The Duchess of Atholl (Open)

[Liandra Harrington]

“We should just steam out.” Liandra's dark eyes looked over at the helmsman. They both stood on the Captains deck, looking into New York Harbor. It looked almost peaceful from this distance, except for the fires glowing in the background. It was worse at night, those fires, they made the sky line glow with apocalyptic shadows dancing across the buildings. At night was when the pounding on their hull would start, the cries, the screaming...all for help.

“Where would we go, Jacob?” The sun was setting, “Even if we didn't have a Navy Battlewagon sitting east of us; where could we get to with the fuel we have?”

Jacob shrugged, his hand useless on a helm that had no power to it with their anchors out. She watched him; handsome in that Nordic fashion of Greenland immigrants, his pale features were even more vapid as he watched a gout of flame erupt in the distance.

Liandra laid a hand on the young mans shoulder as she passed, “As soon as they get this...rioting under control, Port of Authority will give us a berth, we can get our passengers off, get our fuel, and head home.”

She didn't believe that for a moment as she closed the helm room door behind her. Liandra moved down the rounded hall, hand up to grab the rounded door ways of water seal doors, protecting her forehead from a hard impact; as if after 11 years on ships she would forget to duck. The Captains door was open in the side hall and she stuck her head through the opening.

He was a portly man, balding, features that had once been chiseled but now were going soft with age and poor eating habits. Captain Jamerson was a good man, Liandra was sure that somewhere within him there was something decent about him, but he was worthless. The only time he left his cabin was when he absolutely had to or when he was required in Communications. He was lazy. She despised him, and her cold features did nothing to hide it, “Anything new on the comms?”

“No, just a repeat for us to stay on station, with our anchor dropped.” He was sitting down at the small steel desk, bolted to the floor, with a sheet of paper in his pudgy hands. He waved the paper at her like an old lady fighting off a bat, “Look at this! It's from the Admiral of the Atlantic Fleet of the US Navy!. He has no right to detain a Britsh owned vessel going about it's proper business.”

Liandra stepped forward and took the paper with a strident motion, her dark eyes skimming the print out, “We need to take on fuel! Our passengers are restless!”

And your out of Cheetos. A hawk like brow arched over her eye as she looked at him while he squawked, “I'll go down to communications and see if I get Jason on the box at Port of Authority, Sir.”

He waved at her impatiently, and she promptly left with a sigh of relief. Every time they were forced to exchange words Liandra was left the need to bath and such a hateful loathing it bordered on psychopathic. Her strides were long as she almost violently tucked her short hair behind her ears. Communications was a deck down, and it took her a good five minutes to navigate it by normal means. She was almost calm when she entered the cramped compartment, but her anger rebounded at who was on duty. Haley, a red haired beauty who thought that her ass was a perfect heart went she bent over, which meant she didn't have to do any work.

Well, it actually did mean that, those blue eyes of her's could charm and man out of his life savings; that was probably why she was in the Marchant Navy, looking for a rich import/export mogul to pay her way. Liandra's voice was harsh, brittle, “Get me Port Authority.”

“Oh, okay.” Haley turned back to the wall of radio equipment, opened the frequency book, started talking into the radio, and made a good show of knowing what she was doing. However, “Halifax Port Authority.”

It was only sheer control that kept Liandra from smacking the woman in the back of the head. She instead grabbed the back of the chair, spinning it around, forcing the woman to look at her. Liandra's face was so close to Haley's that she could feel the woman warm wet breath against her lips, “You have been on ship for a year now. You have no excuse not to know how to work this equipment. You will know how to work it by the start of your next ship, or I will throw you overboard to swim your stupid ass home.”

Haley's eyes were wide for a moment, before narrowing in anger as she shoved herself out of the chair, “Cunt. Do it yourself.”

Liandra didn't watch the woman leave, immediately sitting down and readjusting the equipment.

“New York Port of Athority, this is CMN Duchess of Atholl, come in over.”

“CMN Duchess of Atholl, this Second Lieutenant Avery Bravo Company 555th Battalion, get off this frequency, Over and Out.”

What the-, “This is frequency 04.11 mgz, assigned to the New York Port of Authority, not to the Army, over.”

“Duchess of Atholl, this is now a Military Frequency, you are in violation of peace agreements by being on this fequence, CMN. Get off my frequency, Over and out.”

“Fuck you, Butter Bar. This is not a dedicated Military Frequency and hence violates not a goddamn thing, get the fuck off my Frequency and put the Port of Authority on, over.” Liandra's voice was abrasive, scornful.

