Sedulity (Book One) Impact (17 page)

“It’s no such thing, child,” said the elderly woman, smiling
sadly. “There’s no pleasure in anything tonight. My name is Judith. My friends
call me Judy. I too have your husband to thank for finding us down below and bringing
us here to meet the Captain. I heard that he helped the Captain save this ship
too. You must be very proud.”

“My friends call me Mandy and I really don’t know much about what
my husband has done after he sent me to get our daughter out of the stateroom. Kevin
is a TV weatherman.  He’s a smart guy and a great husband and father, but I
never thought of him as a hero.”

“Men are strange that way. You never quite know what to make
of them until they make something of themselves,” Judith said. “There’s an age
old debate about whether the man makes the moment, or the moment makes the man.
In your husband’s case I suspect it’s a bit of both. He kept his head during a
crisis and kept his heart in the right place too. If he hadn’t gone looking for
you and your daughter, he wouldn’t have found us or saved the Captain’s wife
from drowning. He may be an accidental hero, but he’s a hero nonetheless.”

Amanda didn’t know how to respond to Judith’s insight, but
she was saved when the worrying test pattern on the TV was replaced by a scene
from a news studio that she didn’t immediately recognize. It was a different
anchorman too. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him, possibly
due to the worried expression on his face. He, however, wasted no time getting
to the news while Amanda pressed record on the DVR remote.

“This is Walter Kingsley in the GNN
Washington Studio with Breaking News. We have temporarily lost contact with GNN
Headquarters in Los Angeles after what is being described as a devastating
earthquake struck Southern California just a few minutes ago. We are working to
restore contact with Fox Rusher and the rest of the GNN news team, while
collecting more information on what appears to be a major disaster. Initial reports
describe significant damage to buildings, highways, and other critical
infrastructure over a wide area of the California Coast.

“This earthquake couldn’t have come
at a worse time, since the entire West Coast is already facing a Tsunami
Warning. We were expecting official evacuation orders to be issued for coastal
communities any time now, but the earthquake will certainly hamper those efforts.
The reported loss of power in many California coastal cities, if it persists,
will also inhibit authorities from broadcasting evacuation warnings to residents.

“Scientists at Cal Tech did issue an
unprecedented earthquake warning just minutes before this disaster struck in
California. They based their concerns on a string of seismic events that have
spread around the Pacific Rim since an asteroid struck the Central Pacific
Ocean less than two hours ago. In case you are just joining us, that asteroid
impact is also why tsunami warnings have been issued for every coastline on the
Pacific Ocean. Some experts are now predicting waves hundreds of feet high. For
our viewers along the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and
Hawaii, as well as any other countries of the Pacific Rim, be advised that the
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center recommends evacuating to high ground at least
ten miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. This is the most drastic warning ever
issued.

“Okay, I’m being told that we are
going live to the White House for a Press Briefing which has just been moved
forward an hour, probably because of the earthquake in California. Press
Secretary Carson is at the podium now.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the President
will be addressing you in one hour, as announced earlier, but due to the
unfolding nature of events he has asked me to make a few brief statements.
First, I can confirm that an object from outer space, presumed to be an
asteroid, entered the Earth’s atmosphere over Southern Asia and impacted the
Central Pacific Ocean less than two hours ago. This has been confirmed by
satellite images, seismic sensors, and eyewitness accounts. Scientists have
also confirmed that the impact has generated large tsunami-like waves that are
currently spreading across the Pacific Ocean in an expanding circular pattern. The
point of impact is about 2,000 nautical miles from the Hawaiian Islands and
5,000 miles from the West Coast of the Continental United States. Since the
waves are moving at over 300 miles per hour, we expect the first of them to
reach Hawaii in about three more hours and to reach California a little over
twelve hours from now.

“There is no cause for panic. The
population of Hawaii has already begun evacuation to higher ground under
direction of the Governor and National Guard. Elements of the US military will
also assist in the evacuation of civilians in Hawaii and on the West Coast of
the United States. The President is in close consultation with the governors of
western states, as well as military commanders and representatives of the
airline and rail industries. An orderly plan of evacuation is being developed
and will be announced soon.

“The reason this special press
conference has been moved forward concerns a new and developing situation
involving a major earthquake that just hit California. We believe this
earthquake, and others around the Pacific Rim, are related to the asteroid
impact. We also believe there is a danger of more earthquakes in the coming
hours. These earthquakes may affect our ability to conduct organized
evacuations of coastal areas and could disrupt communications with citizens in
affected regions.

