Chapter Fifteen

 

 

 

Our trawler bobbed in the murky water, the headlights illuminating the debris field left by the roving Archipelago miners. The central mining station hung suspended over the operation base, a massive ball of bioluminescence in the distance, and a warning ping registered on the sonar, reminding us this was controlled territory.

Finn pinged something back that seemed to satisfy them.

“All right,” he said with a grim smile. “We’re in.”

“In?” I asked.

“These mines have been cut off from supplies for months. Ching occasionally sells the metals back to the Archipelago in exchange for goods she needs, but you can bet your ass these miners haven’t seen decent Archipelago grain in weeks. They’ll let us on.”

The injustice of the trade galled. These were Archipelago mines. We didn’t need to buy our own materials, and our miners deserved a decent diet.

“What are we asking for in exchange?”

“Discarded ore and low-grade phosphorous for the trawler. And information,” Orca said as she fiddled with the instruments on the panel.

Finn leaned in between us to double-check the helm sonar. I wished he would stay like that indefinitely, a friendly shield between me and the first mate.

“How many pirates do you think will be on the mining station?” I asked.

“Enough to maintain control. Pirates don’t like working this deep.”

“No one likes working this deep,” Finn said with a shudder.

This was where the remnants of the ocean’s population lived, bottom-feeders tricked out with glowing eyes and mangled teeth, color rioting around the ocean vents in temperatures hot enough to melt flesh from the bone. My ancestors had spent many generations on the ocean’s surface, but down here we were all still strangers.

I did not want to get left behind in the trawler while the rest of the crew did business with the mine. My accent would mark me as Archipelago born and raised, and my eyes were noticeable enough that anyone tracking us would eventually pick up our trail, but that logic didn’t make the inevitable any easier.

“Who’s boarding?” I got the question out without too much hesitation.

“Not you,” Orca said, raising my hackles. “Ching catches wind of you asking questions, and we’re all dead.”

She was right, of course, but there was one problem with her logic.

“You’ll never pass for a drifter,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. We were much more likely to get reliable information out of the station master if he thought we were drifter scum, too beneath his notice to question, and I didn’t think any Archipelagean would open up to mercenaries or pirates, given the current situation.

Orca was a warrior, through and through. Kraken, for his part, may have drifted once, but his tattoos told the story of his more recent past too well, as did Jeanine’s. That left me and Finn.

Orca glared at me.

“It’s too risky,” she said. “And you’re too recognizable with those damned creepy eyes of yours.”

You didn’t seem to mind them the other day.

She scowled at me, a hint of color in her cheeks, as if she could read my thoughts.

“Nobody looks a drifter in the eye.”

“I should have left you in the bulkhead,” she said.

I stifled a triumphant smile at her resigned look.

“Let’s get this over with.” She turned away from me, and I felt an absurd urge to cry.

“Orca is the best friend you have on this ship,” Annie had told me.

I had been so fucking blind.

The docking bay airlock opened for us like a hungry mouth. I tensed as the bay pressurized, leaving us bobbing in the dark while we waited for the station master to send out an inspector. It was too much like my earlier stay in the bulkhead, and I distracted myself by wondering if my father had ever traded with the mines.

I didn’t have long to ponder questions I’d never know the answer to. Finn and I clambered out onto the deck, leaving Orca to pace the trawler with Kraken and Jeanine, and stepped over the body of a grotesquely long sea creature that had wrapped itself around the railing. Long tentacles came unstuck from the deck with morbid pops as the creature died.

A light flared into life above us, the cold blue of burning methane. I shielded my eyes with my arm.

“Declare yourselves,” said a voice.

“Finnegan, from the Sea Cat, here to trade for minerals, and my cousin.”

“How many onboard?”

“Three more. No sickness to report.”

“How about rats?”

“Can’t say as I’ve seen any,” Finn said, “but you know how things are down here. Can’t see shit half the time anyway.”

“What do you have to trade?” The voice did not sound amused at Finn’s joke.

“Foodstuffs and scrap.”

“I’ll send the inspector over.” The voice vanished, leaving me and Finn squinting in the brightness.

“How are we going to get onto the station?” I asked him.

“You’ll see.”

