Cecaelia: Danger in International Waters

Prologue

Laura stood in the pitch black cargo area, shining her flashlight over the trail of blood leading to the small open hatch and the dark ladder dropping below. The security guard shook his head. "I don't like it. We don't know where the ladder goes."

He paced a small circle around the hatch, lit up by the diffuse glow from Laura's flashlight. A warning label next to the hatch shouted 'NO ACCESS WHILE UNDERWAY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.' With eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the narrow ladder's treads looked like simple textured rebar. He looked back at Laura. "This level isn't on the deck plans."

Laura pressed her handgun and flashlight together, one in each hand. "It might not be usable space."

He sighed. "I'll go first."

Laura walked forward quietly and placed an open hand on his shoulder. "Go down backward. The best place to ambush you is from behind the ladder."

He nodded, a small movement barely visible in the darkness. He stepped around the open hatch and backed up to the ladder. He held his shotgun at the ready, in front of him. He backed carefully down, trying to keep his gun at the ready while climbing with the other arm. He moved slowly in an awkward shuffle. One leg, hunching down with one arm, one leg again. She heard the faint clunk of his heavy boots on the thin metal rungs. Seconds later, he knocked on the lowest rung. Laura followed down, forward.

Reaching the bottom, her eyes scanned the small space in surprise. She realized she subconsciously expected an empty basement, with rooms. This looked nothing like a basement.

The ladder ended instead in a warren of criss-crossed metal support structures with narrow tunnel-like gaps between them. The darkness felt absolute pitch black, and crushingly claustrophobic. She flicked her flashlight over the walls. The metal reflected a uniform, institutional tan paint. The trail of blood continued down a bare diamond plate metal floor. Save for the blood, the mostly clean floors showed no sign of other traffic. The passageway hemmed in their shoulders, with barely enough width to fit. Laura's head nearly scraped the ceiling. Looking behind her, the security guard stood hunched, his head cranked to one side.

The blood trail continued faintly now, but Laura tracked it with her flashlight. It strung away from the staircase, through a small oval opening. Laura climbed through first, folding her body through what felt like a small hole instead of a door. She hunched her head and swung each leg over the sill to fit, and clambered through the other side. The gargantuan ship rocked incessantly, nearly throwing her off balance. No sound from the violent wind and rain penetrated this deep inside the ship, but the motion was constant. A low groaning and creaking instead echoed and amplified in the small, hard space.

The passageway continued in a series of tight, blind corners punctuated with small, irregularly spaced oval openings. None of the open corridors spanned more than about ten feet. She had to duck and scrabble to climb through each of the small oval openings. She struggled to keep her head up and alert in the confined space. It would be way too easy to lay an ambush around one of the corners, or behind a doorway. She reminded herself that sometimes a wounded and cornered animal was the most dangerous.

She climbed through another oval gap. In front of her, her flashlight reflected off a blank wall. The corridor ended in a t-shaped junction, the blood trail leading right at a sharp 90 degrees. Laura pressed her right shoulder to the wall and swung around the corner, gun first. She released the breath she'd been holding through pursed lips.

Laura and the guard snaked through more sharp turns left and right. The map in Laura's mind started to fade as the path grew more complex. It felt like some kind of endless zigzag. She climbed through another oval gap, and the lurching motion of the ship knocked her off balance. She threw her hand forward to steady herself, and smashed her watch against a sharp metal corner. There was a small crushing sound, then the tinkling of glass shards bouncing off the diamond plate floor.