New reader? Start here.
Back to Part 022 – Forward to Part 024
Tami and Patel were on the wrong boat.
They dove into the ocean at night, carrying only the map and a stolen life raft. When the Rose was far enough away, they activated an emergency beacon, and waited.
Some time later, just as a storm began to boil on the horizon, a boat poked its nose out of the water, and the Travelers were quickly reeled in. The small crew on board were quick to feed them, to get them dry clothes, to warm them with tea and company. There were only three of them: the captain, his first mate, Jace, and a girl called Frankie. The captain’s crew, as small as it was, only called him “captain,” and he had of yet to tell the Travelers his name.
“Where are you kids going?” He asked, sitting across from them in the cramped gallery of the boat.
“Lúme,” Patel said. “We have a contact there.”
“A contact?” the captain asked, tilting his head.
“A friend,” Patel was quick to correct. “A friend to contact.”
“That’s good,” the captain said. “I’m sure people are worried about you.”
“May I ask what happened?” Jace asked, ducking into the gallery from the helm. She was tiger, pretty, and often focused in quiet concentration. In the brief time the Travelers had spent on board, she had been back and forth the short distance between the gallery and the helm repeatedly.
“Fire,” Tami said. “Everyone was asleep. We tried to wake them, but the smoke had taken-” she stopped, biting her lower lip, dropping her eyes away from everyone.
“Yes,” the Jace said, a thick Barbarros accent seeping through her speech. “People’ll be worried about you indeed. Especially when they hear about this.”
“If you like, when it’s safe to surface, you can use our Relay transmitter to get in contact with whoever you need.” The captain took the teapot in front of him and refilled their cups.
Patel nodded gravely. “That would be wonderful.” He reached over to Tami, and patted her shoulder. “Please forgive us. We’ve had a long night.”
“Of course,” the captain said. “We understand. Why don’t we get you a bunk? Frankie,” he called. Frankie emerged from one of the modules. No older than fifteen or sixteen, she was slender, almost boyish, and kept her headfur short, but uncombed and wavy. Like the captain, it was hard to pick out quite what she was, though the sharp ears and tail pointed to dog of some nation. She walked with incredible posture and a sharp gaze, but seemed to hold back all the same.
“Sir?” she said, a hint of an Ysan accent in her voice.
“Could you show our guests to our spare coffins?”
“Coffins?” Tami said, the color draining out of her face.
“They’re capsules,” the tiger said. She placed her hands on her hips. “The captain has a very funny sense of humor about these things.”
“Awesome,” Patel said. Frankie led them out of the gallery, nearly all of ten or so feet, through a portal.
The boat they were on — the captain had yet to give them a name — was a standard modular submarine, typical of small business owners and families. The main pod sat in the middle, a tube set on its side, about 30 or so feet long, and no more than ten feet high. Factoring in engines, fuel reserves, life support, and ballast, there was all of six and a half to seven feet of standing room inside the main pod. The front had the helm, thick glass so the pilot could see out, and heavy panels so that they could seal the helm should the boat go too deep. On either side of the main pod were two modules, smaller, similar-looking tubes. But boats like this could have anything attached, from research bays, to cargo pods. And they had places to places modules above and below the main pod as well. On one side were the sleeping capsules, or coffins, as the captain playfully liked to call them. The other side must have carried the captain’s quarters and the head.
“The top two are occupied,” Frankie said, as if she had offended the Travelers with her words.
“Understood,” Tami said. She looked between the two sets of doors. “This one, I guess,” she said, selecting the bottom coffin closest to the front of the boat.
“Right,” Patel said. He opened the door to his own capsule, and slid in, a bed of cushioned rollers guiding him in. Frankie nodded with satisfaction, and returned to the gallery. When she was gone, Patel slid back out.
“Want to talk about it?”
Tami’s ears dropped. “Sod off.”
Patel tried to peek back out the portal. “Shh! Get in here if you want to.”
Tami crawled into the coffin with Patel. He shut the door, and the capsule grew quiet, separated from the boat outside.
“She looks familiar,” Patel said. Tami sighed, scrubbing her face with her hands.
“Sure,” she said. She clung to the tube with the map inside; she had never let it leave her grasp, even when they had been pulled aboard.
The capsule was small, and the Travelers could see why the captain would call it a “coffin.” There was plenty of room to stretch out, and enough room to fit two people side-by-side, but only enough headroom to sit up, and nothing more. But there was a lamp, and they had vents that pumped in cool, freshly recycled air, and what looked like a passive Relay receiver attached to one wall. In the corner were a couple of blankets and pillows.
“That was pretty good, about the fire,” Patel said. He leaned against the side of the coffin. “I liked how you choked up midway through.”
Tami punched Patel hard on the shoulder. “You scally. What are we going to do?”
Patel hissed and rubbed his arm. “We’ll get in contact. They’re going to let us use their Relay.”
“And then what? Just meet up? Introduce our contact to our new friends?”
“I dunno,” Patel said. “I’m not too worried about these guys.”
Tami looked at the door, and then back at Patel. “You hurt that girl, Nina.”
“They forced us. We had to act early when they caught us.” Patel turned away from Tami. “Anyways, none of that matters.”
Tami opened the coffin door and slid out. “Figure it out,” she said, and closed him in.
The captain and Jace had left the gallery when Tami passed the portal. Frankie had opened her capsule, right above Tami’s, and was starting to climb in.
“Do you need help?” She asked Frankie.
Frankie looked back, smiling from behind her wavy, messy headfur. “No, thanks,” she said. “I will be fine. I have done this enough.” With a simple hop, she lifted herself into her capsule, and slid in. “Sleep well,” she said, and closed her door.
Alone, in the quiet of the ship, Tami slide into her own capsule, and closed herself off from the world.
Across the gallery, on the other side of the boat, the captain and his first mate had closed themselves into the captain’s quarters.
“How long before we can get back?” The captain asked. Jace leaned against his wall, arms folded over her chest.
“Ten and a half days,” Jace said.
The captain sat back in his chair. He scratched behind his ear and eyed a spot on the low ceiling. “Ten and a half days to figure things out.”
“We’re not taking them with us.” This wasn’t a question.
“No? Why not?”
“I don’t like them,” Jace said.
“You don’t like anybody. I’m pretty sure you don’t like me.”
“Did they smell like fire to you?” Her voice sharpened just a bit.
“No,” the captain said, following Jace’s train of thought. “But they did smell like blood.”
“Yes, I got that, too.”
“We’ll watch them.” The captain said.
Jace opened her mouth to speak, but the captain cut her off.
“We’ll watch them,” the captain said again. “And in the meantime, we shall make them feel at home.”
Jace grunted, and then nodded after some consideration. “Right.”
“Ten and a half days.” The captain stood, and Jace opened the door to his quarters, back to the gallery. “We’ll see where we are then.”
[g]
PSST! If you’ve been enjoying the series so far, please stop by and drop me a vote on top web fiction. You may do so with this link. Thanks! It’s much appreciated.
