Stranded by Bracken MacLeod

wait here for someone to come riding up and rescue us. If that ice plate shifts it could capsize us or puncture the hull. I’m not going to sit around and do nothing!”
    â€œI’m not telling you to do nothing, William. Let Martin work on the radio. If he can’t get it—”
    â€œEnough! The only say you have on board my god damned ship is ‘aye sir.’ You understand?”
    â€œAye sir.”
    Brewster grabbed the handset from the bulkhead beside the door and pressed the switch for the public address system. He glared while speakers throughout the ship crackled and beeped alerting them to his coming message. “This is the ship’s master,” he said. “All available hands assemble in the mess room immediately. Repeat, all hands to the mess.” He hung up and turned to glower at Noah. “You’re going to be our icebreaker.”
    Noah tried to imagine what Brewster could mean by that. “I thought I was relieved of duty.”
    â€œYou’re reinstated. Now get your ass to the mess room.”

 
    10
    Slightly over half of the ship’s crew assembled at the dining tables in the mess room. Most of the men on watch—excluding Mickle at the helm and Boucher, trailing in Brewster’s wake somewhere—had come. Fewer than half of those off duty were accounted for, however. None of them looked like they wanted to be out of bed, let alone awaiting orders.
    Noah took a stool at the far end of the room near a couple of guys who were slightly warmer toward him than his other shipmates. Jack Freeman and Kevin Lawless were a couple of deathrock musicians from Seattle who funded their summers playing punk covers in dingy little clubs by working supply vessels in the winter. Noah had met them the day before shipping out. They laughed a lot and talked about preferring to work hung over. “Why waste feeling good on a job ?” Kevin had said, only half joking. Noah was certain they’d be out on the cargo deck in skinny jeans and Chuck Taylors if the deckboss didn’t force them into cold weather gear. Both men were gregarious storytellers, but today they were reserved and quiet. Jack held his hands beside his eyes like blinders. Kevin rested his head on his folded arms atop the table. Both were paler than usual.
    Opposite them were a trio of deckhands, Henry Gutierrez, Theo Mesires, and Andrew Puck, sitting in a tight triangle. Noah had worked with them in the past. Henry was a lifer who seemed to actually enjoy the work, not just the money, and Theo was his protégé. The two of them racked up more OT than seemed possible in a twenty-four-hour day. Noah assumed they accumulated their extra hours through a combination of greed and speed. Theo looked like he might be popping pills; he vibrated at a different frequency than any other human Noah had ever met. He wasn’t sure about Henry. The guy’s engine just always seemed to be in the red. Andrew, by contrast, looked like death. If he didn’t occasionally shift on his stool, Noah would have thought the other two had propped his corpse up as a joke.
    Brewster stomped into the mess with the bosun bringing up the rear. Boucher normally had to duck his head to pass through the doorways. Today he remained stooped, and walked through without having to bow lower. The Old Man hesitated at the head of the room, counting the men assembled. Leaning over, he whispered something to Boucher. The deckboss shrugged and pointed toward the assembly with a look-at-them gesture before slumping against the far wall. Brewster stood up straight and announced his plan.
    â€œI know this trip has been tough. Tougher than usual, and you can all tell, it’s taking longer than it should to get where we’re going. Earlier today, I had some recon done to assess our situation and it appears we’ve … become beset.” He paused a moment to let the men vocalize their disbelief. None of them