Chapter Text
Hope Creek Nuclear Reactor 6th Moon New
Behind the heavy mask Sinclair tries to concentrate on; the angle he’s holding the welding stick, 90 degrees, the distance he is holding it from the metal being welded, 3mm and the steadiness of his pulling and lowering of it as the flux and metal are consumed by the process. Through the blinding sparks he watches as the bubbling metal melds with the steel, there’s only an inch or two to go but his hand is trembling. To counter the tremble, he holds his whole-body rigid to keep the angles just right and uses both hands to pull the arc slowly along the last stretch……… He stops and steps away, the arc dies. That should be it. Fuck it’s hot.
“Monty, check all four welds please.”
Sinclair staggers back to the box and pushes the button to shut off the power. He flips the welding mask up and slumps to sit on a pile of masonry. Within the sealed hazmat suit sweat streams down his body, he can feel it pooling at his feet, knees and crotch and dripping down his face and chin. He’s almost feverish with exhaustion and the hope that his welds pass the tests. He sits and watches as Monty preps the kit.
In a daze he finds himself just staring at the pipe; a cracked pipe. A cracked pipe that leaked a gallon or so a day of radiation contaminated water. The water should have been safely held within the containment tank when the station powered down but the containment tank has a valve and that valve is set into a steel pipe. A pipe that cracked; during praimfaya? (As the grounders call it) or later because of the huge earth and sea movements that the bombs caused? Whatever caused it to crack, Sinclair is beyond caring, his job is to fix it and if these four welds pass, he’s done it.
Monty starts with the first weld, that was made early that morning, it’s cooled to a shiny rippled hardness and his initial visual inspection is a pass. He powers up the ‘eddy current’ probe and starts to move it over the newly made join. He knows Sinclair is watching, almost desperate for the welds to pass. The older man is beyond exhaustion, as the only experienced welder available (Wick was the other), Sinclair’s spent all day bent over this pipe. They couldn’t afford the time to let him rest, with hostile nomads turning up soon, tonight or tomorrow, they need to get away from here as soon as possible so they can get a few hours travel in before they are plunged into the darkness of a New Moon.
“First weld is good.” Monty moves on to the second, this is the biggest and most vulnerable to defects.
Bellamy’s back at the packed-up camp with the others, out of his hazmat suit and making the standard checks to be sure the rover is good to go. Murphy and Emori turned up a few hours back, Bellamy’s never liked Murphy and Emori he finds intimidating, so he has mixed feelings about them ‘rocking up’ and joining the group. They’re an asset as competent fighters, especially with guns, but Emori like Mara seems to think Bellamy’s entertaining even when he’s not trying to be funny and she and Murphy just laugh in his face a little too easily. Now they’re standing by a copse of long dead trees talking with Octavia, Mara and Luna, planning their escape route, he supposes.
He tightens the big nuts that hold the caterpillar tracks in place and is humming an old Beachboys song Surfing USA when the radio crackles. It’s Monty. “Come and get us Bell we’re done.”
Monty and Sinclair hide the welding kit. It’s wrapped in plastic sheeting and together they heave a bent and broken locker, full of partially decayed paper and broken screws, on top of it. If they ever need to come back the kit will be here, likely untouched and maybe even useable. They walk away from the containment building and then out past the big fallen gates. Bellamy’s waiting for them and they ride for about a mile on the rover’s running boards before they reach a spot where it’s safe to strip off their suits. They wedge Sinclair and Monty’s suits under a rock (they’re too contaminated to take with them) and then wash as best they can in very little water. The two engineers slump in their seats as Bellamy drives back to the camp to pick up the others.
As they drive off everyone is on high alert as their route initially takes them on the road back towards Salem, then Bellamy turns south onto a sandy ridge that was once a metalled road. A mile along that ridge Oktavia and Murphy hop out and walk back to sweep away any traces of their passage. A few hours later as he drives along the broken surface Bellamy can’t help but grin and hum Good Vibrations. He's going to the sea, to a beach with surf, there they’ll find a boat and sail home to Polis.
