The Spear of Atlantis (Wilde/Chase 14)

by Andy McDermott

  ‘Captain!’ the woman screamed. ‘The crane! We’re going to hit—’

  The liner shook again as the jib of a tower crane on the dock’s far side speared into the topmost deck. Broken glass rained into the water as it scythed through the still-reversing ship, tearing away radio masts and satellite dishes and sending debris cascading down the Atlantia’s sloping front. Everyone instinctively ducked as the battered crane smashed on to the foredeck, disintegrating in an explosion of flying struts and girders.

  ‘Is everyone okay?’ Snowcock called. Relieved responses came from around the bridge. ‘Damage report, quickly! And tell me how much stern clearance we have – I need to straighten her out.’

  The woman ran back into the wing bridge and shouted again. ‘Sir! They’re closing the dry-dock gates!’

  ‘What?’ said Snowcock. He called another officer to his position. ‘Hold station,’ he ordered, before running to the wing bridge to see for himself.

  Eddie and Nina went with him. The two enormous gates at the dock’s far end were slowly swinging inwards. ‘How long before they close?’ Nina asked.

  ‘About ten minutes,’ Snowcock replied. ‘But we’ll never make it through in time – the ship’s so wide, they won’t even need to get halfway to block us in.’

  ‘So go faster,’ said Eddie. ‘Just whack it to full power and cane it through!’

  ‘We can’t see where we’re going! All our cameras are down.’

  The Yorkshireman gave him an incredulous look. ‘You’ve got eyes, haven’t you?’

  Snowcock scowled. ‘It took us nearly an hour to manoeuvre into the dock, and that was with my crew and port control guiding us in. You’re asking me to bring a quarter-million-tonne ship through a closing gate backwards, at high speed, while steering it from almost half a kilometre away!’

  ‘So I’ll guide you in.’ Eddie returned to the main bridge. ‘I saw some walkie-talkies in here – they’ve got enough range to cover the whole ship, right?’

  Snowcock and Nina followed him. ‘Yes,’ said the captain, ‘but you’re not a sailor. You don’t know the terminology you’ll need to direct us.’

  Eddie found the rack of radios and took one. ‘Don’t worry, I’m pretty good at making myself understood.’

  Nina laughed. ‘You’re from Yorkshire! I’m married to you, and half the time I have trouble understanding what you’re saying.’

  ‘Tchah! Okay, I’m on channel eight. I’ll call you when I get to the arse end.’ He ran for the exit.

  ‘You mean the stern, and you’ll never get there in time,’ Snowcock protested.

  ‘I know a short cut! Just get the fucking boat moving!’

  ‘It’s a ship!’ the captain shouted after him, but Eddie had already gone.

  He rushed back to the lifts, riding up to the top deck. It was littered with debris. He quickly picked his way through it to the edge of the balcony overlooking the huge atrium along the ship’s centreline, then scaled the steps to the platform at the top of the zip-line on the starboard side.

  He found a length of chain and flicked it over the cable. ‘’Cause this was so much fun the first time,’ he muttered, taking a firm hold of each end. He backed up a few steps – then leapt off the platform.

  43

  Sparks flew from the chain as Eddie screeched down the cable. The waterslides and pools whipped past below him. But he kept his eyes fixed on the terminus below, riding all the way to it.

  This time he was able to use the bungee lines attached to the cable to brake. Even so, he was flipped forward, losing his grip on the chain and hitting the padded wall with a thud. Swearing, he ran for the steps to the higher deck around the stern.

  The massive dry-dock gates came into view, slowly but unstoppably grumbling shut. Beyond them was Dhajan’s harbour, two long breakwaters enclosing it. Another obstacle to negotiate, but there was no point worrying about it until they cleared the first – if they could.

  The Atlantia was still askew in its dock. He took out the walkie-talkie. ‘Hello! Can you hear me?’

  ‘I’m here,’ said Snowcock. ‘Can we fit through the gates?’

  ‘Yeah, but you’ll have to get moving!’ The liner was drifting towards the opening at less than walking pace. ‘Straighten out, bring the back end over to the left.’

