The Wrecking Crew

CHAPTER 12

“Fatima,” said Klea as she flipped the knife around to hold it by the handle. “Take this. Cut the mooring ropes down to a thread. They must appear normal but break with the slightest pull.”

Jonah grimaced. The plan was to wake up Fatima and only Fatima, stick an air regulator in her mouth, jump overboard, and sayonara, suckers. If Klea woke up, Jonah had planned to say some bullshit about a second diver coming just for her. Or a helicopter. Or a goddamn aircraft carrier group. It didn’t matter. A lie was a lie.

Fatima took the knife from Klea, pulled a black hijab over her head and disappeared out of the main hatchway.

“What are you?” demanded Klea. “US Navy? Special Forces? Private contractor?”

“Escaped convict,” answered Jonah. “And if your plan is to use this boat to outrun the pirates, your plan sucks.”

“You know nothing of my plans,” said Klea. “And at least I intend to get us all out of here together.”

“This shit-box has been shot to pieces. Look at this!” said Jonah, waving his hand past a particularly ugly streak of stitched-up bullet holes in the fiberglass upper works.

“I fixed it,” she spat back.

“Let’s see if you can follow my train of thought,” he said, hissing out every word as he holstered the pistol into his dive suit, took off his goggles and dropped them to the deck. “This ship, fast as she may be, was captured by pirates. Therefore, this ship is not fast enough to outrun pirates.”

“She doesn’t run,” said Klea. “She flies. Follow me.”

Klea lead Jonah into the engine room at the extreme rear of the ship, accessible below the main hatchway. The amount of damage was shocking, even to an experienced salvage diver like Jonah. Thick black marks streaked the interior walls, evidence of a vicious fire. Exposed wires dripped melted silicon insulation. Crudely patched bullet holes polka-dotted most of the compartment. The pirates had directed most of their fire at the engine room in order to disable the ship and capture it intact.

“She was scrap when I started,” said Klea. “Even the biodiesel tank was shot up and mixed with seawater. Our captors kept it all around anyway. They don’t really throw anything away here. They mostly wait for it to fall apart or sink on its own.”

Jonah looked closer at the bullet-scarred metal, his eyes straining under the dim solar lighting. Something was wrong about this damage…

Ah, clever girl.

The scarred-over engine compartment was all for show, an illusion. The massive twin biodiesel engine blocks certainly looked shot to pieces — but when Jonah ran a finger over a particularly nasty hole in the intercooler, he felt a perfectly welded patch. The “leak” was painted on. Same for the valve guides, cylinder liner, and the oil pump. The damage had been long since repaired, as awful as it’d look to the untrained eye. She’d done a similar job to the battery bank, repairing the ones that weren’t too badly damaged and bypassing the ones that were. Maybe the Horizon could still fly after all.

“Seawater in the fuel lines still is a problem,” said Jonah, not yet ready to fully acquiesce to her suicidal plan.

“Well, duh,” said Klea. “That’s why I distilled it. It’s now completely pure. Probably better than when we first bought it. They know I work on the ship once in a while, but I’ve been charging the batteries off of the excess juice from one of the shore generators. Reprogrammed the arrays to work more efficiently, and I managed to boost their capacity by twenty percent.”

“I’m still waiting to be impressed,” said Jonah, crossing his arms. She had his attention, but they were still a long way from an effective escape plan.

“I re-engineered the engine to run diesel and electric simultaneously,” she continued. “It will give us a significant extra boost of power before the pirates can completely mobilize, easily pushing her past thirty knots.”

“Bullshit,” said Jonah. “I saw the propellers when I swam in. They’re built for efficiency, not speed. How are you going to deal with the supercavitation issue? Those props spin fast enough, they’re just going to chop the water into foam and leave you stranded.”

“This is a hybrid,” explained Klea with no small measure of irritation.

“So?”

“So I programmed the engines to pulse.”

Jonah stood back for a minute to consider this. He’d read about this technology in a journal a lifetime ago. How could one engineer, a prisoner on her own ship no less, duplicate it with zero resources in Somalia?

Jonah nodded. “That’s some next-level shit,” he said. “I mean, we’re dead the moment we approach those two guard towers at the mouth of the bay, but I’m genuinely impressed. How much range have you sacrificed?”

“We’ll have enough electricity and fuel to get us to Oman.”

Jonah did the math in his head. Oman was optimistic, even foolhardy. The plan was reckless, overly complicated, and relied entirely on a series of untested assumptions.

“I’m more worried about getting out of this harbor. But if we do, Mombasa is probably a better choice.”

