Emilia
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022 (The day of the Shutdown)
The lower deck was torn up, pipes as large as her dented and broken.
A cesspool of sewage was pouring out of one of them. Gagging as she heard thick lumps splatter onto the floor, her feet sloshed in the sewage as she hurried down the small corridor.
Finally, when it felt like there was no more water, she removed her boots and damp socks. The cool sensation of the metal floor on her bare feet caused her to slightly shiver.
Carefully switching the beans to her right arm, she ran her left hand along the metal frame of the ship, counting in her head as she began to walk.
“1, 2, 3… 9, 10, 11… and 12,” she finished.
Letting her arm work its way downwards, she found the hidden notch and pulled it towards her.
Her secret room revealed itself.
Her father had found it during a routine maintenance check-up.
The way he told it, he literally fell through the wall and found himself in an empty coven. He told Emilia in confidence about the discovery and the two of them had been using it as their own private break room.
Slowly entering the hidden room, she closed the door with a click.
Fumbling around, she found the emergency lantern her father had stashed away and turned it on. Immediately, the room was washed in comforting light.
Stacks of beans, packets of chips, and SPAM were lined against the opposite rust-coated wall. For whatever reason, there was a small cot and a bucket tucked to the side.
Placing the cans of beans with the rest of its brethren, she sat back and admired her stash.
True, it might not last a month, but it was more than enough to get her through a week if necessary.
Deciding to take precautions, she switched off the flashlight she had been carrying and walked back towards the stairs. With her right arm counting the number of stiffeners in the ship’s frame, her feet bumped against her boots. Slipping them on, she made her way up to the main deck.
Where the sky had once been blood-red, it had now returned to its normal hues. Sky-blue color with only trace amounts of storm clouds lazily floating. There was no indication of that dystopian world she’d seen.
Standing there in shock, she didn’t notice her father approach her.
“Emilia, why are you out of bed!” he called out.
Noticing that his words didn’t seem to reach her, he followed her gaze and looked at the sky.
“Ah, yes. It disappeared in dramatic fashion. Left a heck of a mess too,” he said, gesturing to the men who were picking up scattered debris. “Some freak storm. It knocked Jefferson out senseless. Come on, the officers are trying to round everyone up.”
“Do you know why?” she said, thinking about what she had overheard earlier.
Putting a big arm around her shoulders and pulling her close, he gave Emilia a smile.
“No clue. I guess we’ll find out.
As they finally arrived, she spotted Marcus and his cronies huddled on one side of the crowd, a wide area separating them from the rest of the crewmates who distanced themselves from him.
Marcus, catching her glance at him, leered in return.
Her father steered her towards Jefferson and Katherine, who stood as far as possible from Marcus.
“Hopefully, as many of you can clearly see… ” the captain said, pointing at the sky “... the sky is back to normal.”
A small chorus of chuckling broke out.
Waiting for them to finish, he continued, his tone becoming more somber, “That’s where the good news ends. It's not only the generators but the radios are temporarily out of service.”
Emilia peered at Marcus who was trying to make eye contact with the First Engineer.
Raising his hands to quickly quell the outburst of complaints from the crew, he resumed talking.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“At least that means you will be more productive. Now, regarding the issue, the officers and I ran some experiments. It seems that not all technology was affected — which had been the initial forecast — some gadgets still work like your alarm clocks, so tardiness will not be excused.”
Finished, he nodded to Mr. Daniels took over and went about listing names of people who needed to do some repairs as well as the ship’s cooks.
After he handed out everyone’s duties, Emilia felt someone put their hand on her shoulder.
“Is everything all right?” Katherine asked.
Emilia, taking a look at the podium, replied, “Yeah… Sorry. Just have a lot on my mind.”
“If a girl like you has that much on her mind, the rest of us are done for!”
Shaking her head with laughter, Katherine grabbed an emergency lantern, and the two of them went down to the engine room where they started the repairs of the generator.
Saturday, March 26th, 2022 (Four days after the Shutdown)
Days had gone by and Emilia’s life settled into a familiar routine.
She and the rest of the crew were woken up around 6:00 a.m. every morning by an officer and then the entire crew would arrive at the mess hall.
Eating their rationed meals, which saw their portion sizes cut down by a third, they would then trudge to the main deck, get their tasks for the day, and grudgingly go on their way.
