Chapter 1: The Catch of the Day
The Polar Tang groaned beneath their boots, a weary metal beast cutting through water the color of bruised flesh. The sky was a wound—a blood-red smear above a rusted horizon. It stank of salt, old rum, and the creeping damp that never left a submarine’s bones. Shachi’s boots skidded on the slick deck plating as he leaned over the railing, one hand clamped on a stay-line, the other reaching down into the churning gray.
“Got her! Pull, you idiot!”
“Who’re you calling an idiot? Your face is an idiot!” Penguin shot back, but he heaved anyway, muscles straining under his soaked coat. Together, they hauled the sodden weight over the railing. It landed on the deck with a wet slap.
The woman coughed, a ragged, desperate sound that turned into a retch as seawater spilled from her lips. She shuddered, curled on her side, her long black hair plastered to her face like seaweed. Her clothes—a man’s oversized jacket and practical trousers—were saturated, weighing her down.
Shachi knelt, slapping her back not too gently. “Hey. You alive? Don’t die on our deck, it’s a pain to clean.”
She rolled onto her back, gasping, and shoved his hand away. Her eyes, dark as a moonless night, burned with a fury that seemed utterly disproportionate to someone who’d just been fish food. “Your… rescue technique,” she wheezed, each word fighting its way past the ocean in her lungs, “is amateur hour. You nearly dislocated my shoulder.”
Penguin stared, his perpetually bored expression cracking into genuine surprise. “She’s criticizing us.”
“I’m criticizing him,” she corrected, pointing a trembling finger at Shachi before another coughing fit seized her. She finished, spat to the side, and dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. Her voice dropped, the fire guttering out into something hollow. “Sorry. That was rude. Thank you for not letting me drown.”
From the shadowed conning tower, a figure observed, silent as a knife. Trafalgar Law leaned against the cold steel, arms crossed. The flickering deck lanterns caught the cobalt swirls of his tattoos, the faint glint of gold in his earlobe. His spotted white cap was pulled low. His eyes, a sharp, unsettling gold, missed nothing: the shaking of her hands, the intelligent, darting way she assessed the deck and the two men looming over her, the stubborn set of her jaw even in total defeat.
His gaze then slid past her, to the horizon. There, piercing the red gloom, were the distinct silhouettes of Marine sails. Three of them. Closing.
“Captain?” Bepo’s muffled voice came from the hatch below.
“I see them,” Law said, his voice flat, devoid of urgency. He watched the woman. She’d seen the sails too. A fresh tremor went through her, but it wasn’t fear. It was hatred, pure and cold. It flashed across her face and was gone, replaced by a mask of exhausted resignation.
Interesting.
Down on deck, Shachi helped her sit up. “What’s your name, tough girl?”
“Lami,” she said. She pulled the soaked jacket tighter, though it was no use. Her lips were tinged blue.
“I’m Shachi. Grumpy over there is Penguin. You’re on the Polar Tang. Heart Pirates.” He said it with a mix of pride and challenge, watching for her reaction.
Most people had one. Fear, recognition, sometimes disgust.
Lami just blinked, water dripping from her lashes. “A submarine. Of course. I was picked up by a submarine.” She let out a short, breathless laugh that held no humor. “Figures my luck would be this specific.”
“You’ve got a real charming way of showing gratitude,” Penguin remarked, checking the tension in a nearby line. “What were you doing in the middle of nowhere in a busted life raft?”
“Swimming,” she deadpanned. Then she sighed, the fight seeming to drain out of her all at once. “My ship… didn’t make it. Happened fast. I got clear. That’s all.”
It was a lie. Law could taste its shape from up here—the hesitation, the glance away, the things swallowed. A story with sharp, hidden edges.
“Marines back there have anything to do with it?” Shachi asked, thumb jerking toward the horizon.
Lami’s head snapped up. The fear was back, but it was layered, complex. “They see me?”
“Not yet,” Law said.
His voice cut through the ambient noise of the sea and the ship. She hadn’t known he was there. She flinched, her eyes searching the shadows until they found him. For a second, they just looked at each other. His impassive, clinical stare meeting her wide, haunted one. He saw the calculation in her gaze, the rapid assessment. Danger, it concluded. But also, possible exit.
“Captain,” Penguin said, nodding upward.
“Get her below,” Law ordered, not breaking eye contact with her. “Shachi, prep for a silent dive. Bepo, plot a course under the thermal layer. Those Marine tubs are riding high; they won’t have deep-spectrum sonar.”
“Aye, Captain!” The deck sprang to life. Shachi hauled Lami to her feet. She stumbled, her legs numb.
“Wait,” she said, resisting his pull. She was still looking at Law. “They’re not just passing by. They’ll have lookouts. If they saw even a speck…”
“We know our job,” Law said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He finally looked away, dismissing her. “Penguin, if she causes a problem, sedate her.”
“Hey!” Lami protested, but Shachi was already pulling her toward a hatch.
“Better move, new girl. When the captain says dive, we dive. You’ll like it. It’s cozy. Like being swallowed by a giant metal whale.”
Their voices faded as they disappeared inside. The heavy hatch clanged shut.
Law remained at his perch. The wind picked up, carrying a metallic chill. The Marine ships were closer now; he could make out the bold numerals on the lead vessel’s hull. A standard patrol. Or a hunting party.
He thought of the woman’s eyes. The fire, then the ice, then the sheer, unvarnished terror. Not of the sea, or of drowning. Of them. Of the Marines.
The Polar Tang let out a deep, hydraulic sigh as its dive klaxons gave a single, muted blare. The deck began to tilt. Law took one last look at the bleeding sky, then turned and descended into the belly of his ship.
Below, in the narrow corridor outside the infirmary, Lami leaned against the cold wall, listening to the strange symphony of the submarine—the hum of engines, the hiss of pressurization, the muffled shouts of the crew. Shachi had dumped a dry blanket over her shoulders and vanished.
The floor vibrated beneath her feet. A deep, resonant groan echoed through the hull as the world outside the thick porthole went from bloody red to deep green, then to an endless, oppressive black. They were submerged.
Safe. For now.
She slid down the wall to sit on the floor, pulling the blanket over her head like a shroud. In the dark, quiet space, the full weight of it all hit her. The cold, the exhaustion, the close call. And the man with the gold eyes and the tattoos. He’d looked at her like she was a puzzle, a specimen. Not a person.
A door slid open further down the corridor. Light spilled out. She saw his silhouette first, then the details: the spotted cap, the long coat, the casual grip on the massive nodachi slung over his shoulder. He didn’t look at her as he passed.
But he paused.
“The sedative order stands,” he said, his voice a low rumble in the metallic hall. “The quiet is what keeps us alive down here. Your past is your business, Lami-ya. But your noise becomes mine the second it draws those ships to my door. Understood?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He continued down the corridor, his footsteps eerily silent on the grating. The door at the end hissed shut behind him.
Lami hugged her knees to her chest, the blanket scratching her chin. In the profound silence of the deep sea, surrounded by strangers and hidden from the sun, she finally allowed herself to shake. It wasn’t from the cold.