The Steel Shark

Chapter 32

Laila sat alone in her cabin. Her short hair was wet from the shower. She’d used up more than her share of hot water, but she still didn’t feel clean. Perhaps she didn’t need to. Her crew was ready for their final mission. She’d had doubts — doubts they would be able to take the sub, doubts they would be able to pilot it in combat conditions, and doubts they would be able to take lives. Now her doubts were settled. Once they picked up the replacement oxygen generators from Aunt Bibi’s yacht, they would be ready to go.

An eye for an eye, a life for a life. Her crew understood, but she dreamed often of the man’s body crushed under her submarine. In her dreams, he woke up and begged for his life. He always told her his death was meaningless, that he was innocent, and even if she killed the prince, it couldn’t bring back her sister. But the people they had killed had to die in order to save many others. Difficult choices had to be made. If she didn’t make those choices, others would.

She leaned against the hard wall and let the now familiar hum of the engines thrum through her body. The narrow bed usually felt comforting, but today it felt claustrophobic. She wanted to pace around outside, or even inside, but she couldn’t let the crew see her agitation. She was the captain, and she needed to stay in control.

A soft knock sounded at her door.

“Come.” She longed for a distraction. Nothing serious. Maybe a minor mechanical problem.

“Meri,” said a soft voice.

Meri had been at the top of her class in medical school, had dreamed of being a surgeon, and had instead been ordered to marry and give up her career. Meri’s fury at that fate had led Nahal to her. Meri had been one of their first recruits, and she was the one most loyal to the cause.

Meri entered and stood next to the swivel chair in front of the captain’s desk. It, like all the furniture, was bolted to the floor, a stable object in an unstable world.

“The crew is happy they downed the Narwhal, Captain.” Meri closed the door, the sound loud in the once quiet space.

“Any regrets?” The crew wouldn’t tell her their feelings. As the captain, she needed to stand above them and show no doubts.

“Rasha,” Meri said. “Of all the women, only Rasha seems affected.”

Laila sat up in surprise. “But we killed the man who injured her. She should rejoice!”

“Collateral damage happens in wartime. It has to.” Meri sighed. Laila wasn’t sure if it indicated sadness at this tragic truth, or exasperation that Rasha didn’t accept it.

“It’s my duty to fulfill our original mission and to keep the crew as safe as I can. I cannot be responsible for those who get in the way.” Laila noticed how shrill her voice had become, as if she needed to convince herself and Meri.

“Innocents will die,” Meri said. “This submarine is a blunt instrument. It’s not like a scalpel that cuts with precision.”

“Does Rasha think the cost is too great?”

“Are you doubting our mission?” Meri asked. “You must be the most committed of all. Many more innocents will die if we are successful. We’ve always known that.”

“I am committed.” She couldn’t appear weak, or Meri might try to take over the ship. “We took this vessel for a reason, and I will not waver in the execution of that. Nor will I let those under my command fail in their duties. The cost is too great.”

Laila stood then, straight as the princess she was, and Meri stepped back. Laila was the highest-ranking royal on the ship, and they had deferred to her since childhood. Laila must not let them forget.

Another knock on the door, and Rasha entered without permission. A slight woman with giant eyes, she reminded Laila of a Chihuahua.

Meri was pushed back against the desk. There wasn’t room for three in her cabin, but Laila didn’t sit. She needed to be in a position of power, not sitting on her bed like a teenager.

“I wish to leave the ship,” Rasha said. “Put me ashore anywhere. I won’t tell anyone anything that’s happened.”

She hadn’t expected Rasha to be the first with doubts. “You signed an oath to this ship, to your sisters, and to me.”

“I didn’t understand it then. I didn’t know how it would feel to be made a murderer.”

“We killed the men on the Narwhal for you. For your unborn daughters. And the woman who would have followed after you.”

“He only did what his father did before him.”

Meri touched her arm. “It’s difficult to watch men die. As a doctor—”

“As a doctor, you’re sworn to save lives, yet you’re helping this one take them.” Rasha gestured toward Laila. “We just killed twenty-six men, and we will kill more than a thousand if we stay on this path. That’s too many.”

“You signed an oath upon your honor,” Laila said.

