Dark Watch

Juan stripped out of his filthy battle jacket as he made his way through the ship, feeling bad that the housekeeping staff was going to have a hard time getting his muddy boot prints out of the plush hallway carpets. He reached the flying bridge just as Maurice stepped off the elevator from the op center. He was pushing a silver mess trolley. He handed a bundle of clothes to Juan and another bundle to Tory. Tory stepped into the radio shack to change while Juan undressed where he stood.

“That feels better,” Juan said.

Maurice pushed back the trolley’s gleaming cover, and the aroma of hot food made Juan’s mouth swim. “Shredded jerked beef burritos and coffee.”

Around a mouthful of the spicy, foot-long Mexican specialty Juan said, “Maurice, you just doubled your salary.”

The elder waiter then tipped a flask into Juan’s coffee cup. “From my stock of brandy. Just enough to take the edge off.”

“Tripled it.”

The storm they had raced up the Sea of Okhotsk had caught up with them. Rain began to pound the windscreen, and lightning crackled overhead. From under the trolley Maurice pulled out a matching pair of rain suits, baseball caps, and Juan’s rubber sea boots. “I had a feeling, sir.”

Juan slipped into the slicker as Tory came out of the radio room. She wolfed half a burrito in just a couple of bites. “God, I didn’t know how hungry I was.”

“Chairman?” Max was calling through a walkie-talkie.

“Go ahead.”

“They have the cables across. Linda says she needs ten more minutes.”

“Tell her she has five. This storm’s about to hit, making a tough job near impossible.” He stepped out onto the flying bridge and into the gale. The wind had picked up to force five, and volcanic ash mixed with the storm so clots of mud fell from the sky. He looked aft. The heavy cables had been fed through the Selandria’s fairleads, and all looked in order — except that the Oregon had drifted in the wind and wasn’t straight on to the cruise ship. He called a correction down to Eric Stone and looked to see the swirl of water at the bow thruster port.

“That’s good. Stations keeping, Mr. Stone.”

The assault boat roared off into the choppy sea to pick up the shore party, her rubber pontoon flexing as she crashed through the waves.

“Think we can do it?” Tory asked, joining him out in the open.

“We can generate the horsepower of a supercarrier with our engines, but if that hulk is stuck fast, we’ll have the classic dilemma of immutable force and immovable object.”

“Would you really abandon them?”

Juan didn’t answer, but that was answer enough. Despite what he’d said earlier, she could see the determination in his eyes and knew he’d tear the guts out of his beloved ship and risk his people for the chance of saving even one of the Chinese immigrants.

A couple of minutes later the SEAL boat pulled away from the beach, loaded with the last of the Corporation people left behind. Juan waited until it was clear of the tow cables before bringing the walkie-talkie to his lips.

“Okay, Eric, put some tension on those cables.”

The Oregon crept forward, and the cables slowly rose out of the sea, sheeting water as the bundles of wire clamped tighter and tighter.

“That’s it,” the helmsman reported. “Speed over the bottom is zero. We’re at full stretch.”

“Dial us up slowly to thirty percent and hold it.”

There came the distinctive whine as the magnetohydrodynamics spooled up. The angle of the tow and the power of the engines made the Oregon settle heavier into the sea so that waves split over her bow in raging sheets.

“I’ve got movement,” Eric cried. “Gaining five feet a minute.”

“Negative, we’re just stretching the cable a bit more.” Juan had spent a summer on a tugboat during college and knew how easily cable stretch could look like they were already under way. “In a minute you’ll find we’re sliding back. When that happens bring us up to fifty percent.”

Juan watched waves slamming into the Selandria, trying to see if she was riding them or just being punished by them. There was some movement as walls of water passed under her bows, but each time the foreward section of the ship rose up on a wave meant her stern was being ground deeper and deeper into the beach.

“Fifty percent,” Eric announced a moment later. “No movement.”

“Bring us to eighty.”

“I can’t recommend that,” Max Hanley warned. “You’ve beat my babies pretty bad already.”

Theoretically there was no limit to the power output from the magnetohydrodynamics, but there was a weakness in the system: The high-speed pumps that kept the banks of magnets cooled to superconductive temperatures with liquid helium. The extreme cold played havoc on the impellors, and after the prolonged abuse they endured to reach Kamchatka, their failure weighed heavy on Max’s mind.

“Those engines are maintained by the best engineer afloat. Bring us to eighty.”