Hey guys! Guess what? I UPDATED! How kewl is that? Hehehe.... So sorry,
it's been a while, but I'm back on track, and will hopefully get this
monster of a story finished! It's Rachel's turn to narrate....
I'd better reintroduce myself, since lots of time has gone by. I'm Kimba, pen name krazygurl. I started this fic about a year ago, and kinda stopped when school and friends and colorguard and drawing got in the way. So now summer's here, and I get to write again! YAY!
Animorphs is not mine, yadayadayada. Oh, and if I get my facts confused, please point them out to me and I'll try not to make the same mistake twice. It's been a while since I've read the Animorph books or the TITANIC fact books that I own. The last chapter was a little bit creepy, and it will prolly get creepier until the sinking, because this is a very serious issue that is not to be taken lightly. Many ppl died that day, and I'm trying my best to write the horror they may have felt.
Now on with the story!
PS: Rachel9466, that was a deliberate steal from the Andalite Chronicles. Glad to see someone noticed. ;-) Thank you Lost Soul, LiLLy*PoTTer, heartsyhawk, Angelofcloud9, Darth Avengel, Rachel9466, Strawberry Bunny, jasminegurl, Jinako-chan, buffymorpher2000, Zaron of the Red Moon, Twisted Fate, CYBER HAWK, Rachel, Alikat, Gwendalyn, Glittering Pegasus, The Outcast Ryter, S.H. Reality Traveler, and everyone else who reviewed. I sincerely appreciate all of your comments, and thank you for taking the time to review. Your comments and helpful criticism very much help this huge story. I hang on every word, so thank you very much!
***************************************
CHAPTER 14: Rachel
TIME: 10:00am
ELEVEN HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES UNTIL ICEBERG
Well, here it was. April 14th, 1912. Doomsday. Evil, terrible, sinking day. I woke up in my beautiful suite around 8:00am Maid service came and asked when they could clean the cabin, would I need any help dressing, ect. ect. Went back to sleep, and slept 'till 10:00am. Tobias was in first class, a few doors down. He was coming over in a few minutes. I went ahead and got dressed.
Funny, it didn't feel like evil-terrible-sinking-day.
Since today was Sunday, they held a church service in first class. Maybe they held one for the other classes. I wouldn't know, now would I? Anyway, I didn't go. I needed to plan. And think. I had a terrible decision to make. And, at the moment, only Tobias could help me. Arriving earlier than I thought he would've, he was the only one here for me, right now, at this very moment. So I looked at him. Stared deep into his for- now-human-eyes, and asked:
"Do regular shoes go with this dress? Or high heels? 'Cause, I need to match, and since I didn't really know about the whole second closet thing and I didn't know about the dresses that were in it... Should I even wear this dress? Or is it way to puffy? Oohh, wait, I need to morph later, so I would tear it anyway. Thanks for reminding me..."
Tobias stared, emotionless, as usual, but his head was kinda tilted, in a 'What?' expression.
I ran into a dressing room-slash-closet looking room and closed the door. "Tobias, stay where you are! I'll be right back, just let me change!"
I heard a muffled response that kinda sounded like an oookkkkkaaaayyyy. You know, the really, really, really stretched out kind that friends give you when they think you've gone crazy?
This was really important to me, though. I mean, the whole outfit thing. See, if I thought about my outfit, then I wouldn't think about the upcoming horror that was to be. Like I said earlier: evil, terrible, sinking day.
Not to mention I was going to get Jake a little angry with me.
Hey, someone needed to learn how to read coordinates. So I was gonna hang with the wireless operators, whether he wanted me to or not. I figured, I could do whatever I wanted to right now. I might change the past or the future or history or whatever, but we, the six of us, we made history. It didn't give us the right to change it, but I didn't care. Too many people were worried about changing it. I was prepared to do whatever it took to live. I was no way going to die again.
I faced the dress. Its sleek sleeves were puffed out, like huge balloons, but with holes for arms. It was like a tent that I could almost live in. I decided, against my much better judgment, to go ahead and wear it. The skin-tight leotard was on, the dress would be ruined, but really, did it matter?
I came out. Leaning against the wall was Tobias, who had his eyes closed like he was so bored he was about to go to sleep. I threw one of those lacey pillows from the bed at him. He woke with a start.
"Good, you're out. You look fine, don't ask. Listen, I have something really important to tell you about this whole TITANIC mission that I think you'll, um, explode over..." he trailed off, deep in thought.