But she got no response, what the hell is going on here. Liandra had just stood up, angry and confused, when the dedicated Coast Guard Radio chirped alive, “CMN Duchess of Atholl, come in. CMN Duches of Atholl, come in, this USCG AirBorn Unit half a klik due east of your position. Duchess of Atholl come in, Over.”

“What now?” She sat back down a pulled on the head set, “USCG AirBorn this is the Duchess of Atholl.”

“Duchess of Atholl, Proceed to quay 9A, you have a hitchhiker, over.”

“WHAT?!” All communication control lost in that one moment. A Hitchhiker? How the hell had they gotten aboard? What the hell were her people doing on the deck?

”You have a hitchhiker, Duchess, they went up your anchor line. Drop them off at quay 9, then weigh anchor in dock and wait for Port Authority to do inspection. USCG AirBorn over and out.”

Liandra was struck dumb for a moment. They are had been denied port for 4 days now, and all over sudden they get let cause of a hitchhiker, the US Army was using the Port Authority frequency, the fires, the near blockade...Something was not right.

Standing up she headed topside, to the helm. Jacob looked at her; it was night outside the glass windows,but the fires prevented it from being truly dark, “Good news, Jacob, we get to port. Weigh anchor.”

Jacob beamed, sudden warmth flooding his features, as he sent the command through the internal communications. Liandra went to the public announcement system, flipping it on, she made an announcement,”Attention Passengers, we have just gotten the the go ahead to make port in New York, and should be at the dock within 30 minutes. Crewmen, please help our passengers gather their luggage and ensure that no man gets left behind.”

No man gets left behind was code, it told the crew that there was a hitchhiker on board, and that they had start a deck by deck search for the person. Liandra flicked off the PA system and went forward to stand next to the helm. She felt a dull vibration in the deck as the anchors were raised, and tried to put her sudden disquiet away, dismissing it.

~-~-~

“Where is everybody?”

Liandra stood on the top deck, at the rails, looked down on the dock. There wasn't a single soul to meet them. She had been making port in New York since her first day out, and never had the docks been empty. The Ports were a 24 hour place of chaos, of ships unloading and loading. But right now, there was an odd silence hanging over the place, “Shall I drop the gangplank, ma'am?'

She looked out at the port for a long moment. Goose bumbs ran across her bare arms, the hair stood on the back of her neck, and she shook her head, “No. We don't drop plank until Port Athority gets here.”

She looked at the wiry deck hand, “Found our hitchhiker yet?”

“No, ma'am. Whoever they are they sure now how to hide, not that it's hard to do on the Duchess.”

Liandra nodded and patted the swarmy deck hand on the shoulder, “Find him, Scott. I want him off my boat quicker than my passengers. This doesn't feel right.”

“Winds coming from the north and east ma'am.”

Liandra raised her head, “Bad omen.”

“Especially this time of the year.”

“I want us out port by dawn, Scott, even if we have to oar ourselves to Halifax. Find him, Scott.”

[Liandra Harrington]

Liandra leaned against the command deck railing on her elbows; twenty feet above the main deck, she had a good view of the entire forward bow. There wasn't much to see; a few deck hands searching small equipment ares for their hitchhiker, and the darkness of the dock and water beyond their flood lights. The entire ship was lit up like a bonfire; every flood light from bow to stern, starboard to port was on and aimed at the deck. It was against procedure, but it made her feel good, and the heavy thrum of the generators drowned out the silence that surrounded the Duchess.

They had been docked for damn near three hours now without contact from anybody; an hour ago she had tried the Porth Authority again and came back with just static. She rubbed her hands across her face, backwards, pushing her hair back from her face as she straightened off the rail. What the hell was going on; she looked up at the sky scrapers that started just a few blocks away. Some were lit with electricity, others dark, and from the shifting shadows she could tell people were there...

She turned and entered the command deck house and went back to the table of maps that she had just been looking at; trying to see something new. They had burnt through a lot of fuel holding station out in the harbor mouth, leaving them with just five nautical miles worth of fuel. No matter how many times she did the plotting; they simply did not have the fuel to make another port.

“Ma'am?” Liandra looked up at Scott has he poked his head into the command deck from below, standing on the ladder that lead down to storage rooms, “We've got a situation with the passengers. They're demanding to be let of ship.”

Liandra's dark eyes went darker before she pulled her ship uniform shirt off the chair, having shucked it in frustration earlier. She slipped her arms through the gray blue polyester short sleeved button up and headed to the ladder. Her fingers quickly did up the buttons before she slid down the iron rungs and hit the deck with a hard booted thud, “You told them the situation.”

“Sorta”

She looked at Scott hard and he shrugged, “What could I tell'em? That there's bad air outside and that it's safer to stay on board then head out there?”

