Page 31 of Wild Tempest

I glared at her.

"What!? I was bored!” Then she added, "Besides, it's kind of freaky being on that boat all alone."

I gave her an incredulous look. "I don't know if you've noticed, but this boat isn’t exactly cozy.”

"Yes, but at least I'm not alone.”

"How did you get here?”

"I swam," she snarked. "How do you think I got here? I took the small tender. You left a ladder at the stern. If you didn't want anybody aboard the boat, you should have pulled it up,” she said, shifting on one hip in a sassy stance.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“Well, I'm here now. Stop crying about it.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

Tempest continued, "So, did you find anything? Did you find my father?”

"No. Not yet.”

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get to searching the boat.”

“There’s something you need to know about this vessel,” I said in a grave tone. “You should go back to the Titan Deep for your own safety.”

“You’re not getting rid of me. I don’t care what it is.”

20

"So, you think this was some kind of floating bio-weapons lab?" Tempest said with a sour face after I informed her.

I nodded. "It looks that way.”

"What type of weapon?”

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe some type of gas, a pathogen. Who knows? Something illegal, that’s for sure. Something they could conceal on a research vessel at sea.”

"You think that's what happened to the crew?”

“There was definitely a containment breach,” Jack said.

"I still think you should go back to the Titan,” I added. “Somebody needs to watch over it."

"It's not going anywhere." She sighed. "I'm here. I’ve been exposed to whatever is on this ship. Nothing we can do about it now. Let's make the most of it.”

Arguing with her wasn't going to get anywhere.

We continued searching the superstructure, moving through upper decks, finding more skeletons and more evidence of chaos. More bullet holes in bulkheads and spent shell casings littered the deck.

Dust and cobwebs covered the controls on the bridge deck. A few of the windows were cracked and pocked with bullet holes. We found more skeletons of crew members. More dried, crusted blood.

We searched the captain's quarters and found a logbook. Jack eyed a bottle of Russian vodka that sat on the desk. He picked it up, admiring the vintage.

"I wouldn't drink that if I were you,” I cautioned. “We don't know what is contaminated on this ship and what isn't.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. "I’m not that stupid. I'm not drinking or eating anything aboard this ship.”

I flipped through the pages of the captain's logbook. It was pretty standard stuff and no mention of the covert mission. That was probably by design. I'm sure there were two logbooks. One for show, and one that held the truth. I didn’t see another logbook.