Morgan returned to the Academy sector. Frank and Katherine were still in the courtyard where everyone was engaged in a very heated discussion about the upcoming elections. At the Academy tower, he removed his helmet, the armguard and changed his armor into normal clothes. He then bought two kiosks and placed them in his storage. Mara sent him a message asking him to meet her in her workshop and arrived ten minutes later, panting from running back.

  “I am glad you can help those sailors, but I wish you didn’t have to go,” she sighed, placing her arms around his neck and kissing him.

  “I don’t have to go. They can’t make me,” he replied, when he could breathe again. She released him. He sat as she began collecting tools from her workbench and putting them into the spatial pouch Morgan had given her.

  “I know. You volunteered because that’s who you are, and that’s why I love you.” Morgan looked up quickly. She was staring into his eyes.

  “I knew it,” he said, barely able to contain the smile on his own lips.

  “No sense in trying to deny it. I don’t know why, maybe it is your humbleness, even though you could level this whole place in minutes. You have a giant, quiet strength. But I think most of all it is your attitude and determination to do the right thing.” She paused, her voice getting softer and quieter, “A lot of people died, and the world is a scary place. Of course now my fool ass falls in love with a man who literally throws himself into danger.”

  “I’m very, very convinced that I love you too,” Morgan said. “Every time I get a whiff of lavender, my heart pounds.”

  “Lavender?” Mara asked. Then started laughing. “Oh, the soap I buy from the kiosk is lavender-scented.”

  “Yeah, well. I love you, and I have good news. Sophia says I will travel much faster than the Marine did as a bird. My trip will not take as long as his did.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful news. Maybe you will be back before I can get this ship launched. Also,” Mara held up a finger, “they got a message some General is on his way. Should be here in ten days or so. That is why Burns is turning over control of the Citadel to the people.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She said she knows the man, and he is, and I quote, ‘the biggest pompous waste of rank she has ever worked with’. She said she would rather give the Citadel away than to him. And besides, most of the people here are not Soldiers now.”

  “That might cause some trouble if the General thinks he is taking over this place.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we need to have the elections done and over in a week, maybe sooner.”

  There was a clap, then a loud, harsh voice called out, “Warden! I was told you were here in the Academy sector.” Morgan and Mara exchanged a glance before he walked from the workshop.

  Just as Morgan thought, it was Reaper. He was standing in the middle of the path from the courtyard. Seeing him, he walked over and said in his strained whisper voice, “I am looking for Warden. Do you know where he is?”

  Mara, walking out of the workshop behind Morgan, started laughed.

  “I know where he is,” she said.

  “Oh, hello Ma’am, you are the engineer for the ship. I was hoping to catch Warden before he left. I have an Item for him.”

  Morgan, finally catching on, said, “I am Warden. I just took off the helmet.”

  “Oh, sorry, man,” Reaper said, looking him over once more. “I should’ve known. The pants and boots are the same.”

  There was an awkward pause, then Reaper coughed and held out a small metal flask. “It refills every minute with cold water. I don’t know how the Marine kid did it, but I am sure you don’t want to go for a week without water.”

  ::Refreshing Flask -Uncommon - Weight: - Properties: Refills every 60 seconds::  “Thank you.” Morgan said, inspecting the flask. “I might have something you want as well, just a second.” Morgan walked into the workshop and moved some stuff around. Then the daggers materialized from his storage. Returning, he presented the daggers to Reaper.

  “Not sure if these are useful to you, but no one else I know wanted them.” Reaper took the daggers.

  “I don’t know,” he started, holding the daggers in front of him. “Mine are very nice daggers I got from an elite… Holy Shit!” He looked at the daggers, then at Morgan, then back at the daggers. “These are amazing. I just gave you a piece of shit water jug.”

  “I can use the flask. I can’t use the daggers. You can. Good trade.” Reaper just stood there, shaking his head.

  “Let me know if you ever need anything. I’m your man, specially if it needs to be quiet.” Reaper looked at Morgan. “I had you pegged wrong. Saw that fancy-looking armor and helmet, thought you were a showboat. Eat crow for that now,” he said laughed.

  “Hate to be pushy,” Mara said, “but we’ve gotta get back to Burns soon.”

  “Yeah, you guys have a lot of work to do. Remember, you need anything, let me know,” he said, thumping himself in the chest. “I’m in the Atlanta Sector.” With that there was a loud clap and a swirl of dust, and he was gone.

