Sedulity 2: Aftershock (Sedulity Saga)

Sedulity 2: Aftershock

By David P. Forsyth

Edited by Felicia A.
Sullivan

Cover Art by William O.
Rosenthal

Copyright 2014
©

This is a work of fiction. All characters and
events are the invention of the author and do not refer to real persons living
or dead. Many locations described do exist, but the author makes no claim as to
the accuracy of th
os
e
descriptions or
anything associated with them.
It is
unlawful to copy or distribute this work, in whole or in part, without the
express written permission of the author. All rights reserved by David P.
Forsyth.

Acknowledgements:

           
As
always, there are many to whom I owe debts of gratitude. The most important
driving force behind this book has been the response from readers of
“
Sedulity
1: Impact
.” Your insistent requests for a sequel
were
both encouraging and daunting. I hope that this book lives up to your
expectations.
As always, I can
’t thank Pamela
Rosenthal enough for her
love and
encouragement.
Her creative suggestions were vital to overcoming several bouts of writer
’s
block and indecision over the past few months. Many authors have
also
offered
help and
encouragement for this
series.
Thanks to
Felicia A. Sullivan
who
is an awesome editor and turned this manuscript around on a very tight
schedule. And thanks to Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven for writ
i
ng
“Lucifer’s
Hammer”
four decades ago. That classic work of apocalyptic
fiction has
inspired
me a
nd
several
generation
s
of
writers in the genre.
 
Finally, I
am
pleased
that this
 
1
^st
Kindle edition will be released on
what
would have been my mother’s 91
^st
birthday.
She was my inspiration as a writer and human being. R.I.P. Gloria Brooks
Forsyth (December 23, 1923
–
January
10, 2013).
 
 

NOTE:
This is a sequel to “Sedulity (Book One) Impact” and should be read in the
order it was written to get the most out of the series.
A
third book, “Sedulity 3: Consequence,” is scheduled for release in 2015.
As a
bonus,
the prequel novelette
“Lukan” has been added
to the end of this edition for those who have not read my first works of
fiction in the “Sovereign Spirit Saga.
”
 

Aftershock: Chapter 1

           
The
asteroid had struck the Central Pacific Ocean without warning and with
devastating impact. A flaming blast wave preceded mountainous tsunamis aimed at
the entire Pacific Rim, followed by churning storm clouds formed by dozens of
cubic miles of vaporized seawater that had occupied the space above the 19 mile
wide impact crater in the deep seabed.
 
The closest witnesses to survive this event were aboard the cruise ship
Sedulity
. Hundreds of her passengers and crew were
killed by the heat and flames of the blast wave. Many others drowned or were
swept overboard by the impact generated tsunamis that partially flooded and nearly
sank the cruise ship. Somehow the
Sedulity
herself made it through these initial assaults in one piece.

           
Surviving
passengers and crew had little time to celebrate their good fortune. When
satellite television was restored the news dashed all hopes that this had been
a local event. Unprecedented tsunami waves over a thousand feet high sped
across the Pacific Ocean, sweeping away island nations and smashing into larger
landmasses with catastrophic results. Those aboard the
Sedulity
looked on in horror as the coastlines of Australia and then Hawaii
were wiped away. They listened to reports, and then the lack thereof, from
Indonesia, the Philippines and other nations of the Pacific Rim as the
monstrous waves struck each of them in turn. The tsunami warnings and mandatory
coastal evacuations covered the entire West Coast of the USA and Canada, as
well as Japan and nations along the China Sea. There might have been time for
an orderly evacuation in some of those places, if tsunamis had been the only
disasters to contend with.

           
The
asteroid impact didn’t seriously wound the planet, no more so than a bee sting
would injure a man. The Earth absorbed the blow, as it had countless such
assaults in the past, but the planet did flinch in a reflex response. Seismic
shockwaves from the asteroid strike awoke dormant volcanoes and fault lines,
releasing immeasurable amounts of stored energy in shifting tectonic plates,
and triggering massive earthquakes around the entire Pacific Ring of Fire. Population
centers in California and Japan were paralyzed by massive earthquakes, spoiling
evacuation plans and stranding millions in earthquake devastated coastal cities
while massive tsunamis relentlessly bore down on them.

           
The
shocked survivors aboard the
Sedulity
licked their
wounds while the cataclysm unfolded on television. The captain, select members
of the crew, and a few passengers who had become VIPs by virtue of their
scientific backgrounds, followed the progress of the disaster for hours. Then,
by mutual consent, they agreed to take a break and start fresh at dawn. It is
afternoon on the western coast of the Americas. Earthquakes have already
ravaged much of those shorelines. Tsunamis are closing in at hundreds of miles
per hour. This is the world in which those aboard the
Sedulity
find themselves.

