SEA OF FIRE
On the Beach
After the excitement of the test, the day ends down on the beach, while they watch the lights of the passing ships and enjoying a feast that the twins prepared Indian Style steaming shellfish over hot coals in the sand. They even gathered the fresh oysters and clams that are the highlight of the meal.
It’s all five star, and TK gets to try out his latest invention, Miracle Whip tartar sauce, which he and the girls developed with scientific zeal, if not precision, simultaneously creating a laboratory-sized mess in Nerissa’s kitchen. But it tastes great! At least as far as TK and the twins are concerned. Everyone else passes in favor of the old unimproved tartar sauce, or even just a little lemon and pepper. The shellfish are truly delicious! Soon everyone is relaxing, watching the stars, the fire, or listening to the bark of the seals and the lapping of the waves.
Without warning, the idyllic evening is brought to abrupt end by TK’s excited shout, "Look, there’s a fire out there!"
Everybody else see the flames immediately. They look like they’re out toward the middle of the strait, in the shipping lane the supertankers use as they go back and forth to the nearby refineries.
Terry and Nitro head up the hill to see what kind of information they can pick up on the CB scanner, TK wheeling closely behind. Sure enough, it’s a tanker fire and the emergency band is already alive as rescue boats are hurriedly dispatched. By the time Celeste arrives at the truck, the Coast Guard is already announcing that they have found the crew in lifeboats and are picking them up, but one man is still unaccounted for.
Helicopters are on the way to aid them in their search for the missing man, but it will take them at least another thirty minutes to arrive at the scene, which is a long time in a situation like this. With flames swirling and spreading about the deck of the tanker every second counts.
Team in Action
Terry turns to say something to Nitro, but he isn’t there, he’s already in the back of the trailer putting a fresh separator disc in RocketBike and getting it ready to fly, as usual Terry and Nitro are on the same wave length.
"With RocketBike’s new slow flight capabilities, I should be able to fly over the area slow enough to help them with their search," says Terry as he puts on his silver flight suit and helmet.
RocketBike is quickly ready to go and the four of them touch hands in a quick affirmation of team unity. Terry gets on the bike as Nitro hits the elevator switch to lift Terry and RocketBike to the roof.
Below, TK turns on the computer so they can receive data from the bike and communicate with Terry. Celeste puts on a set of headphones hooked to the CB scanner so she can monitor search reports from the Coast Guard.
The elevator reaches roof level. As Terry prepares to launch, he looks to the west, where a good portion of the sky is now bright orange from the fire. Won’t be hard to find, he thinks as Nitro’s voice fills his headphones with a steady stream of launch information.
Blast Off
TK gives the countdown and at zero, Terry hits the green button. Man, he thinks, these launches are unreal. They almost make me forget about riding SuperBike.
By the time Terry gets over the rush of the launch and gets his bearings, he’s out over the water and nearly halfway to the burning tanker. He looks down as he passes over a Coast Guard cutter. Hope they’re too busy searching to notice me, he thinks. We want to keep this flying bike thing kinda under wraps for now.
He’s in luck. Everyone on the cutter is staring out at the searchlight spots on the water, hoping to spot the missing crewman. Nobody looks up and notices the strange vehicle rapidly passing overhead. This flying at night is alright, thinks Terry. It’s almost a full moon so the visibility is good, and he’s now close enough to the fire that it’s orange glow lights the water and tanker deck.
Sea of Fire
The fire has spread out around the ship as its spilling fuel ignites. Flames stream skyward from the surface of the waves, fanning across the water in gusts of dark and oily smoke. Terry takes it in from the air as he approaches. It’s worse than it appears from the shore and he radios a status report to the team.
"It looks pretty hopeless if that guy ended up in the water. Everything’s on fire down there." Terry completes his transmission as he leans into a banking turn over the huge vessel. Mid-turn, he notices something very interesting.
Although there is fire all around it on the water, and even though one end of it is totally engulfed in flames, there seems to be an area right down in the middle of the giant ship, perhaps some sort of raised deck, where there is absolutely no fire at all. Making a tight turn, he comes in lower, feeling the heat as he looks down into the flames.
Help
Then he spots something else. Something that looks like a man, it is! He’s about half way down the raised platform. As Terry passes over him, he can see that the man appears to be on his knees. Maybe he’s praying, thinks Terry, and I don’t blame him. This situation doesn’t look too good.
"Man, I hate fire!" he says to himself as he pulls up steeply over the flames which are pouring from the ship’s bridge windows.
These supertankers are longer than three football fields, and the middle platform surrounded by fire looks like a nice, long and well-lit runway. Terry comes around fast and heads straight for it.