For everyone on deck, the sheer level of noise coming from the interior of the ship put everyone into a near state of panic. It seemed as though everyone was falling at once, and a number of passengers, including Jake and Amanda, believed for a moment that they'd been wrong about the ship's stability, and that she was actually about to simply steer her bow below the warm, lapping waves and accelerate herself all the way to the damn bottom.
On deck 10, the tables and chairs of the Constellation Lounge and the loose tables and chairs in Qsine, one after another, slid against the wall. Some of the chairs at the far end of the room picked up enough speed to bounce over what was already there and move up higher on the pile. Qsine was a restaurant that Jake and Amanda would never get to chance to try, as they only offered dinner service and they and Rogo preferred the perfect steaks offered at the Cosmopolitan.
Like most of the lunch and dinner only eateries, In Qsine, tables that had been preset for the evening's dinner crowd coughed up their contents before the tables slid. The heaviness of the tables held them in place a little longer than the lighter place settings they held, but eventually, the tables and chairs slowly started moving before they accelerated and slammed into each other before they joined a pile of rectangular plates, table candles, and napkin-wrapped silverware at the far end of the slanting floor.
The ship occasionally encountered rolling seas, and the elegant wine glasses were held in place in their storage rack, facing the starboard side, and began pressing further against the wooden slat in front of them. However, the three shelf wine rack on the port side of the room, while anchored in place, was facing starboard and the bottles were behind no such barrier. As they were usually heavy, there was no fear of them being shaken loose in rolling seas. The shuddering of the ship before she moved to her new angle shifted the sideways-placed bottles to the point that they seemed launched by invisible hands to either roll under the tables or shatter completely on the thinly-carpeted floor.
The party at the Constellation Lounge was definitely in danger of stopping. The shelves, despite bracing in place, managed to belch a number of the drinks glasses to the floor, where they shattered among the bottles of Cutty Sark, Jim Beam, and Grey Goose vodka. The smell of alcohol quickly permeated the room, and since it was all behind the horseshoe bar, the puddles of alcohol merged to make quite a scented cocktail that would have assaulted the nostrils of even the biggest of drunks. The rest of the bottles and glassware was holding in place at the moment, but even if the list didn't get to them, the seawater eventually would when the ship finally made her final plunge.
Visitors would have a hard time getting through sections of it, as the tables all slit starboard, some with their chairs still underneath them, to form a nice, almost neat square, as though the lounge had been cleared by an invisible, ghostly wait staff to allow for some sort of privately paid VIP party, or perhaps a dance floor for a shipboard wedding that did not exist. The hanging overhead lights now drifted at an angle, and one, that would have been fine under normal conditions, snapped it's brackets and dropped, pulling its wires with it, to shatter under one of the tables that had slid right underneath it.
In the party room, the DJ's table had fallen over, and spilled with it a number of CDs. Most of the songs were automatically programmed into the system, but the DJ still kept some things on CDs for the occasional rare song request that the system couldn't provide them. Some remained closed, some cracked open, and of those that did, half of them expelled the CD held inside of them, and the CDs themselves slid and rolled, occasionally hitting in just the right way for the plastic disks to completely shatter.
The Overhead lamps, however, clamped to the metal pipes that were painted flat black, were in no danger of slipping. In fact, they remained virtually locked in place until much later, when only the impact of the ship on the ocean bottom finally shook the pipes from their ceiling housing. Still, even after, in the darkness of the water, the pipes settled to the floor, with the lamps still tightly clamped in place.
Very little activity took place in the neighboring arcade. The carefully placed room allowed parents with children they were unable to leave behind in their cabins to come along when they attended the lounge for evening fun. A few simple dollar bills or, if the parents wanted to stay awhile, a five dollar bill, could easily be turned into quarters that would provide kids hours of entertainment while their parents remained undisturbed in the room nearby. Because of the sheer weight of the gaming systems, no risks were taken. Everything, including the two change machines, were firmly anchored to the floor. The only noticeable activity occurred among the units with options other than the buttons. The hunting game that Amanda and Jake had played, for example, saw the corded plastic shotguns slip from their cradles and hang at an angle from the rest of the gaming unit.
