Syren's Song by Claude G. Berube Read Free Book Online Page B

twenty-first-century businessmen.
    Next on Stark’s right—which was actually the port side of the ship because he was walking from bow to stern—were three containers with food, uniforms,and ammunition. One container was a reefer—a refrigeration unit—that held enough to feed the crew for a couple of months if necessary. The last container on Stark’s right held two commercial UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles more popularly known as drones. Though Stark preferred manned airborne craft like helicopters for multimission roles, he recognized the cost savings and low maintenance the UAVs afforded.
    Each of the five remaining starboard containers was devoted to a particular crew component—gear for the boatswains, repair equipment and extra parts for the engineering department, a medical bay, and a sealed container that only one man was allowed to open.
    As if on cue, the big redhead strolled past Stark humming. “Hiya, boss,” he said as he reached out to type in the code for the door lock. He waited until Stark looked away to enter the numbers.
    â€œJay, what kind of toys are you playing with in there?” Stark asked.
    â€œNo, no, no, boss. No way do people see my stuff until it’s ready. You agreed to that. And don’t forget, we have yoga in thirty minutes.”
    How could Stark forget? It was one of the conditions he had reluctantly agreed to when he hired Jay. But to his surprise, Jay’s yoga sessions had proved as beneficial as the more strenuous routines that Gunny Willis had instituted. And Willis admitted that the flexibility the crew gained from yoga was a good complement to their other physical training. Even Stark had embraced the discipline.
    With that the mad scientist, still humming, entered the darkened container and secured the door behind him.
    Stark had a penchant for hiring misfits—at least the right ones. When he first met Jay on Syren —back when the U.S. Navy was still calling her Sea Fighter —Warren already had a reputation for being a nonconformist. And then he lost his job with the federal government after some minor indiscretions. When Stark purchased the discarded experimental SWATH (small waterplane-area twin-hull) ship, Warren was the first person he hired. Stark tracked him down in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where he was living in a doublewide with no furniture except a bed and working in a barn full of unrecognizable equipment.
    Stark made his way further aft and observed the deck crew working on the stern boat ramp. Of all the legacy systems on the ship, this was the one that never seemed to work properly. They’d have to completely redesign it after this assignment. In the meantime, one of the crew was trying to jury-rig the small-boat recovery system.
    A few minutes later Stark made his way topside. Syren rode smoothly at twenty knots in the calm seas between India and Sri Lanka. Dozens of local fishing boats peppered the waters, but the helm deftly guided the ship and steered well clear of them. A large long-line trawler from China was the only foreign ship present. Stark recognized the construction. Chinese trawlers were quickly depleting the world’s few remaining untouched fisheries. The world had no interest in stopping them because many other nations did it themselves.
    Stark had never been to Sri Lanka, but he didn’t expect to spend much time there on this mission. After resupplying in Colombo, their assignment was to head to the northeast coast where the Tamil Tigers were thought to be based, as they had been in the recent civil war. If he could find the Sea Tigers’ base of operations, he might be able to prevent another civil war and needless deaths. If not, then Stark and Syren would simply leave and head to the Gulf of Aden. And then he could return to Ullapool and Maggie.
    â€œFour weeks,” he said aloud, though no one was topside to hear him. Four weeks of patrolling waters he