by JE Gurley
Talent knew it was the cop in Owens still wanting to protect and serve, that prompted him to check on the passengers. It was a noble gesture, but he had no sympathy for people who cowered behind locked doors. Sometimes you had to stand up and fight, no matter the odds.
“There are three-thousand passengers on this ship,” he reminded Owens. “We can’t check every cabin.” He began walking away.
Owens scowled but followed him down the corridor. When they reached the aft elevators and stairs, to Talent’s surprise, the elevators were working. That gave him some hope. If all the power wasn’t out, the ship might have sent a distress call. In the well-traveled waters of the South Pacific, the odds were good that some ship was close enough to reach them before they sank. Then he remembered that having a ship nearby hadn’t worked out so well for the Titanic.
“Do we walk or ride?” Owens asked.
Normally, Talent would have shunned the elevator during an emergency, but his battle with the Squid had left him exhausted.
“Ride,” he suggested.
They rode in silence to the Skywalker’s Nightclub on Deck 18. Both men drew their weapons and aimed them out the elevator door as it slid open. Talent expected the worst. He was pleasantly surprised to find the club empty of both Squid and corpses. The Squid had been there and had done a thorough job of ransacking it, but the club was not open in the early mornings. Three of the floor-to-ceiling windows were missing, and shards of broken glass littered the carpet. It looked as though a hurricane had blown through the room. The Squid had smashed tables and chairs and tossed them aside. Talent picked a path through the broken glass and debris to look out one of the windows facing the ship’s bow.
An alarming number of dead bodies lay in two rows near the pool on Deck 16 just forward of the club. Blankets covered some of the corpses, but others remained uncovered, as if the job of covering them had proven too emotionally difficult. People sat in deck chairs or milled about aimlessly. Some wore the clothing they had slept in. Others wrapped themselves in beach towels or blankets. A handful of white-uniformed ship’s officers and an equal number of crewmembers moved among them serving coffee, handing out bottles of water, and tending to wounds. An air of having passed through the storm lay over the survivors, but Talent knew they were simply in the eye of the hurricane. The worst was yet to come, yet the passengers sat around the pool as if at afternoon tea.
As they descended the stairs at the rear of the club, Talent spotted a mutilated corpse floating in the Terrace Pool four decks below them. A swirl of red water encircled the body, as if targeting it for the next wave of creatures from the Kaiju. Talent had no doubt there would be more. The goal of the first attack was to cripple the ship, allowing the Kaiju to harvest the passengers at its leisure.
“The fools need to go below deck. The inside cabins might offer some protection.”
“They’re suffering from shock,” Owens reminded him. “They need time to get their heads on straight.”
“They won’t have to worry about heads if the Wasps come, and they will.”
Owens grimaced. “You’re right, of course. Let’s talk to one of the ship’s officers.”
They moved forward along the Sun Deck, passing a few passengers moving in a daze amid the wreckage of wooden lifejacket lockers, tangles of deck chairs, and the glass of broken windows like war refugees after an aerial bombardment. Some clutched a few pitiful personal possessions to their chests, while others dangled lifejackets from the shoulders.
When he and Owens reached the pool, Talent noticed two ship’s officers standing outside the fitness room entrance conferring with two crewmen. He skirted the pool and crossed the deck toward them, ignoring pleading glances from frightened passengers. He could offer them no consolation or words of comfort. He wanted to shout at them, to get them up and moving, but decided to leave that to the ship’s officers.
One of the officers wore three stripes on his epaulets, the ship’s purser. He watched the pair approach, eyeing the pistol in Owens’ hand and the kukri strapped to Talent’s waist with suspicion.
“You shouldn’t have that weapon, sir,” he said to Owens.
Talent noted the drying pool of blood beneath the purser’s shoes and waved his hand toward the line of corpses. “After this, I would think you would have passed out every pistol on the ship to the crew,” Talent replied.
“Only the captain or the first officer can issue firearms.”
