Percy called Gregory down from the control room and sent Owen up to relieve him. Shakes soon joined them in the galley and scrubbed his grimy hands with salt-water soap and water from the sink’s sea-water tap.
Gregory fired up the cooking range and soon had canned salmon simmering in a slightly sweet dark sauce with bits of ginger in it. He put a big pot of rice on to steam.
“That smells fuckin’ astonishing, Gregory,” Shakes said. “I eat that canned salmon all the time when I’m on the Gnat — usually just cold and straight from the can, though.”
“That’s…pretty fucking foul, Captain Shakes,” said Gregory from the range, stirring his bits of fish around.
“You know, I always wondered why those salmon cans are tapered like that. Why don’t they just run straight fucking up and down, like all the other cans?”
“Actually, now that you mention it, Captain Shakes, I always thought that was unusual myself. There has to be three hundred cans in the galley, and all of them are perfect cylinders except for the fuckin’ salmon.”
“I wish all cans were tapered,” said Shakes. “Sometimes I knock a stack of cans over on the Gnat and the regular ones will run off under some piece of equipment. I’m pretty fucking sure there’s some cans in the bottom of the boat that rolled there years ago and I never saw again. But the taper on the salmon cans makes ’em roll around in a tight circle. They stay roughly where they fall no matter what the boat is doing and I can pick them right up before they get lost.”
“Maybe salmon manufacturers know mariners and submariners have a lot of salmon on board, and they shape them like that so our seagoing friends don’t lose their precious cans in the corners of ships,” Gregory suggested.
Hemi chuckled. “If you want to know the real reason, it is because the salmon canneries are all in remote parts of the North. The cans are shipped up there empty to be filled with fresh-caught northern salmon. The tapered cans let them stack far more cans into the hold of ships, moving the empty cans by nesting them.”
“Oh,” said Shakes, sounding somewhat disappointed.
In another twenty minutes or so Gregory had steaming piles of rice on their plates smothered in bits of fish and ginger. He stir-fried a couple of boxes of frozen spinach and scooped them onto their plates to supplement the black and white mush with some dark green.
Percy called the rest of the crew in to eat in rotations that always kept one person in the control room and another listening to sonar. Shakes, as usual, ate twice again as much as anyone else.
“Sweet fuck,” he said, “if you keep feeding me food I want to eat instead of forcing myself to eat cold shit from cans, I’m going to get fucking fat.” He reclined in his chair, unbuckled his belt, and closed his eyes.
“Nothing stopping you from equipping your boat with a hot plate, Captain Shakes,” said Gregory.
Shakes waved his hand in Gregory’s direction lazily without opening his eyes.
“Shakes, when you regain yourself from your crapulence,” said Hemi, “join me at the navigation station. I want to make sure you understand our plan for this run.”
Shakes nodded sleepily as Hemi and Percy headed up to the navigation and sonar compartment.
“It’s probably time for more coffee,” said Gregory, reaching for the pot where the dregs of the previous batch slowly embalmed a permanent black-brown stain on the bottom.
Shakes joined Hemi and Percy at the navigation table a short while later, somewhat revived by Gregory’s coffee, and carrying two more tin mugs for Hemi and Percy, which they received gratefully.
“Here’s what we’re thinking, Captain Shakes,” said Percy. “We’re well fucking into Consolidated States’ waters now. I think trouble from them is unlikely.”
Shakes nodded.
Percy placed a steel straight-edge dappled with rust patches down on the chart, which showed their proposed course in a hashed line of grease-pencil marks. “Barring any unforeseen distractions, this is our planned course. We will be heading into an area that a number of Territorial Authorities claim control over.”
Shakes reached into his denim vest and withdrew a small pencil and a notebook covered with black and smudged fingerprints. He began to scratch down notes in a fast, unreadable scribble.
“That’s unfortunate, but fucking unavoidable, since we’re heading for the mainland port of Stilt City,” said Percy.
“…The locals do not call it that,” put in Hemi.
Percy waved him off. “We estimate it will take three or four days and nights to get there. That’s running slow and deep during the day, and fast on the surface at night, with all things fuckin’ nominal.”
“And what’s the plan for the Gnat?” Shakes asked.
“Generally, we’ll have you run on the surface during the day. You can shut down the diesel maybe once an hour or so, and we’ll check in on ship-to-ship.”
“That will also give us a chance to listen for any contacts without being swamped out by the noise of your boat,” added Hemi.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“At night, the Gnat is less useful as a decoy, since the Prospect will be on the surface anyway. I think then you can mate up the Gnat and get a meal aboard the Prospect and some sleep — at least for a few hours each night.”
Shakes grinned at the thought of hot meals. “What happens if someone comes the fuck up on us in the night?”
“Well, we’ll emergency dive to periscope depth, drag you out of your bunk and throw you into your boat, and make sure the Gnat is off before we do a further evasive deep dive. I hate the delay getting the Gnat disconnected will cause, but I’d hate to deprive you of your fuckin’ precious hot meals.”
Shakes grinned. “No fucking doubt! Just don’t panic in the heat of the moment and forget that if you dive too deep with the Gnat attached, I’ll have a bunch of wet scrap metal instead of a boat hanging off the bottom of this rusting fat cigar.” He scribbled a few notes. “What about the Grackle and those fuckin’ guys who were after you? What if they are still following you?”
