Chapter 29. Maxim
MAXIM
“It’s too dangerous.”
I say the words to the entire group, but Dr. Larnyard is the one I pin my hard stare to.
“What do you suggest, Kingsman?” he snaps. “We stay on a sinking ship and die in the ocean?”
A few of the university students gasp at the word “die.”
This motherfucking idiot.
“We’re not going to die,” I reassure them, taking a moment to look directly at the youngest students. “I won’t let that happen.”
Grim meets my eyes with raised brows. His message is clear. How you gonna keep that promise?
“We’ve been hit,” Dr. Larnyard reminds us unnecessarily. “We were three degrees to the right yesterday, and now we’re how many, Captain?”
Captain Rosteen glances from his tilt meter to me. “Five degrees now.”
“Two degrees in a day is significant,” Dr. Larnyard says. “We need to get off this ship. Some of those ice floes are a full acre. We can take rafts to those and wait there to be rescued.”
“Except no one can make it to us right now,” I say. “And we don’t know when they’ll be able to. You’d have us in tents on an acre of ice in the middle of a blizzard?”
“It’s the best of two evils.”
“The best would have been if we’d listened to Kingsman in the first place,” Grim snaps. “And stayed ashore where our chances would have been better.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that now,” I cut in.
We have enough we’re fighting without fighting each other, but I have to talk some sense into Dr. Larnyard before he actually convinces anyone to follow him into a deadly storm.
“We need to find the best way out of our current circumstance, and I cannot endorse leaving this ship in a storm this bad.”
“And I cannot endorse staying on a ship sinking into the Southern Ocean,” Dr. Larnyard fires back. “This is your first Antarctic expedition, Kingsman, yes?”
“Yes,” I grit out. “You know it is.”
“Well, it’s my fifth,” he says. “And I’ll be damned if I let some amateur with a superhero complex lead our team into a death trap.”
“ Him lead us into a death trap?” Grim asks, anger imprinted on his usually stoic features. “You were the one who—”
“Grim,” I snap. “Shut the hell up. That’s not helping.”
There’s a brief silence while our angry eyes clash in the tension filling the ship’s meeting room.
“I’m leading this expedition,” Dr. Larnyard says. “It’s my call to make, and I say we take our chances while we can. If the storm worsens, it’ll only make it harder for us to leave later and get to safety on one of the nearby ice floes. It’s now or maybe never.”
His dire words spark a flurry of concerned murmurs from the team, just shy of panic.
“I’m staying with my ship,” Captain Rosteen says. “I’m not saying it’s the safest option. I’m saying this is my ship and I won’t abandon it until there is no choice left to me.”
“I’ll go with them,” one of his crew members offers, his dark eyes anxious when he glances out the porthole to the howling storm beyond.
“I’m not leaving either,” Grim states firmly. “It’s not the smartest option.”
“I’m staying,” I add, hoping reason will prevail if enough of us push for it.
In the end, most of the group decides to stay aboard the ship.
Even as Dr. Larnyard and about a third of our team prepare to take a few rafts to the nearest ice floe, I keep watching the radio, willing someone to call and say conditions have improved enough for them to fly in and rescue us.
It’s not safe on this ship. I know that, but it’s our best hope.
I watch through the porthole when Dr. Larnyard and his contingency load into a few rafts, insulated in their extreme-weather gear and pressing into the howling winds.
“Fool,” David mutters from my left.
“Asshole,” Grim adds from my right.
“I hope they don’t regret leaving.” I blow out a worried breath. “Hell, I hope we don’t regret staying. Any word from anyone?”
“Nope,” Grim says. “Visibility is shit, and no one with half a brain would risk trying to fly into this storm right now. It’d be signing their own death warrant.”
I hope we haven’t signed ours.
___________
It’s only been a few hours when we hear a shout from outside. Grim, David and I run to the porthole.
“Shit,” I say through clenched teeth. “I told that stupid bastard.”
If it wasn’t for the bright-red jacket, I wouldn’t be able to make out the figure bobbing in the icy water through the sleet and snow. A tent floats not too far from him, picked up and tossed carelessly by the screeching winds.
