Sedulity (Book One) Impact

by David Forsyth

  “No, Mr. Donner, I don’t,” Reiner replied with as much patience as he could muster. “The Captain is the only one who will make that decision and only if he feels the situation warrants it. We have obviously suffered some damage and loss of life, but the ship seems to have made it through the worst of this crisis. Now it’s up to all of us to keep our heads, avoid panic, and wait for further instructions. So please calm down and don’t alarm the other passengers.”

  “Me alarm them?” the Texan sputtered. “Just look at all the water sloshing around in this boat, or take a gander at what’s left of the man who just got pulverized by a meteor! And listen to all those damned fire alarms going off! That’s what’s alarming the passengers! Now you can all sit here and wait for whatever happens next, but Hank Donner from Houston, Texas, is made of sterner stuff! I’m going out there to see what’s going on and do whatever’s necessary to take care of myself.” With that he turned and stormed out of the theater. Lt. Reiner let him go, lacking the time or interest for further argument and not prepared to try restraining him physically. Perhaps his absence would help restore calm to the rest of the passengers gathered there.

  Kevin called out for Amanda and Emily from the stairway landing on each deck as he and Petty Officer Perkins descended into the ship, but received no reply. When they reached Deck 5 they began to see more damage from fire and flooding. This was one of the public decks with large windows overlooking the lifeboats perched above Promenade Deck 4 where the muster stations were located. The lounges and shops surrounding the atrium on Deck 5 were severely damaged by flash fires, followed by flash flooding, as well as the effects of violent maneuvers when the ship encountered the monstrous waves. Several dazed passengers wandered about, most suffering various degrees of injury, but there was no sign of Kevin’s wife and daughter.

  “One more deck, Mr. Summers,” the radar man said. “If they aren’t at the muster stations, I’m not sure where else to look.” Kevin nodded noncommittally and led the way down the stairs to the Promenade Deck. Exiting the stairway Kevin turned towards his family’s assigned muster station in the Martini Bar. As soon as it came into view Kevin froze in shock. It looked like a war zone, or something from a horror movie. Charred bodies were stacked like cordwood against the bar and in corners of the room where the floodwaters had deposited them. Kevin refused to accept the possibility that his family were among the dead, but couldn’t stop himself from searching for any sign of them in the piles.

  “Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Petty Officer Perkins. “I’m sure your family isn’t one of them,” he added quickly. “These people were burned during the first blast of heat and Lieutenant Reiner reported that your wife and daughter where on Deck 10 when that blast wave struck us.”

  “He said he left them there shortly before then,” Kevin corrected, although he wanted with all his heart to agree with the radar man’s assessment. “But I think you’re right. And if they came down here later I’m sure Amanda would have taken Emily somewhere else as soon as she saw this.” Kevin turned away from the carnage in the Martini Bar and led the way into the casino, hoping that what he found there would be less horrifying.

  At least they found some living people here, even if they all seemed worse for wear. Most of the surviving passengers huddled on the floor between banks of dead slot machines. They looked like drowned rats, mixed in with bodies of those that truly had drowned. Some of the bodies were pinned under overturned slot machines, where they were either crushed or drowned to death. Most of the survivors ignored the bodies around them, obviously in shock from what they had endured here. Others were openly crying, perhaps grieving loved ones who hadn’t survived. Several members of the crew moved slowly through the casino, offering words of reassurance and minor first aid.

  Kevin was looking everywhere, but did not see any sign of his family when he and Petty Officer Perkins advanced into the casino. He was about to call out their names again when a loud and vaguely familiar voice shouted out from across the room, “Oh hell, no, not the poker table! What the hell else can go wrong on this trip?” Kevin looked over and recognized the big Texan, Hank Donner, standing next to a pile of debris that had been swept into a corner by the flooding. He appeared more distraught about the destruction of casino furniture than the human misery and loss of life surrounding him. Kevin shook his head in disgust, but continued in that direction and approached the man cautiously.

  “Excuse me, Hank is it?” Kevin asked. “Have you seen a woman with a five year old girl anywhere around here?”

  Hank looked up dejectedly and replied, “No, can’t say as I have, but I wasn’t really looking for them neither. Say, can you believe this crap? As if fireballs falling from the sky and the ship almost sinking ain’t enough? The whole casino is trashed! What are we supposed to do now?”

  Kevin couldn’t believe his ears, but said, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to find my missing wife and daughter.” That seemed to snap Hank out of his wretched self-pity for a moment.

  “Oh, right. Sorry about that,” Hank said with a hint of contrition. “You might want to look in the theater. There’s a lot of folks holed up in there waiting for the next rock to drop out of the sky. Good luck, mister. I hope you find them.”

  Kevin nodded and moved on towards the theater while Petty Officer Perkins gave the Texan a disgusted grimace and said, “If you’re really looking for something to do, sir, you might consider trying to help some of your fellow passengers who need medical attention. You look healthy enough to help the crew carry the injured down to the ship’s hospital.” It was only then that Hank Donner seemed to look around the rest of the casino and notice the human misery it contained. They left him standing there nodding his head in shame, suddenly seeming as dazed as the rest of the survivors.

