200 Minutes of Danger

by Jack Heath

  He mouthed some more words, but didn’t have the breath to say them. He fell to his knees, and then toppled forwards onto his face.

  15:35

  Yasmin felt her own heart skip a beat. The captain was having a heart attack. For real this time.

  Gotta get help, she thought. She ran to the door. But it wouldn’t open. The electronic lock was designed to keep the door locked in the event of a power failure, so pirates couldn’t take over the bridge by stopping the generator. And there was a keypad—Yasmin guessed that even if the power was on, she would need a code to open the door. She was trapped.

  She grabbed the radio next to the steering wheel. ‘Mayday, mayday. The captain needs urgent medical attention on the bridge.’

  No reply.

  She tried again. ‘Mayday! Can anyone hear me?’

  Not even the hiss of static. The radio had no power.

  15:20

  Yasmin hurried back to the captain. No help was coming. She would have to give him CPR herself. Luckily, first aid training had been part of the cadetship.

  She touched his wrist. No pulse. His neck. Nothing. She put her palms on the centre of his chest, one on top of the other, fingers interlaced. She pushed down as hard as she could, using all her weight and trying to keep her elbows straight.

  14:05

  She pushed over and over, aiming for about two compressions per second. No colour returned to the captain’s face. Yasmin worried that maybe she wasn’t heavy enough, or strong enough, for her compressions to be effective.

  Suddenly the lights came back on.

  13:30

  Yasmin raced back over to the control panel and grabbed the radio. ‘Mayday, mayday! The captain is having a heart attack on the bridge! Please help!’

  Static hissed on the channel.

  ‘Mayday,’ Yasmin repeated. ‘The captain is—’

  Then the radar screen caught her eye.

  The blip on the screen had moved much closer to the middle. Something was in the water with them, and it was getting closer.

  13:10

  No time to wait for help. Yasmin spun the steering wheel as far as it would go. She heard a deep rumbling sound from somewhere in the lower decks. But looking out the windows, she couldn’t see any sign that the Vanguard had changed direction.

  The blip on the radar was approaching the centre. Yasmin could see something in the ocean up ahead—a giant grey shadow under the water. Like a whale, but much bigger. Big enough to tear a hole in the hull.

  If she couldn’t turn, she would have to stop the ship all together. She scanned the row of controls in front of her. Clutch, depth finder, GPS, anchor . . . and throttle. She grabbed the throttle lever and hauled it all the way back.

  More noises from below. A whine she’d hardly noticed before was getting lower in pitch.

  12:15

  The ship didn’t seem to slow down, but at least it was turning now—a gradual rotation of the horizon.

  Too gradual. The Vanguard was still on a collision course with the mysterious object.

  Yasmin tried to make a sharper turn, but the wheel locked up. It was at maximum tilt.

  11:50

  Finally the ship started to slow down, giving it more time to turn. Yasmin had done everything she could. She braced herself for impact.

  Screech! The vibration came up through the floor, turning her legs to jelly. Whatever they had hit, it had ripped open the side of the ship.

  Not a whale, Yasmin thought.

  11:20

  Alarms blared from all the control panels, angry red lights flashing everywhere. Yasmin could feel the ship starting to tilt. They were taking on water.

  She grabbed the radio again. ‘Hello? Engineering, can you hear me?’

  A pause. And then: ‘Who is this? What’s going on?’

  ‘My name is Yasmin Bell. I’m on the bridge. The ship has crashed into—’

  ‘Where’s the captain?’ the voice demanded. He sounded panicked.

  ‘The captain’s having a heart attack,’ Yasmin said. ‘He needs urgent medical attention. But first we have to stop this ship from sinking.’

  ‘Sinking?!’

  ‘There’s a hole in the starboard side. We’re taking on water. You have to make sure there’s no-one in the cargo hold, and then seal it.’

  ‘I need the captain to confirm that order.’

  10:40

  Yasmin wanted to scream. ‘Didn’t you hear me? The captain is having a heart attack! If you don’t seal the cargo hold, we’re all going to drown.’

  ‘If the captain is indisposed, I need to hear from the first officer.’

  ‘Listen to me—’

  Another voice interrupted. A stern older woman. ‘This is First Officer Simms. We’ll get it sealed, Miss Bell. You look after the captain.’

