The girl woke up from the couch for the fifth time since she had first laid down the night before. The adults had spent the previous day teaching her how to do various tasks like how to operate the radio and how to cook different foods, recording as they went so she could look back and reference them as needed. She had needed to run around quite a bit to keep the battery charged, but she couldn’t complain. She was exhausted by the end of the day, but a few packets of hot cocoa gave her the energy to convince John and Emily to let her sleep in the living room with them for this one final night.
So here she was, on a poofy couch with a light down blanket laying in a pile on the ground next to her. The girl looked over at the center of the living room.
The yellow tent was still there.
She could hear John’s low rumbling sighs, almost a snore but not quite. Emily’s breath was more rasping, frequently halting to squeeze off a few coughs before retreating back the same rasping wheeze. The sky had begun its inevitable journey toward enlightenment. Pretty soon the sun would be up, poking its nose in between the curtains where it had no business being.
And then John and Emily would be gone.
Her stomach twisted and turned at the thought.
Not to worry little one… you will be safer when they are gone.
Shut up. She thought. What did “safe” even mean? What did it matter if she was to be alone again?
Not alone… help will come. You must escape, to beyond.
But what about John and Emily? The girl thought, I don’t want them to go. I don’t want to keep losing my friends.
You must survive. Make more friends as long as you are alive.
“What’s the point of making new friends if I’m just going to leave them behind!” the girl said angrily.
“Oh? You’re awake?” came Emily’s voice from inside the tent. The girl blinked. She had been too loud.
“Um… yeah…” the girl said sheepishly. “Sorry I woke you.”
“Don’t worry about it, kid. I’ve been waking up every 30 minutes to cough my lungs out for the past month or so.”
The girl was quiet. That sounded terrible.
“Is there any way to get rid of it?” she asked, after a moment.
“Well… perhaps with enough nano treatment… but even then, doubtful," Emily replied. “That’s what we’re going to try to find out.”
“I hope you guys find it… the cure," the girl said.
“Heh," Emily spat out a wistful laugh mixed with a cough. “We’ll see, I guess.”
“I don’t want you guys to go!” the girl blurted out. “Please don’t leave me behind!” Again. Tears were welling up in her eyes again.
Emily sighed. “Listen kid…” She cleared her throat. “I can’t promise you that we’ll come back in time for the evac…I…” Her speech was halting. It felt like the right words were impossible to find.
She started once more. “Chances are, you’ll never see us again. But…”
The girl heard her sit up in the tent. She could barely make out her silhouette as the sun began lighting the sky up behind the curtains.
“If they come for you, you have to get on that helicopter! That’s your only chance!” Emily said, words finally erupting in a flood. “When you get to the launch base, pass every single test they throw at you! Prove that you’re qualified to get on that colony ship, because you are. You’re special, kid. You’ll make it above and beyond! And when you get to that alien planet maybe a hundred or a thousand years from now, you’re going to make it into something amazing! You’ll get a new life, make new friends, maybe even have a family…and…
“...and keep those memories close," Emily’s voice broke a little. “Our recordings, our pictures… Everything. Take us to the stars with you.”
She gasped a little at the effort. “Please… Promise me that, kid…”
The girl scrunched her eyes up as tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “Ok Emily. I promise… I promise…”
***
The girl eventually fell back into an hour of fitful sleep. Half awake on the couch with racing worries, half tossing and turning on a hospital bed in Antarctica.
Inevitably, the sun rose and it was time to get ready. John and Emily packed their things up into their large hiking backpacks. The girl helped out with small things that they had trouble grabbing with their bulky gloves. As she helped them tie a piece of rope to secure a box of medical supplies, she couldn’t help but get the feeling she was rushing them to their doom.
“I don’t think we’ll need the metal sleds," John said, doing a final check around the room. “Don’t have that much stuff.”
“Uhmm… I don't want to carry all this stuff on my back," Emily said, “With the sleds we can just sort of push them down the stairs.”
