A sunken ship
Entry posted by λngelღмander
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A futuristic fishing trawler sailed through the water in the antarctic. This ship was part of an elite fleet that ran on a uranium reactor, and it's greatest feature was it's hull heating system, which allowed it to break through the ice like butter, as the ice wouldn't stick to the side of the hull if the hull was warm. The heated water used to cool the reactor ran through leaden pipes along the sides of the hull at exactly the level that the ship sat comfortably at in the water. As such, the reactor cooled it's superheated core, and the ship punched through the ice like nothing. Off in the distance, to starboard, a predatory polychaete worm prepared for it's attack. The ship had already punched through half of it's native ice sheet, and the coordinated worms intended to stop it before it could reach the other side and separate it from it's family. With a series of inaudible clicks, it communicated the plan to the members of it's unidentified species on the other side of the ship. They struck at once, slamming into the sides of the hull, splitting the hull and the leaden pipes inside with their gargantuan bodies. The scalding water poured out onto them all, and they were incinerated. What remained of the family of worms was a sad third degree burned cluster of corpses, nearly unidentifiable. A third degree burn usually means there is charring of the skin, but all it really implies is that the underlying muscle in the burned thing has been burned as well. Their muscles were certainly burned, their setae scorched off, their tentacles thoroughly heated. They collapsed from the onrush of water, and massive amounts of steam began to pour out of the pipes, the pressure keeping the water liquid leaving them. The steam was the captain's first clue to his ship's plight, his second was the alarm bells that the reactor was beginning to overheat, no more than a minute later. He scrambled onto the deck and looked portside. The steam flung itself out of the holes in the hull like people from a burning building, outward but upward. He ordered everyone off the ship, and began to fling the life preservers and other paraphernalia off the side of the ship. He flung the freeze dried food, and the MRE's with them, to his comrades. He ordered them away. One concerned passenger asked him what he intended to do.
"A captain always goes down with his ship." He went inside the cabin one last time, and looked at the temperature gauge reading over one thousand degrees Fahrenheit in the reactor room. At some point, it stopped functioning, though the captain could never figure out whether it had been the heat or the radiation that had killed the temperature gauge. He looked forlornly out the window at his crew receding into the distance, and began to feel the room warming. He was only twenty feet above the reactor, after all. Half a minute, maybe five minutes passed, time became immemorial to the captain. The heat drove him to the corner of the cabin. He looked up at the table next to the wheel, for the last time admiring the smooth unmarred surface of the acrylic dome atop his marine compass. He noticed it flying in all directions, and realized that if he were to escape this alive, the radiation poison would kill him anyway. He then realized that must mean that the leaden case around the reactor had melted. He had not much longer before he sank. The only reason he hadn't sank yet was that all water that entered the leaden pipes was evaporating instantly, and forcing it's way back out, choking off the holes left by the worms. The lead only melted because it had a lower melting point than steel. The captain supposed the bottom of the hull would hold for a while, because it was atop cool water. The lacquer on the wood in the center of the room over the reactor began to bubble, and some time later exploded into flames. The spot where the the floor began to burn burned all the way through, revealing a melted steel roof to the room below. He became vaguely aware of the fact that the wood below his bottom became so warm it burned him. he stood, his well insulated boots doing their job as best they could. The water in his blood and cells had already been irreversibly turned into freeradicals, the DNA in his cells irreparably damaged. They ravaged his living cells, binding with anything they could, destroying his DNA further. To make his suffering end quicker, the captain ran and jumped into the hole. The moment his face reached the edge of the hole, and the red hot reactor was visible, his hair caught fire, his face began to melt. He fell in, not being able to jump before the agonizing pain ended his effort. He nearly completely evaporated before he touched the reactor. A few minutes later, the reactor finally heated the water under the boat enough to allow the hull to melt. The reactor, weighing no more than a car motor, slipped through the hole it melted, and the boat filled with water almost immediately. The water finally rushed into the lead pipes along the sides of the vessel, the reactor cavity filling with water. The reactor slammed into the seafloor, fish evaporated in it's wake. The ship eventually collapsed on top of it, less than a minute later. The reactor cooled, and the ocean became an area of adaptation and mutation. The end.
- λngelღмander
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