Talent pointed toward the west and the dark speck of the Kaiju that had grown much larger since the attack. “That’s not an island out there. It’s a Kaiju. We’re dead in the water and sinking fast.”
The purser licked his lips nervously. “The lower levels are compartmentalized to prevent sinking.”
The purser’s denial of the obvious annoyed Talent. He was literally standing in a pool of blood and claiming all was well. Talent recognized bullshit when he heard it. “How many levels are flooded?”
The two officers exchanged glances but didn’t reply. One of the crewmen, a maintenance man whose uniform was wet up to his waist and with oil streaking his face, spoke up. “The bilge pumps are out. The lower level of the engine room is flooded. Water is a meter deep in the second level amidships engine room corridors. I don’t think anyone made it out of the engine control room.” His lips quivered. “I heard screams. The starboard diesel tank ruptured, emptying into the sea. Water is pouring in to replace it. We’re down almost three meters at the stern. We tried to seal the leaks, but they’re too big and there are too many of them. Some of those creatures ate their way through the hull, and then chewed their way back out again, as if their aim was to sink us.”
The purser frowned at the maintenance man. “It’s not your place to report to passengers. The captain will make an announcement soon.”
The other crewman spoke up. “The bridge isn’t answering any calls.”
“Have either of you checked in with the bridge?” Talent asked the two officers.
“I thought it more important to calm the passengers and to offer medical treatment,” the purser replied.
Talent looked around. “There are maybe twenty people here. There are three thousand hiding in their cabins, minus the dead ones, of course. You need to redefine your priorities.”
Owens tapped Talent on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go the bridge. These two dickwads don’t have a clue. They’ll still be standing here when water crawls up their asses.”
The purser, seething at Owens’ comment, straightened his back and stared down his nose at Talent. “The captain will determine if and when we abandon ship.”
“Abandoning ship isn’t a good idea,” Talent told him. “Unless I miss my guess, the Kaiju will send something else at us soon, probably Wasps. It just wanted to slow us down. Eighteen fiberglass lifeboats crammed with passengers might look like tasty treats to them. At least on the ship you could secure a few areas and move the passengers there. You might want to tell the captain that, if he’s still alive,” Talent said as he walked away. “Personally, I wouldn’t count on it. The bridge is essentially a big glass box; not very good at keeping out giant alien Squid.”
“How long do you think this tub will stay afloat?” Owens asked as he rushed to catch up with Talent.
It was good question; one Talent wished he knew the answer to. He should have asked the only person who seemed to have a clue about what was happening aboard ship, the maintenance man. “I’m no expert on ships, but once the water reaches a certain level, it’ll go down fast.”
“Maybe we should go stake out a claim on a lifeboat. You know, beat the rush.”
“I don’t know if a Kaiju sees in color, but floating around like a bright orange and white snack doesn’t appeal to me. Let’s save that option as a last resort.”
Just as they entered the spa, the ship shuddered and groaned, and then rolled a few degrees farther to starboard. Water splashed over the sides of one of the spa’s hot tubs and poured in a fast stream across
the tiled floor toward them. The ship’s stern was settling deeper in the water.
“Maybe it’s time for that last resort,” Owens suggested.
Talent agreed that facing more of the creatures in a lifeboat beat drowning, but he wasn’t ready to call it quits. “Not yet. We need something better than pistols to face down a swarm of Wasps. Maybe someone on the bridge can supply us with something bigger.”
Seconds later, the ship’s signal horn sounded six short and one long blast.
“Son of a bitch! That’s the abandon ship signal,” Talent noted. “Someone’s alive on the bridge, and he panicked.”
Talent took the steps up to the bridge two at a time. He didn’t need to open the door. The door and a section of bulkhead adjacent to it were missing, leaving a ragged opening. Three men stood amid the wreckage of electronic equipment and clutter of shattered glass. Almost every piece of equipment on the bridge, from the gyrocompass to the state-of-the-art navigation systems, bore varying degrees of damage. The only commonality was that none of the dozens of screens at the long row of consoles beneath the windows was illuminated. Coagulating blood covered a black leather captain’s chair wrenched from its base and tossed beside the door. More blood streaked the carpet and the jagged edges of one of the broken windows. Electronic equipment dangled from the overhead by a tangle of cables and power cords.