*****

           
Kevin Summers awoke in a cold sweat with
a choking sensation. For a moment he almost convinced himself that he had
simply experienced a bad dream, a nightmare that would fade from memory
shortly. No such luck. Instead of fading, his memory crystalized in horrific
detail. Kevin could picture the massive asteroid streaking across the suddenly
bright night sky, nearly blinding him through the slatted fingers covering his
eyes. A flaming trail hundreds of miles long had followed it below the western
horizon where the impact blossomed into a truly blinding release of light and
energy. Kevin feared that he would see that sight over and over in his dreams
and whenever he woke up for the rest of his life.

           
He felt a shiver when he recalled
gazing at the supersonic blast wave sweeping towards the ship, then feeling the
heat through the closed door to the ship’s bridge.
 
The subsequent recollection of a monstrous
tsunami hurtling towards the
Sedulity
was something he would never forget and still couldn’t quite grasp. His memory
of the ship riding up and over that massive wave was flavored by mixed emotions
of terror and amazement.
 
To realize that
all of those things, and many more, had transpired a few hours ago caused his
shiver to evolve into momentary shaking when he reached up to wipe the cold
sweat from his face. He hoped it wasn’t the first sign of PTSD, but realized it
probably was.

Kevin sat up in bed. He was in the darkened suite of the
deceased Staff Captain Stevens. Kevin’s wife and daughter were sleeping soundly
next to him. It felt like the ship was moving slowly through an angry sea. He
was not at all surprised to hear rain pouring down on the stateroom balcony.
 
He expected constant rain for an extended
period of time as a result of all the vaporized water spewed into the
atmosphere by the asteroid strike. As a meteorologist and TV weatherman, Kevin
feared long-term global climate change from the impact, though he was more
concerned at the moment with the immediate destruction spreading around the
globe.

A quick glance at his watch showed he had slept about four
hours. Kevin estimated that his friends and neighbors back in Los Angeles had several
more hours in which to reach safety, or be swept away by the titanic tsunamis
rushing towards them – assuming they had not already fallen victim to the
massive earthquakes that struck California within hours of the asteroid impact.
Much of the rest of the Pacific Rim would have already been wiped out by
tsunamis and Kevin shuddered again with the realization that millions of lives
had been snuffed out while he was asleep. He felt guilty for taking a nap while
the world as he knew it was washed away, but justified it with the belief that
he needed to be sharp of mind to face whatever this new day held in store.

 
He slipped out of bed
quietly and pulled on the damp clothes he had been wearing the previous
evening. The rest of his and his family’s wardrobe and luggage for this vacation
were either burned or waterlogged down in their original stateroom, casualties of
the blast wave and flooding that assailed the ship in the minutes following the
asteroid impact. It was a small thing to worry about, but Kevin did wonder what
he would do when this outfit became too soiled to wear. No time to dwell on
that now. He left the suite quietly through the door to the adjoining bridge.

The mood on the bridge was subdued, yet tense. The ship’s
Executive Officer, Mr. Crawford, sat in the raised chair behind the helm.
Pounding rain splattered against the windows overlooking the bow, adding a
deeper darkness to a night that should have been giving way to dawn. The
extended night deepened the feeling of dread among those who looked to the dawn
with any glimmer of hope. The door to the captain’s dayroom was open and Kevin
could hear what sounded like a news broadcast on the television there. He
walked across the bridge, nodding to Mr. Crawford and several members of the
crew, all of whom seemed consumed by their own dark thoughts and worries.

Pausing before leaving the bridge to catch up on the news,
Kevin realized that without the radar, which had been knocked out by the blast
wave, the ship was sailing blind. He knew there shouldn’t be anything to hit
out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, doubted any other ship could have
survived the blast and tsunami waves this close to the point of impact, but it
must be unnerving for modern sailors not to know what lay ahead of their ship. The
GPS and inertial navigation system continued to provide the ship’s exact
location, and they knew that nothing else
should
be standing in their way. However, after the earthshaking events of the
previous night and the blinding deluge of rain pouring down on them, who knew
exactly what to expect next?
 

Kevin looked into the dayroom and saw Professor Farnsworth
and Captain Krystos in front of the television. The captain was stretched out
on the couch and appeared to be napping. The elderly professor was wide awake
in the easy chair, his sharp gaze shifting from the television to Kevin when the
meteorologist quietly entered the room.

“Good morning,” the professor said softly. “I see you’re up
early.”

“I couldn’t do more than nap,” Kevin replied in an equally
subdued voice, trying not to disturb the captain’s sleep. “And you?”

“The older I get, the less sleep I want or need. There will
be plenty of time for resting after I leave this old body behind. Besides, I
couldn’t pass up the chance to see the end of the world on television. You’ve
already missed a lot of it.”

