John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“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… ”

“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.

“Bet so,” Sophia said, smiling.

“… can tie up… ” One of the men on the wash deck was pointing to the cleats for her to tie alongside.

“Tell Rusty to break out the dinghy,” Sophia said.

“It’s not rough,” Paula said. “And we’re going to have to cross-load them some supplies.”

“No offense, Paula, but I’m the skipper,” Sophia said, smiling again and waving. “Tell Rusty to break out the dinghy. Load up a bunch of water bottles. They’ve got solar stills going but I’d bet they’d like some water.”

“Okay,” Paula said, dubiously.

“And no weapons,” she added. “No infecteds, no reason.”

“It’s a little bumpy,” Sophia said over the loudhailer. “Middle of the ocean and all. We’re sending over a dinghy with some supplies! The guy’s got a radio.”

Turning out the dinghy was old hat at this point and Rusty, Paula and Pat made quick work of loading cases of bottled water. There was always bottled water on boats they cleared and they kept it for times like this. They mostly drank the water from the ROWPU system. It was the same stuff as “filtered” water.

Rusty putted the outboard over and tied off. Before he even started to unload, the same “pop hatch” as the Alpha had on the back opened up and men with guns, AKs, came out. One of them even had an RPG. Of course, if he fired it there, he’d kill most of the people

“Rusty,” Sophia called over the radio. “Don’t resist. Just give the leader the radio.”

“You were expecting this,” Paula said, angrily. “You sent Rusty over as bait!”

“I was expecting something ,” Sophia said as the hangers on made themselves scarce. “You didn’t get attenuated vaccine by being nice . And there were too many women, not enough men. Where were the men? Where was the billionaire? Get downstairs and get a video of this. I want to be able to identify who’s there and who’s not.”

“You will turn over your boat or we will kill your crewman.” The man was heavyset and armed only with a pistol. He had a thick Slavic accent but the voice was… cultured. Something. He didn’t really sound like a thug.

“Hello,” Sophia replied. “Greetings from Wolf Squadron of the United States Navy. I’m Lieutenant Sophia Smith, skipper of the US Navy Auxiliary Vessel No Tan Lines . To whom am I speaking?”

“This does not matter. There is no United States so there is no United States Navy. You will turn over your boat. We will spare your lives. If you attempt to drive off, we shall open fire.”

“That would be the worst possible mistake you could make, sir,” Sophia said, calmly. “If you fire, you will destroy this boat, then we would both be adrift. Please, do not be… nekulturny. We have time. It is a nice day for conversation. You have been out of contact for some time. I would acquaint you with the current conditions. I will not, as you say, drive off.”

“What are the current conditions?” the man said. She could hear the hunger for information in his voice. Like most castaways.

“All land areas are under control of infected,” Sophia said. “As are most ships and boats. However, Wolf Squadron is part of the United States Navy. I am a Naval officer and this is a US Navy boat. A US Navy boat or ship, of even the smallest such as mine, has not been captured since the Barbary Pirates days. I am not going to be the first.

“Now, your actions have been aggressive. But they are not, so far, past the point of real difficulty. Castaways react in various manners. You wish to be able to get to some point of relative safety. You wish to have supplies again, some sort of a life other than eeking out a miserable living on raw fish and what water you can distill with your solar stills. I can sympathize. Most of the squadron has been in your situation at one point or another. We are more than willing to share supplies. We can even get you a boat so that you and some of your companions can go on your merry way. With your weapons. You’ll need them to clear boats of infected so you can salvage.

“However, we have only two real penalties at this point. We don’t have much in the way of prisons or brigs so you get either the ‘leave us and other uninfecteds alone and we’ll leave you alone,’ the offer I’m making to you now, or death. There, really, isn’t much in the middle. So, you might want to consider that in light of your threat to destroy a US Navy vessel. Because, then, well, ‘leave you alone’ isn’t going to happen.”

“You are one boat and you are under my guns. And I still don’t believe you are Navy. Where is your uniform? Why would the Navy use yachts? Where are your supercarriers?”

“Full of infected,” Sophia said. “Although we’re clearing a baby carrier at the moment. And I am the only vessel in view . There are others. So, what do you say? I’ll get you a boat, full of fuel, full of supplies, you can sail off with your… henchmen and we’ll let bygones be bygones. I’ll even throw in a case of scotch. You like scotch? Me not so much.”

“The boat I am going to take is here already,” the man replied. “And you will either surrender it or be destroyed. You have one minute to tie alongside. I have a rocket launcher, in case you don’t know what that is.”

“You have a rocket-propelled grenade launcher,” Sophia said. “Slightly different beast. And if we’re playing one-upmanship, I have a submarine. Alex , you monitoring?”

“ROGER, SEAWOLF,” a powerful transmission came in. “SURFACING AT TWO-TWO-SIX, RANGE ONE THOUSAND YARDS.”