Triton (11 page)

A moment later, though, her eyes widened with fear. “Uh-oh.”

“What now? An iceberg?” said Jake.

She shook her head. “Island. Dead ahead.”

Naomi recognized the
alarms now—the ship’s collision detection system, alerting the crew that they were dangerously close to running aground. How could they have been so stupid?

The
Cypress
had been sailing blind for more than twenty-four hours. There were no officers on the bridge, no captain, no one steering the ship. They must have sailed right past Bermuda sometime yesterday and were now God knew where in the middle of the Atlantic.

Now a monstrous peak rose a thousand feet directly in front of the ship, its silhouette black against the night sky.

They were going to hit it . . . if they didn’t hit something else first.

More rock formations passed on either side of the ship; they had sailed right into a cluster of them, their eerie shapes thrusting out of the sea like giant fists. And there were probably more formations submerged just beneath the surface. She couldn’t imagine more treacherous waters. It was a miracle the huge vessel hadn’t struck one already.

Costa Concordia
came to mind, the cruise ship that had run aground off the coast of Italy in 2012. The ship had gashed open its hull on rock in shallow water, flooded, and eventually come to rest on the sea floor. It didn’t matter how big they made these cruise ships . . . they could still sink.

The lifeboats.

Could she operate them without the crew? Come on, Naomi,
think
—

The ship lurched again, careening her sideways, and the hull groaned . . . a terrible scraping of hardened mineral deposits ripping through steel.

“Did we take a hit?” said Jake.

They all went quiet, listening for the moan of metal battering against rock and the rush of water flooding the corridors. But the decks were silent.

“I think we just scraped that one.” Naomi pressed her ear to the wall, which would conduct vibrations from the hull much better than the chilly air. But all was still. The only noise came from deep in the ship, the faint hum of the engines.

The engines driving them to their death.

“The bridge,” she said suddenly. “We need to get to the bridge.
Now!
”

Bridge of the MS Cypress

Warning lights drenched
the endless corridors with a red glow, stinging Cedar’s retinas. The alarm screamed.

He half expected to see frantic passengers fleeing their staterooms. Of course, the halls were deserted.

The Royal Loft Suite was near the stern, which meant they had almost a quarter mile of passageways to navigate to reach the front of the ship, to find the bridge—the control room where the captain was supposed to be controlling the ship.

“It’s on deck twelve,” said Naomi, leading them onto the elevator and pounding the button. In tense silence, they dropped through deck sixteen, fifteen, fourteen . . . then twelve.

“What happened to deck thirteen?” said Cedar.

“There’s no deck thirteen,” said Naomi “Not in buildings, not on cruise ships.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because it’s unlucky?”

“Can we talk about this later?” she said, eyes intent on the doors.

“I’m just saying . . . find deck thirteen,” he said, “and you find your crew.”

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. The others hurried through the lobby into the long hallway and broke into a sprint toward the front of the ship. Naomi led the pack, with Jake at her heels.

“Here,” said Naomi, streaking through the forward elevator lobby and slamming into a steel door marked
Crew Only
. She jiggled the handle. Locked.

Jake squatted next to one of the steel trash cans lining the lobby and hooked his fingers under the bottom lip. “Cedar, you and me,” he said.

A scan of the lobby confirmed this was the only way. Cedar stooped on the other side of the trash can, and together—Cedar’s lower back twinging—they hoisted it off the ground and lined it up with the door.

“Count of three,” said Jake. “One . . . two . . .” they dragged the can back and let it swing forward, gaining momentum, “. . . 
three!
”

They lunged with their combined weight, and the edge of the trash can impacted the door with a dull thud.

“Again. Harder,” Jake shouted.

They pulled back and charged again, struck the door just below the handle. The lock snapped and the door swung open.

Naomi was already through, followed by Brynn and Sky. Cedar and Jake heaved the trash can to the side and tore in after them—into the maze of officers’ quarters off the bridge.

They ran down another hallway and spun around a corner—and stopped dead.