"That would be...." I sat down, which was really difficult in my wonderfully frilly dress that I loathed. I was actually very happy that I would ruin it, because-
"Pointless. The whole thing is pointless." He interrupted my thoughts. "We kill the first Yeerk, another one will just pop up. They're like mosquitoes in Louisiana, or tourists in New York and Florida: You kill one, twenty more pop up. Except you don't kill tourists... Oh, and don't forget humans being very primitive before the Andalites. What happens if humans and Andalites never meet? We won't be fighting... does this mean humans don't stand a chance when the other first Yeerk comes? Does this mean we'll be Yeerk slaves? Rachel, nothing here is right! This is stupid... I wish this had never happened! It's all pointless!"
He looked toward me, trying to read me. I kept my face blank.
"Tobias...how can you say it's pointless? I'm alive! I'M ALIVE! Is this pointless? Am I pointless to you?" I stood, not caring whether I ripped my dress up to shreds or not. I walked over toward the cabin door. "Tobais, we have chances. Yes, we screw them up very badly sometimes. But that's what second chances are for! We have this golden, second chance... do you want to throw it all away? You died... and maybe killing this first Yeerk isn't the answer. Maybe I'll have to die all over again. Maybe you're right."
I took a deep breath.
"But, if you say the whole thing is pointless..."
I opened the cabin door.
"Then walk out. Right now. Because I won't stand for it. You're saying our lives are nothing. I'm very tired of trying to boost your self-esteem up. You had a hard life. You had it tougher than any of us. I don't pity you, because you don't want me to. I know that."
He smiled, a little smile. Just a little one.
"But this is now. Let's live in it, already!"
We were silent, for a while.
An elderly guy, all dressed up, entered my suite. Tobias and I glared at him. He asked me, in an English voice, "Excuse me, Miss. Do you want to go in or come out? Because, room service is ready, and you're just holding the door open..."
Tobias stood up. "We're leaving." He took my arm and led me out. Room service looked at us funny and entered my room to clean it or something.
As we walked, Tobias whispered, "You feel better?"
I nodded. "A little. I know what you meant. But what are we going to do about it?" Tobais smiled a sad smile. "Are you prepared to... are WE prepared to die again?"
"Are we ever?"
**************************
TIME: 1:40
TEN HOURS UNTIL ICEBERG
"Are you ready for this?" Tobias asked me.
We had missed breakfast. I wondered if any of our fellow Animorphs had missed breakfast. I couldn't see Marco going without eating, or Jake, or maybe even Ax, just 'cause they're men. Sort-of. Actually, Ax might pass up breakfast if it was something he didn't like. Luckly, Tobias simply asked for some food to be delivered, and ta-da, food was there. So we ate the snack food.
Now, we were walking around, watching a wireless operator. The trick was to get him to let me find out how to read stupid coordinates. All I could do was turn on my charming personality, and seriously suck up to him. Hey, it's worked in the past. I couldn't think of any moments right now, but I'm sure that it has.
"Please. This is a walk in the park. On a ship." I responded to Tobias's remark.
Tobias rolled his eyes. He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and then pushed me hard into one of the wireless operators walking past me.
I fell onto him and pushed him down with me. Tobias hurried away, winking at me.
The very first thing I noticed was that he was very young. Not kid or teenager young, but he had a young adult look to him, like he was in his early 20's. Later, I would find he was actually 22, so my guess was right on the money. Go me.
"I am SO sorry about this," I squealed in a girly voice. I tried to blush, just for effects. "I'm very clumsy, you see..."
I did my best to play a girl of this time period, but this was killing me. Puh-lease.
"Actually, I'm not very clumsy at all. I tripped over this guy's foot, and trust me, he had a huge foot. My name's Rachel..."
"And I am Harold Bride. No need to apologize, ma'am. If you'll excuse me, I do need to be off..."
This was not going well.
"Hey, aren't you one of the wireless operators? I love you guys! I've always been interested in your field of work! Could you possibly give me a few pointers? See, I'm trying to learn how to operate those things..."
"I apologize, but you see, I am very tired. I am of no use of teaching anyone anything at the moment, I'm afraid. The wireless broke down last night, and it took my partner and I seven long hours to fix it. As you can imagine, I haven't gotten much sleep as of late."
He did look really tired.