The inspector was a heavyset man who looked as if he had recently lost a lot of weight. His skin hung loosely on his frame, clad in a poorly fitting Archipelago uniform, and his jowls quivered as he looked us over. His eyes held a mixture of hope and distaste.

“You said you had foodstuffs?”

“Grains and dried fruit. Took it off a wreck. Gotta love those storage pods, eh?”

“A wreck?” The inspector’s gaze sharpened.

“Nasty one, mouth of the Gulf. Fleet ship. Good fleet supplies, if you’re interested.”

“What kind of ship?”

“Wasn’t much left by the time we got to it. Warship, maybe, but well supplied.”

There was no denying the gleam of hope in the inspector’s eyes at Finn’s words.

“Did you see any other ships?”

“Mostly the sort my crew and I try to avoid. You cut off or something?” Finn asked, playing dumb.

“What’s it to you?” the inspector shifted his stance.

“Might be I could fetch a better price. Any chance I could get a visit with your station’s physician?”

“I thought you said there was no sickness onboard.”

“I didn’t say anything about sickness. It’s my cousin here. She’s . . .” he paused and gestured at his stomach, miming pregnancy. The inspector gave me a cursory inspection. I kept my eyes downcast.

“Let’s see what you got, then,” he said.

He glanced over his shoulder at the bay doors, and I shared his unease. Somewhere behind those doors were pirates, and I suspected it was only a matter of time before they made their presence known.

We had removed most of our personal supplies from the cargo bay, leaving only a few bags of grain and dried produce. The prudence of the decision became clear the minute the inspector laid eyes on the goods.

“Is this all you have?” he asked, the hunger in his voice unmistakable.

“For now,” Finn said. “Why, you in short supply?”

“Where have you been, drifter?” the inspector asked with a humorless laugh. “We haven’t seen a fleet supply ship in months. We’ve had malnutrition on some of the rigs. Malnutrition, on an Archipelago mining station.” He shook his head in disbelief. It was a mark of his desperation that he spoke to us at all.

I grunted under the weight of the grain, following Finn and the inspector across the narrow ramp and through the doors to the weigh station. The inspector logged our vessel and goods, although I noticed that he had a creative way of spelling “grain.” His careful scrawl looked a lot more like “plastic sludge.”

The omission told me more than his recent weight loss about conditions on the station. The pirates were intentionally depriving the miners. Finn picked up on it, too.

“It’s that bad, then?” he asked.

“Keep your eyes where they belong, drifter.” He rang a distant bell, and in another minute two men appeared to spirit the food away. Neither bothered sparing me and Finn a glance.

Their timing couldn’t have been better. Almost as soon as they departed, the door slammed open again, and a tall woman shouldered into the room with a thunderous expression.

“You’re slow to report a vessel, inspector.” She drew out the last word, making a mockery of the title. Her clothes were dark, almost black, crossed with Ching’s crimson slash. I kept my eyes glued to the ground and my ears pricked.

“It’s just a drifter tub, ma’am.”

“How did a drifter tub make it into my bay without my knowledge?”

“My apologies, ma’am. I thought it was beneath your interest.” The inspector’s voice trembled with forced humility and suppressed rage.

“Nothing on this mine is beneath my interest, or beneath the interest of Ching Shih. Remember that, inspector. Now, what do we have here?”

She stepped toward me.

“Ching Shih?” Finn said, distracting the woman before she got too close to me. “I thought this was Archipelago territory, ma’am, or I would never have dared—”

“Shut up.” She dismissed him with a curl of her lip and turned back to the inspector. “Consider this your last warning, inspector.”

All three of us released our breaths when the woman left the room, and the station master slumped in his seat.

“She’s a real piece of work,” Finn said.

“She’s a Red Flag Fleet officer. They’re all like that.” He paused. “Did you really not know that Ching controls these waters?”

“Nobody sees a drifter, inspector, so it’s best that drifters see as little as possible. Noticing things gets you noticed. However,” Finn paused, as if weighing something in his mind, “I might have exaggerated the degree of my ignorance.”

“I’ll take you to the physician, then,” the inspector said.

“How many of those Red Flag sailors do you have on your station?” Finn asked as we navigated tight corridors with oppressively low ceilings.

“Fifteen, but it’s enough. Their raiders are never far off.”

