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A weird place to put this, sure, but I want it off my chest right now.
| “Everybody out! Coveralls, boots, then get out! Out! Single file, don’t rush the ladder!”
I put on my coveralls and tucked my boots at an impressive speed and climbed up the ladder to the main deck.
[...]
| The alarm changed to General Quarters, so I made my way back towards my station in the NIXIE control room. I fumbled and began walking aft along the starboard side against traffic (in GQ, you move about the ship in a clockwise fashion), but quickly realized my mistake and doubled back towards port.
[...]
fuck the character limit
|
| Passing the mess decks, I saw a man bleeding from his forehead and another man helping him to his feet. There were orders being barked, people buttoning up their collars, people battening hatches and doors.
| Passing the ladder to Berthing 3, I saw a friend standing by in nothing but his skivvies, body slick from seawater and possibly JP-5. His eyes were glazed, watching the last few of Berthing 3’s residents scrambling out of the ladder well as other people were getting ready to shut the hatch.
| At some point I ended up in the NIXIE control room, and I attempted to make comms with Sonar Control. Two more men entered moments later. We made ready to deploy NIXIE (torpedo countermeasures) if needed, as we still weren’t sure what the situation was.
| At some point the phones stopped working, so my Neanderthal brain thought it prudent to use ship’s intranet email to keep comms with Sonar. I don’t recall if it worked or not, but I can’t help but be a bit embarrassed for doing so. This was during rolling power blackouts and brownouts.
| A runner was deployed from Sonar and showed up to make sure all was well. After he left, the 1MC (ship’s intercom), which had been barking updates from the Damage Control Assistant, buzzed with the Captain’s voice finally updating us on the situation.
| We had collided with another ship. All hands submit muster reports.
| I remember thinking that I was glad it wasn’t the Chinese. To be honest I had very little training at the time to deploy NIXIE, so if the threat were a torpedo, we’d be shark salad.
| I was extremely conflicted on whether I should leave my General Quarters station to go and help with the damage control efforts. Hindsight is 20/20, and I still do believe that I should have left, even after one of my officers told me to stay put.
Survivor’s guilt, I suppose.
| An unknown amount of time passed as my adrenaline drained.
The ship was still floating, and we were limping slowly towards Singapore.
| Nature finally called, so I opened the porthole in the back of NIXIE (again, hindsight) and pissed into the night. The significance of such an action not registering until awhile later, after sunrise, when I opened the porthole once again to relive myself only to see Neptune’s welcome mat inches from the lip.
Sobered, I pissed on his doorstep, and firmly closed the porthole.
| While reports were slowly trickling in, they kept calling names over the 1MC to report to the bridge for muster. At first, it was twenty names, then eighteen, then fifteen, and I dared to hope the stragglers would be accounted for.
The com barked ten men’s names. Then again. Then once more.
| Ten men. Four of whom I was personally acquainted.
| A mega-nerd who I used to get into heated arguments about videogames with.
A search-and-rescue swimmer, real headstrong type. We had a good-natured rivalry.
Two men who would always greet me in the passageways with their own bone-crashing handshakes.
And six more men. All gone in a moment of poor judgement.
| You must have quite a huge chest to hold all of these in it.
| That's fucked.
| Lol
| This is a very valuable perspective
| >tfw you'll never NOT know that strange relief when at least one of your drinking buddies survived that bull
(´•ω•̥`)
Cheers 'mate.
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| I'm drinking and wanted to get another perspective out there.
___
I woke up about ten minutes before my alarm, set for 0530. I let out an annoyed sigh and savored the warmth of my covers as I waited.
Then the whole ship shook.
FC1 and I poked our heads out of our rack curtains and stared at each other for a moment. My first thought was a rogue wave. My second thought was the Chinese. I didn’t have time for a third thought before the Collision Alarm sounded.
[...]