Summertide Stowaways

Didi was up before dawn. She had done all her preflight checks the night before and was eager to get sailing first thing. Resupply at the docks of Five Spire had taken her a day longer than she'd anticipated and, although she didn't technically have any schedule or deadline to meet, she felt the invisible pressure of being behind.

The sun was just rising over the eastern plains when she had the furnace hot enough to steam. Briefly, she radio'd the dockmaster her intent to depart and request to decouple. The sound of the cables falling away and the mumbling return radio call from the dockmaster's assistant came simultaneously. With one hand Didi poured a cup of tea and with the other gently pressed forward on the lever which rerouted steam from exhaust into the drive shaft.

Come evening time Didi's ship, the Summertide, had crossed a third of the way across the plains and the distant mountains had come into view. With the weather being so calm, Didi was kicked back in a hammock next to the tiller. She had a new novel in one hand and a fresh cup of tea in the other. At the same time, her pet mongoose Dodug was busy scurrying her way from one side of the cockpit to the other. The little red rodent was doing what it liked to do best: stuffing every single loose nut and bolt it could find into its nest.  Whenever Didi had a hard time finding a particular screw or flange for a repair, she'd go raiding Dodug's hidey-hole behind the instrument panel. The whole thing would be cute, and even helpful, if Dodug didn't have the habit of taking things apart wherever she could.

On Dodug's third trip this evening, she got tangled up in her treasure and tripped over it. Didi looked up from her book "Be careful there, you little monster. The last thing you need is an itty-bitty mongoose concussion."

Didi watched Dodug switch tack and start shuffling backwards, dragging the long fine chain behind her. Up the instrument panel and then butt-first into the hole where the original barometer used to be.

"I'm going to be mad with you if you hurt yourself, Dodug!" Didi went back to her book. Then she immediately put it back down to roll over and light her lamp as the sunset was loosing its capacity to let her read.

As Dodug scurried back across the floor to start her treasure search again, Didi suddenly dropped her book onto her stomach. "That wasn't a nut or bolt, was it, Dodug? What did you find?" Didi rolled out of the hammock and went to peer into the hole in the instrument panel. Too dark to see anything, she just reached in and started feeling around, quickly finding what she was looking for. It was a long gold chain. Finely crafted. A gold pendant hanging from it in the shape of a hawk.



Down the narrow stair and behind the cramped galley was the cramped stowage compartment of the Summertide.  Didi held her lantern high and low, trying to find any clue about where Dodug might have found that necklace.

The chop and thrum from the engine made it impossible to hear even her own footsteps and Didi wasn't expecting anything louder than the sound of Dodug trying to claw her way into a crate or barrel. Which is why she screamed when she turned a corner and found herself nose to nose with a pair of wide eyed faces.

Didi stared at the two of them. She'd never had stowaways before and she wasn't exactly sure what to do about it. They were thin, pale, and dressed in old layered street clothes to keep out the cold. She was pretty sure they were both teens, one an older boy and the other a younger girl, but they were so dirty that she could have been mistaken on all counts.

"Is this yours?" Didi held out the locket at arms length and let the lantern light shine on it. For a moment Didi thought that the two might not move or react at all. Maybe they weren't real? Or just ghosts? But then the girl nudged the boy forward, breaking the illusion.

"Yeah, it's hers. We're not going back to Five Spires. We won't let you take us back."

"Hrm... well...  hrm..." Didi chewed her lip. "Well, you can't stay down here. It's going to get too cold. Let's have some dinner and we'll talk about it, yeah?"

Didi's initial assumptions were correct. They were Ji and Ae, brother and sister orphans escaped from the Five Spire Imperial Home for the Unwanted, a combination asylum and orphanage on the northern edge of the city. Ji had been rented out as a laborer on the docks and Ae as a baker's assistant. When Didi had docked a few days back, Ji formulated a plan get get himself and Ae into the Summertide's underbelly cargo hatch.

