~
Ailyss was suspended between the flying rope and the handhold lines, swinging with the ship, beginning to feel green around the face. She had her reservations about being able to “fly” this ship. She knew from a refresher course she had taken before embarking about the vectors that operated at the wind speeds of a tropical storm. She doubted that humans, capable of lifting maybe, at most, a hundred kilograms, could control anything that got buffeted by such blasts.
She glanced at her hands, her knuckles white from clinging to the ropes. The nails were chewed to the quick. A habit she had better snap out of. She had thought that she was out of it, but what with recent developments she had found last night, after reading two chapters in her novel without taking anything in, that there was not a single nail that had escaped. That was when she had sought out the safety of the infirmary, with its cameras and Wolf.
As she followed the arc of the kite sail back to the top, her gaze stopped compulsively at the rigging, where the Death Threat was hanging on in the Crow’s Nest. Corrupting the little Donegal boy! Her eyes met Federi’s and she caught his scowl. Oh yes, she knew! She was under observation!
Fat help it would be for them all. She was going down with the ship. With or without her mission accomplished, she couldn’t see how they could survive this storm.
Radomir Lascek stepped out onto the deck.
“Hoy!” his voice boomed across, above the storm. “Flyers!”
He stared at them all, hands on hips. The sailors calmed down. To her surprise, Ailyss felt the fear ebbing out of her. The Captain moved forward, in amongst them.
“Right, you mangy lot!” announced Radomir Lascek. “This is how you do it.”
He took the position right ahead of Rushka, slipping both boots in under toe-straps, and acquiring two speedbar sheets from his daughter. He clipped two lifelines on, one to a handhold line on each side. He wrapped both speedbar sheets around his left hand, grabbed the winch lines in his right and turned to give Dr Jake a signal. The wind steadied. Dr Jake’s steering smoothed. The Solar Wind’s uncontrolled rolling and pitching calmed.
Ailyss stared at the Pirate Captain, stunned. It was just as though he held the controls of the ship, the sea, the storm and the internal workings of the whole crew in his large, powerful hands!
The kite sail soared upwards, and then she suddenly stopped. There was a jolt. The huge parafoil pulled the Solar Wind from the crest of a wave, right out of the water.
Shawn emitted a gleeful whoop. “Federi, we’re doing ski-jumps!”
The Tzigan shook his head with a smile. “No. We’re on hydrofoils. Watch.”
“What are hydrofoils?”
“Just observe,” said Federi. “I’ll explain later. Watch the sea, lots of shoals here!”
Radomir Lascek instructed the flyers as he handled the speedbar sheets. And then the kite steadied out and Ailyss understood about the flying. The sails rounded out and got filled to capacity with new untamed wind. The ship pulled ahead at a speed she had never yet witnessed, skimming along the crests. It felt like flying alright! The Solar Wind seemed to have lifted right out of the water, apparently gliding along on her keel, surfing over the waves. She caught her breath. In all her years of secret service she had never heard or read of anything like this. Was she dreaming?
Her eyes were glued to that kite sail and she was responding almost intuitively to it, loving every moment. Catching the wind was like lassoing a swarm of wild Pegasus, one at a time; each added its own force to the ship before escaping. The sea still rocked and splashed; but much less, as the deck was so much higher above sea level! And the Captain’s calm persona was protecting them all from the elements. For an odd moment Ailyss wondered what it would be like to be one of them. Really be a pirate. Follow this man’s leadership! Oh, it was tempting. Scruples aside, on a ship like his, with a Captain like him, what could possibly go wrong? He was capable of defying gravity itself!
What an illusion! She shook herself back to reality. Always on the wrong side of the law? What could go right?
Pirates, they all were reckless pirates. Criminals! Her glance dashed to the terror in the Crow’s Nest. Her days were numbered, that was clear. The number was One.
Federi ground his teeth even as Shawn yelled in delight. Flying before the storm was a game to be played in the open sea, not in between coral reefs and sandbanks! And with a green team! They should all get below deck. He would stay in the Crow’s Nest, this he understood – without radar, visual was the only reliable way of getting through the rocks. But there was no reason to endanger the others. What had got into Captain? Was he trying to show Rodriguez what a daredevil he could be? Or perhaps driving the point home that the Cuban shouldn’t try to mess with the Solar Wind, because he stood no chance?
A fat splash hit Shawn’s face.
“Hey!” the boy shouted and peered up at the clouds. “No spitting on the Solar Wind!”
“Here comes the rain,” said Federi. He counted seconds. One… two… three… four… five… six…
The downpour washed in over the Solar Wind. Six degrees darker and badly impaired sight.
“Funny how fast things can turn at sea,” commented Shawn, his wet locks plastered to his face. “Federi, sing! Go on!”
