"Adrift" (A tale from TNTLWO)

Brent Mack, with Connie Lang in her cabin -- OOC thread

2325 hours (11:25 pm); 85 minutes after TLWO


(OOC: Times? Two can play at that game. :D)

Brent was surprised when Connie stopped him from leaving. He sat, and she moved close. He didn't fail to get another peek at her beautiful womanly features. She didn't seem to mind. Honestly, she seemed to like him looking at her.

She explained about being Robert Parker's lover. It didn't surprise Brent. It disappointed him. But it certainly didn't surprise him.

What did surprise him was Connie kissing him so passionately, then saying that the two of them would be together soon. He was unhappy with her demand that he not show her what she called undue attention.

He smiled, saying, "I don't think that's possible. And don't get me wrong. I don't mean just me. Any man who sees you is going to show you attention, and I bet that sometimes that could feel like undue attention."

He reached a hand up to caress her cheek with the backs of his fingers. (He performed this type of intimate touch a lot with women for a good reason. As an Engine Room Mechanic, he sometimes had very rough hands. Having chapped, splitting skin run across your perfect, flawless flesh wasn't something that turned women on.)

He told Connie reassuringly, "But I understand what you mean. And I'll do as you asked."

Her second demand made him smile with delight: "...I need you to find some condoms ... because you and I are going to try this again ... very soon."

His cock began hardening again. Brent watched Connie dress again, his gaze taking in every curve before the blouse stole them from his view.

"That is ... unless I have messed this all up," she said, "...and blown my opportunity with you."
"No, no you haven't, Connie," Brent said. He reached out a hand to cup the back of her neck. Pulling her forward, he kissed her, their tongues dancing together. He stood, headed for the door, and turned. He took one last long and longing look at her. Then, smiling, he opened the door, peeked outside, saw no one, and departed.
 
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Captain Karen Kimball gathers all aboard

Day 1*, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


(OOC: I take some liberties with "god moding" HumanBean's characters. This is done with his permission and per notes we traded in PM about the course of the RP.)

Captain Karen Kimball waited until the last moment to enter the Grand Dining Room to speak to the gathering, which -- for the first time since the dinner in Tarawa pre-voyage -- was the first time that each and every guest and crew member were gathered together in one place at the same time. Her reason for hesitating hadn't been solely for the purpose of making a grand entrance but had simply been because she wasn't looking forward to doing what she was about to do.

An hour earlier, Karen had met with the owners of the boat, Robert and Gwen Parker, and the highest-ranking members of the crew, First Officer Victor Carlson, Second Officer Zoe Nance, Chief of Engineering Olaf Jensen, and Chief Steward Kimberly Kennedy. She'd explained the situation to them, told them about her feelings on it, asked them for their opinions, then responded to those opinions there and then before taking it to the rest of the guests and crew.

The Grand Dining Room was one of the largest guest spaces on the Majestic, designed to comfortably serve dinner to an in-port list of up to 40 guests. But they weren't in port, obviously, and the seating for 40 -- extra tables, extra chairs -- had been removed from the yacht to be shipped by freighter to the Majestic's new home port of Honolulu, Hawaii. When Karen entered the GDR, she found it standing room only; the crew, of course, were the ones who were standing.

Out to sea for an extended period, the yacht's guest quarters -- 7 elegant staterooms, including the Grand Stateroom occupied by the Parkers -- were designed for the overnight, weekend, and even vacation comfort of up to 14 guests. On most yachts, this number of 14 might include 7 couples, but the Majestic's previous owners had been grandparents, and they'd often invited gaggles of children -- their own grandchildren and those children's friends and chaperones -- aboard for overnight trips around the Tarawa Atoll.

The standard complement of crew was only 18, divided between Bridge Crew, Deck Crew, Engineering Crew, and Guest Accommodations, with some obvious crossover between some of the areas. For example, the Chief of Engineering was qualified to stand OOD (Officer of the Deck, not Officer on Deck, as was often heard on the Bridge when the boss arrived); and several of the Bridge, Deck, and Engineering Crew often stood watches or performed maintenance and other work in a department to which they weren't specifically assigned.

This voyage from Tarawa to Honolulu included the Parkers, 10 guests, and an uncomfortably large crew of 28. The Parkers had wanted themselves and their guests on this voyage -- their first with their new, second-owner yacht -- to be spectacular and unforgettable, so they'd brought on extra crew, most of them attached to Guest Accommodations. This passage included such people as a masseuse and a masseur, a pastry chef, a musical quarter, and others who would normally be port locals who rarely if ever left port overnight.

Karen had put her First Officer and Chief in charge of finding and installing berthing space for all the extra crew. There'd been one Guest Cabin available, so Victor had assigned the musical ensemble to it. It was tight, but for the amount of money they were being paid, they'd said they'd figure out how to endure it.

That still left 24 crew to sleep in spaces designed for 18. Somehow, upon learning of the extra staffing, Victor had managed to find bunkbeds once used in a defunct military facility on Tarawa's main island of Betio. After removing some of the crew quarters' unnecessary features -- desks, tables, armchair, etc. -- he and the Chief had had the bunks bolted to the deck and bulkheads in such a way that they wouldn't tip over in high seas. It wasn't pretty, and it was most definitely overcrowded for an elegant, private yacht, but it would work for a voyage of just 18 days. And, like the musicians, the other crew members had been promised a bonus of as much as 30% over normal voyage pay.

A place at the head of the dining table had been left open for Karen, with Robert and Gwen Parker sitting on either side of her. She didn't sit down, though, instead gesturing a nearby crew member to take the chair away, giving her a more comfortable access to the table's end. She looked about the guests, then about the crew; she was surprised not to have been assaulted with questions like the President's Press Secretary after another international flap, but she would learn as things progressed that Robert Parker had had a pre-discussion discussion with the others in an attempt to keep Karen's presentation somewhat more manageable.

"So, this is what we know so far," she began as formally as she could.

She explained that the yacht had totally lost power, which they all knew by now; she told them that they were dead at sea without actually using the words dead at sea, which most of her crew and some of the guests had figured out, too; and she told them that without knowing specifically what the problem was, there was no way at this time to know when repairs would be completed and the Majestic would once again get underway.

Then, pausing to draw and release a deep, anxious breath, Karen explained in an even more serious tone, "In the meantime, we have some important decisions to make. We're all going to have to get along if we are going to comfortably survive this situation."

"How long?" one of the guests asked with an annoyed tone. "What I mean is, how long are we going to continue to be comfortable? I mean, I couldn't take a shower this morning. I couldn't brush my teeth; I had to use bottled water. I couldn't even take a shit 'cause there's no water in the toilet."

Suddenly, the room exploded in chaos, beginning mostly with comments, complaints, and inquiries from mostly the guests, some of whom popped up out of their chairs as if it would somehow emphasize their own personal disappointments. As the moment went on, though, some of the same began coming from some of the crew, in addition to responses to the guests' interjections, some of which were polite responses and some of which most definitely were not.

Karen used her authority over them to shut up the crew, but she felt uncomfortable telling the guests of her new billionaire bosses to shut up and sit down. She instead looked to Robert, then Gwen, then Robert once again, and -- backing from the end of the table -- politely gestured him to take the position of honor.

* OOC: I call it "Day 1" because -- although this all began yesterday at 10 pm (aka 2200 hours) -- this is the first daylight period of the event. So, that's the way it is **sticks out tongue, makes raspberry sound**.
 
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Gwen Parker

Day 1, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


Gwen Parker was quietly chatting with the guest at her left when Captain Karen Kimball entered the Grand Dining Room, looking even more nervous than she had an hour earlier when Karen, Gwen, Robert, and the Majestic's senior officers gathered. Gwen was a very successful businesswoman who'd built a brand and the fortune to go with it from scratch -- well, she'd had some family money, too -- and yet she'd found herself intrigued by how well Captain Karen had taken charge of the issues with the boat.

She listened to the CO explain the situation, and when the guests -- then the crew -- began cutting loose with their own take on the situation, Gwen did her best to quietly and politely calm her guests; she said nothing to crew, of course, as -- despite being half of the ownership team of the Majestic -- Gwen didn't see it as her right or responsibility to tell them to shut up and sit down.

When Karen looked to her for direction on how to handle the guests, Gwen only nodded her head toward her husband and said, "Let Robert try."
 
Maggie Johnson, Gwen Parker's Personal Assistant

Day 1, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


Maggie hadn't sat down at the table in the dining hall, despite there being enough seats for her to do so. She wasn't Majestic crew, of course, but she also wasn't one of the Parker's guests; she was staff, only in a way that was different from the majority of the men and women standing around the walls -- bulkheads, she'd learned they called them.

Right now, Maggie was more or less just trying to keep on her feet. Because of the loss of control of the ship, the Majestic had begun to rock and roll even worse than it had been last night after the initial power loss. Maggie had had a chance to talk to the Captain earlier this morning, and she'd learned that what was called the roll -- the port to starboard rocking of the yacht -- had increased another couple of degrees due to higher seas or swells or something like that.

Maggie hadn't gone to the Bridge to speak to the Captain about the roll, pitch, yaw, or heave, all terms she learned during her conversation with Karen. No, she'd gone there simply to be close to the woman who had captured her attention and enflamed her loins. And this effect on Maggie had come without her even knowing whether or not the Captain -- like Maggie herself -- was into other women.
 
