Bay City #1 – Crash Day – Aliens?!

Monday, June 17th, shortly before 7:25 AM.

 

The warm mug in Karen Armbrust’s hands was comforting in the cool morning air. Steam rose from the coffee before being dragged away by the ocean breeze. The sun was just rising, a reminder of the warm June day the weather forecast promised. A band of clouds at the horizon, highlighted in the orange fire of the sun poking just above them, separated the dark blue of the Atlantic from the lighter blue of the sky. One lone star shined a few degrees above the sun. Venus, perhaps.

From the helicopter deck at the aft of the fifty meter salvage ship, The Returner, she watched the orange line of sunlight across the ocean, the sun’s wake bisecting the Returner’s. Only the ship’s a-frame crane on the launch deck aft and below broke her view. The muffled rumble of the two diesel engines two decks below vibrated the metal under her shoes.  Water lapped, lapped, lapped against the steel hull as the ship pushed through the white-noise of the open ocean.

Most of the crew were either in the bridge, or one of the lounges, or the mess eating breakfast, but Karen was not hungry and was more comfortable watching the gentle ripples of the water. By the end of the day the ship would be docked in the Bay City harbor at her back. To most of them that meant going home. While she had an apartment in the city, it was not home for her. The open sea, and the ships that worked it, had always felt more like home to her than anywhere on land.

They had had a good trip out these past months, and a celebratory air wafted about the ship’s interior. Where most of the crew bounced with the excitement of recent discoveries, or engrossed themselves in their science talk, to her going “home” meant weeks ashore waiting for the next trip out.

Karen was a diver. She relished in a freedom beneath the waves unparalleled by anything to be found on solid ground. The lights she brought with revealed breathtaking palates of color. In those same views she could see a range of life from gentle and graceful to beautifully savage. In the deep she found a calming sense of order where everything made sense, where everything happened for a reason–for a purpose. Where everything had a place and all of it mattered, from the tiniest plankton to the largest animals alive.

On land she saw the poverty left in greed’s wake, crime and corruption, and people who hated others for the most ridiculous reasons. Paintings in art galleries paled to reef life. Gleaming skyscrapers were poor imitations of the majesty of whales. The cruellest of impassionate storms still somehow lacked the callousness of car crashes no less uncaring of those they killed or maimed.

“Karen!” little Emma Burris called out from behind, her teenage voice bubbling with an excitement reserved for times her biologist parents weren’t within earshot. While Karen’s childhood circumstances were so similar, Karen had loved her time at sea while Emma longed to return to the shore where she had friends at school. Emma’s summers were spent at sea with school ashore the rest of the year. Karen had largely been homeschooled, except for the years around New Zealand and Australia, and she preferred it that way.

She turned to the sixteen-year-old brunette who would rather be dating and dealing with high school politics than experiencing the awe-inspiring majesty of the sea around her. Emma waved the cap she wore on deck, hating the wind blowing her fine hair in her face.

“There’s Aliens! They’re broadcasting. They’re gonna crash somewhere in the Atlantic. Everyone in the US will be able to see it go over. Come, on!”

Aliens? What? Emma dashed back through the hatch, leaving it open. Karen followed, intrigued enough to have to know. Half a flight of stairs up and she closed the hatch behind her, maintaining a seabound discipline Emma couldn’t understand. A corridor led to the ship’s small art and photography gallery near the ship’s center, where curved stairs led up and down. From there a shorter corridor and one more hatch brought her to the foredeck where about half the crew gathered looking up and ahead.

The fireball streaking across the sky was hard to miss, and it left a comet trail of fire far behind it. A bright burst of explosion was even more attention-grabbing. One big piece still remained, but now several smaller pieces trailed flame and smoke. The biggest piece seemed to be slowing, of all things, but the rest looked to just continue their freefall.

One of the pieces streaked overhead, another fell to the south, before the main part hit close to shore with a flash of light.

It all appeared over before any of the sound reached them.

“At least this far out there shouldn’t be wave effects for us to deal with,” Dr Wainright, the hydrologist studying underwater current eddies suggested. “On shore…,” his voice lowered, “that might be a different story.”

“We should get below,” Cathy Burris suggested with her ever-nasally voice. “I bet we’re going to end up busy as a result of this.”

“Yeah,” another grumbled, “I don’t think we’re going ashore just yet.”

Karen looked to the places where smoke trails still pointed out locations in the water. She’d bet tonight’s dessert the ship would be heading to one of them. How could they not? Exploration, science, and salvage were the Returner’s missions. Those were why they were out here in the first place.

Had an alien ship really just crashed in the Atlantic? If so, it was the most historic event in…well, history. And someone actually complained about not going home yet?

“People,” she muttered. Priorities, people.

All she could see was the salvage operation of a lifetime. Alien wreckage landing in the ocean! What was there to not like about that? Did it get any cooler than that? Every dive boat along the coast would race to get there. For at least one of those impact points the Returner would probably get there first. She let others worry about what was happening ashore. If there was such a thing as destiny, it had led her to this very event. She wouldn’t miss it for the world.

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Next: Peter and the Bridge of Death