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<12/17/1971 ~ 18:49 | Atlantic Ocean ~ International Waters, Tidal Max>
A long and loud crash of gentle ocean waves flushed off the port side just below his ears. The sound of the moving sea was soothing enough to get lost in a perpetual chain of thoughts whirling in eternity. Danny absorbed all of the sights and sounds from the deck of where he stood, enjoying the ride on the ocean through its peaceful atmosphere. With his eyes wide open and a smirk of satisfaction, Danny watched the mid-day sunset taking effect in the far distance in front of him. Time has already passed into the late day stages.
Danny enjoyed such tranquility despite not being alone. The massive cruise ship in the middle of the ocean housed thousands of sea borne souls sailing in serenity just the same, all with similar goals and destinations. Known mostly for its growing popularity of traveling the entire world as a water taxi service, the Tidal Max is one of the largest and most stable cruises in the ocean, and as always, the ship is setting sail from one country to the next.
Only those with reservations or a lot of cash could join the voyage, but the reasons for sailing were well founded within the services. A ship that houses up to 2,100 passengers, outfitted with a diving pool on one side of the deck, an observation relay, an indoor restaurant with a five star rating, and a large casino in the same general area made the pricy trip worth the sacrifices to board the vessel. For adults or children, the Tidal Max is the best place in the world to have a vacation while traveling all at the same time.
Danny Mason is a fifteen-year-old boy currently hailing from Kalamo, a small country in the farthest reaches in the southeast Atlantic Ocean. Danny has lived there all his life, and though it is his home and family location, it was finally nice to get away from it all. Kalamo is not a very popular place in the eyes of outsiders, being that Kalamo is a suffering island dried up of all valuable resources currently ruled by the Bruma dictatorship. Since the 1940's, Kalamo has only been able to maintain its own economy with everyone devoting their lives to that of anglers. The freedom there to start a private business is nonexistent. Even after thirty additional years, little there has changed in the political structure and nature of citizen lives.
He shook the thought of home away. Danny was already on his destination to New York in the North American region, making the thought of home futile for the purpose of the trip. The United States of America was getting popular due to its growing freedom, as well as its total victory during the cold war early of 1961. Danny could only remember bits and pieces to that kind of history as to how the Soviet Union lost in the cold war - which caused the collapse of their communist movement earlier than anticipated. After driving both nations into a state of economic decline, it was only a matter of time and strategy before one side would have to stop developing weapons and military power. But even so, bits of Russia still remains communist in its purest forms. Ever so has the shift in defense maintenance helped improve the rate of technological and industrial growth of the super powers in the last century.
Danny had never been outside of Kalamo before, and now he was on his way to a new location in New York to visit his uncle Nyar. Being taken care of was just part of the business, and this was Danny's big chance to finally travel as he had always wanted to since he was a child. Kalamo gets stuffy rather quickly with available land diminishing, making this trip all the more exciting.
Taylor waited for the automatic door to swing open to the outer deck. The fresh air forced its way into that part of the ship, and brushed right into Taylor's face. Bringing her the smell of the ocean and the feeling of fresh air, Taylor welcomed the breeze and showed herself outside on the pontoon while her eyes adjusted to the brighter light source. Just to the side, leaning gently on the guardrail at the edge of the cruise, Taylor saw her lifelong friend standing in silence and thought. The slight angle of the sunlight reflected his face perfectly, showing off his short cut dark brown hair and his weekly tan while the light bounced off his hazel colored eyes.
Taylor Feer is of the same relative age as Danny Mason, and she is even from the same general location in Kalamo. That is how they were capable of growing up together and becoming such close friends. Taylor had the same exact idea in mind about traveling, and she even had her destination set exactly the same too. She was given permission from her parents to travel with Danny all the way to New York City, where Nyar would take care of them both for the excursion. Taylor got to travel away from Kalamo, which is a favorable option for anybody living there today, but she also got to do this with a trusted asset to make things much more interesting.
"Sucking up the view? Here I thought you were too busy trying to fake your age into the casino again."
Danny recognized Taylor's voice immediately, but he still turned around to address her properly. Taylor was a brunette with blue eyes, and slightly taller than he was, but Danny always welcomed Taylor's company whenever he was alone anywhere. Taylor's blue eyes were refracted in the yellow sunlight glow, beaming back to him with radiance. With a slight humph escaping his breath, he answered, "Where's the fun if I already know I can pull it off?"