“Mombasa then.”

“Any weapons to speak of?”

“You’ll like this, frogman,” said Klea. Reaching up, she grimaced and slid open an aluminum wall panel. The panel resonated with a scraping sound as light spilled upon her creations.

This is some serious Mad Max shit, thought Jonah. The young woman had spent just as much time creating weapons as she’d spent fixing the engine compartment and patching the hull. His eyes scanned over several singleshot harpoon guns made with welded metal, thick bands of surgical tubing and sharpened steel rebar shafts for bolts. Nasty stuff, the steel bars were usually used to reinforce concrete. Probably not as useful or accurate as his 9mm, but they’d certainly make a statement.

She’d also assembled a set of floating mines. Klea had spent the most time on these, bringing the total to more than ten devices, mostly created from steel bottles of propane and other cooking fuels. Jonah could assume that once thrown, they’d explode when hit by one of the low, open-topped lightweight fiberglass hulls with powerful engines that were favored by pirates.

Next were two small handmade radio transmitters. Maybe to set off previously hidden explosives? All he knew is that they made him nervous; open-frequency detonators were finicky. His mind flashed back to an old news story about a terrorist who exploded himself in his apartment after getting a spam text over the mobile phone he’d rigged to his bomb.

Discount dick-enlargement pills available now, he thought. Boom.

“What’s this for?” asked Jonah, pointing to a particularly mysterious duel-ended crossbow weapon. Rather than firing one bolt forward, it simultaneously fired one metal arrow to the right and one to the left at ninety-degree angles. The two bolts were linked by some type of ultra-lightweight, high-tensile fiber wire.

“Prop fouler,” said Klea. “We use that at the mouth of the harbor, cut off the exit point. It’s neutrally buoyant, almost invisible when in the water. When they run over it, the high-strength line will get wound up into their propellers. At the very least, it’ll stop them dead in the water and force them to spend hours cutting it out of the propeller shaft. At best, they’ll burn out engines trying to chop their way through it.”

“I’m game,” said Jonah, resigning himself. “Let’s do this.”

It suddenly occurred to him that she didn’t even ask his name. This fact made him deeply concerned as to whether or not her plan included his survival.

“Fatima should be done with the mooring lines,” said Klea as she and Jonah exited the engine room.

Jonah and Klea froze, hearing the signs of a struggle, two sets of footsteps banging on the carbon fiber deck of the fantail, a loud voice yelling. Drawing his pistol, Jonah pushed Klea behind him, instinctually protecting her.

Fatima stood on the fantail, still clutching the knife with white knuckles while a pirate pointed an ancient AK-47 rifle at her head.

The pirate screamed at her in a language Jonah could not understand. All around them, the sleepy compound began to rouse. Lights flicked on in rusting corrugated tin shacks as humming generators struggled to keep up with the increased power load.

Drop the knife, thought Jonah, wishing, hoping, willing Fatima to get smart and just drop the knife.

The pirate screamed again, jabbing the rifle towards her aggressively.

Jonah wanted the rifle.

The diver stepped out of the hatchway onto the fantail, pistol already raised to eye level, drawing a bead on the pirate. He waited just long enough for the pirate to see him, to turn. But it was too late, and Jonah brought the butt of the pistol down on the pirate’s forehead.

The pirate’s head lolled and his body collapsed. Shabby, heavily armed men flooded out from shacks around the harbor and crowded against the deck railing of the mothership, pointing and shouting. Jonah grabbed the assault rifle from the deck and slung the strap around his shoulder.

“I–I didn’t finish!” said Fatima, pointing at the nearest mooring line, only half way cut.

Jonah risked a glance around the harbor as he kicked the unconscious pirate’s body off the fantail. It fell into the filthy water with a loud splash.

“You did good,” Jonah lied. “Fatima, go below decks. Go help Klea.”

Klea must had heard the thump because the engines of the Horizon suddenly roared to life and surged forward, almost knocking Jonah off his feet and sending the kitchen knife dancing across the deck and into the ocean. One of the two mooring lines snapped instantly, but the second refused to budge. Shit, he had his dive knife at his side, but it was designed for fishing lines, not entire mooring ropes.

The engines surged again, pulling at the mooring line. Jonah watched as the entire mooring post shifted, imperceptibly at first, then sharply as the pylon snapped. The Horizon leapt forward like a horse from the starting gates, gathering speed as it charged into the harbor. Shots rang out, disorganized, none impacting the ship.