  ‘I only have basic first-aid training,’ Yasmin said. ‘Can you send the ship’s medic up here? They might need to break down the door—I don’t know the code to open it.’

  10:10

  ‘Most of the crew is trapped in the mess hall, but I’ll find someone as fast as I can,’ Simms promised. ‘Keep doing CPR until they arrive.’

  Yasmin looked at the captain’s slumped body. For all she knew, he was dead already. ‘Yes ma’am,’ she said. ‘One more thing—I think the thing we hit was a submarine.’

  ‘What?’ The man was back. ‘That makes no sense.’

  He’s wrong, Yasmin thought. It’s the only thing that makes sense. A whale wouldn’t have damaged the ship, and a rock wouldn’t be floating near the surface.

  09:25

  ‘I’m worried they might be taking on water too,’ she said. ‘Could a dive team go down there and see what’s going on?’

  ‘We can’t spare anybody,’ the man said. ‘We need all the help we can get right now.’

  Someone else came on the channel. ‘This is Dive Chief Dominic Leppo. I agree, Miss Bell. I’ll assemble my team and get them in the water ASAP. Have you hailed the sub?’

  ‘I don’t know how to use the long-range radios,’ Yasmin said. ‘I need a radio technician.’

  ‘I’ll send someone up,’ Simms promised. ‘You look after my captain.’

  ‘Got it.’ Yasmin dropped the radio and ran back over to the captain. His skin was completely grey now. She put her hands back on his chest and started pumping.

  08:40

  How long could a person survive with no heartbeat? she wondered. Maybe, by pausing the compressions so she could use the radio, she had killed him.

  ‘Don’t you dare die,’ she whispered. ‘Come on, you old coot.’

  05:35

  She pounded his chest harder and harder. Sweat poured down her face, dripping onto Kelly’s shirt. Every second made it less likely that he would survive.

  ‘Wake up!’ she snapped. ‘Your crew needs you!’

  Kelly’s face was slack, and his eyes had rolled back into his skull. He looked very, very dead.

  Yasmin’s eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t look at him anymore. She kept pumping his chest, but turned her face away—

  04:50

  And found herself looking at something she should have noticed much earlier. A red box mounted on the wall, labelled HEARTSTART DEFIBRILLATOR.

  Yasmin raced over and wrenched the box off the wall. She carried it back to the captain and unzipped it. Inside there were scissors, a cloth, a razor, and a strange blue object Yasmin had no idea how to use.

  She looked for an instruction manual, forcing herself to focus. Trying not the think about the captain, dead or dying, beside her.

  There were no instructions. But there was a power button. She pushed it, and it lit up.

  04:05

  Unexpectedly, the defibrillator started talking. ‘CHECK FOR A PULSE ON THE PATIENT’S WRIST AND THROAT,’ it said, in a calm but assertive voice. ‘IF THERE IS A PULSE, DO NOT USE PULSESTART 120X.’

  Yasmin already knew there was no pulse. She looked for a way to skip ahead, but couldn’t
see one.

  ‘TRY TO WAKE THE PATIENT,’ the defibrillator continued. ‘CALL OUT THE PATIENT’S NAME AND, IF THE PATIENT IS NOT A CHILD, SHAKE THEM.’

  Yasmin waited anxiously for the next instruction.

  03:35

  ‘MAKE SURE YOU OR SOMEONE ELSE HAS CALLED EMERGENCY SERVICES,’ the defibrillator droned.

  ‘I’ve done all that!’ Yasmin snapped. ‘How do I zap him?’

  ‘CHECK THAT THE CHEST AREA ISN’T WET.’

  Yasmin gripped the captain’s shirt and ripped it open. Buttons went flying across the bridge. Kelly’s skin was a bit sweaty, so Yasmin dabbed it with the cloth. That would have to do.

  03:00

  ‘REMOVE ANY JEWELLERY FROM THE PATIENT.’

  Yasmin quickly loosened the captain’s watch and pulled it off his wrist. She had the absurd thought that if someone walked onto the bridge right now, it would look like she was robbing him.

  02:40

  ‘CHECK THAT THE PATIENT DOES NOT HAVE A PACEMAKER.’

  Yasmin looked at the scar on Kelly’s chest, just below his collarbone. The captain did have a pacemaker, and it had failed. That was the whole point.