Taylor denied his confidence with ease while stepping closer. "Yeah right! You couldn't sneak your way past my grandma if it were a Sunday night during her soap opera." Taylor realized that Danny was far more interested in the attractive females hiding out at the casino than actually gambling, though she didn't want to bring it up again after what happened several hours ago.
"Whatever you say..." Danny turned away again at the sun, stretching his arms out far from exhaustion. Too much happened today anyway to dwell on it. The next stop will be New York, and he knew that himself and Taylor were both curious to see what the country of the United States will be like. "I've had enough fun for one night. I can't wait until we get to New York."
"I wonder what it will be like over there!" Taylor added excitingly. "How much longer?"
Danny answered Taylor as best as his memories could gather to his mind, and that was assuming he did not read the pamphlet incorrectly again. "We should be there in just two more days. I'm going swimming tomorrow by the way. Might as well with this much time left."
Taylor let a brief moment pass, rethinking her entire day over from start to finish. "I've never been on a cruise before, but I absolutely love it!"
"Hahahaha," Danny laughed at Taylor's comment.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Wha- What's so funny?!"
Danny answered her with a brief nodding of his head. "I've never been on one either, but you're just now choosing to compliment this water taxi? Talk about zoning out. Your mom always warned us that you did that too much."
"Hey?! I wasn't zoning out!" With just a short second, Taylor stopped tensing up and shifted her side towards Danny. "Never mind." Taylor seemed to be ticked off from the tone in her voice, but if Danny knew Taylor at all, that would only last for five more seconds.
"Anyway," Danny continued. "It's almost seven PM. We should go back in and get some rest."
"You mean you can actually sleep? After still not making it to America?" Taylor had her arms folded, but she sounded a lot more curious than she was upset, proving Danny's predictions about her short-lived anger.
Danny interjected, "It's still two days away Taylor. I'm not going to get all nervous and excited until it's that time."
"Who said I was nervous?" Taylor defended.
"Well I'm not the one acting like a spaz today."
Taylor glared at Danny with a chastising look in her eyes. "Look who's talking, board flopper." Taylor's choice of word for board flopper was really a reference back from two years ago, when Danny tried to fit in better with the cool kids crowd, and failed miserably. Not even aware that no such initiation existed, as neither did their makeshift gang of 16-year-old men, Danny was told that to be in with their popularity, he had to do a triple kick-flip on a skateboard off of a curb and land it first try. Though he was used to riding a board all the time, his skills in performing tricks were still not so great. Without even considering anything, Danny decided to just jump right in, certain that he could do it despite never performing one successfully before. After landing flat on his face, he had humiliated himself in front of the same people he wanted to impress. Maybe if he wasn't so impatient and immature, he wouldn't have been asked to ride a skateboard so dangerously in the first place.
"Oh stop," Danny interrupted. He began walking back to the sliding door while assuming Taylor was going to follow him from behind. "At least I still haven't lost our only key card."
Taylor couldn't help but blush a little from that earlier incident. On the first day of their cruise, which was just yesterday on the Tidal Max, Taylor ended up misplacing their only key card for access into their sleeping quarters. For irresponsibility, Danny ranked that mistake higher than his own example, especially since they both had to sleep in the same room, thus having only one electronic card to access their quarters. Danny managed to find it that day at the last second, on the floor in some corner by the restaurant.
"Let's just get some rest," Taylor suggested, defeated by Danny's cleaver memory. Both of them walked back inside of the ship, as the outside area was barely populated at all due to the coming of the sunset.
Taylor and Danny were both tired, so there was not going to be a problem getting to sleep tonight. Their sleeping quarters were not far away, with a room outfitted with two separate bunk beds on each side to hold up to four people total. The corridors however were built like a maze, making that strong memory of his - very important for getting around on the inside the ship. Danny had to whip out that electronic card he was bragging about earlier, as he swiped it into the scanner to open the sliding door in the first place.
Even though it was not very late, Danny wasted no time at all in preparing his bed and blanket for sleep. Taylor seemed to be slower at it today, perhaps due to her unreadiness to fall asleep so early in the day.
Danny checked his big bag that he took with him for carrying items. There was still plenty of cash and water left in there for later, as well as several changes of clothes and another clean towel for tomorrow. Satisfied with the rest of the plan for the big event in New York, Danny decided to lay down and get comfortable in his bed after dimming the lights in the cabin.
Taylor was still getting her stuff together, organizing what was already in her purse. They were both lucky that Nyar had a lot of money from his job while defending a large business in court. He was practically paying for most of this stuff. Taylor exhaled slowly with fear that the trip back will not be so luxurious.