Connie Lang, Robert Parker's Personal Assistant

Day 1, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


Connie Lang, unlike her counterpart from the other side of the Parker marriage, did in fact take a seat at the table. Robert had indicated for her to sit next to him as she was keeping a written record of the goings-on of the unexplainable event taking place aboard the Majestic. She kept her attention to him very professional, just as she always did in public, regardless of whether or not his wife was also present.

They had had a chance to speak together privately about what had happened the night before. The conversation had been very short and very one sided, though, with Connie taking the lead before Robert could even open his mouth: "You don't need to explain, Mister Parker. Your wife was alone in the dark, and you needed to get back to her. I got back to my quarters just fine. A crewman helped me. I'm fine, really."

That was about it, though Robert had responded verbally to Connie's release of him from any sort of guilt for having abandoned her in the dark, too. She'd said all of that with a smile on her face, despite the fact that deep down she wanted to tell him You fucking left me there alone, knowing of my nyctophobia ... oh, and by the way, I almost fucked a sailor ... and I'm GOING to fuck him as soon as he can find a fucking condom, you prick!

But all of that was kept inside Connie's brain, though, when she entered the dining hall and saw Brent Mack standing there amongst his crewmates, an anxious -- or horny? -- shiver ran up her spine and sent gooseflesh out both arms, causing her to visually quiver. She looked first to her boss and sugar daddy to ensure that he wasn't looking her way, then looked back to Brent and gave him just the smallest of knowing smiles.
 
Kimberly Kennedy, Chief Steward of the Majestic

Day 1, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


Kimberly Kennedy had spent the morning running around like a chicken with its head cut off, dealing with dozens of issues that she would never have expected to come under her purview. With the electrical power out, the vast majority of things the guests had used over the past six days and had expected to wake up to use today were simply not there for their convenience. This included the most basic things that, in one way or another, relied on electrical power: the showers, sinks, toilets, lights of course, and more.

In addition to that, all forms of communications were down, too. The Majestic had a satellite communications system that was available all throughout the ship, with sat phone capability in every guest stateroom as well as many other rooms about the boat; with a dozen computers stationed in various compartments for the guests' convenience, as well as four laptops and several game consoles that could be taken all about the craft; and more. None of these worked, of course; some of the guests were businessmen and women in their own right, and they'd expected to wake up and learn of what their businesses, stock, bonds, and other investments had done during the night.

The kitchen was in absolute mayhem, of course, not only because none of the food preparation equipment worked or because the refrigerators and freezers were beginning to heat up but also because the new chef and his sous chef were fighting at the top of their lungs about what should be done not just about breakfast but about everything else.

And then, there was Nick.

Kimberly had been rushing around trying to deal with this problem and that when -- just as had happened last night in the dark in the theater! -- she came crashing into the big, beautiful man's form as she hurried around a corner without looking. He instinctive grasped the 118-pound petite thing to prevent her from bouncing off his 200+ manly bulk and going down, and -- again -- as she apologized quickly and excessively before actually looking up to see who it was with whom she collided, Kimberly suffered widening eyes and an opening mouth as her brain screamed out at her Fuck, fuck fuck! Not you again!

It wasn't at all that Kimberly didn't like seeing Nick; she loved seeing the man, anytime, anywhere, anyhow ... though, to be honest, she'd much more enjoyed him that day that he'd been practically naked and diving with such grace off the bow of the Majestic.

She'd hurried away from him, fearful that staying near him any longer with her anxiety level as high as it was, would lead to her jumping his bone right there in the passageway.

Now, she stood along one side of the dining hall, listening first to Captain Kimball and then afterward to owner Robert Parker, as she did her best to inconspicuously take peeks at the man and wonder whether his package was proportionally sized to the rest of his body. In the past, Kimberly had noted that some muscular beasts like Nick weren't any more equipped down below the belt line than the puny guys who she wouldn't have dated in high school. Big muscles didn't always mean big dick, and even then, big dicks didn't always mean big fun. She'd known a couple of well-endowed men who could have used a few lessons in love making from those puny guys who likely knew more about pleasing a woman because they knew that if they ever got the chance, that was what they got -- A chance, singular, to get it right.

No, I choose to believe, Kimberly told herself about Nick. I believe that he has all I need from a man ... and more.
 
Robert Parker, with the others gathered in the Grand Dining Room (GDR)

Day 1, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


(OOC: you did just perfectly fine "godmoding" Robert and the others. I'm going to do a little bit of it myself. ;) BTW, I waited for you to post for all 5 of your characters like you asked last night. Makes it easier to follow, I think.)

Robert had handled worse situations than this in his business dealings over the decades. His outward appearance was cool, calm, and collected. Inside, he was a seething volcano of red-hot lava. This cruise from Tarawa to Honolulu was supposed to be a spectacular event. It was one part vacation, one part business venture, one part life-affirming event.

Robert had been contemplating a major change to his life and lifestyle for more than a year now. He'd made a lot of money over the years. He liked the money. The power. The influence.

But he wasn't the type of man who needed more, more, more. More money. More power. More influence. Most people thought he was. But Robert was about to surprise them all.

Or, at least, he had been, prior to the Majestic shutting down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Actually, truthfully, this event that was occurring all about him might come to cement his belief that a change was necessary. He wasn't certain one way or the other yet. All he knew now was that he needed to keep these people as cool, calm, and collected as he appeared until the power came back on.

It wouldn't, of course. But he couldn't know that right now.

Captain Karen Kimball did her best to explain their situation. Eventually, things began going to shit. She looked to him, mostly to deal with his people.

Standing, Robert gestured for calm. The guests were far more amenable to his chastising them over the Captain's attempts. His people were eventually back in their seats. He looked about, smiling. "Listen, everyone. We didn't expect this. This wasn't planned. But the Captain here--"

He looked about himself. Gesturing to the boat's employees, he continued, "--and her crew are doing excellent work in trying to get everything back on line. So, please, listen to the Captain, to her Officers, to her Crew. They know this boat. They know what needs to be done to make life work here, even without all of the conveniences and luxuries we have come to enjoy."

Robert, Gwen, and the Majestic's senior officers had talked already. Robert knew there were things that needed to be said and now. He looked to the Captain, who looked to the master of the yacht's Engine Room. Chief Olaf Jensen stepped out away from the bulkhead toward the end of the table. He tried to smile to the guests. It was unconvincing.

"With the power down, there are a great many systems that are not working," he began. His heavy Dannish accent sometimes made him hard to understand. Because of that, he was speaking slower than normal and e-nun-ci-a-ting carefully. "The Captain has asked me to speak on the most important ones here. You may not want to hear this. But it has to be said."

Olaf hesitated. He didn't want to talk about this. Not here, in the dining hall. And not here, with these people. But the Captain had told him if needed to come from him. He drew and released a deep breath. Then, he put it as simply as he could. "You can no longer use the bathrooms."

He saw an immediate reaction in the faces of both guests and crew. He continued, "Sinks, showers, and especially toilets--"

"Where we supposed to shit?" a guest asked. It was the same man who'd complained about evacuating his bowels earlier.

The Chief had a quick answer. "We will make specific toilets available throughout the ship. Three of them."

"Three?" the man gasped.

A female guest asked with concern, "Where...? Not in our cabins, obviously."

"No, ma'am, sorry," the Chief answered.

Robert cut in, "The problem as it has been explained to me is that we can't easily get water to the bathrooms in the guest staterooms to flush the toilets." He looked to the Chief, asking, "Yes?"

"Ja, hr," the Chief answered, reverting to his native Danish. To the guests, Olaf said, "We have manual pumps. If the power does not return soon, we will begin hand pumping sea water up to tanks which we will arrange on Level Three. These tanks will provide enough water pressure and flow to service three, maybe four toilets."

There was more grumbling. It came from guests and crew both. Robert silenced them, then told the Chief, "Continue, please."

"This will not be an easy thing to do," the man said. "Water has to be rerouted, check valves forced open, vents shut. We don't want poop accidentally coming out of pipes or toilets throughout the Majestic because we missed something. It will take a day, maybe two, but we will get it--"

"Two days?" the first guest exclaimed. "What do we do in the meantime?"

Robert smiled and laughed. "In the meantime, we set up a makeshift port-a-potty on the stern, and everyone uses it."

There were now both growling complaints and snickering laughter. Robert again settled everyone down. He continued, "That's only the start."

Robert gestured over the Chef to talk about the dining situation. But the man shook his head and instead pointed to Chief Steward Kimberly Kennedy.
 
First Officer Victor Carlson

Day 1, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from Captain Kimball's post, but also includes bits from everyone else's above.)

Victor Carlson had awoken early. He'd checked his windup, non-electronic watch and found it to be barely past 0500. The stress and anxiety of the previous night had prevented him from sleeping well. He gave up, dressed, and headed out. He spent the next 2 hours talking with and giving orders to the crew.

The men and women who'd been coming off shift hadn't been happy about having to stay on. But they respected their First Officer. And, of course, not following orders at any point during the planned 18-day voyage could endanger the 30% bonus payment coming when the Majestic reached Honolulu.

In the GDR, Captain Karen Kimball, then Robert Parker, then Chief Olaf Jensen each took their turn talking to the guests and crew. When they'd finished, Victor was gestured to step up. He didn't think this was his duty. But he followed orders, too. "We have a situation when it comes to personnel, labor requirements, and available resources."