"Well, I'll tell you what..." Didi paused long enough to take a bit from a ginger cookie and top off Ae's tea. "I'll give you two choices. Either I can drop you off at the first village we find in the morning or you can crew with me for a little while. Since Ae was a baker's assistant, she can keep the galley clean and keep our meals." Ae smiled at Didi and took another cookie. "And Ji can keep the boiler charged and help with maintenance."

Ji nodded and made eye contact with Ae for confirmation. "Are you travelling away from Five Spires?"

"Yes."

"How far?"

"Very far."

"Then we'd like to be your crew, Didi."

"Captain Didi."

"Yes, captain." Ji's smirk wasn't completely condescending; there was a hint of true humor there, so Didi took it as good enough.

"Ae can take the folding bunk here in the galley. Ji, we'll get you some spare blankets from cargo and you can sleep on the floor. But first I want you two to draw some hot water and wash up. You smell. I'll get you a towel."


Ae was the first one to spot the ship break through the clouds behind them.

The day had gone smoother than Didi imagined it would. Ae had her tea ready for her first thing in the morning, Didi didn't even have to ask. Ji immediately proved himself to be a hard and resourceful worker. He moved all the coal they'd need from stowage into the cockpit before lunch and then spent the time before dinner fishing Dodug's treasure bits out of his nest and finding the places where they belonged. Well, where most of them belonged anyway.

Didi was just sinking into her hammock for an early afternoon read when Ae came into the cockpit. "Captain Didi? Um... there's something behind us."

"Hrm? We are pretty close to the mountains now. I wouldn't be surprised if some cormorant flock was trailing us for fun."

"I don't think it's a cormorant, captain. It looks like a ship. The sun's behind it so I can't see the colors but it looks... official."

In a less than graceful move, Didi tumbled out of her bunk and grabbed her spyglass. Out on deck she unfolded it and looked. "Shit. Shit shit."

"You're still not going to let them take us, right captain? We have a deal, right?" Ji was sticking his greasy and dusty face out of the cockpit's lardboard window.

"That's an imperial interceptor. I doubt they're after a pair of escaped orphans. Which means they're after me."

The siblings shared a look. "Why would they be after you, Didi?"

"Politics. My father isn't very popular in all corners of the empire and this wouldn't be the first time someone thought they could use me against him. Anyway, it's time to get to work. I need both of you at the boiler and shoveling. We're going to press on into the mountains. Those interceptors are fantastic at straight line sailing but terrible with crosswinds and tight maneuvers."


For the next two hours the orphans shoveled, Didi piloted, and Dodug helped herself to some crackers in a cupboard that Ae neglected to make mongoose-proof after lunch. Buy the time the Summertide had made it into the mountains, the interceptor had almost completely closed the distance between them. Even at full steam on a ship as light as this, they didn't have any hope of out-distancing the three-engine'd imperial ship.

Didi dove hard into the clouds that hung at the mountains' peaks. "Ae, close that hatch and start venting steam to the exhaust. Ji, go down to stowage. I want you to open the cargo doors and release the streamers. They'll help us shed speed before we get too close to the mountains. Hurry."

Below the clouds the mountains were chilly, but green and rolling in summer grasses. The Summertide groaned as the colorful canvas streamer snapped and caught the wind, dragging her speed down to a more manageable rate.

"Ae, take the tiller for a minute, I need to look for something." Didi stepped out onto the foredeck and glanced up at their cloud cover. A thin mist of rain made her squint. No sign of the interceptor yet. They may have lost them already. No need to take chances though, so she opened her spy glass and started scoping out the peaks. In a minute she found what she was looking for. Less than half a kilometer away was a craggy cliff face.

With her new crew watching intently, Didi gently swung her ship in close to the cliff face and gently lowered them down until they were just above a small mountain stream that ran below.

"We aren't seriously staying here, are we?" Ji stared at Didi.

"Well, not only can that interceptor not turn very well, it also has a hard time slowing down. So, with the cloud cover above us, the cliff on our starboard, and that hill on our lardboard they'd have to fly right above us to find us. Even then, if they spotted us they'd fly right by and give us enough time to find a new hiding spot. In another hour the sun will be down and they'll have to abandon the chase or risk running into a mountain they can't see. I'd say we're in a very good position for now."

