Laura walked through the tall grass, rustling and crashing with every step. Her small frame was resolute but unsteady as the midnight dew soaked into her jeans and hiking boots. She scanned the dim beam of her father's old flashlight over the waves of Wyoming prairie, poking small holes in the night. The waning moon cast just enough cold light to make out the shapes of the rest of the search party walking slowly through the field, flashlight beams criss-crossing.

Laura cupped her hand to her mouth and called out, "Amy!" Scattered voices echoed her across the field and into the stand of trees. "Amy! Where are you?"

Laura stomped closer to her father. He pulled his hand out of the pocket of his canvas work coat and held it out. Laura took it, rough, warm, and comforting. She lifted her flashlight and wiped the tears from her cheek with her cold knuckles.

Another voice cried out. "Amy! Amy!"

Laura's voice emerged as a hoarse whisper. "Are we... do you think we'll ever...?" She pictured her older sister's face and paused to hold back a sob, her shoulders shaking.

Her father stared straight ahead, his face tight. "We'll find her."

Laura woke in her stateroom, gasping for breath.

August 18th, Vancouver Island

She threw her covers open and sat upright. The sound of the open ocean and a cool breeze drifted in through her open balcony door. The ship rocked and vibrated gently. Laura calmed her breathing and felt her heart slow. She scanned the room and found it empty. She shook her head and massaged her temples to clear the nightmare, an echo of her trauma. She swung her feet and planted them on the floor, making her way to the bathroom to shower.

A few minutes later, she stepped out of the stone tiled double shower and wrapped herself in a towel. She stopped to look at herself in the long mirror floating above the marble vanity before fishing the hair dryer out of a drawer below. She turned it on expecting a half-sized noise maker and was greeted instead by a quiet stream of hot air from the hefty, full sized dryer. Is this one of the perks of a woman captain? Thought Laura.

Laura opened her laptop and scrolled through a torrent of emails. She was interrupted by a soft knock at the door. She opened the door to her steward Francis, holding a silver tray and impeccably dressed despite the early hour. "Good morning, Laura! How was your first night aboard? To your satisfaction?"

Laura held the door open. "Yes, thanks. Dinner was lovely. Sablefish, wine, and foie gras. The hedonic treadmill at work."

Francis laughed easily as he set the tray down on the coffee table. "I think sometimes the kitchen has fun trying to outdo themselves." He straightened again. "But what is the hedonic treadmill?"

Laura smiled. "Thanks for this. Seriously. I can't function before coffee." She paused. "It's the idea that people will adjust to anything. Your circumstances change, but your happiness always finds a way back to some kind of baseline. To a starving woman, plain rice might be a feast. A rich person needs wine pairings to be as happy."

He blinked. "Hm. Chasing a high, basically?"

"You got it."

Francis smirked. "Could be the name of the ship."

"There he is!"

He colored slightly. "Sorry. I shouldn't say that kind of thing to a guest."

"No, please do. I like people that speak their mind."

He let a breath out between his pursed lips. "Oh thank God."

"You're safe here, Francis. And you should sleep soundly knowing that when the revolution comes, you won't be hanging from a lamppost."

Francis stifled a laugh and started toward the door. "Enjoy your breakfast, Laura." He glided down the hallway and the door closed behind him with a soft click.

Laura sat in her Eames lounge chair and looked out at the ocean before removing plastic from the small ceramic creamer and pouring it into her dark coffee. It bloomed into swirls and marbled lace, like a small prayer for the day. She lifted the warm mug and took a long drink, then moved on to her plate of eggs and hash browns.

Breakfast done, she opened her laptop again and finished her coffee, re-reading her outline of Cecaelia's security assessment.

Focus areas and questions

Passenger screening and checks at embarkation

Employee background checks / vetting

Bridge security, while underway vs. in port

Reactor access. Is it protected against meltdown? Theft? Physically hardened?

Size of security team, qualifications. Armaments? Supplies for riot control? Practices for adverse environments (piracy??)

...

The list continued.

As if on cue, her room phone trilled softly. "Good morning, Laura. It's Rohit. The captain has requested your presence on the bridge."

"Thanks. How do I make my way there?"

"Take the elevator to the top deck, I'll meet you there and take you up through the service elevator."

Moments later, Laura stood in the service elevator. Rohit tapped his badge on a neck lanyard against a card reader that chimed and pulsed green. They slowly moved upward and Laura scanned the inside of the elevator, painted institutional beige with a hard metal floor. The doors opened.

