Sedulity (Book One) Impact (6 page)

****

Lieutenant Reiner was taken by surprise when they crested the
wave and the ship nosed over the other side. He had been climbing the deck, up
into the casino one second, shouting for everyone to hold onto something, and
the next second he was falling through the casino towards the blackjack tables.
He watched others go through the same transition from up to down, all but a few
losing their footing or handholds to tumble towards the bow. Some of the slot
machines even broke loose from their bolts and tumbled into the mix, crushing
several passengers.

Then, when Reiner thought it couldn’t get worse, the flood
that had flowed aft when the bow was pointed towards the sky came rushing back,
carrying all manner of debris, including dead bodies and terrified people who had
been swept up in the surge of water. The torrent swept through the casino,
snatching more passengers, and continued forward towards the shops and theater
beyond. Reiner scrambled up onto a blackjack table and stared in mute horror as
churning seawater and debris swirled by beneath it.

****

Lydia thought she knew what to expect, but it still came as a
surprise when the ship briefly leveled out and then tilted forward. She seemed
to float up out of her seat and her stomach tried to leap into her mouth. Hundreds
of screams echoed through the theater. She knew that many of the passengers
interpreted this drop as the ship plunging towards the bottom of the ocean.
While she knew intellectually that they were just riding back down a monster
wave, she wasn’t completely convinced the ship would level out again at the
bottom.

While these thoughts, sounds and sensations of fear filled
her senses, another terrifying threat entered the theater. The exit doors burst
off their hinges under the pressure of tons of water rushing down, towards the
bow of the ship. The theater was the destination for much of the water that the
initial wave had deposited inside the ship. The water gushed into the theater
on the lower level and cascaded down from the balcony levels above. The
passengers were terrified, but most of them remained in their seats. Within
seconds the water was swirling around Lydia’s ankles and rising rapidly. She
lost her grip on the armrest of her seat and fell forward into the churning
water, drifting clumsily towards the tilted stage. 

Most of the people in the theater were still dry, although
they were thrown forward against the seatbacks in front of them, but the
traumatizing experience caused more than one heart attack and countless cases
of wet underwear. The seawater pooled at the front of the theater, flooding
only the first few rows of seats in front of the stage, but the image of
thousands of gallons of seawater flowing into the room sent the majority of
passengers gathered there into hysterics. Their screams and cries only added to
the atmosphere of disaster. Lydia wanted to do something to help calm them, but
was hard pressed to save herself by clinging onto the lip of the stage while
water spilled over it and down into the backstage clutter beyond.  

Before panic could grip her, there was another large crashing
sound and Lydia realized that the bow of the ship was digging into the ocean
again. The ship creaked under the strain of titanic forces and it was not at
all clear that it would hold together. Rapid deceleration threw Lydia across
the stage towards a dark and churning whirlpool.

****

 Kevin held his breath as the bow buried itself into the
bottom of the trough. Fortunately the wavelength of the impact generated
tsunamis were far enough apart to give the ship time to pull herself level and
try to climb the next wave. This one was much smaller, less than half the size
of the first wave, but Kevin wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.  The ship had
been able to climb up and over the first mountain of water, but it looked like
it would smash straight through this one. Captain Krystos again called out,
“Sound collision alarm!” His voice was calm and commanding. The ship’s horn and
klaxon blared defiantly.

Kevin clung to a radar console where he had fallen during the
decent down the back of the first wave and turned to watch Captain Krystos when
the
Sedulity
’s bow bit into the second wave. He was surprised at the
expression on the Captain’s face. It wasn’t fear. It was closer to wonder. The
Captain almost seemed to smile as the ship cut through the second wave. Walls
of whitewater hundreds of feet high leapt aside when the ship tore into the mammoth
swell.  Again the Bridge Wings were flooded through the broken windows, but the
armored windshields in front of the Bridge took a mighty beating and held
together. For a second the ship became a submarine. Then it broke free of the
grasp of the wave and shrugged off the water engulfing her, climbing up and
over what remained of the wave and dropping back into the next trough.

Another wave loomed ahead, but this one was much smaller than
the last two, no more threatening than your typical hundred and fifty foot
rogue wave.  In other words, a deadly threat to most vessels, something that no
sailor ever hoped to face, but far less deadly than the two monster waves the
Sedulity
had already survived.  The ship smashed through this one with a mighty shudder
and heave that made the bow rise sharply, but then cut cleanly through the face
of the wave and emerged upon an almost flat sea beyond.