He looked around the room, specifically to the crew encircling the table full of guests. "First, personnel. We left Tarawa with a crew of 28. The Majestic typically operates on a crew of 18, sometimes less, sometimes a couple more.

"The additional crew were to make the voyage more comfortable and enjoyable for the guests," Victor continued.

He now looked to the table, Gwen Parker, and finally Robert Parker. He smiled. He didn't want the bosses to think he was being critical of the decision to bring all these extra people aboard to pamper the Parkers and their friends.

"The problem now, though," he continued, "is that all of these extra crew members is a strain. A strain on living space. A strain on resources, primary food and water."

He looked to the Captain, reminding her of the good thing about extra crew. "Luckily, we packed every available corner of the Majestic with supplies, to ensure that no one went hungry..." He looked back to the guests, then the crew. "...or dehydrated."

He obviously meant ran out of booze. The smiles, snickering, and laughs from the crew said they understood. It was an open secret that possibly as much as a fifth of the alcohol had ended up stored safely away by the crew.

"My point is," Victor continued, "we have more people, more crew, than the Majestic was designed to serve."

He again looked to Robert. "It would be my recommendation that we use some of the guest compartments--"

"I'm not giving up my cabin!" one of the guests spat out.

Robert waved the man quiet. He told Victor, "Please, continue."

"I'm not talking about taking over guest cabins," the First Officer went on. He listed off half a dozen compartments that were entirely luxuries for the guests. "We could move the extra bunks to some or all of these compartments to accommodate the additional crew."

Without hesitation, Robert said, "Make it happen, Mister Carlson." Then, he looked to Karen, saying, "I mean, if that's okay with you, Captain."

Victor cut in. "This only becomes necessary if the Chief can't find a way to get the power back on, obviously."

All eyes turned to look at the Chief. Olaf's expression revealed his discomfort with the expectant attention. He shrugged. "We're working on it."
 
Kimberly Kennedy, Chief Steward, with the others gathered in the Grand Dining Room (GDR)

Day 1, 0800 hours (10 hours after TLWO):


Robert had explained the issue with the lack of toilets before moving on to the dining situation. He gestured to the Majestic's Chef to speak on that topic, but the Chef -- who never seemed comfortable anywhere other than a hot kitchen -- only pointed to Kimberly Kennedy and told her, "You're up, girly."

Kimberly rolled her eyes at the use of the nickname that Chef -- aka as Yohann Allard -- had given her early in her employment on the Majestic. She'd questioned his cooking skills -- or more precisely his choice of ingredients -- after several crew members had come down with the shits the morning after he'd served them a seafood dinner. It turned out that the shitters had actually gotten sick after imbibing of some locally made booze that had a little-spoken-of history of causing people not accustomed to it to evacuate their bodies from both ends. She'd apologized to Chef, multiple times, and yet he still called her girly to this day.

Kimberly stepped up, referred to her clipboard -- she missed her iPad horribly -- and began, "Mister Carlson asked me to speak on the nutrition situation." She performed a quick recap of the foods and drinks they had left after six days at sea, focusing on the perishables. "Chef and I have put together a menu for today and, if it becomes necessary, the days following. The goal is for us to consume the perishables before they go bad."

She looked to Chef again for his input, only to get a go on waving gesture. She sighed and continued talking about food and drink until Captain Kimball gestured her to move on. "On another subject for which I've received many questions: lighting. Obviously, we don't have electric lighting. And for reasons the Chief has not been able to explain, even the flashlights don't work. So, he and his people are working on creating more and safer candle lanterns..."

Kimberly looked again to Yohann, continuing, "...and Chef has told me that he has all the ingredients -- oil, fat, whatever -- to produce those candles. We should be able to produce enough light to get us through the night for several nights if that becomes necessary."

She glanced toward the beautiful blonde sitting to the right of Robert Parker's seat. Kimberly and Connie had had a long conversation one night about this, that, and the other thing, one of the subjects being her nyctophobia. She noticed the sense of relief in Connie's face at the mention of candles.

Kimberly moved on to some of the yacht's luxuries that needed to be set aside or closed down until the power returned. The guests weren't happy about this, because most of these things were guest-only features; the crew didn't look so happy either when Kimberly got to the ones that were for them.

She hadn't finished with her list before Karen again cut in; she spoke with a little less respect for the guests than they were used to because they were beginning to piss her off. "Listen, folks ... the power could be back anytime. The Chief and his people are the best."

Karen glanced toward the Chief for support, but instead got a very slight, almost imperceptible shaking of his head. She hesitated, ignored it, and went on, "But if there is a serious problem ... if we can't power up the ship, today, tomorrow, the next day ... the Coast Guard will eventually come searching for us."

The Captain jumped in again, saying, "The Chief tells me that the Majestic's beacon has failed--"

There was an immediate murmur of concern, but Karen politely gestured for calm, then went on, "But that's not entirely bad news, because the failure of the beacon means that the Coast Guard already knows we're having issues. They'll use their satellite to look for us, and once they do find us, they'll be able to see that we are both dead in the water--"

Karen hesitated at her inadvertent use of the phrase, then continued, "And once they see that, they'll send out boats and planes both, from Tarawa, Hawaii, maybe even Kiribati. We'll float around out here for a couple of days, maybe a week ... eat all the food, drink all the alcohol just in time to be picked up and dropped off in Honolulu for Mai Tais."
 
Robert Parker, Nick Paull, and the unexpected visitor

Day 1, 0830 hours (10 and 1/2 hours after TLWO):


Robert knew that the discussion could go on for hours. And honestly, he didn't think talking about it more would help. Not right now. He stepped up to the head of the table, establishing his control over the conversation.

"Listen, this is not the cruise we thought it was going to be," he said. "We've had fun these six days. This might not be ideal, but we can make it work. It'll be like camping, roughing it, but on the ocean."

Robert got some laughs. He got some angry looks, too. "It requires us to work together, that's all. Okay, so, last questions? And I don't mean a hundred of them. Is there anything we haven't covered yet?"

He was going to let the conversation go for maybe ten minutes or so. Then he was going to break it up. But it didn't get that far. There was sudden scraping sound. It persisted for several seconds, stopped for a couple, then repeated.

Nick Paull stepped out from the wall. "Something's against us, against the hull."

One of the crew suggested, "We're grounded. Shoal maybe?"

Nick was already heading for the exit. He called back, "No! Something hit us! There's something out there!"

Several crew and guests followed Nick out to the port side Promenade Deck. Nick raised his hand against the bright sun. He looked down to the water. He'd been right. They'd hit something, or something had hit them. Nick initially thought it was capsized boat.

"It's a plane," he said when he realized what it really was. "Looks like a passenger jet."

The aircraft was bumping into and scraping along the side of the Majestic. Nick surveyed the wreckage. It seemed to be just the fuselage. No wings. Probably ripped off when it hit the water, he thought. The tail was gone or underwater. The fuselage looked otherwise intact. Must be why it's still floating, Nick thought.

"There!" someone called out. "There! Over there!"

Nick blocked the sun from his eyes again. He followed the other person's extended finger. He realized it was a person in the water. A Bridge Crew member who'd had binoculars with him called out from behind them, "I think she might be alive. It looks like she's holding onto something."

Nick didn't need to hear any more than that. He called to a fellow Deck Crew member, "Life ring! Now!"

In a flash, Nick stripped down to his boxer-briefs. He leapt onto the railing, balanced, leaned forward, and performed a perfect, splash-less, rip-entry dive into the water below. When he popped back up, the life ring was already splashing atop the water just ten feet away.

"Drop the line!" he told his crew mate. "It's too far!"

The life ring's line was only 100 feet long. Nick knew the woman was out at least 100 yards. He wrapped the line around his ankle and immediately began swimming. Nick was a regular in the Summer Swim Series and a variety of Triathlons. He regularly swam upwards of a mile, sometimes two or three. 100 yards would be nothing.

It had been a while since Nick had swum this hard this fast, though. He began to feel it in his arms and legs. But then, he was there. "Ma'am! Ma'am! Are you alright?"

She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. She didn't respond, though. She was suffering from exposure. What Nick and the others didn't know what that her planed had gone down into the ocean last night at 10 pm. The same time that the Majestic had lost power.

"You're going to be fine!" Nick told her confidently. "We're going to get you back to my boat."

He got her into the ring, rolled her over the top of him, and began back toward the boat. It was slow going. Nick had a true concern that he might not be able to swim toward the Majestic as quickly as the Majestic was moving away. He'd noted the current direction before he leapt into the water.
 
Captain Karen Kimball and others, attempting a rescue

Day 1, 0900 hours (11 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from here.)

The discussion continued, often getting a bit out of control before those in charge -- Robert, Karen, or sometimes both -- worked to bring things back to a calm manner.

Karen had been asked about the yacht and whether being dead in the water -- a phrase she'd immediately regretted using -- posed a risk to life and limb. "I don't think we are at any grave risk," she'd answered. "Without being able to steer into the wind ... into the waves ... the Majestic had a tendency to roll more, making for an uncomfortable journey."

That truth resulted in a slew of harsh comments, but Karen pushed through them, saying, "We have a solution, though. The Chief has told me that we have the materials to build a drift anchor." Someone asked about the actual sea anchors at the bow and stern of the yacht, to which Karen explained that a drift anchor was something entirely different. "A boat this large with the safety features it included isn't typically installed with one, so ... we're going to have to build it from scratch. If it works, it will keep us bow into the wind, providing stability and preventing the winds from blowing us too far away from our original trip plan."