One of the men on the bridge, a short and wiry Filipino, had two stripes on his sleeve, the ship’s second officer. He eyed the intruders with obvious hostility.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “I need you to leave the bridge immediately and go directly to your lifeboat muster station.”
“Easy, slick,” Owens said. “We’re here to help.”
“Where are the captain and first officer?” Talent asked.
The second officer winced and waved his hand around the demolished room. “They were on the bridge when those things attacked. Where do you think they are? Those creatures swarmed aboard and smashed into the bridge. They’re gone. They’re all gone, the entire bridge watch.”
The second officer’s voice grew more strident and his hands more animated as he spoke.
“Get a grip, second officer,” Talent snapped, calling him by his rank to remind him who he was. “Why did you sound Abandon Ship?”
He jerked his eyes starboard. “Because of that.”
Talent looked toward the Kaiju. It seemed to have stopped moving, but a black cloud swirled around it. He knew it was not smoke.
“Wasps,” Owens said, correctly identifying the cloud as a swarm of Kaiju Wasps. “We’re fucked.”
Facing another attack on a sinking ship offered few options. “How much longer will this ship remain afloat?” Talent asked.
The officer glanced around the bridge nervously. The equipment upon which he relied to tell him exactly what was happening throughout the ship lay in pieces on the floor, now worthless junk. He had to rely upon his training, his instinct, and his experience.
“Three hours at most. We can’t control the flooding and each section of the ship that fills speeds up the process.”
“What about rescue vessels?”
The second officer’s face looked stricken. “Communications are out. We have to abandon ship.”
Owens scowled. “Son, I’ve seen those Wasps pull doors off patrol cars. They won’t have much trouble with those fiberglass canoes.”
The second officer was out of his comfort zone. He had trained for emergencies, but the reality of this one had left him floundering. His normal duties included Navigation, Watch Keep officer, updating the bridge logs, and monitoring safety and bridge equipment, none of which applied to the situation in which he now he found himself.
“We can’t stay here,” he said.
Talent kept his voice quiet to keep the second officer calm. He looked at his name badge. “Lieutenant de le Rosa, you need to arm as many men as you have weapons and move the passengers to the theater. We can block the passageways with whatever we can find and shoot anything that comes through.”
He glanced out the window at the Wasps. A line of them ran from the Kaiju toward the northeast. He figured one of the nearby islands was their target, but they wouldn’t ignore a nice big, juicy, cruise ship for long, especially after the trouble they went to in crippling it. “We might not have much time.”
De le Rosa hesitated. “I don’t know. The captain …”
“You’re the captain now,” Talent snapped. “The lives of your passengers are in your hands. You don’t have much time to think about it.”
De le Rosa nodded his head. “Okay.” He turned to the warrant officer beside him. “The ship’s intercom is out. Pass out the portable walkie-talkies and inform the crew to move the passengers to the Princess Theater. Locate any other officers you can find and have them meet me in the Wheelhouse Lounge in ten minutes.”
Having made a decision and committed himself to its outcome, Talent noted that de le Rosa regained some of his self-assurance.
“Now, you two gentlemen accompany me and Able Seaman Pratang to the weapons locker to help arm the security personnel.”
“Now you’re taking,” Talent said.
“Do you have shotguns for skeet shooting?” Owens asked.
“Yes, twenty of them. They’re in a locker in the entertainment officer’s office. I’ll send someone for them.”
It’s a start, Talent thought. “We’ll need any weapons we can scrounge up – pistols, fire axes, hell, even butcher knives from the kitchens. This is going to get messy.”
Talent wished he had brought his arsenal of weapons with him. He felt severely under armed with only a borrowed .357, a kukri, and a knife. “You go with de le Rosa,” he told Owens. “I want to keep an eye on the Wasps.”
