AN: Now the moment you've all been waiting for!
Chapter Eleven: Rouge
Location: 373 Nautical Miles due West of Manila, Philippines in the South China Sea
Date: December 31st 11:00pm
The weather had cleared up nicely and New Year's Eve drew towards its conclusion under clear skies. The full moon shone brightly over Poseidon as the ship's holiday festivities continued on.
Down on deck 7 Max, Barbara, Zack and Bob were busy serving beverages and snacks. The latest dance music blared throughout the club as nearly all the SAS students crowded the dance floor. Zack felt right at home conducting business in the club. It was just like the night club that he and his brother had run at the Tipton. Naturally, he flirted with every girl that entered the room until Max put a stop to it with a skillfully thrown pineapple boat.
"Ow!" Zack hissed.
"Stop the flirting or next time it'll be a whole one" Max said.
"I can't help it, it's in my nature baby" Zack replied waving to a new group of girls coming in.
"Well, you keep it up and you might just get to experience my nature" Max said glaring.
"Okay, okay, don't get all excited…you know you're my one and only" Zack said kissing her on the cheek.
"You know, it's really hard to stay mad at you" Max said smiling.
"It's another of my many gifts" Zack said slyly, winking at her.
"It's getting crazy in here…I'd like to go up to the main ballroom soon and see Cody and mom, you think its safe for you and me and Barbara skip out and head up there?" he asked.
"Let's make sure that extra help we were promised got here first…we can't just stick Bob and Mark with everything" Max said
They both turned to where Bob and Mark stood behind the snack bar waiting on customers. Their new girlfriends were there helping out serving drinks and smoothies. From time to time they would trade off so one couple could go dance and the other stay and work. They seemed to have everything well in hand but Zack wanted to be sure. He and Max walked over to the bar.
"Hey Bob, you got everything in hand here? Did the extra help arrive?" Zack asked him.
"Yeah, they're here, we've actually got too many people working now" he said.
"Okay, Max and I are gonna take Barbara and head up to the main ballroom for a while then" Zack said.
"That's cool, Mark and I and the girls will probably join you up there later" Bob replied
Barbara came bouncing by them on the dance floor, obviously having had far too much sugar.
"Woooo hoooo! Yeah! Hey, come do the cupid shuffle guys!" she said whirling away again.
Zack and Max slowly turned and looked at Bob.
"Not my fault this time…the girls served her and they didn't know about her cut off time" he said.
"I'll get her, then we'll go" Zack said plunging into the crowd after his brother's hyper lady friend.
Up in the main ballroom, Cody was busy with the sound system his mother was using to perform with. He was happy because it was almost time for Gloria to take over. Gloria would be performing her special, which lasted an hour and ran through the midnight countdown, before Carey went back on for another late night show. He had only been able to get away to the teen club a few times so far and only then for only short spans of time.
Carey finished her last song and received a thunderous applause. Cody was more than ready to hand over the headset gear to Gloria's sound people. He started down the stairs to meet Carey at her table.
He spotted his mother sitting and talking with a man about her age. It was apparent that Carey was interested in the man as they were leaning in close as they talked. A few seconds later Cody reached the table.
"Oh hey honey, great job on the sound" Carey said.
"Thanks" Cody replied and then just kind of stood there awkwardly.
"Oh, sorry, this is Mike; we met on one of my last breaks. Mike, this is one of my twins, Cody" Carey said.
Cody shook Mike's hand.
"Nice to meet you" Cody said.
Zack, Max, and Barbara arrived then, having changed into dressier clothes for the ballroom party, and were also introduced.
Captain Bradford came out and gave a nice short speech about the god Poseidon and wished everyone smooth sailing in their lives for the new year. He then introduced Gloria who launched into a fairly upbeat song that got people out on the dance floor.
Keep movin' and movin' and movin' it…she sang.
"I was just going to come down to the teen party" Cody said raising his voice over the music.
"It's way crowded in there right now, that's one reason we decided to change and come up here" Max added.
"Plus Barbara needed to get away from the soda" Zack said pointing at Barbara who was biting her lip and clenching her fists to keep from talking to fast and bouncing off the walls.
"Barbara! You did it again didn't you?" Cody said frowning.
"Oh come on! It's only once a year for cryin' out loud!" she said.
Everyone laughed and agreed. Gloria's first song ended and Zack noted it was 11:40pm.
"Almost time guys!" Max said eagerly.
Gloria began singing a slow song called "Won't Let You Fall"
"May I have this dance?" Zack asked Max.
"Certainly" Max said all proper like.
Zack led Max out to the dance floor of adults, all wearing suits and dresses as they were.
Cody looked at Barbara.
"Think you can manage a slow dance?" he asked her.
"Yes, I'll be fine" Barbara said smiling and accepting Cody's hand
Mike and Carey also decided to dance and followed Cody and Barbara out to the dance floor.
Dancing together, Zack and Max looked into each others eyes as did Cody and Barbara who danced next to them.
Carey, dancing with Mike, observed the two couples from nearby. She marveled yet again how grown up her sons looked.
