Page 204 of One Bossy Disaster

By the time we get to the bridge, Juan is standing by the console, grim-faced, his shoulders squared.

A familiar look I’ve seen in the Marines plenty of times.

Body language is one of the biggest tells, and his stance says more than a thousand words.

Whatever’s going on, it’s fucking bad.

There’s another frantic burst of radio static on his comm system before it cuts out just as fast. Juan tries to reconnect, flicking switches and checking digital readouts, but there’s nothing.

No signal. We’re cut off.

Fuck.

“What’s going on?” I snap.

“There’s a nasty storm blowing in, Mr. Foster,” he says, every word tight. He’s been on the sea since he was a kid; this is his entire life. If he’s worried, that’s a bad sign. “Coast Guard is advising all craft to get off the open water.”

“What else?”

“Damn comm system has been sputtering out for the past half hour. I can’t get radio and there’s something interfering with our navigation. I sent George down to the engine room and told him to comb through everything. Haven’t heard from him for the better part of ten minutes, though.”

“Wireless?”

“Also down,” he reports. “Haven’t gotten a signal on my personal cell either for a couple hours.”

Shit.

I glance around, stopping on the digital radar screen that maps the ocean and landscape around us.

We’re further out than I realized, having followed the whales away from the nearest islands.

Right now, we’re drifting toward the open sea.

“What’s the closest port?” I ask.

“Victoria for a ship this size. Almost forty miles away.” His dark eyes shift to me and then away.

“It’s mostly rain so far. Alotof rain, coming down in buckets. Maybe we’ll miss the worst of it?” Destiny says cautiously.

She’s clearly worried, and though she understands what’s going on, she doesn’t realize we’re in serious trouble. I can’t decide if ignorance is a blessing or a curse.

I should have known it was too humid, perfect for kicking up these evening storms that like to plow through maritime traffic like a moose charging down a highway.

Normally, they’re no trouble in the modern age. With instant communications sending storm advisories well ahead of time, we should have been docked and out of harm’s way.

But without our comms and the engines fucking up, it’s a different scenario entirely.

“We can’t rely on waiting it out,” I say sharply. “You can never tell what might happen when that wind picks up. If they’re saying all ships to port, that’s all the warning we’ll get.”

I end it there.

No sense in scaring Destiny even more.

Fuck, I can’t believe this.

I checked the weather right before we stepped on the ship. Captain Juan also reads the atmosphere better than most meteorologists, and I’m confident he didn’t see it coming.

It shouldn’t even be possible for a state-of-the-art ship to wind up trapped in a raging storm like we’re back in the days of pirates and schooners.

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