“That’s a fair point. But it might be kinda loud," John rubbed his chin, or rather the face-window where his chin was.
The girl spoke up, “What if there’s something still down there? What if it hears you?”
“It’s probably long gone at this point, I’m more worried about if there might be other people around," John said.
“I can maybe come with you guys…” the girl sheepishly asked, “At least till the bottom of the tower, I can sort of sense these things.”
“Haha and where did you learn to do that, little lady?” John laughed.
“Fr-from my dreams," the girl fidgeted. She knew the concept a bit, but she hadn’t actually tried it yet.
Emily sighed, “Look, kid, we’d appreciate the help but… it’s still too dangerous.”
“Plus, you’d have to climb back up all by yourself," John said.
“Also, the radio…” Emily added.
“Ah right, the radio," John agreed, “You need to keep checking in case someone calls in.”
“Ok…” the girl looked down.
John sighed and kneeled down in front of her. “You’ll be alright.” He put his hand on her shoulder. She looked so small under his big bulky gloved hand. “You’ll be on to someplace better pretty soon.” He pulled her in for a hug for the final time. “Try not to forget about us alright?”
The girl sniffled, “Don’t worry, I never will.” She clung tightly to his bulky frame. Then it was over.
“Good luck, kid," John said.
“Remember our promise," Emily nodded to her and began loading her pack onto a metal sled.
John paused, “Wait, we’re taking the sled?”
“I’m not carrying all this stuff down 50 something floors, John.”
“Alright, alright.”
The girl followed them to the staircase. She smiled through teary eyes and waved one last goodbye as the door shut behind them.
Then, she rushed back to her room and began packing things into her backpack. She was going to secretly follow them down to make sure they were safe.
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It was the least that she could do for them.
***
The following week on the Ocearana was hectic.
They didn’t have much time to grieve those lost in the attack as they needed to hasten their efforts to finish fixing and retrofitting the ships.
Most of the engineering department's efforts were put into the Kepler. Previously an exploration ship, the ship had many useful functions including deep sea sensors, two mini-subs, as well as a large robotic arm. The ship needed expert knowledge to repair after its components had taken hits from debris during the storm.
The second ship that they would focus their efforts on was the Whiskernash. Despite its large size, most of its interior were large holds meant to carry oil, full of pipes and pumps with only a few narrow corridors and maintenance rooms down below. There was simply too little time to fully convert the oil tanker cargo sections into something habitable. So they settled with cutting open the large oil compartment to be used for storage purposes. One of the scientists suggested transferring some of the farm to the ship’s hold. With the top open, the plants could get a good amount of sunlight, and the waves wouldn’t be able to wash away the soil.
So they got to work, cutting and cleaning. The compartments still had lots of residual oil so it was messy and dangerous work.
Becca was still injured and recovering but she insisted on at least helping out with the plants. They would slowly dig up the plants and place them in containers to be ready to move to the Whiskernash as compartments of the ship became ready. She worked slowly, mainly just carrying the plants to the containers filled with soil. Her legs were wrapped in bandages due to the jagged scrapes from when Lizzie pulled her through the ceiling and her right eye was partially obstructed by a patch. The others working there were sympathetic and made accommodations. In fact a few of them were in a similar situation as her: too injured to work too heavily but well enough that they felt they needed to try.
James would often come by and express his disapproval, saying she was only going to get in the way and that she should go rest until she was fully healed. But she would just pointedly ignore him when he did this, interacting only to grab and munch on whatever snack or drink he brought for her. Thankfully his nagging was frequently cut short as he would be called away to attend to one task or another, but he always found time each day to come visit and bother her anyways.
As supper came about, the food lines would begin piling up, but not many stayed to eat as there was too much work to do. They would grab whatever rations for their crew and go back to working. While Becca slowly chomped on whatever rations was available, Pranav would often pop by and rattle off a few hundred sentences in under a minute before disappearing again back to the Whiskernash. Lizzie often stayed on-site for the whole day as she was one of the best construction mech operators. She went back to their room only occasionally to shower and sleep. They would talk for a bit, but most of the time Lizzie would be asleep within seconds.