He drives on the rover’s lights for as long as he can before pulling off the road and into a dry gulch. Outside it’s pitch black with no moon and for the first time in what seems like forever clouds obscure the stars. The rover’s headlights are powerful but with a road that is becoming more hazardous to navigate by the mile and a driver who is exhausted they decide to camp for the rest of the night. They can set off again at dawn.
Wys starts preparing food almost as soon as they stop, deep in the shelter of the gulch they can afford to light a fire. Mara and Emori take first watch, Murphy and Oktavia gather wood, at least that’s plentiful now and very dry and Wys gets the big skillet set up. Sinclair’s still sleeping in the rover and Monty covers him with furs, the temperature has dropped, not as much as usual but it’s still well below freezing. Sinclair wakes briefly to be fed before lapsing back into an exhausted slumber. After doing night chores, all of them bed down, except for Luna, Rudolfo and Oktavia who take the next watch.
Deep in her furs Mara’s not sleeping. She’s feeling better than she has for a while, her nose has stopped dripping blood and her wounds are starting to heal. At last, she feels more alive than dead. She slips into a doze, then wakes when she hears murmurs and shuffling. The watch is changing and she uncovers her head to see an exhausted and cold looking Luna stumbling tiredly across the camp, holding her furs bundled in her arms.
Mara whispers “Hei Luna! You look cold.”
“I am jokking (fucking) cold!”
“Come share.” Mara holds open her furs and for a moment Luna looks at her startled, before shucking her boots, belt and jacket, flinging her furs over Mara and rolling into her open arms. There she finds warmth and a body that is much softer than she expected. But then, if she thinks about Mara’s body and she has thought about it, Mara has meizen (beautiful) breasts and Luna’s head is currently resting against them. Oh jok! Luna stiffens slightly.
“Sleep goufa (child).” Mara’s arms pull her closer, for which kindness she is rewarded with a face full of Luna’s luxuriant hair.
“I am not a goufa!” Luna’s voice is quietly indignant as she turns over to face Mara. “I’m thirty summers old.”
“Kei. You are an adult, who needs sleep!”
“May I kiss you?”
Mara’s brain freezes and her lips form an astonished ‘O’. She manages one word. “Beja. (Please).” This quiet plea is answered by a soft touch that first meets a lightly scarred cheek, then finds her lips and the world stops; as her lips are caressed and tasted by Luna’s. For some moments there is nothing else; only Luna; smooth skin under her hesitant fingers’ touch, lips and tongue that excite her whole being, a body strong and leanly muscular with pliant hips.
“Are you okay?” Luna’s whisper into her ear is low and worried.
“Sha (Yes), very.” Turning fully to face her Luna’s hand reaches up to cup Mara’s face and her right hip slips over Mara’s thigh.
“I wish I wasn’t so tired and that we were anywhere else ….”
The soft lips return and Luna’s body shifts to cover Mara’s, kisses find Mara’s collar-bone and neck, soon a tired head drops onto her shoulder and the breath from a deep sigh whispers past her ear.
“Meizen goufa! We must sleep.”
“I am NOT a goufa!”
What used to be Sea Isle City is still recognisable as a place that used to house and entertain people. Like Polis there’s a grid system of buildings, most of them ruined, but unlike Polis there is no lush growth of trees and shrubs. Instead, sand and dust cover the signs of past human habitation and commerce. After the battle in Salem, they’re extra careful and stick to streets with low ambush potential, even though the place looks deserted, but then so did Salem. They drive through without seeing anyone and soon they are at the edge of the world. Or so it seems. Polis is built on a big estuary so it’s not that they’ve never seen the sea or a beach; but apart from Luna no-one has seen the open sea, where there’s nothing ahead of you but sea and sky and more sea and more sky! When Monty brings the rover to a stop because to go any further he would need a boat, nine people tumble out onto the beach wide-eyed and agog. Luna just smiles; she’s home.
Their search for a boat starts immediately and it’s not that there are no boats to be found. They are everywhere; smashed into matchwood, whole but perched on top of buildings, rotted to a few planks in the sheltered bays and broken backed and half submerged on the beach. The rover copes well with yet more sand dunes but so many of the bridges that connected the coastal towns and cities are broken that their search is constantly blocked and they have to face the unpleasant truth that a suitable boat may not be found that they can actually get at.
