Аннотация: Пробовал на английском эксперимента ради. Начало романа. Но возможно это будет в итоге началом другого сюжета
Но возможно это будет в итоге началом другого сюжета
Space Lockup
Endrik wished the night would be dark and stormy... For those who wanted to cover up their actions and themselves, it could be a perfect time and maybe the only chance to succeed.
They were followed by some kind of Greenpeace swarm all their way across the Norwegian Sea. Every day the captain could see this ugly little piece of handicraft on the uninhabited landscape, mostly on the horizon. Every day the whole crew was bothered by attempts of chaser"s company to make radio-contact. Every day these scums even sent a drone with video camera to capture some evil-activity of poachers or just to make them really angry. The mamma"s boys didn"t understand that it was the best way for poor people to earn big money quickly, to pay deadly debts, to pay a goddamned mortgage, to raise kids in normal schools and colleges. They deserved it in their lives, didn't they? And now it seemed that Endrik"s guys could return with nothing because of this grayman-tail.
The best solution in this situation was too shake "em during the storm. Or maybe under the cover of hurricane with no eyewitnesses in sight it would be a good opportunity at last to catch a beast. They weren't too far. Endrik's ship was also a follower of a pod. These mammals couldn't hold breath for too long, so it wasn't a big deal to track this family, pretending fishing for small ones with some torn nets.
"Any night, please." The captain was talking with the night sky like a madman, but as a joke he preferred calling himself a seidman. "Maybe this one. Of course, this one. Definitely it is." Endrik cared about the large dark bulk above northern horizon, which had turned off plenty of stars and now it was consuming Ursa Major. A good sign, a big one, like one of these creatures they were preyed on.
"The storm is coming!" One of mates spoked in a bass from the shack. They relied more on modern navigational aids, than on their own eyes. "Twenty three per second. Waves are more than twenty. Force nine or ten, according to Beaufort!"
"Yeah, I see the ox-eye." The captain smiled, and first lightening highlighted his crooked teeth. Then he shouted: "Bear up! Dead ahead! Full forward! Show "em how to sail!"
The ship planed directly to the breaking out hurricane, to the electrostatic disco through the walls of winds. Thunderstorm was really heavy. The captain tried to notice everything and to miss nothing, but he wasn"t a spider, he had only two eyes. Firstly green tugboat had disappeared somewhere behind tall waves, then the crew almost lost all signs of whales" presence. Low heavy clouds full of nasty water cut them off.
"Don"t panic!" The captain bawled, spitting out water. "Is it a rain? Nay! Just sea dust!"
"Zero visibility!" The boatswain roared, fighting with wind on the deck. "We can lose our fatties!"
"They"ll use magnetic lines, towards magnetic north." Endrik pulled out a compass. "We won"t miss them. Right now they are starboard on two o"clock. However, green ones will be looking for us there too."
"We still can hear them! I mean whales!" Sparks-boy shouted. "Look at the signals, Endrik!"
The captain went to the shack. He grabbed phones, listened to it, looking at the radar screen, drawn by echo sounding. Empty bottles were rolling on the floor.
Sparks-boy wasn"t so patient.
"They are coming! We should slow down or change our course!"
The captain shook his head no.
"Impossible. Too much noise because of thunderstorm. The tools are not working properly. Why do they need to change their course..."
Then suddenly the noises on radio sets erased and after a second all lights turned off.
"What"s the demon"s hell?" The captain yelled.
Emergency antipanic illumination began working.
It wouldn"t be so scary - who knows what had happened with electricity during thunderstorm, not a big deal, - but Endrik followed up the sight of stunned and shocked sparks... And his old legs shivered, like he was only first time on board in such bad weather...
The mobile phone in the hand of the boy was also turned off. He couldn"t turn it on.
"No GPS. No radio. No communications" Somebody said. "No any aid. We should check the generator..."
"Some electromagnetic event..." The captain mumbled. "Seems to be natural..."
"Maybe some kind of attack from green ones?" One of the sailors asked. "I mean like EMP or something..."
"I feel terrible headache" Sparks sobbed. "Really..."
"Sabotage?" The boatswain returned from outdoors, slammed the door and lighted a cigarette. "I don"t think so. They are too far. And they didn"t try to attack us so far... Is it a good time? For what? We did nothing! There is no sense..."
