“-and the pains of hell-”
Then it hit, the very tip of the tallest mountain in its way. The jagged corner of the peak crumbled like a too-dry Christmas cookie. A huge fireball flared and vanished, followed by an even huger cloud of snow. Avalanche, Sara thought, and then realized she’d said the word out loud.
“Glacier,” Ops said, and backed up to lean against the bulkhead next to the hatch. “There’s a bunch of glaciers in back of Thumb Cove.”
“But most of all,” Tommy said, “because I thought you weren’t watching. I was wrong. Thanks, God.”
The sound of the impact reached them then, a thunderbolt that echoed across Resurrection Bay. Lilah and Gloria and Eli heard it on board the Kenai Fjords. A crew of fishermen heard it on board the Moira P., trolling for white kings off the Iron Door. The prisoners at Spring Creek Correctional Facility heard it, and in Seward it brought people out of their homes and offices to look south and wonder. The deafening blast rolled up Resurrection Bay in a mighty wave that crashed against the bowl of mountains and triggered massive avalanches of snow. Birds launched themselves into the air, crying in alarm, and every otter, seal, and sea lion sought shelter beneath the surface of the water.
“Captain!” Ops shouted, pointing. “The freighter!”
The bridge crew turned as one to look.
The thrust of the missile’s propulsion system had put the Star of Bali down by the stern, her taffrail awash.
“What’s happening, captain?” Tommy said, coming out on the wing to watch.
“She’s got two million gallons of water sloshing around inside her, pushing her back and forth,” Sara said quietly.
The chief looked almost sorrowful. “She’s got all that steel in her hold, too. And with all the boxes broken off she doesn’t have any weight left on deck, so no help there.”
Some of the containers that had broken off were floating away, some were crashing against the sides of the freighter. The Sojourner Truth was pulling away at her maximum speed in reverse, a lofty four knots.
Not quick enough not to watch the Star of Bali slide backward into the sea, though, her engine pushing the hull around in a semicircle. The bow slipped beneath the water with a resigned sigh.
They watched, mesmerized, as air bubbled up. The remaining containers broke off and bobbed up to the surface one and two and three at a time. Life rafts self-inflated and exploded twenty feet in the air, smacking down again.
“There are people in the water, XO,” Ops said, looking through binoculars.
“They’re alive?” Sara said. “How could they still be alive after this long in the water?”
The lieutenant looked at her. “It’s only been ninety seconds, Captain.”
Sara looked at the clock. He was right.
“Damage control, report,” she said into the handheld.
“Damage control reporting, Captain!” Chief Moran yelled over the handheld with the sound of rushing water in the background. “The bow’s all torn up! The portside bow is buckled all the way back to the collision bulkhead! We’ll shore it up, slow down the flooding, but she won’t last long, especially in heavy seas!”
“Understood,” Sara said. “Carry on.”
“Aye aye, Captain!”
She went back into the bridge and got on the pipe. “All hands, all hands, this is the XO. Brace for collision, I say again, brace for collision. We have sustained serious damage to the bow and we’re going to put her ashore so we can keep our feet dry. This is the last time, folks, I promise. Grab hold and hang on, it won’t be long.”
She went back out on the starboard bridge wing. They were proceeding in reverse back down Resurrection Bay and into the cove formed by the middle and northern peaks on Fox Island. There was a good beach there, made of nice, solid gravel with a steep incline that Sara hoped would serve to adequately ground the Sojourner Truth and keep her from sinking altogether.
The cutter was shuddering, as if with disbelief at this outrage perpetrated against her. Sara rested her hands lightly on the railing. It was folly to anthropomorphize wood and steel, but she heard herself whispering anyway, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She was facing aft, in the direction the ship was traveling. The northeastern point of the island began to curve around the ship in a granite embrace. The beach was rapidly approaching. “Tommy?”
Tommy’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “All hands, brace for impact, I say again, brace for-”
Sara grabbed the railing, braced her feet, and held on.
The propellers hit first. Sara was knocked off her feet by the vibration. The keel hit next in a grinding, shrieking protest of steel over rock.
In her mind’s eye Sara followed the action in the engine room as the EO pulled all the stops and ordered his crew out in case of fire or flood or both. She pulled herself upright. “Tommy, let go the anchors!”
There was no corresponding reply. “Tommy! Let go the anchors!”
Tommy’s head poked out of the hatch. “Uh, we can try, Captain. But…”
Sara met Tommy’s apologetic expression and realized that when she ordered the Sojourner Truth to ram the Star of Bali the anchors had probably been pushed into the emergency bulkhead along with the bow. She staggered forward and looked out over the bow to see the deck crew clinging to cleats and stanchions. The Sojourner Truth’s hull settled.
And then there was silence.
The chief picked himself up off the deck, looking white and shaken. “I don’t ever want to have to do that again, Captain.”
“Me, either,” Sara said, trying to smile, and then turned away quickly, before he could see the tears in her eyes.
MUSTANG SUIT OR NOT, Hugh was already numb with cold when the life raft exploded out of the water not a foot from his head. Floating on his back, he watched it shoot into the sky, where it seemed to hover for a moment or two. It fell back into the water with a mighty smack.
It took a moment to realize that salvation was at hand. When that moment came, he paddled clumsily over to the raft and began a laborious ascent over its side. Every muscle screamed as he hoisted himself up with the aid of the rope threaded around the raft’s gunnel. As he was somersaulting inside he saw with mild surprise that another man was climbing over the opposite side of the raft.
They tumbled in together and lay on their backs, staring at the sky and gasping like stranded fish. Hugh raised his head and looked at the other man. He looked familiar. It took a while-everything seemed to be moving in slow motion-but eventually he figured out why. “Why, hello there, Mr. Fang,” he said, and then had to repeat it in Mandarin.
Fang’s face twisted. Hugh tensed instinctively. If Fang had had a weapon, he would have killed Hugh on the spot. Instead, he doubled over and began coughing up seawater.
Hugh relaxed again and lay where he was, wondering somewhat dreamily if perhaps he should search the raft for some way to restrain the pirate. He didn’t want to move, though. He was just starting to warm up.
A shadow came up beside them and belatedly he became aware of the sound of an engine. Something hit the side of the raft.
“Hey,” someone shouted, “grab the line!”
He looked up to see a row of faces peering down at him from the side of a small cruise ship.
He blinked at one of them. “Lilah?”
A FISHING BOAT SKIPPERED by a crusty old fart was the first to arrive off the Sojourner Truth’s bow. He’d never seen anything like it in all his born days, nosireebob. Oh, it was a woman commander? That went a long way toward explaining things. Our tax dollars at work. Sure, he’d let someone board to use the radio. The deck crew jury-rigged a bosun’s chair and Ops slid down in it to the fishing boat and disappeared into the old fart’s cabin.