  Chapter 8:

  A massive Chinese container ship three hundred miles from the impact zone was able to send a warning and distress signal before the giant waves overtook the ship and broke her in half. The captain of the cargo vessel had turned away from the unnatural dawn that flared far beyond the western horizon, attempting to distance his ship from whatever was happening. The blast wave arrived half an hour after the brilliant light had faded and was strong enough to break windows on the aft superstructure and rattle the whole ship, but failed to start fires at that distance. They reported the distant light and atmospheric blast by radio and satellite communications. However, the thousand foot wave that arrived an hour after the asteroid strike took them completely by surprise. Rather than riding up and over the wave, as the SS Sedulity had, the heavy container ship nosedived into the sea when wave lifted the stern and drove her forward. The opposing forces broke her hull amidships and swept both halves of the ship under the wave, never to be seen or heard from again.

  First Officer Crawford escorted Armando, Amanda and Emily onto the Bridge where Captain Krystos was directing damage control and recovery efforts. The Captain paused when he saw them enter and said, “Ah, Mrs. Summers, I’m so glad that you and your daughter are safe. Your husband and one of my crew just left to look for you. Mr. Summers’ advice has been invaluable during this crisis. We’ll make you comfortable in my quarters until he returns. Mr. Crawford, please escort these young ladies to my dayroom.” The Executive Officer nodded and guided Amanda and Emily to a door off the Bridge that connected to the Captain’s suite.

  “Armando,” the Captain turned his attention to the singed bartender, “you look like hell. Tell me what happened.” Armando came to attention and proceeded to describe his single-handed stand against the fire in the Sky Lounge, his terrified flight from the towering waves to cower in the elevator, what he had seen transpire in the atrium and on the Resort Deck, and finally his response to the fireball that hit the ship and finding the Summers family on his way to check the lower decks. When he finished his report Captain Krystos gave him a look of pride and gratitude, then saluted the Filipino bartender. “Well done, Armando. Outstanding! You are a credit t
o the Sedulity and your bravery will not go unnoticed. Now go have those burns treated and get some rest.”

  “Oh no, Captain, I couldn’t,” Armando objected. “I must check the rest of the cabins below the hole made by the fireball. I only came here to escort Mrs. Summers and report what I have seen so far.”

  “Listen, Armando,” Captain Krystos said with a note of command. “I have already deployed a damage control team with full firefighting gear to investigate and deal with any additional damage from that fireball. We know it ended up in the theater and the team will deal with any more fires on the decks above. You’ve already done more than anyone would be expected to. I want you to get those burns looked at and take a rest, or at least stick to light duty by assisting the passengers. You’re a Hospitality Mate, after all, and our guests will be needing your services.” He smiled as he said this, but made it clear that he was giving an order.

  “Yes, Sir,” Armando said. “Of course, Sir.” He turned to leave the Bridge, but paused to add, “And, Captain, I just want to thank you for saving the ship, Sir. I hate to think what would have happened if we had been hit broadside. Your courage in facing it head-on made all the difference, I’m sure of it, Sir.” Then he turned and left the Bridge en route to Medical.

  Captain Krystos maintained a stoic expression, but was inwardly touched by the bartender’s compliment. He knew that the true credit should go to Mr. Summers for suggesting the successful course of action in a timely fashion, but also knew that the passengers and crew needed to think of the Captain as their infallible savior – at least until the crisis had passed. And he knew that if another officer had been in command, perhaps a less imaginative one such as Mr. Crawford, they might not have been as receptive to the weatherman’s advice. It was a lucky combination of factors, including the people involved, which had allowed them to survive this long.

  “Mr. Jennings,” the Captain called to the Third Officer. “Any luck with long range communications yet?”

  “The radio antennas are all burned off or blown away, Sir. We’re transmitting in the blind. I’ve no idea if anyone is receiving,” replied the young officer. “We carry spares for some of the antennas, but it will take time to unpack and install them and we can’t even get to the mounts as long as the rain is this hot. I’m having a little better luck with the satellite systems, Sir. Several of the dome mounts are intact. No uplink for voice or data communications yet, but I think we can get television signals on the aft receiver. Give me a few more minutes to make adjustments, Sir. It looks like we will have to track the satellite manually until main power is restored, but I should be able to lock in on a news channel soon.”

  “Very well, Jennings,” Captain Krystos said. “Keep up the good work. In the meantime find out what’s taking so long to get me an Iridium sat phone from a lifeboat. And get me the phone number for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. They’re best equipped to spread an alert.” The Captain turned to stare out over the storm swept ocean, towards the glowing impact zone, and mentally composed the message he would send as soon as he made contact with the outside world. How could he describe what they had seen and been through in the past half hour? Would his warning make any difference to those in the path of the monster waves? These questions were almost enough to distract his thoughts from the fate of his wife.

  ****

  Lydia seemed to have arrived at a dead end. After making her way up the narrow stairway as high as it went, she had turned down a passageway trying to find a way to go higher. Now, however, she was faced with a sealed watertight door blocking further progress. She wondered why the stairway had not continued higher, but reasoned that she was now directly below the theater where her ordeal had begun. The watertight door she faced was part of an integral bulkhead that divided the hull of the ship into isolated sections in case of flooding. She knew of no way to override the locks on these doors once they were activated from the Bridge.

