Douglas Preston - The Ice Limit

She found her voice. "Status, Mr. Howell."

He was also on his feet, punching buttons on the console, speaking into the phone. "Losing power to the port turbine."

"Ten degrees left rudder."

"Ten degrees left rudder, aye, ma'am." Howell spoke briefly into the intercom. "Captain, it looks like we received two hits on C deck. One in six starboard, the other in the vicinity of the engine room."

"Get damage control on it. I need damage assessment and casualty count, and I need them now. Mr. Warner, start the bilge pumps."

"Start the bilge pumps, aye, ma'am."

Another gust of wind blasted through the bridge, bringing with it another sheet of spray. As the temperature on the bridge dropped, the spray was starting to freeze on the deck and consoles. But Britton hardly felt the cold.

Lloyd approached, shrugging glass from his clothes. A nasty cut across his forehead was bleeding profusely.

"Mr. Lloyd, report to sick bay —" Britton began automatically.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said impatiently, wiping the blood off his brow and flinging it to one side. "I'm here to help."

The blast seemed to have shocked him back to life. "Then you can get us all foul-weather gear," Britton said, gesturing toward a storage locker at the rear of the bridge.

A radio crackled and Howell answered. "Waiting on the casualty list, ma'am. Damage control reports fire in the engine room. It was a direct hit."

"Can it be contained with portable extinguishers?"

"Negative. It's spreading too fast."

"Use the fixed C0 2system. And I want water fog on the exterior bulkheads."

She glanced over at Glinn. He had been speaking urgently to his operative at the EES console. The man stood and vanished from the bridge.

"Mr. Glinn, I need a report from the hold, please," she said.

He turned to Howell. "Patch Garza through."

A minute later, the overhead speaker crackled. "Jesus, what the hell's going on?" Garza asked.

"We've received two more hits. What's your status?"

"Those explosions came on a roll. They broke additional welds. We're working as fast as we can, but the meteorite —"

"Keep on it, Manuel. Smartly."

Lloyd returned from the locker and began distributing gear to the bridge crew. Britton accepted hers, pulled it on, and looked forward. The ice islands now loomed up, faintly blue in the moonlight, barely two miles distant, rearing two hundred feet or more out of the water, the surf tearing and ripping at their bases.

"Mr. Howell, what is the position of the enemy ship?"

"Just at three miles and closing. They're firing again."

There was another explosion off the port beam, a geyser of water that rose, only to immediately bend almost horizontal under the force of the panteonero. Now Britton could hear the distant reports of the guns themselves, strangely disconnected from the nearby explosions. There was another crash, a shudder, and she flinched as white-hot metal screamed up past the bridge windows.

"Glancing shot, maindeck," Howell said. He looked over at her. "The fire's being contained. But damage to both turbines was severe. The explosion knocked out the high- and low-pressure turbines. We're losing power, fast."

She dropped her eyes and watched as the digital readout blinked the ship's speed back at them. It dropped to fourteen knots, then thirteen. With the drop in speed, the motion of the ship became worse. Britton could feel the storm taking over, clutching her ship in its anarchistic grip. Ten knots. The bigger waves were shoving it hard, sideways, up, down, in a weird and sickening ballet. Never had she believed a ship this big could be so bullied by the sea. She focused on the console.

The engine warning lights were on. They didn't tell her anything she didn't already know: beneath her feet she felt the distant thrum of the wrecked engines, strained, stuttering, intermittent. And then the lights flickered again as the power failed and the backup systems engaged.

No one spoke as the great vessel plowed through the seas. Its great inertia continued to carry it forward, but every breaking wave robbed another knot or two from its forward motion. Ramirez gained on them ever more quickly.

Britton looked around at her officers on the bridge. Every one of them looked back with pale, steady faces. The chase was over.

Lloyd broke the silence. Blood from his wounded forehead trickled into his right eye, and he blinked it away absently. "I guess this is it," he said.

Britton nodded.

Lloyd turned to McFarlane. "You know, Sam, I wish I was down in the hold right now. I'd kind of like to say goodbye to it. I suppose that sounds crazy. Does that sound crazy to you?"

"No," he replied. "No, it doesn't."

Out of the corner of her eye, Britton saw Glinn turn toward them at these words. But the man remained silent as the dark shadows of the ice islands slipped ever closer.

Almirante Ramirez ,

5:15 P.M.

CEASE FIRING," Vallenar said to the tactical action officer. He raised his binoculars and examined the wounded ship. Plumes of black smoke, thick and low, were pouring from the stern of the tanker and barreling across the moonlit seas. At least two confirmed hits, including what looked like a shell directly into the engine room and extensive damage to their communications masts. It was brilliant shooting in seas such as this: enough to leave the ship dead in the water, exactly as he had hoped. He could already see they were losing headway — really losing headway. This time, there was no feint.

The American ship was still aiming for the ice islands. They would prove a pathetic, temporary shelter from his guns. But the female captain had shown great courage. She would not surrender her ship until all courses of action had been tried. He could understand such a captain. Hiding behind the island was a noble, if futile, gesture. And, of course, for them there would be no surrender. Only death.

He glanced at his watch. In twenty minutes, he would pull through the gap and draw up to the Rolvaag. The slack water in the lee of the ice islands would give him a steady platform for precise firing.

He began to visualize the kill. There could be no error, no possibility of reversal. He would position the Ramirez at least a mile away, to prevent more underwater excursions. He would illuminate the entire area with phosphorus flares. There would be no haste: the operation would be executed with care. But he wouldn't tease it out, make things unduly slow; he was no sadist, and the female captain in particular deserved a respectful death.

It would be best to hull her aft, he decided; at the waterline, so she would go down by the stern. It was most important that none escaped to provide an eyewitness account of what happened here. He would turn the 40-millimeter guns on the first lifeboats; that would keep the rest on board until the end. As the ship went down, the survivors would crowd into the forecastle, where he could better see them. He wanted most particularly to make sure the smooth one, the lying cabrón, would die. This man was behind everything. If anyone had ordered his son executed, it was him.

The tanker, now slowed to five knots, was drawing between the ice islands, passing close to the larger one. Very close, in fact; perhaps the rudder was damaged. The islands were so tall, so sheer, that the tanker appeared to be slipping into some monstrous hangar of gleaming azure. As the Rolvaag disappeared from view between them, he saw the ship begin a turn to port. That would take it behind the larger of the two islands and into its lee, temporarily out of the reach of his guns. It was a sad, hopeless effort.

"Sonar?" he called out, dropping the binoculars at last.

"Clear, sir."