  “Kinda loud for a rogue,” Mara whispered to Morgan. Then, turning to face him, she said, “If I didn’t know better, I would think you are running for office, bribing all the people with gifts.”

  “Absolutely not! He will actually use them, I didn…” he stopped talking as she kissed him.

  “I know. Now we need to hurry, Burns is expecting us soon,” she said, looking up at him with a sly smile on her face.

  “I am ready to go,” he said. Then followed as Mara as she pulled him into the workshop and locked the door.

  An hour later, after a send-off from Burns and saying goodbye to everyone, Morgan was floating through the air. He was wearing his largest backpack and holding a kiosk using the same brackets Mara had made to carry the original Academy kiosk. He was taking everything Frank had said to heart. Now that he was a couple of miles from the Citadel, he popped the backpack and the kiosk into his storage. He held up the stone, reorienting himself.

  There was no answer, but a large blue arrow appeared in the bottom middle of his vision.

  Morgan adjusted his elevation until the air grew much colder and it was harder to breathe. He was thankful for the helmet keeping the icy wind from stinging his eyes. He lowered the elevation until he wasn’t being turned into an icicle and the air was easier to breathe. Then he slowly increased his gravity pull toward the blue arrow. He started increasing speed at a rapid rate. His body tilted as it was pushed from his normal standing floating position into a prone superman flying pose. He lined his body up as if he were in the luge, face first. The air friction was warming him even in the cold air screaming past.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Morgan did as she instructed and immediately felt the force of the wind he was cutting through disappear.

  He increased his gravity significantly. The new aerodynamics of his armor shed the force of the wind, but also making miniscule movements caused him to swerve quickly. The ocean below him was passing at staggering speed but didn’t appear to be moving at all. As far as he could see in every direction was nothing but rolling waves.

  He had finally reached the limit of what he could stand. The wind was roaring even through the helmet and his armor he could feel the heat slowly rising. He lowered the gravity until he stopped feeling warmer.

  Morgan said.

  He spent the time talking with Mara. The connection between the Sophias was constant so far. The sun set two hours later, filling the sky with the most beautiful fiery sight Morgan had ever seen. He flew on in darkness, his dark vision range useless to him now. The constant roar filled his entire existence as he focused on following the blue arrow.

  Sophia recommended.

  Morgan said, decreasing his speed significantly and lowering his elevation until he was only a couple hundred feet above sea level. Back at 1G, he changed his armor back to Mara’s design. The darkness was no longer absolute. He could see the dark, rolling waves below in black and white. He breathed heavily, thinking of the thousands of miles of open water all around him.

  Mara said, breaking him out of his panic.

  He noticed a group of flickering lights far in the distance. Slightly off from the point of his triangle. He slowed down and pulled out his rock. It pointed directly at the lights. “Bingo.”

  When he got closer, he slowed down more, put his large backpack back on and held the kiosk. The ship in front of him was massive. He had never thought it would be that big. Good thing it had large, glimmering crystals lighting the deck, or Morgan might have flown straight into the side of it. He had to fly higher in order to be above the deck.

  Below he could see tiny figures fighting. The large ship was tethered with thick chains to four other ships of much smaller size. One ship was completely dark; the others were lit with crystals similar to the ones on the carrier. He picked a spot on the deck far away from anyone and landed, crying out that he was friendly and there to talk to Captain Vance.

  he sent to Mara.

  At this distance, he could see the sailors fighting against a group of zombies. The slow-moving undead stood very little chance against the group of pole-wielding sailors and were easily pushed off the deck into the ocean below.

  A small group ran up to him as he continued to cry out loud for the Captain.

  “Sir,” a woman called out. “I am Lieutenant Commander Riggs. You can stop yelling. We won’t attack you.” A middle-aged, strongly built woman walked out from the small crowd that had gathered. “Captain Vance is in his quarters. He will be with us shortly.” As she got closer, Morgan could see her uniform was dirty and hung loosely on her frame.

  “I am Warden. Corporal Nolan came asking for help. Here I am. I have a couple Kiosks. With these, you can buy food.”

  A look of relief washed over the crowd. Morgan could hear them talking.

  “Finally.”

  “Well, we have lots of tokens.”

  “Almost down to eating my boots.”

  He set down the Kiosk and motioned for Riggs to touch it. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she picked up the ration box from the Kiosk. Then she commanded, “Master Chief, get an orderly line set up. Everyone gets through and gets one ration at first. We can do more later.” Morgan made a show of reaching into the backpack and pulling out the second Kiosk, placing it near the first.

