Half an hour later, Gregory’s voice came over the PA saying food was ready. Percy suggested Bastian and Cassandra should eat first, but Cassandra preferred to stay at sonar. Bastian offered to bring a bowl of food up to her and sit at the sub controls while he ate. He was back from the galley in a matter of minutes with heaping bowls of steaming food for Cassandra and himself.

Percy held Bastian’s bowl of food while he climbed the ladder to the control room. She realized how hungry she was as the smell wafted up to her nostrils.

“Bastian, sit at the planes controls and keep her at this depth and going the way we’re going. If anything fucking changes, I’ll be in the galley. Hemi, want to join me for food? Maybe we can come up with some kind of plan.”

“I am certainly ready to eat,” said Hemi.

Dinner was a white mush of crushed-up hard biscuit mixed with water and fried with butter. Gregory had stirred in bits of dried salted meat and was making a pan of scrambled eggs to accompany the mush with at least a little nutrition. He kept making more eggs — in small batches, so at least they would be hot for the crew coming to eat.

Hemi and Percy loaded up bowls of the hot glop — Hemi with twice as much as Percy — and, with two tin cups of coffee, sat down at the galley table. They ate in silence for a few minutes.

Hemi had let Herschel out of his cage as soon as the bird had come aboard, and Herschel had made his primary home in the Prospect’s galley, claiming any crumbs that made it to the deck. He wandered among their feet as they ate.

Another ping rang through the boat.

“Fuck!” said Percy.

“Hmm,” said Hemi. “I am extremely curious as to why this particular boat is so persistent in pursuing us. Authorities often aggressively patrol their own waters, but the tension between them means they do not cross each other’s lines. Almost always the reason any Authority craft might follow us over a long distance is simply because they have claimed new territory from another Authority, and we did not know it. In this case…I am fairly certain they have chased us from one Authority territory into another, yet they continue on.”

“And it looks like they have every fucking intention of pursuing us into a third…”

“Do you think it is because they want to take this cargo we are hauling? Perhaps it is a strategic move for them: if we deliver, it undermines their position with another Authority somehow.”

“No, I think it more likely that it is along the lines of something Miss Mai said to me: it’s possible someone put us on the prize list for privateers. And the Commander of the Grackle — with a privateer’s warrant from some powerful Authority in his fist — believes he is empowered to pursue us as a prize regardless of Authority borders.”

“But surely whatever the warrant may say, other Authorities are not going to respect the rights of privateers to hunt us in their waters… Seems like the Grackle is taking an awfully large risk.”

“I didn’t put much stock in the suggestion myself at the time, for exactly that reason. But Miss Mai believed it could be part of a bigger move — like some of the more powerful Authorities might want to antagonize smaller and weaker ones. She made it sound like it could be the first step towards much bigger shifts, like perhaps some kind of collusion among the more powerful Authorities.”

“They could carve up the world between them, if that is true.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“And take control of global shipping — coordinated global shipping would eliminate the need for cargo submarines pretty fuckin’ quick.”

“So if we survive this run, we might soon be out of business.”

“Well, those who play the game of global power lose as often as they win. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the surface will end up more dangerous and contentious because of this little experiment with privateers. That’ll keep us in work for a good long fuckin’ time.”

“The more dangerous shipping is, the better our business. Perhaps I chose the wrong line of work.”

“You could always retire to dry land and become a teacher, Hemi.”

With a brief, noisy flutter of wings, Herschel flapped his way to the tabletop. Hemi balled up the scrapings of some leftover glop between his thumb and forefinger and tossed it onto the table in front of the pigeon. The bird pecked at the glob nonchalantly.

Chips appeared in the hatchway to the galley. She caught Hemi’s eye and ignored Percy. “Hemi, the fucking welds along the fucking crack in the cargo hold are weeping pretty fucking aggressively.”

Percy’s eyes followed Herschel.

“I am not surprised,” Hemi replied. “Running this deep is putting a lot more pressure on the hull, so I would expect more water coming in. Those welds were never going to be perfect. How bad is it?”

“Well, it would be no fucking problem,” said Chips, “but one of the forward fucking bilge pumps has broke the fuck down. And the second forward pump isn’t fucking keeping up. We’re fucking flooding again.”

“Can we fix the broken bilge pump?” Hemi asked.

“No fuckin’ way. It’s one of the fuckin’ originals that came with the fucking boat — decades old. The brushes on the pump motor are fucking shot.”

Percy suddenly remembered the pump motor in the depot hardware shop that she had neglected to purchase. She looked down at her bowl and scraped together a spoonful of what remained.

“Ah. Well…” Hemi turned heftily to look at Gregory. “Gregory, leave your eggs aside and go down to the cargo hold with Chips. Rig up one or two of the portable bilges to pump into the trim tanks. Hopefully that will hold us until we can come shallower.”

“It’s like we’re right fucking back where we started with this fucking mess before we even did any fucking repairs!” said Chips. She turned towards the cargo hold without waiting for Gregory, who was a minute behind her after washing fry grease from his hands.

“Fuck, Hemi,” said Percy. “Now we have another factor we need to be thinking about in the equation.”

“You mean the leaking hull? Or that Chips cannot even look at you?”

“The fucking hull. I can’t deal with Chips’ fucking problems right now. We have a limited window — that is, how long our batteries will hold out — to find a way to lose these fuckers following us. I’m open to suggestions.”

“We could try shutting down entirely — maybe they will fly right over the top of us?”

At that moment another ping bounced through the hull of the Prospect.

Percy rolled her eyes. “That, of course, is why shutting down and hiding quietly won’t work. There’s no fucking way we will get out of range of active sonar at the rate we are moving.”

“We could speed up, get them to match our speed, then shut down and let them shoot past,” said Hemi. “That way they would be the ones moving out of range and relieve us of the effort.”

“How fast would we have to get them going so that they are out of sonar range by their next ping?”

“Assuming they keep pinging every fifteen minutes…” Hemi did some quick calculations, touching his thumb to his forefinger as he counted. “Fairly fast. Perhaps fifteen knots?”

“We’d use up the entire charge left on our battery in something like a quarter of an hour at that speed.”

“It does indeed seem like this commander knows his tactics,” said Hemi. “A less experienced sub driver would have made more mistakes. I do not see how we have any other option than to continue on our current course, and hope an opportunity presents itself.”

“But it fucking kills me to have no plan, Hemi.”