  ‘REMOVE THE PLASTIC FROM THE ADHESIVE PADS AND PLACE THEM ON THE PATIENT’S CHEST, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE DIAGRAMS ON THE PADS.’

  But what about the pacemaker? Yasmin thought.

  The defibrillator kept talking. ‘IT DOES NOT MATTER WHICH PAD IS PLACED FIRST. WHEN THE PADS ARE IN POSITION, STEP AWAY FROM THE PATIENT.’

  Yasmin clenched her teeth. The warning about pacemakers had come right after the part about jewellery. Maybe pacemakers were made out of metal. Maybe it would burn the inside of his chest.

  02:10

  ‘WHEN THE PADS ARE IN POSITION, STEP AWAY FROM THE PATIENT,’ the defibrillator repeated.

  Yasmin didn’t know for sure what would happen if she used the defibrillator. But she knew what would happen if she didn’t. Dead captain.

  Desperately hoping this was the right decision, she peeled the protective plastic off the white pads. According to the diagrams, she should stick one of the pads below his ribs. The other one was supposed to go right on top of the pacemaker scar.

  01:25

  She hesitated. What if there was a way to send the electricity through the captain’s heart, without it going through his pacemaker?

  Ignoring the diagrams, she stuck one pad about ten centimetres below the scar, right on top of where she thought Kelly’s heart was. Then she rolled him over and stuck the other one on his back. Now his heart was sandwiched between the two pads. The electricity would flow through it, instead of through the pacemaker. Maybe. Hopefully.

  01:00

  ‘WHEN THE PADS ARE IN POSITION, STEP—’ the debfibrillator paused. ‘ANALYSING RHYTHM.’

  Yasmin waited, her mouth dry.

  ‘SHOCK ADVISED. STAND CLEAR OF PATIENT,’ the defibrillator said.

  A button Yasmin hadn’t noticed before flashed orange. She pushed it.

  There was no sound other than a faint whine, but the captain’s body twitched like he had been kicked in the stomach. Yasmin cringed. It felt like she was hurting him rather than saving him.

  00:35

  ‘ANALYSING RHYTHM,’ the defibrillator said. ‘SHOCK ADVISED. STAND CLEAR OF PATIENT.’

  The orange button flashed again. Yasmin stabbed it with her thumb.

  Whine. Twitch.

  The captain gasped.

  Yasmin crouched down next to him. ‘Captain!’

  Kelly’s eyes bulged. He was panting and damp, like he’d just been dragged out of the ocean.

  ‘NORMAL RHYTHM,’ the defibrillator declared.

  00:10

  Yasmin could hardly contain her relief. She grabbed Kelly’s shoulder. ‘Captain. Can you hear me?’

  Kelly looked at the white pad stuck to his bare chest, and the machine on the floor next to him, perplexed. ‘Miss Bell,’ he wheezed. ‘What on earth is going on here?’

  00:00

  ‘Leadership,’ Yasmin said.

  20:00

  At last, Lara could see it. The submarine.

  She held her breath so the bubbles from the regulator wouldn’t block her view. The submarine was huge—at least a hundred and fifty metres long from nose to propellers. She only had twenty minutes of air in her tank. Not much time to get in, search the sub and get back to the ship. Hopefully there would still be air inside.

  Maybe not, though. The nose of the vessel was crumpled like the bonnet of a car. And it looked like the sub was sinking, slowly. The impact with the cargo ship had caused some serious damage. Why hadn’t the sub moved out of the way? Why weren’t they responding to hails?

  19:25

  Dominic swam into view and gave Lara the OK? signal—his thumb meeting his forefinger, his other fingers up.

  Lara stopped herself from giving Dominic a thumbs up. That sign meant, I need to go to the surface.

  Instead, she touched her thumb to her forefinger. I’m OK.

  Dominic looked annoyed. He didn’t want her here. Lara was just a rich kid from Verde—her parents owned the shipping company. She and her mami had been headed for a scuba holiday on the Great Barrier Reef. She wasn’t trained for a rescue mission. But Lara wanted to help, and the first officer had been clear: anyone who knew how to dive was needed for the search. No matter how young. Mami would be down here too, except she had to look after Christo.

  18:40

  Lara and six other divers followed Dominic down towards the submarine, their breaths hissing, their flippers swaying like tail fins. The pressure of the water above squeezed her chest, gently at first, but with more and more force as they descended.