They take a short break for sanch (lunch). Sitting on the beach they have to fend off bold thieving sea birds, the first wildlife they’ve seen since entering the Dead Zone. Monty wonders aloud whether the birds would taste good, he’s sick of eating trail bars and dried fish. Sinclair suggests a new approach to the boat hunt. Why not move their search away from the sea front, where probably heavy seas, if not tsunami, destroyed any boats moored in the marinas. Instead look inland for a private boat house or a small marina on one of the rivers. Why not shrugs Oktavia, looking at Luna to see if she has any objections. Luna has none so they head back inland. They drive and at times walk past hundreds of wrecked homes and businesses none of which have been looted. This stretch of coast does seem uninhabited.
In one deserted shop Oktavia sees a display case full of polarised sun glasses and grabs a pair for each of them. A little later Luna and Wys have to be almost dragged out of a fully stocked chandlery with their haul of goods restricted to one bag each. Bellamy finds a clothes shop, most of the stock is decayed to bundles of threads but he discovers a rail of polyester and nylon swimming kit and grabs some skimpy swim trunks.
It's late afternoon and they are reaching the point of no return, soon they must make a decision. They can either stay until tomorrow and risk the nomads finding them or admit defeat, get back into the rover and run.
The fallen sign says ‘Golf Club’, that cryptic message mystifies them all, but the neighbourhood was clearly once very wealthy with big houses set far apart from each other. These big homes have sturdy outbuildings that when broken open reveal the rusted remains of what must have been expensive cars or motorboats. Oakwood is just such a house. “Try it Bell. We may as well.” Oktavia’s just about ready to call it a day and hightail it out of the city.
The rover rolls to a quiet stop and Sinclair hands Monty the crowbar. “Your turn for breaking and entering.” With a gentle shrug Monty makes his way to the solid looking shed sealed by locked wooden doors. He pushes the crowbar into the central seam and with a crisp snap the lock gives and the door swings wide open.
“Meizen!”
Sea Hunter sits on her metal trailer ready to be towed to the shore. Sinclair reads out her specs from a metal plate riveted to the control panel. “She’s a forty-two foot, seven berth ketch. Fibre glass hull, with main sail and furling genoa. Electrical outboard engine.” He gets blank looks all round. No one has a clue what he is talking about.
Luna, Sinclair and Wys explore onboard while Murphy, Monty, Bellamy and Oktavia search nearby cupboards and another outbuilding for anything useable, like a set of intact sails. Mara, Emori and Rudolfo wait by the rover on watch. Towing the trailer isn’t easy, the tyres deflated and perished many years ago and dragging it fully laden on its’ metal rims is a noisy and frustrating business, but all that is forgotten when Sea Hunter gracefully enters the water, a grinning Luna and jubilant Wys in the cockpit. The next few glasses are spent preparing her for sea. Perished cushions, mattresses and foodstuffs are all removed. Medicines, supplies, Sinclair’s tools and tek are loaded on board. Bellamy starts to unbolt the solar panels from the rover’s roof when he’s stopped by Murphy. “Hold on Bell, you’ve got plenty on the boat and we’ll need them to power the rover.”
“What?” Bellamy turns around confused. He looks to his sister for instructions, she’s in charge here not Murphy. Oktavia’s quick to support Murphy.
“Yeah hold up Bell, Murphy and Emori are staying on to try and negotiate a peace with the nomads.”
“Fuck, are you guys sure?” Bellamy’s shocked. They’ve just spent days on the run hiding from nomads and now Murphy and Emori are going to try and talk to them!
As they say their goodbyes it’s clear this is something Emori feels deeply about. Her people need to hear the news about Poliskru and how Heda is changing the law for freikdreina (people who suffer from deformities because of radiation). She will use the rover to get their attention and spread the message. Murphy’s along for the ride because nothing will separate him from Emori.