“Therefore, the President has ordered
activation of the Emergency Broadcast System along the entire West Coast and instructs
all coastal residents to evacuate inland by whatever means available in the
event that organized evacuations are disrupted. He felt it was important to get
this news out immediately and will have more details and instructions when we meet
here again in about an hour.”

“Mr. Secretary! Can you tell us the
extent of the earthquake damage in California? Or how big the waves are
expected to be?”

“No, Frank, I’m sorry, but we are
still gathering details on both of those issues. It would be premature for me
to speculate at this time. All I can say is that the threat of additional
earthquakes and the expected tsunamis are serious dangers that the President is
taking very seriously. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’ll get you more information
as soon as it becomes available.”

Amanda and Judith watched as more reporters tried to ask
questions, but the Press Secretary waved them off and left the stage. There
hadn’t been a lot of real news, except to confirm some of the worst fears that
Amanda had already been struggling with. The earthquake at home was obviously
serious and Amanda shuddered when she thought about how it would interfere with
evacuating the coastal cities and towns of California. Twelve hours might seem
like a long time for those who didn’t know the area well, but Amanda could
think of times when a simple traffic accident had created four hour delays on
LA freeways. What it would be like trying to evacuate the whole city after a
major earthquake was hard to imagine.

“All those poor people back home in California,” Judith said
with a sigh and shake of her head. “And I was just telling my husband how much
I wish we had stayed home in the Bay Area. I thought it would be safer than
being on this ship. He tried to tell me we were lucky to be here, but I didn’t
believe him. Where are you from, Mandy?”

“Los Angeles,” Amanda replied. “We live in the hills above
Malibu, west of the city.”

“Well I suppose it will be safe in the hills, won’t it?”

Amanda didn’t answer. She was thinking how big the wave must
have been to lift the ship the way it had and trying not to picture it tearing
up Topanga Canyon towards their house. She could picture the
Tsunami
Evacuation Route
sign on the Pacific Coast Highway that pointed up Topanga
Canyon Road and wondered just how far up the canyon would be safe from a
Tsunami like the one heading their way. It was more than idle speculation. Her
friends and neighbors were there. Many of them had children near Emily’s age.
They spent many days together on the beach. Would there be another beach day
for any of them? Would there have been another for the Summers family, had they
remained at home? Amanda found herself hoping that the television would not
answer those questions.

****

Chapter 14:

Tropical island paradise after island
paradise turned to apocalyptic wasteland in seconds across the Central and
South Pacific when the colossal waves swept over them and continued on without
pause. Many of the inhabited islands received warning of what was coming when
night turned to day and the blistering blast wave swept over them. Traditional
buildings were flattened and the population panicked, but none of them had an
inkling of what was coming next. It was probably a blessing that most of them
never knew what hit them.

Most of the Pacific islands had
maximum elevations lower than the amplitude of the approaching Tsunamis,
especially the inhabited portions of them. The characteristic barrier reefs
surrounding atolls that protected the islands from tropical storm waves simply
served to heighten the Tsunamis that swept over the islands like the hand of
God. Families, communities and cultures were wiped from the face of the earth
within moments. The titanic waves swept on without any apparent notice of the people
and cultures they had destroyed in the Solomon Islands, the Marshal Islands,
the Cook Islands, Micronesia, and more. The tsunamis ended their hopes, dreams,
aspirations, and wiped them all off the map. None of these obstacles
appreciatively diminished the force of the waves.

The next southern targets were the
coasts of New Guiney and New Caledonia. These larger land masses took the brunt
of the blow from segments of the waves, absorbing the force with indifference,
but shedding with disdain the majority of the people populating their shores. Nevertheless,
these islands couldn’t blunt the blow aimed at Australia.

The waves convulsed, collided,
rebounded and reformed to hit the Great Barrier Reef with at least two thirds
of their initial power. In some places the reflected waves combined to double
their initial force and the reef itself served as a multiplier, boosting wave
heights to over a thousand meters. Waves up to 3,000 feet high crashed into the
Gold Coast of Australia, wiping away most manmade objects and reforming the
coastline. Surprisingly, the majority of the reef structure beyond the coast
survived without major damage. This was not the first time that a catastrophic
event swept over their ancient habitat and it wouldn’t be the last.

Kevin excused himself from the conference on the Bridge to reunite
with his family. The worst of the crisis aboard the ship was past and he needed
to recharge his personal energy before facing the rest of the world’s perils.
It was hard to believe that he had begun this day with a snorkeling excursion
on a tropical island, only to have it end with an asteroid strike that might
wipe out much of civilization. Kevin didn’t want to face that possibility at
that moment. He wanted to kiss his wife, hug and hold his daughter. In short,
Kevin wanted to escape the horror he had witnessed and the catastrophe that he
knew was unfolding, if only for a few precious minutes. It would not be that
easy.

