CHAPTER XIV
Kara was streaking over the ocean, clear skies overhead, she had seen the breaking news banner appear at the foot of a news channel and she had immediately set out on her journey.
In her wake the sea almost parted, a fine mist was being kicked up by her passage. She zoomed past a ship and then another, and quickly she was above the green hills and dales of a landmass below. The sheep and cows were a blur as she continued onwards, faster and faster. Over a city and another harbour then back to the water and a smattering of small craggy islands before hitting land once again. Quickly she gained altitude, the mountainous terrain rising up to meet her, then the loughs fell away below again as she crossed into the North Sea.
In the distance a column of smoke grew darker and darker, taller and taller. In the distance she could see the platform, a raging jet of hot ignited gas venting furiously out one side of some kind of vertical pipe work rising from the ocean.
A nearby ship had dispatched small inflatable boats and they circled like bees around a vibrant coloured flower. A bright yellow helicopter hovered over the water, a winchman suspended on a cable was just above the surface, his legs wrapping themselves around a victim in the water.
Kara tried to take it all in, rescue seemed to be going to plan but she decided to set down on the rig itself and see what could be done. Scanning the area with her vision she observed a group of men making their way to a lifeboat capsule. One by one the queued, each in turn clambering into the pod as a man in overalls counted them all off.
With a final glance back to the gantry the man entered the capsule and sealed the hatch. There was a pause, ten or twenty seconds and then the sound of a siren as the pod ran down its rails to be ejected from the side of the platform.
Just as the pod was about to clear the rig there was an explosion which rocked the structure. The capsule froze on its rails, trapped precariously close to a new jet of flame. Kara looked at the situation, she could try and blow out the flame but gas would continue to flow until it reignited again and using water would only do the same.
Easier to remove the people from the hazard for now. Flying off the platform she reached in under the escape pod and began to loosen it from the rail. Now beneath the pod she flew it clear of the platform alongside the support vessel and gently lowered herself into the sea until the pod's buoyancy took hold.
Returning to the platform Kara used her vision to check for more survivors but saw none. Even doing a quick circle of the platform she saw no more people in the water. This had been a very successful rescue and she didn't really have to do anything. All that remained was to extinguish the fire, but how? She could try and crimp the pipe though it looked difficult to achieve a good seal but she had to try. By the first break the metal glowed and she decided to try there, carefully pushing the metal together. The metal, now malleable began to fold together, constricting the jet of gas, sending the ever thinning jet further and further out.
The gas began to whistle like a furious steam train as Kara folded the metal in on itself. Grabbing a redundant piece of pipe from above she tore off a section like it was tissue and patched a hole using her heat vision to fuse it to the temporary cap she was creating. Slowly but surely the gas jet diminished until the lack of air extinguished it, a few last sporadic moments of flame appearing as she finally sealed the cap shut.
"Done" she said to herself.
Setting down on the support ship the evacuated crew were making their way out the escape pod up a ladder to the deck.
"Is everyone ok.did you all escape...?" Kara asked of one of them.
"Aye, lassie, thanks t' you...." Said one of the Scottish oil workers, his broad accent revealing his origins.
"What happened?" Kara asked.
"Eem not sure....gas alarms sounded off, we shot doon , and boom, guess the line just fractured, the old girl took a beating o'er winter..."
Kara loitered in the area a while until it seemed all had settled down and then left, another little chapter in her life completed.