  It was tempting to just sit down on the deck next to the door and wait for someone to open it. When the crisis ended they would open the doors, wouldn’t they? And if it didn’t end? She didn’t want to think about that. But what kept her going was the thought of her husband worrying about her safety. Perhaps he had already learned that she had been swept away by the flooding. If so, she knew he would be worried sick. That might even interfere with other decisions he had to make, ones that the ship and all aboard her depended on. So it was for more than her own sake that she turned away from the locked door and went back, looking for another way to climb back up to the public areas of the ship.

  There was hardly any water left on the deck of this passageway. It had all drained down to the lowest decks where she hoped the pumps were handling it adequately. She didn’t think the flooding had been serious enough to actually threaten sinking the ship, especially since most of it seemed to have stopped after the violent encounters with what she could only imagine to be mammoth waves. Lydia had seen some of the ship’s massive pumps when her husband had taken her on a tour of the engineering spaces during a previous cruise. She couldn’t remember how many gallons per minute each pump could expel from the bilge, but recalled that it numbered in the thousands. Lydia had no idea how many gallons had flooded the ship, except that it must be many thousands too. Yet as long as the ship remained afloat and the flooding stopped, the pumps should be able to deal with it eventually.

  Unable to go aft due to the sealed door, and seeing debris blocking the forward end of the passageway, Lydia started looking for side passages that might lead to another route. Most of the doors along the corridor were locked and the ones that were marked looked like more crew quarters or storage rooms. She was a bit surprised not to find any of the crew down here, but reasoned that they would have all gone up to their own muster stations when the alarms were sounded. Eventually she discovered an inset door with a round window that revealed another passageway crossing to the other side of the ship. She crossed her fingers as she pushed against it and was relieved when it swung open smoothly.

  ****

  After leaving the casino Kevin Summers and the radar operator moved through the wide corridor of the shopping mall towards the theater. Many of the shops had been closed, with locked doors, and remained relatively intact. Most of the damage within had been caused by the ship’s roller coaster ride over the waves. Display cabinets were in disarray, but mostly undamaged. Jewelry and expensive watches were scattered, but still there. Clothing racks had toppled over, along with racks of souvenirs and sundries. Fragile collectables were broken, but many would consider the greatest loss to be in the Duty Free store. Here the shelves normally full of fine liquors were mostly empty and the contents of those shattered bottles sloshed around on the floor. Kevin only noted that loss in passing, however, as his focus remained fixed on finding his family.

  “What a shame,” Petty Officer Perkins muttered as they walked swiftly by the store. “I think we’re all going to need a stiff drink when this is over.” If it was an attempt to lighten the mood, it fell flat on Kevin’s ears. Recognizing this, Perkins shifted gears. “I’m sure your family is fine, Mr. Summers. This ship is like a maze, even for those of us who know her well. They could have walked the other way on a parallel corridor, or gone up one staircase while we were going down another. Don’t worry. We’ll find them.”

  “Thanks,” Kevin replied. “I know we will. You’re probably right about missing them upstairs. If they aren’t in the theater we’ll go back up on the forward stairs. That’s where they should have been anyway. All of this destruction makes it even harder to handle. To see such a beautiful ship violated like this… And not knowing where my wife and daughter are…”

  “I understand, Mr. Summers. Honestly, I do,” Perkins said with compassion. “We’ll find them. And you are better off than those who know their loved ones are truly lost.” He gestured slightly towards an elderly woman down the hall who was weeping as she cradled the head of a white haired man who had apparently died of drownin
g or cardiac arrest. Kevin nodded in agreement, vowing not to lose hope.

  “Your heart is in a much better place than the gambler who was crying over a broken poker table,” Perkins added.

  Kevin forced a smile in response and said, “I hope your little pep talk snapped good-ol’ Hank Donner back to reality. He seemed like a pain in the rear before all this happened, but I have a feeling we’re going to need everyone to pull together as a team to get through this.”

  Petty Officer Perkins gave Kevin a questioning look, but held his tongue as they left the shopping mall and passed through the theater lobby. They could hear many more voices ahead and most of them sounded distraught. The carpet in the lobby was sopping wet and water marks on the walls rose from chest height in the shopping mall to the ceiling here, indicating that the whole area had been flooded recently. Kevin could imagine all that water rushing towards the bow when the ship nosed over the top of the largest wave. Finding the doors to the theater busted off their hinges was no surprise. All that water had to go somewhere. No wonder the people in the theater sounded traumatized.

  ****

  Lieutenant Reiner wasn’t sure how long he could control the crowd. He had enlisted several dozen members of the crew to walk the aisles, trying to keep people in their seats. He realized, however, that it was a hard sell after these people had witnessed one of their fellow passengers get creamed by a meteorite while sitting in one of those same seats, not to mention watching others swept away by flooding and sucked into a whirlpool on center stage. Those were not the type of things that promoted patience and calm among a crowd.