Sedulity 2: Aftershock (Sedulity Saga) (5 page)

Other injuries were more easily treated. Dozens of passengers
and crew had broken their arms or legs when the
Sedulity
rode the rollercoaster of tsunamis. Many others required
stiches for cuts and lacerations sustained from flying shards of glass, or
impact with other sharp objects. Their pain would also be significant, since
they would only get over-the-counter pain killers. The prescription stuff was
now reserved for severe burns and that supply would soon be exhausted anyway.
Dr. Segal feared that within a matter of hours, a day or two at most, he and
the other care givers would be reduced to 19
^th
century treatment
options. He made another mental note to requisition a considerable supply of
hard alcohol for use as primitive pain killers.
 

Passing through the emergency treatment room, Dr. Segal
ventured out into the reception area to get an idea of how many more patients
were waiting to be treated. It was daunting to discover dozens of injured
strung down the hallway in a line that turned the corner and stretched back up
the main stairway. He noticed that all of them were wearing orange triage tags
and hoped this meant all the “red tags” had already been admitted for
treatment. He tried to avoid direct eye contact with the injured waiting to
receive his limited care. In doing so he glanced down the side corridor behind
the reception desk and nearly broke into tears at the sight of thirty or more
bodies stacked against one wall and the other side lined with people wearing
“black tags” who still clung to life while a priest dispensed water, prayers,
and comfort. The doctor was tempted to examine those survivors, to see if any
of them stood a chance, but knew that they had all been triaged for a reason.
Their injuries were so severe that treating them would unfairly consume the
time and resources desperately needed by others with a far better chance of
survival.

Dr. Segal turned back into the emergency room, noting the
watermarks at knee height on the walls and doors. The whole medical center had
been in danger of flooding in the hour following the asteroid strike. He had
almost ordered evacuation of the whole deck, until the captain’s wife had
inadvertently released the floodwater onto the decks below. Her survival was
miraculous and one of the few bright points during the crisis. The subsequent
restoration of power to the ship had also helped the medical team save many
more lives. Nevertheless, the doctor wondered what had happened to all the
water that had poured down into the bowels of the ship. How many of the crew
had drowned below decks? Were the pumps really able to handle all the flooding?
His thoughts were muddled by these worries as he stood before the sink to scrub
up before facing his next patient.

*****

Chief Engineer John McKinney had his hands full down in the
engine room. The captain might be running the
Sedulity
from the bridge, but McKinney kept her alive and well. It
was a job he took great pride in, not least of it due to the powerful and
sophisticated machinery he controlled. The heartbeat and pulse of the
Sedulity
resided in four massive diesel
generators producing up to 70,000 kW of electricity. Two thirds of that output
was dedicated to propulsion and the remainder provided power for all other
systems aboard the ship.

 
Unlike traditional
ships with massive propellers and shafts, the
Sedulity
was powered by revolutionary Azipod azimuth thrusters.
Four propulsion pods mounted below the stern of the ship contained streamlined
electric motors connected directly to massive propellers on both ends of the
pods. The pods themselves were capable of rotating 360 degrees, providing directional
thrust that greatly improved maneuverability, increased fuel economy, and removed
the need for a traditional rudder.
 
The
electricity produced by the massive diesel generators inside the engineering
spaces powered the pods mounted outside the hull and drove the ship at up to 25
knots, under optimum conditions. Of course the conditions were far from optimal
at the moment and thankfully there had been no demand for high speed placed on the
engines since the violent maneuvering immediately following the asteroid
impact. Two of the main diesel generators remained offline due to electrical
short circuits caused by flooding from the upper decks. The other two
generating plants had been brought back on line and were more than sufficient
to provide the ship with electricity and partial propulsion power.
 

What had concerned Chief Engineer McKinney most since the
impact was flooding.
 