Her lips firmed into a thin, jagged line, “You could have told them that the Coast Guard requested we stay onship until Port Authority arrives due to the unrest in the city.”

Scott shrugged again, noncommittally, as he pulled open the top deck entrance door, and they stepped outside. He followed Liandra a few paces behind as they moved towards the bow of the ship and the Passenger Entrance. The Duchess Atholl hadn't been designed as a Passenger ship. She was an old WWI passenger cargo ship, designed to move as much cargo as could be packed into the 20,000 ton ship and as fast as possible. It wasn't pretty in the forward passenger deck. It was a warren of hidey holes and barely concealed death traps; more than once Liandra had to squeeze herself into small shafts to retrieve someones child who had picked too good of a place to hide from their parents.

She pulled the deck door open and was immediately meet with an angry beaded face. A passenger, by the look of the bags he was carrying, and she could see other faces beyond his shoulder. Liandra raised his hand at the same time the man opened his mouth to bellow his anger when another voice cut both of them off over the ship wide PA , “Man Overboard Dockside Bow!!”

“Shit!.” Liandra turned and ran left, port, to the dock side of the Duchess. If they didn't get him out quick the Duchess would crush him against the dock, “Light's Portward!”

Scott was already turning one of the flood lights towards the dock, portward, as another deck hand ripped open one of the many small lockers lined against the railing. Pulling out a life buoy and 100 yards of rope specifically for this occurrence when the PA system came on again, “Man Overboard Dockside Stern!!”

“Jesus christ-” Liandra raised her voice to bellow across the deck. The Duchess Atholl, as an old converted steam who still had her stacks, didn't carry sound well, but Liandras' voice carried clearly, “Lights Port!”

Slowly, the port side flood lights started to turned towards the docks as Liandra moved sternward. She was more concerned about the man overboard there; the tide would carry him away quickly if they didn't a buoy to him fast. She heard something hit the water right next to her and she ran automatically to the rail; only hearing the splash over the generators because she was practically on top of it.

“Sweet mary...” The flood light above her had just completed it's turn, illuminating the docks and the water between. People, a crowd big enough to fill the dock, were all over the dock. Running, stumbling, falling into the water; some were screaming...but others were...growling. The dock was slicked with blood, the people were even worse, and Liandra was stunned into immovability .

The crowd surged at the Duchess, hitting the water, others grabbing the docking ropes. Some fell off with lost grips, but others held on, shimmying up the thick ropes. Liandra looked up and down the length of the Duchess, seeing the same scene all along it. Bleeding, bloodied people, scrambling up the ship lines towards the decks, others floundering in the water between the ship and dock. Scott yelled at the bow of the ship, “Heave!”

They had one of the people on a life bouy, pulling them up the side of the ship with the help of some of the passengers milling on the deck. The distance distorted the scene. They dragged a sopping wet woman over the rail and Scoot immediately went to her with a blanket pulled from the emergency stores. Regardless of the time of year, when the ocean was involved, hypothermia was a real risk. The woman stumbled to her feet, embracing Scott, when the passengers who helped bring her aboard rushed forward.

They grabbed at the woman, pulling at her, pulling her off of Scoot. He hit the deck hard, but Liandra couldn't see him beyond the woman and passengers struggling. Liandra started to run towards them, what they hell were they doing. The struggling group moved against the rail. Scott stood up and...Liandra stopped, shaking her head. Why was she shaking her head?

Scott tore into one of the passengers. She could see the blood spray from here. She could see the blood covering Scott as he followed the passenger to the deck. The other passengers panicked, some running forward to help, others fled back down the passenger stairs, while a few just stared in the same shock as Liandra.

She took a step forward to intervene only to stop as the man Scott had attacked got up and went after one of the passengers watching. Fight or Flight took over Liandra's hind brain; and she had never been in a fight in her life. Turning, to run to the command deck, she stopped as someone scrabbled for purchase, trying to get over the rail and onto to the deck. Her head jerked back towards the bows, seeing nothing but red, to the person on the rail, then up to the steam stack next to her in the middle of the ship.

Life boats lined out side the thick steal housing that ran the length of the deck, supporting the steam stacks. They hung from T-Bar harnesses, suspending them above the deck from ropes, designed to be swung out over the water and lowered with passengers. She ran to the railway, near the person, then turned back to the steam stack and the closely housed life boats. If just tried to climb, their instability would rock them back and forth, slowing her down. Instead, she ran at them at a oblique angle, stepping on a deck mounted foot peddle, used to lower the lifeboats when they swung past the rail.