Deck nine also created a cacophony of noise as the massage and acupuncture tables slid and thudded against the walls in their respective rooms. The portable Pandora players with their relaxing mood music slid from the shelves to break on the floor, the pieces of broken plastic sliding to the wall. The pumper bottles of massage oil also slid and fell, and some of the pump handles broke, turning the floor into a slippery skating rink. The stones in the Persian Garden steamers rattled to the floor. The bottles of brand new hair products in the salon fell in a rattle to the far wall, along with all the cleaned and prepared cutting tools of the stylists. Bottles of nail polish shattered, including the brilliant purple shade that was currently covering Amanda's finger and toenails.
And of course towels. The neatly-folded towels galore created a bizarre jigsaw-puzzle effect as they fell, sometimes to land still folded, before eventually sliding to places all over the floor. Like the arcade systems a deck above, the heavy exercise equipment also remained bolted. The disc weights also stayed within their bars, but there was a drumbeat as the coated individual hand weights shifted off their rack to bounce and tumble down the slanted floor before piling up where they were stopped by the interior wall.
Tables, chairs dishes, glassware cutlery also piled in a shattered heap in the Oceanview Cafe and pool grill. This was the restaurant that saw the most activity from falling objects, as it also contained the buffet line with stacks of plates and ramekins lined up for diners to serve themselves from heaping warmers containing nearly every breakfast staple imaginable.
All of it ended crashing to the floor with the main dining room's tables and chairs to further mix with the variety of now-cold breakfast food that the cooks had started preparing around 5 a.m. in anticipation of the early risers showing up for breakfast beginning at 6 a.m.
For those with a strong stomach and no pride, there was a piled buffet of cold eggs, sausage, pancakes, bacon, fruit, dry cereal, sweet rolls, and puddles of syrup full of glass from their shattered decanters and which had been tossed from the now-cold warmers. Midships of deck nine, the water in the large indoor pool sloshed towards the edge...But so far, remained within the barriers.
In the Owner's Cabin that Jake and Amanda had occupied for the last two days, like every other cabin on the ship, there was the sound of crashes and bangs. The huge television remained mounted to the wall but everything else slid across the tilted floors to pile itself against the walls. The door containing random Blu ray discs popped open, and the discs themselves slid, sometimes single file, and sometimes in clumps, until the shelf was completely empty. Once the discs had all been vomited, the heavy shelf itself then finally gave in to gravity to slide across the floor. The expensive furniture created a low mountain as it piled. When everything stopped, besides the television, the only thing still hanging on the wall was a large framed picture of the Ocean Princess at sea. The hanging cord kept it on the hanging hook on the support column in the cabin...For now. There were also thuds from midships on deck eight as hundreds of books on the shelves in the library slid off shelves and flew to their new home on the floor.
Water kept gushing from the bottom of the hull to the drains and toilets of bathrooms all the way to deck three, increasing in flow as the weight of the water that was already in the ship shoved her deeper into the sea. The water relentlessly soaked everything, moving from the rooms it had accumulated in all across the ship. The compartments had filled at an angle from the far wall to the doorway and now it passed beyond the closed doors to move towards the sinking bow down the corridors and spill under the closed doors of the dry cabins next in line and begin filling them too. When that dry area had filled, it would spill out once again and move to the next...And the next...Until it had finally soaked all the areas to starboard that remained dry. It was as if a child was slowly filling each individual square of a huge ice cube tray.
It was everything must go on deck five as the loose items in the specialty boutiques and The Emporium flew from starboard-facing shelves, shattering or piling up on the angled floor. The shops all looked as though their inventories were caught up in a tornado, and this was the aftermath. The pictures in the photo gallery were against the starboard wall and remained in place, but they were on the wall facing starboard in the art gallery, and while the framed ship in Jake and Amanda's cabin hung on for dear life, the artwork in the gallery was not so lucky, and the paintings and prints, some specially borrowed for display on the ship, became tangled and damaged.
The sounds of chairs, tables, cutlery, glassware, and wine falling and shattering was the loudest on decks four and five. Cellar Masters, The Bistro on Five, Blu, The Rendezvous Lounge, Crush Martini Bar, and the Cosmopolitan all lost their presets on the tables seemingly at once, and had anyone been on those decks, they'd have believed possibly that they were in the middle of a tornado. Behind the closed kitchen doors the plates falling off of shelves to break on the floor sounded like continuous gunfire.
