Sea Wolf (A Compass Rose Novel, 2)

by Anna Burke

“Yeah, well.” I bent back over my chart, which was a mistake. Harper grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked my head back up. Hair follicles protested.

  “You need to get out of your head.”

  “Difficult. It’s attached to me.”

  “Funny girl. Seriously, though. It would be good for you to get some sunlight.”

  “I don’t want to, Harp.” The words came out more harshly than I’d intended.

  “Fine. Stay up here and be cranky.” She paused at the doorway to look back over her shoulder. Hurt was writ across the downward tug of her mouth, and she rubbed one forearm.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I just . . .”

  “I get it.”

  “I know you’re trying to help.”

  “I could kick her ass for you. Would that make it better?”

  I pictured Harper landing her signature right cross punch on Miranda’s jaw and winced. “Then I’d just feel sorry for her.”

  Harper scoffed and perched on the table beside me. “She’s been shitty to you. Not just about Ching and all that.”

  This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have, but Harper continued.

  “Branding you? That thing with the whip and Annie? And how she always thinks she knows what’s best for you? You made the right call. I know you love her, but she needs to get her shit together. You deserve better.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “No. You do.” She put her arm around my head and pulled me into her chest, effectively smothering further protests, and spoke into my hair. “You deserve someone who treats you as an equal.”

  “That can’t happen if she’s captain,” I said into the comfort of her breast.

  “Sure it can. She just needs to learn how to compromise.”

  “As if.”

  “You’re a catch, Rose.”

  I didn’t feel like one. She let me go, fixing my rumpled hair in the process.

  “Stay and play with your charts if that makes you happy. I’m going to get some sun and watch idiots fight. Don’t say I didn’t invite you.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “And hold your ground. Make her come to you.”

  “Not much chance of that,” I said.

  “Then that’s her loss.”

  Harper sauntered out of the chart room, leaving me to stare at the coordinates I’d plotted. The new course was shorter. I promised myself I’d run it by Miranda as soon as I had finalized the details. Despite Harper’s advice, I also contemplated throwing myself at her feet and begging her to talk to me, pride and principles be damned. So what if she’d lied? So what if her needs came first? I could live with that.

  Remembering I was pathetic didn’t help my mood. I returned to my charts.

  The blare of the alarm startled me out of my seat a half hour later. Cursing drifted down from the crow’s nest. I bolted for the ladder and scrambled up, losing my footing twice in my haste. Crow’s Eye, the pirate who permanently manned the post, stabbed a finger at the plex when I emerged, and I froze.

  A ship. Her hull was blue-green to match the waves, and narrow, and the slope of her upper deck confused my Archipelago-trained eye.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “No fucking idea. They came out of nowhere.”

  “You sounded the alarm?”

  “Aye.”

  “But sonar didn’t pick up—”

  “Exactly.”

  I half fell down the ladder and landed hard enough to send pain through my knees and into my hips. Limping, I raced as best I could out of the chart room and down the catwalks to the bridge. Chaos met me. Miranda stood in the center, shouting orders, and crew shoved past me as they obeyed. Reya grabbed my arm and hauled me over to the radar.

  “Fucking nothing.”

  The screen was blank, save for the occasional expected aberration. Where the ship now floated beside us was only open ocean as far as our radar was concerned.

  “Do we still have people on deck?” I asked.

  Reya nodded. “The captain is ordering the hatch sealed in five.”

  Harper. I moved, and Reya grabbed my arm again.

  “Our place is here. We’ve got to lose them before they blow a hole in our hull.”

  I struggled against her grip. “There are people—”

  “Miranda’s got raiders. You’re our navigator.”

  If Harper was killed—

  I stopped myself, breathing in and out to each cardinal direction. Reya was right. I couldn’t do anything for Harper by charging toward the hatch, but I could help us dodge our attacker.

  Man o’ War shuddered and listed sideways.

  “Fucking fuck,” Reya shouted.

  “Seal every level. Evacuation protocols for breaches only.” Miranda’s voice carried over the chaos. “To your stations.”