Pushing off the foot peddle in a jump with her right foot her left foot came up, hitting the bow of a life boat and she grunted with the effort as her left leg snapped straight. Her arms were extended as her momentum carried her high and right, grabbing the T-Bar of the opposite Life Boar. Her momentum last just enough to swing legs half way up but quickly came back down. She'd been stuck on a boat for damn near eleven years straight and the pain her shoulders told her just how out of shape she was for this.

Something hit the deck with a thump, the sound of feet thudding the deck at a run. Liandra didn't looked as the Life Boat rocked towards her as something hit it. Her gaze was focused on the housing roof five feet above her as she swung her legs up, clumsly getting a foot hooked up at her head and the bar she clung to. Painfully, she pulled herself up on top of the bar just as a claw lick hand slashed across the space she just occupied. Liandra didn't look, refused to look, as she pulled her feet up underneath her with careful, precarious balance, her hands white knuckled with their grip on the metal.

Her eyes were looking up at the housing roof as snarling erupted around her, the life boat swung violently, shuddering the T-Bar, shaking her balance. She had to focus on her objective. Ignore what was going on. It wasn't important. Nothing was an important as making it up to the roof. Already she felt the shivering in her arm muscles from exertion. The Life Boat ropes literally squealed against the metal as the life boat was jerked around. Balance disappearing Liandra stood up with a sudden jerk and ran along the short steel bar, jumping at the last moment, she just barely managed to get her arms over the top edge of the housing as the Life boat ropes snapped, dropping the small vessel to the deck.

She hung from the roof housing for a moment, only the tension in her body keeping precarious perch, despite the animalistic yammering and clawing at her feet. A stiff constriction around her chest labored her breathing from impacting the housing and she tried to gain a breath. Desperately, she rocked her hips side to side, kicking her leg up to get it over the edge of the housing she finally rolled over onto the roof.

Lieing on her back, gasping for air, she looked up the side of the steam stack. The screams of people finally entering her hearing. They echoed around the deck and distantly she could hear doubled echos coming up from the passenger deck. She covered her eyes with her hands trying to ignore the howling, the screams, the sound of flesh striking flesh...Her entire body trembled, and it wasn't from exertion.

-~-~-

She wasn't sure how long she had laid on top of the stack housing; she wasn't wearing a watch, but the ship had gone silent. She could still hear movement below on the main deck, every now and then a grunt or whisper, but otherwise...nothing. Silence. Liandra turned her head and looked towards the dock, but really couldn't see much of it except for where it met the mainland. They were there, moving around, disappearing, other appearing.

She was stranded. There was no way off the housing that wouldn't take her right into...into...There were ladders, two on the outside on the main deck, and one on the interior deck, that lead up to the housing roof. That was it, and there were no hiding places in case those...in case someone got to get up here. Slowly, as quietly as possible, Liandra started unbuttoning her crew shirt. She had an idea...well, maybe not an idea, maybe a plan...but definitely not a good plan, or idea, or whatever it was.

Once the shirt was undone she brought her leg up and started untying her boots, slipping them off her feet, along with her socks, rubbing her bare feet against her pants legs, drying the sweat from them. Liandra offered a prayer up to the heavens before standing up. Immediately the things started to scream as the flood light illuminated her and Liandra headed towards the bow of the ship at a quick job. She stopped at the edge of the housing, looking down at the crowd of...of...She turned away from, looking to the stern of the ship, the Command Deck in the Distance. Bouncing on her toes, she shook her hands, doubt for a moment plaguing her mind before she started to run.

There was a twelve foot gab between the housing roof and the command house. The Command Deck stood three feet higher than the housing roof. That was why she had went back towards the bow of the ship; she was going to need all the momentum and enertia she could gather. She started off slow. The stack housing ran damn near the length of the ship and Liandra was not in the same shape she was eleven years go.

The things infesting her ship howled, chasing after her, clawing at the stack housing, hitting life boats. More than a few beginning a shoving match as they clambered up the ladders. Liandra raced past them, eyes locked on the lights of the Command Deck. She waited the last 20 feet and then sprinted for all she was worth, cat jumping just before hit the edge. Her hands locked onto the deck top railing, feet slapping flat against bottom in a near perfect landing, before she saw the clashing shadows inside the Command House. Liandra stepped onto the top railing and cat leaped up to the roof of the Command house. She glanced backwards, down the length of the Duchess of Atholl and the abattoir it had become.

She had a plan. It wasn't a good plan. In fact, it was nothing but a suicidal hope. She could either stay on Ship and wait to get...attacked or starved to death. Or....Liandra looked to the bow of the ship, stepping back as close to the edge as possible, then sprinted forward.

The only thing she could think of as her feet left the command house was, Just don't hit the propellers.