John Ringo - Emerald Sea

“No, sir,” Joel answered. “I used to be a sailor before the Fall. And after, but as a fisherman then.”

“So what the hell are you doing as a steward?” Herzer frowned.

“You know, sir, everyone asks me that,” Joel grinned. “I suppose I ought to go find the idiot that did it and thank him one dark night.” He paused for a moment and then shrugged. “You’re with the general’s party, right, sir?”

“Yeah,” Herzer replied and then stuck out his hand. “Herzer Herrick.”

“Really?” Joel said, smiling. “ The Herzer Herrick?”

“Oh, gods,” Herzer groaned.

“I mean, I’ve been reading this book…”

“Oh, gods…” Herzer groaned again. “Not you, too?”

“I mean, the guy’s not a particularly good writer…”

“So I’ve heard,” Herzer replied. “And if I ever track him down…”

“Did you really kill fifteen guys?” Joel asked, sitting down.

“Not there,” Herzer said then grimaced. “Look, the book was way overblown, okay? I just did my job.”

“But that’s where you got the hook, right?” Joel asked.

“Yes, that’s where I got the hook. But it was six riders, okay? Not fifteen. And Bast got most of them. And, yeah, we were outnumbered, but the Changed didn’t cover the valley ‘like a rippling wave.’ There were… a few hundred. Look, you ever been in a fight, I mean, where people are trying to kill you?”

“Yeah,” Joel answered, soberly. “And I’ve seen a few dead bodies in my time.”

“Ever had a friend killed before your eyes?” Herzer asked, not waiting for a reply. “Look, it’s just butchery, okay? It happens to be butchery I’m good at. I don’t know what that says about me except… I’m good at staying alive. A lot of people that day, and other days, that were just as good as me bought the farm. Sometimes it just seems like luck. But if you’ve been there, you know that.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Joel said, picking up the mug. “I’ve got to circulate, sir. But thanks for talking to me. You cleared up a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Herzer said, then grinned. “And if you ever find the bastard that wrote that book…”

“I’ll be sure to send you his address.” Joel grinned.

There was no chance of dragons launching the next day, as the ship was tossed by the winds in the morning. A bank of clouds was to the north and the crew scrambled aloft to reef the sails. For the next two days the ship was tossed by howling winds and blinding rain as the second front in as many weeks hammered them unmercifully. This one was, if anything, colder and stronger. And while the winds were fair to send them to their destination, on the second day the captain had the ship heave to, sailing into the teeth of the gale. Their destination had been the death of countless mariners over the ages and he was not about to go sailing down on it, unable to get a fix on their position and at the front of a gale.

By the third day the winds had started to abate and the rain had stopped. The captain had the ship put on the starboard tack and sailed to the west, groping forward for a glimpse of Flora or anything else to get a fix on their position. Joanna volunteered to go aloft and try to spot land. She wasn’t able to land in the tossing waves but the recovery area had been reinforced and redesigned so that she was able to pull herself out with minimal effort.

“Flora’s over to the west,” she said, after she had shaken off. “There’s an inlet, but there’s inlets all up and down the coast. That doesn’t tell us anything. There are some islands to the southeast; we’re about sixty klicks from them. Nothing due east at all as far as I can see. Oh, and there’s clear sky well down below the horizon northwest. I think we’ll be clear of the clouds, or at least the cover will be broken, by evening.”

The skipper and Commander Mbeki consulted their charts and came to the conclusion that they were too close to the Isles for comfort without better conditions or a clear sky to get a navigation fix. They altered course towards Flora, which of the two was the lesser danger, and headed into the Stream.

By evening, as Joanna had predicted, the skies were clearing and the wind and waves had abated. The latter were choppier, but far smaller and the ship rode over them with a graceful dip and yaw that was easy enough to compensate for.

The next morning dawned clear but the winds were increasing and the area around the ship was dotted with whitecaps. The skipper had managed to get a star reading the night before so the ship was now under reefed sails, scudding southward over the tossing sea. When Herzer came on deck after breakfast he groaned, sure that the skipper would want dragons up in this mess.

“We can launch, sir,” Jerry was saying as Herzer reached the quarterdeck. The wind, hard and cold from the north, blew his words away so that he practically had to shout. “But I’m not sure about recovery. And I’m not sure we can read the water the way you would like. We can see shoals, and we can signal them, but we can’t really gauge the depth.”

“Just steer us clear of them,” the skipper said. “As for recovery… the water’s warm,” he added with a grin.

“The air sure isn’t,” Jerry growled, but he was smiling. “We’ll do it, sir. But we will probably have to do water landings; I’m not comfortable with the way the ship is moving.”

“Do what you can, Jerry,” the skipper said, not unkindly. “I know you’re worried about the dragons, and their riders, but if we run up on an uncharted coral head, they’re all going to drown.”

“Gotcha, sir,” the warrant replied. “Well, I’ll take the first flight.

He was quickly in the air and before he had even reached cruising altitude the dragon was making the dips and swirls indicating shallow water. He angled to the east until he reached a point that looked to be about fifteen klicks off the port bow, circled, then headed south.

“We’re well out in the Stream, then,” Commander Mbeki said. “This is solid deep water on both sides and ahead of us for klicks, sir. If we had sonar we’d be looking at two hundred, maybe five hundred, meters of depth.”

“Yes,” the skipper said, “and it shoals out fast . Signal him to stay ahead of us looking for shoal water until he’s relieved. Signal him to look for mer, as well and to signal if he sees any sign of intelligent life.”

“Will do, sir.”

“Put a wyvern on standby for launch. If he sees anything I want to recover him as soon as he’s had a good look.”

It was no more than an hour later when Jerry went into a hover against the north wind. At an acknowledgement from the ship he signaled that there was a settlement below him. Then he signaled that there were several small boats.

“Recall him and launch the standby wyvern,” the skipper said. “Tell the rider to ignore the settlement and head southward. The mer are supposed to be somewhere around here. Oh, and send a messenger to General Talbot and tell him that we’re approaching the last reported position of the mer.”

The man who scrambled up the side of the ship was burned black by the sun with hands callused and gnarled from fishing nets. But he looked around him with lively interest as a midshipman led him to the quarterdeck.

“Colonel Shar Chang,” the skipper said, sticking out his hand. “United Free States Navy.”

“Bill Mapel,” the fisherman said. “This is one hell of a ship you’ve got here, Skipper.”

“Yes, it is,” the skipper replied with a grin. “We don’t have much information from down here. How is it?”

“Well, it’s not as good as it used to be.” The fisherman frowned. “I used to run a fishing charter on Bimi island before the Fall and it caught me here. We haven’t been starving, but the weather’s been a nightmare and finding your way around without autodirectors isn’t the easiest thing in the world. I’d never learned star navigation, none of us had, so if we lose sight of shore it’s a matter of making our way in and finding a spot we recognize. Storms, reefs, a torn sail, things we never even thought of before the Fall are all disasters. And they’re all taking their toll. We’ve had some problems with vitamin deficiencies, too, but since we started getting some fruit from Flora that’s less of a problem.”