The oldest man on board, the old salt, was hitting himself to the chest.
"Jesus! My pacemaker... is on fritz... Oh, boys..."
The captain stared at the compass and tried to understand how it is possible for magnetic needle to show new direction... He looked at the blocked steering wheel and then again - at the compass. He felt soaked not only with sea or rain water, but with sweat...
"Natural or not... it can explain the behavior of... God damned! ...Whales! They could really change their..."
Sudden heavy strike to the hull made everybody fly to the walls and windows. Some of them thought it was a deep rock or other ship, but it wasn"t. Now it was so stupidly clear in the Endrik"s consciousness.
Sparks-boy crashed his head to the full death. Apparently he was the lucky one.
The sperm whales continued hitting and beating to the body of the ship. The members of crew were badly injured after most of these quakes.
One of pillars was broken; its components of steel and wood were hanging on the ropes and cables and were dancing in the air dangerously close to the people. The strongest guys tried to help the others or at least to find a shelter, asylum harbour. Some of them were shouting from below, from basement, there was too much destruction - even ladders. Again and again something enormously heavy was striking to the hull, mostly to the front place called between wind and water. The captain had few seconds in sum to look around, to see large waves, to hear splashes and moans of whales. He saw how boatswain caught a bitter end of the rope, trying to stop one pillar"s fragment, but he was captured by big amount of water, reached till the bridge, and was thrown to the open sea. The captain tried to shout: "Man overboard!" He couldn"t hear even himself, so loudly circumstances were. He only felt the blood in his mouth and growing up pain.
One of the sperm whales jumped aboard, crushing sheers, harpoon gun, radar tower and other important things. He was moving angrily, in agony of surviving, hitting closest two sailors, the head of one of them met a hook for a whale. The captain saw something like this on some desert stony beaches, where some whales and dolphins sometimes were also mistakenly brought by magnetic anomalies or something else. "At least we caught one" He thought with a smile of a dying man. However this was a high ground, it was easier to return in water, so this whale finally did it, leaving only few streams of its own blood.
The rest of the crew also tried to save themselves, even not helping each other, because the water was too cool, nobody could think about anything else, except their own lives. They dabbled helpless like little kids close aboard, until the ship has disappeared, going to the ground. One guy was trapped in a fishing net, so he's gone too. They were looking for the life-boat, because there was only one. The captain was pretty sure that it was destroyed by that whale or it was just tightened to the ship. Nobody had time to prepare it for clearance.
At the same time storm didn"t stop, it was continuing. And not all the whales left the place of shipwreck. At least one of them was badly injured, others tried somehow to help their relative or friend. One or two of sailors died only because of that.
Everything of this happened almost in full darkness. Only sometimes the surface of water was highlighted by electrical charges in clouds.
Preparing to the death Endrik tried to remember some prayers, but it was too difficult to remember something more that the God"s name, he was too shocked, too tired and too painful.
Suddenly the environment was cleared from darkness by powerful flashlights. The Green Ones came for help on their funny little ship.
Their captain gave a hand to Endrik, smiling:
"Fortunately... or unfortunately... we are saving all kinds of animals."
One of his guys didn"t agree:
"We save all living species, except some viruses and parasites. And these poachers are kinda parasites, am I wrong?"
"We did nothing..." Endrik made time to say it with chattering of teeth.
The captain of Green Ones laughed.
"We still have some debatable questions in science. What should we consider as useful organics and what is not... Right now we have too much tolerance in this. Ok, help the others."
"All the power is gone..." Endrik said. "Generator, all electronic devices... blackout..."
"We know. And the whales lost their way because of that. Poor creatures!"
"All circuits burnt out." One of the green ones added.
"How... how are you..." Endrik coughed blood. The surgeon told him not to talk and have a rest. There were only few doctors aboard, most of them - veterinary.
"How we restored electricity?" The captain asked. "You won"t believe us. And we even have no right to say you, ha-ha."
Nevertheless one of the youngest sailors answered with a smile.
"We had to repair old reserve diesel-driven generator... Now you can see a smoke from that funnel. So ecofriendly! Now we should kill you, all the eyewitnesses. Nobody should know our dirty secret..."
"There are almost no complex devices, nothing important was ruined. So it was easy to fix." The captain added. "We had no choice. We hope we won"t pollute nature too much. Okay, enough talking, help the other one, he is drowning! Fast!"
