Chapter 68

#Day 18 — 06:33

The bridge smelled of sweat and stale coffee and the faint chemical tang of recycled air that had been breathed too many times. Vivienne stood at the forward windows, watching the sun drag itself over the horizon—a pale, watery thing that offered no warmth. Behind her, the night shift moved through their final tasks with the sluggishness of people who had forgotten what a full meal felt like.

She pressed a hand to her stomach. Flat. Always flat. But there was a hollow ache there now that had nothing to do with hunger—or maybe everything to do with it. Her period was late. More than a month late. She'd been so busy surviving she hadn't noticed—hadn't had time to notice. But now, in the grey dawn, with her head light and her hands trembling slightly despite the coffee, she felt the truth of it: her body was shutting down. They all were.

She turned to look at her bridge crew.

Linh sat at the navigation station, her cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. The jumpsuit that had once fit her snugly now hung loose at the shoulders. Kim hunched over the engineering console, her face hollow, dark circles bruising the skin beneath her eyes. Even the young helmswoman—barely twenty, with a baby face that should have been round and soft—had developed a gaunt, almost skeletal look that made Vivienne's chest ache.

They were starving. All of them. The rations had been cut twice in the past week. What remained was barely enough to keep them alive, let alone strong.

How did you do it, Verne?

She touched the pin on her blouse—the ouroboros, the crown, the symbol of a ship that was slowly becoming a tomb.

How did you stand here day after day, broken and bleeding, and still make us believe we could survive?

The pin was cool against her fingers. She thought of Verne's last stand—alone in that corridor, buying time with her life. She thought of Maggie's face when they'd found her, cradling Verne's body like a child.

I'm not her. I'm not half the captain she was.

She straightened her spine anyway.

But I have to be.

"Linh." Her voice came out steady. Good. "Anything on radar?"

Linh shook her head without looking up. "Empty ocean, Captain. Same as yesterday."

"Then keep watching. The empty ocean is where things hide."

Linh nodded. The young helmswoman's hands trembled on the wheel.

Vivienne turned back to the window and watched the sun climb, and tried not to think about how hungry she was.

The call came at 09:47.

"Contact!" Linh's voice cut through the morning quiet like a blade. "Large vessel, twenty kilometers east. Drifting."

Vivienne was at her station in three strides. "Identify."

"Too far for optics. Launching drone."

The main screen flickered, then resolved into a grainy image. A ship—massive, easily three times the size of Blue Oasis. Cargo vessel, by the look of it. But retrofitted. Modified. Four towering structures rose from its deck, two on each side, catching the wind like enormous sails.

"What the hell is that?" Kim muttered.

Sophie appeared at Vivienne's elbow, drawn from her quarters by the alert. She stared at the screen, her face unreadable.

"Wind turbine sails," she said quietly. "Experimental technology. There was an international shipping consortium—they were building a fleet of eco-friendly cargo ships before the pandemic." She paused. "I thought they all got scrapped."

Vivienne studied the image. The ship was drifting, yes, but intact. No visible damage. No signs of struggle on its decks.

"Could be full of supplies," Kim said. "Food. Medicine. Spare parts."

"Could be full of crawlers," Maggie countered from the door, her arm still in its sling, her face hard. "Could be a trap."

Vivienne looked at Sophie. "You know the people who built this?"

Sophie shook her head slowly. "No. But someone's kept it running. That means survivors—or something worse."

Vivienne made the call. "Prepare the council. We need to decide what to do about that ship."

The council gathered in the private salon—the same room where Chen had revealed the truth about AURA. No electronics. No listening devices. Just ten exhausted people sitting around a table, staring at a problem with no good solution.

Kim spoke first. "That ship could save us. If it has food, if it has supplies, we could stretch our rations for weeks. Maybe long enough to reach South Georgia."

"Or it could kill us," Maggie said. "We go aboard, we find crawlers, we lose more people. We're down to one security team as it is."

Victoria leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "We don't have to board it. We could signal them. See if anyone's alive."

