Sedulity (Book One) Impact by David Forsyth Read Free Book Online Page B

see that one of the badly burned
survivors was his boss, Staff Captain Stevens.  His hair was burned away and
what remained of his uniform was black instead of white now. In fact, he would
have been unrecognizable if not for the four gold stripes on the singed epaulet
upon his shoulder.  After directing the rest of the crew with him to suppress
fires and care for injured passengers, Reiner knelt down and said, “Captain
Stevens? Can you hear me? It’s Lieutenant Reiner, Sir.” 
    “Reiner…” the Staff Captain mumbled through swelling lips. He
tried to open his eyes, but they seemed welded shut. “Reiner… Mrs. Krystos was
right,” he said amidst obvious pain. “Took passengers to the theater. Are they
safe?”
    “I’m not sure, Captain, but I think so,” Lt. Reiner replied.
“Those of us in the casino were okay too. Only the rooms with windows seem to
have caught on fire.”
    “Good, that’s good, son,” Stevens murmured. “I was trying to
clear people out of the bar. I guess I didn’t make it in time.”
    “Relax, Captain,” Reiner said. “We’ll get you down to medical
right away.”
    “No!” Stevens barked. “You focus on the passengers first.
That’s an order!” This outburst seemed to tap the last of his strength and his
head fell back onto the smoldering deck. Lt. Reiner paused uncertainly, until
he heard Captain Krystos’ warning of another “event” echoing from public
address speakers in undamaged parts of the ship. That confirmed Reiner’s course
of action. He placed a gentle hand on Staff Captain Stevens’ charred forehead
for a brief moment before turning his attention to helping those who could be
helped. The crisis wasn’t over yet.
    ****
    Armando saw what was coming and did not want to face it. He
might be a sailor by profession, but he was deathly afraid of drowning. The
thought of facing a mountain of water was much more terrifying to him than
fire. So what he saw approaching altered the equation in his mind from fight to
flight in an instant.
    Armando Ramos turned and ran. He tripped and stumbled on the
smoldering rubble of what had been luxurious furnishings in the Sky Lounge, but
he kept running. The nearest exit took him to the observation deck above the Resort
Deck where he had recently been serving cocktails. The sight below almost
brought him up short.
    The Resort Deck where he usually worked was almost
unrecognizable. All of the furniture was gone, aside from smoldering piles in
the corners. Many of the side windows were blown out. Portions of the deck that
had been made of wood were blackened charcoal and some areas still burned
fiercely. More than half the water in the pools was gone, either evaporated or
blown away, but the most distressing sight was the bodies floating in what
remained. Most of them wore remnants of crew uniforms on the submerged portions
of their bodies. The exposed portions were burned away. They were most likely
some of the Pollywogs who never quite made it to becoming Shellbacks, or even
out of the swimming pools for that matter. Steam still rose from the pools and
Armando felt bile rise in his throat when he realized that the people floating
there might have been boiled alive.
    Running in a daze along the upper deck, gazing down at the
carnage in and around the swimming pools, Armando was further sickened to
discern the charred remains of more bodies mixed in with the smoldering debris
of deck furniture piled up near the shattered glass doors leading inside the
ship.  Had they failed to heed the Captain’s warning to go inside and get
below?  Did they remain to gawk at the spectacle of an artificial sun beyond
the horizon? Or had there simply been too many people trying to get inside in
too short a time?  Armando suspected a bit of all three and was sure that many
of the dead on deck had been blinded or elderly passengers who couldn’t or
wouldn’t move fast enough anyway.   
    He didn’t stop to dwell on the destruction, or loss