Only five of twelve crew members were saved after the shipwreck. Endrik felt too much physical pain to think about the others, he suffered too much. Everything he wanted - was to survive this night. Only one night. Any night. Maybe this one. Of course, this one. Definitely it is.
The surgeon shook his head, looking at the Endrik and then into his captain"s eyes.
"Seriously wounded. Internal injuries. Bleeding in lungs. I pumped morphine. First aid kit can"t help more."
"The help should come soon. We called it in the beginning of the storm, when the radio was still working."
"If their machines are still working after that... event."
"Maybe it was only our local problem with this very electromagnetic thunderstorm..."
No sooner had the emergency helicopter arrived after two hours of waiting with no radio, two of five sailors were dead. Endrik was still alive, but in a very bad condition. The other two guys surprisingly were in good health, just shocked and frostbitten a bit.
The transportation of the captain without a ship has begun. With more serious drugs in blood he lost his consciousness more often.
Last thing he saw this day was the aurora borealis above angel-white clouds. The impressive banner of the north was very bright, its color was bloody red.
Endrik remembered that such color defined high attitude. And it might have been because of hydrogen or something. Endrik wasn"t sure.
That was his last thought.
The aurora borealis was seen even at the equator, even during the day. Both of these polar lights. From space it looked like two red rings around Earth near its middle.
Astronauts on International Space Station couldn"t watch this too long, even though the station had lost all power and they were very interested in what had happened and what was going on there, on Earth. The glasses of illuminators were rapidly covering by frost flowers, the temperature was falling.
- The magnetic storm has broken all our equipment, all circuits are burnt out! - The mission commander Vasquez talked to the radioset. - I repeat, all systems gone! The geomagnetic storm, which is happening right now on Earth also...
To kick away some darkness without any wood and matches aboard people had to use some emergence glow sticks, but mostly improvised chemical glims with liquid or gas material.
For more tricky electronic devices, as radio, repairing tools and life-support system (oxygen-generator and heating in priority only for now; water and most of computers are not so important), the crew of scientists was forced to assemble the Faraday disk on the base of exercycle. Now the system worked only during exercising on this training. People worked there on shifts. Some of them were in critical condition because of the raised radiation, two guys even fainted for hours.
- How is it possible! We should be screened against this shit! Everything should be! - One of the cosmonauts psyched. - I promised my girls to return home safely! Is it attack from another satellite or what?
- Stop panicking. - Vasquez said quietly.
But the member of the crew had reasons to be angry.
- I can guarantee that the Sun was calm and serene with one of the lowest activities. It couldn"t be because of Sun. Don"t blame me, I do my job as nobody does! I couldn"t make such a mistake, I couldn"t miss the ejection on the Sun last days and today!
- We can"t check it without working computers and without connection to Earth. Just calm down. We need to focus, to buy some time. When the storm stops, we will repair all systems...
The astronauts started talk over each other.
- If! If the storm stops...
- We lost all circuits, transistors...
- We can"t repair most of the systems. We need evacuation...
- We can"t fly away from here without electricity! We need help from Earth, a rescue ship!
- Nobody will come. - Onboard engineer Losev said, looking through the little simple telescope in direction of Earth. - They have more important doings right now.
- What kind of doings?
- Surviving, I suppose. Maybe a new world war. I counted many explosions on the surface. Even in the centre of Paris right now.
- Nuclear bombs? - Vasquez asked.
- I"m not sure. Not so big maybe. Just regular bombs.
- It"s not bombs! - Vasquez cried after looking on Earth. - This is... oh, dear...this is aircraft...
- Oh my god, all planes are falling! Oh my god!
Mark Robinson had been talking with colleagues from the other pole few hours before the Event has happened. The conversation was held through satellites, mostly CubeSats, and it was quite uneasy and unusual, because Mark Robinson was on the Geographical South Pole, working at IceCube, and his conversation partners were almost on the Geographical North Pole.
When the Event started, all screens of appliances covered with some static noise, got interference. However guys from poles still could see and hear each other.
- What is going on? - Mark asked. His team gathered near him, trying to solve the problem with connection.
- We don"t know. Some troubles with satellites or something. We were expecting that, yeah?
