“He said that we were supposed to die, that it was God’s will. He was mad, I’ve never seen anyone like that before.”
“I must share some responsibility for what has happened here,” Grau said, a grave look on his face. “I couldn’t say anything before, because of patient confidentiality.” The others looked at him expectantly. “Captain Ibsen has been seeing me regularly with a stress related condition. I was of the opinion that it did not affect his capacity to run this ship. Clearly, I was wrong.”
“This isn’t your fault Doctor Lister,” Lucya said. “Today has hardly been normal circumstances, it’s been enough to send anyone over the edge.”
“That is possible, and I appreciate your kind words. Even so, at sea we are meant to expect the unexpected, to deal with unplanned and dangerous events. I should have made a recommendation to the company that the captain be given leave to rest.”
“Listen, this is not your or anyone else’s fault Doctor,” Max said. “We can debate this all we like, doesn’t change what happened here. We have more pressing things to discuss, like what we do now. Jake, you understand you’re in charge now, right?”
The thought had not occurred to him, and Max’s words hit him with almost as much force as the captain’s punch to the face. His head began to spin. He, Jake Noah, had just killed a man. He was responsible for taking a human life. And now he was responsible for safeguarding three thousand more human lives aboard this ship. Possibly the last three thousand human lives on the planet. If the rest of the world had been destroyed as the broadcast had suggested, he was in charge of the rest of the human race. With that thought, he passed out again.
• • • • •
“Nothing. No response to my distress calls. No radio chatter. Nothing on the shortwave. I can’t even pick up any navigation beacons,” Lucya said, setting down her headset on the dull grey communications console.
“We mustn’t give up hope,” Silvia said. She and Lucya were the only two people on the bridge. They had used the fire escape staircase that went directly from the bridge all the way to the roof of deck thirteen in order to enter without being seen by the angry mob camped out by the main door.
“You’re right,” Lucya said. “Just because nobody is transmitting, it doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone around to transmit. For all we know that asteroid may just have knocked out the electrics. We still don’t really know what happened to the northern states and countries.”
“But what do I tell passengers? It’s not just out there that things are getting difficult. There are groups massing all over the ship. Whatever we decide to do, we need to announce it.”
“That’s down to Jake now. We have to wait for him. In the meantime, we stick to what Johnny told us to do, his orders still stand.”
There was a clanging noise, and a hole appeared in the ceiling. A pair of feed dangled through it, found the ladder, and grew into legs, and eventually into Max.
“It’s getting worse out there. I need to disperse the crowd, but I’m outnumbered. I need a weapon,” he said, walking to an innocuous looking locker at the back of the room.
He took a key out of his pocket and went to insert it into the lock, but found another key already in there. Cautiously, he pulled the door open. There were eight rifles neatly stacked upright inside. He pulled open a drawer under the rifles. Neatly packaged in a foam inlay were four automatic pistols. There was a conspicuous space where a fifth pistol clearly should have been.
“Well that explains where the captain got his gun from,” Max said to nobody in particular.
Lucya walked over, saw the contents of the cupboard, and whistled.
“What are these doing on board? This is a cruise ship not a navy transport!”
“Anti-piracy measures,” Max said. “We’ve been carrying weapons for the last year in case we got attacked by pirates.”
“How come nobody told us? What good are weapons if nobody knows they’re here?”
“Captain knew. And I knew. Johnny knew too. We each have a key to this cabinet. The company wanted to keep it quiet, figured it might make folks worry if they knew we were prepared in case of attack. The guns were put here at the same time as a bridge recording system was installed. It records video and audio of everything that happens up here. Can’t see the point of it myself, they’ve never been able to prosecute these pirates, having video evidence isn’t going to change that.”
“I would have felt a lot safer knowing we had those handy,” Lucya said. She pulled out a rifle, held it up and looked down the sights.
“I always forget you were in the Russian Navy,” Silvia said, taking a step back involuntarily. “I hate guns, I hope you’re not expecting me to carry one Max?”
Max pulled the gun from Lucya’s hand.
“I’m not expecting anyone to carry one. The intention is to keep the peace. Situation outside calls for a little extra persuasion, so I’m just going to borrow this for a bit.”
He closed the lock, turned and removed the key, slipped it in his pocket. He strode over to the main door, unlocked it, and swung it open quickly, taking those outside by surprise.
“Ladies and gentlemen, would you please return to your cabins or the public areas of the ship.” He made a show of placing the strap of the rifle over his shoulder.
“We’ve been here for over an hour, we want some answers,” a man called out.
“Yeah, got that right man!” another man chimed in.
“Where’s the captain? We want to speak to the captain,” said the woman in red, apparently the ring-leader.
“The captain will be talking to the whole ship when he is good and ready,” Max said. “Right now he’s busy. As I’m sure you can imagine, he has a lot on his plate. The safety of all passengers on board is his priority, it is the priority of every crew member. Now, please kindly get back to your cabins, or I will have to treat this little gathering as a specific threat to the crew.”
There was a lot of mumbling, but the impressive firearm strapped to Max’s shoulder was enough to persuade the rabble that they were better off complying. They shuffled off, muttering amongst themselves.
Max closed and locked the door. “We need Jake. He’s had a couple of hours to rest, we can’t wait any longer. We need some decisions and to get word out what we’re doing.”
“I’ll go and wake him,” Lucya said, jumping from her chair a bit too enthusiastically. “There’s not much I can do here anyway. I’ve set up a couple of radio scanners to sweep the main channels. If they pick up any signals they’ll lock onto them and you’ll hear it.”
“Silvia, can you go and fetch Martin?” Max said. “We need his input too.”
“Sure. What about Doctor Lister? Anyone else?”
“No, the doctor is busy enough looking after the wounded. They need him more down there than we do up here.”
Max opened the door again, checked that the passageway outside was clear. The two women slipped outside and headed for the stairs. Max remained on guard outside the bridge.
Fifteen
“DID YOU SEE him? Did you see the captain?” Flynn asked.
“No. I got a good look inside when the guy with the gun came out. There were two women in there, I didn’t see anyone else.” Eileen looked pleased with herself. She had carried out her husband’s instructions perfectly He would be pleased with her, and that meant life would be a bit easier. For the time being, at least.
“Something’s going down Eileen. For the captain to leave the bridge at a time like this, something ain’t right I tell you. Only reason he wouldn’t be there is if he was out touring the ship, and we ain’t heard of no tour going on. So that means either he’s injured or he’s dead. This is it Eileen, this is my chance already. I didn’t think it would happen this quickly, but God must believe I’m ready. I need to get me to the bridge. I’ll be ready. The people need a leader, and I’m going to show them a better way to live.”