Tides of Fire, page 26
What came next was an entirely different tactic.
He turned to Captain Stemm for an update. The Aussie’s lips were bloodless lines of tension. “Eight kilometers,” he reported from the radar station. “Are you certain it’s the Chinese?”
“With this entire region burning, all military forces are likely bogged down in rescue operations. Including the U.S. Pacific Fleet. So, that’s no random ship, especially coming at us so fast. It’s gotta be hostile.”
Monk had expected Chinese reinforcements. He had been waiting for them, but he had hoped for more than an hour’s reprieve. He hated to rush Bryan in re-outfitting the Cormorant, but he had no choice.
On the screen, the pilot ushered Adam and Phoebe through the DSV’s upper hatch. The submersible still hung by its chains.
Monk raised the radio to his lips. “Now or never, Bryan.”
The pilot was too busy to respond, at least over the airwaves. Bryan lifted an arm toward the CCTV camera and flipped him the bird, then dropped after the others. He yanked the hatch closed over him.
Monk turned to Captain Stemm and held the radio at his lips. “On my mark!” His instruction was for many listeners, not just the bridge. “NOW!”
The captain shouted to his crew. “Starboard bow thrusters! Portside stern thrusters! Full power!”
The Titan X vibrated hard as the maneuvering thrusters on both sides of the yacht fired up simultaneously. With a great surge, the ship started a slow turn while still holding its position, making an eighty-thousand-ton pirouette.
Monk imagined that burbling cacophony if heard from below.
But that still wasn’t enough to satisfy him.
A moment ago, his command had also reached the lone technician in the DriX control station in the stern hold. The man set both units to pulsing their sonars in a continual cavalcade of pinging.
On the CCTV monitor, the Cormorant dropped from the A-frame and crashed into the water. There was no time for a gentle lowering into the sea. The craft bobbed up once, then quickly plunged away.
Safe travels, Monk wished them.
But he should’ve saved some of that hope for himself.
Captain Stemm swung around. “Picking up another bogie! At the outer reach of our radar. Coming in at eight hundred kilometers an hour.”
The captain had barely finished his warning when something shot over the yacht, low enough that it swept ash from the top of Science City in its wake. The bandit tilted its nose up and blasted into the ash layer and vanished.
“Lost it,” the captain shouted over.
Monk had briefly glimpsed its triangular shape, the V of its wings.
A stealth drone.
Probably a Hongu Sharp Sword or maybe a Flying Dragon.
Either way, it was likely heavily armed.
He stared to the west, from the direction it had come. The boat speeding toward them couldn’t have launched it. The drone had to have come from another, likely larger, ship out there.
Monk stared at his toes.
Maybe I should’ve gone with them.
7:43 A.M.
Adam pulled himself fully back into the rear seat of the Cormorant. The jolt—as they struck the water, bobbed back up, then plummeted into the depths—had left his heart pounding in his throat and his stomach somewhere near his knees.
But it wasn’t just the impact that had him shaken.
He glared at the seat ahead of him.
Dr. Datuk Lee had braced himself, with a grip on his chair and a palm on the curve of titanium overhead. The only evidence of their hard plunge was that the man’s eyeglasses had slipped to the tip of his nose. With the Cormorant stabilizing into a steadier fall, Datuk settled into his seat and secured his glasses.
“What is he doing here?” Adam called forward to Phoebe and Bryan.
“I asked him to join us,” Phoebe said.
Bryan nodded. “I agreed to it, too. I added three more ballast weights to our exterior, but we could use every extra ounce. The heavier we are, the faster we’ll fall.”
Adam swallowed and gazed out at the dark water.
When he had entered the submersible behind Phoebe, he had found Datuk already seated there. Busy elsewhere, Adam had failed to note the Malaysian biochemist boarding the craft. By then, it had been too late to protest. Bryan had clambered in after them, took his seat, then ordered the crane’s emergency releases to be blown, dropping them into the sea.
