“Hello, I hope you’re all doing well,” a voice over the radio crackled, a man, early thirties, perhaps. White noise gently buzzed under his words, like harsh wind rushing outside a window. “If anyone is there, that is,” he said, his microphone popped with every T and S. The syllables coming through as sharp, high-pitched spikes to anyone who received it. “It's the 21st of July. Eight days since the ship lost steering capability. The hour” – lips smacked together, the man lost the words for a second – “hour is 6:45 am. New Zealand Standard Time.
“Name and rank I think is next?” the sound of him scratching his scalp was barely picked up by the microphone. “James. James Romeo Smith. Cook. Stationed on the RV Ikatere. Maiden voyage. Not sure if you’re meant to put that in, but I’m not sure where else to say it, and it sounds important.
“8 days ago, while navigating off the Ross sea, we entered a blackout. I mean” – James stumbled and repeated himself – “I mean, it was a blackout, but like a everything blackout. Guy who does security stuff, Alex, I think? He looked back at the cameras and at 3 pm we all just dropped, then it went dark.
“The ship rammed a rock while we were all out. Thank God nobody died.
“Navigation was still busted, but the engineers were able to get the rest of the ship running again. The first thing the captain did was work the radio and see if he could get an SOS out. I was eavesdropping at the time. No idea what he heard, but him and the others in the control room were screaming at each other. Something about an ‘anaesthetic-burst’ and that ‘the yanks and russians finally did it’. Guessing that the second bit means nukes. I’m hoping not, though. Otherwise, help is not getting here any time soon. Captain's been hush-hush about it all. Fair enough.
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Main focus has been rationing everything and seeing if we can get the boat moving again before it gets too far gone. But if you aren’t doing that's, main thing is finding something to kill time.
“Comms is being used to relay an SOS plus coordinates 24/7. But Liz, lovely girl, does the electronics, she gutted an old radio and made something that can broadcast messages. Captain was mad till he heard that it wouldn’t mess with the main SOS. Basically anyone who isn’t working can spend their free time talking to the air and see if anyone’s listening. Not just pleading for help, there's a decent mix. Life-stories, Poetry, one group’s even doing a radio show. Since I’m dealing with food prep most of the day, I thought I could do an early morning news update. Summarise what happened the day prior and help make a record for anyone listening in. Probably not the best use to time, but it means a lot to me and the other guys using it.
“That's about everything I had written down, so that's going to be me off for now. James the Cook, radio logger extraordinaire, logging off!” A few gentle clicks from a turned knob and the broadcast was dead.
Silence filled the imprint left by the gentle electronic hum.