With only sixteen hours and 340 kilometres separating the TGOG-72 Platform from the full force of 265 kph winds, the two hundred and twelve-member crew gathered in the platform’s cafeteria, collectively praying for rescue off the platform, or failing that, safely endure in place the approaching monster storm.
While the crew prayed, the conditions outside deteriorated markedly. Already, wind gusts approached hurricane force, while bands of squall lines, both the first significant effects of the storm system, lashed the platform, while the waves grew angry and taller, slamming at its base pillars.
John Tillerson, a veteran of ten years on the platform, worked to secure a valve only to have the wind nearly sweep him off the deck. A safety harness saved him from the reach of the boiling ocean below.
Thereafter, the crew remained inside awaiting word on whether there would be an attempt to evacuate.
Their radio cackled to life, with a simple, “TGOG-72, rescue is underway. Arrhazonan craft will land in twos. You should assemble 12 to each craft for boarding.”
Ken Morse, in charge of the platform, rushed to the radio. Grabbing the microphone, depressing the talk switch, and speaking all in one motion, he advised of current conditions. “Houston, we have hurricane force wins here currently, accompanied by heavy rain from a just approaching squall.”
Houston did not respond. In its stead, Ken heard a clear-channel voice with which he was unfamiliar, one feminine, pleasant, calm, friendly but to the point, and in his mind, quite British. “TGOG-72, you are advised to implement the following protocol. All crew boarding the landing crafts should tether to one another in groups of twelve.
Our propulsion systems do not cause wash. Your only concern is weather conditions and your place on the platform relative to reaching each craft. You will board each craft by the side door, which will face toward the platform, kept from exposed areas as much as possible.
Any questions?”
“Yes. Who am I speaking with?”
“Jahrae Khentavra.”
Ken knew that name; there was no need for further explanation. “Thank you, Jahrae, and on behalf of my crew, thank you and all of your team for lending a hand.”
“You are more than welcome Ken. Ours will be the first craft to land. Llhaesa will off board and join your crew inside.
The remaining craft will not be here for another hour; we caught the AISV performing routine diagnostics and maintenance on the crafts at the time of my order to assist your crew.
Once on board the crafts, we will bring the crew to MacDill Air Force Base in west-central Florida.
ETA for us is five minutes. I will take 12 off the platform immediately; have them ready to go outside and board as soon as you see us alight.”
“Are you sure you can fly in these conditions?”
“If you are last to board, Ken, we’ll take you on a leisurely and comprehensive tour of the hurricane.”
“I guess that answers my question. All right, see you in five.”
A half hour earlier, back in Henna, 2,280 kilometres away from the offshore platform, Jahrae went to work overseeing the evacuation, ordering the full complement of 17 craft available to marshal for the southern Louisiana coast.
Somewhat chagrined to find all craft save Chekresu underwent maintenance and thus were unavailable for close to an hour, Jahrae ordered the operation suspended and the craft placed back into service. Even Mmurha was aboard the AISV and undergoing maintenance.
Jahrae continued working to get the operation co-ordinated, deciding she, Addison, and llhaesa would depart immediately. With Jahrae managing the effort from on board, llhaesa piloted Chekresu southwestward, heading for the Mississippi Delta and beyond to the platform.
Setting the craft down door side toward the inner platform, llhaesa disembarked, while Addison remained on board with Jahrae. Twelve of the crew came out, each tethered in a human chain to prevent the wind from sweeping them off the rig. The twelve made it aboard safely, and Jahrae immediately took them off, heading east.
Llhaesa struggled against the wind, moving toward the inside of the platform. Reaching the door, one of the crew opened it for her, closing the door behind her once she passed. Inside, she gained awareness of the sound of howling wind, for in the midst of struggling against it; sound was not her primary invoked sense.
“Hi,” llhaesa called out in greeting, pulling off a waterproof, body-fitting slicker and hood, designed for use in strong wind.
Ken had not had a chance to mention llhaesa boarding, providing the crew with details on evacuation procedure only.