- It should be good, they are on good positions... Some software glitch maybe...
The northern people had much bigger problems with their systems. In a few seconds they couldn"t see and hear the southern team. Some of their devices gone, even started smoking.
- Now it is late summer, right... - Mark was thinking aloud.
- Thanks, Google.
- I mean, they have more problems than we have... We are on the south of the globe... And it is more hidden from the Sun, right? Earth is tilted right now... They are closer to the magnetic pole, than we are.
The colleagues from North started suffering from pain. One of them was coughing. Another one looked at his naked arms. The white skin was being covered by small red dots. He looked very frightened, sitting exactly in front of the webcam.
- What"s the hell? - Mark shouted.
- Is it a virus?
- I think it is a radiation...
- What do you mean? On the north pole?! Radiation?
In support of this the northern team activated a Geiger counters. It popped and clicked too often.
- Oh my god! Particles! Too heavy rain! What"s they gonna do?
- Guys! Guys! Sorry, but our neutrino detector spotted something... Oh, and again... Look at...
Then all computers of Mark"s team turned off. Some of that started smoking.
- We have emergency situation! Go fast for extinguisher!
But Mark was so shocked, so paralyzed. He was thinking about his sister - Emily Robinson.
"She is on plane right now! This magnetic event... no way! She couldn"t be... No, no, no..."
He cried:
- Give me a phone. I need to call my family. Give it to me. Now.
He took satellite phone and went outside. His colleagues were fighting with a little but very smoky fire.
He almost forgot, where he is situated. He dressed as fast as he could.
Then went outdoors - to the most frosty weather on the planet.
He raised the phone, trying to set good connection. It was still working, the small lamps were working.
Unfortunately , apart from the wind howling, he could hear scary creaking from the phone. It was some unusual very loud static noise. Rather melodical, with many repeatings, like some clever signal...
Then the phone broke too and started smoking.
- Emily, please! - Mark cried. - Please be on ground, please be on ground, please...
Everybody on the plane was scared like never before. All lights were off, but most important - it started complete silence of jet engines and ventilation system. Nothing was working on this plane, they were soaring high like birds. Except, of course, it was only one bird. Too huge, too fat, too heavy for safe soaring.
Firstly people don"t cry too much, they were confused or shocked. Then the plane started its falling, and the wind howled too loud. The atmosphere strived to strip the aircraft covering like it was a meteorite.
The pilots were running like mad across the plane salon, despite the fact, that it was almost impossible to stand on legs - everything was shaking violently. People started to puke, to loose their consciousness. Some of them have been dying one after another because of unknown reason, some of them were crying grabbing their heads like because of terrible headache.
Emily Robinson was stunned with shock, clearly looking around herself, watching how people suffer. She felt almost nothing. She was too shocked. She was a great doctor, but she understood, that it is impossible to help all this people in such conditions. She remembered something from other science: maybe everything happened because of some kind of cosmic radiation, usual problems for people, who fly a lot, for pilots and air hostesses, but before that day Emily thought, that the biggest problem of them - is increased possibility of getting cancer.
Pilots disassembled some walls and floor, they pulled some gross and heavy cables. As Emily heard it was gearing extension manually. As she also heard one of them wasn"t agree with that plan, he tried to whisper, but it was impossible in whole the noise, so he shouted to his partner:
- This is a mistake! Have you lost your mind? We are in the middle of the ocean! Ditching on water with gearing down?!
- Shut up and help me! Hurry! - That was the only answer of the commander.
- Give me a parachute! - That was an absolutely new shouting from behind of them.
There was a guy with a pistol in his hand, standing in the passage between seats. He was very sweaty, like many of passengers right now. He was dressed as civilian and now he was looking like a terrorist. But he wasn"t. He introduced himself:
- Pauli. The Air Marshal Service. Give me one parachute. I know you have some. Give it to me. This is an order.
He repeated this few times, shaking. He started to shout loudly, especially when the nearest people tried to calm down him. He pointed his gun at one of the pilots" head.
- Give my parachute and do what you want.
The plane was pretty tweaked, some of the passengers tried to attack the air marshal from behind. Pilots tried to help. Too slow. He broke free, punched the hero in the face with his gun two times, than stopped pilots, shooting above their heads.
- Enough! Give me a parachute!
- Are you mad? You"ll kill us all because of shooting in the plane!