“Larnyard,” Grim mutters.
“Is he dead?” David asks.
The frantic movement of Larnyard’s arms answers his question.
“We have to help him,” I say, crossing our room to grab my puffy jacket and slip on my extreme-weather gear.
“Motherfucker,” Grim says. “I’m not risking my life for that buffoon.”
“Well, I am. If you can live with yourself knowing a man drowned not even a hundred feet away and you did nothing, go right ahead. Not me.”
“King, you can’t,” David says, grabbing me by the arm. “You gonna die for that idiot?”
“We have to try. At least let’s talk to the captain to see what he says.”
Captain Rosteen already stands at the railing, his grip white-knuckled as he holds on against the wind.
“What can we do, Cap?” I ask, tugging the woolen toboggan lower over my ears.
He shakes his head, resignation in his eyes. “Someone would have to go out in that to get him.” He tilts his head toward the roiling waves, rising walls of water surrounded by icebergs. “I won’t. We all heard you urge him to stay.”
“So lesson learned?” I ask, anger and disbelief warring inside me. “Yeah, he made a dumb call.”
“The last of many,” Grim interjects.
“But we have to try.” I swallow my own dread. “I have to try. I’m not asking you to go. Just help me.”
Captain Rosteen looks doubtful but then nods. “We could tie a rope around you, put a life jacket on you, and send you out in a raft.”
The wind whips so hard against the glass of the bridge’s windows, it’s almost like the storm is daring me to take up such a foolhardy mission.
“Let’s do it.”
“King,” Grim snaps, grabbing my elbow. “You idiot. I’m not letting you do this.”
“You think you can stop me?” I step closer to him. “I don’t have time for this, Grim. Either help me or get out of my way.”
He releases a frustrated breath, his brows dipping so low they shadow his eyes. “Cap, make it two ropes.”
I nod grimly and slip on the life jacket.
The rope is tight but only so long. It’s been a matter of a few minutes, but Larnyard’s red jacket seems farther away.
Grim and I grab a lifesaver for Larnyard, climb into the raft, and start paddling toward him.
He’s still bobbing up and down wildly, screaming over the storm, but the rope between us and the ship catches.
We’ve gone as far as we can, but we’re a few feet shy of Larnyard’s struggling figure.
Shit .
It’s in that moment I realize how truly vulnerable we are. We strive for control, for power, to rule our small domains. But in the end, one wave, one storm could toss us beyond saving. I don’t know where the winds and water will take me, but I untie the rope from my waist.
“No way!” Grim screams over the wind. “King, no.”
“I have a life jacket,” I yell back at him. “His chances are better if he has one, too. We’re too close not to try, Grim.”
“You keep saying that shit.”
I grab the lifesaver and dive into the icy water. I press through the water toward him, my arms fresher than his but still struggling against such powerful waves. I’m grateful for even a few seconds of the wind lessening enough for him to hear me.
“Larnyard!” I shout. His wide, frightened eyes meet mine, and he starts frantically swimming against the heaving waves toward me.
I toss the lifesaver, keeping the rope end in my tight grip.
He grabs hold of it and manages to slip it over his head.
I tug on the rope, pulling him closer, even as the winds and waves pull harder.
I start swimming toward the boat, feeling his heavy but reassuring weight as I cut through the water toward the raft and Grim’s outstretched hand.
“Damn idiot,” Grim mutters, pulling me into the raft and adding his strength to drag Larnyard by the lifesaver’s rope toward us.
We immediately start paddling to the ship and the ladder lowered on its side, waiting for us.
Grim scrambles up and Larnyard follows, dripping and shivering.
Icicles are forming on my life jacket, and I know the frigid water only adds to the dangerous cold.
I’m probably mere minutes from hypothermia despite the extreme-weather gear.
My teeth chatter, and my bones rattle. They have to pull me the last few feet when my exhausted arms and legs finally give out.
I’m drawing a huge sigh of relief when one last gust of wind tosses me as I’m climbing back onto the ship, slamming my head into the railing, and everything goes as dark as the Antarctic sunless winter.