Finding Nova Read online

  Finding Nova

  NCIS Series

  Zoe Dawson

  Finding Nova

  Copyright © 2021 by Karen Alarie

  Cover Art © Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  OTHER TITLES BY ZOE DAWSON

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my beta readers, reviewers and editor for helping with this book, and especially Lisa Fournier. As always, you guys are the best.

  To all the crabbers on the Bearing and all those who make rescue their business.

  Chapter One

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday! Dear God. Someone help us!”

  The terrified static mixed call from a woman’s voice burst into the cockpit of the MH-60T Jayhawk chopper where Lieutenant Commander Nova Michaels and her team were battling eighty-knot winds, which translated to ninety miles per hour, in a storm that had caught them about a hundred miles from their home base on Kodiak, Alaska.

  It was February in Alaska, smack dab in the middle of Opilio Crab Season, but the tasty crustaceans were marketed for Americans as delicious snow crab. The weather was iffy at best, but they were low on fuel and had just come from medevacking four crew members and the captain from a fishing vessel that had gone down due to mechanical failure two hundred miles off the coast of St. Paul. It was imperative that Nova get the chopper and her crew back on solid ground for rest and refueling.

  But the woman’s frantic voice on the other end of the radio changed her plans. Nova said, “Mayday vessel, identify yourself. This is Coast Guard seven two five eight. State your position.” Nothing but static. Nova tried again. “This is Lieutenant Commander Nova Michaels, Coast Guard Rescue seven two five eight!”

  She looked out into the howling black vacuum of night, the seas heaving, the waves monstrous and white capped. The Bering Sea was a bitch most of the time, but she had upped her game, joining with Jack Frost to cause even more mayhem on the fishermen who chose to make a living off her waters. Her co-pilot Lieutenant Chad Gaffney, flight mechanic Petty Officer Ben DeBerry, hypothermic expert Dr. Kelly Hu, and rescue swimmer Petty Officer Jason Hollow, all knew the scenario.

  Even if a crewman was lucky enough to escape the perilous confines of an ill-fated vessel and avoided getting sucked into the pull of the sinking hull of a gigantic, crab-laden craft, the odds were highly stacked against him. A survival suit was mandatory for anyone working on commercial vessels on the Bering. Without the insulation of a survival suit, the person would lose consciousness in minutes and drown. With the suit, they could last upwards of nineteen hours.

  Lieutenant Gaffney was on the radio to base, while Nova continued to repeat her instructions into her headset. Then, a lucid voice came over the radio. “Coast Guard! Thank God! This is Captain Scott Dees of the Monterrey! We’re taking on water! Iceberg punched a hole in the hull! We’re crab heavy! Over!”

  Dees radioed his coordinates. Then, Nova looked at Chad, his face illuminated by the instruments in the cockpit. “That’s a stretch from here.”

  Nova looked at the fuel gauge. “It looks like we can make it. Do you concur?”

  She wrestled with the controls as they were buffeted by the gale-force winds through the merciless cold of the sudden arctic storm out of the north-west, winds packing chill-factor temperatures of minus thirty degrees and williwaw gusts that shook the chopper to its rivets.

  “It’s cutting it real close, ma’am. They’re dispatching Indomitable, but I don’t think the cutter will reach them in time.”

  “How many on board?” she asked the distressed vessel.

  “Six total—four males, two females. Awaiting instructions—are you able to help us? Over?” The static crackled through the open mic, and Nova faintly heard the creak of the vessel, the heavy freight train sound of the waves.

  “The crab pots are overboard, skipper,” someone yelled.

  “We’re in our survival suits.”

  The helicopter was at minimum fuel for the rescue attempt. This was her call whether to continue or return to base. They barely had the fuel to make the rescue and return to St. Paul. It was risky. So many things could go wrong and those fishermen’s lives, as well as her own crews’ lives, were in her hands.

  “Hang on, Monterrey. We are in-bound ETA or estimated time of arrival, five minutes. Stay with the ship as long as possible.”

  She knew how to handle these conditions. Only four months ago, Nova had finished a four-year stint in Clearwater, Florida, where hypothermia wasn’t as much of a threat to lives as it was in this frozen place.

  From the moment Nova had seen the big birds in the skies over her hometown of Unalaska, near the bustling port of Dutch Harbor, she’d wanted to fly. It was times like this that she knew she was just where she was meant to be. She was doing what she loved, and she was damn good at it. She banked the chopper sharply to the right and wrestled the bucking controls into submission. As if the helicopter was a part of her, she hit the headings of the coordinates and accelerated toward the failing Monterrey.

  Captain Logan Buchanan, skipper of the 125-foot fishing vessel F/V Beyond the Blarney, heard the frantic mayday call burst from his CB radio from the sinking Monterrey, thirty-six nautical miles away. He had just unloaded his tanks only four hours ago and he had been dropping pots until the storm had blown in. They were presently soaking, and the Blarney was crab pot free. He was now sheltering his craft from the worst of the weather on the leeward side of St. George Island.

