Seaswept (Seabound Chronicles Book 2) (26 page)

Esther breathed.
That was Luke’s voice.

“We’ll be right
there!” she shouted into the microphone. She grabbed David and hugged him hard.
“Zoe’s going to be okay.”

Neal
darted from the bridge to get the speedboat underway. Esther barely listened as
David radioed the
Charley
again,
asking Harry to back down now that the Harvesters were retreating. Harry told
them he was already turning the ship around. Burns himself had ordered the
Charley
to retreat to Calderon Island.
Esther felt a flash of surprise but didn’t dwell on it. All that mattered was
that David was beside her and Zoe was going to be okay.

Chapter 34—The Return

When the speedboat returned
from the
Terra Firma
, Zoe wasn’t alone. A spotlight from the
Lucinda
illuminated the little boat,
where Luke and Cody were standing up from their seats and waving their arms
over their heads. Each had a knapsack on one shoulder and a gun on the other.
Esther helped lower the rope ladder to them.

“We’re deserting!”
Luke called, nearly losing his balance as the speedboat bobbed beside the
Lucinda
’s hull.

“Yeah, Captain
Alder’s crazy,” Cody said. “Think you can give us a lift back to the
Amsterdam
?”

“That we can do.”

Zoe was the first
up the ladder. “You did it, Esther,” she shouted. “You saved him! I knew you
would.”

Esther hugged her
friend tight. Zoe was her usual lanky, healthy self. The Harvesters hadn’t
mistreated her, thanks to Cody and Luke watching out for her. Her cheeks were
flushed with excitement, and she still had her favorite scarf wrapped around
her hair.

The two young men
clambered up the ladder after her and dumped their packs on the deck.

“What happened
over there?” Esther asked. “We heard strange noises on the radio.”

“We temporarily
commandeered the bridge,” Cody explained, breathless with triumph. “Turns out a
lot of the other guys didn’t want to kill Zoe either, especially now that
they’ve got the energy plan all this was about in the first place. Luke snuck
Zoe’s little pistol right under Rawlins’s nose to get into the bridge and held
off the first mate and captain while we freed her. I doubt they’ll be officers
for much longer. My money’s on Jacques taking the top job.”

“What about you
guys?”

“We’re done with
this mercenary crap,” Luke said. “The
Amsterdam
’s
as good a place to start over as any. Or maybe we can join you. The
Catalina
sounds exciting.”

Esther and Zoe
laughed at that. They introduced Luke and Cody to the
Lucinda
’s crew, who’d gathered on the deck.

“Where’s your
boyfriend?” Cody asked. “Did you get him back?”

“Yeah, he’s
sailing the ship, unless he fell asleep at the wheel,” Esther said.

“So everything
worked out?”

Esther hesitated.
She was so tired so could barely think. She knew they’d done something great
today, but it was what they should have done from the very beginning. She had
put a lot of people in terrible danger along the way. She’d sort out what that
said about her later. Right now all she wanted to do was burrow into a bunk
somewhere, knowing the people she loved were safe and sound.

When Esther didn’t
answer, Zoe squeezed her arm. “I get it,” she whispered. “We’re all just doing
the best we can.” She turned to the people assembling around them and called,
“Being a prisoner during a battle is hard work. What have you got to eat around
here?”

Esther remembered
that evening in snapshots. As they sailed away from Calderon Island, everyone
gathered in the galley for a late dinner of hot seaweed pasta. Luke and Cody
told the dramatic tale of how they overcame Captain Alder and his loyal cronies
in the confusion after the battle. Luke made it sound like he single-handedly
fought his way through a dozen Harvesters with only a flashlight and a gun
carrying a single bullet. Neal tried to explain how satellites worked, using
bowls and strings of seaweed to represent signals bouncing off dishes. He
looked more animated than he had been since before meeting Marianna. Zoe
entertained everyone with one of her best dirty stories. At some point David
slipped into the galley. He carried Esther to bed when her head began to dip
toward her bowl.

She woke early in
the morning. David’s warm, golden head was resting on her chest, his arms
curled tight around her waist. The sun slanted through the porthole, breaking
through the clouds above the sea. She snuggled deeper into the bunk and went
back to sleep.

When next they
woke, the light streaming through the porthole had a late-morning harshness.
The ship rocked gently. Esther rubbed her eyes, wincing at the pull of skin on
her cut, and looked around David’s cabin. Her clothes, still sodden from their
swim, hung on the high-back chair with the remaining shreds of David’s red
sweater. Their shoes sprawled together on the floor in a round patch of light.

David emerged from
beneath the bunk, where he’d been digging out clean, dry clothes for both of
them.

“Morning,” he
said.