Hearing her voice, some turned and startled, instantly realising who was now among them. Various voices called out a greeting, the greetings merging into a cacophony of sound that llhaesa still understood as a warm welcome.
“Unfortunately, we have almost an hour to wait until the fleet of craft arrive. At that point, things will move quickly. It is important we move in sequential groups of twelve, but it is also important to remember only two groups will load at one time.
There will be a brief interlude between sets, probably one no more than five minutes, allowing the craft to depart and two more to land.
Until then, all we can do is wait for their arrival. If anyone feels like taking their mind off this storm, I offer my singing services, and welcome anyone who wishes to join in, be it one or all of you.
If singing is not what you have in mind, well… we can always tell jokes. Bottom line here is you are all going to be safe inside of two hours, and let’s find a way to get there quickly, instead of losing ourselves in worry.”
“Llhaesa, do you do any spiritual songs?” one crewmember asked.
“Yes, I certainly do, although I hope that a song written to suit one person’s spiritual needs – me – is all right for you. I prefer not to proclaim my spiritual belief publicly, and instead try to write such songs in a way that most everyone can find a connection, in whatever way works for them.”
“That would be great,” the requestor called back to llhaesa.
Llhaesa began to sing, although without amplification she could not sing the song as per her usual way of rendering the performance. Normally she started softly, but most would not hear given the roaring wind outside.
Projecting her voice, she sang of connecting in the ethereal, of inspiration from the ethereal, of existence to the ethereal. The song embraced hope; it inspired others to hold their belief close to their heart, always in an affirming way.
For llhaesa, the meaning might be different than it was for the crewmember making the request, but in the end, both found the fulfilment that mattered within their lives.
Llhaesa connected to the universe, to its life energy contributed by all beings, which represented all beings, consisting of was all beings. She was a part of the whole, equal to the rest, although her connection, her ethereal interface of choice, was goddess; the one whose name Jahrae carried.
Llhaesa always loved the symmetry of it all, and she sometimes wondered on the symmetry of it all. A coincidence; of that she was not at all certain. The universe worked in mysterious ways, but it surely made a positive and obvious mark more than once upon her life.
That was the inspiration for the song when she wrote it, then as well as the inspiration as she sang it now. In her mind, we all contribute to the well-being of one another.
Her voice filled the small cafeteria room, grabbing people by the throat and taking them soaring upon an unexpected spiritual journey. On the cusp of a category 5 hurricane, their safety still unclear, the lot of people in the room found their connection and followed her voice to it; sometimes unknowingly, their voice joined in and sang along.
The singing grew louder, the voices of the two hundred rallying. With her voice soaring, it took a while for llhaesa to realise all now sang along. She felt her heart warm, the warmth spread through her body, feeding on their connection, on their hope, offering her own in affirming reciprocation.
In one room, people of one world blended their spiritual selves with one of a different world. Physical concepts like space and time faded away, replaced by the joy of living and the inspiration of love.
Not wishing to end the moment too soon, llhaesa took it around for reprise, repeating the lyrics, this time taking the song to a rousing conclusion. Everyone in the room clapped; each one of the workers, llhaesa right along with them. They applauded…themselves, and a connection they could feel and not see, nor touch.
In the momentary pause and silence that followed, all there could hear the wind singing back, as if displeased that this solitary collection of workers still dared to stand in its path. The platform vibrated, almost keeping its own shuddering time.
Someone checked current readings, yelling out a new gust of 158 kph. They were in category 2 winds now. Rain relentlessly rattled the outside walls, the walls projecting its rhythmic rattle, a contrasting beat to the vibrating platform, overdubbed with the singing wind.
“All right everyone, I think we need to do another song. Choices or preferences?”
One in the back, someone llhaesa could not see, yelled, “Please sing Forever, Wherever. My wife and kids evacuated from New Orleans.”
“That is a good and appropriate choice. For all of our loved ones, may they know what we carry in our hearts,” llhaesa proclaimed, loudly. This was her most famous work, one she wrote and sang knowing her life was in imminent danger of ending, that others were ready to strip it away.