Especially when they're cleaned up in suits she thought.
"Are you having a good time?" Cody asked Barbara as they slowly circled to the music.
"I'm having a great time" Barbara replied.
"You mean the sugar rush isn't ruining your night!" Cody asked in mock appellation.
"Shut up…if anything it's made the night better" she said playfully.
"Well, don't make a habit of it, I don't know how I'd be able to tell my friends I'm dating a sugar addict" Cody said jokingly.
Barbara laughed and leaned her head on Cody's shoulder.
"You want to know what's made my night better?" Cody asked.
"Hmm?" Barbara hummed a response.
"You coming up here and being with me" Cody said.
"Oh Cody!" Barbara said.
"Oh Barbara!" Cody said.
"Oh brother!" Zack said nearby and got swatted by Max.
"It'd be nice if you said stuff like that to me every now and then" Max said
"It's not that I don't think it…I do…but Cody would be the first to tell you I don't always get my feelings out of my mouth" Zack said.
"Well, I guess I'll just have to work with you on that" Max said.
"Let's try it now…what's going through your mind right now about me?" she added.
"Hmm…how about this…out of all the girls on this ship there is none of them I'd rather be dancing with than you" Zack replied.
"That's pretty good…a touch on the sappy side…but I think there's hope for you" Max said playfully.
"Sappy! And what Mr. Romance-wannabe over there said wasn't sappy?" Zack said teasing back.
"I heard that" Cody said from off to the side.
"Just dance silly" Max said.
The song ended and they all headed back towards the table.
While on the way Carey caught up to Cody.
"Cody, I just realized something important while I was dancing. I forgot a very important piece of music in my suite that I have to perform in my next show. I don't want you to miss the countdown but as soon as its over do you think you can run up and grab it…it'll be right on the bed and take you hardly no time at all to get there and back" Carey said holding her key card out for him.
"Sure mom" Cody said taking the key.
"Thanks hone…I mean Cody" Carey said starting to call him honey but, noticing Barbara nearby, changed it. She didn't want to embarrass him.
They reached the table and as Zack and Cody stood behind Max and Barbara's chairs while the girls got seated, a small boy of about ten came walking by and bumped into the twins; dropping the video game he'd been playing.
"Aw, man, not again! Sorry!" the kid said.
"That's okay kid" Cody said.
"Yeah, here's your game back" Zack said picking up the game and handing it to the kid.
The kid looked back and forth from Zack to Cody.
"Am I seeing double?" he said.
"We get that a lot" Cody said.
"Connor, come over here honey and eat your desert" a young woman said from a nearby table.
"Kay, gotta go bye!" Connor said before running off to the table and the woman who the twins guessed was his mother.
Zack and Cody then seated themselves. They weren't there but a few seconds when a fast song began to play and they were right back up again.
"This should take care of what's left of your sugar high" Cody said.
"Bring it on!" Barbara replied as they all headed back for the dance floor.
Down on deck 7, relief SAS staff came in and relieved the volunteers, including Mark, Bob, and their girlfriends. Since it was so close to midnight, they all decided to stay in the teen club and ring in the New Year there. As they got out on the dance floor, the DJ started up yet another techno dance song.
"This is the life!" Bob said to Mark who agreed as they began dancing with the girls.
Way up above in the communications room, the officer on watch frowned at some disturbing incoming news from Manila. There had been a large 8.9 magnitude earthquake which had devastated the city an hour earlier. The report said that the news was slow to come out of Manila due to the sheer intensity of the quake.
Ships in the South China Sea should keep a sharp watch for rouge waves…
It was the last line in the report that alarmed the officer. He clicked the print option on his terminal to print the report so he could take it up to the bridge as was standard procedure. The printer, however, decided to take that moment to jam. The officer, instead of copying the report by hand in order to get it up to the bridge, set to work fixing the printer.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, another officer came strolling in singing a few lines from Auld Lang's Syne.
"Shh, quiet…quiet..." the Commander said suddenly putting his hand up to silence the officer "…Gentlemen keep it down" he added as he walked from one side of the bridge to the other
Everyone went silent.
"You feel that?" he asked.
No one responded.
"Something's off…" the Commander said.
Back in the main ballroom it was time for the countdown. Carey, Mike, Zack, Max, Cody, Barbara, and two other couples at their table all stood with their drinks at the ready.
Gloria began the countdown and everyone soon joined in "Here we go, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy New Year!".
Cody noticed the young boy, Connor, up next to the Captain sounded an air horn as everyone shouted.
Balloons and streamers fell from the ceiling and everyone hoisted up their drinks for a toast. Then each couple at their table gave their significant other a kiss.
All over the ship, celebration broke out with loud cheers.
In the teen club, Bob and Mark and their girlfriends toasted and received kisses of their own as the lights flashed, and streamers and confetti flew.
Cody decided to take this time to sprint off and get his mother's music. He leaned over to Barbara and told her where he was going and that he'd be right back and dashed off.
