To Sail a Darkling Sea - eARC Read Free Page A

shrugging. “The worst they can do is say no… ”
    “Stevens… ?”
    * * *
    “You’re still in very poor shape, Mister Bennett,” the lady said. Like most he’d seen, she was pregnant.
    “I really want to help out,” Rusty said. “And I’ve got to get out of that fu… forking cabin, ma’am. I keep having nightmares that the door won’t open.”
    “I took this job on the Grace because it’s the biggest boat I could get on,” the lady said, smiling. “Try having nightmares that you’re back in a tropical storm in a life raft and you’re suffering from morning sickness and starving.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Rusty said. “I’m good with my hands. But I’m not a mechanic or anything. I can shoot. I’ve been shooting my whole life. And I want to fight zombies, ma’am.”
    “You’d never make the medical requirements for clearance personnel,” the lady said. “They carry tons of gear when they clear.”
    “I heard there’s some thirteen-year-old girl that does it, ma’am,” Rusty argued. “If she can… ”
    “Don’t compare Shewolf to your normal thirteen-year-old girl,” the woman said, laughing. “You haven’t seen the video have you?”
    “No, ma’am,” Rusty said. “I haven’t gotten out, much.”
    “If you go up to the lounge, you can probably find somebody who can show it to you,” the lady said. “Shewolf led the boarding of the Voyage . She wasn’t supposed to, but it happened. The Dallas had used a machine gun to clear some of the zombies but while she was going up more showed up. She went over the side, anyway. There was a Marine in a little bit better shape than you, not much but a little, who was supposed to go right after her and got bogged down climbing. One of the reasons they want people in the best possible shape for clearance. At that point, most of the copies… You know that song, ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again… ?’ ”
    “Sort of?” Rusty said. “Kinda before my time.”
    “Go watch the video,” the lady said, looking at her screen. “Since you know she made it, it’s a hoot. But… I mean you can go try to track down Nurse Schoenfeld and get her to clear you. But I’d suggest something lighter. At least for now. And I’d guess you don’t like enclosed spaces… ”
    “I don’t mind if I know I can open the door, ma’am,” Rusty said.
    “Being on a small boat is physically wearing,” the lady said, “but they need people for light clearance. Clearing life rafts and small craft. Not many people want to do it because you get beat up on those little boats. But… ”
    “Ma’am,” Rusty said. “Being out in the air on a small boat… That’d be like heaven, ma’am.”
    “How strong of a stomach do you have?” the lady asked.
    “I… pretty strong?” Rusty said.
    “You’re on the assignment board,” the lady said, making a definitive tap on her keyboard. “Since you don’t have a defined skill that anyone is looking for right now, you’ve got a week to find something. After that, you get put on boat cleaning or you can go into the hold with the lame and lazy. People who don’t want to help out.”
    “Cleaning?” Rusty said.
    “Cleaning up a boat after zombies have trashed it.”
    * * *
    “I don’t want to have to clean out a new boat,” Sophia said, mulishly. “I’ve seen these boats. And I’ve cleaned them up. Rather get knocked around on a thirty-five.”
    Sophia “Seawolf” Smith was one of the founding members of the Wolf Squadron. As such, despite being fifteen, she was a shareholder and not a minor one, as well as being a member of the Captain’s Board as skipper of the thirty-five-foot Worthy Endeavor . The boat had gotten beaten up by nearly six months at sea, not to mention the zombies that took it over, but it was still her boat.
    “You won’t,” Fred said. “ You , especially, won’t.”
    Fred Burnell was the “Vessel Preparation and Assignments Officer” on the Grace Tan . The massive supply