Voyage (Powerless Nation #2) (10 page)

After they pounded on the crew-door leading to the bridge, it opened and an officer Sena didn’t recognize glared at them.

“We need to talk to whoever’s in charge,” said Charity.

“The captain doesn’t have time to chit-chat with a bunch of kids.”

“The captain?” said Kade. “Captain Brady’s here?”

“Captain Crane.”

“What about Captain Brady?” blurted out Jessica.

“What about him?” said the crewman with a sneer. “He hasn’t bothered showing up for duty since yesterday afternoon. Probably drunk off his gourd below deck. He was insubordinate anyway. Good riddance.”

“Can we talk to Captain Crane?” Jessica asked, close to tears.

“What’s the problem? Rich girl can’t take a hot shower and wants to complain straight to the captain? I don’t think so. You kids beat it.”

“But Captain Brady is—ow!” Jessica yelped when Charity pinched her arm.

“Never mind her. You’re right, she just needs a shower. Come on, Jess,” said Charity, starting to lead the girl away.

“No, we need to tell him,” said Sena.

“I thought you said he might be in on it,” Charity hissed.

“What if he’s not?” said Sena. “If he is, then he already knows. If he’s not, more people could die.”

“What’s going on out here?” came a voice Sena recognized as Crane’s.

“I was telling these kids to get lost,” said the officer. 

Crane began to turn away when Sena said loudly, “We know where Captain Brady is.” She studied Crane’s face carefully, searching to see if he would betray any guilt. The only emotion she could read was annoyance.

“
Staff
Captain Brady was relieved of his responsibilities when he didn’t show up for duty.”

Sena had an inappropriate urge to giggle at the word ‘duty.’

“He didn’t show up because he’s dead,” blurted Jessica.

Crane narrowed his eyes. “I doubt that. Probably had too much to drink. It happens to the best of us.”

“He’s not drunk,” said Sena. “He’s dead. He was killed by the Koreans
you
brought back onboard.”

“What?” said Crane incredulously. “Where?” They told him, and he turned to the crewman. “Go check it out.”

The captain invited them to join him on the bridge while they waited for the sailor to return, and Sena hoped they weren’t walking into a trap. 

Instead of the debauchery and recklessness Sena halfway expected, she saw maps and charts strewn around the room on tables and pinned to walls. There were lists of passengers with young children or special needs, next to figures showing the total number of people aboard and how many passengers and crew were assigned to each lifeboat.

Lydia stood in front of one of the lists with a pencil in hand, writing out the names of casualties and causes of death and discussing it with the actress. 

Mona
, thought Sena, remembering she was the captain’s girlfriend. She saw that although the original twenty names had fire or smoke inhalation as the cause of death, another ten or so names had been added. Had the Koreans killed them too?

No, the causes of death weren’t violent. Heart attacks caused by failed pacemakers and stress were predominant, though she saw one victim had died of head injuries after a fall down the stairs.

“Did everyone with a pacemaker die?” Sena asked.

“No, only those heavily dependent on them,” said Lydia.

“What is all this?” Kade asked the captain.

“We’re going to use the lifeboats to get everyone back home,” said Crane, “and we need to modify the muster assignments a bit, to make sure everyone gets a seat on a boat. We have life rafts to supplement the lifeboats, but they aren’t properly stocked and I’m not sure they’re navigable to Seattle. It’s better to have every lifeboat full. We know we’re on our own, so we need to get it right the first time.”

“How do we know you aren’t going to bail on us again?” said Kade.

Sena gawked at the rudeness of it. Crane just sighed. “I don’t blame you for asking. There’s no excuse for what I did, and I will always regret it. My goal now is to get everyone safely ashore.”

He paused. “Now what’s this about Brady? Tell me exactly what happened and what our guests have to do with it.”

Before they could tell him, the deck trembled slightly and then lurched beneath their feet. Everyone staggered and tried to keep from falling, while a low moaning sound echoed around them.

“What the…” began Kade, and the captain spoke loudly to his crew.

“That was an explosion! Get down to engineering and see what’s going on!”

