“I’m here,” Joss coughed. “I’m good.”
“Than.”
Than dragged in a breath that rattled. “Here.”
Fly kept one hand locked on the tiller, the other still wrapped in Than’s vest until he felt the weight settle back into balance.
“Than, choose another jack line, get clipped,” he said. “All of you. Low and tight.”
Valor staggered once more beneath them, then steadied, water draining fast through the scuppers. She was hurt but upright. Floating and valiantly answering.
Fly held her into the wind and waited for the bay to decide whether it wanted more.
The rain thickened, the squall swallowing the water in every direction.
Fly released Than and reached for the radio. “Mayday,” he said, clear and unbroken. “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.”
There was no pause. No breath taken for permission.
“Naval Academy sailing vessel Valor. Navy Twenty-Six. Position just south of the first mark. We have crew overboard.” He glanced once at the water where Mei had vanished, then back to the horizon, already calculating drift. “One missing. Conditions deteriorating. Request immediate assistance.”
Hollis’s voice burst through the channel, loud and furious, stepping over protocol like it didn’t exist. “Gallagher, you don’t?—”
That was the moment Hollis stopped being in charge. Fly didn’t answer him. He switched channels, voice steady, controlled, absolute. “Valor’s captain is assuming on-scene command.”
The radio crackled with responses now. Other boats. Coast Guard acknowledgment. Authority moving where it mattered.
Fly lowered the handset and looked back to his crew. “We’re searching,” he said. Fly moved without raising his voice. “Throw flotation,” he said. “Everything that floats. Now.”
Bridge was already unhooking a cushion, hurling it over the side. Joss followed, tossing anything buoyant within reach. A splash, then another. Bright markers against dark water.
Fly kept Valor’s bow into the wind and marked the last place Mei had been with his eyes, then with his body, holding position just long enough to orient before easing the tiller. The bay had changed its mind again, swell pushing sideways now, wind cutting across it, the surface confused and hostile.
“Eyes out,” he said. “Windward and down swell. Call anything. Anything.”
“Valor, Crimson Star. We are taking up a search grid.”
“Copy that, Star.”
They scanned.
Bridge on the leeward side, crouched low, eyes sharp and relentless, rain running off her hood in steady streams. Joss tracked the chop, counting the spaces between waves, though the rhythm had already begun to collapse, wind tearing the surface apart faster than the bay could settle it.
Than stood where Fly had put him, breathing hard, gaze locked on the water, wide and unblinking.
Fly turned Valor carefully, tight and controlled, bringing her back along the line the wave would have carried her.
The squall had swallowed the fleet.
Boats that had been scattered across the bay minutes ago were gone now, erased behind sheets of rain and blown spray. The wind had climbed another notch, gusting hard enough to shove Valor sideways between corrections, the tiller jerking against Fly’s grip.
He knew the math. Drift. Time. Wind pushing surface current faster every second. He hated knowing it.
Another gust hit, flattening the rain sideways. The water around them turned gray and boiling, wave crests breaking in different directions as wind and tide fought each other.
“Nothing,” Bridge called over the roar.
Joss shook his head, scanning the troughs between waves. “Can’t see ten yards.”