“It’s through that,” said Naomi, her voice flat with defeat.

Looming ahead of them, an impenetrable blast door blocked the corridor, sealing off the bridge like a bank vault. Compared to this hulk, the door Cedar and Jake had just forced could have been tin foil. The only way to control the ship, and they needed dynamite to get at it.

“Jake, you and me,” said Cedar, mocking his earlier actions. “Count of three.”

“It would take an atomic bomb to get through that,” said Naomi.

Just then, a skull-rattling screech shot through the ship’s structure, and the bulkhead shuddered. The
Cypress
listed to port, squashing them first against one wall and then the other as she swung upright again.

Above them, the alarm continued to squeal.

“Naomi, is it time to consider abandoning ship?” asked Jake.

“No,” said Sky
. “We’re
not
giving up. There’s got to be another way onto the bridge.” The thought of their ship going down filled her with dread.

“The bridge is sealed off so no one can hijack the ship,” said Naomi. “I’m so stupid, I should have remembered. If there’s another door, it’s going to look just like this one.”

“What about the ventilation ducts?” said Brynn.

“Yeah, but
where?
”

“You guys watch too many movies,” said Cedar. “I doubt they’d go to all the trouble of barricading Fort Knox here and then install a conveniently human-sized vent straight onto the bridge.”

Desperation gripped Sky’s throat. “We have to find another way.”

“Yeah, disappear like the rest of the crew and then reappear inside,” said Cedar.

Sky ignored his comment and scanned the narrow corridor, her pulse frantic and erratic. Her eyes settled on a massive red axe mounted to the wall.

“Through the windows.” She rested her palm on its axe’s six-foot handle. “With this.”

“I take it
no one’s going to volunteer,” said Jake, peering over the steep drop from the level fourteen observation deck, directly above the bridge.

“I think you just did,” said Cedar, thrusting the axe into his hand.

Big surprise. Once again, it was his job to be the hero.
Just freaking great
.

The bridge windows peered out over the front of the cruise ship, completely cut off from the passenger decks. The only way to reach the windows was to swing down from above.

Behind him and Cedar, the girls huddled in a circle, rubbing their bare arms to fend off the cold and watching them with concerned looks.

Oh, they had been more than happy to come up with a plan this suicidal, but clearly that’s where their responsibilities ended. As if by some unspoken code, they had decided their duties now consisted of hanging back, doing nothing, and looking good doing it.

Girls
.

Below them, the bow of the
Cypress
sliced through the dark water, its destination: the island’s jagged cliffs a mile away, battered by huge breaking swells—where they would be pulverized if they didn’t alter course.

Jake held out his other hand, and Cedar slapped the rope they’d scrounged up into his palm. Jake wrapped it tight around his waist and tied it off, looped it around the railing a few times, and extended the other end to Cedar.

Cedar grabbed it, but Jake didn’t let go. Instead, he locked eyes with him. “You going to drop me?”

“First thing,” said Cedar.

“If you hold onto this rope, Sky promises she’ll kiss you on the lips.”

“I promise
what?
” said Sky.

Jake winked at her.

“Cedar, go ahead and drop his ass,” said Sky.

Cedar glanced back at her. “With tongue,” he said.

Jake left them to their banter and scaled the railing. On the other side, he stepped down the slanted hood that jutted out over the bridge, leaning most of his weight on the rope. Should he fall, a three story drop to the inclined superstructure awaited over the edge. Carefully, he dropped into a crouch and craned his neck to see beneath the hood.

A row of dark, floor to ceiling windows wrapped around the sides of the ship and out of view. “I see the bridge,” he said. “Hold on tight up there . . . and give me about eight feet of slack. I’m going to use the rope to swing at it hard.”

Jake gripped the axe in both hands and leapt into space. The rope dug into his hips and jerked him back, swinging him toward the bridge windows. In midair, he swung the axe like a baseball bat.

Bad idea. The effort sent him into a dizzying spin, and he crunched into the glass face first, the blade nowhere near the window. The impact loosened his grip, and the axe slipped through his fingers and plummeted.