"Why's that matter?" someone asked.

"When the coast guard or the Navy or the satellites overhead come looking for us," Karen answered, "we want to be as close to where we should have been as we can ... 'cause that's where they'll start looking." She asked, "Any of you remember Castaway ...? Or Six Days, Seven Nights? I know those were just movies, but they weren't found because they'd left their established flight plans without being able to tell anyone. We don't want that happening here."

They'd gone back to the discussion of toilets and showers and such for the third or fourth time, when they heard the scraping sound along the port side of the Majestic's hull. Less than two minutes later, Nick Paull was diving into the Pacific Ocean to rescue a wayward survivor of an aircraft that had coincidentally ditched in the same area in which the yacht had -- dare Karen think it -- gone dead in the water.

"I want a boat over the side, now!" Karen ordered the nearest Deck Crew hands. She turned to Robert, asking, "You have a guest who's a Doctor, right...? An MD?" She looked and found the face for which she was looking and hollered, "Laura!"

The nurse, who also doubled as the Assistant Chief Steward under Kimberly Kennedy, pushed through the crowd and upon reaching Karen said without having to be asked, "I'll get blankets, a first kit, warmers ... I'm on it, Captain."

Karen asked Robert to put his doctor with her nurse, then -- seeing that the gathered crowd was going to be an issue -- found Gwen Parker and asked, "Can you get your people back inside the dining hall. We need room to work here."

Gwen began herding her guests back into the GDR while, behind her, Karen returned to the rescue at hand. The crew -- assisted by some more capable and helpful friends of the Parkers -- threw an inflatable boat over the side of the yacht. Luckily, there was nothing about its operation that the strange event could affect, and upon hitting the surface of the ocean, its compressed air tanks began filling it.

Up and down the Promenade Deck -- just a fancy name for the exterior walkway surrounding the main deck -- men and women both were stripping off clothing to prepare to follow Nick into the water. Karen couldn't help but laugh as the ease with which men stripped down to their skivvies and women to their bras and panties; one of the female Guest Accommodations crew looked to Karen with an embarrassed expression, shrugged, and confessed, "Hey, I got nothing on underneath. Commando is the way I roll in the mornings, Cap'n ... sorry."

Karen laughed the woman's confession off with a dismissive wave, then returned to the rescue at hand. The boat had been fully inflated; the first crew to it helped the others aboard; and finally, the foldable oars were expanded and slipped into their locks, and off the boat went, heading toward Nick and the woman who he'd already by now reached.

"I want the port side Swim Platform extended," Karen ordered. "Find Nurse Laura and the doctor. Get them down there. I want Nick and this woman inside and warmed up and tended to without delay."

The crew hurried off into the Majestic again and down two decks. The Swim Platform was an interesting innovation employed by many of today's larger, very expensive yachts. It was an 8-foot tall, 12-foot-long section located midship at just above the waterline that could be lowered like a big door; when open, it allowed swimmers to easily get in and out of the sea -- thus the name Swim Platform -- and to also get the ship's personal watercraft in and out if fast speed water motor sports was the name of the game.

The hydraulics that usually operated the door wouldn't be working -- Karen knew that, of course -- but a safety feature of having what essentially amounted to a hole in the side of your boat was that manual control handles could be used to lift (or lower) the door in the case of a power loss.

(OOC: Your turn to kick you men into gear. ;))
 
Various heroic males ... haa, I crack myself up!

Day 1, 0900 hours (11 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from above post. Keeping it real, keeping it simple. ;) Oh, my post was more than 10,000 words. I would normally edit it down because that's just too much. But I really wanted to tell these stories. Hope ya'll don't mind. I'm going to put it up in two posts.)

Chief Jensen wore a disapproving expression as he listened to Karen Kimball talking about building a drift anchor. The Captain was leaving something out that the Olaf deemed rather important. That was that the Majestic weighed over 1,000 gross tons. It wasn't like they were making one for a 40-foot sailboat or even a 100-foot fishing craft.

Olaf could build the thing. He had the skills and the necessary parts. Included in the Majestic's recreational gear was a parasailing kit. Olaf had only to equip the chute with some flexible supports and a small lower weight. That would keep the device open and untwisted. Still, whether it would sustain the heavy yacht without tearing itself apart was questionable.


A bit later, when all hell broke loose:

"I want a boat over the side, now!" the Captain ordered.

"Yes, Captain!" First Officer Victor Carlson called from within the gathering crowd of yacht passengers. He grabbed the nearest Deck Crew hands and directed them aft. The Majestic had two rigid body outboard boats fore of them, on both the port and starboard sides. But neither of them had started this morning when Victor and the crew working with him had tested them.

Instead, they headed aft for the inflatables. The boats came packed tightly in Fiberglas containers mounted to the hull. The pull of a pin and flip of a level allowed the container to head down for the ocean. Upon impact, the boat automatically swelled like a balloon on a helium tank. One crew member after another leapt overboard. Even a pair of the younger, more athletic guests went into the sea to help.

Meanwhile, Chief Jensen had already left the main deck. He was heading for the Swim Platform even before the Captain was ordering crew down to it. When they arrived, he was rapidly and energetically spinning the manual hydraulic pump handles. One of the younger crew waved him aside and took over. With the electric hydraulic pumps working, the door could be lowered in under 30 seconds. Manually, it took a tag team of four men almost six minutes to get it level with the Pacific's rolling surface.

"I want life jackets on everyone," the Chief ordered. "No chances taken, understand?"

From aft of him, Olaf saw the inflatable being rowed hard and fast out toward Nick. The swells were a bit higher than the Chief would have preferred. But he was a man who fully understood that Mother Nature could be a bitch when you least wanted her to be. He looked to the sky and, thankfully, saw nothing but blue skies.

If he were to go to the starboard side, though, Olaf would see the dark, ominous clouds of an approaching storm.

"Are they here yet?" an excited voice called from behind him. Olaf turned to find the woman everyone called Nurse Laura at the bottom of the ladder.

Coming down right behind her was one of the Parker's guests, an MD named Carlton Pinchot. The man was slow on the go, a result of a recent injury. But he completed his descent to the deck, asking, "How far out are they?"

"It'll be a while, Doc," Olaf said, also acknowledging, "Nurse Laura. I think Nick is close, but the boat just left. It's gonna be a minute."

And then, to aft:

"Jesus Christ!" someone called out from the stern of the Majestic. Some of those farther aft moved to find the caller. He was pointing to the airplane fuselage. By now it had slipped away from the yacht and was a dozen or so yards aft. It had begun slowly rolling over and over. The man who'd called out hollered again, "There's someone alive inside the plane! I saw him! He waved to me. He waved!"

Victor didn't hesitate. He ordered another inflatable put into the water. As crew began on that, he did as Nick had before him. He stripped down to his boxer-briefs. Throwing a life ring overboard, he handed the end of the 100-foot rope to one of the crew, saying, "Don't let me wander away, okay?"

With that, Victor jumped into the Pacific. He wasn't the graceful athlete Nick was. He went feet first, pinching his nose to keep the water out. He surfaced, located the ring, and swam for the rolling fuselage. He reached it eventually. It seemed to take him forever.

Out in the ocean, to port:

The inflatable lifeboat reached Nick finally. Two of the men aboard pulled the woman out. She was alive and breathing. But she was spent, exhausted from what the others didn't yet understand had been 11 hours in the water.

They pulled Nick out of the water. He like the woman before him was wrapped in a blanket. A crew member smacked a couple of heat packs, activating the chemicals. He handed one each to Nick and the woman, instructing them on how to hold them and heat up their bodies.

The boat's rowers turned the craft and headed back. Nick moved to the woman. He reassured her she'd be okay. "You're safe now. We're going to get you to our boat. You're safe."

She suddenly began sobbing and reached her arms around Nick's neck as she pulled him to her. Her exhaustion and exposure had preserved just enough energy in her for that.
 
Back at the plane:

Victor had reached the fuselage. Now, though, he realized that he had no idea what he was supposed to do next. The plane's body was rolling slowly. If he'd taken the time to do the math, he would have realized that it was taking about a minute to perform one full roll.

He crawled atop the fuselage. He waited for one of the two opposite rows of windows to against surface. When one did, he scrambled to look inside. Initially, he couldn't make out anything specific. Then he saw movement. People? Passengers? Dead or alive?

He realized that he was only seeing debris atop relatively still water. The fuselage was partially flooded. Victor knew that that meant it would eventually fill with water. It would sink.

"There!" he heard a voice call from the Majestic's stern. He followed the man's pointing finger. Carefully, on hands and knees, Victor moved forward one, two, three windows. "Next one! Yeah! That one! That's where I saw him, at the red stripe on the outside!"

Victor pressed his face to the glass. All he could see was darkness, water, and debris. He called back toward the yacht, "Nothing! No one! Are you sure?"

The crew member swore he'd seen someone wave for help. Victor moved to another window and looked inside. Then another. Then another. The roll of the plane was taking the windows back toward the ocean surface. If he didn't see something before--

Suddenly, Victor leapt back. A face had appeared in the window, followed by a cry for help. Victor hollered to no one in particular, "I found him! I found him! He's alive! He's fucking alive in there!"

Again, Victor realized that he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do now. Again, movement caught his attention. Luckily, this time, it was the second inflatable coming up to his side. He'd been holding onto the life ring but now released it. He told them, "There's at least one person inside. We have to get him out."

