And then, a giant ball of searing, roiling flame pluming towards him on a cushion of jet fuel, Alexander Langley screamed as his world went black.
“No,” Raine snarled, seconds before the Chinese kamikaze struck the ship. “I’m not a traitor to myself, Gibbs. You are!”
With that, he forced his good arm into action and grasped Gibbs’ fist inches before impact. The move lanced new fire through his impaled shoulder but he fought through it and pushed back, slamming Gibbs into the safety banister behind.
The jet struck!
The explosion rocked the ship as the awesome impact shattered the hull, igniting fuel lines. The enormous plume of fire washed below decks, racing in a flash of light through the corridors, incinerating any hapless sailor in its path.
Then, like some serpent released from the gates of hell, the wall of flame whooshed down the corridor towards the access door to the accelerator, churned down the tunnel and spewed forth from the remnants of the hatch Raine had blown apart. It slammed into the catwalk, the force crushing metal, the heat melting it. The intense heat slammed into Raine and Gibbs like a sledgehammer. Raine felt his hair singing, his skin blistering. Gibbs screamed as, on his feet, the force picked him up and swept him along the catwalk. He reached out and grasped a superheated railing, his flesh adhering to it, then slumped to the deck.
The intensity of the blast also slammed into the control room. King had been about to hurl himself at Nadia, regardless of the rifles pointed at him, but the explosion knocked them all from their feet. The lights flashed, flickered then died. Computers exploded, glass shattered. There was screaming. There was thunderous noise. There was pain and blistering heat.
And then there was silence. The heat diminished, the action died away to stillness. Utter silence.
It hung in the darkness for long seconds, a great gnawing predator which fed on the last reserves of King’s courage. Exhausted and defeated, his plan to save Sid now lost, Benjamin King broke down in the darkness and began to cry.
Then, as the silence felt like it was about to stretch into infinity, a great wrenching sound of tortured metal screeched through the chasm of the Eldridge’s belly. The catwalk, hanging on by severed tendons of melted cables, pulled away from the bulkhead and began to plummet into the abyss.
61:
On the Catwalk
Nathan Raine leapt into action!
The catwalk dropped away beneath him, folding inwards on itself like a pack of cards. It had torn completely away from the access hatch and so he ran towards its fixed end, tethered to the hull above the control room.
His body screamed at him. Gibbs’ knife was still lodged deep in his shoulder, his hair had matted under the heat. His skin was red raw with blisters. His lungs ached and he hacked as he ran. But, so long as he was alive, he had vowed long ago, he wouldn’t give in. He would keep on running!
The catwalk dropped suddenly from under him. He fell to his hands and knees and felt himself roll towards the edge. He reached out, grasped the tortured metal banister, now twisted and obscure—
A boot slammed into his fingers, crushing them. He instinctively released his grip and felt himself slide back. The catwalk, suspended by a handful of supports from above and tethered above the control room, was collapsing one section at a time. Bits of it broke off and crashed to the deck far below, but most of it remained in one long piece, its own weight working against it and wrenching one support out at a time.
He dug his fingers into the grating and halted his descent with an agonising jolt to his shoulder. He glanced up and saw Gibbs, his own arms wrapped around the safety banister.
Raine had still been lying on the catwalk when the fireball had hit, but Gibbs, standing, had taken the brunt of it. Charred flesh hung from his scalp. One eye was shut and the skin around it looked as though it had melted. The hair on his head had seared into one knot of nylon. By all rights, the man should have been dead, but he clung onto life for the sole purpose of ensuring that if he was to die, then Nathan Raine was going with him. The crazed glint to his one open eye told Raine that there would be no reasoning with the man.
Another loud tear of metal wrenching from its socket and the catwalk lurched again! Raine and Gibbs dropped. O’Rourke’s body was jolted free of its perch, eyes wide with the shock of death, skin scarred and disfigured. It rolled passed Raine and tumbled, along with clattering debris, off the catwalk.
The sight filled Raine with a surge of anger which he transmuted into energy and hurled himself up at Gibbs. He slammed a fist into his charred flesh and the soldier wobbled back on his perch. For a moment, Raine thought he was going to topple back but he had no such luck. He launched himself at Raine and threw a punch which connected with his jaw. He almost lost his hold on the banister but swung himself flat against the grating once more.
Another support gave out, this time ripping chunks of metal down, which impacted the catwalk, wrenching yet another support free. It bent beneath Raine, arching sharply down. The climb up was now more exaggerated, more difficult, and he struggled to remain clinging to it.
With Gibbs in an elevated position, Raine knew he wouldn’t get passed him. Instead, clenching his teeth at the pain in his shoulder, he swung under the safety banister, now hanging almost vertically, and began to climb it like a ladder.
Gibbs realised what he was doing. “No!” he screamed at him and thrust himself across the gap. He slammed bodily into Raine and the weakened barrier tore free under the impact. Raine reached out, grasped the catwalk proper and rolled onto it just as the railing tumbled away.
Another support strut broke free and this time the jarring was enough to rip an enormous section of the bending catwalk free. It too tumbled, crashing to the deck.
Raine scrambled up, now slightly above Gibbs’ position. Gibbs threw himself at his legs, attempting to wrench him off the walkway but Raine kicked back, smashing his boot into the raw flesh of the other man’s face. Gibbs staggered, giving Raine the opportunity he needed to clamber onto the next section of the catwalk. The support strut above him still held, the metal walkway, though unstable, was horizontal once more, and Raine pushed up onto his feet and sprinted down it.
“No!” Gibbs screamed at his fleeing form. He hauled himself up and darted after him, the sudden impact ripping another support free, then another and another.
This was it, Raine knew. The entire thing was coming down!
He ran faster, his legs pounding against the metal walkway, Gibbs hot on his heels. Behind them both, the catwalk wrenched and tore and crashed to the deck far below. It shuddered and shook under their every footstep, the rate of destruction increasing as they neared the far bulkhead. The control room lay below them, the twisted ladder only yards away. But then Raine saw the metal bolts affixing the catwalk to the walkway pull free under the stress.
On instinct, he threw himself over the safety barrier and dropped through the cavernous belly of the Eldridge. Above him, the catwalk’s final supports gave out and the entire structure dropped, metal debris raining down around him.
He hit the roof of the control room feet first, the impact jarring his spine. He rolled out of it and almost into one of the circular recesses which pitted the roof. The suction of air from the blur of the fan almost dragged him in.
He remembered seeing the fans on the Eldridge’s schematics. The enormous computer servers required for the quantum computers, housed in a line to either side of the control room, grew extremely hot when worked, requiring an extensive cooling system.