The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War (11 page)

She paused. “But there will be a war, of sorts, won’t there?
When we go back to Earth and you confront
Errabêlu
. They won’t just lay
down their arms, will they? Even when confronted by your army of Scotties.”

“No, I don’t suppose that they will. So yes, there will be a
battle of sorts. Perhaps several battles. But, as I have said, our Scotties
will fight with unusual tactics, employing magic, avoiding death and
destruction whenever and however possible.” Paul paused. “And, as I said
before, none of this is cast in concrete yet. Those are my plans, but if you
can come up with a better approach, I am all ears. I will happily consider
anything that has a decent chance of success. I know my plan sounds bizarre.
You said so yourself. But it does have a decent chance of success, if we can
continue to build the Scotties. I think this plan limits the number of bodies
that will be left strewn in its path.”

Capie bit her lower lip, glancing back at Eve. “Speaking of
bodies. What happens if one of our children gets…you know…killed?”

It was Paul’s turn to look uneasy, turning his head to one
side and visibly swallowing hard. “That thought has occurred to me. I’ve discussed
it with Daneel 1. We plan to build portable data storage units, sort of like
USB hard drives, with 1.5 petabytes of space. Before they go into battle, each
of the Scotties will copy their memories as backup. If necessary, we can build
a whole new unit and then restore their memory.”

Nodding, she snorted in laughter. “I keep forgetting. They
are
computers. Too bad we can’t do that for ourselves as well.”

“Yeah. Too bad,” Paul agreed, with a sad smile.

Ω

Captain Barry Ottey slowly turned the page of the personnel
evaluation questionnaire and continued filling out the form’s blanks with the
ballpoint pen in his right hand, quietly uttering a small sigh as he did so. At
his right elbow sat a keyboard and computer monitor, with the PC nestled in a
secure bracket bolted to the right side of his desk. The evaluations would have
been decidedly easier to do on the computer where, at the very least, he could
have used copy and paste shortcuts. Someday, he mused thoughtfully, the promise
of a truly paperless society would really come true and paper forms such as the
ones he was filling out now would permanently disappear. How often had he heard
that said over the last thirty years?

Ottey’s command was the
Al Dafna
, one of fourteen of
the largest LNG super-tankers in the world, plying the world’s oceans from
ports in the Middle East to harbors world-wide. Their current voyage was taking
them through the South China Sea, their location roughly thirty miles northwest
of Vanguard Bank, and 290 miles southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Glancing over the stack of paper, he estimated another hour
or so here before he could reasonably quit for the evening and retire to his
cabin. Thankfully, it had been another moderately uneventful day at sea, both
the weather and the sea-state calm and cooperative. At this rate, in a few more
days, his ship would dock in Busan, Korea. With the successful delivery of his
cargo, he would then be free to turn over the unloading operations to his first
officer, and command of the ship to a new captain, once that party reported
aboard.  

Ottey sadly smiled at the thought. The crew was planning to
give him a farewell dinner tomorrow evening, the last time he would be with
most of them again. He would miss serving with them. He would miss ship life
too. And most of all, he would miss the
Al Dafana
!

After the change in command, he was to report to the
corporate office in London, to accept a promotion as an operations director. He
already had his set of orders in his cabin. Not only did it mean better pay but
it would also be a shore job, which should—hopefully—make his wife April a bit
happier. He had spent far too many years at sea and April had been very patient
with him and the demands of his chosen occupation. With the promotion and new
job, he could be home in time for dinner every evening. True, they would have
to move from their home in Harwich where they had lived for twenty years and
raised their children. But the pay raise with the promotion would allow better
housing (even taking into consideration the cost of housing in London) of which
his wife had strongly approved.

Such were his idle thoughts as he filled out the routine
paperwork abstractedly…right up to the point where a shudder went through the compartment,
rattling the computer monitor and the coffee cup sitting on the left side of
the desk.

“What the…?” he muttered springing to his feet, paperwork
forgotten. He was barely around the corner of the desk when the general alarm
bell began to ring.