"We can open the door," someone in the boat said. "Up there, nearer the front. The main passenger entrance. We can open it from the outside."

Victor didn't immediately recognize the man. The slicked back wet hair and lack of the man's normal three-piece suit hid his identity. Then, Victor recognized him as one of the Parker's guests. Thomas King was a commercial pilot. Or he had been? Victor said, "You guys get the door. I'll look for this guy again."

The plane had rolled to hide the row of windows again. The First Officer crawled carefully to keep atop the body. It seemed to take forever for the next row of windows to appear. Farther up front, the men in the boat could only wait as well.

Finally, the windows appeared. It only took a moment for Victor to find the man in the window again. He hollered at the glass, "Go up to the door! Toward the front!" Victor gestured toward the plane's nose. "Go up front. We're going to open the door! We're going to get you out!

The man seemed to understand what Victor was saying. He disappeared from one window. The First Officer moved forward, too. He saw the man in the second window, then the third, then the fourth. Then he lost sight of him.

Then the bad news came. The pilot called out, "Wrong side of the plane. Starboard side, right side. Door's on the port side. We have to wait until it rolls over again."

Again, time seemed to simply crawl. Victor looked for the man before the windows went under water. He didn't find him.

Finally, the top of the door began peeking out in the troughs of the swells. The pilot instructed the others on how to manually open the door. They were going to wait until it was entirely above the surface, though. Thomas explained, "If we open it and water floods in, that guy's fucked."

Again, they waited. While they did, Victor found the man again in a window. He repeated the plan loudly.

And then, realization hit: Victor thought he'd seen something odd about the man's earlier wave. Only now did he see the handcuffs around the man's wrists. Suddenly, he was wondering what the hell they were dealing with. He took the time waiting for the door opening to contemplate the implications.

"Okay, pull there!" Thomas called to one of the men now also atop the plane. The plane now essentially on its side. Opening the door was a bitch. But two, then three, then four men including Victor were now on it. It lifted up, then away from the opening. And without hesitation, the cuffed man came crawling out, gushing his appreciation.

Victor studied the man whose name they would later learn was Troy Vance. He didn't look dangerous at all. He just seemed a normal sort of guy. Except, of course, for the cuffs. The other men became hesitant seeing the shackles as well. Victor knew he had to take lead. "Get him into the boat."

As the others moved Troy to the inflatable, Victor dropped down through the open door into the fuselage. He had tried to hold onto the frame but lost his grip. He sank down into the water, then bobbed back up.

Behind him, Thomas hollered, "What the fuck?"

"I have to look for other survivors," Victor called back. "I won't be long."

He swam awkwardly through the debris a moment. Then, he reeled back as a body popped up in front of him. The close-eyed man bobbed as Victor had, then rolled over and sank again. Victor's heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears. Another body was floating face down. He stepped on something, realizing it was the row of seat below him.

"You gotta get out now!" Thomas screamed, his head and shoulders inside the doorway. "The plane's gonna roll until the door's under water again."

Victor knew the man was right. And there didn't seem to be anyone left alive in here. He turned back and made his way toward the opening. Then, suddenly, a door in front of him fell open. A body fell out of what Victor would quickly realize was the lavatory.

This body, though, popped to the surface and cried out. A little girl flailed at the water surface, screaming at the top of her lungs. Victor called to her, gathered her up, and lifted her up at the open fuselage door. Thomas and another pulled the girl out. They then helped Victor out just as the door was being pounded by the swells.

The inflatable was on the other side of the plane, of course. Thomas, the crewman, and the little girl managed to crawl over to the boat. But Victor was trapped on this side. He was beginning to feel his exhaustion. It wasn't that he was out of shape. It was the combination of the exertion, the cold, the anxiety, the trauma, and the horror.

Suddenly, something hit Victor. He quickly realized that it was the life ring. He slipped into it, hollering, "Go! Go!"

The others in the boat had tossed Victor the ring. But the man up on the boat still had the end of the 100-foot line connected to it. He and another crewman began pulling Victor back toward the Majestic. He would get there just as the second lifeboat reached him. He would be hauled in and taken to the Swim Platform. Exhausted, he sat up to see Nick standing on the deck, smiling to him.

"What the fuck, Mister Carlson?" the Deck Hand asked playfully. "I risk my life to save a woman, and you go off and save a child?"

Victor laughed, then coughed from the water that had reached his lungs. He glanced at the man with the cuffs and managed, "I captured American's Most Wanted, too, it would seem."
 
All the pretty girls... ;)

Day 1, 0900 hours (11 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from part one of your last reply, here. And speaking of haaa, I went over 10,000 characters, too, and had to divide my post into two replies. So there, pffft. Is that how you spell a raspberry?)

Karen continued to command the situation from the port side of the main deck, which was highly unusual as she -- or whoever was acting as Officer of the Deck at any moment -- would more often than not do so from the bridge. But without communications, monitoring equipment, navigational control, etc., the Majestic's bridge at this moment in time was as useless a space on the boat as there ever was one.

Her First Officer Victor Carlson had been tasked with getting a boat over the side to assist the ever-perfect Nick Paull with rescuing the woman a hundred or more yards off to port who, as far as could be told, was alive and clinging to floating aircraft debris. Karen had been very impressed with Mister Paull's physique -- this was her first time seeing it so readily exposed -- but she hadn't really taken the moment to woo over it, let alone feel wetness between her thighs. Even though Karen had always believed that she was your normal everyday common heterosexual female, men had never really done it for her and -- as she would soon come to understand -- her true happiness would come in the form of a beautiful young female.

The same couldn't be said about Chief Steward Kimberly Kennedy, though. Kimberly, like most of those inside the Grand Dining Room at the time that the current event had begun, had rushed out to the port side Promenade Deck to discover with what the Majestic had collided, and she'd witnesses in awe -- and at least figuratively if not literally wet panties -- the boat's beautiful Deck Hand strip to his underwear and perform an Olympic class dive into the ocean below.

Kimberly would have continued to simply stand there and watch her lust interest perform his act of heroism if the Captain hadn't decided it was necessary to get all the look-y-loos back inside the ship and out of the way of those conducting the rescue attempt. Majestic Co-owner Gwen Parker was actually the one to catch Kimberly eye after Karen had asked for assistance clearing out the onlookers, and together they began herding most of the guests and some of the less helpful crew back inside.

"I know this is a moment of excitement, and we all want to see what happens...!" Kimberly called out as people filed back into the GDR, "...but I'm sure that if we all just stay in here, out of the way, we will get a report of just what's happening out there soon enough."

Gwen comforted her guests and reassured them that they would get answers soon enough if only they would stay calm and do as they were asked. She caught sight of one of the Kitchen Staff crew and asked, "Can we have pots of hot coffee and tea brought out ... and cocoa if there is any. I know we have at least one chocolate fiend other than just myself." Looking to her Personal Assistant Maggie Johnson, Gwen asked, "Can you help with the coffee, dear ... maybe get some more of the food out here. I know most people already ate, but we need to keep people's minds on something."

Maggie had had something else she'd wanted to do, which was stick close to Captain Kimball; if things wen the way she wanted, she would be the young beautiful woman who would soon be teaching Karen the wonders of sapphic delight. For now, though, Maggie came back inside to the GDR and was now stuck doing her boss's bidding. It wasn't anything unusual, of course; Maggie spent the majority of her days tending to Gwen's needs, even when those needs could have been very well tended to by Gwen herself. That's why they pay me the big bucks, she reminded herself with a bit of sarcasm; Maggie did make pretty good money for being a PA, but she didn't make enough for the hours she put in.

Maggie would have found it outrageous and even a bit despicable to learn how much compensation her counterpart, Connie Lang, made for her work as Robert Parker's PA. Maggie had netted a salary of just under $70,000 last year. It sounded like a lot of money for being someone's go-fer, but Maggie did put in an average of 75 hours a week tending directly or indirectly to Gwen Parker's personal and professional needs.

At the same time, Connie had pulled down in salary, condo rent, luxury car leasing, credit cards, charge accounts, and randomly offered cash money more than $500,000. Of course, she had additional duties under her boss's instructions that Maggie didn't have under her own, specifically taking Robert Parker's cock into her mouth, pussy, and/or ass whenever the man's desire to put it there arose.

Maggie was no dummy, and she understood that the other PA was doing far more than organizing her boss's calendar and returning calls for him. And she'd never desired to put in such extracurricular effort as a PA with a boss, even for the additional compensation that she was sure the beautiful blonde gained. But half a million dollars?? Maggie might have been tempted to look for a new employer with greater and more personal needs if she'd known that that was the possible paycheck waiting for her.

And, of course, there was the fact that Maggie like women in place of men. She could very well have provided the additional personal service to Gwen that Connie was providing Gwen's husband. But Gwen had never once shown any interest in partaking of the intimacy of another woman, despite having so often been amongst other naked females -- even Maggie herself -- in various steam rooms or resort changing rooms over the years. No, if Maggie was going to make the real big bucks by prostituting herself, it wasn't going to be done in the employ of the Parkers.

(Part two next.)
 
(Part two)

Maggie headed off to the Majestic's kitchen to fetch food, coffee, tea water, and more. In the absence of electricity to heat or cook breakfast and -- most importantly -- make coffee, the Chief and some assigned crew had brought out from one of the storerooms a pair of barbeques that were often used beachside. One had been used to cook breakfast foods; the bacon, sausage, eggs, and other items were going to go bad if power didn't come back on soon, so Chef had cooked up an extra-large batch and told everyone to pig out. On the other cooker, they'd brewed coffee, not unlike the way they'd done so in the old west, with a hot pot over a burning flame. Gwen hadn't done anything like this since her safari vacation with her husband to Africa on their fifth anniversary.

