Out to Sea

In the Capital Wasteland rains came seldom, and fell in driving banners of stinging wet and wind when they fell at all. The clouds that gathered in the skies over the old Potomac docks promised trouble, and soon. Tobar the ferryman would not be hurried, though. The Duchess Gambit, he said, had borne him and many a passenger well through many a watery voyage, but only because he made sure of her fitness every single time they set out to sea. So-

(Out to sea. Of all the phrases Ellen had seen in her old texts or vids, that might very well have been the last one she'd ever thought would apply to her. Out to sea.)

- he was inspecting the old boat, thoroughly, abovedecks and below, checking off incomprehensible line items on the clipboard he carried with him as he went.

(The voyage to Point Lookout wasn't likely to take more than a day or two, he'd said. Barely worthy of being called a 'voyage' and not a 'trip'. But they would be out in the waters, far enough from land that swimming would be no option if something went wrong, and as far as Ellen was concerned anything involving such an alien environment was a voyage.)

He was charging them full price for her ticket and Star Paladin Cross's. Dogmeat's cost half price. Expensive, for an animal who weighed less than a human child and couldn't possibly cause that much difference in fuel, but it wasn't companionship that Ellen wanted him for. He was there for tracking down Whydah and Morgan, and for defense against whatever unknown dangers they might encounter out there. They weren't paying for a dog's ticket. They were paying shipping fees for a munition.

(Cross had suggested, briefly, that she try leaving Dogmeat at Milliways, or putting him in the storage deck Karkat had given her. For answer Ellen had tried seven times to open a door in Cross's presence, and then seven times more to open a door with Cross out of sight; Milliways appeared only once, on the eleventh try. The odds of not having him along when they needed him were too high for her liking. As for the deck, she'd never put anything living in there, and wasn't about to experiment.)

They had their supplies, of course, some in bags and others hidden in the storage deck. Cross was wearing her T-51b armor, helmet under her arm, and Ellen her modified, silver-painted Tesla gear. They'd brought their weapons, too; Cross had a modified laser rifle three times as potent as the standard model slung over one shoulder, and a supersledge Thor might have envied took up the rest of her back. Ellen's armament was a bit less spectacular: her old Gauss rifle, her laser pistol, and the shocksword Jerald had made for her.

(She hadn't seen Thor Odinson since everything went down at Evergreen Mills. The next time she met him, she'd tell him the blade had a name now; she'd taken to calling it the Spark in Darkness. Not so impressive a name as Mjolnir or Bylta, but she only had one language to work with, and given the circumstances under which she most often drew the crackling blade, that was really what it was.)

They had what they needed, or what Cross figured they were likely to need. It was most likely going to be a long trip.

(Jerald had come to see them off at the docks, some ten minutes ago. Tobar, for some reason, had found this to be funny and made a sniggering comment. Cross had thrown a stern look his way, and he'd started the inspection; Ellen would be forever grateful to her for that.)

"All right," called Tobar as he emerged from the belly of the little boat. "Looks like everything's in order."

(Neither Ellen nor Jerald had ever been what anybody could truthfully call particularly good with words, so he'd just taken both of her hands and given her a long, anguished look. And then he'd said, "Be careful," and he'd kissed her, and-)

"Last chance to change your minds, ladies, because we're leaving before those rains hit."

(She hadn't even set foot on the Duchess Gambit's deck and she missed him already.)