Chapter 31 The Crack

Elysia perked her ears, listening to the dock workers above as she let her body recover from the long swim. “Did you hear about the giant turtle with a city on the back?” inquired a male voice.

After a grunt and a thud of something heavy, another masculine voice spoke. “Yeah, my brother in Vancouver said it stopped over the city and people flew down to the city before the turtle left.”

“Yeah, it dropped teams of people in both Seattle and Vancouver before landing south of here. Apparently it’s floating near the Pacific. Several fishermen tried to sail past, but they turned back every ship,” said the first voice.

The conversation stalled when a yell down the dock forced them to continue unloading the cargo.

Wonderful, the turtle is still out there. If I can get a ship, where will I go? The whole point of coming here was to avoid the turtle. Should I try sneaking inland? No, if inland is anything like most overgrown towns, traveling far will be impossible and I need to put as much distance as I can between me and those Changed teams. But how will I get out of here by boat? I could try to stow away, but any ship will likely go to another major city. I need my own boat and take my chances in the Salish sea, maybe try to sneak around the turtle into the Pacific, then I can get anywhere.

With her mind made up, she lowered herself back into the water and swam away, poking her head up every couple minutes to survey her surroundings, finding mostly fishing boats with dock workers unloading their catches of the day.

After ten minutes of swimming, taking breaks under docks when her body tired, she came upon a darker dock section filled with damaged or old boats. Even through the dark, she spotted a familiar night black yacht, listing to the right moored off a damaged pier. Before approaching, she scanned for anyone watching, then swam to Umbra, climbing up the back onto the lower rear deck. Right away, she noticed no one bothered to check on her boat as the carpet rolls were still laying on the rear deck right where she left them. She winced upon finding the rear door to the cabin open with visible water inside. They could have at least had the decency to close the door! Now everything is soaked! I just dried out that damn couch.

While fuming, she entered the control room but found everything where she left it, including her clothing stash. Still tense expecting an ambush, she untied the bundle, dropping it with a wet thud on the wood floor. She glanced out the windows, cringing upon finding the railing on the left side of the front deck bent inward. Expecting the worst, she trotted to the stairs leading below deck. Tears formed upon finding the water up to her knees. She waded through the water to the back, hands clenching into fists, as she stared at the wide-open door to the engine and battery compartment.

With rage filled eyes, she stomped through the water up the stairs and into the control room, flipping on the pumps, but nothing happened. Her rage morphed into panic as she flipped the switch several times before giving up. She dropped to the captain’s chair, tears flowing down her cheeks with hiccupping sobs, mourning her ship.

A static sound filled the room before the familiar voice of Isobel sounding from a radio on the left side of the control room. “Elysia, are you there!? Alex Cox and his team are on the way! Please stay safe.”

The voice snapped her back to the present. Her mind overcame her emotions as she formulated potential solutions. A flashback to previous electrical issues drew her gaze to the circuit breaker box. Upon opening the box, she found every breaker tripped. Unafraid of electric shock, she flipped the core systems on before returning to the control console. With her fingers crossed, she flipped on the pumps, sighing in relief when she heard humming coming from several directions on Umbra.

Several minutes passed with her impatiently pacing the control room, waiting for the water to pump out, steadily decreasing Umbra’s list.

A flash of light shined through the front window, sending her diving to the floor. She speed crawled to the console, peeking up through the window, spotting the familiar white-haired group walking down the pier a hundred meters away toward her ship. With a bear crawl, she dashed out of the control room and down below deck, finding the water ankle deep. Her arms strained pushing the sealed door to the engine room closed to speed up the pumping before dashing up the stairs.

A quick peek told her the group was only fifty meters away. She glanced into the water, tempted to make a swim for it, but with Umbra at stake she held her ground, spamming the start button. As usual, the first few presses did nothing, but the fifth caused a rumble, alerting the Changed team. They ran toward her ship, clearing the distance in seconds, but the ship fired up as they reached the end of the pier, leaving another dozen meters between them and her. She slammed the boat into reverse, snapping the single mooring line with ease.

Alex let loose a streak of deep blue lightning impacting the railing before traveling along the metal to the electrical system. Sparks shot from the control console, but she kept the throttle floored. Fortunately, Umbra continued its reverse trajectory unimpeded by the smoking console. Alex turned to Holly and said something, but she bit her lip and shook her head. Visibly irritated, he yelled something, causing Max to step in front of his sister, glaring at Alex.

The argument allowed Elysia to widen the gap to over fifty meters again, flooring the engines in reverse.

After several seconds of stern talk, Holly walked toward the end of the pier with slumped shoulders and resigned expression. She lifted her hands, causing a wave of water to raise in front of them before sending it toward Elysia’s ship. Holly collapsed to her knees, but the five-meter-tall wave continued on, smashing into the front of Elysia’s ship.

Elysia tumbled back into the captain’s chair as the wave nailed the already weak front left side, tilting her boat dangerously to the right. Umbra rocked back to the left before stabilizing with a right leaning list. Terrified to stay any longer, Elysia slammed the lever into drive, but the fried electronics refused to respond. She tried again. This time, Umbra jerked and lurched forward. While praying her ship held up, she steered it hard right, cutting through the still choppy water away from Port Alberni.