People started taking their seats, mostly the guests and extra staff: beauticians, masseuse and masseur, etc. Some of the crew that came back inside, rather than immediately jump in to help, soon found themselves being given orders by the Majestic's Second Officer Zoe Nance (OOC: Ignore the gun, for now.) She put them to work either helping Kimberly distribute food and drink to those who would take a seat, thereby hopefully keeping them calm; returning to their areas of service to the boat, if such service was a help at this moment; or reporting to the stern or Swim Bay to assist with the unfolding rescues, plural now that a second survivor of the plane crash had apparently been discovered.

Once it appeared as though the GDR was under Kimberly's control, Zoe reported back to Karen, where she found herself designated as a Runner; the lack of internal communications and portable radios both was making running the boat, let alone conducting the rescues, a major bitch. Zoe didn't mind becoming a messenger, even though typically a lesser Deck or Bridge Crew member would be stuck with the duty. This kept her fingers deep inside all aspects of the adventure, which she liked.

She was in the Swim Bay when the boat carrying Nick returned, jumping in to assist with first aid for both. Nick looked exhausted and spent from the swim and cold, despite his far-above-average manliness; the woman he'd rescued -- they would learn her name was Lana Owens -- looked like a dead bird after it had been toyed with for an hour by a cat before being dumped into a mud puddle. Zoe's initial assessment of the young woman's appearance would radically change later when Lana had a chance to get cleaned up.

The physician guest of Robert and Gwen Parker who'd come down to the Swim Bay, Doctor Carlton Pinchot, worked with Nurse Laura -- her actual name was Laura Sherman -- to get Nick, Lana, and the others who'd gone into the water out of their wet clothes, into dry blankets, and upstairs where they could get further be warmed and get coffee, tea, or cocoa into them.

Zoe left to run between the Swim Bay, the portside Promenade, the stern, and back, continuing to check on all personnel involved and pass on whatever word needed to be shared. She was back down in the Swim Bay in time for the second inflatable's arrival, and -- despite the blanket wrapped around the man rescued from the plane's interior -- it didn't take her as long as it had taken the others to notice the cuffs holding his wrists close together.

Without hesitation, she turned and hurried back up the ladder, then forward, then higher yet again. She used her key to access a small room, then a second key and the combination to a lock to access the boat's armory. The double doored steel gun safe had been part of the Majestic's original construction plans, a necessity in this day and age of modern pirates, many of whom attacked and commandeered ships for use in later smuggling operations before, often, sinking them to the bottom of the sea.

Zoe selected a Glock 9mm semiautomatic from the collection of a dozen and a half handguns, shotguns, and rifles; the armory housed a pair of fully automatic assault style rifles, too, despite the questionable legality of them being possessed by a civilian vessel that was now flagged in the United States of America. She wrapped the holster belt around her waist, slammed a magazine into the gun, selected out two additional clips as was her training, secured the locker, and hurried back to the Swim Bay.

She arrived just as the others were preparing to take the cuffed man up the ladder and immediately held out her hand in a stop gesture. With an authoritative tone that came from her pre-Majestic background as a military cop -- a career history she shared with the yacht's Engineering crewman and former US Navy Master-At-Arms, Brent Mack -- Zoe said, "Hold on Doc. I need you to keep your patient here for a few more minutes..."

She gestured to the handcuffs, continuing, "...to explain his choice of jewelry to us."

Nurse Laura interjected, saying with her normal tone of concern over such things, "We need to get him upstairs into a warm room, Zoe. Can't this wait--"

"We're going to stay right here until I'm satisfied that this man isn't a danger to this boat, its crew, or its passengers," Zoe said as firm as expected in such a situation. She caught the eye of one of the crew, telling him, "Get up topside and find the Captain. As her if she has a moment to come down here."

The man hurried off, and Zoe looked back to the Doctor and Nurse, then to the cuffed man, who was being held between two other crew; she didn't know it, but in her absence, caution regarding the man had already been instructed by Victor, who had been the first to see the cuffs and rescued the man regardless.

As all of this was happening, Connie Lang had done her best to simultaneously stick close to her boss and stay out of the way of others. Robert played his part in the rescue attempts -- he'd never been one to shrink back from anything exciting or potentially dangerous -- but Connie herself had no plans of leaping into the Pacific Ocean or crawling inside a sinking passenger jet. She would just stay close to her lover-boss if she could, and if she couldn't, she'd casually look around for the man who was her new lust interest, Brent Mack.
 
In the Swim Bay: Victor and Troy, with Zoe

Day 1, 0930 hours (11 and 1/2 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from part one of your last reply, here. Seems to be working, doesn't it? I advanced the time 30 minutes from when all this started.)

In the Swim Bay:

First Officer Victor Carlson waited in the second inflatable until the shackled man was first removed. Victor was spent. He was shivering down deep to the core. The others came to his aid, wrapping him up and offering to help him out. But his attention was on the man if the cuffs.

What have I brought aboard the Majestic? he wondered. He felt like one of those science fiction/horror movie protagonists. The ones who unknowingly brought the alien or shape shifter or deadly, contagious virus aboard their boat or spacecraft or into their Antarctic research center. Am I going to wish I'd left the man to drown?

"I want two men on him," Victor said to one of the crew members. That man had also seen the cuffs. Victor got a nod, and the man went to get the First Officer's bidding done.

Only after he saw his order being handled did Victor aid the men near him in accommodating his extraction from the inflatable. He found the Majestic's Second Officer Zoe Nance (OOC: You can pay attention to the gun now ;)) and immediately notice the pistol on her side. They met eyes, and Victor nodded his approval of her initiative.

"Hold on Doc," Zoe told Carlton. "I need you to keep your patient here for a few more minutes ... to explain his choice of jewelry to us."

Laura attempted to argue the order, but Zoe countered her suggestion. She sent a man to find and inform the Captain. Victor stepped up behind the cuffed man. "Officer Nance would like to know why you're wearing shackles, sir."

The man turned to Victor, studying the First Officer a moment. He smiled. "Thank you for rescuing me, first off. I appreciate that. My name is Troy, by the way. Troy Vance."

He turned to look at Zoe again. And at her sidearm. She was wearing a uniform. It wasn't law enforcement though. It looked more nautical. He'd obviously noticed that he was being brought aboard a private yacht. This was her uniform he presumed, correctly. But the gun? He doubted that that was standard uniform issue for a private vessel, even one this large and obviously valuable.

Smiling, he asked Zoe, "Expecting pirates? I'm not a pirate, in case--"

"You need to explain yourself, sir," Victor cut in.

Troy turned to face the other man. He challenged, "Are you the Captain of this vessel?"

"I'm the First Officer," Victor answered. He glanced past the man, then back at him. "Zoe is the Second Officer. She's also the one with the gun. So, please, explain yourself."

"I will," Troy said without hesitation, adding firmly, "to your Captain."
 
In the Swim Bay: Nick, the woman, the child, the Doctor, and Nurse Laura

Day 1, 0930 hours (11 and 1/2 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from the bottom of this post. I sort of forgot about the little girl, so this post and the last one sort of leapfrog.)

Nick let the others help the woman he'd rescued out of the inflatable. He'd done his part. He needed to rest a moment. He looked over his shoulder at the sound of others. They were pulling a second inflatable out of the water onto the Swim Platform. Nick hadn't even known a second boat was dispatched to help him.

Then he saw the man with cuffs. And then he saw the girl! His mind spun with questions. He asked one of the crew, "What the fuck?"

"They found them in the plane," the crew member explained in just a few words.

There was too much action for Nick to interrupt. He kept quiet and just watched as he rose from the boat.

First Officer Victor Carlson and Second Officer Zoe Nance were tending to the man in cuffs, one Troy Vance. Ignoring all that drama were Doctor Carlton Pinchot and Laura Sherman, aka Nurse Laura. They'd quickly shifted their attention to the little girl the moment they saw her.

"We need to get her up to the Infirmary," Carlton demanded.

Nick was suddenly reenergized. He hurried toward those helping the little girl. Sweeping her blanketed body up into his arms, he headed for the ladder. He looked back over his shoulder to Victor. Referencing the people they'd saved, Nick jokingly asked, "Does this tie us up, one-and-a-half each?"

He easily ascended the ladder, which was basically steeper-than-normal stairs. At the top, he headed for the Infirmary. Pausing at the closed door, he waited as both the Doctor and Nurse entered ahead of him. Nick just did as he was told. He sat the girl down, got her out of the now-wet blanket, and fetched supplies as necessary.

The Infirmary was very well equipped. Of course, anything electric or battery-operated was nothing more than a paper weight now. But they had working blood pressure cuffs and chemical heating pads and, if they needed it, needles full of adrenaline.
 
Robert Parker and Nick Paull, as the rescue concludes

Day 1, 0930 hours (11 and 1/2 hours after TLWO):


(Robert's last activity was posted here. I sort of forgot to post for him.)

Robert felt as though he wasn't putting in the effort and response expected from the yacht's owner. But Captain Kimball and her senior officers had the rescues well in hand. And his wife, Gwen, and the Majestic's Chief Steward, Kimberly, had the guests and uninvolved crew well in hand, too.