Amanda and Emily were cuddled on a couch when Kevin entered
the room. His wife was watching TV with a horrified expression while his
daughter slept on her lap. Amanda’s face lit up when she saw Kevin and she
started to rise, but he motioned her to stay seated and moved swiftly to kneel
in front of the sofa, leaning in to give her a heartfelt hug and kiss. Then he
gazed down at little Emily and ran his hand softly across her cheek and long
hair. Looking up he said, “Thank God you’re both safe, Mandy. I worried sick
and searched all over the ship for you two.”

“I know, honey. We did what you told us to and waited by the
stairs. It was terrifying. First the smoke and the alarms. Then the water
rushing down the halls and the ship going up and down. And all the screams. We
were so scared. And when it seemed to be over we came up looking for you. Oh,
Kevin, it’s horrible up on deck. Everything was burned. We saw dead bodies and
a fireball well out of the sky and hit the ship! It almost his us, so we ran
back below. Then that nice bartender found us and brought us here to find you,
but you had already gone looking for us.”

“I know, baby. Armando told me. I saw him down by the ship’s
hospital.”

“The hospital? Why were you there? Are you okay?” Amanda
asked with genuine worry.

“I’m fine, Mandy. I was looking for you, sacred to death that
I would find you down there with all the injured passengers.”

“We’re fine, honey,” she smiled. “And everyone says you’re a
hero who saved the ship and the Captain’s wife too.”

“The Captain saved the ship,” Kevin replied with an
embarrassed shrug. “I just gave him some advice, is all. It was still a miracle
that we made it through those waves. And I think God might have had a hand in
saving the Captain’s wife too.”

“It was your hand that pulled me out from under those
bodies,” Lydia said as she emerged from the connecting suite. “But I do thank
God that you did.” She smiled as she approached the couch, looking much better
in a clean dress and the streaks of makeup washed from her face. She was easily
in her fifties, but looked like she used the ship’s gym regularly. Though
obviously tired from her ordeal, she displayed a cheery demeanor that was only
partly due to her close escape from drowning. Kevin decided that Captain
Krystos was lucky to have her for his wife.

“She is the real hero,” Kevin told Amanda, gesturing towards
Lydia. “I heard that she was the one who decided to tell everyone coming down
from the Resort Deck to seek refuge in the theater, instead of the muster
stations. She saved hundreds of lives by keeping them away from the fires and
flooding in other public areas.”

“I heard you and my husband talking about staying away from
windows,” Lydia said. “That made me think of the theater which also had plenty
of seats for everyone. But we didn’t escape the flooding. I was swept away and
flushed below decks myself. Surviving that was indeed a miracle.”

“And you drained the flooding from the Med Center,” Kevin
added. “That made a big difference to a lot of other people too.”

“Totally coincidental, I assure you,” Lydia said with a
smile. “I didn’t know I would be deluged by all that water from the deck above
when I opened the door. I really am lucky to be alive right now. But I wouldn’t
be if you hadn’t pulled me up when I was drowning at the end there.” Her
attention shifted to the TV which was showing
Please Stand By
message
over the Emergency Broadcast test pattern and she asked, “So what is the news
saying about all this?”

“Bad news,” said Amanda and Kevin gripped her hand as she
continued. “They’ve been warning of tsunami waves and earthquakes. Then an
earthquake struck Los Angeles. They say it will make evacuations harder and I
think they’re right. They just held a press conference at the White House and
everyone looked scared. The President will make an announcement soon. Someone
said they think he’s waiting to see how much damage the waves do between here
and Hawaii.”

“An earthquake at home?” Kevin asks with wide eyes.

“Yes, and others in Chile and Indonesia. They issued a warning
for the whole Pacific Rim,” Amanda explained. “It’s all so hard to believe, but
this is really happening, isn’t it? Not just a nightmare?”

“The sky was falling, momma,” said Emily softly as she woke
up. “Oh, Daddy is back. Hi Daddy!” Her spreading smile lit Kevin’s world
brighter than the asteroid impact.

“Hi pumpkin,” Kevin said with deep emotion. He bent back down
to hug his daughter and lift her into a sitting position. Then he reached into
his pocket and pulled out a scorched and damp stuffed dolphin. “I brought you
Mr. Snuggles,” he said as he passed it to her.

“Oh, thank you, daddy!” she beamed, cuddling with her
favorite companion toy. “Did the sky fall on him? He’s all wet and smelly.”