Shit!
He kicked out as he swung back and caught the blade with his shoe, its weight crushing the arch of his foot. Wincing, he dragged the axe back up.

Just like Hacky Sack.

“What’re you doing down there, Jakey-boy?” came Cedar’s voice.

“Having a fucking tea party,” said Jake, “What do you think I’m doing?”

The rope carried him back toward the bridge, and he planted both feet on the windowpane and pushed off hard, gathering momentum for a second attempt. His swing took him high, and for a moment he hovered in free fall at the end of the rope—before it jerked taught and shot him back toward the bridge.

This time his own spin compensated for the axe’s inertia, and he smashed the blade into the window. The axe penetrated the glass, transforming it into an opaque haze of splinters.

Home run.

After a few more swings, he had carved out a hole large enough to crawl through.

Naomi heard a
series of clicks from the blast door—the steel bolts retracting—and a moment later, the door swung open, revealing Jake, grinning like an idiot, the rope still tied around his hips.

Heart racing, she pushed past him into the bridge and scanned the lineup of high-tech gadgetry. The others filed in behind her.

At the center of the bridge, a triangle of black leather seats presided over a console of computer monitors, keyboards, and joysticks.

Except for the glow from the monitors, a few of which flashed warning messages, the bridge was dark. To better see at night.

Straight ahead, the cliffs were closing in fast—and she could make out every serrated peak of razor-sharp rock.

Frantic, she glanced around the rest of the bridge. On every wall, instrument panels and blinking indicator lights tugged at her gaze, but not the one thing they needed.

“What is this . . . Starship
Enterprise?
” she said. “Where’s the freaking helm?”

“The what?” said Jake.

“The steering wheel . . . for the ship.”

“I think it’s one of these joysticks.”

“Crap.” She ran forward and plopped herself in the highest, most important looking seat, right at the centerline of the ship.

The captain’s chair.

A dizzying array of computer screens and instruments surrounded her. “There’s a billion controls here,” she said. “What do I do?”

“That’s your call, captain,” said Jake, coming to stand at her right. “But I do suggest we do something soon.”

She inhaled slowly. “Find anything that looks like a throttle . . . anything that moves, that swivels, turns . . .
everything
. Pull it all the way back. We have to reverse the propellers.”

The five of them went around the bridge and slotted everything that moved into the “reverse” position.

Nothing happened. Nothing changed. The alarms continued to scream, their pitch unwavering. The
Cypress
didn’t so much as veer an inch.

Naomi leaned over the nearest console. One of the throttle levers moved laterally. On a ship, what kind of throttle lever would move left to right?

Of course.

“Bow thrusters,” she said, pushing the lever all the way to the right. “We need bow thrusters full to starboard . . . that’ll turn the front of the ship.”

Another set of throttles below the bow thrusters also looked promising. These ones swiveled, and she could just made out a white label above them.

Steering Angle.

Suddenly, she remembered. The
Cypress
didn’t have a rudder. No modern cruise ship did. They had azimuth thrusters—steerable pods at the stern of the ship containing the motors and propellers.

She was staring at the throttles that controlled the azimuth thrusters.

In order to turn the bow to the right, the stern had to move to the left. She yanked both throttles all the way back and to the left.

She glanced up, and her eyes froze on the island of rock bearing down on them. The ship’s bow nudged ever so slightly to the right.

A ship this large couldn’t turn on a dime. It took thousands of feet; the turning radius had to be miles.

The
Cypress
was turning. Just not nearly fast enough.

Brynn gaped at
the looming cliffs dead ahead of the
Cypress
. As she watched, the ocean surged hungrily up the rock and exploded in a shower of spray, finally draining in a waterfall of foam. The surf’s thunder boomed through the window Jake had broken. She could feel it in her knees, and smell it . . . the reek of brine seeping in, stinging her nostrils.

Still, the ship barely turned . . . barely slowed. Its behemoth bow inched to the right, not nearly fast enough.