As if that weren't bad enough, the heavy tables and other items pressed against the outer starboard hull on each of the decks certainly did not help matters, and the combined weight of it all added a further two degrees to the ship's already awful list. The Ocean Princess was more and more fighting a losing battle to stay afloat.
The water and the thousands of fallen pieces of furniture had finally tipped the ship past the point of no return, and all of the passengers along with Shaw were about to learn that the launching of the ship's 20th lifeboat was also its last.
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After what seemed like an eternity, the continuous sounds of breaking glass, clanging metal, and shifting furniture finally ceased. The passengers and crew still aboard finally let out the breaths they'd been holding. Jake had automatically snaked his arm around Amanda and let his arm fall to take her hand instead. Amanda had her feet splayed out as though executing a ballet move and remained upright in a slight crouch. If they had seen themselves, both would have realized they'd assumed positions almost as though they were in the realm, and were freezing in place at the sound of a roaring chainsaw, or the dinging bell of the Wraith.
Shaw immediately jumped into action, looking at the lifeboat. He cursed and looked at the water below the boat and the weird angle it was now hanging at from the ship. They clustered around and attempted to lower it, but the lifeboat's lowering ropes had bound up in the davits almost immediately. He shook his head in frustration and stopped Amanda before she'd even gotten a hand on the davit. "It's too far. We won't be able to get it close enough to the water to cut it free without injuring someone, even if they are seated and in a harness. Ahoy in the boat!" The door opened and frightened faces looked out. "We've got to pull you back in. The boats are beyond lowering now."
They attached a rope to a bracket in the lifeboat's interior, and it took all of them, including Amanda, to pull the lifeboat in far enough along the davits that it could be secured again so the passengers could scramble back onto the tilting deck. They were down to the single lifeboat from the Norwegian Star to ferry 600 or more people back and forth. There wasn't any way they were going to be able to make that in time. Amanda saw Julie and Dr. Bricker in the distance focusing solely on organizing passengers, 20 at a time for the lifeboat from the Norwegian Star, now that the boats of the Ocean Princess were nothing more than window dressing.
With the rescue operations at a standstill, Amanda told Shaw she'd take a look and see what the water situation was. Shaw's expression shifted to one of concern. "For Christ's sake, be bloody careful. I shouldn't let you do it but I'm curious myself, and you're probably the fastest of us on your feet. But if you encounter any decks that have any measurable water whatsoever, move your arse back up here quickly. Being trapped in a deluge of water below us is not something I want you to face."
Amanda nodded and promised that she would be careful and do as Shaw asked. The promenade deck was right on deck eight, so she first looked in their cabin. There was a pile of furniture against the wall beyond the door. She climbed on it and looked in the bathroom but could see no water coming up from the drains. That was at least a partial relief. If they were still getting water all the way up here, she couldn't see how the ship would stay afloat long enough to get everyone to safety.
She sprinted down to deck seven. On the starboard side, several cabins had doors that were swung open by the list. She got as far as she could into two of them, blocked from entering completely by fallen furniture, and again saw what she saw in her own stateroom. Water had come up but was not anymore. It just sat in an angled layer against the bathroom's starboard leaning wall.
A sprint down to six. Only one cabin was open, and here she found water. It was not a strong gush, but there was a small, steady stream of water running from the shower drain of the bathroom and trickling up and over the basin. The toilet was belching no water, and she found it a relief. Even though Jake had told her they had seawater in the bathroom when they'd first noticed it, Amanda now knew that, at least temporarily, the accumulated waste had been mixed with the seawater in the initial flood, and it made her sick to her stomach thinking that, even diluted, some of the water she was treading through barefoot might contain someone's leftover, minced-up shit and piss. Hell, the after-party vomiting she'd done the first night would be mixed in there too, and that thought generated another wave of nausea as her toes squished in the soggy carpet.
