“Yeah,” she confirmed between heaving gasps. “I have control of the bridge.”
“How long can you maintain your position?”
“A few minutes at least,” she answered. “Probably the full ten, maybe longer. Depends on how much of a fight they’re willing to put up. So far, it’s been manageable. One of them landed a decent hit, but nothing feels broken.”
The grad students and crew had already begun to organize themselves, and the pounding against the thin interior door grew louder with each passing second. Others climbed the cold exterior stairs and gathered on the exposed bridge platform, cupping their hands to look through the glass windows, their eyes darting between Freya and the three unconscious bodies on the floor around her. The braver among them began to smack against the glass like she was a zoo animal, shouting at her, trying to get her attention.
Focus. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to ten. Hold the bridge.
The carnage around her — slick, still-hot olive oil on the linoleum floor, bloody handprints on the wall, three barely-breathing men lying at the feet of her steel-toed boots — was distracting.
Freya closed her eyes, centering herself. After all, she knew the East China Sea was always intertwined with death. North Korean ghost ships had drifted through these waters for decades, their crews driven to madness and suicide as their disabled vessels drifted aimlessly atop endless ocean. So too had the divine winds of kamikaze swept these waves, first as the twin typhoons faced by Mongolian invaders, and, seven centuries later, as 4,000 young men plunging headlong from the sky towards Allied warships. Now it was the specter of unrestrained industry — the horsemen of the apocalypse opening their seals to pour forth plastics, poisons, hydrocarbons, fertilizer, and radiation into the sea.
“Set course to north-by-northwest,” ordered Himura. “Full possible speed. You will see a radar contact. Steer towards that contact.”
Freya nodded, knowing full well Himura couldn’t see her acknowledgement. “What am I intercepting?”
“A North Korean patrol vessel,” he answered. “They believe they are hunting a Japanese spy ship. They will board the George Stillson and summarily execute her crew and passengers before scuttling the ship. I trust you can make your escape, perhaps in one of the small outboard crafts?”
She froze. “How?” was all she could manage as she opened the navigation software, preparing to enter the new course. “How could you possibly have arranged this?”
“Meisekimu has become exceedingly proficient at utilizing their military codes — and she’s enjoyed learning to imitate the voices of their naval commanders as well.”
Freya swallowed hard, closing her eyes as she prepared to ask the real question. The only question that mattered. “But why?”
“It’s a pretext for an inevitability,” said Himura impatiently. “Have you set the new course?”
“No,” said Freya, louder this time as she shook her head. “That’s not what I meant — why? Why any of this? These people — they’re like us, they’re on our side.”
“Then give them their martyrdom, as you are willing to take yours, and I, mine.”
“But I know what I signed up for — and I know they don’t want to be fucking martyrs.”
“Please set the course.”
Freya swallowed again. The pounding on the windows and doors was loud now, impossibly loud. She wanted to scream at them, tell them to shut the fuck up, let her think. Didn’t they know what was at stake? Himura’s orders were simple, so terribly simple — enter the new course, lock out the computers, disable the steering mechanisms, and escape. There’d be plenty of opportunity to slip away before the shooting started, leaving behind baffled passengers and crew who’d be glad to rid themselves of her, unaware of their fate. But try as she might, she couldn’t do it. Her finger froze as it hovered over the keyboard.
“Please do this, Freya,” pleaded Himura. The tone was new, even softer than his gentle persuasion — he was all but begging her. “Do it, or I will put a second, bloodier plan into motion. A plan that will take many more lives. I do not wish to take so much unnecessary life — but I will if I must.”
Crack! A fire extinguisher smashed against the glass windows, the sharp impact echoing throughout the darkened bridge. The grad students and remaining crew were furious now, mob-like, some having armed themselves with broomsticks and chair legs, which they beat across the windows like hail. Two of the crewmen wielded a massive extinguisher tank from the engine room, drawing it back like a battering ram as they prepared to slam it against the window once more. Others had begun to beat against the opposite side of the bridge with hammers and wrenches, cracks already beginning to spread throughout the thick, typhoon-proof glass.
Freya punched the new numbers into the computer, preparing to confirm Himura’s course. She could see the North Korean ship now, just a tiny green blip lurking at the far reaches of the radar screen. Her finger hovered over the enter key, preparing to punch it, end the standoff. But… she didn’t. She couldn’t.
The red fire extinguisher slammed against the window a fourth, a fifth time, the clear pane already a ruin of chipped and breaking glass. They were all pounding on the windows now, smashing and scratching with table legs, knives, hammers, wrenches, and their bare hands, all made anonymous in their violence. Freya’s half-numbed knuckles throbbed underneath the bloodstained athletic tape, muscles clenching and unclenching as she prepared to defend herself against the seething mob.
Focus. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to ten. Get ready to fight.
Whack! The extinguisher burst through the window, its momentum tearing it from their hands as it bounced end over end and rolled across the tilting deck. Like falling stars the scattershot of diamond-shaped glass fragments danced across the linoleum floor. Freya rushed the broken window, hurling heavy books and operations manuals at her attackers. But they were ready for her, five of them falling over themselves as they spilled over the sill and into the bridge interior. She launched herself into their midst, punching and kicking and scratching — but there were too many. Two of them caught her wrists, shoving her backwards as another swung at her ribs with a broomstick, landing a stinging blow. Yelping in pain, Freya kicked with her steel-toed boots and rolled away, leaping back up with fists cocked, back against the wall.
More shattering glass cascaded across the floor from the other side of the bridge. Two students leapt through the window with knives and wrenches in hand. Distracted for an instant, she was once again enveloped by the mob-like mass of attackers, then thrown facedown onto the floor. Four wriggling bodies pounced on her, pinning her to the floor. Before she could move, someone threw a blanket over her face from behind, yanking back so hard she thought her neck would snap. A table leg connected just above her left ear an instant later, the blinding concussion nearly knocking her senseless. All she could do was groan and struggle to free her wrists, seeking something — anything — to grab, someone to hurt. But, there was only the slick, oil-soaked floor.
Then, motion. She was jerked to her feet. The thick, scratchy blanket pinned her throbbing head. She couldn’t breathe. Her elbows bent upwards behind her back by an impossible number of grasping hands. The screaming in her ears was muffled now, far away, like it was happening to someone else in the far reaches of a long hallway. Burning, flashing lights swam across her black vision as she violently convulsed, vomiting into the smothering blanket over her eyes and mouth. She coughed, gasping, sucking the acidic mess out of the fibers and into her lungs.