He started to pick up an old paper that I had caused him to drop. I fixed my eyes on this piece of paper, and then looked intently up at him in a questioning way.
"I'm actually delivering a, well, message, I suppose, to Captain Smith himself" he said, noticing my extremely nosey glances.
"Inquiring minds would like to know, kind sir, what this message is exactly," I prodded. If I would have come across someone like me, I would have at least told them to get out of my face.
"This information is confidential. Only the captain will read this, now if you'll excuse me..."
While walking away, I ran up to him and asked, "Is it an ice warning?"
Mr. Bride then proceeded to gawk. I got just a little pleasure. "From the Baltic. How on earth could you have guessed?"
"Weather can't be this perfect, now can it? The seas are way to calm... I just don't believe in perfection. Ice is the only thing I can think of that might cause a problem for us, and apparently, I'm correct. So... how bad is it?"
"You are a very bright child. However, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's not serious. Not serious enough to cause a problem for us on our lovely voyage. Have a wonderful day."
Try to keep a happy face on, Rachel. Just flash your smile and try to charm your way into the wireless room...
"Well, that's fantastically great news... when's your next shift?" I practically shrieked. People turned to stare, and he returned rather quickly.
"To tell you the truth, I'm on one right now, and my next one is around 2:00 in the morning... you look like a nice girl. Tell you what- I'll show you some pointers in the wireless room, if you would like- but you'd have to let me deliver my message to Captain Smith." He grinned.
Point, shoot, and score. Bingo.
"Thank you so much. I would be honored if such a professional as yourself would show me-
"No need for flattery, ma'am. You've gotten what you wanted. Wait here." He winked and was off.
Harold Bride was a very smart cookie, I decided.
I stood and waited. The clear blue sea was alarmingly quiet. The soft wind tussled the waves in toward the boat, and the gentle sea breeze was only slightly strong, just enough so that it might be a little bit chilly. I took a moment to take in the view, and although I didn't have a great one from where I was standing, it was still breath-taking.
First-Class was not cheap, as I must've mentioned before. I heard the private suites cost (in today's money) a grand total of 4,350 for a private suite, like I had. The suite was grand. It screamed 'elegant!' everywhere I looked. It definitely-
Harold Bride returned, interrupting my thoughts. "Are you ready, miss? What exactly would you like pointers in? There are many different things-
"Coordinates. Could you please show me how to read them? I find that I am very interested in this sort of topic, and I'd love to learn how to interrupt them."
He smiled. "Of course. Just follow me."
***************************************
TIME: 7:30
FOUR HOURS AND TEN MINUTES UNTIL ICEBERG
Now, I was just wasting time. I had learned nothing at all about coordinates by this time, but was hoping against all odds that somehow, I could make use of the knowledge I was receiving. However, I tried to learn all about the CALIFORNIAN as possible:
The CALIFORNIAN was stopped, because she was surrounded by ice. Better for us.
Her captain was Stanley Lord, whom would sleep through most of the TITANIC tragedy, as I recall. Tobias had said they we were only...17 or 19 miles away from the CALIFORNIAN.
But for now, what else was I do to? I had overshot my time by, well, a lot. The Californian ice warnings weren't in. Various other warnings, but no Californian warnings.
Finally! Three CALIFORNIAN ice warnings, stating coordinates!
42º 5'N and 50º 7'W.
I looked at these with interest, however, I knew I could do nothing with them. I was beyond despair.
The TITANIC coordinates were definitely estimated. I had asked them to estimate the coordinates if the time was 2:00am. They came up with 41'46 N and 50'14 W.
If that was true, then all I knew was that they were a little further north than we were and not as far west. I grabbed a pen sitting on his desk and proceeded to write this information down on my hand.
Bride looked at me hard. "If you wanted to know more about coordinates, you could probably get Captain Smith or First Officer Murdoch or even Second Officer Lightoller to help you. You know, we aren't the ones steering the ship..."
"It's alright, I'm learning a lot from you and Mr. Phillips" I said. Bride smiled at me. Then he turned to Phillips.
"Jack, three warnings from the Californian. Do you-" and at this point he yawned. He could barely keep his eyes open, poor guy.
I actually found the guy very interesting. Harold Bride had wanted to become a wireless operator from a very young age, which was cool, because he was living his dream. Appearing very shy at first, I was shocked to see him open up quite a bit to Jack Phillips, the other wireless operator. He had a great sense of humor for a guy in this time period. Usually, I didn't really get most of the dinner table jokes, 'cause I had no idea what half those words meant, but Bride could somehow make it make sense.
