Sedulity (Book One) Impact

by David Forsyth

  ****

  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.”