As Ottey rushed through the office doorway and onto the rear
of the bridge, he spied Third Mate Stein Jenssen, current officer of the watch,
shouting into his VHF/DSC portable radio and racing between computer displays along
the lengthy bridge console.

Before Ottey could say a word, a brilliant flash of light
suddenly appeared through the bridge windows, momentarily blinding him. An
instant later, two of the windows on the port end of the bridge shattered,
spewing forth glass fragments while the ship shook again, much harder this
time. Grabbing on to an equipment rack, Ottey staggered but remained upright as
the loud roar of an explosion burst through the bridge’s open port hatch, drowning
out the sound of the general alarm bell. Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, the
captain swung back to the windows in time to see a geyser of water slowly
descend along the port side of the ship, fifty feet forward of the bridge.

“Captain!” frantically shouted Jenssen as he climbed back to
his feet. “Meijer in the CCR reports rupture alarms in port side CT-2!”

Ottey dashed toward the port side door, across the shattered
glass on the deck, ducking through the bridge’s side hatch and out onto the
bridge wing.

Where he screeched to a sudden halt, gripping the hand rail.
From here, he could see most of the ship’s hull along the port side. There were
two gaping holes visible, one roughly located at CT-2, the other much closer at
CT-5. Both were gushing cold vaporous liquid out past the jagged metal edges of
the hull, out into the sea. At the forward gash, a small but rapidly growing
fire was building, a light column of smoke streaming skyward.

For a second as he stared at the destruction, Ottey
struggled to make sense of the calamity.

And then, in a sudden moment of instant clarity, he did
understand. His ship was being attacked! Furthermore, the damage inflicted so
far was more than enough to seal the fate of the
Al Dafna
and its cargo,
despite her huge size. There was nothing he could do to stop the rapidly
growing blaze with the two ruptured containment tanks. When the fire reached its
full potential, the ship would be totally consumed in a colossal inferno the
size of a small city. Worse, the other three LNG tanks would likely rupture
too, adding to the conflagration.

As he dashed back onto the bridge, Jenssen was screaming at him.

“CT-5 is ruptured too, Captain! Meijer reports—”

But Ottey ignored him, reaching the control console and slapping
his hand down on the alarm switch, turning it off. Snatching his radio from his
belt, he fumbled with the buttons on the unit for a moment, trying to initiate
a ship wide broadcast.

Finally, the display on the unit acknowledged his inputs and
he clutched it tightly up to his mouth.

“All hands, this is the Captain! We’ve been attacked!” he
shouted into the unit. “Meijer! Trigger the CO2 dump for all spaces around CT’s
2 and 5. All hands prepare to abandon ship! I repeat, follow the drills and
prepare to abandon ship!”

Ottey lowered the radio, then turned to Jenssen, who was
staring back at the captain, his eyes wide open, his jaw dropped.

“That includes you, Mr. Jenssen!” the captain snapped.
“Lifeboat station, if you please!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Jenssen replied, as he spun and raced for
the ladder.

Ottey followed but at a slower pace, raising his radio again
and issuing more commands, this time to the ship’s engineer down in the engine
room. Finished with that task, he paused and considered his next action. There
were things in his cabin he really wished he had time to collect but in reality
not a single one of them was worth his life. Instead, he momentarily ducked
back into his office to retrieve the backup hardcopy of the ship’s log book,
then rushed down the ladder to D Deck.

The
Al Dafna
carried two orange enclosed fiberglass
lifeboats, one port side aft, the other on the starboard side. Both were
designed to carry the entire crew if necessary.

Ottey chose the starboard side craft, judging it to be the furthest
from the fire and therefore the safest. He raced down the D Deck passageway and
out onto the open deck. Most of the crew were already there, wearing
lifejackets and lowering themselves through the open hatch into the rear of the
lifeboat. Ottey took a moment and unsnapped a bright yellow EPIRB (Emergency
Position Indicating Radio Beacon) from its rack on a nearby bulkhead and pushed
the activation switch, turning the unit on. Then he laid the device on the
deck. When the ship went down, the unit would float, transmitting a distress
radio signal.

