A resounding horn blasted shortly before dawn, its vibrations shaking the Asahi and its occupants awake. Ma?l and Kaori scrambled to their feet and rushed to the main deck. They hadn’t kept watch, obviously, and a horn blast could mean very, very bad things, mostly involving a close, deadly contact with the hull of an ocean liner or such.

  Fortunately, this wasn’t the case. They watched in silence as a gigantic container ship passed some distance ahead of them. Its wake hit the Asahi not long after, causing her to tilt and shake violently for a few brief seconds. Compared to the storm, however, the motion was insignificant.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Ma?l asked.

  “Nah, they love blasting the horn for no reason.” Kaori quipped. She felt sarcastic in the morning—well, before the morning, technically. “Don’t worry, though. They are probably just passing through. It’s unlikely they’d care to report an abandoned ship after a storm. At most they’ll log us in their journal, but it’s a pain in the neck for them since they don’t have our AIS marker or registration.”

  “That’s good news,” Ma?l answered.

  She turned to him. Something wasn’t quite right. What was it? Oh, yes, they were on the flybridge, standing in the light breeze… still naked. She gave him a soft hug and said:

  “I think we should get dressed, Maeru-san.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Kaori-san,” Ma?l replied, lifting her in his arms and carrying her a few feet over to the sun deck—he was getting good at this.

  “We wouldn’t want to miss the sunrise.”

  Said sunrise was still a while away, but Kaori didn’t object and they lay together watching the fading stars.

  They were alone, adrift in the ocean without a sail. Their navigation equipment had been torn down by the waves or fried by lightning, and the engine was likely not operational either. Objectively their situation was a disaster.

  It didn’t feel that way, though. It was but a distant consideration, a mild inconvenience in an otherwise bright new life. They weren’t alone, they were together. Everything else would work itself out in due time.

  “Well, I guess we aren’t going to the Philippines anymore.” Kaori said, stirring lazily as a pale sun made its appearance over the horizon. There. That was East. Now they just needed to head in the opposite direction, assuming they could direct the ship at all.

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  “I guess not,” Ma?l answered with a grin as he pulled her onto him, her face just above his.

  “Come, lazy bum!” she said. “We need to find out if we still have a ship.”

  “Five more minutes,” he whispered softly.

  It didn’t work. She gave him a peck on the lips and stood up, heading toward the cabins. He followed. He’d have argued, but she was right. It was time to assess the damage.

  It was massive. This was the first time they had a good look at the ship since the storm. Their bodies were bruised and wore welts from the ropes, but after a day and a night of sleep, they had recovered somewhat and could finally take stock of the situation.

  The ship wasn’t nearly in that good a shape. The entire main deck had been stripped bare and washed away. The windows were gone, ripped apart. Tables, chairs, sofa… anything not bolted to the hull had disappeared. It was as if a mythical creature had torn through the interior, leaving long claw marks across the walls and into the deck itself. Electronics were dead, the chart plotter tablet was gone, the main screen smashed in and dark. The electric command panel was a burnt, melted blob of plastic and metal fused together. They didn’t try to open it, there was no point.

  A few indicators remained although their reliability was questionable as most of them were filled with seawater. Among the surviving items was the main compass, which seemed to match the direction of the rising sun. At least they knew which way to go, more or less.

  They headed downstairs to get dressed, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their nudity now that the sun was up. Kaori was fortunate to still have most of her clothes. Some of them were even dry! Ma?l was not that lucky though, his pants and shoes had been torn away from his body while he was skinny dipping into the waves. All that remained was a mostly empty backpack. His laptop had been smashed to pieces and thoroughly soaked in seawater. One less thing to carry. Half a year’s work without backups, he sighed. No matter, he had a new job and the pay was infinitely better, assuming he could collect it.

  He slipped into his judogi pants, the only pants he had left and a rash guard that was kind of dry. Without Kaori’s warm body against his, the morning air was a tad nippy.

  His passport! Where was it? He searched frantically through his backpack for the precious document before realizing it had been stored in the ship’s safe, in Kaori’s room. He scrambled over. The safe was still there, and it was watertight!

  It contained random papers, passports, wads of cash and even the gun he had recovered from their pursuer! That felt like proper spy gear and it focused his mind back on the big picture. They weren’t out of this mess at all!

  Kaori leaned over his shoulder, looking at the contents of the safe.

  “We are kind of lucky. Come, let’s check if we still have engines.”

  They did not. The reality of their situation was finally entering the confines of their bubble: No engines, no main sail, the helm’s wheel was stuck, the food was gone and they had three large bottles of water left.

  This was… not great.