Thank God the captain
had closed the watertight doors before the tsunamis arrived, or the whole
engineering space might have flooded, leaving the ship helpless and adrift.
McKinney had watched the flooding monitors and even heard the sound of water
rushing outside walls and doors of the engine room. At one point the whole engineering
deck and everyone inside had been surrounded and covered by water. Only the watertight
doors and hatches had kept them dry. From that point it had been a matter of
keeping the pumps supplied with power and waiting for the water level to fall
around them. Although everyone knew intellectually that they were safe, there
had been an instinctive fright triggered by the knowledge that they were
submerged in a flooded part of the ship. McKinney had lightened the mood by
promising to award each of them a submariners’ certificate when this was over,
but there had still been plenty of tension until the volume of water being
pumped out exceeded the amount flooding down from higher in the ship.

The flooding was all but gone now. At the peak of the crisis
the ship’s massive pumps had expelled it from the hull at a combined rate of
15,000 GPM, or 250 gallons per second. Even at that rate it took more than an
hour to declare the flooding event over. They were lucky that all the water had
come flooding down from the superstructure, and there were no breaches in the
hull below the waterline. Nevertheless, it was amazing to realize that close to
a million gallons of water must have entered the ship without swamping her.

For the past few hours the chief engineer and his team had
been inspecting all of the machinery in the lower decks and slowly bringing
systems back online. It had been a long night and McKinney didn’t expect to get
any rest the next day either. Too many gadgets reacted poorly to immersion in
seawater. Entire banks of switch gear and computer monitors in the lower
engineering spaces would need to be replaced or bypassed. He was far from
certain that he had enough spare parts to restore every system, so he needed to
prioritize the systems that were most critical.

Power and propulsion were at the top of the list and they
were in pretty good shape, since the generators were contained within
watertight engine rooms. Two of the four main generating plants were running
and McKinney was confident that the other two would be back online later in the
day.
 
Two of the propulsion pods were
currently running and the other two were being tested, but would not be turned
on until full power was restored. The next priority was supplying electricity
from the generating plants to the rest of the ship. He was currently in the
process of restoring power on a calculated schedule of priorities. The captain and
crew already had power restored on the bridge to operate the ship effectively,
while the passengers and crew must have felt a lot better when the lights came
back on in the public spaces.
 
Those,
along with the medical center, had been at the top of the list. Now came the
tough decisions. Was it more important to restore power to the kitchens, or the
staterooms? He decided to prioritize the kitchens, especially since so many of
the staterooms were reported to be gutted by fire and flooding. Should he prioritize
repairs to the sewage and sanitation system, or the water-makers? The
engineering crew reported that there were only enough critical spare parts to
restore one or the other for now. The
Sedulity
was an extremely complex collection of interconnecting systems, all which
served a common purpose, but some were less essential than others.

“Ensign Marcus, what’s the status of our fresh water supply?”
McKinney asked a technician monitoring a computer display of the ship’s vital
signs.

“No contamination indicated,” the young woman replied
crisply. “But firefighting operations drained nearly 85% of the reservoir.”

“That much? Damn,” McKinney scowled. The ship stored close to
half a million gallons of fresh water, but consumed more than a fifth of it on
an average day at sea. That was where the water-makers came in. The massive
machines distilled seawater into drinking water and could produce over a
hundred thousand gallons per day, or twenty-five gallons per person aboard. That
was enough to keep up with the demand for drinking, bathing, cooking, and
laundry needs. With the water-makers offline and the reserve down to 15%, they
were looking at a water crisis within a day, two at the most, unless he could
bring those units back into service.

On the other hand, the water-makers were fed with straight
seawater that passed through standard charcoal and reverse osmosis filters.
There were rumors going around, even down in the Engine Room, that storm clouds
were pouring all sorts of foul and noxious elements onto the ship and into the
surrounding sea. Did they really want to try to turn this part of the ocean into
drinking water?

McKinney decided that the more pressing need was to restore
the
Sedulity’s
sewage and sanitation
systems to full operation. He had heard horror stories about another cruise
ship that lost power and soon had human waste flowing down the corridors on the
lower decks when the sewage system backed-up. He’d be damned if he would allow
that to happen to
his
ship! No, it
didn’t look like people would be taking long showers or doing much laundry in
the next few days anyway, but everyone would be needing to pass the remnants of
all the fine food and beverages they had consumed before this disaster struck.
Much better to focus on keeping the ship clean and sanitary, even if it meant
imposing temporary restrictions on water consumption.