  A low thrum came through the deck as the azipods increased power. The ship began to pick up speed. ‘Come on, faster!’ Eddie ordered. ‘Otherwise the fucking gates’ll cut us in half! To the left!’

  ‘Which left? The ship’s left, your left – or do you mean to the port side?’

  ‘My left . . . I mean, shit, hold on.’ He got his bearings. ‘Starboard, starboard!’

  ‘And that’s why we use nautical terminology,’ the captain said scathingly as he adjusted course.

  ‘Yeah, very funny.’ The stern started to swing lazily back towards the dry dock’s centre. ‘That’s it, keep going. And I shouldn’t have to keep saying this, but go fucking faster!’

  Another surge from the drive systems, though he could almost feel Snowcock’s huffy resentment transmitted through them. The Atlantia was now moving at a strong jog, then a run.

  But it was still on a collision course with the gate as it swung inwards. ‘Back end hard to starboard – and push the front to port,’ he ordered. ‘Straighten out or we’ll crash!’

  The gates were less than a hundred metres away. They were rapidly running out of space.

  Eddie grabbed the railing as the ship swayed. Snowcock had directed the fore and aft azipods in opposite directions, turning the liner around its centrepoint. The stern came about more quickly. ‘Okay, that’s it, that’s good! Ease off, ease off . . .’ The Atlantia wallowed again as the thruster pods counteracted their previous movement. He glanced back along the ship’s length to judge its alignment, then: ‘That’s it, you’re straight! Hold it there – and go, go! Full fucking power!’

  Even with more than a quarter of a million tonnes of metal to move, the acceleration as the engines went to full throttle made him sway. The stern drew level with the dock’s end, passing the massive machinery driving the gates—

  And into the open water of the harbour.

  Eddie exhaled, but there was still a long way to go – specifically, the four hundred metres of cruise ship behind him. ‘The back end’s out of the dock!’ he reported. ‘Keep going, faster!’

  ‘We’re at full speed!’ Snowcock replied.

  ‘So tell the Emir to override the speed limiter!’

  A brief silence, which Eddie hoped meant that the captain was passing on the message, then Snowcock returned. ‘How much clearance do we have?’

  The Yorkshireman looked to each side. The gates were sweeping relentlessly inwards. ‘About . . . twenty metres to port, a bit less on the right. Has he put his code in yet?’

  The answer came in the form of another surge of power. The Atlantia increased speed again, but Eddie realised it wouldn’t be enough. He ran to the port side, leaning out to look along the ship’s length. The barrier was still closing, only around fifty feet of clearance – and the gap was shrinking with every second.

  ‘You’ve got to go faster!’ he yelled. ‘We’re not gonna make it!’

  Nina heard her husband’s frantic radio message. With the captain at the controls and the Emir having used his code to unleash the full power of the Atlantia’s engines, there was nothing she could do to influence events, but nor was she just going to stand there and wait for the crash.

  Instead she ran to the port wing bridge. The female officer, whose name tag read Dimakos, had been calling out the remaining clearance, but now she was frozen, staring down the ship’s side with growing horror. Nina joined her. ‘Oh crap.’

  The liner was halfway out of the dock, but the lock gate was drawing ever closer. Even with the Atlantia still accelerating, it would only be three-quarters of the way through when the gate caught it. The bow began to narrow not far beyond that point, but there were still several p
rotruding sections – to say nothing of the lifeboats. At best, the ship would suffer major damage; at worst, it would be ripped open on both sides, or trapped and crushed.

  She exchanged a worried look with the other woman, then they both gripped the handrail. The gate moved closer, closer, not even the redlining drive systems able to get them clear—

  The barrier struck.

  It caught one of the lifeboats, the orange vessel exploding into fibreglass shards. The boat ahead of it met a similar fate – then the great blade caught the Atlantia’s hull proper.

  Even holding on, Nina was almost thrown to the deck. A hideous screech of tortured metal echoed through the vast vessel as steel panels crumpled like paper. The awful sound grew louder as the wave of destruction swept towards her, more lifeboats disintegrating—

  The gate smashed into a glass-walled lounge projecting from a lower deck. The entire vessel jolted, hurling Nina and her companion against the wing bridge’s rear wall – then the lounge was sheared away, leaving a ragged hole framed by twisted girders.

