Looking back out over the railing, Corrina felt that childhood excitement for the open space and the possibilities it contained, as a ghost of a memory passing through her. It made her shiver.

10

“The ship is not replying, sir,” Chief Radio Officer Harrington said.

“Jameson, have you got her numbers yet?”

“Not yet,” the First Officer answered, binoculars at his eyes. “But she’s Navy. Looks like a supply ship. It must be the missing vessel. But it should have a large crew, and there’s no one on deck. Perhaps she sailed without her full compliment for the evacuation.”

“That doesn’t explain why she can’t respond.”

“If there were a comms malfunction, sir,” Harrington said, “it might explain how she lost contact to begin with.”

“Let’s get in closer,” London said. “They may have need of our comms system. Wait till we get a positive ID before we call it in.”

On the Sky Deck, many of the guests and refugees were watching the ship as well, the first they’d seen since the mainland had been left out of sight.

Walking away from the bar, Travis recognized the military look of the vessel and felt reassured at its presence.

The sound of the ship’s booming gun pierced the air and that thought.

Travis sprinted to his family.

A line of smoke cut across the sky between the ships, and the command bridge exploded. The Festival shook. Travis was nearly thrown to the ground. He paused on his feet and looked back. Fifty-foot flames were in the space the bridge had been. An alarm rang.

The Festival continued to close the gap towards the other ship, and now that ship began to move as well. The Sky Deck was overcrowded already in the sitting areas; now the pathways were chaos, bodies bumping off bodies, jostling to get somewhere. Travis met Corrina coming towards him with Gerry and Darren. Tears were streaming down the boy’s face, but he was so scared he had no breath for noise. Gerry had pointed the bridge out earlier, where the captain was sailing the ship.

There was screaming everywhere as the other ship closed in. An alarm rang in the air.

“Where should we go?” Corrina asked.

Gerry looked at the faces in his circle, wide-eyed, thinking.

“I want to see what that ship is going to do before we go anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Travis said, still fixed on the coming ship.

They braced themselves in a nook against the wall.

There were no more explosions. The Festival was closing on the other ship now, and they could see a small group up on the other’s deck, all in orange uniforms.

On their own ship, a fire crew was already at work up on the bridge.

“They’re coming right at us,” Corrina said.

The Festival did not slow down, did not change course. All on deck paused to see how the two ships’ directions would line up. The chaos sprang back into loud action as the collision became probable.

“That ship is coming right at us,” Corrina said again.

The Festival was angling away, but still might not cross the other’s path before impact. As the Festival crossed the bow of the approaching ship, the potential point of impact moved from the middle of the Festival, the swimming pool and crystal pyramid above the Atrium, towards the stern: the waterslides, the communications tower, and the smokestacks.

“Go forward, guys,” Gerry said.

“Yeah,” Travis said. They began to walk quickly forward along the jogging track.

The Festival continued to pass in front of the smaller ship, but the space between the ship’s nose and the Festival's beam was shrinking fast.

“Run,” Travis said.

Travis grabbed Darren into his arms and they began to run. He felt his chest tighten slightly, but not enough to slow him. The other ship was so close now, the bow was coming right at them as they ran forward, the Festival’s forward motion added to theirs in taking them away from the point of impact.

All were running away from the Festival’s stern. The Festival seemed to have the speed to escape the collision; the Navy ship on track to cross the Festival’s wake safely behind her. That was the last impression Travis had from a backward glance sprinting away, seeing the coming ship’s bow disappear below the sight line from the Sky Deck. Then the collision.

The Festival rocked to starboard and the air was filled with the sound of metal twisting. Travis was thrown, tumbling to protect Darren from hitting the floor. Other bodies were flying around them, along with deck chairs and small tables. The deck angled hard. The Festival’s body was bending around the other ship’s prow. There was another sound right above them. Travis looked up and saw the massive water slides tipping to port, leaning more than the ship’s deck.

“Come on!” Gerry said, grabbing Travis by the arm and running hard.

The supports buckled. Tons of hard molded plastic came crashing down, unleashing a torrent of water. The flood exploded after them. They felt the water catch the backs of their legs, and they went tumbling to the deck from its force.

Darren was clutched tightly in Travis’s arms as his body was pulled forward by the water before it passed, leaving them soaked but unbruised on the angled deck. Shooting along the water’s flow on the deck, he saw another tower coming down, and a young girl standing right in its path. Something blocked his view and he heard the crash of the tower slide as he and Darren slowed on the deck.

“JOHN!” a woman screamed nearby.

“You alright?’ he asked Darren.

“Uh huh.”

Travis came to his feet, pulling Darren up with him.

A man came running by, carrying the little girl Travis had thought crushed by the falling tower. A young woman ran behind them, shrieking in terror.

“Go, go!” the man yelled at Travis. He slowed in his stride to slap Travis’s shoulder as he passed, the girl held tight in his other arm.

Looking back, they couldn’t see the orange men on the other ship now, they were all hidden by the higher vantage point of the Sky Deck. Then they heard automatic gunfire. Screams of terror erupted anew. A second volley of gunfire sounded, this time mixed with the ping of impact against the steel of the rear towers.

11

Passengers were getting off the deck fast, filling the Festival’s interior. Many had stayed out through the explosion and collision, to see if and where the collision came. The gunfire was enough to influence these stragglers to get inside. The enclosed stairwells leading down to the Grand Atrium echoed with footsteps and screams. Those who had remained indoors heard the explosion and felt the crash, but had only their urgent imagination to guess at what was happening. Some stood waiting for instructions to come, while others joined the panicked escapees from the outer decks, who were themselves hardly more certain where they were going. Many guests at least had their rooms to run to, but the guests with their rooms to stern of the collision were newly homeless.

Screams delivered the key facts well: the ship had been attacked. The attackers had guns. They were coming aboard. Travis’s mind was clear and practical under the threat, while still racing with the questions who? and why?

Guests locked themselves in their rooms. Some pulled refugees in with them.

As Travis’s group came down a second flight of stairs, they rushed out an open door to a ballustraded walkway with a view of the open Atrium. There was the sound of automatic gunfire, and Travis looked at the Atrium filling below him.

“We can’t go down there,” he said. It was the most vulnerable, open position to attack. He held Darren to his chest with one arm, and with the other, grabbed Gerry. “This way.”

They were several decks above the Atrium floor, running the enclosed hallway.

Stateroom doors were all shut. Corrina began banging on one.