- The plane has already broken. Give me, give me fast!
- You have no chance with that! - Pilots said.
- I don"t care. Give me!
- You won"t open the door. We all will die in that case. We should land...
- Give me a parachute, and nobody will die! - He pointed his gun in a head of a little boy near him, who was crying.
- Give it to him, please... We have no time for this... We should return to a cabin...
- Here it is, - said a stewardess.
Some of the passengers asked for that too.
- You will die with that! - Pilots and stewardesses tried to explain. - You have more chance aboard. The decompression will kill anybody, who will try to leave a plain. It would be like explosion.
- But he will do that! You can"t stop him! So give to us!
The angry crowd started attacking the crew of the plane. And then - each other, fighting for parachutes.
- Wait! Wait! - Emily tried to stop the panic. - Not the adults! Give it to kids! Give it to kids!
The marshal Pauli was preparing to open a door. The plane was shaking a lot, it was too difficult to move, but possible.
One guy picked up handcuffs from the floor. The marshal dropped it during the fight.
The young guy didn"t think too much. He was very frightened, shocked, he had time to understand, how stupid his plan was, but he was surviving right now, and there was only one card in his hands he could play. Only one god"s card.
The marshal quickly turned around, when he hear a familiar click and felt it on his skin.
The guy handcuffed himself to the marshal"s hand and smiled nervously.
- Sorry! Listen! I only want...
The marshal punched him in the face. Pauli took out a key, started opening the lock, but the guy noticed this, hit the hands of marshal, and the key flew somewhere far away to the seats of coach seats, full of scared and angry people.
- We have no time for this! - The guy shouted. Pauli put a gun to his head. - Okay, I don"t try to stop you! I want to go with you! Only that! If you kill me, you won"t survive. I"m heavy, I"m a burden, I"m ballast! You can"t cut off me! It"s better to have the dead weight with legs and arms, than... just a dead weight...
The marshal looked around. He might has been searched for some axe, machete or chainsaw, but there was nothing of that nearby. And the clocks were ticking. He had no time.
He prepared to open the door. Some people noticed it and started to shout scarcely.
- No! It will explode! - The guy was pretty sure about that. - I watched a "MythBusters" about that!
- So it was a myth! - Pauli roared angrily.
- No, it wasn"t. The pressure here is too strong, but outside it is too weak. It will definitely explode.
- We have no choice! Look how close the water! There is no electricity. We are going at the high angle to the surface, they won"t managed to land it! Nothing will help! I will open this shit!
- Wait! Shit, I have a better idea... Shit!
- What! Tell me what idea! Or I will open! - He really tried to open it, but it was too tough to pull the twitch.
- The pressure. We need to reduce it. Without explosion.
- How?
The gut swallowed, looking at the window. The marshal started shaking the guy.
- I asked you how! Tell me how! Tell me, or I"ll smash you skull against this door!
- The window...
- What?
- Small hole. It can help.
- It won"t explode? Are you sure?
- Yes... But the others...
- We have no time for this.
He shot at the bulletproof glass twice and the little hole has appeared. The noise was terrific, but people were still alive, nothing happened.
- How long? - The marshal cried like a mad.
- I don"t know. Pretty soon, I suppose...
- You are killing us! All this children! - shouted Emily, going to them.
- Don"t move! - He pointed his gun to her.
Another guy jumped out.
- You are killing us! We also should use your parachute!
- Shut up! Don"t get close!
- Five man on one parachute! It is possible. We can...
The marshal shot him in the head.
- I said everybody shut up!
- You can take my child with you! - One of the crying moms said.
The marshal shot her too.
- I said shut up! Can you hear me! Shut up! You! - He began shaking his partner. - How much! How long! We should jump immediately! I can smell fish already! Or shitty salt! I can"t wait! Go!
- Try to pull. Together.
Everybody felt the pressure in their hearings.
- Oh shit. It"s getting tougher. Wow, wow. Ma-an.
One more man came too close, his ears were bleeding, so even Pauli was shocked and didn"t kill him. This guy was with parachute too. He tried to help to open the door.
The people"s eyes were bleeding. Emily"s legs couldn"t resist, she fell on the nearest sit and buckled up.
The door gave to their pressure. It started slowly ticking before opening. Guys with parachutes were like shaking zombies near it, holding each other, like drunker, they were too unfocused because of pressure difference.
