A loud boom shook the cabin. Fortescue could hear metal grating against metal, the floor shifting under his feet. He gripped the desk with both hands and felt the room vibrate. More water rushed in from the corridor and swept about his knees.
He went to his wardrobe, opened the door and water cascaded in. He swept his clothes along the rail, grabbed under the water for any remaining shoes and accessories and pushed them away. At the base of the wardrobe was a wooden panel. From a pocket of his jacket he took his door key. Leaning down, in the dim light, he could not see the base of the wardrobe through the grey water, but he could feel his way. He slipped the key along the back of the panel, found a small concealed groove, slid the key into it and levered up the wooden base.
Lifting the larger box, he shoved it into the opening in the base of the wardrobe, just managing to squeeze it inside by shuffling it along under the main part of the raised cupboard.
He felt the cabin shudder. Looking down, he noticed the water about him was red with his own blood. Strangely, his wound no longer hurt.
He wrapped his fingers around the handle of the small metal box containing the ibnium isotope and started to pull it towards the wardrobe under the water. He felt a sharp pain in the back of his left knee. Something submerged in the murk had stabbed him, he crashed into the water and lost his grip on the isotope box.
Scrambling around frantically, the water up to his thighs, Fortescue spun round and staggered back towards the desk. The cabin reverberated with another horrendous crash. From far off, he could hear terrible screams. He looked up and saw a metal beam slide through the ceiling plaster. It flew downwards and speared the bed. He was thrown to one side, before twisting and landing heavily, spread-eagled and face down across the desk, smashing his nose and teeth.
The desk was almost submerged. He slipped off and crashed into the water, hitting his head on something hard and immovable. Vomit rose up into his mouth and he swallowed a mouthful of water and teeth. Grabbing the edge of the desk, gasping and groaning, he pulled himself up and filled his lungs with air.
The room was poised at a terrifying angle. A roaring sound came from above. It built and built like a massive creature charging towards him from the darkest reaches of his worst nightmare.
Then he heard something new, something he had never heard before, something he could never have imagined hearing. For perhaps two seconds he could not understand what it was. Then suddenly he knew. It was the sound of a thousand voices calling out to God.
From the corner of his eye Egbert Fortescue caught a glimpse of movement. A bulkhead slammed through the cabin wall. It struck him side-on, sending him through the water. The last thing he saw was the bulkhead twist and buckle as it came down on him and he added his own sad lament to the dying chorus of his fellow doomed passengers.
42
Lou and Kate jumped back as the swirling water tipped the frozen form of the commander to one side. She teetered on one leg then fell slowly to the ocean floor, bouncing twice on the hard sand.
The horror lasted only a second and then they clicked into automatic survival mode. Kate was first to the opening. She eased it back another couple of inches and they both squeezed inside. Lou dashed for the inner lock, a wheel that was a twin of the one outside, and pulled the door shut. Lou whirled the wheel round and the lock bolt shot horizontally into a groove in the wall of the hold.
Kate spotted the water evacuation pump on the wall. It was a hand-cranked hydraulic device. Grabbing the handle, she pulled down. Lou stood close by to her left. Silently the lever began to rise and the pump started to suck out the water.
‘Can’t wait,’ Lou snapped through the comms. ‘I’m going to open the inner door. So what if we get a little water in the hold?’
Before Kate could respond, Lou had reached for the inner door lock, his suited fingers gripping the handle. He turned it, first left, then right. It wouldn’t budge.
‘SHIT!’ he cried and glanced at Kate, her pupils huge behind her visor.
‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ She started to panic and felt vomit rise up into her throat.
‘Hang on,’ Lou said. ‘It will work but not while there’s water in the airlock. It’s a safety mechanism.’
The water was down to their knees now.
‘Come on!’ Lou hissed and tried the handle again. ‘Come on, you fucker!’
They could no longer look at each other. The only thought in their minds was that the suits would go, that any second, any single moment, their puny soft human bodies would be crushed to oblivion.
Lou wrenched the handle for a third time; hard left, hard right. It was stuck rigid.
Kate began to sob. Lou looked at her, saw tears slithering down her cheeks. He pressed his visor against the front of hers.
‘I love you.’ They said it simultaneously.
Lou pulled away, took a deep breath, turned again to the metal handle. He could see the last of the water between his feet, hardly more than a puddle. He turned the handle far left.
Nothing.
‘Aggghh!’ he screamed and leaned on it with all his weight, pushing it to the right.
It gave. The door swung inwards. Lou stumbled through into the hold, landing awkwardly on his front.
Kate dashed inside, pushing the door shut and pulling the lock into place.
‘Switch off the suit, Lou,’ she commanded and reached for the control panel on her sleeve, tapping in the code and deactivating her suit.
Lou didn’t respond. She felt a terrible panic rush through her as she pulled back her helmet. Her suit deflated and she crouched down, dreading what she might see.
Lou was out cold. She pulled him round, found the computer screen on his sleeve, ran her hands over the touch pad, dumping the code into the system. Lou’s suit switched off.
She shook his shoulders, pulled his deflated helmet over his head, slapped his face. No reaction. She hit him again, much harder.
‘Lou! Lou! Wake up!’
He opened his eyes and drew breath from his tank mouthpiece.
‘Wow!’ he spluttered, pulling himself up. Then he vomited over his front.
43
The six mercenaries had been holed up with Sterling Van Lee in the 297 square feet of storage area 45, Corridor F, Deck 3C for twenty-six hours. They had limited rations and no sanitation; it was dark, the air stale. Even with their training and experience it was a trial without precedent.
Van Lee spent most of his time running through the operation plans over and over again, looking for flaws, searching for potential problems. He had requisitioned a corner of the cramped space and when he was not surveying the ship’s schematics, cleaning his weapons by torchlight or studying the mission plan on an iPad, he gazed periodically at a GPS readout. In this way, at every moment, he knew precisely where they were so that when the time came he would be ready to give the word to strike.