“Believe me, I wish I could have slept through all of it,”
Kevin said. “Have the tsunamis hit the Americas yet?”

“Indeed they have,” Farnsworth said in a strange tone of
voice. He lifted a glass to his lips and Kevin noticed the half-empty bottle of
Scotch on the table next to his seat. Kevin didn’t blame him. In fact, it
seemed like a good idea to pour himself a glass, if only to keep the old man
from drinking the whole bottle by himself. He went to the captain’s sidebar and
got himself a tumbler full of ice, then proceeded to pour himself some Johnny
Walker Gold, marveling that such luxuries would soon become priceless.

“Peru and Ecuador were the first to get hit,” the professor
continued with slight slur. “Now the waves are sweeping down what’s left of
Chile to the south and are moving up Central America to hit Mexico. You just
missed the fall of Panama, though I’m sure they will replay it on TV. Very
dramatic. The Gulf of Panama focused the force of the tsunamis. They were
thousands of feet high when they broke over Panama City. A news helicopter with
a satellite feed to Colon on the Caribbean coast showed the whole thing until
the waves crossed the isthmus and wiped out Colon too. Damnedest thing I ever
saw. The local geography concentrated the wave on the mouth of the Panama Canal
and a wall of whitewater tore up the length of the passage, straight through
Lake Gatun, and out into the Caribbean Sea. Dozens of ships in the Canal were
swept up or smashed to pieces by the waves. They showed a cruise ship, similar
to this one, tossed around like a toy and tumbling over and over as it was
carried along by the wave.” He paused to shake his head and take another sip of
Scotch, then pointed at the muted television.

Kevin looked up and, sure enough, GNN was replaying the
horrific scenes of monstrous tsunamis hitting Panama. As Kevin had feared, the
waves were magnified by the gulf, rising much higher than when they had hit
Hawaii. A true mountain of water rose and then crashed down upon Panama City.
Kevin couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that. It was obvious that the
helicopter taking that video had to climb sharply to stay above the wave,
struggling to stay ahead of the mountain of whitewater that regrouped and
surged along the length of the Panama Canal. The television picture was jerky
and unsteady as the helicopter pilot and cameraman fought their own horror and
shock to keep broadcasting the catastrophe. The helicopter dipped its nose and
accelerated to stay ahead of the unimaginable wave. It succeeded, although the
wave must have been traveling at over a hundred miles per hour. The televised
video showed trees, parts of buildings and entire ships churning in the moving
mountain of whitewater that quickly turned into a brown sludge as it picked up
everything in its path. Where the canal passed through canyons the wall of
water grew even higher, spilling over the surrounding hills and flattening the
rainforest. The wave spread out and decreased in height as it spilled into Lake
Gatun, only to refocus on the eastern shore and overrun the remainder of the
canal locks as it rushed downslope to smash into the city of Colon on the
Caribbean coast. That was when the satellite feed cut out.

Kevin had downed his glass of Scotch and was barely breathing
by the time the TV image shifted to the GNN studios in Washington, DC, and an
equally stunned anchorman. This replay had obviously been edited down to
highlights of the disaster in Panama, but Kevin realized that the entire
tragedy had played out live on global television. For a moment he was thankful
that most of his friends in California had lost power and cable after the
earthquakes. There was no advantage to be gained by showing them how devastating
the approaching tsunamis could be.

“It’s as bad as you warned it would be, isn’t it?” Captain
Krystos said from the couch. Apparently he had not been asleep, or had roused himself
while Kevin stared slack-jawed at the news footage.

“Yes, Captain,” Kevin answered. “A south facing gulf like the
one in front of the Panama Canal makes these waves even larger by channeling
their energy into a confined space. The water has no place to go but up and
over anything in front of it.” He trailed off, his thoughts shifting from
science to emotion as his mind tried to fathom the magnitude of human
suffering, terror, and loss of life encompassed by the video he had just seen.
 
The worst feelings came from knowing that this
catastrophe was far from over.

*****

Lieutenant Reiner had experienced the worst night of his
life. It began well enough with what was supposed to be a party as the
Sedulity
crossed the equator. Then an
asteroid streaked over the ship and struck the ocean beyond the horizon. Tasked
with taking the weatherman’s wife to extract their daughter from danger in
their stateroom, Reiner had ended up at the lifeboat stations when the blast
wave struck the cruise ship. He had seen people burn alive while he struggled
to suppress the flames. He would never forget finding his boss, Staff Captain
Stevens, gasping his last breaths after being burned to a crisp. It was only
moments later when the ship was struck by impossibly large tsunami waves and Reiner
was tossed about and nearly drowned when water rushed into the public areas. He
had been carried through the casino by the flood and swept forward into the
ship’s theater where nearly a thousand passengers had taken refuge.