The flooded Bridge quickly drained through the shattered wing
windows and storm scuppers. The Captain turned to survey the damage around him.
Water had briefly risen higher than most of the consoles and instrument panels
during their passage through the second wave, causing electrical short circuits
and puffs of smoke. Fortunately, most of the critical electronics gear was
secured in waterproof housings that seemed to have survived, but other
equipment was clearly compromised.  “Status report, Mr. Crawford?” he called
out.

“Unclear, sir,” the First Officer replied while staring at a
bank of wall mounted displays. “Flooding alarms on most decks, even the upper
ones, but not nearly as many fire alarms as before. I can’t tell if the fires
are out or the relay circuits are blown. Watertight doors are all closed.
Automatic pumps have activated in twelve zones. Over a thousand automated
sprinklers and fire suppression systems are active. Water pressure is marginal
and falling. Main generators are offline, but backup power is functioning.
Engineering reports moderate flooding from above, pumps and damage control
parties activated. We also have automatic shutdown of power pods one and four.
Main generators offline. No casualty reports yet, sir.”

“Very well,” the Captain responded in a calm and level tone.
“Maintain steerage speed with pods two and three, steady as she goes. Request
status reports from all engineering spaces. Mobilize all able-bodied crew to
assist passengers and continue damage control.” Then he turned towards Kevin
and said, “So, weatherman, what comes next?”

****

Chapter 5:

NORAD and US Space Command were the
first onshore entities to sound the alarm. Their satellites reported a massive
nuclear detonation in mid-ocean, sending the entire US military to DEFCON 3.
Radar tracking and reports from US military bases and ships in the Pacific,
especially the Pacific Missile Test Range, quickly flowed in to confirm an
event, but altered the categorization from NUDET to astronomical impact. Their
warnings were classified Top Secret and forwarded to the Pentagon and White
House. NASA and JPL at Cal Tech also sent classified warnings within minutes of
impact. Those with access to this data, as well as a delayed alarm from the
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, were apparently paralyzed by shock or
disbelief. No press release or Emergency Broadcast System announcement was
issued in the first hour of the crisis. This oversight may have cost millions
of lives. The clock was ticking.

“Rain and fire,” Kevin answered the Captain’s question,
pointing towards the rapidly expanding clouds roiling towards the ship from the
point of impact. Hundreds of lightning bolts flitted through the clouds,
illuminating them as if for a light show, and cracking down to strike the sea.
Flaming trails like small meteors, or artillery rockets, also fell out of the
clouds and created plumes of steam wherever they hit the water.

“What is happening?” the awestruck Captain asked.

“The vaporized seawater, cubic miles of it, along with ejecta
from the seafloor and the asteroid itself, all got expelled into the upper
atmosphere.  As the superheated water vapor cools it will condense into clouds,
producing massive amounts of rain. The molten solids ejected by the impact are also
falling and it looks like they are still quite hot,” Kevin explained.

 “So it’s not over yet,” Captain Krystos said as a statement
of fact, not a question.  They stood together on the Bridge, surrounded by
equally stunned officers and crew, watching yet another unimaginable phenomena
bare down on the ship and wondering how much more punishment the
Sedulity
could withstand.  “Mr. Crawford,” the Captain said loudly. “If the intercoms
are still working, notify the crew to prepare for foul weather and maintain
fire watch. Inform the passengers to remain inboard on the lower decks near
their lifeboat muster stations.” Lowering his voice he turned to Kevin and
asked, “What more can we do?”

Kevin Summers shrugged and whispered, “Pray.” 

****

Amanda Summers was bruised and terrified, but relieved that
the roller coaster ride appeared to be over. The water that had rushed up and
down the halls was gone now, much of it pouring down the staircase where she
and her daughter clung.  The smoke that had filled the hallways a few minutes
earlier had also dissipated. She could still hear screams and panicked shouts
echoing up the stairwell from lower decks, but took that as proof that others
had survived the ordeal. Her attention was now focused on little Emily who continued
to cry in fear and confusion.

“It’s okay, baby,” Amanda crooned. “Mommy’s here. We’re going
to be fine, darling.”

“I want my Daddy!” Emily protested. “Where’s my Daddy?”

