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leveraged everything I own and it isn’t insured!”
    Everything clicked into place—the anger, the blame-laying. Foster suddenly understood why he’d done this, why he’d risked the lives of everyone on board rather than jettison the barge. There had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake—
    —and he’ll see us all dead before giving it up.
    The engineer saw it, too, and Foster could tell that it wasn’t going to stop him. Steve moved again towards the door.
    Everton pulled back the hammer smoothly, cocking the long barreled .455 Webley.
    Steve shook his head in exasperation. “I go out that door, you’ll shoot me; I stay here, we all drown!”
    The captain couldn’t hear him, just as he hadn’t heard Foster or Woods. “I’m warning you, mister!”
    Steve glared at him for another second and Foster held her breath, wondered if she could make it to Everton in time; a step and a jump, he wasn’t looking at her . . .
    Steve turned and grabbed for the door just as the Sea Star was pitched forward suddenly, throwing them all across the bridge.
    Foster hit the console, bounded off into the same railing that caught Everton; she heard Woods trip and fall behind them. Steve was tossed against the side of the stairwell and came up fast, ready to charge the captain.
    They all heard it then, the whiplike, springing thwapp of cabled steel snapping.
    Foster looked through the storming night and saw the shredded cable give, lash across the top deck to tear out more of the safety railing and knock the cheap aluminum lifeboat off its mount. The small boat was immediately torn away by the storm—and the heavy barge disappeared behind a swell, lost from view.
    Seconds ticked by and the Star kicked up, gave them all a clear view of the cargo barge as it slipped beneath the waves. Everton’s obsession was gone.
    For a moment, nobody spoke, all of them staring out at the vast and blustering sea. Foster could feel the change, imagined they all could—the Sea Star had more power, had lightened suddenly and smoothed in the turbulence. The waters were still rough, but without the drag of the container barge, their chances had improved about a hundred percent.
    Foster looked at Captain Everton, who dropped his gaze to the revolver in his hand as if he didn’t understand how it had gotten there. After a moment, he eased the hammer down and reholstered the weapon.
    Steve stared at the captain, his eyes bright and flashing with anger. “Let me tell you something,” he said softly, and took a menacing step towards Everton, hands tightening into fists. “If you ever pull a gun on me again, I’ll . . .”
    “You’ll what?” said Everton, but the fight had gone out of him. He seemed defeated, his shoulders slumped.
    Foster moved past the captain and took Steve’s arm, pulled him back towards the ladder. Everton still had the weapon, and the tempers were too high, the storm too strong, for them to lose their engineer.
    “You figure it out,” said Steve, but he let Foster lead him, still glaring at Everton.
    “Stand your station, Foster,” said the captain, but it came out bluff and weak; she ignored him. Getting the engineer off the bridge, getting herself off the bridge, was more important right now. Woods had the coordinates; let him deal with Everton.
    She watched Steve go down and then started after him, suddenly more tired than she could remember being in years.

    Everton watched them leave, watched Foster defy him openly, and then turned to Woods. The helmsman wouldn’t meet his gaze, but Everton was too angry to care.
    “Woods, enter in the ship’s log—oh four hundred hours, Captain Robert Everton jettisoned cargo barge to preserve the lives of Sea Star crew. Captain was unaware of impending typhoon conditions, owing to the failure of meteorologist and navigator Kelly Foster, female, to inform.”
    He turned back to the window, saw only simmering water where his future had been, and felt the anger die. It