The Wheel of Darkness

at increasing speed, and theBritannia surged forward, no longer yawing but now moving straight ahead. Fresh alarms sounded.

“What on earth—?” LeSeur said. “Halsey, what’s happening?” Halsey had scrambled to his feet, and he stared at the engine panel, his face blanked out with horror.

But LeSeur didn’t need Halsey to explain. He suddenly understood what had happened: the Britannia had torn off both of its aft rotating pods—essentially, its rudder. TheGrenfell was now almost dead ahead, a few dozen seconds from impact. TheBritannia had stopped swinging into her and was now driving toward her in a straight line.

LeSeur grabbed for the radio.

“Grenfell!”

he cried. “Stop backing and straighten out! We’ve lost steerage!”

The call was unnecessary; LeSeur could already see a massive boiling of water around Grenfell ’s stern as her captain understood implicitly what he had to do. TheGrenfell trimmed itself parallel to the Britannia just as the two ships closed in on each other.

There was a rush of sound as the Grenfell ’s bows passed theBritannia ’s, the ships so close LeSeur could hear the roaring of water, compressed into a wind tunnel formed by the narrow space between the two hulls. There was a loud series of bangs and screeches of metal as the port bridge wing of the Grenfell made contact with a lower deck of theBritannia, trailing vast geysers of sparks—and then, quite suddenly, it was over. The two ships had passed.

A ragged cheer rose up over the alarms on the auxiliary bridge, and LeSeur could make out a corresponding cheer coming over the VHF from the

Grenfell

.

The chief engineer looked over at him, his face bathed in sweat. “Mr. LeSeur, we lost both aft pods, just tore them right off—”

“I know,” LeSeur replied. “And the hull’s breached.” He felt a swell of triumph. “Mr. Halsey, let the aft bilge spaces and compartments six and five flood

.

Seal the bilge bulkheads amidships.”

But Halsey did nothing but stand there.

“Do it!”

LeSeur barked.

“I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

Halsey held out his hands. “Not possible. The bulkheads seal automatically.” He pointed at an emergency panel.

“Then

unseal

them! Get a team down there to open the hatches manually!”

“Can’t,” repeated Halsey helplessly. “Not when they’re flooded. There’s no override.”

“God

damn

this automation! What’s the status on the other two pods?”

“Operational. Each delivering full power to the screws. But our speed is down to twenty knots.”

“And with the aft pods gone, she’ll be steering with engine power now.” LeSeur glanced over at the officer of the watch. “ETA Carrion Rocks?”

“At this speed and heading, thirty-five minutes, sir.”

LeSeur stared out the bridge windows at the forecastle of the Britannia , still pounding relentlessly through the seas. Even at twenty knots they were screwed. What were their options? None that he could see.

“I’m giving the order to abandon ship,” he said.

A stillness enveloped the bridge.

“Excuse me, sir—with what?” the chief engineer asked.

“With the lifeboats, of course.”

“You can’t do that!” cried a new voice—a feminine voice.

LeSeur looked over and saw that the female member of Gavin Bruce’s team, Emily Dahlberg, had entered the auxiliary bridge. Her clothes were torn and sopping. He stared at her in surprise.

“You can’t launch the lifeboats,” she said. “Gavin and Niles Welch attempted a test launch—their boat ruptured.”

“Ruptured?” LeSeur repeated. “Where are Liu and Crowley? Why haven’t they reported back?”

“There was a mob on the lifeboat deck,” Dahlberg said, breathing heavily. “Liu and Crowley were attacked. Maybe killed. The passengers launched a second boat. That one burst open when it hit the sea, as well.”

This was greeted by shocked silence.

LeSeur turned to the chief radio officer. “Activate the automatic abandon-ship message.”

“Sir, you heard her!” Kemper spoke up. “Those boats would be no better than floating coffins. Besides, it takes forty-five minutes to load and launch the lifeboats under ideal circumstances. We’ve got thirty. We’ll impact when all the passengers are standing crowded on the half decks—which are open, all steel and struts. It’ll be a massacre. Half of them will go overboard and the rest will be beaten to hell.”

“We’ll get as many on as we can, hold them on the boats until impact, and then launch.”

“The force of the impact may derail the boats. They’ll be jammed up in the half deck and there won’t be any way to launch them. They’ll go down with the ship.”

LeSeur turned to Halsey. “True?”

The man’s face was white. “I believe that is correct, sir.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“We get the passengers into their cabins and have them brace for impact.”

“And then what? The ship’ll go down in five minutes!” “Then we load and launch the lifeboats.”

“But I just heard the impact may

derail

the lifeboats!” LeSeur realized he was hyperventilating. He forced himself to slow down.

“At twenty knots, there’ll be less damage, less of an impact. At least some lifeboats will remain railed and ready to launch. And with less of an impact, maybe we’ll have more time before . . . we sink.”

“Maybe? That’s not good enough.”

“That’s all we’ve got,” said Halsey.