Phillips noticed how exhausted Bride was. Phillips was the senior operator and was probably used to being this tired, but it was clear that Bride was extremely tired.
"Harold, why don't you take a break? Go ahead and get some sleep- I'll wake you up when your next shift starts."
Bride practically glowed. "Will do, Jack. Thanks, buddy." He turned to me.
"Miss Rachel, I think it's about time you went ahead to your cabin. I'll show you more tomorrow, if you'd like."
"Thank you very much, Mr. Bride. Good night, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Bride."
I left them and shut the door behind me. I tried not to think about what would happen to them. I didn't know who would live or die. I didn't want to know. All I knew was I was no closer to finding the CALIFORNIAN, and we had run out of time.
It was a little further north, and not as far west. Helpful, Rachel. But it was all we had.
Tobias had said the TITANIC would sink around 2:00am, and it was around 6:30 to 7:00, so we would morph as late as we possibly could. I so did not want to have to demorph on an iceberg.
I went to my cabin/suite and wondered if I should get some sleep, but then I thought about visiting Tobias first.
I left and walked the short walk over to Tobias's. It was gonna be hard to face him, since he helped me out on getting to the operators. I took a deep breath. And I knocked.
And knocked.
And knocked.
And knocked.
And knocked...
**************************************
Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Oh, BTW, wanted to clear something up:
The coordinates are as true as my sources, so PLZ tell me if something's wrong with them! I'm trying desperately to get all my facts straight, because I'm a major TITANIC & Animorph fan, so, ya know...
And, um, what else... oh, yeah. I know, Rachel prolly wouldn't have been able to spend that long of a time period with the wireless operators, but I goofed early in the story by overshooting the time (and I'm blaming it on Rachel in the story... bad Kimba! Bad Kimba!) So I'm really sorry for that! It's an unreasonable amount of time, but I had it all almost written out before I caught my mistake...
And I attempted italics. I really don't think it will work, and I've been to scared to try it because I'm on Mircosoft Word (not the HTML version) so, maybe it will come out, maybe it won't, we shall see! Hehehehe....
Peace out, Read, Review, and is anybody out fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I can't believe it ended!
Thanks! -Kimba
I'd better reintroduce myself, since lots of time has gone by. I'm Kimba, pen name krazygurl. I started this fic about a year ago, and kinda stopped when school and friends and colorguard and drawing got in the way. So now summer's here, and I get to write again! YAY!
Animorphs is not mine, yadayadayada. Oh, and if I get my facts confused, please point them out to me and I'll try not to make the same mistake twice. It's been a while since I've read the Animorph books or the TITANIC fact books that I own. The last chapter was a little bit creepy, and it will prolly get creepier until the sinking, because this is a very serious issue that is not to be taken lightly. Many ppl died that day, and I'm trying my best to write the horror they may have felt.
Now on with the story!
PS: Rachel9466, that was a deliberate steal from the Andalite Chronicles. Glad to see someone noticed. ;-) Thank you Lost Soul, LiLLy*PoTTer, heartsyhawk, Angelofcloud9, Darth Avengel, Rachel9466, Strawberry Bunny, jasminegurl, Jinako-chan, buffymorpher2000, Zaron of the Red Moon, Twisted Fate, CYBER HAWK, Rachel, Alikat, Gwendalyn, Glittering Pegasus, The Outcast Ryter, S.H. Reality Traveler, and everyone else who reviewed. I sincerely appreciate all of your comments, and thank you for taking the time to review. Your comments and helpful criticism very much help this huge story. I hang on every word, so thank you very much!
***************************************
CHAPTER 14: Rachel
TIME: 10:00am
ELEVEN HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES UNTIL ICEBERG
Well, here it was. April 14th, 1912. Doomsday. Evil, terrible, sinking day. I woke up in my beautiful suite around 8:00am Maid service came and asked when they could clean the cabin, would I need any help dressing, ect. ect. Went back to sleep, and slept 'till 10:00am. Tobias was in first class, a few doors down. He was coming over in a few minutes. I went ahead and got dressed.
Funny, it didn't feel like evil-terrible-sinking-day.