The first couple of days were filled with zeal, with many sailors working with the hope that the problem would be resolved within a few days.
That hope expired.
By the third day, the ship’s atmosphere had taken a dive, a sentiment only invigorated when rations were further cut. Daily tasks became a practiced set of chores that had become weary.
Even snide remarks from Marcus’ cronies had stopped. But as Emilia came to understand, there would always be a few that decided to stray from the herd.
“What the fuck is this shit!” a gravelly voice called out, followed by the clattering of a metal plate.
Still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Emilia entered the mess hall to the commotion. Finding her usual seat beside Katherine, Jefferson, and her father, she quickly sat down and began wolfing down her slice of bread and porridge.
Emilia recognized the perpetrator as Marcus Noren’s right-hand man, Jean Bain. Setting down her spoon, she began to watch the confrontation with the rest of the room.
“... precaution, just in case we are forced to stay at sea longer than expected. Afterward, everything, including the rations, will return to normal. All we ask at this time is for your cooperation.”
Undeterred by the officer’s plea, Bain continued to heckle him. “Forced to stay longer? What the fuck do you mean by that?! We should have nearly been on land by now, but you know where we are now? FUCKING NOWHERE! And I bet you officers are having a grand ol’ time sucking each other’s cocks and eating like pigs while the rest of us are forced to ration!”
Spitting the last sentence in the officer’s face, Bain continued to harass the officer.
Two men behind Bain rose from their seats to restrain him, but the officer raised a hand and the two of them sat down.
“Mr. Noren, please take Mr. Bain to his room where he will be confined until he understands that on a ship, it takes a crew to work it. Not one man.”
The smirk that was on Marcus’s face when he was observing the confrontation, withered when he heard his name. The entire crew stood silent for a moment, looking between Marcus and the officer.
Not daring to oppose the officer with this many men watching, he slowly got up from his seat, took Bain by the collar of his shirt, and pulled him out of the mess hall.
Laughter followed them as the doors shut behind them.
“Well, at least this morning won’t be so boring,” Katherine dryly remarked.
***
Emilia found herself in the engine room, for the hundredth time, trying to understand for the life of her why the engine and generators had broken down.
She had tinkered, trying to reconnect and organize the generator. Everything was as it was supposed to be. They had replaced all of the damaged resistors and amplifiers, cleaned the circuit board, and soldered new wires.
And still… nothing.
One of the first lessons she learned was that the heavy fuel oil the ship used was burnt inside of a combustion chamber, and the resulting steam inside the boiler would propel the ship. But without any way for them to ignite the fuel, they were stranded.
To add to her confusion, the flashlights and the emergency lanterns worked. They ran batteries and they worked based on an “on-off” principle, meaning once the switch was turned on, it would draw power from the batteries in the lantern.
But the generators… they didn’t work like that.
Our only shot is manually burning the fuel, but without any measured method of burning fuel… we’d all blow up.
A whistle rang throughout the ship indicating it was time to change shifts.
Walking up to a room behind the bridge, she found Jefferson and some other man in deep conversation with Mr. Daniels, the ship’s first officer.
The whole room was surrounded by windows letting sunlight flood in.
Hearing the thumping of boots, the three of them raised their heads to see Katherine and Emilia entering the room.
Nodding to the two women who had now taken their seats, Mr. Daniels started, “We were discussing how we’d arrive on land and around what time.”
Jefferson pointed to a map of the Pacific that was spread across the table.
“Right now we’re following the North Pacific Current whose approximate speed is 5.6 miles per hour, and that’s the best estimate. Now assuming that applies directly to the ship, we might be in a pickle. Ever since the ship’s navigation system went haywire, we’ve been looking at the celestial navigation charts. We finally got our position down, to somewhere off the coast of Oregon. However, the distance is almost” — taking another look at the charts — “ 3000 miles.”
Silence followed Jefferson's statement. For the first time in a while, the usually spry first officer looked his age. Slumping down in his seat, he brooded at the map.
“But there is a good point,” Jefferson began. “Right now, we’re essentially walking a tightrope between the Californian and Alaskan currents. If — by some miracle — we get pushed north by some 15 miles, we would ride the Alaskan current to Washington, where a boat from the land would be able to tow us in.”
“So how long are we looking at?” Katherine questioned.
Looking at each other, Mr. Daniels solemnly replied, “Maybe a month or more.”