  Order returned as sailors flung themselves into the business of staying afloat.

  “Captain,” I said, coming to attention as if she were a fleet captain instead of a mercenary—which proved the effectiveness of fleet discipline in times of crisis, I supposed. “Chief of Engineering was on deck as of half an hour ago.”

  “Then she better get her ass back inside. You.” Miranda pulled a sailor off her screen. “Go find Patrice and tell her to report to engineering if she isn’t there already. She’s acting chief until we track down Harper.”

  The sailor sprinted to do her bidding.

  “I need a damage report before I can—” I began.

  “Manage without. We’ve got a hole somewhere and they’ve only been here ten minutes. If we don’t get the fuck out of here soon—”

  The ship shuddered again, and silence fell on the bridge. Miranda’s lips thinned. As her navigator, I could see only one possible course, and I didn’t think she was going to like it. I also knew by the grim set of her jaw she’d already come to the same conclusion.

  “Bring me Finn,” she said. ‘We need to open communication.”

  Most communications took place in the closet-sized room where Finn worked, but the bridge had its own simpler system for emergencies. This counted as an emergency. Miranda dictated her message for the rest of the bridge crew to hear as soon as Finn limped in.

  I’d been avoiding him since Jeanine’s death. Dark circles bloomed beneath his eyes, and he’d lost weight. I’d feel guilty about that once we weren’t sinking.

  “Parley. Send it on all frequencies,” said Miranda.

  Finn worked quickly. I, meanwhile, stared at the sonar screen and tried to make sense of what I wasn’t seeing. No swarms hovered to give them shelter, and deeper swarms wouldn’t have given them cover this close to the surface. Something about their hull, then, must reflect or deflect our radar. I sincerely doubted they’d let me inspect it, seeing as they were doing their best to sink us, but from here I could make out a shimmering substance coating it like glass. I could also see our upper deck. The figures were too distant to make out, but the red stains on the rec area were unmistakably blood. I grabbed a pair of binoculars from a hook and searched for Harper.

  None of the faces that came into focus belonged to my crew. The clothing, too, was different, though subtly so, as it was just as varied as the clothes worn on Man o’ War. Most of the enemy sailors wore their hair in locks. All were armed. Shaking, I lowered the lens. No response came over Finn’s equipment. He tried again. We waited. Still nothing.

  Footsteps pounded toward the bridge door at a dead run. Reya opened it, and a ship’s runner burst through and halted, heaving, in front of Miranda.

  “They’ve taken the first two decks and breached three of the lower.”

  “Taken?”

  “Hostages. I don’t—no one—we don’t have any idea what language they speak.”

  That explained the communications. Or, just as likely, they’d realized they didn’t need to worry about parleying since they held all the cards. Miranda stared out the plex at the ship surfaced beside us. I’d never seen her look so grim.

&nb
sp; “Some things are universal,” she said. “We don’t have much choice here, do we?”

  I expected someone to argue or at least offer blustering bravado to keep face. Which just went to show how little I knew these people.

  “Mere—” I said. Our differences didn’t matter right now. Only Harper did.

  “They have hostages.” It wasn’t an explanation, but it was all she gave me as she set off at a fast clip for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Reya asked as I peeled away to follow Miranda. I didn’t answer. Harper needed me. I didn’t know what, if anything, my presence would do to help, but I wasn’t going to sit by while she—or Miranda—got hurt. I caught up with her in a few jogging steps. She didn’t stop me or tell me to go back to the bridge. Neither did she welcome my presence.

  Crew lined the halls. Many had armed themselves. Miranda explained the situation to a few as we went, and those few made it their business to pass it along. Everyone was to cooperate unless the boarders turned violent, and then they were to fight like their lives and ship depended on it. We could hear the sounds of a struggle by the time we got to the hatch that led to the first occupied level.

  “Do exactly as I say and stay behind me,” said Miranda.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Heedless of the watching crew, she grabbed my collar and kissed me hard before turning the hatch door.

