Search the Community

Robin Crusoe (4th Kasarberang Story Contest, Part one, 6/24/2024) Captain Robin gave a silent curse. Her ship was handling more like Cleopatra’s barge instead of the nimble ship she was. Ladies Choice was loaded with relief supplies. The small island nation in front of her had been devastated by a hurricane. All services were wiped out and most of the homes destroyed. But worse, so much worse, were the rebels deciding now was the perfect time for a coup. They were not allowing any aid except through them and all they did was steal it for themselves or to sell it to the island’s rich upper class. So instead of taking tourists for a shark dive she was smuggling in supplies. Lots of supplies. More than was safe to carry. The ship had powerful engines, but they were not very quiet. Their rumble could be heard for quite some distance. Especially on dark windless nights like these. She had a small electric motor that was mostly used for positioning the ship or moving about the harbor. While it was quiet it was not powerful. If not for the nearly flat seas and windless night they would not be strong enough. The rebels had patrols out and were actively searching for smugglers. Not because they cared about the type of goods coming in but about losing the strangle hold they had on the people. Normally she had two deck hands to handle all the things involved with taking tourists out to dive with sharks. Putting the cages together and many other tasks that a single Captain couldn’t do. But this was a risky venture, if they were caught, they could be arrested or killed outright by the rebels. Other than unloading the goods, she could handle the ship alone. It was her ship after all. Her satellite positioning system, SPS, showed about ten miles to the coast and that she was directly approaching the tiny fishing village that was her target landing spot. She could only hope there were enough survivors to help unload the supplies. She had all the windows and doors open for the small room that served as the ship’s helm. The true Captains Quarters according to her crew. The windows allowed the sounds of a patrol boat to reach her. The sounds were from the port side and were faint at first but were slowly growing louder. The sound was a boat puttering around and not racing. She did not think she had been spotted but turned the ship to starboard a few degrees to try and increase the space between them. This seemed to help. After a few minutes the sound diminished. She would have to get back on course in the next couple of miles if she wanted to avoid some nasty reefs. She held course for an additional twenty minutes and then nudged the ship back on course. She was hoping they still had a pier she could tie up to. They could unload onto fishing boats too. That is if they still had any seaworthy. The sudden roar of a boat engine echoed across the water. Damn! She had been spotted. The good news was the boat was still a good distance behind her. She had planned for this worst case contingency. Anyone making for this town would have to come this way to avoid the reefs. She had hoped it was too small to have a patrol boat just sitting here. She had mapped a narrow path through the reefs. She hoped to ground her pursuers on one and make a run for home. The supplies would have to wait for another trip. She turned on a mapping layer. It plotted a path onto the screen of her SPS. She saw that she was not far from the start of the path she had prerouted. She had studied a lot of maps and looked at a lot of satellite photos. Good escape routes were a requirement. Quickly she killed the electric motor and started up the more powerful main. She couldn’t go much faster, but the more powerful engine allowed her much more maneuverability. She followed the route as precisely as she could. It was only possible because the waves were almost nonexistent tonight. Just gentle swells. She was well into her path when the smaller faster boat came into sight. She was certain they wanted to board her and not just sink her. She was carrying valuable supplies after all. It was a chase, a slow chase but tense. The path was narrow, and neither ship had room for error. She had already scrapped the hull twice and only a quick hand on the wheel kept it from being more than a scrape. Unfortunately, the chase boat also managed to avoid the reefs. Almost. They took the last curve a little wider than the boat they were chasing and hung the rear of the boat on the rocks. While the Captain worked the engine trying to free the boat the rebel in charge of the trio of soldiers on board ordered his men to open fire. Better to sink it then let get away. Robin ducked as bullets started impacting all around her. She swore “Shit!”. She was almost clear too. She had no choice now. She needed to get some distance from the guns. Still crouched down she opened up the throttle and the ship leaped forward. She didn’t even look out the window. She kept her eyes glued to the SPS and the track she followed. One minute, two minutes and the shooting stopped. Once she felt safe, she stood up and looked back. The rebel ship was still grounded, and smoke was coming from its engine. Most importantly they stopped shooting. She sighed in relief. She made it. She turned back to the front and saw the strangest sight. It was raining. It was raining in only a small part of the ocean. Then there was a flash of lightning, and she could see that the rain was blowing in from what looked like a rip in the sky. Even as she watched the tear was shrinking around her. She had no time to stop or change the course, she was through almost as soon as she saw it. A rift a damn dimensional rift. She wanted to swear or turn back but all hell was breaking out on this side of the rift. The storm that hit the island on her side