The sun is setting when Sea Hunter’s ‘crew’ get a quick run-down from their captain (Luna) on the dangers of; swinging booms, wet decks, slips and trips and the wonders of the ‘head’ and water-making machine. Yes, they will be able to shower in fresh water because this machine takes the salts out of brine! The wonders of tek never-end.
Onboard Sea Hunter 6th Moon New
The launch is smooth and they anchor off the beach. They’ll stay overnight far enough out to sea to be safe but close enough to shore in case things immediately go south for Emori and Murphy.
They pull lots for who gets to use the shower first and the winner is Mara who, after experiencing it, is prepared to sell her best sword (if not her best axe) to get this hot shower tek back to her home in the Glens. As she leaves the tiny cubicle Luna is waiting in the cramped hallway, she’s next for the shower. The ship’s captain gives the clean and sweet smelling Azgedan a look that would ignite snow and they share a kiss that leaves Mara breathless. Luna whispers. “May I visit you later?” and all Mara can do is nod.
In her tiny cabin Mara sits on the narrow bunk and tries to understand what is happening to her. She’s forty-five summers old, was bonded to a lovely man who died less than two moons ago for thirty years, she’s birthed three children, lost them all to death, she shouldn’t be feeling like this because someone kisses her and clearly wants more. She wraps her arms around herself and finds to her mortification that she is crying, with no idea why! After a few moments she calms, but her mood darkens. Nothing can come of this. They’re of Azgeda and Floukru for joks sake, anyone would laugh at the very idea! It’s just sex, she’s not been sexual with anyone for a long time and is out of practice at feeling attraction. That’s what it is, she’s out of practice with this sex business. She likes sex but has never needed it, never yearned to touch anyone, craved for their body, their taste, their skin, their touch! Not until now!
Oh Keryon (Spirits) could she bear it? To be with Luna and then part from her? Luna must return to Floukru, somewhere in the sea (Keryon only knows where) and Mara must go back to Azgeda; to support the new Azgeda being built by Roan and there’s Duram to look out for and her people in the Glens. She curls into a tight ball and huddles under her furs. Later when she hears Luna’s soft knock she doesn’t respond. There’s a whispered “Mara are you okay?”
Outside the door Luna waits. There’s no response to her knock or whisper and her feelings of anticipation and joy drain away. Leaning her forehead against the thin panel of the door she stifles a sob. Mara’s probably had second thoughts. Sensible thoughts. Floukru and Azgeda…..anyone would think it some kind of twisted joke. She turns away. “Reshop (Goodnight) Mara!”
Onboard Sea Hunter 6th Moon Waxing Crescent
Two days later Sinclair, Oktavia and Bellamy would rather face a horde of nomads with blazing fayoguns than spend one more night at sea. They’re huddled in abject misery in Sea Hunter’s largest cabin with a bucket each and Mara and Monty doing their best to keep the buckets emptied and their patients hydrated. It’s not easy. Rudolfo is in the smallest cabin, lashed to the bunk, his injured leg makes moving about the boat in this weather too dangerous.
The weather broke as the sun rose on their second day. Luna and Wys lower and lash the main sail and point Sea Hunter’s bow as best they can across the wind. If only the wind would blow steadily. Luna orders that all hatches be battened down and everyone but Wys must stay belowdecks. She applies herself to the steering wheel, as she struggles to hold the rudder against the gusting winds. Wys makes both of them simple harnesses that he secures to hefty cleats, then he moves about the boat as it crashes through waves and troughs, as if they were sailing in a light breeze.
For two days the winds tear at the boat and the two sailors fight the storm as it pushes Sea Hunter at dangerous speeds to the south east, at least they have plenty of sea to manoeuvre in. Exhaustion takes its toll, Wys has been almost overboard twice and Luna’s back is badly bruised from when the wheel pulled her off her feet. Monty and Mara take it in turns to bring food and water to the cockpit’s hatch but Luna doesn’t allow them out from below decks. It’s too dangerous.
It’s late into the second night of the storm when Wys tumbles into the cockpit and gratefully stuffs the trail bar Luna holds out to him into his mouth. He chews for a while before speaking and then exhaustion slurs his words. “How much longer can this last? On our lakes storms come quick, then go. I’ve never had bad weather last this long.”