Jonah ran into the cockpit, which was now lit up like a Christmas tree. Klea had done her job keeping everything in working order. She sat in the command chair, feeding power to the throttle and steering directly for the harbor entrance. Two stone sentry towers looming before them.

“You are straight-up ballsy,” said Jonah, putting a hand on the top of her chair, which was taller than she was. It felt like years since he’d talked to a woman, most of the ones he’d known before that had been ex-military or hardcore sat divers. Alexis didn’t count; she had too much of a sisterly vibe for Jonah.

But Klea didn’t react. She stared forward, impassive, then started giving orders. “Engine room,” she said. “Get the two radio transmitters.”

Jonah bolted out of the cockpit and into the engine room. Now lit up with a single halogen bulb, the transmitters were easy to spot. He grabbed both and ran back to the bridge.

“We’re getting some heat spikes in the engine,” said Fatima, her voice thick with concern.

“To be expected,” said Klea. “They’ll cool off once we’re underway. Just tell me if they start redlining.”

The two towers loomed closer and closer. Dark shadows shifted as the guards inside scrambled to load their light machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, muzzles resting against the bulwarks of the towers.

“What’s the plan?” asked Jonah, fingering the triggers on the two radio transmitters. “Pirates don’t do warning shots.”

“Wait,” said Klea. “We’re still out of their range.”

Jonah knew this wasn’t true, but didn’t want to argue. Then the first tower opened up, sending a long stream of tracer bullets into the harbor water ahead of them. The pirate adjusted aim midfire, sending the stream dancing across their bow and into the port pontoon.

“Still think we’re out of range?” exclaimed Jonah, ducking as the bullets narrowly missed the cockpit.

“Now!” said Klea.

Jonah jammed the triggers of both transmitters simultaneously. Nothing happened. The second guard tower opened up, hitting a patch of water dangerously close to the engine room. Jonah knew they’d find the sweet spot within seconds. He jammed the transmitters again, again nothing happened.

“There it is,” said Klea, pointing to the base of the tower to the right.

Artificial smoke billowed out of some hidden emitter, just wisps at first, but then massive, roiling billows that obscured the guard towers and the exit to the harbor.

Behind them, the pirates assembled men and weapons, jumping into the fast skiffs tied to the motherships. Jonah wished he’d counted them before the action had started. Jesus, there were so many — ten? A dozen? Every one of them mounted with high-performance marine engines, every one of them a fast, lightweight hull more than capable of running down the Horizon. At least they weren’t shooting yet, unlike the guard towers.

The Horizon plunged into the gathering cloud, reducing their visibility to mere inches. Klea increased power, navigating by memory alone. Looking into her eyes, Jonah could tell she’d practiced this a hundred thousand times in her mind, driven by pure focus. He hoped her mind was half as sharp as she clearly thought it was.

Jonah had been hoping for an explosion, a fiery detonation that would bring the guard towers tumbling down. He coughed, the acrid smoke entering his lungs. Even so, he was impressed. Any MIT freshman could make a decent smoke bomb. But it took a truly brilliant mind to make a radio-controlled smoke bomb trigger that would still work after being buried in mud for months, even years.

Bullets whipped past, but with more uneven frequency due to the smoke. One impacted right next to Jonah’s feet, making him jump back as a spot in the deck exploded into splinters.

“Engine room,” said Klea, wasting no words. “Prop fouler.”

Jonah needed no more instruction. He ducked into the engine room and snatched the twin-crossbow prop fouler line. Exiting the compartment, he quickly took a position on the fantail, waiting for just the right moment.

The machine gun fire stopped. Jonah guessed they were afraid of hitting their own men. That meant the skiffs would be in close pursuit.

The Horizon slipped past the smaller guard tower. This was it, the narrowest section of the harbor entrance. Jonah snapped the catch from the twin crossbows. The two bolts disappeared in opposite directions, dragging the propfouling line behind them. He played out the last of the line with his hand and dropped the crossbow in the water.

Tracer fire lit up from the closest guard tower, dancing across the starboard pontoon and the fantail. They’d seen the shadow of the Horizon through the cloud. Jonah dove for cover and fired back at the source with his 9mm, no idea if he’d even come close to hitting anyone.

A buzzing whine sounded from behind the Horizon, the unmistakable engine note of an approaching skiff. The yacht burst through the far side of the cloud and into open ocean. A pirate skiff appeared close behind, but the prop fouler bit deep before the crew could react, bringing the boat to a sudden, jolting halt. A second pirate skiff impacted the first and flipped, dumping her crew into the ocean. Jonah watched as the injured pirates disappeared into the darkness behind them. He smiled. The pile of broken fiberglass would serve a much better barrier than a thin strand of high-tensile fiber. Another impact rang out as a third skiff slammed into the growing pileup at the narrow entrance to the harbor.