"And if someone is alive?" Linh asked. "What then?"

Sophie spoke quietly. "Then we negotiate. Trade for what we need."

Isabelle's laugh was brittle. "And what exactly would we offer? Our empty food stores? Our depleted medical supplies? The last three rounds of ammunition?" She gestured at the room around them. "Look at us. We have nothing left to give."

Silence.

Vivienne looked at Sophie. "You should make contact. If there's anyone alive, they might respond to you."

Sophie nodded. "I'll try."

Vivienne nodded. "Then that's the plan. Sophie opens communications. We assess the situation. And we don't do anything until we know what we're dealing with."

The council dispersed. No one looked hopeful. But no one looked away, either.

The drone launched at 10:32. Linh guided it low over the waves, keeping it below the cargo ship's radar horizon until the last possible moment. The image on the main screen sharpened as the drone climbed—the wind sails resolving into metal latticework, the deck coming into focus, the bridge windows dark and empty.

"No movement," Linh reported. "Thermal's cold on the deck. But there's heat below—engine room, maybe. Someone's home."

Sophie stepped to the comms panel. "Open a channel. All frequencies."

Static. Then:

"This is Captain Stavros. State your business."

The voice was Greek-accented, warm, almost friendly. But there was something beneath it—a wariness, a calculation that Vivienne recognized instantly.

Sophie leaned toward the mic. "Stavros? Stavros from the Piraeus conference? It's Sophie Laurent."

A pause. Long enough that Vivienne thought the connection had failed.

Then: "Sophie Laurent." A laugh—genuine surprise. "I thought you were dead."

"Not yet. You?"

"Still the same wit, Sophie," Stavros remarked, a low chuckle threading through his voice. "That's your ship? The Blue Oasis?"

"Yes."

"I heard rumors. Didn't believe them." Stavros's voice shifted—became more assessing. "You're far from home, Sophie. What do you want?"

Vivienne stepped forward. "Captain Stavros, this is Captain Vivienne Laurent. We're low on supplies—food, medicine. We saw your ship and hoped to trade."

"Trade." The word hung in the air. "Trade what?"

Silence.

Stavros laughed again, but this time it wasn't warm. "Nothing? You have nothing to trade, and you expect me to just... give you what you need?"

"We can work something out," Vivienne said. "We have skilled people. Engineers, medical staff, security. We could help you with repairs, maintenance—"

"I don't need help." Stavros's voice was flat now. "I have everything I need. Including a full cargo hold. Food. Medicine. Spare parts. Everything you're dying for."

Sophie interjected. "You said you wanted to trade. What do you want, Stavros?"

A pause. Then, slowly: "I don't work for anyone. Not the Commission, not Carmona, not any of the factions. I just want to survive. Trade. Live."

Sophie's eyes narrowed. "And the race? The new world?"

Stavros shrugged—they could hear it in his voice. "Let them fight over ashes. I'll take what's left."

"Then what do you want from us?"

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Let me see your vector. The Chinese boy. The one who shouldn't exist."

Sophie looked at Vivienne. Vivienne nodded.

Zhao stepped forward, into the camera's view.

Stavros studied him for a long moment. His face was visible now on the screen—middle-aged, handsome in a weathered way, with dark eyes that missed nothing. He looked at Zhao the way a merchant might look at livestock.

Then he shook his head. "He's young, but doesn’t look like much." A dismissive wave. "Pity Arnault is dead. I'd have given you a month's worth of food for an hour of his time."

Zhao's face didn't change, but his hands curled into fists at his sides.

"Vectors aren't for trade," Stavros continued. "I know that, Sophie. They're the only real currency left." He leaned back. "I'll trade for keys instead. Any key except the Solstice one. I don't want Carmona hunting me."

Vivienne's voice was steady, but her heart was pounding. "We don't have keys to trade."

Stavros's smile was thin. Knowing. "Don't you? I heard you picked up some interesting cargo from the Victoria. Stasis pods. With people inside."