The morale of the rig was surprisingly high. Perhaps it was due to the recent victory against the pirates or perhaps it was because they now had new allies in the form of the Vestuge, but everyone was eager to devote their energies to the work at hand.
By the end of the week, the Red Waters were visible with the naked eye on the horizon. Fishing boats had been equipped with hand-held nano-sensors for their hauls, but with the Rust so close, their operations were indefinitely suspended. The sensors were good at the job, but there needed to be a certain amount of nano-machine infection for it to detect it. If something had been recently infected, the machines would not have replicated enough for the sensor to pick it up.
Finally, it was time to hold the meeting. It had been established already that they needed to leave, but to where? Up until a few weeks ago, they had been in contact with another oil rig colony up north, the Moyote, by radio but after the storm, they had grown silent. There had been another trade ship that was scheduled to arrive during the middle of the week, but there had been no sight of it yet.
Without any info on the outside world, they would just be sailing blind. They were far from being self-sustaining, now without the large surface area of the oil rig to plant crops, they needed to find food through other methods. Not to mention the sea-life, which they had been relying on quite a bit, was slowly succumbing to the Red Wave.
They needed a plan of action.
***
James had snuck Becca into the conference room again, same as before.
Rig Manager Martinez started the meeting off. “Alright let’s get down to it. Where are we at with repairs? Let’s run down the list starting with the easiest, our fishing boats?”
The captains of the Fishstick Factory and the Mary Ann the Tenth along with the now retired Great Terror reported no problems. The captain of the Great Terror reported that most of the usable equipment had been moved to the other two boats. Its remains had been lifted onto the dock and they had begun stripping it down for material. The work was a bit slow, because they were not a shipyard and didn’t have a lot of the proper equipment, but it was going well enough. Worst case they could have the Vestuge carry it where they could continue stripping it for parts after they left.
“Alright, now what about the Romierra?”
Becca’s mother, Driller Lisa Skye, spoke up, “It’s still running pretty well. We’re planning to have families take that ship so we can squeeze more people into the rooms. If we do that, we can probably have it house about 60-70 people long term.”
“Of course,” she continued, “I’m more worried about fuel.”
The Rig Manager nodded, “The smaller boats are electric, but they will need some recharging at certain intervals which the bigger ships...” He looked over at Captain Larkke who acknowledged. “...can provide. However, the Whiskernash and the Kepler both require diesel fuel.”
“That’s a big problem," Lisa said, “Oil refineries are all on land. We’ve got stores of crude oil here, but without a refinery it's all pretty useless to us.”
“What about Teklantilu Isle?” Engineering Chief Kathryn said.
“I was under the impression it was gone, otherwise we would’ve heard something about it by now," Lisa replied.
“I mean it’s an industrial zone though right?” Miguel Martinez replied. “Worst case we can scavenge something from it.”
“Worst case, it grew a bunch of mouths and is going to eat us all up," Kathryn said, she swept her silvery hair aside and gave him a wry grin.
“Wait, sorry but what… what is Telan… Teklantu…?” Head Wing Manager Guillermo Torres interrupted.
“Teklantilu Isle," Kathryn replied, “It’s an artificial island off the coast of Panama. From what I know, it should have a refueling station for ships. Just, it might be shut down now that all infrastructure across the continents has gone kaput.”
“I guess we’ll add that to the list as an option," The Rig Manager said.
“Well on our end, the Kepler is fully functional," Kathryn continued the rundown. “Well the arm is still a bit finicky but we’ve got both subs going and we can hold about 30 people if we squeeze a bit.”
“That leaves the Whiskernash," Lisa looked over at the Head Wing Manager who was now the de facto captain of the ship and the project.