“How many of those are there?”

“Hell if I know. Too many, and they’re building new ships, too, using Archipelago supplies, not that the Archipelago is doing much to stop them.” He spat.

My skin crawled at the thought of more of those sleek black vessels preying on the fleets.

We passed a few miners on the way, beaten-looking men and women who stared at us with dull eyes. The ship’s doctor didn’t look much better. Her black hair was disheveled, and her office offered little in the way of comfort.

“What’s this?” she asked the inspector. “You know we don’t have any supplies to spare.”

“They brought grain, Dr. Torres, and dried fruit.”

She let out a sigh of relief that nearly deflated her, and I worried that she might collapse then and there.

“Well then. What’s the problem?”

“She’s pregnant,” the inspector said, much in the same tone of voice he might have used to describe a growing rat infestation.

“And I suppose you want me to do something about it?” The doctor sounded tired.

“No,” I said, trying to sound meek and ashamed. “Just want to see if everything’s okay this time.”

Finn winked at me when the other two weren’t looking.

“All right then,” the inspector said. “We’ll be right outside.”

The doctor smiled at me once the door was shut, and I sat on the examination table, my heart beating too fast. Doctors kept careful records. If anyone knew the condition of the miners and the pirates, it would be her.

“Lie back for me,” she said.

“What station are you from?” I asked as she pressed on my abdomen.

“Andromeda.” She continued her examination, and I tried not to flinch as her cold hands touched my breasts. “You’re not pregnant.”

“What?” I feigned surprise. “I just hadn’t had a period in a few months, so I assumed . . .”

“Could be malnutrition,” she said, looking me up and down with a crease between her tired eyes, “although you look healthy enough.”

I could hear the unspoken words as clearly as if she had spoken out loud. But you’re a drifter, so you must be deprived of something.

“As long as I am not pregnant, I don’t care.”

“Bad time to bring new life into the world, anyway,” she said, and the bitterness dripped through.

“My family trades with Andromeda sometimes. If—” I paused for effect, adopting an even more hesitant tone. “I’ve heard what’s going on. Nobody looks at drifters. If there is anything I can do, any message I could send, I don’t think anyone would mind.”

I avoided looking directly in her eyes, but I could feel the sharpness in her gaze. She stopped her examination.

“That could be dangerous for you,” she said. “If you’re caught with a message, people might think you were a spy.” Again the undercurrent surfaced.

Are you a spy? Her thoughts echoed in the cool, white room.

“Just something small. You wouldn’t have to write it down or anything. Do you have family there?”

“I do.” Her breathing changed. It was subtle, but I guessed that her heart rate was significantly higher now than it had been when she started the exam.

“I can’t read anyway, at least not very well,” I added.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.” She paused, clearly thinking hard. “If you go back soon, tell the station master that Doctor Torres has a message for her sister. Tell him to tell her that I am safe, for now, but that she . . .” She paused again. “That she should be prepared for the worst. And tell him to tell my husband that I love him and the boys very much, and that I will miss them.” Her voice broke.

“I will do it,” I promised.

My heart ached for her, even as her words chilled my blood. Be prepared for the worst. The worst what? That Dr. Torres might die, or that the Archipelago was in even more danger than I realized? I did not dare ask. She would be a fool not to suspect me already, but she seemed willing to take a small risk for the sake of hope. Pushing her further could jeopardize everything.

“Thank you. Do you know how to avoid pregnancy?” she asked, her voice now brisk and businesslike.

I allowed her to give me a lecture on contraceptives and tried to glance around the room.

It had been ransacked thoroughly and put back together, judging by hastily repaired cabinet doors and cracked jars. Meticulously labeled shelves stood empty, and I would have bet my dinner that her supply of antibiotics and medications was similarly depleted.

Medicines would be the first thing pirates would go after, of course. Medicine, food, weapons, and the materials to make more weapons.

Finn greeted me cheerfully enough when I finished up my visit with the doctor. The glint in his eye told me that he, too, had learned a few useful things during my appointment. My heart beat uncomfortably fast. I had never been good at acting, and the past few minutes’ performance was taking its toll on my nerves.