Now in open water, Jonah desperately scanned the surface of the ocean for the Scorpion’s periscope. He waved wildly, hoping someone, anyone, was watching the unfolding scene.

“Follow us!” he shouted to empty ocean.

Looking at the shoreline, Jonah realized Klea had turned to the North, towards Oman. So much for taking his opinion into account. Apparently it was her production and he was just a bit character. But by the time Jonah reached the cockpit, he’d decided it was a non-issue.

“Are we being chased?”

“Not as far as I can see,” he said as he took a pair of binoculars off the console. “Big pileup at the mouth of the harbor. Nice work with the filament, I didn’t think that little trick would work.”

Klea smirked, a victory over both the pirates and her surly visitor.

Jonah returned to the fantail, binoculars in hand. He scanned the waters behind them. No Scorpion, not yet. Either the submarine hadn’t yet surfaced or the Horizon was a great deal faster than he’d given Klea credit for. He swiveled back towards the mouth of the harbor, watching as pirates surrounded the three crushed skiffs, trying to untangle wounded men from the shattered fiberglass hulls.

Good, thought Jonah. If the whole pileup could suddenly burst into flames too, well, that would be super.

His next thought was uh-oh. He stepped back into the cabin and tapped on the back of the captain’s chair until Klea turned around.

“What?” she demanded.

“We may have a problem,” he said, pressing the binoculars into her hands and leading her to the fantail.

Back at the harbor, the pirates had worked out a solution to the invisible filament. The entrance to the harbor was still an unmitigated disaster, so they simply carried their skiffs over the jetty wall and splashed them into open water.

And there were still a lot of boats, at least seven or eight.

“I really hope your people can give us some backup,” said Klea.

“And I hope you know this will turn into a straight-up fight,” said Jonah. “I’m going to need a body back here helping me.”

“My place is at the helm. I’ll give you Fatima.”

The pirates hung back behind the Horizon, keeping pace but waiting until the last of their skiffs made the journey over the jetty wall. They’d start gaining ground soon, and in full force.

Still no Scorpion. Turning around would be suicidal. Jonah couldn’t fathom whether or not the Horizon could outrun the pirates or not, but his guess was that it would come down to combat.

Jonah removed the clip from the assault rifle slung around his neck and looked at the bullets within. Ten, maybe eleven rounds. Not much. He really should have checked the body of the pirate he’d shot for more bullets before kicking him overboard. Too late now. The pistol wasn’t in much better shape for ammo.

Fatima joined him on the deck, her arms overflowing with mines and extra rebar spears.

“Easy there,” said Jonah, carefully removing the mines from her uncertain grip. “These… these you bring up one at a time, okay?”

Fatima tried to mumble out an okay in return but couldn’t quite form the syllables.

Jonah took a position in the rear hatchway. It was open to the fantail, but still provided him a little cover, not that it would matter much. The last of the pirates spilled over the jetty walls like army ants on the march. The metastasizing collection of pirate skiffs surging forward, gaining ground on the Horizon.

Stashing the rebar spears in the wall, Jonah found a place for the mines at his feet. Fatima crouched behind him.

“Fatima,” said Jonah. “Here’s what I’m going to need from you. I’m going to use the pistol and rifle as best as I can, but there’s going to come a time when I get down to the spear guns.”

“Do you want me to use any of these weapons?”

“Only if I’m hit. Whenever I shoot the spear gun, I’m going to hand it to you for reloading and you hand me one with a spear in it, okay?”

“Understood.”

Fatima prepared for her job by rearranging the spear guns. She brought the nearest one, loaded, right past Jonah’s face, the sharp metal spear almost brushing his cheek. Jonah sighed. Not a good sign.

“If it has a pointy end,” he said, “do not aim it at me.”

“Sorry,” Fatima replied.

Two guns, two crossbows, ten mines and my swingin’ dick, thought Jonah. Some cloudy part of his brain remembered being in a worse position at some point in his life but couldn’t quite place it. Where the fuck was the Scorpion?

The collection of ten pirate skiffs danced across the water, just out of firing range. Unlike the Conqueror, the Horizon was a marathoner, not a sprinter. One of the skiffs on the edge of the main pack broke ranks, charging forward. Shit, it was fast. Klea laid on more power but the pirates gained visible ground with every second. The skiff used the smooth wake behind the Horizon as drag strip, charging towards the fantail.