Since today was Sunday, they held a church service in first class. Maybe they held one for the other classes. I wouldn't know, now would I? Anyway, I didn't go. I needed to plan. And think. I had a terrible decision to make. And, at the moment, only Tobias could help me. Arriving earlier than I thought he would've, he was the only one here for me, right now, at this very moment. So I looked at him. Stared deep into his for- now-human-eyes, and asked:
"Do regular shoes go with this dress? Or high heels? 'Cause, I need to match, and since I didn't really know about the whole second closet thing and I didn't know about the dresses that were in it... Should I even wear this dress? Or is it way to puffy? Oohh, wait, I need to morph later, so I would tear it anyway. Thanks for reminding me..."
Tobias stared, emotionless, as usual, but his head was kinda tilted, in a 'What?' expression.
I ran into a dressing room-slash-closet looking room and closed the door. "Tobias, stay where you are! I'll be right back, just let me change!"
I heard a muffled response that kinda sounded like an oookkkkkaaaayyyy. You know, the really, really, really stretched out kind that friends give you when they think you've gone crazy?
This was really important to me, though. I mean, the whole outfit thing. See, if I thought about my outfit, then I wouldn't think about the upcoming horror that was to be. Like I said earlier: evil, terrible, sinking day.
Not to mention I was going to get Jake a little angry with me.
Hey, someone needed to learn how to read coordinates. So I was gonna hang with the wireless operators, whether he wanted me to or not. I figured, I could do whatever I wanted to right now. I might change the past or the future or history or whatever, but we, the six of us, we made history. It didn't give us the right to change it, but I didn't care. Too many people were worried about changing it. I was prepared to do whatever it took to live. I was no way going to die again.
I faced the dress. Its sleek sleeves were puffed out, like huge balloons, but with holes for arms. It was like a tent that I could almost live in. I decided, against my much better judgment, to go ahead and wear it. The skin-tight leotard was on, the dress would be ruined, but really, did it matter?
I came out. Leaning against the wall was Tobias, who had his eyes closed like he was so bored he was about to go to sleep. I threw one of those lacey pillows from the bed at him. He woke with a start.
"Good, you're out. You look fine, don't ask. Listen, I have something really important to tell you about this whole TITANIC mission that I think you'll, um, explode over..." he trailed off, deep in thought.
"That would be...." I sat down, which was really difficult in my wonderfully frilly dress that I loathed. I was actually very happy that I would ruin it, because-
"Pointless. The whole thing is pointless." He interrupted my thoughts. "We kill the first Yeerk, another one will just pop up. They're like mosquitoes in Louisiana, or tourists in New York and Florida: You kill one, twenty more pop up. Except you don't kill tourists... Oh, and don't forget humans being very primitive before the Andalites. What happens if humans and Andalites never meet? We won't be fighting... does this mean humans don't stand a chance when the other first Yeerk comes? Does this mean we'll be Yeerk slaves? Rachel, nothing here is right! This is stupid... I wish this had never happened! It's all pointless!"
He looked toward me, trying to read me. I kept my face blank.
"Tobias...how can you say it's pointless? I'm alive! I'M ALIVE! Is this pointless? Am I pointless to you?" I stood, not caring whether I ripped my dress up to shreds or not. I walked over toward the cabin door. "Tobais, we have chances. Yes, we screw them up very badly sometimes. But that's what second chances are for! We have this golden, second chance... do you want to throw it all away? You died... and maybe killing this first Yeerk isn't the answer. Maybe I'll have to die all over again. Maybe you're right."
I took a deep breath.
"But, if you say the whole thing is pointless..."
I opened the cabin door.
"Then walk out. Right now. Because I won't stand for it. You're saying our lives are nothing. I'm very tired of trying to boost your self-esteem up. You had a hard life. You had it tougher than any of us. I don't pity you, because you don't want me to. I know that."
He smiled, a little smile. Just a little one.
"But this is now. Let's live in it, already!"
We were silent, for a while.
An elderly guy, all dressed up, entered my suite. Tobias and I glared at him. He asked me, in an English voice, "Excuse me, Miss. Do you want to go in or come out? Because, room service is ready, and you're just holding the door open..."
Tobias stood up. "We're leaving." He took my arm and led me out. Room service looked at us funny and entered my room to clean it or something.
As we walked, Tobias whispered, "You feel better?"
I nodded. "A little. I know what you meant. But what are we going to do about it?" Tobais smiled a sad smile. "Are you prepared to... are WE prepared to die again?"
"Are we ever?"