Bryan was now checking the Cormorant’s systems. His board was all green, except for two dark lights. The repair crew had swapped out the fried circuits, refitted in new oxygen tanks and batteries, and inspected the rest. Still, Adam knew Bryan wasn’t happy.
I’m not either.
Phoebe must have noted his anger at her invitation. “We don’t know what we’ll be facing down there,” she explained. “We need all the expertise we can scrounge. We’re lucky Datuk was willing to risk this descent.”
Adam wouldn’t call it luck.
Phoebe rolled her eyes and turned to Datuk. She knew what worried Adam and addressed it point blank. “Dr. Lee, are you a Chinese spy?”
The man stiffened, looking aghast. “What? Me? Why would you ask me that?”
Phoebe turned to Adam. “See. Nothing to worry about.”
She returned her gaze forward, clearly settled on the matter.
Adam, though, was not persuaded by Phoebe’s interrogation methods in the least. But there was no going back.
Bryan reminded them of the more immediate danger. “Maybe we should all keep quiet for a few minutes rather than squawking about.”
All eyes turned to the windows. Phoebe picked up the acoustic headphones and donned them. She winced at whatever she heard.
Adam stared up. Monk had offered them plenty of sonic cover to make their escape. Between the thrusters, the rumbling waters, and the sonar pinging, the hope was to mask their descent, to momentarily blind and distract the hunter-killer.
But was it enough?
They needed to reach six hundred meters. After that, the sub—even its torpedoes—could not travel any deeper.
Or so we had better hope.
Naval intelligences were notoriously cagy when it came to revealing the true crush depths of their submarines and ancillary weapons.
Datuk monitored their depth gauge.
So did Adam.
Three hundred meters . . .
Phoebe kept an eye on a small screen that showed a glowing schematic of their location. Their navigational position was fixed by the three landers on the seabed: Huey, Louie, and Dewey. The screen was fuzzy and flickering with interference. The Cormorant appeared as a winged blip dropping along a gradient. The seabed glowed below in bright colors, courtesy of the last echo-sounding. The fissure was also evident, showing as a gaping black scar.
Adam watched the winged dot speed toward there.
Four hundred meters . . .
Phoebe gasped and ducked lower in her seat.
Adam leaned forward. “What?”
She glanced back. “A huge ping just struck us. Far louder than the repeated blasts from the DriX. Hurt like hell.”
Datuk’s eyes got huge. “They found us.”
Five hundred meters . . .
Adam waved for the phones. Phoebe passed them over. He quickly pulled them over his ears. He closed his eyes. Noise filled his skull—a disharmony of tonal frequencies from Monk’s efforts overhead.
Adam tried to push it all aside, straining for one tell-tale signature.
As he did, an ear-piercing ping struck the Cormorant again, strong enough to ache his teeth. He flinched and waited as it faded into a receding doppler—then a new noise cut through. It was a low rumble that grew steadily in volume. A slightly louder bump interrupted it, confirming his worst fear.
It marked the slam of a torpedo hatch.
He opened his eyes and stared over Datuk’s shoulder.
Six hundred meters . . .
The rumbling escalated rapidly.
Phoebe stared back at him. He tried to mask his reaction, seeing no reason to panic everyone. Still, her eyes narrowed, and her lips tightened.
She knows what I’m hearing.
He held his breath.
The rumbling quickly drowned out all else—then suddenly stopped. He girded himself for an explosion, but nothing happened. The torpedo must have reached its crush depth and been disabled by the pressure. He pictured it toppling inertly into the depths.
He leaned forward and checked their position.
Seven hundred meters . . .
He sighed with relief and stripped off the headphones. Monk’s ploy had proven successful. The diversion had bought them enough time to escape into the deeper water—but just barely.
“We should be safe from here,” he said.
Datuk glanced back. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
The man sounded ominous enough that Adam half expected him to pull out a pistol and point it at Phoebe’s head. Instead, he motioned to his screen.
“Sensors are already picking up radiation.”