I hid behind Finn as we walked back to the bay. A burly miner with a pinched face had just finished depositing our newly purchased supplies in the Sea Cat’s cargo hold, and two others stood guard by the door.

“Not like we’re going to cause you trouble, mate,” Finn said to the inspector.

“It’s not you I’m worried about. Check your ship for stowaways before you sub.”

My jaw dropped. It would take a lot for an Archipelagean to stow away on a drifter vessel.

“They won’t get far,” Finn promised, and I pictured Orca dispatching any miner who dared slip aboard her ship without a flicker of pity.

Despite the precariousness of our position, I was curious. I had never seen a mining station before, and so far this one was looking a little too much like a regular fleet station for my liking. I wanted to see the mines themselves, a wish that I had the sense to hope was not fulfilled, as the only way I was likely to see the mines now was as a slave to Ching Shih.

Finn and I helped load the rest of the cargo, and I watched the inspector’s face as we shut the trawler’s hold door. Hope faded from it, and I had a feeling that he truly believed he was going to die here.

“Next time you’re feeling down,” Finn said as we made our way back to the common room to report, “just be grateful that you’re not a miner.”

Finn’s report corroborated mine. Ching Shih had stripped the mining station of anything valuable, and was giving her crews what they were apparently calling the “Archipelago treatment.” Good food, medicine, and the means to get more of both.

“She can’t make up for a lifetime of depravity,” Finn said with a dark look in his eyes, “but she sure as hell is trying, and it shows. Your Archipelago isn’t going to be dealing with the usual buccaneer scum. She wants her crews to be well-rested, well-fed, and well-armed.”

“All at the expense of the miners.”

“You really think they were treated all that well before?” Orca asked.

She looked pissed at having to wait around. Luckily for her, her favorite punching bag had just returned, although I didn’t think either of us was willing to risk another physical bout anytime soon.

“Better than this,” I said.

“Second-rate grain, second-rate drugs, second-rate doctors. I’ve been raiding these supply lines since I was a kid. The mines get shafted.”

“Nice one,” Finn said, nodding at the pun.

Jeanine elbowed him in the ribs and he shut up.

“It’s a high-risk job,” Kraken said. “No use putting resources into something that isn’t going to last. I’d do the same. What I wouldn’t do is abandon them to Ching Shih.”

I kept my mouth shut. Defending the Archipelago’s somewhat questionable human rights record was not my job, even if it was my first instinct.

Orca took the first shift at the helm. I knew I needed to rest. We would be nearing the coasts soon, and there would be no time for sleep for me then, but I walked past my bunk and toward the helm anyway.

 

•   •   •

 

“What do you want, jelly?” she said, looking up as I slumped into the chair beside her.

“I don’t know.”

“That is pretty obvious.”

I recoiled at the sharpness in her words.

“Well what do you want, then?” I asked.

She had the lights dimmed, and I could only make out parts of her face.

“Not this.”

In that, at least, we were in agreement.

“About what happened,” I began, because that was what you said in situations like this, even if you had no idea what had happened or why.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

I wanted her to yell at me, or at least insult me. I wanted to forget how her lips tasted, and I didn’t want to think about how her body had betrayed her, at the end, all of her harsh words like fog over the water, boiling away beneath the heat of the sun.

She, at least, didn’t deny it.

“Good. Neither do I.”

Silence filled the helm.

“It’s your fault,” she said, beginning to sound a little more like herself.

“How exactly do you figure that?” I swear I could hear her eyes rolling.

“You show up, and everything falls apart.”

“Orca,” I said, reaching out to touch her arm.

She flinched. “What?”

“I—” I stopped, fumbling for the right words.

“She wants you, okay? Is that what you want to hear? She chose you, not me, and I fucking hate it. I hate you. I hate her. And I hate this goddamn trawler and this goddamn fucking ocean.”

She slammed the dash, and I saw tears slide down her face in the bow lights.

My hand was still on her arm. I should have been prepared, after kissing her, for things to be different between us, but I wasn’t ready for the rush of sympathy. I stood, and Orca— my tormentor, protector, and unlikely ally— collapsed into sobs in my arms.

“You tell anyone about this,” she said, working through a bout of hiccups. “And I will kill you.”

“Sure thing, first mate.”

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and straightened, her face inches from mine.