“Instruct Mr. Swanson to focus on restoring the sanitation
systems,” he said. “I’ll inform the captain that we’ll probably have to
institute water rationing. Oh, and when you’re done there, be a dear and go
fetch me a case of Evian, would you?”

Ensign Patricia Marcus returned his smile with a shake of her
head, knowing him too well to take his personal request seriously. Then she
entered some commands into the computer and used her headset to pass along
instructions for the engineering team to redirect their priorities. A long
night was turning into a longer day.

Chapter 3

Tsunamis smashed into the Mexican Riviera with devastating
impact. Although earthquakes had been less destructive in Mexico than other
parts of the Pacific Rim, the infrastructure was not sufficient to facilitate an
orderly evacuation of seaside cities and towns. Even with twelve hours’
warning, the majority of the coastal population remained within the danger
zone.

The Bay of Acapulco faced southwest, directly aligned with
the approaching tsunamis. A television news helicopter took off from Acapulco
International Airport shortly before the waves arrived. They transmitted
shocking images of colossal walls of water sweeping first across that airport
and growing even larger as they entered Acapulco Bay, obliterating the famous
Las Brisas resort. The row of high rise hotels and condos lining the other side
of the bay were dwarfed by the towering tsunami that tore them apart before
sweeping through the city and smashing into the hillsides. Video from the
helicopter showed the tops of those coastal mountains crowded with people who
had fled to higher ground. However, the size and force of the waves, especially
after being magnified and focused by the bay, sent the water cascading over the
hills and beyond. When the video panned back to the hilltops, following the
waves’ passage, the view showed them to be scoured clean and devoid of life.

News coverage of the destruction in Panama and Acapulco
triggered panic up the entire Pacific Coast of North America and mounting
horror around the world. The waves had clearly not weakened appreciatively in
their journey across the open ocean. Time was running out for millions of
people inhabiting the West Coast. In Washington, DC, the White House announced
that the president would make one more address to the nation before the waves
struck California. The majority of the country held their breath, while those
on the West Coast screamed and ran for their lives.

Although earthquakes had disrupted evacuation plans in California,
there were glimmers of hope amidst the despair. The US Navy had dispatched all
of its active vessels from the port of San Diego. News footage showed two
nuclear aircraft carriers steaming out of San Diego Bay at close to full speed,
followed by more than a dozen other warships and an armada of yachts and
commercial vessels. Amphibious warfare ships paused at docks on Coronado and
the Embarcadero to embark tens of thousands of panicked civilians and military
families before following the rest of the fleet out to sea. It was hoped that
the ships would get far enough offshore to ride out the waves, then return to
render aid to survivors ashore. The Marines from Camp Pendleton were also in
evacuation mode. An endless convoy traveled up Ammunition Road towards the
Fallbrook Air Park, a small public airport which was deemed to be in a safe
zone at an elevation of more than 700 feet, and over ten miles from the
coastline, with sizable hills in between.
 
Additional Marine convoys moved through Oceanside and San Marcus,
assisting civilians in clearing earthquake damaged roads and moving inland.
Naval and Marine aircraft were evacuated far inland to bases in Nevada and
Arizona, except for the helicopters that attempted to evacuate as many people
as possible from doomed coastal communities.

Further south, when the tsunamis hit Cabo San Lucas the event
was recorded by a US Coast Guard C-130 that would follow the waves’ progress up
both coasts of the Baja Peninsula for the next few hours. The footage was not
broadcast to the media, but many military and government officials were glued
to the satellite feed.
 
Deep water beyond
the tip of Baja prevented the tsunami from growing to the monstrous heights
witnessed in bays and gulfs. The tsunami was only a few hundred feet high when
it hit Land’s End, breaking around the mansions perched atop Pedregal and
wiping out the tourist town and resorts below. However, the wave heights grew
larger at the mouth of the Gulf of California and continued to build within the
confines of the Sea of Cortez. Los Cabos was decimated and the wave grew even
larger before hitting La Paz.

