A click behind him caused Jake to snap out of his train of thought. He looked around expecting to see Max or Lucya. Instead, for the second time he found himself looking at the wrong end of a gun.

“You’re girlfriend isn’t here to save you now sonny.” Ibsen said. He was having trouble standing up straight, was clearly still somewhat concussed.

“I still don’t understand why you think we must die, Captain?” Jake blurted out the first thing that came to mind, playing for time. He stood slowly as he spoke.

Ibsen grabbed the open door to steady himself.

“Because it is God’s will, Jake. You can see that, can’t you? God meant for everyone to die today. Punishment for our sins against this planet no doubt. But by a freak of nature we survived.”

“Maybe it was God’s will we survived?” Jake took a step towards his captain.

Ibsen fired the gun.

Thirteen

LUCYA RACED THROUGH the labyrinth that was deck three. She charged straight past the express elevator that would, under normal circumstances, have carried her to the bridge. But this ship was without power, so in the dim glow of the emergency lights she carried on to the stairs and started to climb.

Seven decks later, and out of breath, she arrived at the bridge. There was a group of passengers outside, banging on the door, shouting angrily.

“You can’t hide in there all day. We demand to know what’s going on,” a large woman dressed entirely in red called out in a high pitched voice.

“You ask us to go to our cabins, but how are we supposed to do that when there’s no light in half the ship?” another passenger bellowed. He held his hands in a circle around his mouth as a makeshift megaphone.

Lucya could hear more angry people approaching. This was, she decided, not the best place to hang around for long. She couldn’t imagine Max was on the bridge. Given his nature he wouldn’t have stayed in there listening to the angry mob, he would be out there confronting them. She headed back to the stairs, went down a deck, and outside to where she had last seen fires burning.

The air outside had cleared considerably since she had been on her mission to free the burning lifeboats. Most of the fires were out, and the ash in the atmosphere had drifted away on the breeze. It was cold again, the arctic chill bit at her cheeks.

She found Max organising a group of older men, fighting one of the remaining fires. A storage locker filled with deck furniture was burning furiously. The men were armed only with tiny red fire extinguishers that they must have found somewhere inside, in a bar perhaps. Max was showing them how to aim at the base of the flames for maximum effect.

“Max. Max!” Lucya called at the top of her voice. The hiss of the extinguishers discharging in bursts made it difficult to be heard. She sprinted over and pulled him round to face her.

“What’s the panic?” Max asked, clearly surprised to see her.

“Johnny’s dead.”

Fourteen

AT THE PRECISE instant Captain Ibsen pulled the trigger, Jake lunged towards him. A tenth of a second’s hesitation and he would surely be dead. Instead, he knocked Ibsen through the open door and the two of them crashed to the floor of the corridor. The gun clattered to the ground and skidded away from the men.

Jake had never been in a fight in his life. He had no absolutely no idea what he was going to do, his plan had extended no further than avoiding being shot. Now he’d achieved that, he had lost momentum, and therefore the advantage. Ibsen was stunned, but his considerable size and weight gave him the upper hand. He rolled over so that he was astride Jake, and dealt him a heavy right hook to the cheek. Jake saw it coming, and though he wasn’t able to avoid it entirely, the fact he had begun to move his head away meant the blow lost some of its force. Even so, as the captain’s knuckles connected with his face, he felt a flash of pain like he had never experienced, and everything went out of focus. Instinctively he lashed out with both hands curled into fists. Ibsen grabbed the left hand, but the right caught him in the gut, winding him. Jake tried to wriggle free, but the big man was not so easily beaten. He pinned his left hand to the ground, and wrapped his right around the young man’s throat. For Jake the world came back into sharp focus, then started to fade as the supply of oxygen to his brain was cut off. He wriggled and squirmed, but to no avail. He could feel the life begin to drain out of him, and once again found the sense of calm he had felt the first time the gun had been pointed at him that day.

The gun. Where was the gun? His head began to swirl. He saw Lucya standing over him. Why wasn’t she helping? Lucya turned into Jane, his estranged wife. She was holding a baby, his baby. He reached out to touch the infant, which is when he realised he still had a free hand. Gathering all his will, he refocussed his eyes. Ibsen’s face was deep red with the effort of pinning him down and strangling him. With a monumental effort, Jake thrust his free hand forward, stabbing his fingers into the captain’s eyes. Ibsen roared with pain, flew backwards, releasing his grip as his hands flew up to his face. Jake pulled his own hand away and rolled onto his side, choking, gasping for breath. Ibsen was on his knees. One hand covered his eyes, blood streamed down his face. The other thrashed around wildly, trying to find its target. Jake tried to roll onto his front, to crawl away, but as he did so a hand found his ankle and closed around in a grip that nearly crushed his bones. He felt himself being dragged backwards, and pawed helplessly at the smooth surface of the linoleum floor, desperately trying to escape the claw-like grip. When a second hand grabbed his other ankle, he knew the game was up. He had no strength left, nothing with which to fight back. The image of Jane flashed before his eyes once again. Her lips were moving, she was saying something, speaking almost silently.

“The gun Jake. Get the gun,” she mouthed.

He looked around desperately, but there was no sign of the gun. Ibsen was reeling him in, and there was nothing he could do. Then he spotted it. A shadow on the dark floor. A tiny glint of reflected light from the shiny surface as his head was dragged past it. Not the gun, but a shard of glass from the smashed champagne bottle. His right hand shot out and he grabbed it just as Ibsen got a hand on his waist and yanked him towards him. Jake was still face down, and Ibsen was put a knee in his back, pinning him to the floor. He could feel him lean over him, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he felt those hands approach once more. With one final effort, he gripped the glass and thrust it behind him as far as his hand would go. Ibsen was a big target, and his proximity meant Jake couldn’t miss. He felt the glass meet resistance, and pushed it as hard as he could with a grunt. The sharp edge of the shard cut into Jake’s hand. Ibsen gasped. Jake felt hot blood spurt out around the glass. He had no idea if it was his own or the captain’s.

“No! What have you done? What…what…” Ibsen rasped, then gurgled. He keeled over onto his side. As he did so Jake felt the glass slide out of his hand, cutting it even more deeply. Freed from the weight of the captain, he attempted once more to roll himself over. But he was spent, had no energy left. With blood pouring from his hand, he passed out.

• • • • •

When he came round, Jake found himself lying in his own bed, back in his cabin. For a brief, blissful moment, he thought perhaps that recent events had all been a bad dream. The sight of Max, Lucya, and Grau crowded round the end of the bed quickly put paid to that idea.