“You know what the worst part is?” she asked, shooting me an evil smile. “It would have been good.”

“You think?” I had a vivid image of Miranda’s face, sharp with pain.

She looked me up and down, then sighed.

“Maybe not. You’re still too much of a pushover.” She punched my shoulder, catching me off-guard, and I fell back into my chair.

“Hey Orca,” I said, looking up at her.

“If you get all mushy on me now, I will stab you in the throat.”

“Does that mean we’re all right?” I asked, holding out my hand.

“Yeah,” she said, squeezing my forearm in the mercenary style. “We’re good. Just about everything else is fucked, though.”

 

•   •   •

 

Orca woke me for my shift with her usual charm, which was a relief.

“Get the hell up, jelly.”

I rolled out of bed. She had not brought me hot tea. I made a mental note to make some for Jeanine when I woke her next, in the hopes that Orca would get the hint.

First, though, I made some for myself. The water steamed on the stove in the salt-rimed kettle, wreathing my hands and face. I breathed it in and fumbled for the tea in the cupboard. With luck, my watch would be uneventful.

As I walked down the hall to the helm, cradling the tea in my hands, I heard a thump. I stopped, spilling near boiling liquid down my front in the process, and listened.

Silence strung itself out around me. Then the thump came again.

I backtracked my steps until I stood outside the door to the cargo bay. This time, I heard a slither, followed by a very low, very strained curse.

Stowaways.

I latched the cargo bay door and walked as swiftly and silently as I could back to the common room. The helm would have to wait a few more moments.

Orca was still awake when I returned, and after one look at my face she woke the others. I explained the situation as quickly as I could. Orca’s expression faded from worry to irritation.

“I thought you checked the cargo bay,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“I did,” Finn said. “But clearly not well enough. What do you want to do with them?”

“As much as it pains me to say this, we want them alive. The last thing we need is Ching’s sailors after us for harbored fugitives. We go in there, we subdue them, and we take them back. Got it?”

I didn’t much like the idea of returning the desperate miners to the station, but Orca’s reasoning was sound. We couldn’t afford to attract attention to ourselves. I had the greater good to think about.

Orca, Kraken, and Jeanine were the best fighters, so we decided they would go in first. Finn and I would guard the door in case there were more of them than we expected, for which I was secretly grateful; I didn’t want to fight, and I really didn’t want to fight my own people.

Kraken unlocked the hatch slowly. It swung inward, switching on the automatic lights in the hold and temporarily blinding our uninvited guests. I couldn’t see much from my vantage point, but from what I could hear of the skirmish, the stowaways had not been expecting a band of fully armed Mercs.

Kraken fought silently. Jeanine laughed, once, as if something had surprised her, and after a few moments Orca let out an explosive curse. Whoever she was fighting grunted in satisfaction.

My hand spasmed on my knife. I knew that grunt. I tripped over my feet in my haste to rise and stumbled into the room, ignoring Finn’s startled look.

Standing before me, giving Orca as good as she got, was Harper Comita.

“Wait,” I shouted, stunning my crew, Harper, and the lanky SHARK with her into temporary stillness.

“Rose?” Harper asked, sounding as incredulous as I felt.

“You know her?” Orca rubbed her shoulder, staring at Harper with a mixture of respect and frustration.

“Yeah, I know her,” I said, and then Harper jumped into my arms and hugged my head so tightly I worried it might implode. When she was done squeezing the life out of me, she dropped to the ground, leaving bruises on my hips from the force of her grip.

“What the hell happened to your hair?” She reached up and touched my curls, and I got my first good look at her in weeks.

Someone, or several someones, hadn’t been treating her very nicely. She sported faded bruises on her cheeks and arms, and her wrists were ringed with red marks that looked like rope abrasions.

That still didn’t explain what Admiral Comita’s daughter was doing in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, fleeing an Archipelago mining station in a drifter tub.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

The SHARK did not look nearly as overjoyed to see me as Harper. I didn’t recognize him, which wasn’t surprising, and at any rate his attention was fixed on Kraken.

Not that I could blame him. Kraken’s shirt was off and his tattoos writhed in the light, an effect that was disturbing enough even if you were used to it.

“It’s a long story,” she said, running a hand through her tangled hair. “You got any rum on this thing?”

