To Sail a Darkling Sea

“What the hell is that sound?” Harvey Tharpe said, rubbing his eyes as he opened the cabin door.

Being on this yacht was better than being on the lifeboat but not much. They were packed in like sardines. There was food but being woken up in the middle of the night by a blaring “Squeee! Squeee! ” was not his idea of fun.

The former businessman had been “robust” before being cast adrift on a lifeboat in a zombie apocalypse. He still had his height and some solidity. So he was more than a bit surprised when the short, blonde skipper of the boat, wearing not much more than a camisole and panties smashed him out of the way like an NFL linebacker on her way aft.

“MOVE PEOPLE!” the boat captain shouted, continuing to hammer her way through the crowd of refugees.

* * *

“Fuck a freaking duck,” Sophia said, opening the door to the engine compartment. The smoke wasn’t so bad she needed a respirator but it was bad. And they were dead in the water. All the power except the shrieking alarm was out.

She threw the main battery disconnect, then picked up one of the industrial fire extinguishers and played it over the exterior of the main breakers which were the source of the fire.

“Skipper?” Paula said, picking another one up.

“We need to get it open before we use them all up,” Sophia said, putting her hand on the extinguisher. “Get Rusty to get all the passengers up, out and on the sundeck.”

She slid one hand into a rubber glove and popped open the main breaker panel. The whole thing was smoldering so she played the rest of the fire extinguisher over it until it was cold. A tick checker showed that the whole thing was electrically cold as well. Now if only the batteries hadn’t discharged their whole load into the panel and killed themselves as well.

“What can I do, Skipper?” Patrick said groggily. The “engineer” was wearing not much more than the skipper.

“Get a hand-held,” Sophia said. “See if there’s a sub in range. Tell them we had a major electrical fire. Fire is under control. No power at this time. May be repairable but we may need assistance. Don’t at this time but may. Got it? Do not call mayday or PON-PON. Do not.”

“Got it, Skipper,” Patrick said.

“And get these people the HELL OUT OF MY ENGINE COMPARTENT!”

* * *

“Not to alarm you, Skipper… ” Paula said as Sophia was jumping another wire.

The whole damned panel was screwed. She was having to rebuild it from scratch. On the other hand, every time they cleared a boat they grabbed anything resembling parts and often stripped out things like the breaker box. They had a lot of parts, breakers, wire and what-not stashed in various nooks and crannies in the boat. However…

“How full are the bilges?” Sophia asked.

The No Tan Lines, while a great boat and definitely better than her previous one, had its issues. One of said issues being a small leak somewhere. They’d tried and tried to run it down but never could. It normally wasn’t a problem. They bilge pumps handled it fine. Unless they were off-line for six hours while the boat’s skipper, with some fumble-fingered help from the boat’s “engineer,” completely rebuilt the main breaker box which, not coincidentally, supplied power to said bilge pumps. Sophia had been noticing the way the boat was slowly getting more and more logy.

“Little water in the lower deck,” Paula said, carefully. The skipper clearly didn’t need more stress. “Just a skim.”

“I love pressure,” Sophia said. “I eat it for breakfast. Patrick, under the bed in the number three sleeping compartment there’s a bundle of green wire in a box. Somewhere in that box should be another Westinghouse twenty-five amp. Just bring the whole box.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper,” Patrick said, scurrying out of the compartment.

“ ‘It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor…’ ” Sophia sang, listening to the slap, slap, slap of the rising water below as she ripped out another burned wire and tossed it on the deck. “ ‘Won’t you be mine, could you be mine…?’ ”

* * *

“Alexandria, No Tan Lines, over,” Sophia said, leaning into the blast from the air conditioning on the bridge. The engine compartment, besides stinking of ozone and burned rubber, had been hot as hell.

“Alexandria. How’s it going, over?”

“Please relay to flotilla that we are back in business,” Sophia said. “Although we’re completely out of parts for a main breaker box. On the other hand, the one we’ve got is practically brand new, now.”

“Roger, No Tan Lines. Will relay. Glad to hear you’re okay. Alexandria out.”

“And with that, I’m going back to bed,” Sophia said, hanging up the radio. “Somebody’s got it,” she added, waving a salute at Paula.

“I’ll take care of it, Skipper,” Paula said.

* * *

“Paula,” Sophia said the next afternoon as they were cross-loading refugees to the Living Large.

“Yes, Skip?” Paula said.

“Refresh my memory,” Sophia said. “Did we have a fire in the engine room or did I dream that?”

“We had a fire in the engine compartment, Skipper.”

“Last night?” Sophia said.

“Yes,” Paula said, frowning.

“Did it get handled?”

“You put it out and rebuilt the breaker box. You don’t remember?”

“I think I must have done it in my sleep,” Sophia said. “I thought I was just dreaming. I’m getting too old for this shit… ”

CHAPTER 6

АлтыÏнного воÏра веÏшают, а полтиÏнного чеÏствуют.

(The thief who takes three kopeks is hanged. The thief that takes fifty kopeks is praised.)

Russian Proverb

“I guess coming down here wasn’t a total bust,” Sophia said, waving to the group on the aft deck of the Russian megayacht.

The ship was about as big as the Social Alpha. She wasn’t sure what the actual name was, because the name was in Cyrillic letters. And it had a bunch of survivors. They were all skinny as rails but it was more survivors in one place than they’d ever found. There was a real preponderance of females. And, like the ghosts of the Alpha, they looked like they’d been chosen for their looks rather than their seamanship.

“I think some billionaire loaded up on super-models,” Paula said, waving as well. “At least they were good at dieting.”

“Boat like that is nineteen or so crew and about as many guests,” Sophia said. “I’m counting at least thirty people.”

“Vaccinated?” Paula said.