“I figure since we’re well into another Authority’s territory now, it’s unlikely they are still coming after us. It’s one thing to raid a depot just on the other side of an Authority line. It’s another to pursue an unarmed cargo sub across the middle of another Authority’s area of control. Having said that, did you get any sense while you were at the depot that they knew our destination?”
“I have no idea,” said Shakes. “It entirely depends on who they talked to while they were up on the exchange level. I didn’t get to see any of that.”
Percy nodded.
“What about Herschel?” asked Hemi. “When will he be ready to come aboard the Prospect? The Gnat could potentially be a long way off pretty quickly if we get into this situation where you are leading a contact away from the Prospect’s location. It would be nice to have Herschel ready to go find you, if that happens.”
“Is that what you are really thinking, Hemi?” Percy asked with a grin. “Or are you just looking forward to having a fuckin’ fluffy new crew member to take care of?”
“I’m hoping Herschel is acclimated to the Gnat in another day or two. Then we can move him aboard the Prospect,” said Shakes.
“Alright,” said Percy, “bring the fucking pigeon over whenever you are ready, Captain Shakes. And Hemi, don’t forget to fill in the rest of the crew on why there’s suddenly going to be birdshit everywhere. But for right now, let’s get the Gnat running up on the surface, and get the Prospect further down. I don’t like being this shallow during the day.”
Shakes gave a fake salute and went rearward toward the galley to take a refill of coffee with him. He then climbed downward to the deepest part of the Prospect, and then even lower to get back aboard the Gnat.
With the Gnat off and surfaced, the Prospect dove down to one hundred meters. Percy was more comfortable with a heavier cover of ocean above her.
The rest of the day went as planned. The Prospect moved slowly and silently through the deep, while the Gnat ran just at the surface, its diesel emitting a long brown shit-string of exhaust into the clear ocean air. Shakes had to keep the throttle back on the Gnat to keep pace with the much slower Prospect. At that slower speed, the Gnat was not obtrusively loud, about the same as an average surface cargo ship. That was to their benefit because Authority enforcement craft were less likely to pursue a target that sounded like a cargo ship — at least during the day — since anything on the surface was likely to be moving with the full blessing of the Authority.
Shakes shut down the Gnat’s diesel once every hour or so and checked in over the ship-to-ship. He had nothing to report but clear weather, modest swells, and open ocean. A white ball of sun pushed its way slowly across a flat white sky, and the two boats droned their way across the curve of the globe. The only thing that changed with the passing time was the sun’s slow fall to the horizon. Shakes had the hatch of the Gnat open and he watched the sun swell up all orange and bloated as it bounced on the perfectly flat table-top off in the west, like it was going to expel a flatulent burst of world-ending fire over the surface of the planet before it was snuffed out by the force of night pressing down on it.
The dark spread slowly from behind, catching up to and overtaking the Gnat. When it did, Percy raised the Prospect to the surface and began night crew rotations, with someone always on the radar and someone always in the lookout ring. A filet knife of a moon came up behind a thick, oppressive haze, its sharp points dulled as if they had been poked one too many times through a heavy fabric or leather.
Shakes ran the Gnat off at some distance for the first half of the night, and then dove and brought it under to mate with the Prospect. This dramatically slowed the Prospect’s speed, but Percy figured this was worth the trade-off of keeping Shakes alert and relatively sane during the day by giving him a chance to sleep while they kept moving. He came on board and ate a couple of large bowls of a hot brown soup Gregory had left simmering on the range, accompanied by thick slices of a stale and grainy bread which Shakes would cover in butter and soak in the soup until each bite softened. He slept for a few hours in one of the Prospect’s padded racks. As the sky lightened in the east, Percy woke him and told him it was time to get the Gnat off.
Shakes stumbled to the galley to pick up his morning coffee. There he found Hemi who accompanied him down to the open hatch leading to the Gnat. Shakes disappeared through that hatch and returned holding a small wire cage with a splotchy gray bird. Herschel was sleek and trim, with an unmistakable intelligence to the eyes.
“Fuckin’ Hemi, meet fuckin’ Herschel,” said Shakes holding the cage up for Hemi to take while he climbed up out of the Gnat.
Hemi poked a thick finger between the bars and rubbed Herschel’s head gently. “Captain Shakes, this bird looks perhaps smarter than me, or yourself.”
“Maybe you should hire him to drive the fuckin’ Gnat for you,” said Shakes.
“Is this cage not too small for him?”
“That’s just his travel cage. I have a nice comfy roost installed for him down in the Gnat. You don’t want him to forget where his home is, otherwise he won’t return there when you release him.”
“Can I let him out of this cage?”
“Sure, if you — or Percy — don’t mind a little pigeon shit around.”
“I believe I shall give this fellow the run of the boat.”
Shakes handed Hemi a small leather case with tiny papers and a steel band. “This is his leg band. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Just write your message, attach it, and toss Herschel in the air. He’ll find the Gnat, if it’s anywhere on the surface within maybe a hundred miles or so.”
“How do we get him back, though?” asked Hemi.
“Well…” said Shakes scratching his grimy neck with black fingernails. “It’s kinda a one-fuckin’-way thing. I have to give him back to you in person. We might be able to get him to fly over to the Prospect from the Gnat if you were within sight…and maybe if he knew you had some food.”
“I understand. It’s a ‘homing’ pigeon. It only goes home.”
“Right.”
“Well, welcome aboard, Herschel. Captain Shakes, have a good run today.”
“I expect to, though I’ll miss having my copilot with me.”