Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [100]
ER – CONFIRM – REQ/VERIFY – FLAG/YELLOW – AI
He cursed. Someone in the ER crew wanted a verification code, and Granger didn’t know the correct response. There were nine flag glyphs around the command wheel he could choose from. But which one? If he lucked upon the correct response, the engine room crew would open the main fuel feed line. If not, they’d shut down the engines immediately, thereby foiling his escape. Granger peered ahead along the Glot Madera. The deep-water channel ran straight for a thousand yards or so, before curving gently to the south-west. The Excelsior would reach the corner in two or three minutes. An eight-to-one chance of choosing the correct coded reply? It wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t allow the crew to stop him here. He dialled in a different response.
BR – NO CONFIRM/TAPE FOUL – REQ/REPEAT LAST MESSAGE
With the wheel still locked in place and the Excelsior firmly fixed on her current heading, Granger picked up the last of his powder cartridges and left the bridge. He had minutes to reach the engine room and then get back to the wheel. And less time yet to murder the crew.
The deadship struck them on the starboard side with enough force to send Maskelyne staggering sideways. He lost his grip on the wheel. A terrible metal groaning reverberated through the Mistress’s bulkheads as the ironclad’s reinforced prow crushed a deep trench in the dredging ship’s hull. The Mistress lurched sickeningly, her deck cranes tilting closer to the roiling red-brown waters as the crew hung on for their lives. The bathysphere clanked against its mountings, then broke free and smashed against the port bulwark.
Ianthe cried out in alarm.
The grinding and moaning of stressed metals continued for a tortuously long time, before finally subsiding. Maskelyne gazed down at the wreckage in disbelief and horror. The bow of the Unmer ship remained embedded in one side of his own vessel. That heavy iron prow had crumpled the Mistress’s hull like paper. Had it holed them? He couldn’t see how it could possibly not have holed them.
He flung open the wheelhouse door and called down. ‘Mellor! Have someone fetch my family. Round up everyone but the repair teams. I want them top deck, now. And I want a time-frame here.’
‘Aye, Captain.’ The first officer relayed Maskelyne’s orders to several crewmen, who took off at a run.
‘Are we going to sink?’ Ianthe asked.
‘Very likely,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘Come with me.’ Without looking back to see if she was following, he climbed down the wheelhouse ladder and hurried along the deck to the point of impact.
Most of the crew from the lower decks had already appeared, and their gem lanterns moved about in the gloom around Maskelyne as they began to assemble into ranks. Someone was taking a head count, calling out names. The deadship’s figurehead leaned over the starboard bulwark amidst a mess of twisted metal, and it seemed to Maskelyne that that maiden’s grimace evinced a hint of cruel satisfaction. He could smell burned iron, rust and ash, and the bitter salts of the ocean, but something else . . .
Fuel oil. The dredger’s whale-oil tanks had been ruptured.
Maskelyne leaned over the side and peered down at his stricken hull. The ship’s skin had been crumpled almost to the waterline and ruptured in at least four places. Clear fluid was seeping from the fore rents, leaving the surrounding brine with a nacreous sheen.
Mellor arrived at his side. ‘We’re pumping out all the ballast tanks,’ he said. ‘Those that haven’t been damaged, anyway. Two midships pumps were shorn from their outlets, and we can’t get to the fore ones. Abernathy will try to keep us afloat a while longer, but he’s not confident. Secondary repair crew can’t get access to the engine room. Flooding sounds like it’s above the hatches.’
‘What about the men already in there?’ Maskelyne asked.
‘Not a sound from them, Captain.’
‘Cut down through the crew quarters.’
‘That’ll shorten the time we have, sir.’
‘Do it.’
‘Aye, sir.’ He turned to go.
Maskelyne