The C-130, flying at 25,000 feet, was able to observe the
waves sweep north on both sides of the Baja Peninsula. The difference was
dramatic. On the Pacific side of Baja the massive line of tsunami waves moved
at hundreds of miles per hour, building swiftly to nearly a thousand feet high along
the coastline. In the shallower Sea of Cortez, however, the waves slowed down,
piled up on top of each other, and rose to truly amazing heights. They swept
over large islands in the gulf, and even grew big enough to wash across low lying
sections of the peninsula to pour back into the Pacific, whose coastline had
already been hit by the faster moving waves on that side of Baja.

The difference in speed and size of the waves on the east and
west sides of Baja was clear proof of the theory that tsunamis moved faster in
deep water, slowing and growing taller in the shallows.
 
The Coast Guard airplane kept pace with the
faster wave, flying at close to 300 knots, but the aircrew kept a camera
trained behind them on the bigger, slower wave too.

The copilot of the C-130 turned to the pilot and said, “Hey,
Marcus, you ever been to Rocky Point?”

“You mean Puerto Penasco?”

“Yeah,” the copilot nodded. “The tourist town at the top of
the Sea of Cortez. Want to make bets on how high that wave is by the time it
gets there?”

“Hell no!” the pilot shuddered. “That’s sick, man. Let’s just
fly the airplane.”

The aircrew took scant consolation from the fact that most of
Baja was uninhabited. They knew full well that these waves were only a couple of
hours away from the densely populated coastline of California.

*****

Commander Joshua Anders stared out into the rain and darkness
from the bridge of the
HMAS Bounder
.
The Australian frigate was slicing through mounting swells at over 30 knots,
making a beeline for the asteroid impact zone. Although the weather forecast yesterday
for this part of the Central Pacific had been for calm seas and clear skies,
the asteroid strike had changed everything. Within hours of impact a solid
curtain of cloud cover had swept over the ship, bringing rain and reduced
visibility. Soon thereafter a strong wind had built from astern, rushing
towards the impact site. The unusual wind, blowing in the opposite direction of
the clouds streaming by overhead, had soon begun to build swells that traveled
along with the ship, rushing headlong towards the source of global calamity.

The sleek warship had survived the impact-generated tsunamis
by following the same tactic employed by the
Sedulity
, turning into the waves and riding over them. Thankfully
the waves had been considerably smaller at a distance of 500 nautical miles in
the open sea, but they had still posed a deadly threat to the
Bounder.
Commander Anders had reacted correctly
by turning into the waves. It was a lesson he remembered well from his training
as a young ensign: Turn towards the threat, whatever it might be.
 
In fact, he had almost failed his first
verbal exam to become a certified bridge officer as an ensign when his
commander threw him a slight curve ball.

He had been asked, “If a collision with another ship is
unavoidable, what should you do?” Young Ensign Anders had tried to talk his way
around the question by describing why he would never let the ship get into the
predicament of an unavoidable collision, but his commander would have none of
it. “Assume the collision is unavoidable. What do you do?” Anders was stumped
and could only say that he would sound the collision alarm.
 

His commander nodded, but added, “Turn into the other ship.”
Ander’s jaw had dropped, so the captain explained, “It’s counterintuitive, but
the bow is the strongest part of the ship and built to run into things. You
might think it’s cruel to ram the other vessel, but your primary responsibility
is to ensure the survival of your own ship and crew.”
 

It was a lesson that Anders had never forgotten. And, while
the tsunamis he faced were quite different than a collision with another ship, the
principle was the same. Ships always fared better in high seas when they turned
into the waves and cut through them. The asteroid-generated waves had simply
been several orders of magnitude larger than any he ever faced before. The
frigate had ridden up the face of the first juggernaut, plowed into the
following trough, and miraculously ridden out the subsequent monster waves in
one piece.

Since encountering those tsunamis the
Bounder
had pressed on at full speed towards the impact zone.
Anders and his crew had been shocked by news of catastrophic destruction that
trickled in from island nations across the Pacific. Their shock turned to
dismay when the monster waves reached Australia and the frigate began losing
contact with most of the rest of the Australian Navy. They still had
communications with national command in Canberra, as well as bases in
Melbourne, Perth, and Darwin, but all contact with ships and bases along the
north and east coasts of the continent had been lost when the tsunamis struck. In
the past few hours they had heard evacuation orders announced in Melbourne too.