The song carried the bundled package of the totality of her love, an aural remembrance for her love – for Jahrae.
This time, no one else joined in, each realising that this was a song best sung in each of their hearts and in each of their minds. They let the virtuoso ply her vocal magic, taking sound and shaping it as if clay, moulding yet sharing, such that others could ponder and appreciate and make it their own.
And this is what each did. As llhaesa sang of Jahrae, others heard her sing of their loved ones or one, felt their hearts reach out across space and time to wherever they were in this moment of crisis.
Llhaesa closed this song out by taking her voice softer, until those closest to her heard but a whisper. She held up her hands palms out, symbolically asking the others to pass on the applause, which they graciously did.
The next was a song of defiance, one written against the conduct of an oppressive regime, which she reworked on the fly, resulting in a song proclaiming their strength standing against the storm.
Thereafter, llhaesa managed another four songs, the end of the fourth interrupted by a violent shuddering that resulted in a noticeable shift in the platform.
Ken walked up to llhaesa and quietly whispered, “The last gust was close to 200 kph, llhaesa. What we felt was the action of the ocean, it bent one of our supports; this structure is going to fail. I am ordering everyone into life vests.”
Opening a storage compartment, he handed llhaesa a vest and began passing the rest out.
After putting on the vest, llhaesa flipped open her mobile, using the Arrhazonan satellite connection to communicate. “J’har, where are things? We are pushing the limit here now, and are donning life vests.”
“Mum? Mum, this is Addison. We are off your boarding side now, with 15 other craft waiting with us. We will pick you up last. The first two craft are setting down now.
Please know the platform is lilting, and the boarders will walk on a slight incline. We will make use of a connecting tether; each team of twelve should latch this one to the first person, connecting all to the landing craft.
One more thing, mum. This area is just outside a section of storm with sustained winds over 220 kph, and time is short.
Two craft are on platform; go!”
“Acknowledged and out, Addison.” Llhaesa motioned for two sets of twelve, the pairings already set, locking in their respective tethering.
Llhaesa moved to go out with them, but Ken grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?”
“I fly those craft, Ken. I know what the crew has to do to be safe.” Without another word, she was out the door with the team, leaning hard into the wind, pushing, driving her legs hard just to move forward.
The team waited on the edge of the landing platform, llhaesa hurried as best she could, reaching the front and grabbing the connection from the first craft. Locking it, she moved on to the other as the craft pulled them in.
Both craft were off inside of three minutes, with the next two setting down. A strong gust knocked llhaesa down, requiring her to reach out for solid purchase and hold on. Ken was with her now, and he was screaming, but she could not hear him.
Motioning for the next two teams of twelve, they were out and in the craft in 30 seconds less than the first two teams. The next two took three minutes again, as it seemed the resistance of the wind grew yet fiercer.
Another violent shudder tilted the platform to a stronger angle. Along with this, it seemed to twist slightly, changing their orientation relative to the waiting and hovering craft.
The loading took longer now, pushing four minutes, but she and they struggled onward. Llhaesa breathed a heavy sigh of relief as they reached the final pairing, the 16th and 17th loadings of this mission.
The sixteenth boarded and left. Unfortunately, before she could tend to the final team, the platform notched forward towards failure, slowly. Now listing at a noticeable 20° angle, this lifted the platform, placing a broader section in the path of the wind, as if now an anchored sail. It had little ability to stand against the relentless action of wind and wave for long.
Llhaesa struggled to reach the connection from Chekresu, getting her hand on it just as the tether connection from the eleventh to the final crewmember broke free.
Disconnected, he slid down the platform on over the edge, the man finally gaining a solid grip on a pipe a metre down from the edge of the platform. Below this was a two-metre square section of sheet metal, housing machinery. Standing on this housing while retaining a firm hold on the pipe, he waved one arm up over the edge, signalling to the waiting remainder of the crew.
Relieved to see the crewmember apparently hanging on, llhaesa motioned for Ken to get the other eleven on board Chekresu. Before he could object, llhaesa engaged what she would later describe as ‘a controlled slide’ down to the edge, where she reached for another pipe the other had missed on his way down.