She sprinted down one more deck and did not bother to leave the stairs because already there was a layer of water on the floor that had come under the stairwell door. Thid was exactly what Shaw had warned her about, and she was definitely not going to wander onto the deck very far. She soaked her feet walking through seawater? Piss? Shit? Vomit? A mix? And opened the door for a quick look-see.
She noticed for the first time that in addition to the trickling or rushing sound of the water, the only noise was the groans, the creaks...Continuous sounds of cracking and popping from seemingly everywhere as the ship's steel hull was pulled into doing things it had just not been built to do. The lack of people, the creepy noises of the ship and the water, the dim light...It was fucking eerie, like being in a tomb. Water trickled and or streamed from the dark overhead lighting from the deck six and beyond as it looked for gaps and holes from the upper decks to rain down on the decks lower.
She could see from her position in the spotty emergency lighting that water was streaming out from under the doors of the Café al Bacio and other locations down into the theater. Some of it was running down the onyx staircase and marble floors of the grand foyer and into the decks below. There seemed to be so much of it that she just couldn't comprehend, even though she believed in Shaw completely, that the ship wasn't going to go under before everyone was off safely.
That thought made her heart beat faster and faster. She suddenly felt like she had when everything had fallen and shifted earlier, that the ship was just going to suddenly dive to the bottom of the ocean and here she was, inside of the fucking thing and it would probably move so fast she'd freeze before she could call the Entity for help and some intrepid diver would find her bones on this deck years later and wonder what this dizzy bitch had thought she was doing sightseeing below decks when the ship had been in obvious distress. Maybe she was a looter, the man in the submarine would say.
her breath caught in her throat as she panicked. Nope. She was not going to be bones in this sinking tomb. She'd seen all she needed to see, frankly. She knew they were fucked before she'd started exploring, and she knew they were even more fucked now. She sprinted back up the stairs as fast as she could to deck eight and the unsoaked portions of the carpeted floor dried off her bare feet before she went back out onto the promenade deck. In the open air, she finally started breathing normally again.
Jake, Shaw, and Rogo were still where she had left them. She waited until her heart stopped beating like a jackhammer and she knew she could speak without getting out of breath and said, "Water has stopped coming in on this deck, and deck seven, but there's a slow stream on deck six and a stronger stream on deck five. It was in the main corridors and pouring into the movie theater. I did as you said, there was a ton of water there and I didn't go any further. I imagine it's only worse from there."
They all stood mute. It was getting worse and they were stuck and there was nothing they could do but wait. Shaw said, "Despite appearances, there are tons of places still aboard with trapped air, and it's going to have to fill a lot more of the ship before we really get to be in real trouble. It's not as bad as I was expecting, frankly. The lack of water streaming up to deck eight and seven will definitely help us in the long run."
To calm the increasingly-depressive mood, one of the ship's entertainers arrived on deck with a guitar and started singing "American Pie." Amanda was immediately reminded of realm songbird Kate, strumming her guitar next to the fire. Shit, were they gonna have a campfire story when they got back to the realm.
They were so involved in the song that they only remembered a moment before the verse came why it was a horrible song selection, "And the good old boys were drinking whisky and rye and singing this'll..." He stopped.
'This'll be the day that I die,' would NOT have a calming effect on the remaining passengers. He looked around and saw the wide-eyed expressions on Amanda, Jake, Shaw, and Rogo's faces and grinned sheepishly before moving onto something more safe.
"Not as bad as 'Nearer My God to Thee,' but it's up there." Shaw said with a chuckle.
"If he starts singing 'Don't Fear the reaper,'" Jake said, "Somebody needs to smash his guitar."
Amanda chimed in, "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Who Wants to Live Forever" would also not be ideal song choices, but the rest of Queen's playlist is safe. You don't think he'll play Celine Dion, do you?" Amanda grinned sarcastically.
Shaw's chuckle turned into a roar of laughter. And with that, their spirits lifted. Eventually the four of them were all laughing, and before they could stop, and before their spirits could fall again, something joyous happened.
They heard the rumble, and shielding their eyes into the morning sun, everyone turned their heads and looked off in the direction of the noise, and suddenly there were cheers as they realized the three dark spots rapidly approaching were helicopters.
As they got close enough to read the markings that declared them from the United States Air Force, Rogo said, "CH-47F Chinooks. They'll hold 30 apiece, easy."