Commander Anders marveled at how quickly the weather had
changed following the asteroid strike. Dense clouds and pouring rain had
arrived within hours of the asteroid impact.
 
Towering clouds had raced from horizon to horizon, blotting out the
stars and delivering a deluge of unnaturally hot and salty rain. The weather
only contributed to the dismal atmosphere aboard the
HMAS Bounder
, as horrific news continued to pour in from around the
Pacific Rim. One of the few bits of good news came when they established
contact with the
Sedulity
. Anders was
amazed that a cruise ship had survived the blast wave and tsunamis at a range
of only a hundred miles from the point of impact. Upon learning that the ship
had collected considerable amounts of ejecta, and possibly even fragments of
the asteroid, Commander Anders had immediately altered course to rendezvous
with the stricken liner. The material that fell onto the
Sedulity
might be valuable in evaluating the composition and source
of the asteroid. He wasn’t sure how much good such information could do now,
but his orders from Canberra made it clear that someone in authority thought it
was important enough to send the
Bounder
charging full speed ahead towards the source of the cataclysm.

“Status report, Mr. Michaels?” Anders called across the bridge.

“Speed steady at 33 knots, Captain. Gale force winds at 40
knots from astern, gusting to 60 knots. Sea state rising with two meter
swells.
 
Ship remains at general quarters,
Sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Michaels. I’m going down to CIC for a few
minutes. Steady as she goes and set a watch for rogue waves. So far it looks
like we’re outrunning the swells, but keep a sharp eye out. This is not a
normal storm, so stay alert. All we need now is to get broadsided by a rogue
wave.”
 
The watch officer nodded and
returned his attention to the mounting seas. Commander Anders left the bridge to
check on communication updates and news in the Combat Information Center.
Neither of them could quite comprehend that the whole world had been broadsided
by a true Rogue, nor could they fully fathom the consequences.

*****

Lydia Krystos felt battered and beaten when she woke up in
the captain’s cabin of the
Sedulity
on that dark and fateful morning
.
It
was no wonder she felt that way, having been tossed about violently and nearly
drowned twice the previous night. The pain was proof that her nightmarish
memory of being sucked into the bowels of the ship by flooding had not been a
dream. Lydia offered a silent prayer for the poor souls who had not been
fortunate enough to live through the night, shuddering at the memory of
fighting her way up a flooded stairwell choked with dead bodies. Her depression
deepened when she pondered the fate of the rest of the world. The news had been
anything but good when she and her husband, Captain Krystos, crawled into bed a
few hours previously.

Lydia wasn’t surprised that the bed next to her was empty now.
She knew that her husband would have gotten up as soon as he awoke, if he had
even been able to get any sleep at all. Although the situation aboard ship
seemed to have stabilized late last night, there were a million things in need
of prompt attention. The captain had a heavy burden to shoulder in the wake of
this disaster, not the least of which was the continued safety of the ship and
all aboard her. Lydia knew that her husband also harbored guilt for the
hundreds of lives already lost. She had struggled to convince him that none of
it was his fault, that he had saved many more lives by guiding the ship through
the blast wave and tsunamis in one piece, but she knew him too well to believe
that he could accept logical arguments over his grief and misplaced guilt. He
would be driven to prove himself worthy of command by shepherding the survivors
through this crisis. She was thankful that he had taken a short nap before
meeting the challenges that would face him today.

Today? Lydia glanced at the clock and confirmed that it was
indeed morning. Well, it should be. Where she expected to see the glow of
sunrise beyond the balcony was only a dark and heavy downpour. Rain fell
incessantly as the ship rocked and shuddered to the beat of pounding swells. Lydia
pulled her sore body out of bed and took a few steps to the balcony window. The
view was not encouraging. Lights from the ship’s Resort Deck flooded down
towards the sea, but failed to do much more than illuminate the deluge of rain
descending in solid sheets from the sky. What little illumination reached sea
level only revealed the crests of waves streaming by faster than the ship was
moving. It was a major change of weather from the day before, totally unlike
the forecast she had seen prior to the asteroid strike, but nowhere near as
disturbing as the total absence of sunlight this morning. Lydia shivered as the
word
apocalypse
crept through her
mind.