“Hold up,” Orca said, taking a menacing step toward us.

Harper stepped in front of me, her familiar shoulders shielding me from harm, as she had so many times before.

Orca stopped her advance, more surprised than anything at Harper’s protective snarl.

“I’ve known Harper since I was a kid,” I said. “She’s all right.”

“Like hell she’s all right. She’s a goddamn stowaway.”

“Well, now she’s our stowaway. Just hear her out. Please.”

The word hung between us.

Orca’s scowl deepened.

“You were offering me rum,” Harper prompted, shifting her posture from Ready to Kill to Casually Gorgeous.

There was no way Orca could have prepared herself for Harper Comita, I reflected, biting back a smirk. Harper’s charm, when she chose to employ it, was just as vicious as her right hook.

“I should have let Annie drown you,” Orca said, shaking her head as she gave in.

I didn’t miss the sideways glance she shot at Harper.

For her part, Harper clung to me as we escorted her to the common room, but not before Orca bound the SHARK’s hands behind his back. Courtesy did not outweigh precaution.

My body objected to the idea of rum so soon after waking up. I stuck with my tea as Orca poured a measure for herself and Harper. I couldn’t take my eyes off my best friend. Seeing her here, in the midst of the once alien surroundings I had grown to love, was more confusing than I cared to admit. I saw them through Harper’s eyes— cramped, rough, and more than a little grungy. The familiar feeling of displacement I had felt on North Star overwhelmed me, and I clutched to the scarred table for support.

Harper seemed totally at her ease, lounging in her chair and knocking back drinks with her usual enthusiasm. Questions queued in the back of my throat. Orca was acting captain, however, and so she got to call the shots.

“Who are you, and how do you know my navigator?” she asked Harper.

My navigator? I thought irritably. Like hell.

“I’m a fleet engineer,” Harper answered. “I served on North Star with Rose.” I took note of her caution. She did not mention her mother.

“What are you doing on my ship?”

“I thought you were drifters. We’d been waiting for a chance to get out of the mines. You seemed like our best bet.”

“Any chance they’ll realize that you’re missing?” Orca gestured to Finn, who vanished, probably to check the sonar.

“Not any time soon,” Harper said. Her eyes flickered toward me very briefly, and my stomach clenched. She was lying. “Rose, what are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story, too. This is Orca, first mate, and Kraken, Jeanine, and Finn. Jeanine’s the ship mechanic, Finn handles communications, and Kraken . . .”

“I’m the cook,” he said with a smile that, to Harper’s credit, did not seem to faze her. I tried not to roll my eyes.

“You’re really sailing with them?” Harper looked incredulous.

“I’m navigator for Captain Miranda, of the Man o’ War.”

I emphasized Miranda’s name very slightly, hoping Orca would notice. The memory of Miranda’s face sent a stab of pain through my chest, and I regretted my petty impulse.

“That’s not—” Harper broke off her thought, but I was pretty sure I could fill in the blanks. That was not what Comita had told her.

“Does your mother know where you are?” I asked her, changing the subject.

“Specifically? No. But by now she’ll have an idea. I was on a routine jump to Ursa Minor to fill in for their engineer when we were intercepted.” Her face darkened at the memory.

I hesitated. I could not let Orca return Harper to the station and Ching Shih for two reasons. One, she was my best friend. Two, she was Admiral Comita’s daughter, and a valuable hostage. I didn’t want to think about what that would do to Comita’s plans.

I knew very well what it would do to ours. If Ching’s sailors had even the slightest idea who Harper was, then they would go to great lengths to keep her captive and alive. That was bad news for us. We needed to get away from the mine, and fast, and to do that I needed Orca on my side. I had to hope the truce we’d drawn between us counted for something.

I weighed my options. If I told Orca the truth about Harper’s heritage, she would rightly overrule me, and return Harper or risk blowing not only our cover, but Miranda’s as well. If I kept with Harper’s story, on the other hand, I would need to come up with a very good reason to get us out of Dodge, fast.

“Orca, can I talk with you?” I asked.

Orca sighed and followed me out of the room, leaving the more than capable Kraken and Jeanine to keep our unexpected visitors subdued.