“Daddy will be here soon. Don’t worry, baby. Daddy is fine.
Everything will be fine.” Amanda said those words with soothing conviction,
although she feared that she was lying to her daughter and herself. How in the
world could anything be
fine
after what they had just gone through?  Was
Kevin really okay up there on the Bridge?  Was the ship sinking even now? If
so, would she get any warning before the waters rose to engulf her and her
daughter in the stairwell where they cowered?  Should they go down to the
lifeboat muster stations? Or climb up the stairs towards the Bridge? She was frozen
by indecision and clung to Emily for comfort as much as the child clung to her.

****

 Armando found it hard to accept that he was still alive. It
was a miracle. The wave he hid from in the elevator was like a mountain that
should have driven the ship straight to the bottom of the ocean as easily as a
man’s boot would squish a bug and with even less effort. Divine intervention
must have carried the ship up and over the liquid mountain and allowed the
Sedulity
to survive encounters with two more massive waves that swept the ship’s decks,
even twelve stories above sea level.

He remained in the elevator after the waves had subsided and
the ship leveled out, staring down into the atrium where the fires had been
extinguished by the brief cataracts of water pouring in from almost every deck.
The spectacle he witnessed from the glass elevator, poised over the atrium, was
straight out of a high budget disaster movie. Furniture still floated around
the main lobby twelve decks below, but the water was rapidly draining down
stairwells to the lowest decks. Armando could only hope the ship’s pumps were
still functioning and could handle the flooding.

Too stunned and confused to move, Armando found himself
thinking back on days in the Philippines spent fishing with his father as a
boy. His father was a commercial fisherman on a tuna boat that went far out to
sea for weeks at time. When he was home, however, he liked to take Armando out
fishing on the small family Bangka, or pump boat, with bamboo outriggers called
katig, and a single cylinder motor. Leaving the lagoon they would often face a
line of breaking waves that Armando’s father would skillfully pilot the little
boat over and through to reach the open sea. His father would drive the Bangka
straight up the face of the big waves and Armando always feared the boat would
be capsized or swamped. Somehow his father invariably found just the right
angle and timing to crest the wave, or break through the whitewater unscathed.
Every time they got through the waves and out onto the open sea Armando felt a
deep sense of relief.

 He knew those memories had been triggered by the way Captain
Krystos had steered the
Sedulity
up and over the unimaginable mountains
of water thrown at the ship by the asteroid strike. Armando thought he should
be feeling the same sense of relief and wellbeing that had swept through him
whenever his father had successfully taken their Bangka through the waves, but
this was different. Looking down upon the wreckage in the atrium, Armando was
still consumed by a deep feeling of dread and foreboding. In the back of his
mind he wondered what would happen to his family if the wave they just
encountered were to hit the Philippines.

****

Lieutenant Reiner thought he might drown in the casino when
the second and third waves poured into the lower decks of the ship, sloshing
fore and aft as the ship alternately dove and climbed through the monster
swells. He had seen several people swept out of the Martini Bar, through broken
windows onto the open deck, and thrown off the side of the ship into the
violent sea. Sickened by his inability to save them, Reiner had more than his
own share of trouble just keeping his head above water. He lost his handhold on
the blackjack table during the second wave and was thrown around, bouncing off
slot machines like a pinball, then carried forward with the flood like a piece
of driftwood in the surf.

The rush of water following the final wave swept him out of
the casino, down a wide hallway lined with duty-free shops, and into the
theater at the bow of the ship. It was pure chaos. Close to a thousand people
had taken refuge in the theater and hundreds of them were screaming.  Dozens
were wading or swimming in the water engulfing the first few rows of seats,
struggling to work their way higher into the stands. Reiner found himself
riding a water slide down the aisle, towards the submerged stage to join their
fate. He reached out to grab the armrest of an aisle seat and almost dislocated
his shoulder arresting his momentum.  Dragging himself painfully out of the
torrent, he was assisted by a middle aged man who leaned over from several
seats away to pull him in. “Thank you,” Lt. Reiner gasped as he crawled over
the seat, glancing back at the flow of water rushing down the aisle.

“What’s happening out there?” the elderly gentleman asked
fearfully, gesturing towards the source of the water cascading into the
theater. “Are we sinking?”