  Nina scrambled to the glass panels to look down as the gate swept past a hundred feet beneath her. The bow was by now curving inwards, but the barrier was still closing, biting huge chunks out of the main deck’s edge with a terrifying tattoo of pounding metal—

  The noise stopped.

  For a moment Nina feared she had been deafened, but then she heard flat splashes as wreckage dropped from the battered ship. She jumped up to look out of the front windows. Both gates fell away beyond the Atlantia’s bow as the liner pulled clear of the dry dock and began to turn for the harbour mouth.

  She ran back into the main bridge to find the crew recovering from the rough ride, Snowcock clinging to the thruster controls as if lashed there like Odysseus. ‘We’re clear!’ she cried. ‘We made it—’

  A deep echoing whump – and everyone was sent flying as something ploughed into the ship’s side.

  Eddie had grabbed a stanchion and clung on as the ship jolted. The hammering ceased, and he stood – only for another impact to knock him down again.

  It wasn’t the dock gate. This blow was near the stern. He looked over the railing.

  The collision wasn’t an accident.

  A bright orange harbour tugboat had rammed the Atlantia about a hundred feet forward of him, hitting hard enough to buckle the hull plating. Black smoke belched from the funnel as its engine roared, pushing the far larger ship sideways.

  Another tug was coming in beyond it, and a third rounded a quay further along the harbourfront. ‘Tuggeration and fuckery!’ Eddie said, then whipped up the radio. ‘Snowcock! A tugboat’s rammed us – it’s trying to force us aground! Push it back!’

  ‘What do you think I’m trying to do?’ came the terse reply.

  The liner rolled again as the azipods changed orientation to resist the attacker, but with little success. The huge ship’s bow was slewing around, the furious tugboat acting as a pivot. It would hobble the Atlantia long enough for its companions to arrive and drive the liner into the shore. Eddie looked at the two approaching boats, then across the harbour for anything that could turn the battle in the ship’s favour—

  He raised the radio again. ‘Don’t go sideways – steer us backwards at . . .’ He had no idea what bearing they were on. ‘At seven o’clock! Go backwards as fast as you can on a course of seven o’clock!’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Snowcock.

  ‘Because you’ll push that fucking boat into something that’ll scrape it off us!’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘A crane boat thing, I don’t know what it’s called – I’m not a bloody sailor!’ The craft he had spotted was a squat rectangular barge with a large red-and-white counterweighted crane arm rising from it, anchored a few hundred metres out into the harbour. ‘Just do it!’

  Snowcock didn’t reply, but the ship’s wallow told Eddie that the thrusters had changed direction again. The liner began to push backwards once more. Froth churning beneath its stern, the tug came about, its strengthened nose buried in the white hull – but against the full colossal horsepower of the Atlantia it was fighting a losing battle.

  The ship picked up speed, carrying the unwelcome remora with it. ‘How far are we from the crane?’ Snowcock demanded. ‘Are we on course?’

  ‘Come left – port – a bit more,’ said Eddie; the tug was still bullying them away from it. ‘We’re about two hundred metres away. Keep going – left hand down!’

  The Atlantia swung towards its target. The Englishman looked back at the tugboat. Its occupants hadn’t yet noticed the approaching danger, focused on preventing the cruise ship’s escape. ‘That’s it,’ he told the captain. ‘Keep going, you’ll smack ’em right off the side!’

  A hundred metres, less, the ship forcing up a heavy swell from its stern as it powered onwards – but the tug’s crew had finally realised what their opponent was trying to do. The boat’s engines reversed, trying to pull away – but its bow was caught in the hole smashed in the Atlantia’s side. Another burst of foul black smoke as it attempted to tear loose, but too late—

  The crane’s jib rolled past Eddie – and the tugboat crashed sidelong into the barge.

  The impact ripped it free of the liner, the barge’s angular corner slamming into its hull like a mason’s chisel and cracking it wide open. Both crewmen flung themselves overboard as their vessel capsized.