The front of the Bridge curved around them, a wall of floor to ceiling windows, tilted forward for a view below. A line of large screens swept in front of the windows, lit up with navigational charts and weather satellite data. The middle of the bridge split into clusters of standing height work stations, each with their own screen, keyboard, and handset phone with a long coiled cord. Officers in white uniforms and white shoes stood in front of them while others were gathered in a circle talking quietly.

Laura and Helen spotted each other from across the room, Helen dressed in a crisp white uniform. Helen smiled, an unrestrained joyful smile that took over her entire face.

"Laura! I'm so glad you made it!" Helen threw her arms wide.

Laura strode forward and hugged Helen.

Helen stepped back and rested her hands on Laura's shoulders. "How long has it been? It must be years by now. I really mean it, I'm glad you're here."

"Too long. I'm glad I'm here, too. It's a change of scenery. I've never been on a ship this size before."

"I didn't know that!" She lowered her hands to her sides. "I'm a little jealous. Your first time on a real ship is magical. Mine was on a US Navy destroyer. Maybe I'm doubly jealous, because this is a hell of a lot nicer. I'll show you around the bridge in a minute. Then, Rohit can show you around the rest of the ship."

"Thanks. DId you get my assessment outline?"

Helen nodded. "Yep. I made sure our security chief, Smith, blocked her afternoon today too. Hopefully you'll be done with your assessment with some time to actually enjoy the cruise. I'm sure you haven't had much of a break with your company taking off."

Laura sighed. "I haven't, really. Let's keep our fingers crossed."

Helen stepped back and cleared her throat. "All officers on the bridge, please huddle up." The group wheeled around and gathered into a loose circle as Helen waved them in. "I would like to introduce you to Laura Constantine. She is an old friend of mine. But more importantly, she is an ex-FBI officer and runs a very successful security consulting firm."

Helen scanned the group and made eye contact with each person in turn. "She is our guest on board to assess our readiness and our security. If she needs something, please give it to her. Consider that a standing order. Dismissed." The group broke apart again.

Helen gave Laura a tour of the bridge. She pointed out the compass, mounted on a large steel column. The electronic chart system took up a large screen dense with data. "The entire bridge system is integrated." She swept her hand around the room. "There are redundant analog displays for some of the instruments, but everything is tied together by software."

"We're on autopilot now, it's maintaining our bearing. It can even correct our rudders and thrust for the impact of weather. The compass, radar, echo sounder, satellite navigation, and chart system all work together. It makes our jobs a little easier."

Laura paused. "You know, I really didn't know what to expect on the bridge. I knew it wasn't reasonable, but a corner of my brain was really expecting a huge wood-and-brass wheel to steer the entire thing."

They both laughed. "Well, we do have a steering wheel." She pointed to a small wheel attached to the front of a cabinet covered in switches and lights. "I guess it's technically wood." She shrugged. "But we don't use it much."

"Professional curiosity, so forgive me here. But if someone wanted to commandeer the ship, how difficult would it be to control? How do you lock down the bridge when you're underway?"

"Don't apologize! You're here to work." Helen gestured at the doors to the back of the bridge, and the elevator. "The doors can be locked remotely with a silent alarm, and are sturdy. The elevator would be recalled to this floor and won't open. The ship itself would take a lot of figuring out. Our integrated bridge is proprietary. Their best bet would be to hold half of the bridge crew at gunpoint. A hijacking, I guess. But our doors would be locked at the first whiff of a threat. Smith will see to that."

Moments later, Laura was riding another beige elevator with Rohit. He smiled like a proud father. "Ready to see a nuclear reactor?"

Laura nodded. "I've been curious about it. I'm sure a lot of people are."

The elevator doors swished open to a metal platform at the top of the reactor room, painted shining gloss white. Laura stepped forward, looking down at the reactor's cylindrical bulk and leaning her elbows on the railing. Fans and pumps hummed and hissed below, and protruding reflected back with high visibility yellow paint.

"I would imagine you have questions about the reactor. Everyone does."

"Of course." She scanned the large space, but the curved walls of the reactor were nondescript. "I can't tell much from what we're looking at. How does it actually work?"

"Sure. But first, I'll start with the why. You didn't ask, but it's important. We have a clientele that cares about the environment, and sustainability. At the same time, they want to see sensitive landscapes like glaciers and fjords. Many of these sensitive areas, like Svalbard in Norway, have started to ban oil-powered cruise ships. More bans will be coming. A large cruise ship uses 80,000 gallons of fuel oil a day. It's a staggering amount, actually."

A technician in a navy blue jumpsuit turned sideways to walk behind them, and made his way down the metal stairs toward the reactor.