  Commands were shouted, people were crying and cheering. People were running to wake others. It was pandemonium. Riggs led Morgan to a hatch in the side of the imposing tower sticking up from the deck. Quietly she said, “Thank you. The Captain will meet us on the bridge. It gets a little dark here, but it is straight up these stairs.”

  Captain Vance was still buttoning his jacket over a rumpled white shirt when they walked onto the bridge. From the floor to ceiling windows of the dead bridge, they could see down over the entire ship for almost the entire 360 degrees. On the wall behind them were multiple consoles that used to control the ship. One small crystal was placed on the floor, providing a steady but meager light to the cavernous space.

  Vance rubbed his disheveled, unshaven face and rubbed his eyes. “Someone arrived, did the bastards at least send food?” he asked Riggs. Then, seeing Morgan standing next to her, he blinked and said, “Sorry, tensions are high. I’m not ungrateful, just exhausted and frustrated.”

  “Understandable sir. I did bring a shop Kiosk that will allow your Sailors to purchase food, water, equipment and weapons.”

  “American? Sorry,” The Captain said. “My manners. I’m Captain Adam Vance, you’ve met my XO. We are in dire straits, and you might have just helped quell our problems. You are a hero, young man.”

  “Not a hero, sir. My name is Warden,” Morgan said, “I’m from the Saltmarsh Citadel, just created north of Savannah.”

  “Savannah…So Nolan made it. Good Marine that kid is.”

  “Yes sir, Nolan delivered the report and the stone so I could make it to you.”

  “We sent out five messengers. Only Nolan to the East. We are only a couple hundred miles north of some islands, about a thousand miles from Portugal, twice that to the US. He must have gotten there faster than we thought if you were the first one here.”

  “He arrived this afternoon,” Morgan said. Then pressing on before they could asked anything else, “I brought the Kiosk, we have a group fitting a steam engine to an old cargo ship to come out and take the crew back to the Citadel, but that could take weeks I am told.”

  “Well, the food will help. Hopefully, we can negotiate with Plugger now that we have something resembling hope,” Vance said, dropping into a chair.

  “What is the plugger?” Morgan asked.

  “Not what,” Riggs said, “Who. Commander Plugger is… was the XO here on the Constitution when the event happened. Just before the decision was made to send out the messengers, he led a mutiny.”

  “Fucking ass,” Vance muttered under his breath.

  “Plugger,” Riggs continued, ignoring the captain. “Convinced many of the senior officers from the fleet to attempt to control the ship.”

  “Control the ship,” Vance said vehemently. “Ain’t no control on a ship dead in the water. No rudder, no engines, nothing. Fucking ass,” Vance put his head in his hands.

  “Just so,” Riggs confirmed. “After a heated argument and needless fighting killed some sailors, the mutineers agreed to withdraw to the Fuentes. She is the destroyer that commanders siding with Plugger were in command of.”

  “The problem,” Vance interrupted her, standing as he spoke, “is that Plugger’s ship is tied to mine by the damned, forsaken ghost ship.”

  “I don’t follow,” Morgan said. “I thought you chained the ships together?”

  “Oh, we did. Within the first days, we tethered the ships together to prevent us from drifting apart.” He said, “but rifts started popping up in vacant parts of the ships. We consolidated the Sailors thinking it would stop the rifts and left the Stoker. Stupid move. The rifts still appeared randomly here on the ship. We got orcs and goblins popping out of the shadows. Then the Stoker started acting strange.” Vance paced back and forth, working himself into a rant as he went. “Then the weird house appeared on the deck, and the monster attacks became constant.” He whirled on Morgan, “Now the undead attack at all times, us and the other three ships. We cut the chains! The next day new chains were fastened to our hull. Thicker, harder, and impervious to our attempts.”

  “Is there…” Morgan started, but Vance cut him off, continued his rant.

  “The ghouls and zombies are bad, but there are flying monsters that try to rip the men from the rails. Banshees and skeleton archers. It just never stops. Now we have the kiosk, maybe we can talk some sense into those damn yellow-bellied snakes.” Vance was in a fervor now, “Lucky if I don’t order them hung for what they did. Seventy-five men died fighting the mutiny. Even more of theirs.”

  “Maybe,” Riggs said calmly. Obviously used to his ranting. “Maybe Warden can help be a mediator. Speak with them without us needing to resort to bloodshed again.” She looked at Morgan pleadingly.

  “Uh, I don’t really have training in negotiations,” Morgan said, “but I can talk to them for you. Which ship is it?”