Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

As they stood and gazed into the darkness, like two people waiting to see fireworks go off, a strange feeling began to creep over Kurt. He could sense the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

Finally, another flicker of light appeared. This time, Kurt saw it plainly, but it wasn’t a flash on the horizon like a strobe light or even a definable bolt of electricity, it was more like heat lightning in the summer, covering the whole horizon, flickering dimly. Only, it wasn’t coming from the sky. The sea itself was flashing, as if the whole of the ocean were bioluminescencing.

“Could this be an effect of the aurora?” he asked.

Hayley pulled back trembling. “It’s not the aurora,” she said. There was a chill in her voice. The sound of fear.

“What is it?”

“Electromagnetic discharge,” she said. “It’s a side effect of disturbing the zero-point field.”

“Because of your sensor?”

“No,” she said, shaking. “It’s not us. It’s Thero.”

The sea flickered again, much brighter this time, and the ship lurched downward. It happened so suddenly that Kurt and Hayley were flung to the deck. The bow dug into the water, and a towering wall of spray blasted up into the air and then fell in sheets around them.

Kurt pulled himself up and looked aft. A line of foam stretched out into the dark, straight as a ruler and perpendicular to their path, but he saw no retreating wave.

“Kurt,” Hayley cried.

He swung his eyes forward. The ocean was flickering again, a pale blue-green, just enough to show its contours in the dark. Fifty yards ahead, another line was forming on the sea. It peeled back like skin being cleaved open and formed a deep trough right in front of them. It stretched across the ocean in a straight line, but it wasn’t a wave. There was no raised vertical component to it. It was more like a gap in the water, like a drainage ditch cut across a road.

The Orion hit this gap at a slight angle. The ship rolled awkwardly as she plunged into it.

Kurt wrapped one arm around Hayley, crushing her to him with all his strength and lacing his other arm through the rail.

The ship’s bow knifed into the bottom of the trough, all but submarining. It was already rising as it reached the far side, coming up in a corkscrew motion, and flinging Kurt and Hayley into the air like riders who’d been tossed off a prize bull.

They landed on the deck just as a second curtain of icy water cascaded down upon them, soaking them to the bone.

Kurt tasted the salt of the water. It stung his eyes and the abrasions he’d taken from the first impact. Without waiting for her to stand, he grabbed Hayley, pulled her up and began running toward the safety of the bulkhead door.

A foot of water had covered the foredeck. It sloshed out through the drainage holes, taking Hayley’s printed papers along for the ride.

A klaxon blared above them, and Kurt realized it was the ship’s alarm sounding for a collision. The ship was turning hard.

“Brace for impact!” the captain’s voice called over the loudspeakers. “All hands, brace for impact!”

Kurt glanced forward, looking past the bow. The ship’s lights had come on, illuminating a new trough directly in front of them, perhaps a hundred yards off. This one was deeper and wider than the other one, wide enough to swallow the ship. From Kurt’s angle, it looked like the edge of a great cliff in the center of the sea, an edge they were about to go over.

The Orion leaned hard over as the rudder hit the stops. Kurt felt the vessel shudder as the props went into reverse.

One look told Kurt it wasn’t going to be enough.

He pulled the hatch open and shoved Hayley through, scrambling inside right behind her and slamming the steel door shut. He wrenched the handle down, locking it just as the deck began to fall out from beneath him.

A moment of weightlessness followed, like they were on some gigantic amusement ride. Then Kurt was slammed into the deck. A tremendous boom reverberated throughout the ship, like a dozen cannons being fired off together. It was the sound a wall of water made when it struck the hull flush.

A muted silence followed, and Kurt knew the ship had gone under. If she was buttoned up tight, she would come to the surface again. But, for the moment, Kurt couldn’t feel her rising.

Several seconds went by before the momentum of the ship changed and she began to rise, several more before the sea released her.

She heaved up, bursting free of the water, and then crashing back down like a breaching whale. Kurt pulled Hayley to her feet and helped her forward.

They reached the bridge to find water sloshing about. One of the windows had been shattered and smashed in completely. The captain was hanging on the wheel, a bloody gash across his jaw. The XO was down on the floor and out cold, having been flung against the far bulkhead.

Joe was slamming a metal plate into the slot where the shattered window had been. He wrenched a lever tight, locking it into place just as the main lights went out.