26
January 24, 6:50 A.M. NCT
Under the Coral Sea
Kowalski slid on his belly across the tilted floor. Above him, Byrd crouched in the auxiliary control room. Jarrah braced in the doorway. Haru and Jazz tumbled along with him.
“Hang on!” Byrd called out.
To frigging what?
Kowalski clawed at the steel floor and dug with his toes. The tier was tilted nearly vertical.
Seconds ago, he had spotted the torpedo speeding toward them. Upon his shout of warning, Byrd had yanked on the yoke, sending the nose of their submersible high. By then, they had been under enough speed that the sudden maneuver tumbled Kowalski out of the doorway and across the floor.
“What’re you doing?” Kowalski hollered over.
Byrd was too busy to answer. Kowalski slipped all the way to the far side. His boots hit the curve of glass behind him. Out the windows, lit by the exterior lamps, a huge shape fell past the underside of the tier, covering it completely. It filled the world out there. Kowalski recognized the giant section of decking from Titan Station Up. It was the chunk of debris they had been trying to avoid a moment ago. It cleaved through the water past them like the fall of a huge dark axe.
But that was not what Byrd intended it to be.
Rather than escaping it, the Aussie took on more ballast, sucking in ocean water. Their submersible sank alongside the fractured chunk of decking.
Kowalski understood.
The guy’s trying to use it like a shield.
That’s even crazier than—
The explosion shattered the ocean with a blinding flare of fire. The shockwave blasted the chunk of decking into their submersible and drove them through the water, sending them tumbling end over end.
Kowalski flew through the air, slamming into steel and glass, sliding wildly.
They all suffered the same.
It seemed to go on forever—until finally the spinning slowed. The tier made one last turn, then settled crookedly in the water.
Kowalski lay on his back, aching and rattled. His ears rang. He tasted blood on his tongue. He rolled to a shoulder. Jazz lay unmoving against one window. Haru sat up, cradling an arm that hung crookedly. Blood ran from his nose.
Jarrah and Byrd had ridden out the storm inside the control room. The limited space had kept them somewhat protected.
Kowalski groaned and wobbled to his feet. He glanced to Haru, who waved that he was all right, though his face was a mask of pain. Kowalski turned and stumbled over to Jazz. Along the way, he searched for any leaks, any cracks in the glass.
“How are we still alive?” he called over to Byrd.
The man checked his systems while explaining. “Submersibles are built to withstand up to twice the expected pressure of a dive. I achieved this with Tethys Tier, but only because it was the smallest section of the station. It’s why I picked this level to make our escape. She can withstand pressures of four tons per square inch. Despite appearances, she’s a glass-and-titanium tank.”
Jarrah sat heavily on the top step and added his own assessment. “The shielding from that chunk of decking probably blunted some of the blast, too.”
Kowalski reached Jazz, who moaned and slowly pushed away from the windows.
“Wh . . . What happened?” she asked blearily.
“Someone left an attack dog in these waters,” Kowalski said. “We must have strayed into its territory, and it caught our scent.”
Jazz shook her head, addled and still feverish, struggling to make sense of his words. “Dogs? Underwater?”
Kowalski checked her pupils. One was dilated to twice the size of the other. She had a concussion, if not a cracked skull. “Don’t worry about it.”
Haru stumbled over to them, still clutching an arm to his chest. “Go. I’ll watch her.”
Kowalski eyed him skeptically, but Haru hissed him out of the way. Knowing there was nothing he could do for either of them unless they reached the surface, Kowalski crossed to the control station.
The floor remained crooked and drifted slowly in a circle.
“Lost half our thrusters,” Byrd reported. He pointed to where bubbles rolled across one section of the windows. “And we’re leaking oxygen from one of our reserve tanks.”
“Then we head up,” Kowalski said. “After that explosion, whoever’s up there knows someone’s down here. They won’t leave until they confirm that blast killed us.”
“The torpedo,” Byrd asked. “Does that mean there’s a sub in the area?”
