Free To Ocean's End by S.M Welles

remember this conversation later. “I... wanted to apologize for hurting you earlier.”
    “Don’t worry about it, Jessie. I’m made of tough stuff.”
    “I still feel bad. I thought I’d killed you. After everything settled down on the deck and you still hadn’t moved, and the blood... I thought I’d killed an innocent person. I’m sorry.”
    “Apology accepted. Just please don’t do that again, hehe.”
    “I won’t.” Jessie looked at her hands, still feeling ashamed. “So you’re not mad at me?”
    “How could I be? It was nothing personal. You were just trying to get away from Tethys. Who’d blame you but the bastard himself?”
    “Thanks.”
    “Now how’d you get smuggled onto that ship in the first place?”
    Jessie remembered it painfully well. Big hopes dashed by an unthinkable nightmare. “He was offering passage to America. I wanted to visit family and help rebuild the coast. Remember hearing about the nasty storm that tore up the east coast two years ago?”
    “Hurricane Brutus. Never forget that one.”
    “It affected my sister’s town.”
    “Is she alright?”
    “I never made it to America,” she said emotionlessly. “Never even saw the coast. Tethys dabbles in sex trade. He’s trafficked so many women. He’ll just replace me one day.”
    Scully sat up a little straighter, his face serious. “On behalf of all the stupid men that give my gender a bad name, I’d like to apologize. Please never give up on us. There are good ones out there.”
    Jessie felt taken aback. What a kind thing to say. She made a mental note that Scully came off genuine as Sam. Dyne could go either way, and same for Mido, the guy who’d cooked for her. Cancer was a danger zone, and the rest of the crew had yet to be judged, except O’Toole. How many guys were on this ship? “I haven’t given up. I’m just not going back to dating any year soon.” If ever.
    “Fair enough,” Scully said with a smile. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to shut my eyes for a bit.” He scooted so he was laying down, then reached for his curtain. “Mind finding Cancer for me so he can wake me up once an hour?”
    Jessie’s stomach dropped.

 
    Chapter 7
    Port Chesapeake
    I was feeling quite grumpy by the time we made it to Port Chesapeake, bright and early. I’d manned the wheel through the night with just a three-hour sleep, thanks to Rammus’s hen-like nagging at me to go rest a bit. Rammus being my second in command, I reluctantly relinquished control, then passed out five seconds after my head hit my pillow. Three hours later, the seas had grown rougher and the sun had started rising.
    Red sun in morning, sailor take warning.
    Such an old saying that had survived the centuries because it was true. Bad weather followed red sunrises. Said sunrise bled through the steely clouds and receding stars. The roiling sea still looked black as I took the wheel back from a sleepy Rammus. He slipped his leather coat on, gave me a nod, then wandered off without a word. Good ole Rammus. A man of few words and many talents. He was over forty. Don’t remember his exact age, but there were only so many years left in his life at sea.
    I pulled my thoughts away from that tangent. Too depressing, and the bay and jetty needed all my focus to navigate with a three hundred-foot ship.
    I guided the Pertinacious around the jetty and got my first view of the docks. Port Chesapeake was far more cleaned up than Newport. The streets were all cobblestone, instead of mud and chunks of pavement, and they’d stood the test of one hundred years so far. Minimal warping in the oldest spots and maximum bumpiness in the newest spots that hadn’t been worn smooth yet.
    The still-sleeping town was sight for sore eyes. It looked almost like it had from the 2100’s, minus the roads and energy distribution system. Sure, there was plenty of beauty all over the world again but it’d taken a long time to get this far. It would take longer still without the