Vivienne went pale. He knew about the twins.

Sophie spoke carefully. "The Athena's key. If you're alive—"

Stavros's face hardened. "Gone. At the bottom of the Atlantic."

"The protocol—"

"The protocol doesn't matter when your own captain decides to play god." Bitter laugh. "The owner—your kind, Sophie—he knew we were being hunted. Knew the others wanted the key. So he made sure they couldn't have it."

Vivienne's voice was quiet. "What do you mean?"

"I mean he triggered the scuttling charges with everyone still aboard when he knew he lost the fight. Crew. Passengers. His own—" Stavros stopped. Breathed. "His own daughter was in that stasis pod. Her twin. And he blew it all to hell rather than let someone else have her."

Silence.

Vivienne's hand moved unconsciously to her chest, where Valentine slept. His own twin daughters. He killed them.

Stavros continued, quieter. "I got out through a maintenance lock. Watched the Athena go down. Watched the fires drown. And I thought... if that's what they do to their own blood, what chance do the rest of us have?"

Stavros's voice was calm now. "They used their own children. Their own siblings. And when it all went wrong, they killed them rather than let anyone else have them."

Vivienne stared at the screen. Valentine. My sister. Sophie's daughter. And she would have—

She couldn't finish the thought.

Stavros's voice softened, almost pitying. "You didn't know. I can see it. You really didn't know."

Sophie said nothing.

"I also trade in information," Stavros continued. "And I hear things. For example—" He leaned closer to his camera. "I hear your security team is almost gone. A handful of people, one with a broken arm. Not much of a defense."

Sophie's voice was sharp. "Is that a threat, Stavros?"

Stavros's smile widened. He turned to someone off-screen, murmured a few words, then looked back at the camera.

"Maybe I'll board your ship. Take a look at the goods myself. See if we can make a fair deal—face to face."

"Stavros—" Sophie started.

He hung up.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then Linh's voice, sharp with alarm: "Captain—he's moving. Intercept course."

On the screen, the cargo ship's engines flared to life. The massive vessel began to turn—slowly at first, then with purpose. Toward them.

Vivienne's command cracked like a whip. "Evasive action. Full speed. Maggie, Victoria—defense stations. Now."

The ship lurched beneath them—a hard, violent bank that sent unsecured items sliding across the bridge. A tablet skittered off a console and shattered against the bulkhead. The young helmswoman clung to the wheel, her knuckles white, her hollow face set in desperate concentration. Linh braced herself against the nav station, fingers still flying across the controls, barking course corrections.

In Chen's cabin across the medical bay, the world tilted without warning.

Nadia was on the floor before she understood what was happening—her chair tipped, her body twisting instinctively as she reached for the laptop. It slid toward the edge of the desk, cables tearing loose, hard drives clattering. She caught it with her chest, wrapped her arms around it, and let her back hit the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of her. She didn't let go. The laptop was everything. The code was everything.

Chen's hand found the wall, steadying herself. Her blind eyes were open, tracking nothing and everything—the angle of the ship, the pitch of the alarms bleeding through the bulkhead, the desperate scramble of feet in the corridor outside.

"Status?" she asked. Calm. Level.

"I don't know!" Nadia gasped, still clutching the laptop. "Something's happening. We're under attack, I think—"

Chen was quiet for a moment, processing. Then: "The hard drives?"

"Safe. I've got them."

"Good." Chen's voice was steady, almost serene. "Keep working. We'll be needed soon."

Nadia stared at her—this blind, broken girl who sat in the middle of a crisis like it was just another variable in an equation. "How can you be so calm?"

Chen's lips curved—not quite a smile, but something close.

"Because I know what I can do."

Outside, the ship banked again. Somewhere above, alarms screamed.

Chen listened to it all, and calculated.

On the screen, the cargo ship grew larger, its wind sails catching the light like the wings of some enormous predator.

Vivienne touched Verne's pin.

How did you do it?

She didn't know. But she'd find out.

She had to.