Amanda felt a rush of relief after feeling like death was right outside the door when she'd been in the depths of the ship moments ago. Maybe they weren't fucked after all.
Shaw said, "It's a sight for sore eyes, but I'm still bloody pissed off," He muttered, "I still can't believe the crew abandoned the ship before the passengers. I still can't believe that you, and I are having to do this tank. This isn't supposed to be our job. I've served on many ships, and I've never encountered a captain who would do that. I don't care what his explanation is. It was a horrible decision he'll never be able to live down."
One of the three CH-47F Chinooks hovered over the Ocean Princess' stern. Everyone looked at Shaw. No one made a move towards the rope. Brian Shaw remained the unofficial Captain of the Ocean Princess. He darted towards the raised upper port-side portion of the stern to where a rope had been dropped. He saw a radio headset had been attached to it and put it to his ear.
"I don't think ships are supposed to do that," the pilot spoke to him. "This is what happens when you try to make a ship do a wheelie in the open water. But hey, it's not your fault. If ya'll would like to enjoy the beach at sunny Honduras, and get the Hell off of that deathtrap, we'd be glad to take you all there."
It could have been anyone who went to assist Shaw, but with their pact in place, and with a new task at hand, Jake, Rogo, and Amanda were the ones that moved through the crowd and made their way up the canted deck to join Shaw's side. The official "Airlift Rescue Band" was now complete, and the three of them waited for Shaw to tell them what the first number was that they were to play. Shaw looked at them, then as far forward as he could see to the front of the ship. "I think I've had more than enough of this bloody pleasure cruise, good sir," Shaw replied. "Once you get me out of here I'm not even going to get into a rowboat. Where do you want to load us?"
The pilot laughed at Shaw's joke briefly. "It's not the best of locations with your list, but with the ship taking on water, there's just no goddamn place that's ideal. If you were just listing by the bow, instead of the bow and starboard, it would be easier, but we'll do the best we can with it. If you can stay there, the highest and driest spot of the ship is going to be the best spot. We could do it further forward but if the ship starts getting swamped, you're going to have to move anyway. Besides, on a sinking ship, everyone is naturally going to gravitate to the spot furthest from the water. We're going to be lowering two harnesses. We can take up two at a time. We're rated for a maximum capacity of 30, plus the crew, but we can squeeze in three or five more, just a bit harder on the fuel. How many of you are left?"
Amanda and Jake couldn't hear the pilot's words, but Shaw said into the microphone next to his mouth, "Over 600 is my best guess. The starboard list is too strong to lower anyone else in the ship's lifeboats. The Norwegian Star is taking 20 at a time, but other than that, you're are officially the only game in town, and we're bloody grateful you've shown up as you have now."
"Damn, the commander was hoping we'd be able to work in tandem with the lifeboats, but you've done all you can," The pilot told him. "Well...It'll take us about 15 to 20 minutes to load, and about 20-30 minutes to drop off and pick up. Instead of taking you back to the air base, we've got tents and volunteers set up at Ramon Villeda Morales International Airport outside San Pedro Sula. We're going to refuel every time we drop off a load of passengers. It probably won't be a problem but just in case, it's safer to leave with a full tank after every round trip. The commander has three more Chinooks doing training exercises, and he's trying to get them to change their flight paths to the airport. If that happens, we'll have six helicopters moving in three at a time. Your name Shaw?"
"Yes!" Shaw shouted. "If I get called away, these three will take my place until I return. They're passengers. Jake and Amanda Park, and Mike Rogo."
"Roger that. We'll move as quickly as we can Mr. Shaw, you have my word, we definitely want to avoid getting anyone's feet wet, and we leave no one behind."
The ship gave another lurch and it was increasingly impossible to stand upright without fear of sliding down Mount Princess without holding onto the railing for support. "I would appreciate that sir," Shaw said. "It's beginning to appear that time is definitely of the essence."
He turned and shouted over the sound of the rotors. "All remaining women and children! Line up! We're going to start airlifting!"
Julie McCoy stood in front of the group of remaining passengers and shouted over the noise, as she and Dr. Bricker started organizing everyone into a line.