"Uh." The sound of scrambling. "I think we better get off the floor."
Kerry sighed. "Can I go back to my ivory tower now?" She shoved herself up off the ground just as the stench of sewage flooded the closet and all they could do was hold their noses and hope for the best.
"Well, ma'am." Carlos sighed. "It can't get worse than this, can it?"
If Kerry could have found his mouth in the dark, she would have covered it. As it was, she just crossed her fingers, and hoped she had a spare pair of boots somewhere in the car.
DAR POPPED THE back door open and headed through it powering past the guard without so much as a glance in his direction. She pushed her sunglasses further up her nose as the glare hit her eyes, feeling the sharp blast of heat as the sun poured over her.
In the shimmering heat, the old ship looked scroungier than ever. Dar saw a crew of men gathering around the hull, armed with five gallon jugs of marine paint, and she suspected the old hull was about to take on new colors.
She strode past the forklifts, hopping onto the gangway and making her way up into the ship, trying not to limp too badly and hoping no one dropped anything significant on her mostly unprotected feet.
It wasn't smart to go into a construction area with beach sandals on, but Kerry needed something, and that made the risk irrelevant.
Looking right and left as she entered the storage hold she headed for the stairs slipping between two moving pallets just in time to keep herself from being smashed flat.
"Hey!" the man moving the pallet yelled. "Watch out, you crazy woman!"
Dar lifted a bare arm and waved at him, as she started up the steps. The heat already was oppressive, and she was glad she'd picked a tank top to wear with her jeans.
Two men coming down squeezed past her on the steps, muttering under their breaths, shaking their heads. "We ain't never gonna get this done. That guy down there fucked us up big time."
"I'm gonna kick his ass," the other man replied. "I don't care how big he is."
Dar paused as she turned the corner landing, and then shrugged and kept on going, figuring if the big guy he was talking about was the one she was related to, he could more than take care of himself. She rounded the turn and continued on up, taking the steps at a rhythmic trot.
Her foot hurt, but she put that in the back of her mind and concentrated on avoiding broken corners on the steps that might send her sprawling. It got darker as she went up until she arrived on the open deck, where the doors were thrown open to get some kind of breeze inside the stifling interior.
Abruptly, Dar felt slightly horrified that she'd sent Kerry in here with the team. What had she been thinking? It was a hell hole in here!
Aggravated, she increased her pace across the deck, moving inside and heading for the double wide stairwell that lead to the upper decks.
People were coming down the stairs, rubbing their eyes and complaining.
Dar became aware of a stench in the air that made her nose wrinkle in reaction. Sewage, but worse, old sewage that smelled like lots of dead things had reconstituted themselves and were now invading the inside of the ship. "Oh, gross."
Stifling the urge to hold her nose, Dar started up the steps, blinking a little as the fumes made her eyes water. She rounded the first landing and kept moving upward, the dimness and the smell getting worse every second.
"Gag," Dar muttered, getting a sympathetic look from two female crew members who were hurrying in the other direction. "What died?" she asked, pausing to call after them.
"Some stupid person put something down one of the toilets." The woman nearest to her stopped and explained. "It blew up the pipes. I tell you, these people who work on this ship are stupider than most of our passengers ever were."
Well acquainted with cranky marine heads, Dar winced. "Great." She turned and started up the steps again, hoping silently it hadn't been one of her people that had done it. None of them were stupid, but sometimes when you were under stress, you did things out of habit.
Dar took another flight and tugged her flashlight from its holder on her belt, turning it on.
Stop up an air pressure pipe, and what resulted was a blow out, usually in the middle of a wall somewhere, where the term 'shit hitting the fan' came to a new, pungent, and, occasionally, dangerous meaning.
"Ah, the romance of the sea." Dar heard voices up a level, and she redoubled her speed again, powering up onto the landing of the eleventh deck in time to hear someone blaspheme his mother in virulent Spanish.
She rounded the corner of the stairwell to find a dark hallway full of machinery, men, and a growing sludge advancing across the new carpet. Some of the men she recognized as hers. "All right folks. What's going on here?"
Half the crowd turned, obviously relieved to see her. "Ms. Roberts!" the closest one said. "They won't let us go any further."
Two of the ship personnel were blocking the passage, shoving the others back impatiently. "Go back," the taller one of the two said. "You cannot go here. Something is broken."
Dar edged through her staff, most of them backing up as much as they could in the crowded space to allow her through. "Some of our people are in that hallway," she told the crewman. "We need to go get them."
"There's a broken pipe." The crewman shook his head. "It is dangerous. They must purge the system first."
"Let's get outta here," one of the other tradesmen said, in a disgusted tone. "It stinks, and I don't give a crap if this stupid job gets finished or not." He turned and pushed his way out, followed by two others.
Dar heard a hammering down the hall. "Okay, look."
"You must leave, now," the crewman told her brusquely.
The hammering got louder. Dar stepped up to the crewman and tipped her head down slightly, glaring at him. "Mister, I am going down that hallway. You can move aside, or I can go through you. Your choice."
The man stared at her. "What?"
Dar took a step even closer. "Move," she barked. "Now!"
"You cannot--"
Dar shoved him without hesitation, keeping her motions short and hard. The man stumbled back and looked at her in shock, then exchanged looks with his companion and got out of the way.
"You are crazy! But if you want to go there and get hurt? Fine! Go! It will be your fault!"
Dar strode past him with the techs in tow. As they moved down the hall, the stench grew, and the sound of hissing, escaping air got louder and louder. "Kerry!"
"Over there, ma'am!" One of the techs pointed. "That's the door."
Two others approached it eagerly. "We'll knock it down, Ms. Roberts. Just give us a minute."
Dar paused. "Ker! Get back!" She pointed to the door with utter authority, and shone her flashlight on it. "You two get over there, and keep an eye on that pipe."
"Dar!" Kerry's voice came through the partition.
"Yeah!" Dar yelled back. "Hang on!"
Footsteps sounded coming toward them down the hall. "All right you people. Back off! This is a closed area," an authoritative voice said. They turned to see a uniformed officer heading their way. "Move it!"
"Kiss my ass." Dar challenged him. "I get my people out of here, we'll leave. Not before then. I don't care how much crap's going to come out of that pipe."
"You listen to me!" The man came up to them. "I'm the staff captain of this vessel!"
"And I'm the chief information officer of this company." Dar growled right back. "I could buy you and this whole piece of crap shrimp boat for petty cash, so take your stripes and your attitude and beat it, pinhead! "She looked at the two techs. "Do it!"
"You cannot--"
"Watch me!" Dar shot back.
"One...two..." The two techs turned their shoulders to the door.
The staff captain clenched his fists and glared.