Holding her feet wrapped on the pipe, she reached over the side and grabbed the fallen crewmember’s arms, her long and strong fingers making the difference in encircling his wrists. With some unfathomable inner strength and will, calling upon all her Aailhra symbology, llhaesa pulled the man upward, onto the deck.
Chekresu stood waiting as the man scrambled upslope, albeit carefully, successfully reaching the waiting craft. Llhaesa saw Addie pull him on board while she waited, catching enough of a breath to make her attempt to climb for Chekresu.
Releasing her foothold on the supporting pipe, llhaesa began her climb, making headway, reaching the halfway point, moving beyond. In that instant, another powerful wave struck, with the platform twisting slowly further into a steeper incline.
Jahrae had to lift Chekresu off the platform for safety reasons, manoeuvring around and closer to llhaesa, not able to get close enough, and too late. The platform surged again, sending llhaesa off into the roiling and angry water below.
Watching inside Chekresu, Jahrae and Addie screamed in unison.
“Addie, hold this craft steady, I am going in,” Jahrae declared, leaving her seat.
“Mother, sit down,” Addie had a hand on her mum, gently stopping forward movement. “You can fly Chekresu, I cannot. I’m going in.” With a rapid turn and powerful steps, Addison was gone before Jahrae could reach her daughter. Wearing an electronic enhanced water vest or EEWV, Addie dove out the open door, into the menacing threat hidden in the darkness below.
With little choice, Jahrae jumped back in the pilot’s seat, taking the craft low to the water, just above maximum wave height. Locking it in with settings that would compensate if stronger wind and wave action occurred, she activated flooding light outside, as well as their array of visual displays.
Jahrae could see Addison just below the craft, while llhaesa was thirty metres away, to Addie’s northeast.
With Addison wearing waterproof communications gear that included an earpiece, Jahrae called out llhaesa’s location, using a lime-green, focused beam to point the way.
Employing powerful strokes, Addison swam toward llhaesa, at times swimming upward vertically, at times downward vertically, making limited progress rolling in waves that now pushed 23 metres from trough to crest.
Not knowing that Addie was in the water, llhaesa saw the guiding light from Chekresu, though it was harder to see given the line was not far from directly in her face. She swam forward, toward the craft, reprising in opposite directions Addison’s wild ride across the unstable surface of the Gulf.
In an unfortunate moment of ill timing, an unanticipated wave break spattered hard at her, resulting in a sizeable ingestion of salt water. Llhaesa tried to spit it out as best she could, but the water burned at her insides, pushing her to vomit.
Needing all her strength to not succumb to the sea, the involuntary retching left llhaesa struggling. On board Chekresu, Jahrae could see llhaesa retching, as well as the resulting inability of her to overcome and push onward.
Addie grew nearer, but in that water, Jahrae knew one could move right past someone not a metre away. She silently called upon her spiritual connection, her symbology in Aailhra, in her mind’s eye guiding Addison and llhaesa toward one another.
“Addie, you are near llhaesa,” Jahrae called out, seeing each on opposite sides of a wave crest, barely two metres between them if in placid waters.
The two flowed through two other cycles of trough and crest before Addison took her mother in her arms, realising llhaesa was now unconscious. Holding her mother’s head out of water, Addison worked the built in vest harness, wrapping it tight around llhaesa before triggering the electronic retrieval signal and interface.
Addie signalled using her outstretched arm, her hand motioning upward. Inside Chekresu, Jahrae activated the lift mechanism, which automatically adjusted for weight of load and substance and any resistance, working an invisible connection.
Addie, her arms around llhaesa and holding tight despite the now locked in vest, held her mother with every ounce of love that ever found a place in her being. Addie could see llhaesa’s head lying limp to one side, praying that she was not too late in affecting rescue.
The unseen force, emanating from just above Chekresu’s side door, sucked the mother and daughter tandem out of the resistant water, a feeling Addie later described as ‘surreal’.