Wait for it, thought Jonah.

Close now, the pirates on the bow of the skiff stood up, preparing to leap onto the Horizon the moment the two vessels touched.

Wait for it, he told himself.

The pirate skiff reached the stern of the Horizon and the first pirate, Kalashnikov in hand, leapt over onto the fantail. Jonah caught him with two shots to his legs. He stumbled backwards, falling into the narrow gap between the yacht and the skiff, disappearing with his weapon into the foamy wake.

The wounded man didn’t dissuade the other attackers. Jonah exposed his position, standing up to empty round after round into the crew of the attacking skiff. A lucky shot — the last one in the magazine — caught the pilot in the shoulder, spinning him around and knocking the tiller of the skiff hard starboard. The skiff, now full of bloodied, bruised men, jerked to the left, impacting the starboard pontoon with enough force to rattle the entire yacht. The skiff flipped, spilling men and weaponry into the frothing sea. The head start hadn’t been nearly enough to outrun the pirates.

The pirates didn’t stop for the swimming men. Instead, every single skiff advanced towards the Horizon simultaneously. Jonah heard the fierce crack of rifles firing as pirates on multiple skiffs opened up simultaneously, forcing him to take cover as bullets snapped past. Chunks of carbon fiber exploded from the hull.

Ten rounds, thought Jonah as he snuck a glance towards a crouching Fatima.

The professor was holding up, at least as far as he could tell. Her son would have reason to be proud — assuming they survived long enough to arrange a reunion.

Jonah took aim with the assault rifle, carefully squeezing out one single shot at a time, rationing fire into the massing cluster of skiffs. It was too far away to tell if he actually did any damage or not, but the shots seemed to hold the skiff fleet back, even if for a few moments. His rifle clicked empty and useless. At least with the pistol he had two or three bullets left, the Kalashnikov held nothing.

“Time for the mines,” Jonah called to Fatima. “I’m going to start chucking them over the back. I need you to hand them to me, one after another.”

Fatima nodded and handed him the first. Jonah clicked on the crude switch and threw it, arcing it over the back of the fantail and into the wake. Fatima handed him a second, third, and fourth, each disappearing into the foamy seawater in turn.

Shit. Nothing happened.

Then in the far back of the pack, one of the skiffs erupted into blistering smoke and fire, tearing apart the thin fiberglass hull of the vessel and dumping her crew into the sea. At least one of the mines had struck true.

No longer content to hang back and suffer whatever Jonah could shoot, launch, or throw their way, the pirates surged forward, firing, intent to end the engagement. All Jonah could do was duck as bullets whizzed overhead.

Jonah grabbed for the nearest of the two spear guns and fired. The rebar spear flew true at first, then spun, lost aerodynamics and dropped into the water.

Not good, thought Jonah. He would have liked to see a pirate kabob. He wished Klea really had had the opportunity to test the spear guns, work out the kinks. He handed it to Fatima for a reload but the surgical tubing was already shredded from the single shot.

Fearing ricochets, the pirates stopped firing and massed around the rear of the Horizon, dangerously close. They were about to be overrun.

Out of the darkness, the Scorpion burst into view, a dark shape charging from behind at flank speed. The massive conning tower slammed into a skiff, tossing it aside like a toy. The other pirate skiffs bounced and knocked into each other trying to get away as the Scorpion smashed into the center of the pack like Moby Dick, scattering their numbers.

The submarine slid up next to the Horizon, just off the port side of the yacht. If they were two tall ships three hundred years ago, they’d be trading broadsides and musket fire. Dr. Nassiri climbed out of the hatch at the top of the conning tower and signaled to Jonah. Behind them, the pirates attempted to regroup, falling back as they assessed the unexpected threat. Vitaly had put on a masterful performance of navigation.

Dr. Nassiri threw a sling rope over to Jonah.

My mother, he mouthed, unheard over the din of engines and waves.

“Fatima, get over here!” shouted Jonah as bullets cracked and whizzed past him, sling in his hand.

The professor crawled out of the rear hatchway and froze, not trusting her balance against the rolling waves.

“Now, goddamn it!” screamed Jonah. “We’re running out of time!”

“I… I can’t!” shouted Fatima, her knuckles white as she crouched as the edge of the fantail.