“Hurry, sir!” shouted Seaman Meijer, a lover of Bond films,
from the open hatch of the lifeboat. “Blofeld’s secret base is about to blow
up!”

Ottey took one quick moment to glance back toward the bow of
the ship, noting the heat waves radiating above amidships, from the port side.
It must be very unhealthy on that side of the ship.

His command. His ship. And he didn’t have the foggiest idea
who had attacked him!

“Make room!” Ottey shouted as he turned and dived into the
lifeboat.

Jenssen had already conducted a head count. Everyone was
aboard. As soon as the captain was buckled into his seat and the hatch was
secured behind him, Jenssen activated the release. The lifeboat literally fell
away from the ship, freefalling for two seconds before impacting solidly with
the ocean below. The small craft’s bow dug into the crest of a wave and then
sprang back up, free again.

As the vessel’s pilot, Jenssen activated the small electric
motor and the lifeboat moved steadily away from the stricken LNG tanker.

“Activate the onboard EPIRB,” Ottey ordered wearily.

“Aye, aye, sir,” Meijer acknowledged.

Captain Ottey glanced around the craft, noting the solemn
forlorn faces. Yes, everyone was here. Thank God for that!

“Steer east southeast, Mr. Meijer,” Ottey instructed the
seaman. “I’d rather have the Malaysians pick us up than anyone else in this
area.”

A few heads nodded quiet agreement. But mostly his crew was
still in shock. It had all happened so fast!

He took another quick look around at their faces.

“Well, we’re going to be here for a few hours,” he pointed
out with a small knowing smile. “Anyone got a deck of cards?”

Ω

Callene Lavonne McCluskie, President of the United States of
America, rubbed her tired eyes as she leaned back in her well-padded seat.
Obviously this was going to be yet another one of those long evening sessions
of the National Security Council. Even now she could feel the beginnings of a migraine
headache developing. Maybe, when she signaled for the next meeting break, she
could get an aide to bring her something for the pain.

Around the oval shaped table from her in the White House
Situation Room sat the Secretary of State Madison Wentworth, National Security
Advisor Mendez, Director of National Intelligence Bannister, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Derrick Hardison, White House Chief of Staff Dallas
Lacroix, and Secretary of Defense Thaddeus Pendergrass. The Vice President was
out of town at a political fund-raising event.

What she didn’t know, what no one in the room even suspected,
was the presence of a person under a cloaking spell, that of a senior wizard of
Errabêlu
. Clarke himself was sitting in a corner, quietly listening to—indeed
silently directing—the course of the meeting.

The president opened her eyes again and made herself
concentrate on the briefing underway. A US Naval Captain (what
was
his
name?) was droning on and on, pointing at the projected display on the
Situation Room wall, currently showing a regional map of the South China Sea.

“…a number of fishing trawlers sunk, inside China’s so-called
nine-dash line. And then the downing of Flight 910 last week and the sinking of
the
Al Dafna
two days ago have been accompanied by a significant
increase of other acts of violence in the region. The Chinese have deployed a substantial
percentage of their fleet to the area…”

She let him go on for a couple more minutes, expounding on
the historical basis of the claims of the various countries bordering the South
China Sea. But most of his presentation McCluskie had heard before, in briefings
covered in the previous weeks.

“Madison,” she said to the secretary of state, interrupting
the captain in mid-word. “Any change in the international picture?”

The secretary stirred, picking up her pencil from the table
before looking at the president. “In the last two days, I’ve talked to half a
dozen prime ministers and foreign secretaries, mostly from the UK, various
countries in Europe and even Russia. Bottom line, no one wants to get involved.
Oh, they’d support any UN resolutions we’d care to propose—”

“Fat chance of anything like that getting passed,” quietly
muttered Pendergrass.

McCluskie ignored him, mostly because he was right. With
China sitting on the United Nations Security Council, any UN resolutions
concerning the South China Sea were doomed from the start. She signaled
Wentworth to proceed.