Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) (17 page)

Chapter 21—The
Lifeboat

The sea was eerily
quiet. After the cacophony of the day, the solitude
was unnerving. Esther started the small outboard motor, grateful for the warm
growl of machinery. The lifeboat chugged away from the dark hull of the
Terra Firma
. She scanned the ship for
any sign that she’d been spotted. Lights glowed, sometimes flickering with the
movement of the sailors. Once, Esther thought she saw a face watching her. She
hoped it belonged to one of her allies.

Cody had told her
they’d been sailing southeast ever since leaving Calderon Island, so she
charted a course for the northwest and prayed she wouldn’t miss it entirely.
The
Terra Firma
shrank behind her.
Darkness pressed in close, like water. The sea was even blacker than the sky.
The clouds glowed dimly from the cloaked moon, the only thing distinguishing
sea and sky. The rush of the waves against the lifeboat harmonized with the hum
of the engine.

Esther had never
been alone on a boat before. For almost her entire life she had been at sea.
She knew the feel of the waves before a storm, the sting of the wind on her
face, the emptiness of a vast, watery horizon. The scents of salt and fish had
been her constant companions. She’d grown up with the sound of water in her
ears and the rocking of the ship in her bones. Yet she’d always had company in
her seabound world. She’d lived in the cramped quarters of the forlorn former
luxury ship, surrounded by her family, her coworkers, her friends. Even on her
recent adventures she’d connected with other survivors across the New Pacific,
from the rebels on the
Galaxy Flotilla
to the young sailors with the Metal Harvesters. But tonight, for the first time
she felt the true isolation of the sea.

The mists
contained sound, captured it, smothered it. The sea clutched at the lifeboat
like oil. A crippling fear threatened to rise through Esther’s body. She tried
to fight it down, and the fear lodged beneath her bottom ribs.

She’d often sought
privacy on the
Catalina
, busy at her
work, in need of peace. But this was true solitude. The solitude of a world
that had lost 90 percent of its population. The solitude of the watery prison
that was her home, usually kept at bay by the everyday bustle of her work.

The waves were
choppy, and Esther couldn’t be sure that she was staying on course as she drove
through the night. She had found a battered compass in the lifeboat’s emergency
storage compartment. She kept it in her hand, wishing the first mate hadn’t
taken the good one in her tool belt. She’d found a flashlight in the storage
compartment too, along with a bit of clean water, a small knife, and some fishing
gear.

The Harvesters
didn’t seem to be pursuing her. Cody would take his time delivering Zoe to the
captain, and he’d take even more time going back to their cabin to supposedly
fetch the right girl. By the time he reported her missing, Esther’s lifeboat
would be invisible in the vastness of the sea.

When she thought
she was far enough away to risk it, she turned on the flashlight she had found,
keeping the beam low in the water. She should conserve the battery, but she
couldn’t bring herself to turn off the light and surrender to the ghostly,
moonlit mists entirely.

Esther picked up
Neal’s satellite phone, extended the antenna, and dialed.

“Neal? You there?”

It wasn’t their
check-in time, but Neal rarely left his tower.

“Neal?”

She drifted
forward, keeping the motor running on the lowest setting to conserve fuel until
she knew she was on the right course.

“Neal?” she tried
again.

It occurred to her
that she was tired. The bone-deep weariness of worry cut the legs out from
underneath the adrenaline that had sustained her during the battle and her
escape from the
Terra Firma
. But
she’d already rained down disaster on her family and friends once because she’d
allowed herself to fall asleep. She would never do that again. David was too
important.

“Neal, do you
copy? Come on. I need you.”

The mists began to
thin, revealing a three-quarter moon, small in the night sky.

She didn’t even
know what she’d say to David when she found him. He’d probably smirk when he
heard she’d gone to so much trouble to get him back. For the first time since
setting out to rescue him, she realized it might actually be embarrassing to
find him.

But no. As the
isolation of the sea held her captive, she couldn’t push away her feelings
anymore. She’d never understand why David had decided to help her escape from
the
Galaxy Flotilla
, but she knew she
wasn’t just going on this quest because of the debt she owed him. Despite how
he frustrated her, how he seemed to mock her at every turn, she was drawn to
him. He had threatened to consume her thoughts whenever they strayed from her
work. But now that he was gone and the world was quiet, her feelings became
clear. She wanted to be near him, to listen to his smooth voice, to see his
passion, which came through at unexpected moments. They had been a team when
they planned the escape from the
Galaxy
,
and working together had felt natural. She wanted more of that. And she wanted
him to kiss her. She wanted to trail her hands over his shoulders and down his
back. She dreaded telling him how she felt, but at the same time she prayed for
the opportunity. She might drift in this lifeboat forever, but she wished only
that she’d told him how he snared her thoughts into an impossible tangle. She
didn’t care how he reacted. If she got out of this, she’d tell him how she
felt.