Before the men could respond to the order, a bright light flashed in the bridge followed moments later by a loud crack and a roar. The deck pitched and bucked beneath them and they all lost their footing. Tables tipped and maps and glasses fell to the deck in a tinkle of broken shards.

 Sena was on her hands and knees on the floor, a loud sound of nothing in her ears. She saw Jessica screaming, the sound muffled, while blood dripped from her hands. Sena shook her head to clear it, and tried to stand. Her legs were wobbly, but the movement of the deck had slowed and she regained her footing.

The captain was also standing. His eyes were so wide Sena could see the whites all the way around.

The crewman he’d sent below to check the morgue burst into the room and shouted, “Fire below deck and on the Lido! The whole thing blew up!”

Mona rushed to the captain’s side. “Let’s go, love. We can take the boat again, it’s still below.”

Captain Crane put his hands on her face, one on each cheek and looked tenderly into her eyes. “Not this time,
querida
. I abandoned my ship once. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“What about me?” Mona’s voice was a whine.

“You go. I will come when I can.” He straightened his shoulders and then said loudly, “I will not fail my ship again.”

His tone was so dynamic and comforting, Sena took an inadvertent step towards him, then she realized her center of gravity had changed. The ship’s list had grown more noticeable and she put her arms out to keep her balance.

“You kids, get to a lifeboat!”

“Which one?” asked Kade, glancing at the carefully thought out evacuation plans.

“Go,” said Captain Crane. “There’s no time. Find one with room and get on. Hurry!” He turned to his crew. “We must abandon ship. Get the passengers to safety and do your duties like men!”

Sena could hardly believe it was the same man who had abandoned them on the first day. He’d been given a second chance and it was obvious he intended to make good on it.

Before Sena could attempt another step, Charity grabbed her hand and together with their classmates they fled the bridge.

Outside, the air was filled with smoke and screams. People were terrified by the explosions and the increasing tilt of the deck below their feet. 

The students reached the first muster station and saw it was mobbed with people trying to push their way forward to the stepladder to board the lifeboat. A pretty young girl Sena recognized from the buffet line stood at the top and tried to tell people to form a line, however, no one listened. They all shuffled and wedged shoulders or feet ahead of the each other, trying to squeeze forward without blatantly cutting in line.

Several crew members were already on the boat, tugging on ropes and checking pulleys, getting the craft ready to launch, while a few sat and watched. Sena realized they weren’t there to help, they were just making sure they got a seat.

She saw a mother trying to put an adult sized life-jacket on a baby. Her hands trembled too violently to snap the belt. 

An elderly woman pushed a man in a wheelchair, begging for someone to help her get her husband off the boat. 

The scariest sight of all was the orange glow coming from behind them near the middle of the ship. The ship was on fire again, and this time they weren’t going to be able to put it out. 

They had to get off.

The students tried to find a lifeboat with available space, but every muster station was swarming with what looked like more people than the lifeboats could hold. 

They were on the starboard side of the ship, which was the side riding higher in the water. It was becoming harder to stand up straight, especially with the clutter and confusion of mattresses, pillows and bedding at every muster station. They leaned against the wall of the ship, and tried to decide where to go. 

The angle of the ship made it difficult to launch the lifeboats, and two sailors were attempting to lower a full boat to the water. It dangled more than four stories above the open water, held up by a system that didn’t look like more than a couple of pulleys and ropes.

The back end of the boat dropped a few feet and everyone inside screamed. The sailors yelled back and forth at each other, trying to figure out how to lower the boat. The back end dropped again and hung at a sickening angle. Sena wanted to close her eyes or turn away. Wasn’t the crew trained on how to launch a lifeboat?

She pushed up her glasses and looked more closely at the men trying to lower the boat. She recognized one and after a moment of trying to place him realized he was the librarian. Why was a librarian trying to launch a lifeboat? And, she realized,
he
was the one who knew how to work the ropes and pulleys. It was the other crewman that was making it worse. 

The people in the lifeboat were going to die if the sailors didn’t get their act together right away. She held her breath when a sailor leaped from the railing of the ship to the roof of the lifeboat. 