“Cor, Shawn. Blasted ship is out of control. Nothing that singing’s going to fix this time,” said Federi, hanging onto the mast as the ship swung once more in response to the surf. The boy lost his balance; Federi’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm, steadying him.
Down on the deck people slipped and scrambled. Blast, Dr Jake at the helm – the nuclear scientist hardly ever had bridge duty as his job in the machine room took so much time! And Marsden, checking on the drives! Would he know what to do? Would he know how to balance the flying with the right amount of nuclear blasts to correct bad angles and help keep the ship’s nose turned the right way? Would he be able to read the screens fast enough, would his exsanguinated reflexes be enough to take over Dr Jake’s crucial role in the flying phenomenon – the part nobody ever knew about unless they took the time to have midnight conversations with the silent scientist? He didn’t have time, blast it! He was trying to fix the radar. So they were flying without their support system! And the most experienced flyer up in the Crow’s Nest!
Sherman, the centenarian, steering the Silver Bullet! Had they even done a round of the ship before taking the bridge? Were there not perhaps more Coast Guards hidden aboard that Barracuda?
What specifically was that feeling of disaster trying to tell him? Why was his radar so blasted vague? Like everything else on this forsaken pirate vessel?
26 - Betrayal
“There’s something wrong with the Solar Wind’s radar,” stated Sherman. “Did you see that? She nearly ran onto those rocks!”
Paean felt grey dread creeping over her.
“Then we’ve got to get back aboard and warn them, Sherman!”
“Captain will have noticed by now,” replied Sherman, pointing. “See? There are two in the Crow’s Nest.”
Paean narrowed her eyes and peered. One of the two figures was glowing with a faint orange light. “Shawn and Federi, I’m sure. Sherman, will they be okay? I don’t like this! Let’s get back aboard!”
“Captain has navigated many storms,” replied Sherman. “In any case visuals are safer to navigate by, through such heads. What I don’t understand is why he wants to fly this one! Through the reefs?”
“Sherman, let’s go back,” begged Paean. “That’s my brothers on that ship!”
“We can’t anyway, Paean,” replied Sherman Dougherty. “Look, there she pulls away!”
The Silver Bullet’s engines were going full throttle; but there was no way to catch up to the Solar Wind now. It was hard enough to keep sight of her past the huge swells. Paean scowled. It was wrong! Things were upside down on the Solar Wind,
she could sense it.
“How does a ship’s radar get damaged anyway?” she asked.
“In the Solar Wind’s case,” replied old Sherman, “sabotage.”
Paean gasped. “What!”
“There’s a spy aboard,” mentioned Sherman.
“I don’t buy it,” said Paean. “They say she’s a spy. But she hasn’t done anything! Anyway why should she sabotage the ship she’s on herself? If we sink, she dies with us!”
“Oh, aye, that’s the question,” said Sherman, looking strangely at her. “Panic, perhaps?”
“But why should she panic?”
“If she had the mission to sabotage the Solar Wind all along,” said Sherman, “and we’re drawing near to Hawaii now, which is maybe where she meets with her superiors… she’d have to do it soon, or her mission would have failed.”
“But she would go down with the ship,” objected Paean. “Still doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps that is better than what awaits her if she fails her mission?”
“I don’t know,” said Paean doubtfully. “Sherman, what if all of you are wrong about her? What if she’s not a spy? What if the radar got stuck some other way? Remember the Crow’s Nest got stuck after Lake Gatun! Maybe this is damage from that battle too! Calling someone a spy – that’s a pretty serious accusation! She’s a nice girl! Just quiet-like.”
“Or maybe she’s had word…” speculated Sherman, on his own track. He activated the intercom.
“Sherman?”
The centenarian swore. Paean peered at the console. She couldn’t really see what he was doing.
“Trying to get a warning through to Captain,” muttered Sherman Dougherty.
“Why?”
“She’s getting picked up,” said Sherman with a long glance at Paean. She went quiet. This was bad. Maybe Ailyss was indeed a spy. Then what? Sherman was hammering the console. “They’re not responding!”
The Solar Wind was not visible any longer either. She had disappeared in the veils of rain, in the huge waves ahead. Paean suddenly felt utterly deserted. If the Solar Wind didn’t come through this storm…
“If Ailyss is getting picked up, she’ll have alerted the Unicate where we are,” she said with a frown. Cor! Another thought struck her. A vision. Sheer! What if… She whistled through her teeth. “Sherman, is this the fastest we can go?”
“Why?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Sometimes life was so darned inevitable… She only hoped she’d be as brave as Federi, in another few seconds.
“What’s that ship on the radar?” asked Sherman, zooming in. “RS 6338! And another. RS 6872. And…” He shook his head. “Paean, don’t look now, but we’re surrounded by Rebellion!”