**************************
TIME: 1:40
TEN HOURS UNTIL ICEBERG
"Are you ready for this?" Tobias asked me.
We had missed breakfast. I wondered if any of our fellow Animorphs had missed breakfast. I couldn't see Marco going without eating, or Jake, or maybe even Ax, just 'cause they're men. Sort-of. Actually, Ax might pass up breakfast if it was something he didn't like. Luckly, Tobias simply asked for some food to be delivered, and ta-da, food was there. So we ate the snack food.
Now, we were walking around, watching a wireless operator. The trick was to get him to let me find out how to read stupid coordinates. All I could do was turn on my charming personality, and seriously suck up to him. Hey, it's worked in the past. I couldn't think of any moments right now, but I'm sure that it has.
"Please. This is a walk in the park. On a ship." I responded to Tobias's remark.
Tobias rolled his eyes. He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and then pushed me hard into one of the wireless operators walking past me.
I fell onto him and pushed him down with me. Tobias hurried away, winking at me.
The very first thing I noticed was that he was very young. Not kid or teenager young, but he had a young adult look to him, like he was in his early 20's. Later, I would find he was actually 22, so my guess was right on the money. Go me.
"I am SO sorry about this," I squealed in a girly voice. I tried to blush, just for effects. "I'm very clumsy, you see..."
I did my best to play a girl of this time period, but this was killing me. Puh-lease.
"Actually, I'm not very clumsy at all. I tripped over this guy's foot, and trust me, he had a huge foot. My name's Rachel..."
"And I am Harold Bride. No need to apologize, ma'am. If you'll excuse me, I do need to be off..."
This was not going well.
"Hey, aren't you one of the wireless operators? I love you guys! I've always been interested in your field of work! Could you possibly give me a few pointers? See, I'm trying to learn how to operate those things..."
"I apologize, but you see, I am very tired. I am of no use of teaching anyone anything at the moment, I'm afraid. The wireless broke down last night, and it took my partner and I seven long hours to fix it. As you can imagine, I haven't gotten much sleep as of late."
He did look really tired.
He started to pick up an old paper that I had caused him to drop. I fixed my eyes on this piece of paper, and then looked intently up at him in a questioning way.
"I'm actually delivering a, well, message, I suppose, to Captain Smith himself" he said, noticing my extremely nosey glances.
"Inquiring minds would like to know, kind sir, what this message is exactly," I prodded. If I would have come across someone like me, I would have at least told them to get out of my face.
"This information is confidential. Only the captain will read this, now if you'll excuse me..."
While walking away, I ran up to him and asked, "Is it an ice warning?"
Mr. Bride then proceeded to gawk. I got just a little pleasure. "From the Baltic. How on earth could you have guessed?"
"Weather can't be this perfect, now can it? The seas are way to calm... I just don't believe in perfection. Ice is the only thing I can think of that might cause a problem for us, and apparently, I'm correct. So... how bad is it?"
"You are a very bright child. However, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's not serious. Not serious enough to cause a problem for us on our lovely voyage. Have a wonderful day."
Try to keep a happy face on, Rachel. Just flash your smile and try to charm your way into the wireless room...
"Well, that's fantastically great news... when's your next shift?" I practically shrieked. People turned to stare, and he returned rather quickly.
"To tell you the truth, I'm on one right now, and my next one is around 2:00 in the morning... you look like a nice girl. Tell you what- I'll show you some pointers in the wireless room, if you would like- but you'd have to let me deliver my message to Captain Smith." He grinned.
Point, shoot, and score. Bingo.
"Thank you so much. I would be honored if such a professional as yourself would show me-
"No need for flattery, ma'am. You've gotten what you wanted. Wait here." He winked and was off.
Harold Bride was a very smart cookie, I decided.
I stood and waited. The clear blue sea was alarmingly quiet. The soft wind tussled the waves in toward the boat, and the gentle sea breeze was only slightly strong, just enough so that it might be a little bit chilly. I took a moment to take in the view, and although I didn't have a great one from where I was standing, it was still breath-taking.
First-Class was not cheap, as I must've mentioned before. I heard the private suites cost (in today's money) a grand total of 4,350 for a private suite, like I had. The suite was grand. It screamed 'elegant!' everywhere I looked. It definitely-
Harold Bride returned, interrupting my thoughts. "Are you ready, miss? What exactly would you like pointers in? There are many different things-
"Coordinates. Could you please show me how to read them? I find that I am very interested in this sort of topic, and I'd love to learn how to interrupt them."