"The reactor itself is a molten salt reactor, or an MSR. The design has been around since the 1960s, when the United States built one to power an airplane. This is a newer generation technology that uses spent fuel from other power plants as fuel. It's inherently safe. The reactor isn't attached directly to the engines. It powers a turbine electrical generator." He gestured to a thick trace of cables along the wall. "That electricity powers the ship's systems and the electric propulsion for the ship." He gestured to a pair of metal ducts. "The reactor heat also heats our living spaces and water onboard the ship."

"Interesting." Said Laura. "Can the reactor be made unsafe or forced into a meltdown?"

"No, it's designed to make a meltdown impossible."

"What if it were stolen and used for a dirty bomb?"

He laughed, and it echoed on the hard walls before being sucked away by the whirring equipment. "It's the size of a small building and encased in concrete shielding. You would need to take the whole ship apart around it."

"What if the ship was steered into a port at high speed? Someone forced the ship into a crash? Would the reactor rupture?"

He paused to think. "No. The shell is basically an armored box inside the ship. Similar designs are used to transport fuel rods by truck or rail. They're tested to withstand the force of a diesel locomotive crashing directly into them."

She leaned a little further forward on the railing to get a better view. "Thanks. All of those things are reassuring."

"I'll be honest, I had my doubts at first. But when you think about it, an oil powered ship is dangerous. Fuel is flammable. It can leak from ruptured tanks. It produces carbon monoxide. It's just a risk we know, and this is a new risk we aren't familiar with... yet."

Rohit escorted her to Smith's security office. The space was medium sized, painted gray with gray carpeting. Fluorescent tubes hung above them, half turned off. Two security guards sat in navy uniforms with shoulder patches, watching security camera feeds. Smith walked forward to meet them.

"Jacqueline Smith." She said, extending her hand. She had intricate acrylic nails. She was middle aged, short but solid, and standing with her feet shoulder width apart.

"Laura Constantine. Happy to finally meet you."

"It took long enough!" Said Jacqueline. She laughed. "If the whole point is a security assessment, Helen should have sent you down here day one."

"I agree, but it's good to get an overview. I hope you don't mind, by the way. I can imagine it's a little intrusive."

Jacqueline swatted the concern away. "Nah, don't worry about it. I was a detective in the Boston PD before this. We had all kinds of outside attention, all the time. Everyone wanted to see how we did our job, or how we should be doing it better." She leaned in a little closer. "Honestly? Officer to sister officer? I was planning to use you as the bad guy to ask for more equipment."

Laura suppressed a laugh. "I appreciate your honesty. I would have done the same. It always sounds better coming from outside."

"I heard you were in the FBI before this. Outside of stealing my cases, I had a lot of respect for you guys."

"Thanks." Said Laura. "Can you tell me about your team?"

"Of course. I have nine officers on my team. That gives me two scheduled officers on duty, 24/7, with coverage for a sick person every now and again."

"What is their background?"

Jacqueline tilted her head in thought. "Four are ex-civilian police. Three are ex-military. Two were security guards for events. Most are from the US, but two are from the UK military and one was a police officer in Malaysia."

"Got it. What kind of camera coverage do you have?"

"Excellent. Common areas and elevators are at 100%, most of them with multiple angles."

"How long do you store it?"

"30 days."

"What is your armament? Are you allowed to be armed?"

Jacqueline paused. "It's a complicated question. We're chartered under a Barbados flag, but we leave from a US port and have US ownership. So, we follow US federal gun laws. But, Canada and some other countries don't like our officers to be armed. So, officers are unarmed on the ship. We do keep a gun safe."

"Can you show me?"

"No problem. Over here." They walked to a corner of the room, where a large steel cabinet rested. Jacqueline punched in a combination and the door swung open on oiled hinges. "We have two Steyr Scout rifles in .308, and two Remington 870 shotguns in police riot spec. They're stocked with less-than-lethal rounds in addition to buckshot and slugs. They're our go-to for a big disturbance on board. We'd load them up with bean bags." She pointed to a top shelf with rows of ammunition. "We also have pepper spray. The rifles are for threats in the middle distance, like a boarding pirate."

Laura suppressed a smirk. "Growing up, I thought pirates were just something from the 1800s. But now they're back."

"You bet your ass." Jacqueline put her hand on her hip. "But we're covered for anti-piracy measures."

Laura tilted her head. "How?"

"It depends on the location. If we're in a high threat area, like the coast of West Africa, we'll unroll some razor wire around the edges of the deck to deter boarding. We'll have fire hoses ready to knock them over. If push comes to shove, we would engage them with the rifles. We can bring on additional armed security from contractors if we need more."

"Makes sense. Thanks for filling me in. Let's hope you never have to use it."

"You know, I think we'd be OK. Two of our officers are amazing shots. I think the pirates can fuck around and find out." They both shared a laugh.