Poseidon's Arrow

6

PANIC HAD BROKEN OUT ON THE SEA SPLENDOUR as screaming passengers alerted one another of the impending collision. Parents grabbed their children and ran to the opposite side of the ship, while others scrambled up companionways to reach the upper decks. Even the crew joined the passengers in fleeing the anticipated point of impact.

By chance or design, the Tasmanian Star was aimed toward the heart of the cruise liner. At roughly the same size, the blunt-nosed freighter churned with sufficient momentum to split the passenger ship in two.

On the Sea Splendour’s bridge, Captain Alphonse Franco had few options. He desperately tried to finesse the vessel aside but had only auxiliary power available, as its main engines sat cold. He slipped the anchor line and engaged the ship’s side thrusters in hope of pivoting the ship clear.

But staring at the oncoming vessel, Franco knew it was too late. “Turn away, for God’s sake, turn away!” he cried under his breath.

Few on the bridge paid attention to him, as a flurry of distress calls and emergency procedures occupied the panicked crew. The captain stood immobile, fixated on the approaching freighter as if he could stare it down.

His gaze was diverted by a small red speedboat that bounded over the waves toward the stern quarter of the freighter. A tall, lean man with black hair stood at the wheel beside a woman dressed in an oversized wet suit. They were on their own high-speed collision course with the Tasmanian Star in what only could be viewed as an attempt at suicide.

“Insanity,” Franco said, shaking his head. “Pure insanity.”

PITT PULLED BACK THE THROTTLE for an instant, causing the boat to falter, then turned to Loren. “Jump!”

Loren squeezed his arm, stepped off the seat, and leaped over the side. She was still in midair when Pitt slammed the throttle forward and the speedboat burst away. Bobbing to the surface after a hard splash, Loren watched the boat roar off, praying her husband wouldn’t kill himself trying to save others.

Pitt knew he’d have only one chance to pull off a miracle. The freighter was just a quarter of a mile from the Sea Splendour—no room for error. Taking aim for the freighter’s stern, he braced for impact.

The Tasmanian Star’s aft deck hung over the water, its stern hull curving inward to the waterline. That was where Pitt aimed the speedboat. Closing quickly, he spotted the rudder’s upper spindle mounting—exposed at the surface. He tweaked the steering wheel to adjust his aim. Inboard of the spindle was the ship’s churning propeller. It could easily devour both him and the speedboat.

Had the carrier been fully loaded, his ploy could never have worked. But the ship rode high at the stern, so he had a chance. Aiming a few feet left of the spindle, he braced himself and drove the boat in at top speed.

With a hammering bash, the speedboat’s red hull smacked the freighter’s rudder, smashing into the steering plate’s outer edge. The small boat’s momentum propelled its stern up and out of the water until it was nearly on end. Pitt flew up out of the cockpit but kept his grip on the wheel as the boat fell back. Again the craft slammed into the rudder, this time from above, mangling the spindle and slightly bending the top plate.

Its hull shattered, the little red speedboat slid off the rudder, and its inboard motor gurgled to a halt. The freighter’s churning wake swept the boat aside—and the big ship sailed on.

Pitt grabbed a shin that had split open on the windshield, but otherwise he found himself uninjured. A moment later, Loren swam up and pulled herself aboard the slowly sinking boat.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “That was some collision.”

“I’m fine.” He tore off his T-shirt and wrapped it around his bloodied leg. “I’m just not sure if it did any good.”

He watched the imposing shape of the freighter as it churned closer to the cruise ship. At first, there was no apparent change in its heading. But then, almost imperceptibly, the bow of the Tasmanian Star began to inch to port.

When Pitt had rammed her rudder, mashing it twenty degrees over, the ship’s automatic pilot had attempted to correct course. But the secondary impact from the speedboat arrived first, mashing the spindle and wedging the rudder in place. Try as they might, the automated bridge controls could not override the damage. Pitt had knocked the freighter off its course. But would it be enough?

On board the Sea Splendour, Captain Franco detected the change. “She’s turning!” Franco’s eyes focused on the narrowing gap. “She’s turning.”

Inch by inch, foot by foot, then yard by yard, the freighter’s bow began to ease toward shore. Hopeful eyes aboard the Sea Splendour prayed that the freighter would pass clear. But the amount of separation between the ships was just too small. There would be no avoiding contact.

A ship’s horn bellowed as the crew and passengers braced for impact. The Tasmanian Star sped closer, seemingly intent on ramming the liner’s starboard quarter. Yet at the last instant, the freighter’s high prow swung clear of a crushing blow, easing just beyond the Sea Splendour’s stern post. Twenty feet of the cargo ship’s bow slipped past before the first grinding squeal of scraping metal.

The freighter shuddered as it ground against an overhanging section of the Sea Splendour’s fantail. The massive ship never slowed, bulling forward as it was sprayed with shredded steel. As suddenly as it struck, the carrier pulled clear, angling off toward shore. Still steaming at better than twelve knots, the cargo ship now carried a twenty-foot section of the Sea Splendour’s afterdeck wedged atop its forward hold.

The cruise ship had keeled hard to port at impact but slowly righted itself. Her captain stood in disbelief. The reports being radioed to the bridge cited only minor structural damage. The fantail had been cleared of passengers, and not a single injury was reported. By the barest of margins, they’d avoided disaster.

At the realization his ship had survived and no lives were lost, the captain let relief turn to anger. “Prepare to lower the officer’s launch,” he told a nearby crewman. “After I survey the damage, I’m going to go deck that clown—the second he steps ashore.”

He had failed to track the Tasmanian Star, assuming it would eventually slow and turn toward Valparaiso’s commercial port. But the freighter didn’t alter course; it sailed on toward a thin sandy beach along the town’s waterfront.

A middle-aged Canadian couple, who had consumed a bit too much local Chardonnay at lunch, was dozing on the sand when the Tasmanian Star touched bottom a few yards off the surf line. A deep chafing sound, like an enormous coffee grinder, filled the air as its hull scoured the bottom. The prow cut easily through the soft sand before its momentum began to slow. The ship burrowed through the beach, leveling a small ice cream stand whose owner wisely fled.

As the ghost ship groaned to a halt, nearby onlookers stared in disbelief. Only the moan of its engines and still-churning propeller gave sign of any life aboard the stricken vessel.

Hearing the noise and detecting a shadow cross his body, the dosing Canadian, his eyes still closed, nudged his wife. “Honey, what was that?”

She opened a sleepy eye, then sat upright. Ten feet away rose the towering slab side of the freighter’s hull. They had come that close to being crushed.

“Harold—” She blinked and looked again. “I think our ship has come in.”