“Yell if you need help,” Owens said.
Talent looked out at the line of Wasps and frowned. “If I need help, it’ll probably be too late to yell.”
8
Friday, Dec. 15, 11:30 a.m. CST Houston, TX –
While Mark Talent was worrying about Saturday’s breakfast aboard the Radiant Princess, with the nineteen-hour time difference, Doctor Gate Rutherford was sitting down to Friday’s lunch with Carl Caruthers of NASA, Director of the Johnson Space Center. At 6’1’’, Caruthers was just as tall as Rutherford, but where Rutherford was thin and wiry; the director was as broad-shouldered as a pro linebacker was and big enough to box as a heavyweight. He tore into his 18-ounce rare T-bone steak with gusto, while Rutherford picked at his barely touched poached salmon. Caruthers cocked his head slightly and pointed his fork at Rutherford’s plate.
“You’d better eat that, Gate. If you lose any more weight, we can strap a parachute to your ass and stick you on top of an SLS vehicle as the escape system.”
Rutherford, freshly shaven and groomed for the occasion, tried to smile at the director’s jibe at his appearance, but it emerged on his lips as a grimace. As usual, Caruthers was immaculately dressed, looking as if ready to act as NASA’s public spokesperson at a press conference. Gate was uncomfortable in his best grey suit that now fit him like a funeral shroud, drooping from his shoulders and billowing outward from his chest as he leaned forward across the table. He pushed the plate aside and answered with a curt, “I’m not hungry. I need your help.”
“You need a keeper,” Caruthers’ answered, and then laid his fork warily on the edge of his plate and sighed. “Okay, I get it, no more remarks on your appearance. What can I do for you?”
“I need a foot in the door, yours.”
Caruthers frowned. “You burned a lot of bridges with your accusatory tirades. Some very important people got the public spotlight shined on them. They didn’t like that.”
Rutherford snorted. “I can’t help that. No one would listen to me. Now, they will. I was right.”
“I’ll grant you that, but politicians and generals have longer memories than elephants. Hell, they have staff just to keep up with the names of people on their shit list. You’
re Turd Numero Uno on most of them. Okay, the Kaiju landed where you predicted it would, and the aliens have changed patterns just as you said they would. You’re batting a thousand so far. What do you need from me?”
Rutherford had considered the question carefully before asking the director for the meeting. He had even suggested the director’s favorite steakhouse to set the mood. He needed to keep his wish list short or risk alienating the only person who still had faith in him. Even truncated, his list had some heavy items on it. “First, I need access to the NEOWISE Infrared Near-Earth Orbiting Body telescope. I need a closer look at Haumea.”
Caruthers paused; then nodded. “I think I can arrange for you to access NEOWISE for a few hours.”
Rutherford shook his head. “I need it for forty-eight hours at least.”
“Two days!” Caruthers bellowed, drawing a few hard glares from restaurant patrons and eliciting a concerned look from one Stetson and black jeans-clad waitress. “Hell, I had to sell my soul to bring it out of hibernation when the first Kaiju appeared. The Near-Earth Orbiting boys would carve out my liver if I tried to co-opt their bird.”
“I need a look at both sides of Haumea to be sure. That might take a while.”
Caruthers cocked a bushy eyebrow at Rutherford. “Sure of what?”
Rutherford hated to reveal so much so soon, but he knew Caruthers would demand details before risking his career. “I believe the alien base is on Haumea.” Before Caruthers could protest, he added, “I know I suggested it months ago, but the DRS satellite data points to Haumea as the origin of the Kaiju pods. If they are there, Infrared will spot any heat signatures.”
Caruthers hung his head and shook it slowly. “My God, Gate. You don’t ask for much, do you? I’ll see what I can do. They’re NASA boys after all and they’re team players, but they’re also tight-assed SOBs just like you. They’ll want something bright and shiny in return for two days of dedicated observation time.”
“Tell them that if I’m right, NASA will be sending a probe to Haumea ASAP. They can have all the access they want to search for asteroids.”