  “Monterrey, this is Blarney. Hang tight! We are in route.”

  “Logan! Thank you! We could really use your help about now. I’ll owe you a drink. Over,” Blarney Captain Scott Dees said.

  Logan got the boat underway while Declan, his brother and deck boss, woke the crew. He heard him yelling, “Everyone wake up and get dressed. We’ve got a ship in distress.”

  “Hold on, Scott. We’re coming.”

  As the Blarney crew started to muster in the wheelhouse, Logan kept the crabber pointed into the roiling waves, his gut clenching at what the skipper and crew of the Monterrey must be experiencing. Once everyone was assembled, he said, “It’s some rough weather out there, boys. I’m going to need someone to get up on the flying bridge and keep a lookout. Rotate out. I don’t want any frostbite!”

  They all nodded, and he heard his other brother, Callahan, pipe up. “I’ll take the first watch.”

  Declan stood behind Logan and anxiously looked out to sea. “It’s going to be bad if they go down in this,” he said.

  “I have them on the radar, and there’s a Coast Guard chopper in the area. We’ve got this covered.”

  From the flying bridge, Callahan called out, “I see something flashing
in our lights. Slow down.”

  Logan cut power and the commanding engines of the Blarney softened. Above the roar of the waves, Logan heard the distinct swish of powerful rotor blades, then the light from a distinct white and red Coast Guard chopper burst up over the tops of some huge waves.

  At the same moment that they saw the Monterrey, all of them made a collective gasp of horror. The ship, the engines dead, was pushed sideways into the waves. There was no way for Dees to maneuver. As the waves pitched and rolled, the chopper’s strong light illuminated the Monterrey; ice covered the wallowing vessel at least ten inches thick. A wave hit the struggling crabber, and it knocked the deck to a sloping forty-five degrees. Crew members were tossed into the churning sea, and Logan shouted into the mic, “Men overboard!”

  His crew started to scramble, careful on the ice-slick deck, reaching for life preservers. The big helo’s door opened and for only a heartbeat, the rescue swimmer flashed in the doorway, then he plummeted to the roiling sea below. As he hit the water, he focused on the closest man. Using his powerful body, he plowed through the churning waves, determined to reach the man in time.

  The bow of the Monterrey bobbed, bow up, and started to sink to the bottom in a steady, doomed motion. The full length of the ship disappeared into the dark sea, with nothing but a glimpse of her stern showing above the whipping water breaking hard against the hull. Logan watched helplessly as someone tried to swim valiantly away, but as the seas rolled, the glimpse of an orange suit was obscured. The next set of dips revealed the figure bobbing for just an instant, then disappearing beneath the surface. Sick at the sight, Logan said a prayer for the hapless person. There was no escaping the grip of the ocean once a ship went down.

  A basket emerged from the chopper and started to lower, a meticulous procedure that took time that these people might not have. Logan expertly piloted his boat close enough that his crew could get two survivors aboard. Overcome by the cold, and weak from their battle with the sea, the survivors had to be supported as they were taken inside to the warmth. One of them was a pale-faced woman. Logan could tell they were already hypothermic. They were out of the water but not out of danger.

  Meanwhile, the chopper’s swimmer never hesitated or paused. He swam to the remaining man, got him in the basket, and he was hoisted up. Then they got the swimmer out of the water.

  “Coast Guard chopper, this is Captain Logan Buchanan of the fishing vessel Beyond the Blarney. We have two Monterrey crew aboard. They need medical attention. Unfortunately, one of the crew has gone down with the ship. No signs of him coming back up.”

  “Roger, Blarney,” a sultry female voice crackled over the CB, her tone grim. “Get them on deck and we will bring them aboard.” As the instructions went back and forth, a young woman burst into the wheelhouse, startling Logan. “I’m Bethany Dees. Where’s my dad? Where’s my sister?”

  Logan adjusted the Blarney to keep the mast away from the hovering chopper as a basket descended. He turned to her, realizing that it was her father, the captain, who had gone under with the ship. He slipped his arm around the pale, shaking woman. “I’m sorry. He’s gone. I haven’t seen your sister.”

  She backed away from him, her face contorted. “No! You have to go back for them. You can’t leave them out there like that! There has to be something you can do. You’re leaving them to die!”

  “Bethany, I’m sorry, so sorry,” he said, trying to comfort her, but she stepped back, her face bleak, anger and hatred darkening her eyes as she shivered violently.

  “You can’t let them die like that,” she whispered. “Cold and alone. You can’t.” Her eyes went wide, and she turned and ran out of the cabin. Logan pursued her. As she hit the deck, her slight body flashing in the light from the chopper, he could see she was heading for the rail. She was going back in!

  “Stop her,” he yelled above the crash of the waves and the roar of the chopper, but no one could hear him. She pelted to the rail and slipped on the icy deck. Declan turned as she gained her feet. Logan shouted at his brother, “Dec! Stop her!”