She gasped when she saw it was Danny. He took over for the incompetent sailor and grabbed the ropes. He shouted something at the librarian, and they worked together to straighten the lifeboat. 

Sena wanted to cheer for him as the boat was lowered a bit at a time until they released it to drop the final few feet to the water. The scream of the passengers was audible, but turned to a cry of relief when they splashed safely into the water. 

Sena was glad Danny was off the ship. That was, until she saw him climbing back up the rope. He swung over the railing and leaned down to catch his breath, hands on his knees. He straightened and looked straight into her eyes. “Oh no,” he said, dismayed. “You’re not supposed to be here. Why aren’t you on your lifeboat?”

“It’s gone, remember?”

As the words came out of her mouth, Sena realized it wasn’t gone at all. It just wasn’t at the muster station. “I totally forgot! It’s tied to the other side of the ship.” She practically danced with excitement. There was a boat for them after all.

“Go on then, get somewhere safe.”

“What about you?”

Danny glanced around and she followed his eyes. Another lifeboat hovered in the air, its crew struggling to launch it.

“It’s not their fault, you know,” said Danny. He pointed at one of the men. “That guy runs the gift shop and the other one’s a dishwasher. They were never trained in this. I’ve got to go help them.”

“How come you know how to do it?” she called after him.

He paused and turned back, a grin lighting his face. “You know me and ship duties.” Then he was running toward the lifeboat.

Sena pushed off the wall and called to her classmates, “We’ve got to get to the other side!”

Not waiting to see if they’d follow, she ran awkwardly toward the doors leading to the lounge. She fought gravity to try to open them, but they were too heavy. Kade and another student braced themselves and gave a count before pulling together. With great effort, they got the door open and hurried inside.

It wasn’t completely dark; there were some windows and skylights in the lounge, and when Sena's eyes adjusted she started to run. Then she stopped. There were people in the room, sitting on couches and at tables. Why weren’t they trying to get away?

“Abandon ship!” Kade shouted. “Follow us, we have a lifeboat!”

No one moved, and Sena realized they must be in shock. They were in a black zone and wouldn’t move, even when she tugged an arm. They had been through too much, and now they’d shut down completely.

Out of the entire room, only one woman stood and followed Kade, a blank look on her face and a baby in her arms.

Sena pulled at an elderly woman’s arm until she shook her off.

“It’s no use,” said Kade. “They won’t listen.” 

It was much easier to open the port side door back to the muster stations, and Sena saw that the crowds of people were thinning considerably as lifeboats launched successfully and carried them away. 

“Over there,” she pointed at the rail. It was the top of the pilot ladder, leading down to where Captain Crane had moored their lifeboat when he came back aboard.

The port side of the ship was lower in the water, and it gave Sena a feeling of vertigo to look over the side. It felt like she might topple right over the railing and into the sea. 

How were they going to be able to climb down a ladder if they were falling away from it? She didn’t think she had the arm strength to do it. 

She saw the top of a man’s head as he descended the ladder. His feet slipped off the rungs and he dangled from the ladder by his hands. Sena caught her breath. She yelled down something encouraging to the man and after he found his footing he glanced up at them.

It was one of the Koreans, and he was wearing a crew uniform instead of the blue jumper. At the sight of it she cursed herself. It was the same man she’d seen cleaning up the mess at the hamburger bar earlier. How could she not have noticed? He must have had more than cleaning supplies on his cart. He’d probably rigged some kind of explosion. There were a lot of cleaners and fuel onboard, and it could probably be done if you knew how. She just wished she knew why.

He’d almost reached the bottom of the ladder, and he hung by his arms for a moment before landing squarely on the fiberglass roof of the lifeboat. He moved quickly to the door and reached inside. When he stood up again he was holding something that struck fear all the way to her core. 

A gun — a long, heavy automatic weapon.

He pointed it up at the ship and fired a volley at the people along the railing. They screamed and threw themselves to the deck. Dizzy with terror, Sena heard bullets ping into the metal railing.