He found himself mostly just watching the scene unfold. He moved up a deck and forward for a better view. He leaned over the railing near the RIBs (Rigid Inflatable Boats). They were located directly behind the Bridge. He looked longingly back at them. Without working motors, they didn't have much value. The lighter weight, rowed inflatables were much more useful.

Robert watched the first of the boats nearing the Majestic. It looked as they'd said that the woman was alive. She clung tightly to the man who'd saved her life. The second boat came into view a minute or so later. From his height advantage, he saw what looked like two survivors. He looked closer, asking, Is that a child?

He hurried down toward the Swim Bay. But he came across Nick as the man rushed toward the infirmary. And he was carrying a child. No, not a child. A small girl. Maybe a young woman? It was hard to tell. She was wrapped up, head to toes, in a blanket. Her face was partially hidden by her wild, wet hair.

"Is she alright?" he asked Nick. He got only a grunt from the man.

Robert fell in behind the hero, Doctor, and Nurse. At the infirmary door, though, the Doc suggested that Robert give them some space. "Oh, yes. Of course."

He let the door go closed in front of him. After a moment of wondering what to do, he turned. The door behind him opened again. Nick stepped out, saying, "I got booted out, too, boss."

They chuckled. Nick asked, "Did you see the man in cuffs?"

Robert's expression showed his obvious surprise. Nick said, "I'm gonna go change and check in. Unless you need me for anything, Mister Parker."

The yacht's owner smiled. He noticed the shift from boss to Mister Parker. He wanted to tell Nick to call him Robert. But it might set a bad precedent. He offered his hand, telling Nick, "Thank you, for what you did today. That was fucking heroic."

"Thank you, sir," the big man said, shaking the offered hand. "It, it felt right. That's all."

The two went on their own separate ways.
 
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Infirmary

Day 1, 0930 hours (11 and 1/2 hours after TLWO):


(Continues with bits and pieces of many posts from above. No link necessary.)

"You're going to be alright, honey," Laura Sherman -- aka Nurse Laura -- told the girl as she and the doctor helped her up onto the examination bed. "We're going to take good care of you. I promise." She took hold of the blanket wrapped around the female, saying, "I need to take this off, okay? I need to make sure that--"

"No!" the survivor cried out, pulling the blanket tighter. She gave Carlton Pinchot a suspicious stare out of the corner of her eye.

Laura moved closer to the Doctor and whispered a suggestion that he leave the two girls alone. After the Doctor departed, Laura returned to the girl, asking, "Better...?" She got a gentle nod. "Can I take this?" she asked again, indicating the blanket again. "I need to check you for injuries. And I want to get you out of those wet clothes."

The young woman was still hesitant, so the Nurse diverted to introductions. "My name is Laura. They call me Nurse Laura." She smiled. "I kinda like it. You can call me that if you want." She paused, asking, "Can you tell me your name?"

Laura waited a moment, then heard the whispered name, "Claudia. I'm Claudia."

"Claudia, I like that," Laura said, smiling wide. He reached out slowly to move a wisp of the young thing's reddish-blond hair from her face. Claudia reacted negatively, leading Laura to say, "Sorry. I just ... well, you look like you might be a pretty little thing, but I can't see you behind that mass of mussed hair. I just wanted to see your face. May I?"

Claudia turned her head back to Laura, who again moved slowly to pull the hair from her patient's face. Smiling again, she said, "I was right. You are a pretty little thing. Well, 'cept for all this muck on your face"

Paula thought that maybe Claudia might not be as young as she'd initially thought. She told her, "Whaddaya say you let me get you out of this blanket and those cold clothes ... and then we'll clean your face and see if you're as pretty as I think you are?"

Claudia smiled timidly, then nodded slightly, but before they could put their plan in action, there was a knock on the door. Both of them flinched in surprise, then giggled. Laura said, "Let me see who that is."

Before she went to the door, Laura pulled the drape along its ceiling track to give the girl privacy, telling her, "I'm right out here. I'm not leaving. Why don't you get out of those wet clothes, okay?"

The girl nodded and slowly slid off the bed to the floor. Laura found Kimberly Kennedy and a female crew member at the door, escorting the woman who'd been rescued by Nick Paull. Paula gestured them inside as Kimberly asked, "Should I stay around ... help?"

"Yes, please, thank you," Laura said. She asked about the guy in handcuffs, learning that he was being held for now in the Swim Bay. The third crew member departed, while Laura helped Kimberly get the other woman -- Lana Owens -- to the second exam bed. Turning back to face the pulled drape, Laura asked, "How you doing, Claudia? Do you need any help?"

"You have Claudia here?" Lana asked with shock. She surged forward between the Nurse and Chief Steward, yanking the drape back. Seeing the younger woman stripped down to her pants and bra, she cried out with joy, "Baby girl!"

The two practically slammed into one another in a desperate embrace, each sobbing in delight at the other's presence. They looked at each other, with Lana seeming to show a big sister caring for Claudia. The two crew members gave them time to finish their emotional moment before Laura said, "Well, it's obvious you know each other."

Lana, smiling wide, explained, "Claudia is my little sister. I thought ... I feared she'd been killed."

They embraced again; the older woman was laughing with joy as he younger one sobbed with relief. After another long moment of joy, they finally separated, and to the surprise of the Nurse and Chief Steward, began whispering to each other in a foreign language.

"I think it's Portuguese," Kimberly whispered to Laura. "Maybe."

They listened to the pair continue their private conversation for several minutes, each of the women peeking nervously occasionally toward the Majestic's women. Finally, seeing her little sister shivering, Lana looked to Laura, saying, "She need dry clothes."

"You both do," Laura said, seeing that the older sister was also shaking. "We'll take care of you."

Laura and Kimberly got the two stripped out of their wet clothes and into a double layer of scrubs to protect them against the cold. Kimberly promised, "I'll get you both something more appropriate and more womanly later--"

The Nurse cut in, "But right now we need to get you cleaned up and check your vitals and make sure you aren't suffering any long-term exposure." Each of the women had been in the Pacific for almost half a day. Lana and Claudia agreed, and the four of them set to washing the survivors' faces, hands, and more.

Only after they'd cleaned the younger sister's face up and haphazardly brushed her hair out to free it of debris from the plane crash did Laura and Kimberly realize that she might be older than they'd initially thought. The Chief Steward asked, "Claudia, can I ask you how old you are...? For your chart?"

"I'm 18," Claudia," answered. She thought she saw doubt in the crew member's faces. She laughed softly. "People always think I'm younger than I am." She located her pants and dug a passport from her back pocket. It dripped water, but luckily, passports were created to survive such treatment. She handed it out. "See?"

Kimberly took it, checking it. She shrugged, saying, "She's 18 ... as of--" She laughed, adding, "--as of yesterday."

Without the joy that normally comes with the words, the girl said, "Happy birthday to me."

"I'd like to get my sister someplace warm," Lana said. "Is there a place where we can lay down ... rest, maybe get some sleep? We haven't slept in a while."

"Of course," Kimberly said, handing back the passport. "Finish dressing and let Nurse Laura finish checking you out. I'll go figure out a room for the two of you." Laura began the conclusion of her work as Kimberly added, "I need the Doctor to sign off your release, though. You both okay with that?"

"Yes, of course," the older sister said.

"Okay, well, I'm going, then," Kimberly said. She headed out, looking for the Doctor wherever he'd gotten off to.
 
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Robert Parker

Day 1, 0945 hours (Getting close to 12 hours after TLWO):


(OOC: Robert's last activity was posted here. I'm getting ready to go to sleep, so I'm going to burn through all of my characters very quickly. That way when you are next online, you can post to your heart's content. And I like the way you bold links, so I'm going to start doing that, too. So easy to find the names.)

Robert had been booted out of the infirmary by Doctor Pinchot so that he, the latter, could tend to the two female airplane crash survivors. (Ironically, the Doc would get booted as well, not that Robert would know that.) The yacht owner made his way back to the Promenade Deck to check in with Captain Kimball. Karen and most of the others had already disbursed, though. The action out on the sea had ended by now.

He headed aft to the stern. He looked for the passenger aircraft fuselage. A crew man on watch there told him, "It went down. Five minutes ago maybe." He pointed aft. "You can still see some debris, but there weren't no more people, so..."

The man shrugged. Robert understood. There was nothing more to be done about the plane. The whole incident was a mystery, though. What were the chances that the Majestic had gone totally dead, and a jet aircraft had fallen from the sky in the same place at about the same time?

For the first time since this had all begun, Robert thought the words electromagnetic pulse. He was smart man, an intelligent man, a well-educated and well-informed man. And EMP made sense. But so did a massive solar flare. Actually, a flare made more sense.

Whatever, he thought to himself. I have things to do.

What Robert wanted to do was locate Connie and get his knob buffed. What he needed to do, though, was find Gwen and make sure she was handling this all okay. He began a search around the boat. He asked person after person if they'd seen his wife. Eventually, he found her. He moved up to her, hugging her, kissing her, asking with a truly sincere tone, "How are you, my love?
 
First Officer Victor Carlson and the cuffed man, Troy Vance

Swim Bay

Day 1, 0945 hours (Almost 12 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from the bottom of this post.)

Victor looked to Second Officer Zoe Nance as she herself looked at the cuffed man. Troy Vance had said he wouldn't speak of his choice of wrist jewelry to anyone but the Captain. Victor said to him, "Fine, you're going to get your chance."