Esther dialed the
satellite phone again.

“Neal? You there?”

Silence. She
fought the urge to throw the contraption into the sea in frustration. Then a
voice crackled back.

“Esther? Were you
trying to call?”

“Neal! Sweet salty
ocean! Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I can hear
you. It’s late. What’s up? Did something happen?”

Esther laughed.
“You could say that. I need your help.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“Where am I? Can
you figure it out?”

“Easy enough.
Let’s see, you’re about three miles from your last position, so
if
our reference points are still good,
that puts you four point five from where I think Calderon Island is. You guys
moved further away from it?”

“Yeah. Well, I’m
going back that way now. Alone.”

Esther filled Neal
in on all that had happened. It was hard to believe it had only been a couple
of hours since Zoe called her from their cabin at the start of the double
Calderon attack.

“Wait, so now you’re
assaulting the island alone? Rusty nails, Esther. You’re going to get killed.”

“Not if they don’t
see me coming. Give me a heading. I need to shut this thing off again to save
the battery. Is everyone okay there?”

“We’re fine. We’re
staying within a day’s journey of the
Amsterdam
for now—Judith’s annoyed about that—and Cally and the boys have
started hooking your system up in the
Lucinda
.
She should be fully wired and operational before too much longer.”

“That’s great. And
my dad?”

“Still kicking.
He’s the one making sure we stay so close to the
Amsterdam
. Okay, listen carefully to these coordinates.”

By the time Esther
said good-bye to Neal, she felt more confident. She wasn’t entirely alone, and
she had a job to do.

She
tweaked the motor and sailed straight toward the island. She would see David
soon somehow. She’d just have to come up with a plan along the way.

Chapter 22—The Island

Calderon Island grew
large
on the horizon. Its tall
conch shape cast a dark shadow in the night sky. Esther cut the engine,
switched off the flashlight, and reached for the oars at the bottom of the
boat. They were sound enough, and she paddled slowly through the darkness. She
had to be stealthy until she knew what she was up against.

The moon grew
larger as it approached the sea. Was the sky a shade lighter already, the
contrast between the island and the sky a little more defined? Hopefully that
was just her imagination.

She kept an eye
out for patrols. She didn’t know how tight security would be, but the recent
attack by the Harvesters must have increased the Calderon Group’s vigilance.
But they wouldn’t be expecting a lone woman in a small motor-powered lifeboat.

As Esther got closer,
she realized the Calderon Group had little need for security. Sheer cliffs
stretched the length of the island. They must have been battered by storm surge
after storm surge. Esther wouldn’t be surprised if this was the last remaining
high point of what had once been a much larger landmass.

The wind picked up
and the sea started to get rougher. Esther rowed along the bottom of the cliff,
straining against the oars to keep from being tossed against the rock face.
Fear prickled along her spine. She might have been spotted from above already.
She searched for inlets in the rock face, but in the darkness every patch of
stone looked like a cave, until she got close and it was just another hue of
gray.

The sky was
definitely lighter now. The clammy cold of the early morning had set in. Esther
fought off the fear that threatened to paralyze her. Her muscles ached. She
needed shelter before daybreak. She could hide in the predawn darkness, but
someone was sure to spot her from above if the sun tipped over the horizon.

Suddenly, the
lifeboat caught in a current, swirling and spinning directly toward the cliff
face. Esther rowed frantically, no longer caring if she made any noise. She was
close enough to smell the algae clinging to the cold stone cliffs.

She fought the
current. The rocks loomed to meet her.

Esther regained
control of her vessel, but then the wide blade of one oar struck a rock and
broke off.
Salt.
The sudden change
made her lose her balance, and the current wrenched the other oar out of her
hand. Esther cursed and lunged after it. A wave flung the oar up and shattered
it on the rocks.

The lifeboat spun.

Esther flipped the
shorn handle of the remaining oar and thrust it forward to keep her prow off
the cliff. She shoved against the rock, splintering the handle further. Then
the current spun the lifeboat again.

The sickly morning
stars vanished. The world went dark.

At first Esther
thought she had blacked out. Her ears roared, but she still felt the solid wood
of the oar in her hands. The lifeboat spun. Esther planted her boots against
the slope of the hull to remain seated. Her stomach lurched. Darkness
surrounded her.

Then she slammed
to a halt. Stillness reigned.

The rush of the
waves roared and echoed strangely around her. Gingerly, Esther crept to the
side of the lifeboat and poked around with the broken oar handle. She felt only
water. Then the oar struck something solid. She heard the unmistakable ring of
metal. She leaned over the prow, reaching out to whatever held her boat steady.
Her hands met a smooth shape in the blackness. She ran them up a rounded panel
to a sudden edge. There were rivets just beneath the edge, and on the other
side the object seemed to slope inward. She was lodged against another small
boat.