“It just missed him, pumpkin. We’ll get him all cleaned up
tomorrow,” Kevin said, knowing that he and many others aboard were just as wet
and smelly right about then.  It was enough for now to see the joy in his
daughter’s eyes and feel the love from her and his wife enfold him. They might
all be about to witness the end of the world, but Kevin Summers felt no fear at
that moment. He and his family were alive, unharmed and together. That was all
he wanted to focus on now.

****

Hank Donner was not a happy camper. This trip was supposed to
be the start of a new and profitable venture. He had valuable cargo in the hold
of the
Sedulity
and had splurged by bringing it on this cruise ship
instead of a cargo vessel. The whole trip was supposed to be a tax write-off
and he had hoped to turn another profit in the poker tournament. All of his
plans, including exploration for oil off the coast of Tasmania, were going up
in smoke and drowning under monster waves. Although he was helping the
bartender fetch the paralyzed woman, his thoughts were firmly fixed on his own
misfortunes. He should have stayed home in Texas and explored for oil in the
Gulf of Mexico, or accepted the other offer from Libya. What was supposed to be
an epic cruise down-under was turning into a Greek tragedy on the scale of
Atlantis and Hank Donner was stuck in the middle of it.

The power was back on in the public areas of the ship now,
but Hank found that he had preferred the dim emergency lighting. The normal
lighting brought out details that had hidden in shadows earlier. The extent of
the damage and human carnage had been easier to ignore when they were cloaked
by shadows. Now that the power was restored to the casino it had become a
nightmarish setting, with synthesized music and buzzing sounds emanating from
video slot machines, and blinking lights illuminating bodies of the dead and
dying. It was more than a little spooky, even for a man like Hank.

“We’ll need to move her carefully and secure her to the
stretcher,” Armando said as they crouched next to the paralyzed woman.

“Are you a trained medic?” asked the man holding her hand.

“Not exactly,” Armando replied. “I’m a member of the crew and
I’ve been trained in first aid. I think we need to get her down to the Med
Center. I’m afraid that all the medical staff are going to be busy there all
night. So we either take her down there, or leave her here.”

“For what it’s worth, my opinion is to leave her here,” Hank
said as he looked the woman’s husband in the eye. “You can probably give her
more care than they can right now and I wouldn’t want to make things worse by
moving her.” 

Armando hesitated before speaking to the injured woman and
her husband. “You know, he could be right. Maybe it is better to stay here and
not move until the doctor has time to come up and take a look. I’m afraid that
won’t be for quite some time though. It’s your choice.”

“I think we’ll just stay here for now,” said the man with
tears in his eyes. “Okay, my love? As long as you aren’t in any pain…” He
trailed off and his wife smiled weakly. She lay at an odd angle, making Armando
worry that her back was indeed broken, so their decision came as something of a
relief. For once he had to agree with Hank Donner. They might have done more
harm than good by moving her and she probably would have ended up with a black
tag downstairs. At least here her husband could comfort her and hang on to some
hope that would have been crushed if the medical staff had tagged her as
hopeless during triage. If she survived through the night there might even be
more chance of getting the intensive medical attention she needed, after the
rush of other injuries had been dealt with.

“Alright,” Armando said with a nod. “I’ll just fetch you some
bottled water.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you,” said the man.

Armando went to the casino bar. Most of the bottles of
alcohol that had lined the shelves were broken or missing. He had spotted a few
passengers sitting or walking with a bottle in hand, but wasn’t about to raise a
fuss about it. Instead he went to the cooler and took out a case of bottled
water that he placed on the bar for anyone who needed it. He took a few water
bottles back to the paralyzed woman and her husband, then left them in search
of others who needed assistance. Hank considered his options for a moment, then
picked up the folded stretcher and followed Armando.

****

The crowd in the theater was really about to turn into a mob.
Lieutenant Reiner had tried everything he could think of to keep them calm.
However, the passengers had been sitting there for more than an hour and were
demanding more answers. It now past midnight and many of them were asking for
permission to return to their staterooms to sleep. Others just wanted to go out
and see for themselves what was happening.  The little speech by Mr. Summers
had helped to keep most of them sitting in stunned silence for a while, but
that was only a temporary fix. The tension had also been relieved when half a
dozen stewards showed up pushing carts laden with kettles of coffee and soup,
as well as platters of cold sandwiches and bags of chips. Now that the people
had some sustenance, however, they were more restless than ever. There was also
a line of people waiting to use the restrooms outside the theater and
passengers were complaining that the toilets weren’t flushing.

On a positive note, the Cruise Director, Kathy Milton, had
arrived in the theater and was trying to think of ways to keep the passengers
satisfied. She had even suggested to Reiner that they should provide some
entertainment. At first he had laughed at the thought, but after the main power
came back on he realized that there might be something to the idea.