“It is hard to say in the dark but I think I saw clear sky to the south so maybe another half day at most. Oh, jok!” Wys follows Luna’s alarmed look. A huge wave smashes into the foremast and snaps it off just above the base and the furled sail, broken mast and boom are thrown onto the deck. One of the forward hatches smashes and water pours in. Wys leaps up and starts to crawl forward as Luna ducks her head below decks to warn them to start the pumps. When she looks back to the foredeck Wys is gone.
She scans the deck desperate to see the Podakru sailor but he’s not there. She looks to where his harness is tied in and sees the line, taut and straining. She yells below. “I need help. Now!” Mara’s head appears at the hatch. “Sha Luna!” Luna breathlessly explains that Wys is overboard but his harness may save him. Can Mara pull him in?
The big Azgedan nods and pulls herself up out of the hatch. Luna afraid of the wild pitch and tumble of the boat removes her own harness and ties it on a protesting Mara. At that moment the fore-boom breaks free from its’ rigging and is thrown backwards. Mara grabs Luna and both of them hit the deck. The loose boom flies over the cockpit, hits the main mast with a resounding crack and vanishes over the boat’s stern into the heaving waves. The two shocked women get to their feet and Mara starts to pull in Wys’ harness line hand over hand; Luna holds the wheel as best she can, whilst belaying the line Mara pulls in. Mara’s hands start to bleed, her flesh torn by the harsh synthetic rope but she continues to pull. For a brief moment they see him alive and flailing in the white tipped waves, then he vanishes again as Sea Hunter dips into a deep trough then rears up the steep wall of the next crest.
Polis 6th Moon First Quarter
Their reception at Polis docks is very high powered. Heda, Hedatu and all the chiefs of the krus involved in the journey to the Dead Zone are waiting for them in the bright spring sun. Indra stands next to Solon kom Podakru and Haihefa Roan kom Azgeda is in animated conversation with Karla kom Delphikru and Dakota kom Ingranronakru. Caris Kom Sangedakru with her houmon Phil, are talking with Heda. Oktavia spots Linkon in the crowd and only just manages to keep her face stoic. Bellamy looks for Gina and his youngest child but can’t see her, she’ll be there somewhere.
On land, still a little wobbly as they adjust to leaving the boat, Oktavia, Mara, Sinclair and Luna as leaders of the gonas, tekkru and fisas (healers) respectively, are congratulated personally by Heda and Hedatu. The chiefs also come forward to congratulate the leaders and to tell them which of the radiation affected gonas managed to return home safely. Oktavia is particularly glad that so many who were under her charge managed to make it back to Sangedakru. Losing so many in Salem had been a terrible loss and this good news cheers her up.
After what passes as fulsome praise, Heda Leksa takes Luna to one side to discuss the latest developments with Floukru. The news is bad. Derrik and his followers have effectively hijacked the Rig and are preventing anyone who wishes to live on land at the new seaside village from leaving.
Luna sighs she must leave for the Rig immediately. It was probably for the best that she and Mara never managed to act on their impulses. She looks over to see Mara being hustled off by Roan, it looks like she is needed in Azgeda. It was never going to be possible. As she watches Mara turns to look back, she searches until she finds Luna then the great gona’s eyes lock with hers for a few seconds before she is embraced by her nephew who appears to be introducing her the young gona at his side.
The other survivors make their way off the boat to be greeted by their chiefs.
Indra slaps Bellamy hard on the back and gives Monty a tight smile. These two have done well, she will be generous in her gifts to them.
Solon kom Podakru takes Wys’ arm in a firm grasp. “Wys kom Podakru I welcome you back to our kru. All sins of the past are forgiven and your canoe is waiting for you on the great water.” Wys’ face streams with tears. He has saved his family from the disgrace brought to it by his sister Metasta. He has a home to go to.
As Luna stands deep in thought by Heda Leksa’s side she is approached by Karla kom Delphikru and Rudolfo. “Luna kom Floukru I wish to offer you my personal thanks for saving my valued advisor’s life. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my dearest Rollo.”