  I reeled. My lips ached for her, but I stifled the desperate whine that welled up in my throat and followed her to our fate.

  ••••

  Sailors sat in bound clusters in the hall. A few lay unconscious or dead, and I averted my eyes before I could recognize them. I needed to stay present, and grief would dull that. The dead would still be dead in an hour or a day or a year. Enemy sailors barked orders at each other in a language my ear strained to recognize, or at least draw a comparison with from the languages I did know. Most Archipelageans spoke the tongue that had developed out of our founding language stock: a blend of English, Spanish, and Arabic that veered at times in one direction or another, depending on the station or the ship. This didn’t sound like any of them.

  Enemy sailors looked up at our arrival. A woman moved to attack, sword drawn, but Miranda held up her hands and pointed to her chest, then the ship beneath her feet. Captain, that gesture said.

  Our would-be attacker nodded in understanding and said something to the people nearest her. A man detached himself from securing more hostages and motioned for us to follow him. I wished Kraken was with us, or Orca. Both of them would be more useful than I would be to Miranda in a fight. On the other hand, there wasn’t much we could do against odds like these. Strangers filled our decks. The other ship was big, and they’d had the element of surprise. Periodically the ship shuddered again, though not from more attacks; the breached decks were just filling with water. “Just—” as if that wasn’t catastrophe enough.

  The number of our sailors huddled in guarded knots didn’t match the census. More were either in hiding or had barricaded themselves elsewhere. I refused to consider the option that they’d been slaughtered. There wasn’t enough blood. This was the only thing that gave me comfort. If our enemies had intended wholesale slaughter, they would not be wasting time keeping people under guard, which suggested they wanted what most pirates wanted: supplies, or perhaps new sailors to flesh out their crew.

  A man nearly as large as Kraken greeted our party with a frown and a phrase. He had a neatly trimmed—though massive—beard, and a prominent scar beneath his right eye. I watched him take in Miranda’s scars as he spoke again. Miranda shook her head and repeated the same gesture she’d made before.

  A girl stepped forward. She didn’t look much older than sixteen. In clear, though oddly accented North Atlantic, she said, “Greetings from the Docile.”

  Either the ship’s name didn’t translate well, or the captain had a sick sense of humor.

  “I am the captain of Man o’ War. I’d welcome you aboard, but you’ve already made yourself at home.”

  The girl translated, and the big man laughed.

  “I’ve been informed you have hostages,” Miranda said before he could respond. “I am willing to cooperate.”

  He spoke, and the girl, after a moment’s pause, said, “We are glad to hear it. Nobody else needs to get hurt, as long as you give us what we want.”

  “May I stabilize my ship first?”

  He spread his arms wide, as if to indicate it was stable enough.

  “He says, ‘No. That is your problem, not ours. Your hostages will remain on our ship until we’ve received our demands.’”

  “What do you want?”

  The girl rattled off a list longer than my arm, which included algae strains, tech, medical supplies, and food. My eyes widened. We’d be beggared if they took all that, and we’d have to return north immediately. I searched the faces of the enemy crew for some explanation.

  Cheekbones jutted out at me. Beneath their clothing, I detected a few ribs. Not enough to suggest long-term starvation, but poor condition, combined with the scabbed-over wounds I noticed on a few, helped me start putting together at least one possible explanation. This man’s crew had been through rough times recently. If our roles were reversed, I knew Miranda would do the same. That didn’t make me any happier about it. Much of what he demanded had come from the Archipelago. If he took it, we wouldn’t be able to replace it without raiding or returning to Comita.

  But goods were nothing compared to people, and he had our sailors. Even as we negotiated, if this could fairly be called a negotiation, his crew herded their captives toward the upper deck. Was Harper with them? Captive was better than dead, but in the heat of that initial assault, she would have fought tooth and nail, ready to die before surrendering, because she was an idiot like that.

  North.

  South.

  East—

  “Ask him about our dead,” I said to Miranda.