  Declan looked at Logan, then his eyes widened as he took two steps to the floundering woman and grabbed her around the waist. She fought him, but she was too weak and too exhausted. He hauled her away just as Logan got there.

  “I hate you,” she screamed. “I hate you both.” Her face crumpled, and she sobbed, “Daddy! Daddy!” Logan pulled her against him and held her hard, meeting the stricken and sad eyes of his brother. They both knew the pain of losing a father at sea, and Logan wrestled with his own feelings as he comforted her as best he could. Together they steered her toward the stern of the boat and to the waiting basket. She needed medical care.

  The helicopter team, assisted by the Blarney crew, brought each one up into the belly of the Jayhawk. When the last man was hoisted up, the radio crackled again.

  “Many thanks, Blarney, for your assistance!”

  “Glad to be of help,” he radioed back, his heart heavy as the chopper took off in a roar of its engines toward St. Paul. He couldn’t help but admire the skill of the sultry-voiced pilot as she’d adeptly handled the big bird. Now it was a race against time and hypothermia for the people they saved. As Logan, his brothers, and crew dried off, warmed up, and huddled inside the galley, they all said a silent prayer.

  Nova powered toward shore, their fuel consumption cut in half by the heroic efforts of the men aboard the Blarney. The only woman in the back called out that her sister was still out there, and she heard Hollow assure her that they would go back out to look for her. They weren’t giving up. Nova tried to block out the girl’s heart-wrenching sobs as she focused on piloting the helicopter and getting them back to land safely. She knew Petty Officer Hollow would comfort the woman, and they would go back and look for her sister. Unfortunately, Nova could only hope they would find the girl alive.

  A commotion pulled her away from her thoughts. The woman was beating on the back of Nova’s flight chair.

  “You can’t leave my sister to die! You’ve already killed my father! Turn around. You’ve got to find her.” She could hear the sounds of the woman being subdued. She could hear Dr. Hu trying to talk to Bethany, but it didn’t sound like it was working.

  “Hollow?” Nova said through her mic.

  Hollow replied, “Doc gave her a sedative. We got it under control.”

  Nova’s heart went out to the poor girl. It was understandable why she would be so upset. She was glad Lieutenant Hu had signed on. The doctor she had replaced was good at his job, but his bedside manner was seriously lacking. In contrast, Kelly’s soothing tone told her the woman was in good hands.

  There was absolutely nothing they could have done for her father. She couldn’t send a rescue swimmer anywhere near that ship. He, too, would have drowned. She regretted it, as anyone with compassion would, but that couldn’t factor into her decision. She was here to give anyone still alive the best chance of survival, and she knew that she couldn’t save everyone. That was the reality of being in the kind of job she was in. Hard decisions had to be made, and she made them. Going after the woman’s sister to save one life might forfeit ten.

  But it didn’t make it any easier to accept.

  She looked down to see the Blarney powering away. The captain of the crabber had bravely and expertly maneuvered the huge boat, his crew worked in drenching conditions in an icy arctic storm to save half the distressed crew. As they flew through a thick, white fog, the knifing end of the arctic wind ripped the controls out of Nova’s hand and spun the chopper for three revolutions. Frantically, as the centrifugal force pushed her back, she grabbed the stick and fought for control of the spinning helo. With every shred of her training, she managed to get the Jayhawk under control. A heavy silence descended in the aircraft as she realized that the wind had increased to 120 knots and they were caught up in the gusts as helplessly as a kite. They were barely moving and burning fuel too fast. She instinctively jerked the stick at the same time, accelerating h
igher.

  Lieutenant Gaffney had been watching the fuel gauge the whole time and he said, “We’re on empty.” The engines cut out about the same time Nova could see the landing pad on base. They were still too far away to consider landing. The second the engines stopped, Nova grasped the collective, a flight control lever, and lowered it, removing drag, disengaging the clutch. They started to descend immediately. At the same time freewheeling happened, the rotor increased tempo. Nova calmly made the necessary adjustments to go into autorotation where the wind currents would allow her to safely land the chopper. She had done this so many times in flight simulation that there was only a touch of butterflies in her stomach. She had to stay the course for the safety of the crew and passengers.

  As Lieutenant Gaffney keyed his mic, he said, “St. Paul, this is Coast Guard seven two five eight coming in hot. No engine, autorotation engaged.”

  “Coast Guard seven two five eight. You are cleared to land. Confirming medical personnel are standing by.”

  “Brace for impact,” Nova said as she pulled back on the flight stick and slowed the aircraft. But the chopper only made a slight bump as it touched down, slid a few feet, and came to a halt.

  Emergency vehicles, lights flashing, pulled up and her crew began to unload the Monterrey crew members.

  Nova grabbed her gear and exited the chopper, all three of her crew members gave her a nod of approval. Her body still pumping with adrenaline and sympathy for the victims, she took a deep breath, thankful for the safe return of all on board her bird. As she made it to the nearest building while her chopper was being refueled in the gusting winds and flying snow, she didn’t even feel the cold.