“Well over the last five days it looks like we got four of the six major compartments fixed up, but we may need another five more to finish the rest of it up," Guillermo looked over at the engineer assigned to help him to confirm.
Guillermo was still relatively new to seafaring, and was rather young at around 40 years of age. But he had proven himself over the few months spent here as Head Wing Manager and was trusted by mostly everyone that lived on the Ocearana. Still, Becca couldn’t help but feel the lanky brown-skinned wide eyed man looked a bit overwhelmed at the moment. He kept scratching his head, sweeping his dark slick hair back and forth, and jotting down notes with a grimace on his face.
“And the Vestuge?” Lisa looked over at Captain Larkke of the Vestuge and the head Chef Corrino, who was in charge of supplies on the Ocearana.
“We’ve got mostly everything assigned to my ship secured and locked down," Captain Larkke said. “Additionally we’ve converted all of our empty containers into a sort of living or camping space. We can hold around 100 or so people… if they can put up with the living conditions. Our main cabins can hold 30-40 more if needed.”
“Ok so we’re just mainly waiting on the Whiskernash," Martinez said. “Don’t worry, Guillermo if you're having trouble I can send Kathryn over to help you out. She’s got nothing to doright now anyways.”
“Oh please," Kathryn rolled her eyes. “There’s plenty to do.” She gave Guillermo a cheeky grin. “Don’t worry though, I’ll come over now and then to give you some critiques.”
The man responded with a look of gratitude. “I’d appreciate it, Chief.”
“Alright so that brings us back to our original conundrum," Lisa said, her brown eyes flashing impatiently. “Where are we going? We can’t just keep wandering about, we’re going to run out of fuel eventually whether it's a couple weeks or a couple years from now.”
“So we’re pretty sure that the Rust is going to cover the whole ocean?” Martinez asked, looking over at Kathryn.
She responded with a noncommittal gesture with her hand, “Yep as far as we know. In fact, we don’t even really know how far the Red Wave has gotten.”
“If we’re going to try to get to Teklantilu Isle… I mean don’t we need to go between Cancun and Cuba?” Lisa continued. “How do we know that the waters there are still clear?”
“Well, do you have any better ideas?” Kathryn asked.
“Well, wouldn’t it be better if we tried going north?” Lisa said. “I’ve heard that the Rust doesn’t do so well in the cold, maybe we should try heading to the Arctic?”
“How would we resupply? Is there even anywhere NOT infected on the way up there?”
“Well what about…”
They spent the next hour trying to figure out whether to go north or south. By the end most of the wing leaders and unit leaders had been allowed to leave and go back to their respective jobs. Only a few more dedicated ones stayed behind along with James and Becca to see what the eventual plan might be.
After another half hour of debate the room fell into an uncertain quiet.
Suddenly Becca couldn’t resist and stood up, “What about Antarctica?”
Surprised, the council members looked around to see where the voice came from.
“What are you doing?” James hissed at her.
Everyone in the room turned to look at her in surprise. “Oh uhmm… I just… I think I heard there was a settlement there… from a source…” Becca sat back down red-faced. She wasn’t totally sure what compelled her to do that.
She was met with confused silence as the council waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t know how to do that without telling them about her dreams.
The silence was broken when the Rig Manager laughed, “Well I guess for now, we’ll just leave it at that. We’ll continue the meeting tomorrow.”
The rest of the council members laughed along wearily and began packing up, eager to be done with the meeting.
Lisa, however, looked concerned. She glanced over at her daughter and caught her eye motioning to her with her hand. Becca understood her gesture.
“Umm go on ahead, James," Becca whispered. “My mom wants to talk to me about something.”
“What? Are you going to be alright?” James asked, concerned.
“Yeah don’t worry about it, I’ll update you later… or not," Becca shrugged. “I’ll have to see what it’s about.”
“Alright then…” James sighed in resignation. “You worry me a lot Becca. Don’t get into too much trouble.”
“No promises.”