He smiled. "Of course. Just follow me."
***************************************
TIME: 7:30
FOUR HOURS AND TEN MINUTES UNTIL ICEBERG
Now, I was just wasting time. I had learned nothing at all about coordinates by this time, but was hoping against all odds that somehow, I could make use of the knowledge I was receiving. However, I tried to learn all about the CALIFORNIAN as possible:
The CALIFORNIAN was stopped, because she was surrounded by ice. Better for us.
Her captain was Stanley Lord, whom would sleep through most of the TITANIC tragedy, as I recall. Tobias had said they we were only...17 or 19 miles away from the CALIFORNIAN.
But for now, what else was I do to? I had overshot my time by, well, a lot. The Californian ice warnings weren't in. Various other warnings, but no Californian warnings.
Finally! Three CALIFORNIAN ice warnings, stating coordinates!
42º 5'N and 50º 7'W.
I looked at these with interest, however, I knew I could do nothing with them. I was beyond despair.
The TITANIC coordinates were definitely estimated. I had asked them to estimate the coordinates if the time was 2:00am. They came up with 41'46 N and 50'14 W.
If that was true, then all I knew was that they were a little further north than we were and not as far west. I grabbed a pen sitting on his desk and proceeded to write this information down on my hand.
Bride looked at me hard. "If you wanted to know more about coordinates, you could probably get Captain Smith or First Officer Murdoch or even Second Officer Lightoller to help you. You know, we aren't the ones steering the ship..."
"It's alright, I'm learning a lot from you and Mr. Phillips" I said. Bride smiled at me. Then he turned to Phillips.
"Jack, three warnings from the Californian. Do you-" and at this point he yawned. He could barely keep his eyes open, poor guy.
I actually found the guy very interesting. Harold Bride had wanted to become a wireless operator from a very young age, which was cool, because he was living his dream. Appearing very shy at first, I was shocked to see him open up quite a bit to Jack Phillips, the other wireless operator. He had a great sense of humor for a guy in this time period. Usually, I didn't really get most of the dinner table jokes, 'cause I had no idea what half those words meant, but Bride could somehow make it make sense.
Phillips noticed how exhausted Bride was. Phillips was the senior operator and was probably used to being this tired, but it was clear that Bride was extremely tired.
"Harold, why don't you take a break? Go ahead and get some sleep- I'll wake you up when your next shift starts."
Bride practically glowed. "Will do, Jack. Thanks, buddy." He turned to me.
"Miss Rachel, I think it's about time you went ahead to your cabin. I'll show you more tomorrow, if you'd like."
"Thank you very much, Mr. Bride. Good night, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Bride."
I left them and shut the door behind me. I tried not to think about what would happen to them. I didn't know who would live or die. I didn't want to know. All I knew was I was no closer to finding the CALIFORNIAN, and we had run out of time.
It was a little further north, and not as far west. Helpful, Rachel. But it was all we had.
Tobias had said the TITANIC would sink around 2:00am, and it was around 6:30 to 7:00, so we would morph as late as we possibly could. I so did not want to have to demorph on an iceberg.
I went to my cabin/suite and wondered if I should get some sleep, but then I thought about visiting Tobias first.
I left and walked the short walk over to Tobias's. It was gonna be hard to face him, since he helped me out on getting to the operators. I took a deep breath. And I knocked.
And knocked.
And knocked.
And knocked.
And knocked...
**************************************
Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Oh, BTW, wanted to clear something up:
The coordinates are as true as my sources, so PLZ tell me if something's wrong with them! I'm trying desperately to get all my facts straight, because I'm a major TITANIC & Animorph fan, so, ya know...
And, um, what else... oh, yeah. I know, Rachel prolly wouldn't have been able to spend that long of a time period with the wireless operators, but I goofed early in the story by overshooting the time (and I'm blaming it on Rachel in the story... bad Kimba! Bad Kimba!) So I'm really sorry for that! It's an unreasonable amount of time, but I had it all almost written out before I caught my mistake...
And I attempted italics. I really don't think it will work, and I've been to scared to try it because I'm on Mircosoft Word (not the HTML version) so, maybe it will come out, maybe it won't, we shall see! Hehehehe....
Peace out, Read, Review, and is anybody out fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I can't believe it ended!
Thanks! -Kimba