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Chapter Theme Shift: Briefing 08 ~ Advanced Battlegrounds OST
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<12/18/1971 ~ 04:04 | Atlantic Ocean ~ International Waters, Tidal Max>
Several hours had passed since the same night on the Tidal Max. With the current time and date reading as December 18, 1971, 04:04 hours; on the computer console screen, Captain Sterold of the Tidal Max keyed in more reports for the coast guard.
Using his small yet powerful ham radio, Sterold held in the transmit key and attempted a communication once more. "This is Captain Sterold of the S.S. Tidal Max. I say again, we are hailing local coast guard seven-seven-zero. Please respond and report your last update on the weather."
"Heh. Still worried about the weather sir?" Jamaro, the second in command to captain Sterold made a snide remark that the both of them were used to by now.
Sterold put down his talk set for a moment to respond to his trusted second in command, who has been trained to handle the operations that the captain normally does. "Ah, stow it son. I can't seem to raise anyone on coms. We're sailing blind with poor visibility."
"It's the international ocean, captain; we always sail blind out here. Based on our sector, you know as well as I do that the nearest coast guard center is miles out of range for communication, even in clear skies. Plus, there were no reports of any bad weather this morning." Jamaro had a good argument; especially since the last weather check was only three hours ago. But the sudden shift in the slow and subtle rocking of a ship this size had Sterold all worried.
"This is Captain Sterold, I say again. Does anybody hear me? Can anybody respond?" Sterold waited for any sort of a reply back over the encrypted radio transmission, but there was absolutely no response for several moments. The outside view was nearly pitch black, and the sky became invisible in the darkness. Something about the gain in wind speed and the force of the waves did not match the earlier weather description. The weather tracking equipment just had its standard routine maintenance check, so there was not the possibility of a scan error. This cruise is tough, but even Sterold refused to believe that anything is unsinkable. No, sinking over a bad storm would not be likely, but structural damage could still occur, and replacing any section of the hull would become a separate financial issue as well. "Kelly?" the captain called over the control center.
"Yes sir?"
Sterold was already giving commands and orders to some of the other people in the room responsible for weather radar, sonar checks, and systematic readings. "Use the on-board weather tracking system, and send a live feed to my desk on the double."
"Yes sir. I'll have the data in minutes."
Jamaro nodded his head slowly. "You're really that paranoid about an itty bitty storm?" Just on cue, a bright flash of a lightning bolt in the sky illuminated everything just outside of the windows, revealing for a split second to the crew the storm far out ahead in the distance. The size of the new storm was almost huge, and the sound of roaring thunder quickly followed the lightning bolt in the sky.
For a solid five seconds, the low pitch echoing sound of closing thunder alerted everyone in the room, while another flash revealed the storm to the team once again. The bearing was straight on an intercept course, and Sterold glared outside at the cloudy wave, after which he shifted his gaze at Jamaro. "You were saying?"
"Right..."
Sterold reminded Jamaro of another weather factor he might have been leaving out. "Don't forget where we are. We're about to pass over an interesting section of territory. I wouldn't be surprised if the storm turned invisible, changed direction, and blew water ten stories tall all at the same time."
Kelly gave his status report a little late, but without leaving out important details. "Captain? The storm is growing in size, and we are heading right for its effective range. Expecting large residual waves from wind speed pickup in just five minutes."
Sterold demanded for more info from Kelly's data console. "How much speed are we talking about with the wind?"
"About one mile per hour acceleration every two minutes. It could get up to 66 miles per hour sir."
Sterold held his hand to his chin in thought, then he walked over to his console to take the controls. "Jamaro? See if you can't get in contact with anyone around us using the open channels. We're shifting our course to avoid that storm. And tell our staff to make sure nobody goes outside on the deck or the pontoon. Everybody stays indoors for this ride. I'll engage the outer door automatic locks myself."
"Yes sir," Jamaro saluted.
"Damn meteorologists!" Sterold cursed. "No storm at five my ass. Can't trust a weatherman, especially to give an accurate report this close range to that sick wasteland." Sterold already began the new navigational program to change course and direction to veer to the right of the storm. "We're changing course now. It will get a bit bumpy soon."
With the waves already rising in power and in height, the entire deck of the Tidal Max soon became very busy, though nobody was panicking so far. A cruise ship of this size was designed to stand up to a storm this big, but Sterold was obviously not taking any chances.