“No.” He stared out into the darkness. “It was likely a UUV left in these waters. There could be more.”
Jarrah turned to him. The security chief still had hold of his steel baton. He looked like he wanted to hit something with it. “What’s a UUV?”
“Unmanned underwater vehicle. China tested a few recently in the Taiwan Strait. They can autonomously patrol a region. Once they detect an enemy in their zone, they close in and fire a smart torpedo, which will fix on any cavitation, chase it down, and blow it up. Luckily, those torpedoes are usually smaller than conventional armaments.”
“And maybe another reason we’re still alive,” Jarrah added.
“Let’s not give them a chance to correct that,” Kowalski said. “We’d better keep under what’s left of the rig. The UUVs are likely patrolling the waters around it, keeping everything fenced in.”
Byrd waved at the large shadow on his sonar screen. “It looks like most of the station is still afloat on top of us. The enemy’s first attempt to sink her failed. She is one stubborn girl.”
“Then let’s go see how she’s faring,” Kowalski said. “Before we run out of oxygen.”
Byrd swallowed and nodded.
“No thrusters,” Kowalski reminded him. “Let ’er drift up on her own buoyancy. We play dead for as long as possible.”
7:30 A.M.
Jazz leaned on the doorframe of the control room. Her head pounded, narrowing her vision. Nausea churned her stomach, while her right arm burned like a torch. She used the pain to keep focused.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” Haru warned on the other side of the threshold.
She tried to firm her voice, but it still came out raspy. “If I’m going to die, I’ll do it on my feet.”
She eyed him up and down, noting his broken arm and the dried crust of blood under his nose. She felt guilty forcing him to follow her. He had helped her up and over to the control room as Tethys Tier made their final ascent. She still had Kowalski’s long coat over her shoulders and hugged it tighter around her.
He nodded at her words, her determination. “Very well then. We’ll meet our ends together.”
Byrd called from the control room. “Blowing the last of our ballast. Everyone brace for surfacing!”
A great rush of bubbling rose along the windows. As it did, Tethys Tier surged upward with a heavy heave. It thrust high out of the water. Waves sloshed and washed across the glass as their makeshift submersible rocked drunkenly in the ocean.
Jazz grabbed tight to the control room’s doorframe—not because of the swaying, but because of the view outside. She gasped. Byrd swore. Haru sank down to his knees.
Beyond the windows, the massive ruins of Titan Station Up leaned crookedly in the water, shrouded by smoke, topped by patches of fire. Its decks—what was left of them—canted steeply. Debris bobbed in the dark water: yellow HOVs, chunks of the pylons’ syntactic foam, shattered boats, glassy pieces of other tiers.
And bodies, so many bodies.
Aghast at the horror of it all, it took Jazz four full breaths before she realized the smoke was not just from the burning wreckage. The morning sky was sunless, cloaked by low clouds. Dark powder sifted in a continual rain, along with fiery flakes. Silent lightning flashed up there. Farther out, cascading fountains of fire dotted the horizons, churning with black smoke. Distant booms rolled over the water in a continuous cannonade.
Movement and a sharper whine drew her attention. A large pontoon boat—painted in blue-and-black camouflage—sped around the wreckage. Shadowy men in battle gear crowded its deck. From its bow, a huge gun pointed toward them. There was no mistaking this as anything but an attack craft.
Byrd shouted from his station. “Engaging all thrusters—or what’s left of them.”
Water burbled outside the window, and the tier retreated across the debris field. It slowly gained speed, but it would never outrun their pursuers. In clear warning, gunfire spattered off the titanium and glass. Byrd ignored the threat and kept them moving faster. The bulk of the station’s burning wreckage slowly receded. They finally bumped clear of the last of the debris.
Just a little farther . . .
“Contact made!” Byrd shouted and cut the thrusters.
The tier drifted farther under its own momentum, but the thrum of the engines went silent. The hunters closed in, only thirty yards away.
Jazz held her breath. Everyone cringed, expecting the worst.