  The ocean got darker and darker.

  As they drew closer to the submarine, its sheer size started to give Lara vertigo. A creeping sense of dread came over her. She had a feeling she couldn’t explain—the sense that no-one on that sub was alive.

  But she refused to back out because of a feeling. She kept swimming.

  17:50

  When the light of Dominic’s torch reached the hull of the sub, she read the name painted on the side:

  SSN-837 TORONTO. SCIENCE VESSEL.

  Lara frowned. Her parents’ company didn’t own submarines, but did transport parts of them. Lara was pretty sure only US subs used SSN names. Why would a US sub be named after a Canadian city?

  Underneath the name was an entry hatch . . . and a radiation symbol.

  All the divers looked at each other. No-one seemed to want to go in, but no-one wanted to be the first to back out.

  17:20

  Cowards, Lara thought, and started twisting the valve on the hatch.

  The valve clanked. A storm of bubbles blasted out. Dominic pushed past Lara and swam up into the submarine. The current dragged Lara up after him, and then all the others. Hannah, the last diver, closed the hatch behind them.

  16:40

  The lights were working, which Lara hadn’t expected. She found herself in a spherical chamber, gas canisters lining the walls. There was a roaring sound as all the water was flushed out of the chamber.

  A laser pointer on a swivelling stand switched itself on. Twitching and jerking, it burned a message into the dripping wall, filling the air with steam. The message glowed there for several seconds before it faded away: PRESSURISATION COMPLETE.

  Dominic spat out his regulator, and said, ‘Well, that’s new.’ The helium-oxygen mix from his tank made his voice squeaky, like a cartoon character.

  ‘The laser must activate UV-sensitive paint on the wall,’ said Hannah, whose voice was already returning to normal. ‘I guess they use that in place of a screen. The water pressure would crack a normal screen when this chamber is full.’

  15:15

  Lara took the regulator out of her mouth and took a breath of the sour, salty air. ‘Do submarines normally have that kind of technology?’

  ‘Never seen anything like it,’ Dixon said.

  ‘Me neither,’ Chess sai
d.

  Ames, Manur and Hass all shook their heads.

  The hatch in the ceiling hissed. The laser pointer was scribbling again. INNER DOOR UNLOCKED.

  ‘Let’s search this boat,’ Dominic said.

  He climbed up the ladder and opened the inner door. Alarm sounds filled the chamber. They had probably been going since the crash.

  14:50

  Lara was last up the ladder. By the time she reached the top, Dominic was already giving orders to his team.

  ‘Dixon, Chess, you check the engine room is sealed.’ He pointed up a dark, narrow corridor. ‘Make sure we’re not getting blasted with gamma rays right now. Ames, Hass, Manur, you go up the forward end, check the status of the bridge. Hannah and . . . uh . . .’

  ‘Lara,’ Lara said.

  ‘Lara. You both come with me. We need to see if any escape pods have been launched.’

  Lara looked around. It was like the inside of a spaceship—metal grates covering the low ceiling and the floor, colour-coded pipes everywhere.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out.

  There was no reply. Maybe she couldn’t be heard over the alarms.

  ‘We don’t know what happened here,’ Dominic said. ‘Be careful, and stay in radio contact. Understood?’

  Nodding all round.

  ‘Great. Go.’

  14:00

  Two divers ran one way, three the other. Lara followed Dominic and Hannah up a ladder to the top deck of the sub.

  The walls were covered with controls and equipment Lara couldn’t identify. The signs were in English, but that didn’t mean she could understand them. TRANSLATIONAL ACOUSTIC ARRAY. ENTANGLEMENT STABILISER. MICROSPINE SEALANT RELEASE. This was a science vessel, and the science was way beyond her.

  12:35

  Soon they reached a row of wall hatches. There were three lights above each one—green, yellow and red. They were marked: AVAILABLE—OCCUPIED—DISPATCHED.

  All the green lights were on.

  ‘Does that mean all the escape pods are still here?’ Lara asked.

  Dominic nodded.

  Hannah spoke up. ‘So where is everybody?’

  They all stared uneasily into the shadows for a second.

  ‘The sub is sinking,’ Dominic said. ‘Hurry up, or we won’t have enough air to get back to the surface.’