The helicopter lurched forwards as it surged through the air, over churning waves and frothing foam, the navigation lights piercing through the dusk. The glow of the setting sun cast a dull orange glow over the horizon, the light bouncing off of the water’s surface into a vast kaleidoscope of hues that reflected on the tinted windows of the utility helicopter. Its blades spun in the air, agitating and swirling the sky around it with unnatural force, the screech of the turbines disturbing the peaceful atmosphere above the sea.
On the horizon, lay a vast, floating mountain. A monument to engineering, a monolith of human ingenuity and defiance amidst insurmountable odds. Towering beams of iron and steel, a palace of pipes and wiring, of lights and sounds. A living machine, breathing through ventilation systems, circulating blood through thousands of miles of electrical wiring. Born in a shipyard and delivered by engineers, unbothered by the burdens of the sea, and unhampered by the complex systems of the waves.
“Echo Lance Rig Control, Helibus 412, 10 miles out, inbound for landing, 4 POB, ETA 5 minutes, over.”
“Helibus 412, Rig Control, roger that. Winds 140 at 12 knots, deck clear. Call 1 mile.”
…
“Echo Lance Rig Control, Helibus 412, 1 mile final.”
“Helibus 412, helideck remains clear, you are cleared to land.”
With a final roar of the engines, the helicopter’s skids fell to the helipad of Echo Lance, the colossal rig bobbing in the waves as a soft misting of rain fell on the deck. Off of the helicopter came a few men wearing hardhats and high-visibility jackets, their faces weary and streaked with rain. A crewmember from the rig stepped forwards to greet them, shaking the hand of one of the helicopter’s passengers as the helicopter’s turbine engine wound down with a high-pitched mechanical whine.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I trust the ride wasn’t too bumpy?”
The men didn’t seem to share the same attitude, exchanging skeptical glances with each other before one of them cleared their throat and nodded curtly. “Are you the Offshore Installation Manager here?”
“The same,” The manager replied, gesturing vaguely for the men to follow him. They walked in silence off of the helipad and on to the slippery surface of the rig’s topside where assorted sizes of pipes, wiring, valves, and structural members turned the area into a complex maze of crude machinery that was unsurprisingly quite easy to get lost in. They walked down paths that had been carved through the chaos by the crew towards Building 1, on the southwest corner of the rig. It served as the command and administration center, nicknamed “The Brain” by the crew aboard. As the team stepped inside, the smell of old plastic and poor ventilation permeated throughout the facility, the air suffocating and stuffy.
“Good evening, sir. We’re with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to conduct a routine inspection, as you may have predicted already.”
The manager nodded, turning to the BSEE inspectors with a thoughtful gaze. “Yes, I thought so. We’ve been expecting your arrival for quite some time now. Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Indeed it has. Too long.” The inspector studied the manager’s relaxed demeanor with a critical eye, finding his casual approach to the workplace mildly infuriating. He reached out to run a hand against the grimy walls of the administrative offices, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“Smells funny,” one of the inspectors noted. The team paused to look up at the towering oil derrick on the rig, sniffing the air silently.
“Yeah, we’ve had that issue in the past. I assure you, it’s purely a ventilation issue,” The manager quipped, pointing an accusatory finger at the old vents scattered about the roof, dust clustered at the edges.
“I see. Well, they do look quite… antiquated. We’ll make a note of it and move on.”
After handing the inspection team some paperwork and office materials required for the inspection, the team stepped outside to tour the rig, the soft rain nothing but a minor inconvenience as they went around, glancing around to ensure nothing major was off. Almost immediately, a crew member rushed up to the manager, the soft patting of their footsteps alerting the inspectors to their presence.
“Sir, there’s been a pressure spike in separation tanks 1 and 2.”
“Hm. Are they off-scale high, or…?”
“B-both are off-scale high, sir. Off the scale.”
The manager nodded and dismissed the worker with a relaxed wave of his hand, turning to the inspectors who raised a curious eyebrow at the suspicious comment.
“Nothing to worry about, fellas. This rig is quite old, and as such some of the gear has, err… worn out over the years. It’s an instrument problem, we’ve had those before.”
Irritated by the interruption, the team kept walking around, noting the puddles of dirty water and mud scattered around the deck.
“You should really clean this place up, someone could–”
The inspector was cut off by the manager, who raised his hands in a placating manner, his confident demeanor cracking slightly under the stress.
“Everything is under control, I-I assure you. Everything is just fine, gentlemen. Let’s get a move on.”
“I didn’t say things weren’t under control, I was just saying that–”
“Moving on! There’s a lot to see…!”