“As did you. And where is your honor now?” Rasha’s voice was too loud in the small space. “Didn’t your honor die with the men on that ship?”

Meri reached past her and closed the door. As if it would be so easy to contain Rasha’s anger and guilt now that they were trapped on a giant tin can together.

“The deaths of the men on the Narwhal were necessary,” Laila said. “We have only one more target. We must fulfill our purpose, or they have died in vain.”

“All the deaths were in vain,” Rasha said. “I want to leave.”

“We must complete our task. After that, we can go our separate ways, and we can grieve for those we have lost,” said Meri. “We must be strong, all of us, like doctors. We are treating a sick society, and the only way to make it well is to lance the evil boils who keep the society ill. Only then can it heal for all of us.”

Laila nodded in what she hoped was a regal manner. “As Meri says. We must endure for four more days.”

“Those aren’t boils you’re lancing. They are flesh-and-blood men,” Rasha said. “Some are hard and cruel, but what right do we have to murder them for those sins?”

“We took that right.” Laila was close enough to slap her. “Just as they have taken the right to murder us for generations. It is only by the merest chance that you didn’t die at the hands of your brutal husband. My sister did. I would have, too.”

“And in the end, when the sea teems with the bodies of the slain, will the world be better off?” Rasha advanced on her, hands clenched in fists at her sides.

“With whom have you spoken about this?” asked Meri. Bizarrely, Laila noticed her grammar, correct but archaic, rather like Meri herself.

Rasha whirled to face her. “With no one. I wanted to talk to our captain first. To beg her to release us from our oaths. Let us keep what innocence we have left.”

“We only have one more task to perform,” said Laila. “Then everyone can go their own way.”

“Don’t kill the people on that boat,” Rasha said. “Don’t make your sisters and cousins and friends into killers.”

“They’ve already killed.” Meri stuck one hand in her pocket and put the other on Rasha’s shoulder in a gesture that might have been meant to be reassuring, but looked somehow menacing.

“They want this,” Laila said firmly. “They’ve wanted this from the beginning. I’m sorry you’ve changed, but everyone else has stayed the same.”

“Do you know that?” Rasha asked. “Have you talked to them? I’ll talk to them. I’ll make them see.”

“We can’t afford doubt,” Laila said. “It will be over soon. You know what will happen to the people of New York if we fail. Then the people of our own country. War. We are stopping a war.”

Rasha was so close Laila smelled her delicate floral perfume, a gift sent by Aunt Bibi. “We don’t know that. Not for certain.”

“Step away!” Meri said in a loud and unnatural voice. “Don’t hurt her!”

Shocked by her tone, Rasha and Laila turned to look at Meri.

Meri took her hand out of her pocket and, quick as a snake, she struck Rasha on the throat. Bright red blood shot out in a single glittering strand. Droplets freckled Laila’s face and stung her eyes.

Almost in slow motion, Rasha lifted her hand to cover the wound.

Laila reached for Rasha, but before she could touch her, Meri’s silver knife rose and slashed Laila across the forearms. Wetness soaked her uniform.

Rasha crumpled to the floor, blood leaking around her long fingers.

“She attacked you.” Meri pressed her hand hard against Laila’s wounds. “You got the knife away and slashed out. You didn’t think you would kill her. I saw.”

“I didn’t kill her.” Laila tried to pull her wounded arms away.

“Rasha had to die for us to finish our work. You know this.” Meri’s words whispered against Laila’s blood-damp face.

Laila looked at her friend, the doctor. Meri’s brown eyes met hers without flinching.

“It was necessary,” Meri said. “We’ve come too far together to falter now. We must stop this madness of the prince’s before it leads to war. Rasha’s life is a small debt to pay.”

She pushed Laila back until the bed pressed against her knees and she sat. Before Laila could answer, Meri released her arms and spun toward the corridor.

“Help us!” Meri screamed. “Please come!”

She threw the knife into the corridor. When it landed, Laila recognized it as a scalpel. A tool of healing used to bring death.

Chattering voices grew closer.

Laila held one wounded arm with the other. Blood dripped off her elbows and flecked her blue fleece blanket. On her clean floor, her cousin’s eyes had already gone glassy. Her hand had fallen away from her neck and rested on the floor, her upturned palm full of the blood of the house of Dakkar.