weeks ago was blowing full force here. Or maybe it was a different storm and there was no connection. None of it mattered as she struggled to keep control, as her ship was dragged up one wave and dumped down another. The driving rain crashed against the glass and made it almost impossible to see. The storm raged around her, and it was just one wave at a time. The bottom of the wave nearly caught her bow and threatened to take her under. The top of the wave pushed the ship nearly out of the water, the props spinning in the air before crashing back down the wave slope just to do it again and again. She lasted one hour, then two. Exhaustion was slowly taking its toll. Each cycle harder than the one before. She didn’t know how long she could last. She crested the next wave and it got worse. It could always get worse. The ship came down on a reef. Tearing the bottom out of the boat and flinging Robin into the wheel and the up and through the glass window. The wheel hurt a little and the window was basically painless but the impact with the deck and bow rail felt like sledgehammers to her shoulder, hip and the back of her head. She had no time to be stunned as the next wave picked up the ship and threw it forward and off the reef. At this point she and her ship went separate ways. She was tossed over the rail like a rag doll. Her scrambling fingers finding no purchase. She struggled to find the surface. The waves turned her around and around. She was running out of air when her feet hit the rocks below her. She pushed up and moments later her head breached the surface, and she gasped in a breath, her lungs full of fire. She didn’t have time for more as the next wave dragged her down across the ocean bottom. Her body slammed here and there. She struggled and thrashed, not giving in, not letting the sea take her. She felt the bottom once more and realized she was standing with her head out of the water. More blessed breaths before she was knocked off her feet. She floundered again and found the bottom. This time she was only waist deep. The next wave only helped push her towards shore. Her exhaustion made her knees shake and her vison tunnel. Black curtains seemed to descend over her eyes. A few more steps and she was clear of the water. Her body seemed to take this as safety, and she collapsed face first into the sand and knew no more. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The hot sun on her face finally woke Robin. She blinked her eyes trying to remember where she was and why she was lying in the sand. Her body ached and her head throbbed. The world spun once then twice as she slowly sat up. The sun was bright, and the white sand seemed even brighter. She closed her eyes and let the spinning stop. When the spinning finally stopped, she slowly let her eyes adjust to the sunlight. From her seat she could see an endless ocean in front of her, featureless except for the odd way the waves broke so far from shore. It sparked her mind, her memories flooding back. The rebels shooting at her, threading the reef, an endless nightmare sea. She thought harder and remembered the crash and being flung into the water. Somehow making it to shore. Lucky to be alive. Slowly she got to her feet. Her clothing was ripped, and she was missing both shoes. She was bruised everywhere, her skin covered with small cuts and abrasions. Nothing was broken, a miracle. If she believed in a god she would have prayed. Too her left the beach stretched out of sight. White and beautiful. Behind her there was maybe five hundred meters of jungle before the steep cliffs of what she took to be a hopefully extinct volcano. To her right was more beach. But unlike the beach to her left this section of beach had boxes of supplies strewn across it. Not a good sign for her ship but hopefully something useful for her. She slowly walked the beach. Each time she came across a crate she pulled it up the beach and past the high tide mark. Even though the crates were large and full they had been designed to float in case they fell into the water. She kept count as she pulled them from the water. Twenty crates. It seemed like a lot when you saw them on the beach but were well short of the total that was on the boat to begin with. She thought some more and figured it was a pretty good representation of what had been strapped own on the deck. If she could find where her ship sank, she might be able to find more supplies if needed. The whole time she was collecting the crates something seemed odd to her about the jungle. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She put it to the back of her mind and decided to keep walking along the beach. There was nobody coming to rescue her. She wasn’t sure how close she was to the island she was bringing supplies too. Wham! Another memory came back. The rift! She had gone through a rift. She ran up the beach and looked at the jungle vegetation. She was no botanist, but the species looked familiar. Immediately before her were palms, coconut trees and what looked like a banana tree. The ground had grass and under the shade of the larger trees were ferns. Nothing weird or too exotic. Except…Except….the scale was wrong. Everything seemed off. She stood under the coconut tree and stared up. Then she grabbed a coconut from the ground. She held it in one hand. It felt like a softball. But it was a coconut. She had never seen one so small. Or a coconut tree so short. She crushed the coconut in her hand and dropped it to the ground. She had heard that the rifts that brought littles to her home dimension could sometimes work the opposite way if there was enough atmospheric interference. Out loud she muttered “Well Vovo, it doesn’t look like were in Kantas anymore.” Earth she thought. She was pretty sure the littles that populated this world called it earth.