This was essentially the same technology that carried the fishing boat back to the New England coast a year and a half before, now in use on a limited and modest scale, except programmed to bring those rescued to the craft’s side entry door.
With Chekresu on autopilot and at a height away from wave action, Jahrae reopened the door, pulling both inside with a hard tug on the binding holding llhaesa to Addie. The door closed shut as Jahrae hit the side switch with her elbow, giving her an extra second to drop and check on the unconscious llhaesa.
Her head turned to one side, llhaesa spit up more salt water, though she remained unconscious. Jahrae flipped llhaesa over and pressed heavily upon her back, forcing residual water out of her lungs. Only a trickle flowed out.
Llhaesa coughed once, twice, and one additional time, her eyes weakly opening, her hands trying and failing to lift her body out of its prone position.
“Addie, help me get her out back,” Jahrae called. Between both, they gently raised llhaesa off the floor and got her to the medical area. Jahrae stripped off the wet clothing, dried her, and placed llhaesa in a bed, ordering her wife to rest. Llhaesa did not object.
Returning to the main cabin, for the first time Jahrae noticed the 13 rescued crew watching intently. Realising they just experienced a harrowing evacuation and dramatic rescue of llhaesa, she assured them all was stabilised “and we can bloody well get out of here.”
Looking at the array of instrumentation, Jahrae noticed wind speed now registered an astounding 275 kph. This sent her to the time, for such wind was only possible near the eyewall.
Unbelieving, she digested how they had been on scene for three hours, while Addie and llhaesa were in the water for almost ninety minutes of that time.
Engaging, she set off for Florida, her mind realising the platform was gone, and that New Orleans would likely not be standing in twelve hours. It could not stand against such a ferocious combined assault of air and sea.
Elsrensia waited at MacDill, Jahrae having forewarned of the ocean rescue of llhaesa. Fortunately, llhaesa was in overall good shape, needing only minor treatment to get her up, moving about.
Morning dawned bright, the Arrhazonan family having stayed in Florida aboard their craft overnight, too tired to bother moving in the wake of the rescue.
Curious to check on the crew of TGOG-72, Addison, Jahrae, and llhaesa walked to the mess hall, where the entirety of the crew enjoyed breakfast.
Ken Morse spotted them walk in, and near knocked a table over in his haste to reach and thank them. “What I witnessed in the past fifteen or so hours are memories I will never forget,” he began.
“The storm itself – I am unsure whether you are aware of this – took out New Orleans; it no longer exists, the area is now part of the Gulf. We stood on the front edge of that storm, my crew and me, and you.
We thought our remaining time on this planet was down to the last few hours. Then you three showed up. You and your colleagues from that ship with her name,” he teased, pointing at llhaesa. “All of you did the impossible, safely evacuated everyone.
Llhaesa, you eased our minds, you inspired hope. You brought us together and you sang. While a storm threatened outside, it was as if the real Mother Nature was inside, singing, consoling, and always ready to assist. Never have I heard something more beautiful.
That…was only the beginning. When one of my crew was almost surely lost, you risked your life to save him, pulling him back from the edge. In the process, you fell into the full fury of the ocean that tried to claim us all, and this one” Ken now singled out Addie with a point of his index finger, “this one goes out of your craft, in after you, emerging over an hour later with her mother tight in her arms.
I will never, ever – and I mean that, not ever – forget this young one’s incredible act of bravery. I know of no one, save possibly the two of you, who could have accomplished what you did, Addison.”
“It is funny you say this, Ken,” Jahrae replied, her mouth betraying a playful combination of happiness and amusement.
“Our daughter, not two weeks ago, earned the highest award given for courage, decisiveness, and resourcefulness in adverse circumstances, although she has yet to receive the award. It awaits her on Arrhazon.
Only moments ago, I received word that Addison will receive a second such award. While our highest honour is less than two decades old, no other Arrhazonan in the whole of our history has ever received the world’s highest honour, twice. My daughter, you have done this in two weeks.
Now might you see your way to cleaning your bedroom?”