“We’re taking them back.” She crossed her arms over her chest, anticipating a struggle. “Your little friend jeopardizes everything.”

“Not necessarily,” I said, thinking quickly. “Harper isn’t a high-value hostage. They’ll search the station first, which will buy us some time, and we can’t have been the only ship to dock there in the last few days. If anything—” I paused, not quite able to believe what I was about to say. “If anything, we can give them the guy and stow Harper in the bulkhead, like you did me.”

“Or I give them you and your fleet friends and call it a day. You would risk your Archipelago for one engineer?” She stared at me, evidently surprised.

“Yes,” I said, blinking back tears of frustration. “I honestly don’t give a shit about the rest of them.”

Orca opened her mouth, then shut it.

“What about Miranda?” she asked. “Do you give a shit about her? What do you think Ching would do if she finds out Miranda’s navigator and first mate went rogue?”

Her choice of words made us both wince.

“Mayday.”

“What?”

I grabbed Orca’s arm, bringing her close enough that I could see the green flecks in the gray of her irises.

“We send out a mayday. We’re close enough to the coast that I can keep us hidden. If they think we’ve sunk, they won’t come looking, and they won’t find anything even if they do.”

“I am not sending out a mayday—”

“Orca!” Finn’s shout drew us both back into the common room. Finn’s face was white. “We’ve got trouble coming in hot.”

“What kind of trouble?” Orca asked, giving me a baleful glare.

“The kind with lots and lots of tentacles.”

“What?”

“Shoal of giant ass squid heading straight for us.”

“Neptune’s balls. Rose, get us the hell out of here.” Orca shoved me toward the helm, leaving Harper’s fate to chance.

Giant squid were a submersible’s worst nightmare. Their numbers, unlike the rest of the ocean, had risen over the past few hundred years as they adapted to the changing fisheries and rising toxins. They had also developed a species-wide hatred of smaller submersible vessels, and a shoal of angry squid could wreak havoc on a trawler like ours. Mostly, they avoided vessels, which made the instances where they didn’t sound like the stuff of legend.

That didn’t make those ships any less sunk.

I flung myself into my seat and felt for the currents. We could move faster than the squid, thanks to the W5000 engine I hoped Jeanine was engaging right that second, and we were close to the shallows, where they would not want to follow. Even so, it would be a near thing.

The sonar blinked steadily at me as more and more shapes jetted up from the deeps. The trawler’s bow lights flickered as the first few squirted jets of blinding ink. Luckily for everyone on board, I did not need sonar or a line of sight to navigate. I turned the trawler toward the drowned shores of Florida and tried not to flinch every time I felt the thud of a soft body colliding with the trawler.

I engaged the other engine. Nothing happened. More ink exploded outside, and tentacles slapped across the plastic. They couldn’t do much to a heavily built trawler besides damage the trawl itself, but they could throw us off course, which was deadly enough in these waters.

They were also just plain terrifying. A beak scraped across the plastic window, appearing through the inky cloud like an avenging angel. I closed my eyes and held our course, mentally cursing Jeanine’s slowness.

The trawler bucked and rolled as the engine fired into life, spurting us forward and plastering the body of a squid across the helm. Its huge eye stared at me, unblinking as I wrestled with the trawler, veering toward the coastal shelf at speeds no sane skipper would knowingly condone.

Orca joined me shortly after we broke free of the shoal with a strange look on her face.

“Your friend just saved our asses,” she said, sitting down more heavily than usual. “Damn W5000 wouldn’t start for Jeanine.”

“Harper loves that model,” I said, putting the trawler in a slight spin to dislodge our external passenger.

“I sent the mayday.”

“What?” I overcorrected in shock, sending several objects sliding around the helm.

“I said I sent the mayday. Anyone coming to rescue us will find these bastards and assume the worst.” She curled her lip at a passing squid. “Are these mines really worth it?”

“Thank you,” I said, ignoring her last comment.

“Don’t thank me; thank your friend. She’s useful. Decent fighter, too. How long have you known her?”

“Most of my life.”

“And you still can’t fight for shit?” Orca shook her head in disgust. “You are a constant disappointment.”

“And to think, for a moment there, I was actually starting to like you,” I said, steering us toward the hidden perils of the coast.