Esther retreated
to the center of her lifeboat to grab the flashlight. She listened to that
strange echoing roar for five breaths—and then turned it on. Light
exploded into a thousand tiny refractions. She stifled a shout and switched off
the flashlight. A rainbow of colors danced across her retinas in the darkness.

“Get ahold of
yourself,” she muttered, and turned the light back on.

She was in a tall
and narrow cave, its upper reaches swallowed in shadow. Thousands of crystals
lined the cavern, running in fine veins across the walls. The weak beam of the
flashlight became a chandelier of dancing lights and colors on their surfaces.
The mirrored facets of the crystals sparked and shone around her. Stalagmites
and stalactites spiked fingers of shadow across the cavern. Esther had never
seen anything like it.

As her eyes
adjusted to the light, she saw half a dozen small boats in the alcove, each one
tucked into a crevice or bound tightly to a stalagmite. Apart from the
weather-beaten look typical of all vessels in the New Pacific, these boats were
clearly well maintained. They floated high on the water, indicating they were still
seaworthy. The ropes were whole and tightly knotted. Someone was coming back
for them.

Esther scanned the
cave, turning slowly on the lifeboat bench. The water filling the front half of
the cave looked fairly deep. Waves rushed in and out of the narrow opening
through which she had been tossed. Jagged rocks rimmed both sides. She was
lucky she hadn’t been dashed against them. She aimed her light into the back of
the cave along the crystal veins. The cavern went on, and if the refracted
light patterns weren’t deceiving her, it went upwards. A rock floor emerged
from the water, seeming to lead back into the Island. This was her way in.

She gathered a few
tools, including the satellite phone and the small knife from the lifeboat’s
emergency compartment, and clambered from her lifeboat to the one beside it,
which was firmly moored against the rocks. She looked around for some way to
conceal her little boat but saw no options short of sinking it.
Oh, well.
She couldn’t really expect to get David out without the Calderon Group
realizing she was there. She was going to have to bargain anyway. There must be
a larger port somewhere on the island, because the bigger ships would never fit
in this cavern. She’d just have to hope no one would come down here too soon,
notice the extra boat, and raise the alarm before she had time to scope out the
situation.
Now would be a good time to
come up with that plan.

Esther scrambled
across the second boat to the rocks beyond it. They were slick and polished,
and she had to put the flashlight in her teeth and use both hands to scuttle
across them. It didn’t seem to matter which way the light pointed, because the
crystals amplified the illumination. Esther knew almost nothing about rocks.
Were these sorts of caves typical beneath the land? It looked like a magical
kingdom from a story, but maybe this would have been as routine as twenty-foot
swells were to her if the world had experienced some other fate.

Esther had cut
fresh tread into her boots recently, but they still slid on the wet stone as
she made the painstaking journey toward the back of the cave. She felt a little
queasy without the rocking of the sea beneath her. The cave floor sloped
upward, the passage twisting so she couldn’t tell where it led. She began to
climb.

Crystals crunched
under her feet. The flashlight beam revealed they were broken, smashed almost
to powder, as if hers were not the first boots to tread here. The rush of the
waves echoing through the cave grew softer the farther she walked. The crunch
of the crystals and the squeak of boots rubbing against stone began to take
over. The cave narrowed until it was a tunnel climbing upward. Soon Esther
could hear herself breathing, low and quick.

It got warmer the
farther into the Island she got. Used to a world of sea-chilled metal, Esther
couldn’t be sure where the heat was coming from. Did rocks have their own
inherent warmth? It felt that way. They were solid and natural, the antithesis
of the cold, unforgiving sea she had known for most of her life. As Esther
climbed deeper into the Island, she imagined hot sand between her toes, the
call of gulls on the California coast, the warm embrace of a hill as she rolled
down it, welcoming grass stains and dirt in her hair. This was real, living
land, and she was climbing straight into its heart.

The crystal veins
ended abruptly. The warmth seemed to pull closer, a blanket wrapped just a
little too tight. Esther didn’t know how long she had been walking. Weariness
pulled at her, and she drew on her fear to keep her awake. The tunnel might
never end. She could be trapped in here. She crushed the thought as soon as it
arose, stamping it into the dirt that now met the soles of her boots.

After what could
have been a year or a day but was probably just an hour, Esther heard a noise.
She crouched against the wall, which provided precious little shelter, and held
her breath.

The sound drifted
down the passageway again. It was a hum. A machine? A breeze? She crept forward
a few more yards. It was too high to be natural. Could she have made it all the
way to the top of the Island already?

She’d hidden her
light at the first hint of the strange sound, but now she flashed it on and off
again to get a quick glimpse. The tunnel looked the same as it had for the last
hundred yards: mostly rock, with a few remaining traces of crystal ground into
the dirt floor. She edged forward. There it was again! As she cleared another
bend, the sound began to take on meaning in her ears.

Someone
far up the passageway was singing.