The inspection team glanced at the mud for a moment, lowering their clipboards in disbelief as they continued on, unable to hide the small tremble in their steps as they walked around. Once the inspection of the rig’s deck was concluded, they descended below through a flight of stairs to the various monitoring rooms and stations full of glowing monitors and flashing screens, the dim light provided by the room’s faded light bulbs casting long shadows on the crew’s faces as they walked. A few workers and crewmembers busied themselves around the various rooms on the lower level, checking and double-checking gauges and dials, writing them down and typing them up into computer terminals.
“What is that? I hear, a… a–”
“J-just a faulty cable, I assure you. We’re working on replacing it as quickly as possible! As you can see, our monitoring crew has made sure that Echo Lance stays up to code, proudly serving as a cornerstone of Ridgeway’s engineering accomplishments. Everything is up to date, and kept in prime condition for our work.”
“...I see.”
After the tense exchange, the inspection team focused on the computers. They poked and prodded at the bulky, boxy construction of the devices, their faded displays flickering green. A couple of them raised eyebrows at the old wiring that connected the terminals to the wall, where insulation was flaking off in small chunks.
Meanwhile up on the deck, a worker that had been monitoring the pressure inside the separation tanks that dominated the rig’s topside with lax, almost careless regard, began to notice a strange, almost imperceptible hiss. He stood up from the chair which he had been leaning back in, trudging over to the dials and gauges that adorned the wall of the rig’s control room. 70 PSI? That couldn’t be right. The tanks were only designed for 65 PSI, as marked on their sides with bold black industrial lettering.
Just as he went to warn the manager, he caught a glimpse of the inspection team rising from the stairs, making their way to the helipad. He overheard their conversation, pausing to listen in.
“Well, it seems that while your facility does have some issues, the majority of them are minor, and could be fixed. I’ll have my workers EMail you a list of recommendations by next week, and the final verdict given by the safety council will come at a later date.”
The manager shook the inspection team’s hands, and politely saw them off as they boarded their helicopter once more. As the blades spun to life with a thunderous roar and a screech of the turbines, the hissing audible in the control room grew to a high-pitched shriek as leaking gas began to spread across the rig, the worn control valves sticking in place in their shut configuration, trapping the gas. Even as the chopper rose above the rig and the landing skids lifted away from the pad, the pipes began to buckle and burst, with nowhere for the gas to go. The sound of bending and cracking steel echoed over the rig, hanging in the air like a dark shadow.
Turning away, the helicopter began to make its way back towards the mainland, when a sudden, bright burst of light washed over the vehicle and the surrounding oceans. A bolt of white-hot flames, as brilliant as the sun erupted from the containment tanks as they ruptured violently. The shockwave slammed through the rig’s topside with unprecedented violence, smashing and twisting the equipment apart, pressure waves bursting through walls and windows, rolling through the control room and crew compartments, sending crewmembers flying like toothpicks carried away in a hurricane. The towering derrick erupted into a colossal mass of flames and debris, the mangled structure blown upwards by the blast, shockwaves impacting the monitoring rooms below the rig’s deck, followed a surge of flames and infernal heat that ripped through the rooms, turning the rig’s into a hot, hellish version of itself.
Fires erupted and consumed the various buildings and structures, while others were simply blown apart as if they were made of cards, collapsing without warning. The huge cranes positioned on either side of the rig were torn off of their bases and flung to the side like toys, crashing into the churning seas below with a whoosh of spray. Battered chunks of ruined machinery punched through walls and compartments, the scatter of debris shredding anything and everything in its path, as the entire rig detonated in a colossal cloud of flames and ash. A fiery explosion, that sent flaming debris flying in all directions as the rig blew apart, explosion outshining the sun for a brief moment.
Hundreds of feet away, the shockwaves finally struck the helicopter like a slap, a violent push that sent it tumbling out of control. The inspection team had only seconds to gaze at the explosion on the horizon in muted horror, before the vehicle’s aerodynamic loads were exceeded and the tail sheared off with a sickening crunch. The twisted remains of the machine fell to the sea below, where they impacted the sea below, promptly sinking to the cold, unforgiving depths of the churning waves.
Even from the mainland, the explosion could be seen as a white flash of light that rose over the horizon ominously, followed by a dark cloud of soot that rose over the horizon like a demon throning over its perverse work. Smaller explosions ripped through the charred, blazing remains of the rig, but there was nothing left to destroy. Only a blackened, ruined hulk, listing heavily to one side, its topside marred with scars and deep gouges where structures and buildings used to stand, the collapsed wreckage of the derrick laying over it, charred and melted.