“It’s sunny,”
Esther said groggily.

“The storm broke a
few hours ago. I’m taking the next watch at the helm. Want to join me?”

“Sure. Ouch.” She
walked to the small mirror by the door, the blanket trailing along behind her.
She pulled the sticky bandage away and examined the cuts on her face and ear,
which were red and puffy. “This is gonna line up almost perfectly with my scar
from the desal explosion,” she said. She frowned at her reflection and then
stopped because it made the cut hurt worse. “Gross,” she said under her breath.

David joined her
at the mirror. “You’re adorable,” he said. “Don’t scowl at me. You are. Now are
you going to get dressed?
I
certainly
don’t mind if you don’t, but the other guys . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, give
me a minute.”

She snatched the
shirt he offered and whacked his arm with it.

They went up to
the pilothouse together. Light filled it. Outside, the sea slid rapidly past.
It was deep blue today, and the sun shot sparks across the water, dazzling and
alive. The
Lucinda
’s progress was
smooth, elegant even. Now this was sailing!

Neal was in the
pilothouse already, bending low over the satellite computer, his fingers flying
across the keyboard. He didn’t look up when they came in.

David took his
place at the helm. Dirk seemed reluctant to relinquish his watch, but he needed
sleep too. As he shuffled out of the pilothouse, Esther wondered whether Dirk
would try to assert his right to the
Lucinda
after all. He wanted to run the
Catalina
,
but he might take
Lucinda
instead
unless David was willing to fight for her.
He
might be willing
, Esther thought as he ran a hand gently across the control
console.

As if he’d guessed
what she was thinking, David looked up.

“I love this
ship,” he said.

Esther laughed.
“She’s sure running well. I’m going to take a look at the engines in a minute
to see how they did with my designs.”

Neal looked up
from the computer. “Oh, when did you guys get here? Never mind. You’ll never
believe what I’m doing.”

His eyes were
bright, and a clump of his mousy hair was pushed backwards beneath the band of
his headset.

“What?” Esther
asked.

“The satellite
signals reach farther than we thought.”

Neal looked like
he might boil over with excitement.

“Yeah?”

“Esther,
it’s—hang on.”

The computer made
a dinging sound, and Neal immediately turned away from them and typed furiously.
After he hit the final key, he stared intently at the computer, biting his
lower lip.

“Neal?”

“Oh, right.
Esther, it’s
land
.”

“What?”

“Our message
reached a colony on land. They’ve also been working on regaining contact with
the satellites.”

“You mean you’re
talking to . . . ?”

“Someone who lives
on land!” Neal repeated. “We don’t have voice contact yet. We’re transmitting
written messages.”

The computer
dinged again, and he resumed his rapid-fire typing.

“You’re emailing?!”
David said.

He turned from his
post and stared incredulously at Neal.

“Yeah,” Neal said.
“It’s a rudimentary version of that. We’re sending simple text-only messages.
It’s all the system can handle right now. I’m going to keep working on it, but
when we get back to the
Catalina
I
might actually be able to talk to them.”

There were a
thousand questions Esther wanted to ask. Where were they? Did they have food?
How many of them were there? What was the weather like on land? But she settled
for the question that, although irrational, was most important to her.

“Do they know
anyone from San Diego?”

At the same
moment, David said, “Do they know anyone from New York?”

Esther saw her
mother and sister then, sitting in the living room of their home. Her sister
had both hands curled around a thick hardcover book. Her mother was letting her
play with the many bracelets she wore on her arm. They clanged and glittered as
four-year-old Esther pushed them up and down her mother’s wrist. It was a
bright, sunshiny memory, one of the few that she still had. They couldn’t
possibly still be alive, could they?

Neal was shaking
his head. “We’re doing the basics right now, guys. I’ll try to get more out of
them when we get to the
Catalina
.
Here’s what I know: this group is in the Midwest, old Kansas City to be
precise. It’s the same one the
Galaxy
captains had heard about. They live on the Missouri River, and they’ve had a
successful harvest for four of the past six years. They said the weather is
stabilizing. They’re trying to contact other communities by locating
functioning satellites. They were pretty surprised to find out we’ve been
living on a ship all this time. That’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

Zoe popped into the
cockpit. “Hey, guys!” she said brightly. “What’s our next adventure?”

David
met Esther’s eyes. “Want to go to Kansas City? With me?”

Chapter 35—
Catalina

A week later Zoe
spotted the tall shape of the
Amsterdam
off the starboard bow. She raised the call from the
crow’s nest, and everyone who wasn’t on duty crowded onto the deck, watching
for their first glimpse of the
Catalina
.
As they drew close, the outline of their home emerged against the darker
backdrop of the
Amsterdam
.