"So, I need you to go down and reel in the streamers. Ae, make some tea please. If I'm right we'll be enjoying a quiet night right here and I could really use a cup."

Once the two were below decks with their duties, Didi turned on the wireless and listened. If there was more than one ship nearby she'd want to know about it.

"... We repeat; HaiWi Didi, you are ordered to reveal yourself and to surrender yourself and your compatriots to the authority of the Empress immediately. We repeat..." The radio operator droned her message over and over. Didi was just considering switching off to check on the crew when she heard a familiar voice take over the radio. "Lady HaiWi, we know you're out there, hiding from us, and we know you took on two hands at Five Spires. What we don't know is if you are really in league with them. Your father may be a thorn in our side, but... well as for me I simply do not believe that the Didi I grew up with would knowingly harbor Hawk Clan assassins. They murdered a banker and a merchant, Didi. For money. No politics, no idealism, just money. Set them off ship and set a flare and we'll..."

Didi switched off the wireless. Chunja was a hard ass and a loyal military woman, but she'd never lie to get what she wanted. Didi was certain of it.

She put on her best nonchalant face and moved quietly down into the galley. Tea and cookies were laid out, the tin teapot still steaming, but Ae wasn't there.

She pulled a fillet knife from a drawer and moved down into stowage.

The only light was the dim evening light being reflected off the mountain brook below. Ji was in the process of folding the streamers and the cargo hatch was still open to accommodate him. Ae was still nowhere to be seen. Had she gone up to the aft deck or engine compartment?

"Didi, shouldn't you be watching the sky? It's isn't quite dark yet." Ji never looked up from his work.

"I think we're safe. Hey... that pendant of Ae's... it's a hawk, right? I was just thinking how much it looked like a clan symbol I used to know and I thought maybe... "

Snap!

Didi jumped to the side just as the webbing holding the barrels and crates on her left snapped. She narrowly avoided being tossed out of the cargo hold with the supplies but was badly off balance and had to drop her filet knife to grab a handful of rigging.

From the corner of her eye, she just made out the silhouette of Ae crouching in the rigging where the barrels had come lose. The girl had probably been responsible. At that moment, Didi felt a strong sense of loss. She had started imagining that Ji and Ae would stick with her for a few weeks or even months as her crew. And she really liked the idea of becoming a proper captain.

Ji took advantage of Didi's moment of introspection to reach for a prybar and take a swing at her. With her arms still wrapped up in the rigging behind her, Didi lifted up her legs and planted them both squarely in Ji's stomach, sending him flying back into a stack of crates. It was a good move, but it also left her open to Ae's swing with the hatchet. Didi twisted her head and only managed to get a good gash with the blunt side of the iron across her cheek.

And that's when Dodug decided to get in on the action. Loping across the cargo the little red mongoose leapt onto Ae's shoulder and set to clawing and biting at her chin and neck. Ae reacted by grabbing Dodug by the tail and flinging her at the open cargo door.

"Shit!" Didi wrenched her hands free from the rigging, dug a toe into the same and lunged face first out of the door, catching the rodent mid air.

Upside down and dangling by one foot, Didi looked Dodug in the eye. "Nice try, little friend. But I think maybe we've been beat today." And then they were falling.


Didi and Dodug crawled out of the brook together, cold and soaked. Above, she watched the cargo doors of her Summertide close as the ship began to gain altitude. "Dodug, those idiots are going to try to run."

Dodug responded with a series of fast and wet mongoose sneezes.

"I know, right? They'll either crash or be caught by Captain Chunja before the sun sets. Damn fools."

Didi looked around at the barrels and crates that had fallen out before she did.

"I see food and I see firewood, Dodug. That'll keep us for the night. In the morning we'll follow this brook downstream and see if it leads us to a village or something."

Dodug burrowed her way into a broken crate of linens and sneezed a few more times for good measure.

"I know, I know.  But adventure is what we set out for. And we certainly haven't lost that."