farm.”
“I forget the farm years,” Clay allowed. “Peaceful. Got married, had a kid. I quite enjoyed life while you were locked up.”
Sass cleared her throat aggressively. “Anyone seen our shuttle?”
Clay grabbed her chin and turned it to the proper direction. They’d managed to part with the vehicle by about twice the length of her spaceship. All that swimming, for so little progress? “That’s not far enough.”
“Why?” Melkor asked. “If we’re too far away, rescue won’t be able to – You don’t want anyone to find us?”
“I don’t want Ueno’s goons to find us,” Sass corrected. “When the air base calms down, your pals there would be awfully welcome. If we can hold on that long. Before dawn would be nice. But first, we swim away.”
“I hate you, Collier.”
“Back atcha, Rocha.”
The sheet boat did float like a cork. Its orange vests made crappy tug-holds, but they could grab floating cushions through the wet sheet and kick. They squeezed together and tried to kick in tandem, but got in each other’s way.
“Sass, take the side,” Melkor encouraged. “Your kicks aren’t strong enough. Let Clay and me do it. We’ll swap in a bit.”
Back to simply breathing while the guys did the heavy lifting, Sass found time to think. “Melkor, are you broadcasting? Like a transmitter they can use to find you?”
He raised his head from the water to reply. He kept his ears and mouth underwater most of the time now, unlike her and Clay. “Turned it off when when we abandoned ship. But when I call for help, I’ll need to turn it on again. So they can find us.”
“Thanks.” He resumed kicking while she resumed thinking. If she understood this setup correctly, they could catch that America-bound transport in a few hours. But no one would take them to Russia. From his map, Samara was about as far from ocean as the Eurasian landmass could offer. Melkor’s power base was American boat people, no one in this hemisphere.
And she wasn’t about to ditch Melkor. Was she? Her gut said to go with him. Her mind would concoct excuses later. But Clay was right all along. She didn’t come to this planet just to sightsee. Nor to find out what became of them – she wouldn’t risk her crew to satisfy curiosity. No, she came here because Earth was the best planet of them all, the only one suited to humanity. Because humanity evolved from strings of DNA floating in a primordial version of this very ocean, tailored in every way for this world and no other. And the trees and flowers, minks and fishes and corals, all of it was desperately worth saving. And if she could help, she wanted to find a way.
And Melkor asked for that help. Not to screw over the colonies, or shower Earthlings with gifts they didn’t deserve. No, he asked for her to help save Earth. And that was what she came here to do.
But this was her home, not her crew’s. “Clay, how do you feel about honesty?”
“Exhausted. Are we far enough away yet?”
She waited for the current heaving hill to reach its crest. “I can’t see it.”
Melkor surfaced to answer. “I saw it. Mayb
e three waves from us.”
That was several hundred meters, to the extent Sass could gauge open water. “Wow, guys, you kick great! That’s enough. Unless they miss with a missile and hit us by accident.”
The guys gratefully heaved onto the top of the raft to rest. Sass stayed in the water – they wouldn’t all fit. “I was thinking of Fidget, Clay,” she clarified.
Clay gasped for air a few moments and thought it through. He was a reliable man that way. “Maybe you could take a turn with Fidget. Warm up.”
She’d meant getting honest with their fishy partner about the nature of their robo-pet. Apparently her lover voted no.
“Yeah, the cold isn’t bothering me so much anymore.” Melkor carefully dislodged the mink. His emergency blanket was long gone, as were his useless triple-wide dress shoes over his handy webbed flippers. He held on to Fidget’s squirming form until he was sure Sass had a firm hold. Good man.
Sass kept a hand on the mink as the critter squirmed into her life vest, and wound around her neck. She was indeed shedding, half bald already. But she’d cranked up her body temperature and felt divine.
The creature screwed her adorable face into the captain’s ear like a bulb into a socket, and reported. “Backups complete. Thrive One is at Baikonur space port, not Samara. Darren talks to Ben. Ben talks to Luna and Earth. Lots going on. My power will be exhausted in three hours at this rate.”
“Yikes, Fidget,” Sass said aloud. “How do you turn the heat down on this mink?”
“Thank you,” Fidget acknowledged. “That will add one hour additional battery life. More if I go unconscious. But then I can’t hold on.”
“You hold on tight, sweetie. And don’t let go.”
What did Sass want to know about her ship’s status? Everything, of course, including whether Kaol still kept control of that hapless pair from Killingfield. But then again…nothing. As a commander, Sass knew to only ask for actionable information. Her actions no longer depended on her ship.
But their choices might still hinge on a hope that she and Clay would return to them. She dropped her forehead to her wrists. “Go, Thrive. Fly home. That’s an order, dammit. We cannot make rendezvous. Go with God, and my blessing.”