Then the door opened fast and many people - standing, sitting or lying near it - had been disappeared. Little things, little people and some big luggage from the salon went out the doorway to the sky. The rest of the passengers still tried scratching panels above them to dig the oxygen masks or just held their dears, or were unconsciousness, or dead of various reasons.
The little wing at fuselage tail section - the elevator control - sliced the marshal in half. Some other guys, also one stewardess with a parachute, suffered there too, breaking heads, arms, legs, chests...
The handcuffed guy was dancing with the half of his partner in the air, trying to get closer to the parachute.
He got it, when it was rather close to water. He could see his own reflection in the ocean water below.
Parachute has opened, still on the back of the marshal. The guy broke his handcuffed arm. He almost had no time to cry and feel pain, because his legs in short time crashed into almost solid surface of water.
Before that he heard a lot of splashes of not so lucky passengers and members of crew, who jumped out with them.
After some fighting with water, dead corpse and ropes of the chute, he got it off the body. Then he could take a breath on the surface on calm waves.
There was nobody in the sky, no skydivers.
Then the ocean was rocked by heavy explosion far away.
Nobody has survived. Except of one of the passengers.
"Geo-two. Geo-two. I can see aurora borealis on the north. Is it possible?"
"Are you sure that"s not a ghost? Not looming?"
"Pretty sure. Red lights, all the sky. Some green colors too. Over."
"Say aga..."
"Say what?"
"Say again"
"Geo-two, can you hear me? Over." - Hugo Nansen asked, when have noticed some problems with radio on his screen. He was flying above South Syria. The speed of transmissions decreased rapidly.
"Starfish, affirmative, loud and clear. Over." - The air-operator of the military base answered, sitting in hundreds of kilometers to the south-east in Israel. In this season the underwater theme is in fashion.
"I can see aurora on the north."
"Roger that. And confirmed. Magnetic anomaly. Are you sure your compass data is right? Our guys from Africa say that they can see polar lights on south. Over."
"Magnetic dipole. Both of these lights are too close to equator. Something is not all right."
"We"ve... issues. Confirmed both fronts of lights. ...ised risk. Back... base."
"I have some problems with radio... Oh, now with the whole electronics."
"Starfish, say again."
"Geo-two, I repeat. I have noises. Firstly, in radio channel. Secondly, in all the systems. It might have been errors or, maybe, some kind of enemy dazzlers... Over."
"Starfish... eturn... ahead. ...copy?"
"Geo-two, your signal is bingo." - He meant it was very bad. - "Delta ten on your recovery time, I go home. Can you hear? Over."
The radio kept silence. The fighter"s pilot lost connection with the base. The sky was bloody red. Hugo Nansen wasn"t superstitious, like many other pilots, but this time even he felt nervous. This red sky... It looked like a very bad sign.
"Geo-two, geo-two, this is Starfish. Do you copy?"
He could see how other problems with electronics were dramatically arising. It looked like he was under some kind of attack. He remembered not much about magnetism, but enough, to understand, that it is the most possible explanation of these problems. However, he didn"t know what to do with this knowledge. He tried some maneuver cycle to take down the height, to avoid possible ray from a dazzler or to get out of some kind of electricity cloud. Nothing helped.
It got worse. All systems failed, turned off.
"I"m blind and naked! Do you copy?" - It seemed he was talking with himself in almost complete silence. - "All systems are gone. No power. I repeat. No power. Mayday, mayday, mayday."
He had some time to spare, because his Typhoon was floating in the air slowly loosing the height. Spare for what? With no energy it seemed there was nothing he could do.
The fighter was falling.
Luckily, on this model it was an absolutely mechanical system of the ejector chair. Nevertheless, Hugo couldn"t flee so easy, even not from combat. It was a regular patrol overflight, usually without any enemy contact. Most important: there were no commands from the base.
He could only see the sky and earth, nothing more. The screens in front of him kept silence, were dark, and he couldn"t rely even on some mechanical instruments.
It was late evening, but with the red auroras he could see the ground clearly, like it was noon.
He couldn"t control the flight, he could do nothing.
And there was a rather big town on the trajectory of the falling plane.
Hugo Nansen didn"t want to ruin some civilian"s evening and whole life.