  But they were not the only ones in danger. The barge was knocked into a spin by the collision – and the crane wheeled about even faster, the jib scything at the stern—

  Eddie hurled himself down a flight of steps to the pool deck and dropped flat as the crane slashed around, demolishing everything in its path. ‘Christing arse!’ he yelled as debris rained about him.

  The barge rebounded off the liner and reeled away. The crane arm swung out, the whole machine finally toppling into the water.

  Eddie staggered back up the stairs. The railings were gone; he went as close as he dared to the edge of the wreckage-strewn deck and looked down.

  The tugboat had rolled over, its cracked hull rising from the water like a turtle’s shell as its crew floundered nearby. But the threat was not over, the two other tugs still homing in. He took out the radio to warn Snowcock – only to find its antenna had been snapped off by his hard landing. He tried to call the bridge, but got no reply. ‘Shit!’

  He started running. Over three hundred metres and eight decks to the bridge – and this time, there were no short cuts.

  ‘One boat down!’ Nina shouted. ‘Still two more coming at us.’

  ‘Where are they?’ Snowcock called back.

  Dimakos reported their positions, but Nina was more concerned about fending them off. One tug had almost overpowered the Atlantia; two would force it ashore.

  She looked down through the glass floor panels. The liner was still angling diagonally backwards, and the ship’s enormous flank was driving a hefty wave ahead of itself . . .

  ‘Go straight at them!’ she cried to the captain. ‘Broadside on, at full speed – if they’re smart, they’ll get out of the way, and if they’re dumb, we’re kicking up such a big wave, they’ll be swamped!’

  ‘If they hit us, we’ll take a lot of damage,’ Snowcock objected.

  ‘The ship’s already trashed. And if we don’t get out of here, Alula’s people will kill us!’

  Snowcock looked towards the Emir. ‘Do whatever you must to get us out of the harbour,’ Fadil told him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the captain replied. He brought the liner around side-on to the approaching tugs, presenting them with a colossal wall of metal. ‘Full power.’

  He pushed the throttles to their limit. The engines surged, rocking the ship. The wave of displaced water rose higher as the Atlantia picked up speed. The closer of the two tugs turned and tried to power clear. But it had been aiming to hit the liner amidships, and had two hundred metres to cover in either direction before it could escape—

  It wasn’t fast en
ough.

  The pilot hurriedly tried to turn back into the swell to ride over it, but couldn’t bring his craft around in time. The wave hit, slamming the tug almost on to its side before it rolled back – and swamping it. A burst of foul fumes erupted from the funnel as the lower deck was flooded, drowning the engine.

  But the last tug was still coming, aiming for the Atlantia’s prow. Its bow was flung clear of the water as it crested the wave, then it slapped back down in a burst of spray and homed in on its target.

  ‘Brace yourselves!’ Nina yelled, grabbing a console—

  The Atlantia shook as if it had struck a mine, the impact almost flinging Nina to the deck. A deep, echoing boom like the beating of a monstrous gong rolled through the ship’s innards.

  ‘Jesus!’ she gasped. The tug had hit hard enough to tear a crooked rent in the larger vessel’s prow. She couldn’t tell if it extended below the waterline, the attacker’s nose buried in the white steel.

  The tug’s crew had already recovered from the collision. Its engine roared, and the Atlantia slewed around as the powerful craft drove hard against its bow. Snowcock rotated the azipods to compensate, but the tug’s position at the front of the hull gave it an advantage, as if pushing down the end of a seesaw with nothing more than a fingertip. Even with all three huge thrusters at full power, the liner could no longer hold course.

  A bridge officer shouted from the observation pulpit. ‘They’re trying to force us into the container docks!’

  ‘You’ve got to shake them loose!’ said Nina, trying to see if the Atlantia was taking on water through the rip—

  Something caught her eye – above the tug rather than below. An anchor, thirty tons of white-painted metal inside a recess in the hull.

  She drew back, frantically checking the console. She was certain she had seen an anchor control panel . . .

  There! A plan-view outline of the ship marking the positions of its anchors: one on each side of the bow, and a single one at the stern. A button beside the port-side forward anchor was labelled Release.

  She pushed it.

  A buzzer sounded. Dimakos looked at her in alarm. ‘Wait, what are you—’