“No,” Reiner shook his head. “This isn’t enough water to swamp
the ship,”
at least not yet
, he added silently. “We went through some
truly massive waves. There’s been some damage, but we should be safe for now.” 
He wanted to believe what he was telling the man, even though it was all he
could do to keep from shaking in fear. What the ship had gone through reminded
him of film from those atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll after World War Two.
He had no idea how much more punishment the
Sedulity
could take or what
else lay in store for her. At the moment his job was to reassure the passengers
and do what he could to keep them alive.

Lt. Reiner turned to look down at the stage and bottom rows
of seats where people were literally being drowned like rats by the swirling
water that still poured into the theater. While trying to think of some way to
help them he recognized the captain’s wife clinging to a rope or cable drooping
across the back of the stage. It was probably some of the safety gear for the
circus acts they put on here. Lt. Reiner wondered how long she could hold on
against the force of the water rushing past her and pouring into the mechanical
areas below. Before he could finish that thought he saw her grip fail and she
disappeared into a whirlpool, carried down and away into the depths of the
lower deck spaces.

****

Lydia held on for as long as she could. The impact from the
second wave had thrown her across the stage, but had also dislodged some of the
theatrical props, including a tightrope used by acrobats. The water pulled her
right into it and momentarily saved her from being sucked into the whirlpool
draining out of the theater through below-deck passages used by the crew. The
impact knocked the wind out of her, but her instincts kicked in and she clung
to the rope for dear life.

 Although the events of the past few minutes were terrifying,
Mrs. Krystos remained unnaturally calm. She clung to the rope and kept her head
above water, staring up at the incredible spectacle of water gushing into the
theater and rushing towards her. People and debris were carried into the
theater with the flood. Torrents spilled over the mezzanine balcony like
waterfalls. Hundreds of passengers went into hysterics, even those who were not
yet threatened by the flooding. And who could blame them? None of them had any
idea what was happening outside the theater, except that the ship had gone up
and down repeatedly. How far “down” had they ended up? Was water flooding the
theater because the ship was on its way to bottom of the ocean at this very
moment? 

Lydia wasn’t at all sure if the ship were still afloat or
not, but came to the sudden realization that it probably wouldn’t matter much
to her either way. She couldn’t hold onto the tightrope any longer. The pull of
the water rushing past was just too powerful. When she lost her grip she barely
had time to take a final deep breath before being pulled down into a whirlpool
that was draining all the water in the theater through a service hatch
backstage.  As she was sucked and spun into the bowels of the ship it dawned on
her that this must be what it would feel like to be flushed down a toilet.

****

Captain Krystos strode back and forth along the length of the
Bridge using a hand-held radio to communicate with officers scattered
throughout the ship. The imposing and impossibly fast moving clouds were about
to cover the ship, bringing rain and fire, and the Captain was still unsure how
much damage, injury and loss of life had already been inflicted upon the
Sedulity.
What he was hearing was not overly encouraging.

“What do you mean a thousand passengers never came to the
muster stations? Most decks reported all clear and I sent at least that many
down from the pool area! My wife was with them. Find out where they went! And
tell Staff Captain Stevens to contact me immediately. He’s not answering his
radio. Bridge out.” Captain Krystos changed channels without waiting for a
reply and said, “Captain to Chief Engineer, I need a status report, Scotty.” It
was a standing joke that Captain Krystos called his chief engineer
Scotty
,
even though his real name was John McKinney and he hailed from Ireland. 

A gravelly voice replied, “We’ve got flooding outside the
watertight doors of the Main Engineering Room and Generator Plants One and Two,
but we’re secure here and prioritizing power for the pump stations. Watertight
doors have contained flooding between bulkheads and I’m starting to show water
levels falling equal to pump output, except for the sections below the main
stairwells where water is still flowing down from above. I’d say the hull is
sound and damage control is working optimally. We should have Generator Plant
One back online shortly, but I can’t restore main electrical power until we
troubleshoot hundreds of short circuits caused by the flooding. Dozens of them
are up there on the Bridge, by the way – just in case you have someone who can
lend a hand. I can’t send anyone up from here until we pump out a lot more
water. If I try to open a door down here now, well, we’d all need scuba gear.
Over.”

McKinney’s style almost always made Captain Krystos laugh,
but this time he couldn’t even muster a grin as he replied, “Thanks, John. I’ll
see what we can do about troubleshooting the electronics up here. Stay focused
on damage control and bilge pumps. You’ll have to pump your own way out of
there. How about casualties?”