He jogged up the stairs to the upper level of the ballroom and went out two sets of doors to the open air promenade. He took some more stairs up to deck 2 and began walking towards the bow. A short distance later he turned and went back inside where the suites were located. He then made his way further towards the bow where Carey's suite was on the starboard side. The whole trip took him less than two minutes. He let himself in, closed the door, and turned on the lights.
On the bridge, the nervous Commander paced back to the other side of the bridge and looked out the starboard side windows at the horizon with a pair of binoculars. He suddenly saw something that turned his blood into ice. The entire horizon seemed to be rising up.
"No" he said.
He lowered the binoculars and squinted.
"No" he said again.
"Hard a starboard, starboard engines full astern!" he shouted running over towards the command chair.
"Starboard engines full astern!" his helms officer repeated, throwing a lever back before starting to move over to the joystick that served as the ship's wheel.
The Commander got there before he did and pulled the stick as hard to the right as it would go.
"I got it, I got it!" he shouted.
"Come on! Turn! Turn!" the Commander pleaded with the ship as he watched a small computer image compass with a representation of the Poseidon in the center begin to spin. He knew an enormous rouge wave was racing towards the ship and if he didn't get the ship turned into the wave…he didn't even want to think about the consequence.
"Turn! Come on! Come on!" he said again before ordering the bow thrusters activated hard to starboard.
The officer that activated the thrusters also sounded the general alarm.
Throughout the ship, an alarm sounded with a repeating shrill whooping noise.
Cody turned and saw the wave just as the alarm sounded and he watched the full moon disappear behind it. His eyes couldn't make sense of what they were seeing and he froze right where he was.
In the ballroom, it took a moment for the alarm to register above the sound of the music but once it was heard the music stopped and they heard the announcement from the bridge.
All crew report immediately to your emergency stations this is not a drill. All passengers brace for immediate and heavy roll
Carey looked at Zack and the girls then over at Mike. No one seemed to know what to do. People began screaming and moving towards the exits of the ballroom.
"What do we do mom?" Zack asked.
"Let's find something to grab hold of over here" Carey said and they all rushed over to the wall on the starboard side and grabbed the railing.
Down in the teen club Bob and Mark looked at each other in confusion as a similar scene began to play out. Students panicked and ran for the exits, clogging them.
Back up in Carey's suite Cody, finally getting his mind around what was happening, decided he'd better move away from the large sliding glass doors in the bedroom and living room. He knew that the safest place to be would be as near the middle of the ship as he could get. He ran out the door into the corridor and began to run down it towards the stern.
On the bridge the crew could only watch in horror as the wave got closer. The Commander knew then that the ship wasn't going to get turned in time.
Poseidon dipped down into a slight trough that preceded the wave and then the 200-foot wall of water slammed into the ship.
In the ballroom everyone was instantly thrown off their feet and sent tumbling towards the port side of the ship as it keeled over.
Carey lost her grip on the railing and began sliding across the floor towards the other side of the room.
"Mom!" Zack screamed trying to hang on to the railing and Max.
When Max slipped from his grasp he let go and followed her down the steep angle of the floor.
In the teen club Bob and Mark were thrown off their feet and sent tumbling along with light trusses, speakers, and other equipment. Bob lost sight of Mark, the girls, and eventually everything else as a large piece of equipment slammed him in the head.
On deck 2, just as he reached a T junction in the corridors, the wave tilted the deck sending Cody flying down the corridor to his right. He tumbled end over end right into the door of a suite on the port side. He hit the door so hard that it broke in and Cody tumbled, unconscious, right into the room inside.
The ship was on its port side now but the wave wasn't done. It continued to roll the mighty ship over. Water crashed into the bridge.
Inside the ballroom the lights flickered as the passengers and crew began falling down the wall towards the ceiling. Zack was aware of people falling along with him down the wall but he'd lost sight of his mother, Max, and Barbara. As he slid faster, the ceiling came up to meet him much to fast and he landed with tremendous force. Shortly after that several people landed on top of him knocking the wind out of him.
To his horror he soon found out it wasn't over yet. Zack and the clump of people he was in began sliding along the ceiling, rolling past the chandlers, as the ship was rolled still further, pulled up onto its starboard side.
Cody, still unconscious, was unaware he was being tossed around in the small suite like an item in a dryer. Mattresses tumbled free of their beds, lamps and luggage items crashed down around him, and the TV tore free and plummeted straight towards him.
Mark couldn't tell which way was which any longer as he continued to tumble and roll with the other students in the teen club. He tried to grab onto a shelf built into the wall and secure himself but it slipped from his grasp. As he fell along the ceiling of the club he spotted London…she was unconscious and helpless to protect herself against the onslaught of the roll. Mark tried to pull himself in her direction but a large box speaker put an end to his effort, pinning his arm and dragging him away from her.
Back in the ballroom, upon slamming up against the same wall he'd originally fallen from, Zack waited, fully expecting to go sliding back down along this wall to the floor. The wave, however, had moved on and the stricken ship was left with no other option but to roll back down, sending everyone crashing back to the ceiling.
The screams of people and the noises of things crashing that had been heard during the entire roll reached a crescendo as the ship finally stopped moving, let out a great moan, and then the lights went out.