As Port Alberni faded into the distance, her engines sputtered. The ship listed further to the right, sending Elysia sprinting downstairs. Tears formed as she stared down at the knee high water from the steps. Her eyes followed the current to the bedroom, freezing in horror as water sprayed from a meter long crack on the left side of the room. In a panic, she wadded toward the crack. She grabbed the sheets from the bed and pushed them over the crack, but to no avail.

The boat tilted further, sending Elysia stumbling to the right. She wadded through the water then dashed up the steps, finding nothing but night water and forest dozens of meters away. Unable to take the extra weight, the engines sputtered and died, leaving her listing in the middle of the deep inlet a kilometer from Port Alberni.

As a last ditch effort, she picked up the receiver to the radio Isobel used to warn her. “Isobel are you there?”

“Yes, did you make it out?”

While frantically pacing the control room, Elysia rambled. “I took a hit on my ship. I’m taking water fast. I don’t know how much longer I’ll stay afloat.” Her panic shifted to anger as she fumed the last part. “They promised to fix my boat, but they didn’t.”

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds before Isobel spoke. “How long can you last?”

Elysia dashed to the stairs, cringing when she found it almost a meter deep before returning to the radio. “I don’t know, my engines quit, and the water is up to a meter below deck.”

“Do you have a patch kit?” Asked Isobel.

Back to pacing on the tilted floor, Elysia replied. “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t know where to look if I did.”

With a calming voice, Isobel asked, “Do you have a raft?”

Elysia stopped and stared out toward the rear deck before shaking her head as she responded, “Yes, but I want to save my ship.”

Silence reigned on Isobel’s end for almost a minute before she spoke. “Are you near China Creek? We had it reclaimed as a backup Marina in case the dungeon took over Port Alberni.”

After scanning the atlas, she compared it to her current location, finding herself near. “Yes, I think it’s a half kilometer away. I don’t know if I can make it though.”

“Just hang in there for a few more minutes. I’ll have a team dispatched.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Won’t the Changed team find out?”

“No, Major Evans told them a scout sighted your ship near the ruins of Nahmint. He may be an asshole but he stands by his word especially after what you did for my husband the others.”

Their conversation paused as the sound of an approaching ship reached Elysia’s ears. “I hope that’s your team,” Elysia commented while watching a tugboat approach through the window.

“Yes, don’t worry. They will take good care of you and your ship.” replied Isobel.

Elysia walked out to the front deck, grasping onto a strand of lightning just in case as the tugboat neared. Upon seeing the state of the ship, they immediately got to work. Within a minute, they attached cables to hooks on the front of her ship before they pulled her toward China Creek, leaving Elysia alone on her boat.

A couple of minutes later, they arrived at a boat launch lit up with massive lights powered by generators. The waiting crew on the piers bordering the boat launch hooked up winch cables, leading to a boat trailer attached to an idling diesel truck.

She refused to leave her ship, scrutinizing the crew working to pull her boat out of the water from her vantage point on the front deck. When the bow of her ship left the water, the crack reversed course, pouring water onto the trailer while the still running pumps sprayed the rest out the back. By the time the bow reached the front of the boat trailer, most of the water emptied from below deck.

Elysia leaned over the left railing, eyes widening seeing the several meter wide dent on the hull with a crack leading down the center. How did I stay afloat with that? The pumps must have kept just enough water out to limp along.

A graying middle aged man in a navy blue uniform approached the crack, giving it a scan before turning his attention to Elysia. “Miss, we will have your boat fixed up good as new.”

Knowing firsthand how bad the damage inside really was, she just nodded her head, hoping they at least saved the hull and made sure the drivetrain was healthy. She glanced back into the control room, causing her to dash in as the truck rolled forward. The truck pulled the boat out of the boat launch toward a warehouse across the parking lot.

Elysia sprinted around her control room/bedroom/living room in a frenzy picking all the scattered backpacks and clothes up, throwing the dirty clothes into a closet in the bathroom and the clean clothes back in the cabinet to the left of the couch on the left side of the control room. The backpacks hung on hooks to the right of the door to the rest of the cabin before her eyes landed on the crab daggers and her sea serpent loot. Afraid of someone stealing her hoard, she circled the cabin a few times before returning to the couch in the control room. Upon remembering her stash, she lifted the cushion up to find a storage compartment. She stacked the manuals neatly on the end table before dropping her hoard inside, including the crystals from her backpack.

After tidying her living area, she walked into the kitchen, but other than pushing back a few boxes of meal bars and dried food, nothing seemed too out of place. Her eyes landed on her bike, but with nowhere else to stash it, she pushed it toward the couch, giving workers more room and left it. Upon arriving at the rear deck, the truck was backing her boat into the warehouse in front of a team of men and women.

Her face reddened when she realized what she was wearing, or lack thereof, prompting her to retreat into her cabin to dig through her clothing while hiding from the windows. A minute later, after messing up her room once again, she emerged wearing an oversized dark blue hoody and black shorts just as a team of four climbed on board carrying tool boxes.