“Get your ass over here!” shouted Jonah, too distracted in his anger to see the stitch of automatic weapons fire dance up the deck towards him. Fatima sprang forward, crossing the deck with incredible speed. She struck Jonah just below his waist, driving him to the ground as three rounds whistled inches above his prone body. Glaring at the professor, Jonah lassoed her with the sling, putting it underneath her backside like a painter’s seat. He instructed her to hold onto the rope as tightly as she could.

Behind them, the pirates watched the transfer and recognized it for what it was — vulnerability. Their reduced fleet surged forward just as Horizon hit the submarine’s bow wake.

Fatima lost her balance, almost dropping into the ocean as Dr. Nassiri and Alexis strained at the rope to pull her up. She swung across the gap between the speeding vessels, slamming into the side of the submarine’s conning tower with hands outstretched as the doctor and Alexis braced against the weighted rope.

Two enterprising skiffs beached themselves at the back end of the Scorpion, disgorging nearly a dozen pirates. They ran forward, trying to reach Fatima and the conning tower. Alexis and Dr. Nassiri made one last pull, yanking Fatima over the lip of the conning tower. The hatch slammed shut just as the pirates scaled the exterior boarding ladder. The Scorpion was a superior potential prize to the recapture of the wounded Horizon.

Klea ran out to the fantail, just in time to see the Scorpion crash-dive into the water, shaking off the few pirates still clinging to the conning tower and leaving them to tumble into the foamy wake. The Scorpion was gone.

“Should have seen that coming,” said Jonah. The Scorpion wouldn’t be able to surface again, not now. Jonah and Klea were on their own. There were too many pirates, too close. And Dr. Nassiri had already gotten everything he wanted.

“I’ve put the Horizon on autopilot,” said Klea. “But we don’t have much of this speed left in us and we won’t be able to maneuver.”

“We’ll be overrun soon,” said Jonah, his gaze faraway.

As if his declaration carried with it the weight of providence, the pirates massed again, ready for their final assault. They wouldn’t be after a prize now. They’d be after revenge.

Enjoy the show, you self-serving fuck, thought Jonah. Dr. Nassiri and everyone else aboard the Scorpion could probably see everything from their periscope. That goddamn, rat-bastard doctor.

Klea looked at Jonah, angry tears streaming down her cheeks. She wasn’t ready to give up, not yet. Jonah watched as she grabbed mine after mine, flicking each switch in turn and throwing them overboard. Only one hit, splintering the entire side of a pirate skiff and throwing the crew into the water. But the rest kept coming.

The young woman pulled out the last mine, a large bottle of propane with a volatile primer charge. She prepared to throw it over, but Jonah caught her arm and took it from her.

“I’m sorry,” said Jonah. “There’s just too many of them.”

Without warning, Jonah threw the mine into the main cabin of the Horizon. The interior of the experimental yacht exploded, sending fragments of carbon fiber, metal shrapnel and burning fuel arcing through the air. Jonah held Klea in his arms, protecting her with his body against the searing wave of heat as she fought him, kicking, elbowing, punching, and screaming.

The blast transformed the Horizon into a flaming torch, a single tall pillar of fire licking upwards with blistering temperature. It was all the distraction Jonah needed. He kicked a plastic self-inflating raft overboard, held Klea in his arms, and dropped into the narrow space between the external pontoon and the main body of the yacht.

The two tumbled in a whirlwind of ocean foam, black, moonlight sky, motion and intense cold. Jonah didn’t let go of Klea, didn’t relax his grip for a moment. A propeller slashed against his arm, leaving a deep, clean cut as it churned past. Klea tried to swim up, tried to reach the surface, but Jonah pushed her deeper as multiple pirate skiffs cut through the water above their heads, still chasing the burning yacht.

Klea bucked and twitched, her body forcing her to suck seawater into her lungs as the last skiff flew by overhead. Jonah finally dragged her to the surface just before the last flicker of life left her body.

She popped her head out of the ocean, choking and spitting. Jonah wordlessly pointed to the inflated life raft. She followed and they both swam towards it. In front of them, the tailing pirate skiff slowed and broke formation, returning to inspect the raft.

Jonah willed the pirates to investigate the raft rather than just shooting it up. With luck, it’d look like one more piece of debris thrown free by the explosion. Jonah and Klea hid behind the raft as the pirate skiff slowly circled. Both ducked under the water as it slowly passed by. Moments later, the engine roared up to full pitch and the skiff sped away, satisfied the raft was empty.

Klea clambered in first, assisted by Jonah’s steady hand. Now alone in an unforgiving sea, Jonah and Klea watched wordlessly as the flaming hulk of the Horizon disappeared into the night.