The Coalition was
busier than normal. Ships moored at every available dock, and others floated in
the waters beyond them, sending their speedboats and lifeboats zipping back and
forth to the oil platform. It didn’t look like any of the Harvester or Calderon
ships had beaten them back to port, which was just as well, but others had
decided to make their
Amsterdam
trip
early. People stirred around the outer edges of the platform, and a call went
up as the
Lucinda
approached.

Over the past week
rumors about what had actually happened between the Metal Harvesters and the
Calderon Group had swirled through the New Pacific. No one was sure who was at
fault or who won the battle or what the
Lucinda
had to do with things anyway. Neal kept track of what everyone was saying, and
Zoe had been enlisted to help him with communications. The other ships were
quickly getting used to communicating via satellite. It was amazing how much
faster news traveled through the satellite network compared to the radio chain.

The one thing
everyone seemed to agree on was that they wanted Esther’s system installed
immediately. Neal and Zoe fielded daily and sometimes hourly requests for her
expertise. Esther kept busy answering questions and talking to mechanics from
all over the sea. At first she tried to take a regular shift in the
Lucinda
’s engine room, but they called
her up to answer questions so often that she finally took up permanent
residence in the pilothouse.

She was about to
get even busier. Numerous ships had already asked her to come help them install
her system when she arrived at the
Amsterdam
,
and she’d made commitments for the first two weeks. They offered all manner of
gadgets and tools in exchange for her help. She couldn’t refuse. She had
started all this. She wanted to do the right thing this time. She wondered if
the
Catalina
would wait for her at
the
Amsterdam
or if this was the
start of the new life she had once wanted so badly.

And then there was
the expedition to the settlement on land. David wanted to take the
Lucinda
to the coast as soon as
possible. He was already working out the best route. Esther wanted to go with
him, but before she made any promises there was someone else she needed to see.

Esther’s father
was waiting for her when she crossed the
Amsterdam
dock from the
Lucinda
to the
Catalina
. The rig officials had reserved
a space for the
Lucinda
in
anticipation of their arrival. The rig boss himself came out to meet them, but
Esther slipped by and headed straight for the
Catalina
.

Simon looked small
beneath the tall slope of the hull. He stood beside the gangway, expression
unreadable. Esther walked slowly toward him. David was busy shaking hands with
the
Amsterdam
rig boss. He said
something, and the man laughed jovially.

But Esther’s
father wasn’t laughing.

“Hi, Dad,” Esther
said. “I’m back.”

“I was worried,
Button,” he said quietly.

“I had to go,” she
said. “It was me they should have taken, not David. I didn’t have a choice.”

“I wish you had
come to me,” Simon said. “You didn’t have to sneak off like that.”

“I did come to
you. It was right after the attack, remember? You and the council said we
couldn’t do anything. You didn’t believe me when I said he was in danger.”

“We needed more
information,” Simon said, “but you just took off.”

He brushed a hand
through his curly gray hair. His eyes seemed to have more lines around them
than they did a few weeks ago.

“I’m sorry,”
Esther said. “There was no time. And I would’ve gone even if you tried to stop
me.”

Simon’s mouth
twitched. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said. “But next time please say good-bye
before you run off to save someone again.”

He stepped forward
and wrapped her in a hug. She relaxed against him and was treated to the
familiar smell of his clothes and the scratch of his green scarf against her
cheek.

“What did Judith
say?” she asked, pulling back from his embrace.

Simon laughed.
“She pursed her lips, like she does, and didn’t say a word about you for three
whole days. Then she demanded that we launch a rescue mission immediately.”

“So she’s pissed?”

“Oh yeah.”

Esther grinned.
“Let’s go say hi. I missed her.”

Simon wrapped his
arm around her shoulder. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d avoid Cally for a while
too. She’s even angrier than Judith.”

Together they
turned toward the gangway. Out of the corner of her eye, Esther saw David clap
the
Amsterdam
official on the back
and jog over to join them. She stopped to wait for him.

“Simon,” David
said formally as he came over, “I want to apologize for putting your daughter
in danger by getting myself kidnapped. I’m very grateful she decided to save my
life, but I’m sure you must have been very worried.”

Esther looked back
and forth between them. David was half a head taller than Simon and was
standing very straight, solemn and ceremonious.

Simon appraised
him for a moment.

“My daughter is
quite capable of getting herself in danger without your help. Welcome back.”

He stretched out
his hand, and David shook it.

“Will you guys hurry
up?” Esther said.

She
led the way up the gangway. Soon they would be heading off again, beginning a
journey she had long thought was impossible. But for now she stepped back onto
the deck of the
Catalina
, her home,
and smiled.