He and Zoe escorted the man to the Majestic's bridge. Robert Parker may not have known where the Captain was, but Victor had runners keeping him aware of everything. Well, most everything. He didn't know about the family reunion in the Infirmary yet. He didn't know that the two female survivors had been whispering to one another in Portuguese either. Only two crew members had heard that. And even they didn't know what it was about yet.

Entering the bridge, Victor caught Karen's eye. She finished what she was doing and turned to him. She showed no surprise at the handcuffs. She'd been informed already. Victor reported, "Captain, our visitor here says he'll only explain his current state to you personally."
 
Robert Parker and Nick Paull, as the rescue concludes

Day 1, 0945 hours (Almost 12 hours after TLWO):


(Nick's last activity was posted here.)

Nick left the Infirmary and headed directly to his cabin. Normally, he would have been sharing it with one other member of Deck Crew. With the expanded staffing, he had two additional bunkmates. It was crowded to say the least. And Nick was a bit man. So, he tended to take up space as it was.

He found the cabin unoccupied. The others must have been working elsewhere. He stripped out of his wet shorts and boxer-briefs. He hung them to dry. It seemed pretty obvious that they weren't going to have regular laundry service for a while.

Still naked, he flopped into his bottom bunk. He needed sleep. First Officer Carlson had told him earlier that he'd more than earned the rest of the day off. Nick wouldn't take the whole day, of course. There was too much to be done. Besides, he's only done what was right. He didn't in anyway consider himself a hero.

Unless Kimberly Kimball wanted to think of him as such. Nick wondered whether or not the beautiful Chief Steward had noticed him being heroic. He reminded himself, Get it out of your head, dick! You can't be fucking her. Workplace romances are like century old dynamite for you. Unstable and certain to blow up in your face.

Nick knew that he needed to wait for Honolulu to get his cock wet. The population of the State of Hawaii was 1.4 million. He'd surely be able to find at least one hot, wet pussy eager to have him inside it.

He realized that he was getting hard. With his eyes closed, he reached a hand down to grip his shaft. He knew it would feel good to masturbate right now. Particular to the image of the Chief Steward bouncing energetically in his lap. But Nick was tired. He dropped his hand to his side. A long moment later, he was asleep.
 
Brent Mack -- Engine Room Mechanic

Day 1, 0945 hours (Almost 12 hours after TLWO):


Brent Mack had been one of the first to follow Nick Paull off into the water after the Captain had ordered an inflatable into the ocean. He, too, had stripped to his underwear and dove into the Pacific. It wasn't the Olympic medalist dive of the other man. But at least he hadn't belly flopped.

He'd helped row out to the rescue site, helped the woman into the boat and then Nick, and helped row back once again. By the time they got back, he was feeling the burn. He was a man in good shape. He worked out almost every day. But this had been a great amount of exertion without any warmup. Brent knew it was going to hurt tomorrow morning.

He helped store the boats and equipment, then headed for his cabin. Like Nick, he was now sharing space with an additional pair of crew. One of them snored like a chainsaw. There had been serious conversation about throwing the man overboard after getting him pissed on whiskey. Okay, maybe not serious. But conversation none the less.

He changed into dry clothes, then headed out again. He checked in with the Chief for work detail. He was unsurprisingly tasked with helping on the water and sewage situation. He grabbed some tools, grabbed some subordinates, and headed topside.

They were still developing a plan to pump water to tanks that would be placed on the Majestic's upper deck to create pressure head. After attaching flexible pipes and forcing open check valves, they could cause flow through the designated toilets. It wasn't glamourous work. But someone had to do it. And it was far better than having people shit in buckets all throughout the yacht. Brent had no doubt who'd be tasked with taking those to the rail and dumping overboard: Engineering!

(OOC: Those are the only people I have to post for at the moment. Go for it, Alice.)
 
Gwen Parker and her husband, Robert (OOC link)

Day 1, 10:00 am (12 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from here.)

Gwen had been bounding from place to place during and following the rescues of the three crash survivors. She'd assisted or been assisted by nearly every Senior Officer aboard the Majestic: the Captain, the First Officer, the Chief Steward, and the Engineering Chief, who had been grumpy with Gwen despite her being half of the team that wrote his paycheck. And then there had been the non-crew of the yacht who'd interacted closely with Gwen: her husband's Personal Assistant-slash-sex toy; her own Personal Assistant whom notably was not Gwen's sex toy but on whom her husband had once hit; and some of her guests, who'd jumped in to help because either they actually cared about the survival of the three airplane craw victims or because Gwen had quietly told them that not to do so could be detrimental to their lives, reputations, and/or businesses once the whole of them finally reached Honolulu.

An hour after the whole incident began, Gwen was exhausted enough -- more mentally than physically -- to believe that it had been three hours or more. She was a skilled and capable businesswoman who'd turned a small fortune into a vast one through her quick thinking and forward planning, but this -- with all of its limitations and restrictions caused by the power failure -- had been taxing.

By the time she'd heard that all three survivors were being properly cared for. and her guests were relatively comfortable, either back in their staterooms or elsewhere on the yacht, all Gwen wanted to do was return to the Grand Stateroom have a drink -- yes, it was ten in the morning -- and drop into a deep, comfortable armchair and rest.

It was, of course, just then that Robert reappeared after having been absent from Gwen's presence for the entirety of the hour-plus long mayhem. She couldn't help but wonder -- but, ironically, not care -- whether or not her husband had spent that time in some dark room getting balled by his sexy PA. There was a reason Gwen had permitted Connie to so easily accompany the couple on the trips they took together to distant cities and countries over the years, when having his PA at his side hadn't been necessary: if kept Robert off of Gwen, freeing her up to do the things she wanted to do for herself, with those things only occasionally being finding her own sexual satisfaction, more often than not via the skills of professional men.

If was true: Gwen Parker liked her gigolos. She had her favorites in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, London, Paris, and Berlin. She even had regulars in Tokyo, Dubai, and Singapore, men who she didn't see but maybe once a year but with whom she spent nights that made her happy to be a woman of means. Gwen and Robert never talked of such things, just as they never talked about the sexy blonde PA for whom he leased a condo and luxury car and spend untold sums of money to retain her services to him. But Gwen was certain that her husband knew she partook of these men and their wondrous services.

"How are you, my love?" he said with a genuinely sincere tone when he took her into his arms.

"I'm fine, my love," she responded as she most often did when he greeted her this way. She held him tightly to her a long moment; despite their fun outside their bonds of marriage, they truly were deeply in love with one another; it was unlikely that either of them could function the way they did -- in their personal or business lives -- without the other in their life. "It was horrible, seeing that woman out there in the ocean, floating there, all alone, desperately clinging on to life.

"And then to learn that that little girl was trapped inside that plane, minutes, seconds from drowning," she continued. "How horrible. I wonder who they are? Were they traveling alone? Did they have family on that plane? Did they lose their families?"

Neither Gwen nor Robert had heard yet that the woman Nick Paull had saved, Lana Owens, was the older sister of the girl/woman who Victor Carlson had saved, Claudia Owens. Gwen already thought that both a yacht and a passenger airliner failing in the same location of the vast Pacific Ocean was outrageous, but when she learned that two sisters had each been saved from that aircraft and brought aboard the Majestic, her mind was simply going to spin from the unlikeliness of it all.

Gwen suddenly found herself feeling overly emotional, amorous, even horny. She looked up into her husband's eyes, stood on her toes to kiss him, repeated the kiss a bit more erotically, then whispered, "Make love me. I need to feel you inside me, Robert."

She didn't care whether her husband had just come from his PA or whether his cock was still coated with Connie's saliva or pussy juices. Gwen simply needed to be held, to be pleasured, to be satisfied just long enough to make herself forget all the mayhem and madness through which she'd been going.
 
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Karen Kimball and Zoe Nance (and Victor Carlson as they deal with Troy Vance)

The bridge of the Majestic

Day 1, 1000 hours (12 hours after TLWO):


(Continues from the bottom of this post.)

Captain Karen Kimball cleared the bridge of everyone but herself, her First Officer Victor Carlson, her Second Officer Zoe Nance, and their newest guest, the shackled man who they would only learn was named Troy Vance when he deigned to tell them his name. The man had said he would only explain his situation to the Captain of the Majestic, so now he was going to get his chance.

Karen had never been much of a fashionista, but she could identify nice clothes if not by their labels at least by their style and quality. This man was dressed in such good quality clothes, even if at the moment they were mussed by salt water and bits of debris from the plane from which he'd been rescued.

"I have been told that my people--" Karen began, looking directly at Troy's immediate savior, Victor, before turning her attention back to the cuffed man, "--risked their lives to get you out of that sinking fuselage. So, if you don't mind, please tell me ... who are you, why were you in that plane ... why in the world are you cuffed, obviously..."
Karen's tone shifted just a bit from her interrogation mode to more of a simple searching for answers one as she finished, "...and what can you tell me about why your plane went down out here in the middle of nowhere."

She didn't say anything to Troy about the Magestic's power issues, not feeling that he needed to know anything about them right now. Still, anyone paying attention would have noticed that every piece of electrical equipment on the bridge was deenergized; there wasn't a single indicator light; the radar and computer screens were black; and other than the sound of the wind passing through an opened window nearby, there wasn't a sound to be heard other than her own voice as she questioned the man.
 
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