  He noticed me for the first time, and his mouth twisted into a snarl. I didn’t have time to react. My arms were jerked behind me even as Miranda threw herself between me and his crew. An elbow wrapped around my head, muffling my struggles, but I heard the thud of something heavy hitting flesh, followed by Miranda’s grunt.

  I stopped fighting. The hold on my neck loosened enough for me to breathe, and I saw her on her knees, one arm clutching the opposite shoulder. Her arm hung awkwardly in the socket as a sailor lowered his cudgel.

  “Not. Her.” Miranda’s words came out in a wheeze.

  The girl waited for her captain to finish a string of guttural words, then translated: “He says she is one of them. We will take her, and some justice will be served.”

  “One of who? She is a part of my crew. Whoever you think—”

  But I knew who they thought I was. No matter where I went, it was the same.

  “I am not a sea wolf,” I said past my choke hold.

  The girl frowned, as if my words didn’t make sense. Maybe they didn’t call them sea wolves, whoever these sailors were. I pointed at my eyes and tried again. “I am not one of them.”

  Perhaps it was even true.

  The captain spat on the ground. “He doesn’t believe you,” she translated unnecessarily.

  “She’s from the Archipelago,” said Miranda in rising desperation.

  “We do not know what that is.”

  “North. Big stations. Fuck— she’s just my navigator. Let her go.” She turned to me as she spoke, and the anguish in her eyes undid me.

  The girl and the man conversed for what felt like a geological era. At last, she said, “She will come with us, and you will hurry to get us what we want if you wish her to live.”

  Miranda opened her mouth to speak. I never heard what she said. A sound cracked above my ear as light burst in sparks across my vision, followed by sickening darkness.

  Chapter Six

  “Hey.”

  A cool hand on my forehead. Light. Sound. I tried opening my eyes, but one of them
didn’t respond, and without its twin, the other couldn’t focus. Shapes swam. My stomach roiled, and I groaned.

  “Good to see you, too. Are you—yes, yes you are. Here.”

  Rough plastic touched my cheek as I vomited. I heaved until the heaving sent black sparks skittering across my eyes and my head pulsed with a pain that made me more sympathetic toward tectonic plates. It felt like the plates of my own skull were scraping against each other.

  “No, you can’t pass out again. Trust me, I wish I could, too, but they want us to move.”

  Moving was most definitely not an option. I groaned again.

  “Rose.”

  I recognized the voice saying my name with dim clarity. “Harp?”

  “Yeah, baby, it’s me. Come on. I need you to sit up for me, can you do that?”

  “Ughhnn.”

  “I know. They got me pretty bad, too, which is why I’m not carrying you. They’re letting us go, though, so you need to sit up. They’re not gonna be gentle with you.”

  “I. Can’t see.”

  “No shit. Might be a good thing in case you pass a mirror.”

  “Are. You. Hurt?” I’d been worried about Harper. I remembered that much. Everything else was fuzzy and smelled faintly of lemon, which didn’t make sense.

  “Yeah, but it’s okay. We’re alive, and we’re going back to the ship. You got hit in the head pretty bad. This is, like, the third time we’ve had this conversation. You gotta stay with me now, though.”

  “The ship.” It was so hard to think. It had never been this hard to think before, had it? Why were we not on our ship? There had been another ship. Two ships, and one . . . one hadn’t shown up on sonar, which was a problem because—

  Harper grabbed the bucket just in time to catch a dribble of bile and saliva.

  “Okay. Real slow. Don’t think about anything right now except me, okay? Don’t nod. I guarantee that won’t end well. I’m going to put my arm around you and we’re going to stand up together, which is going to be real fun for us both.”

  I didn’t find out whether or not we had fun, as I passed out again. When consciousness next assaulted me with its sights and sounds and smells and—Neptune’s balls, my head hurts—I was upright, though to say I was “standing” stretched the definition of the word past its breaking point. Harper panted the shallow breaths of a person in pain as she supported me. Vague shapes and noises that might have been other humans came in and out of my vision. People were speaking, but I didn’t understand anything they said.