Nathan stared. It seemed the only possible reaction.
A few seconds later, a dark-haired woman in a sciences uniform hurried in, scooped up the little creature and headed away again. "Sorry..." she said to Nathan; and to the poodle, receding, "Naughty Lucrezia, naughty little mummy's wuzzy, mustn't bark at the nice fishie, now he's not a fishie but a mammal of course, but never mind that, now you just come and have your nice dinner..."
Nathan sat very still and started taking a quiet inventory of his sanity.
* * *
Elsewhere, quiet was not the order of the day.
Seawater under pressure transmits sound faster than air—nearly four times faster, depending on local temperatures—so that any ship nearby could have quickly heard, without too much trouble, the noises coming from near the Gedrick Power Station. Not the usual benign rumbles of the seabed, the long low groans, familiar to those who routinely deal with geothermal underwater sites, as plates and strata shift. These rumbles were more deadly, the compressed, shocking sounds of explosions at close range, of creaking, strained and shattering metalwork, of pressure containers losing containment under the bombardment of E- plasma torpedoes. The flashes of the torpedoes, like the flash of lightning before a thunderstorm entirely too close, preceded the explosions by no more than a second or so; then the seafloor, and everything on it, rocked.
The biggest of the power station's gas storage tanks already lay cracked open like an egg, its metal outer shell still sizzling with the residual electricity of the spent E-plasma charge that had destroyed it. Everywhere around it, bent towers and tubework bowed downward and outward like trees knocked flat by a meteor strike. Another E-plasma torpedo came screaming in, found its target, went up in a blinding flash of decontained charge and blew down another grove of pipes and tubing. And over the blasted grove, silent and huge, the black hunchbacked shape of the Delta-IV came gliding through the water, sowing the thunder and the lightning as she came.
On the submarine's shadowy bridge, Marilyn Stark stood over her fire control officer, watching his every move—quiet, but with the quiet of the cat watching the mouse, waiting patiently for it to do something interesting enough to provoke the claws to come down. The man was sweating bullets with the twinned tension of needing to do his job correctly and having to do it under that silent, relentless regard. Around the bridge, no one else would look at the two of them: everyone was afraid to do anything that would attract the Captain's attention.
The only one who moved was Maxwell, who stepped up beside Stark, though softly. His face was bathed in sweat. "Captain!" he said. "Message just in! There's been a response to the station's distress signal. The seaQuest is on her way..."
Stark nodded, and smiled, a small private smile of satisfaction. Not much longer, she thought. We will resolve this little... difficulty... in a very short time. Not short enough for me... but I can be patient a little while longer.
Off to one side, though, Pollack's head swung around. His face was twisted with panic.
"Steady, Mr. Pollack," said Stark quietly.
Steadiness was not on Pollack's menu at the moment. "Captain, I beg you to reconsider! We can't stand up against that... that monster!"
I am really going to have to do something about this creature, Stark thought. He certainly came highly recommended for his abilities, but as far as discipline goes, he's a loss. "We can and we will," Stark said. "I told you before, it's the only way we can assure victory for the cause."
"The cause?" Pollack said, and looked at her openmouthed. "This isn't about a cause! This is about revenge! Everybody knows you were Captain of the seaQuest! Everybody knows you were removed from command!"
"That's enough," Stark said softly.
But he was plainly beyond hearing anything, including her tone of voice. "All you want to do is even the score! And if it takes killing this whole crew, you're prepared to do it. Well, I'm not willing to be part of the sacrifice! I'm settin' a course outta here now!" He turned back to his panel and began frantically making changes in the settings: a 180-degree turn, from the brief glance Stark got.
"Mr. Pollack...?" Stark said.
Something in the tone stopped him, brought him around... just in time to see the stun gun aimed at his chest. His eyes went wide—but not as wide as when the charge hit him. The blast of energy convulsed his muscles so that they, rather than the discharge itself, slammed him back against the console: he collapsed to the floor, mouth slack, eyes still open but now unseeing, limbs twitching as the residual traces of the stun charge fired off randomly in his nerve endings. All around, the crew stared, as horrified by Stark's calm stance as by Pollack's condition.
That suited Stark. "I had one lieutenant who countermanded my orders once," she said reflectively. "I won't have another one..." She glanced around.
"Is there anyone else who thinks they can run this boat better than me?" she said. The silence was profound. "Well? Isn't there even one of you who wants to step forward and challenge seaQuest?"
Silence. Stark smiled. "I didn't think so. If you want to win, I'll show you how: if you want to die, I can arrange that too. But don't ever question my orders."
Once again everyone became abnormally interested in their instruments, preferring their bland mechanical regard to the chill look of threat in Stark's eyes.
"Set course, Mr. Maxwell," Stark said. "Prepare to get under way."
"Aye," Maxwell said softly, and went about it.
Stark settled into her chair and stared out into the darkness.
CHAPTER 5
In the dimness, the WSKR probes plunged through the water at speed, one far out at the point, the other two spread wide to the flanks and coming hard after it. At this distance, the glow of the lights of Gedrick Station was showing only faintly—but that was no problem for the probes: light was only part of the data they worked with, and the lack of it hardly mattered.
On seaQuest's bridge, Bridger came in to find the place gone quick and tense with activity as they approached the station. Ford was standing behind the helmsmen, watching their coordinated efforts as they guided the huge submarine downward into Gedrick's little valley. The seabed was hardly flat here: as in other active volcanic areas, sudden spikes and hills of stone stood up apparently without rhyme or reason, thrust up by old eruptions and an ever-present trouble for the unwary submariner. But seaQuest's front screens were showing a 3-D side-looking sonar "landscape," altering as they swept across it—as plain a landscape as the helmsmen might have seen above the water, under daylight: and they also had information from other sources.
"Whiskers are kicking back data now!" Or called to Ford. "One boat—a Delta." The passive energy indicator which showed the levels of output electromechanical energy in the area was dancing up near the top of its scale. "She dished out one hell of a firestorm!"
Bridger's head turned sharply toward the sensor suite, trying to see more even before the probes updated their input. Delta—it was an ex-Soviet boomer, and with that length-to-beam ratio, the configuration was Type III or IV. Not quite the biggest boat they had ever floated, but big enough, and armed with a six-tube torpedo battery. Nasty. Very nasty.
A lot of those old subs had been decommissioned and sold off, and with their missile spaces cleared they fulfilled a variety of functions not envisioned by their original designers. Mining survey ships, or undersea research vessels of one sort or another: why go to the expense of building new when you could buy secondhand and refit? Or mobile and not-so-mobile homes; Nathan had heard of two old British Royal Navy Vanguards that had been anchored to the bottom and now formed the core of a thriving community. A community like the one this bastard was shooting up.
At least it wouldn't be especially maneuverable. Those things had been built for stealth and silence, not underwater dogfights like an Alfa or a 688 Los Angeles. seaQuest should be able to run rings around it, and the marauders had to know that. It wasn't as if the seaQuest were a secret anymore. The raiders would likel
y turn tail as soon as they knew she was in the area—but knowing that she might be, as they must have done, why risk this attack in the first place...? Something else is going on, Nathan said to himself. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense...
"Power Station Communications is reporting major structural damage," O'Neill said, working at his console to strengthen the incoming signal through the interference from the attack. "Life support systems nominal. Surviving worker-residents are gathering in the main complex—"
Bridger stood there watching it all happen, feeling helpless and hating it. Ortiz looked up from his console and said sharply, "Assault vessel is on the move, Commander! Heading... two-zero-seven degrees, making turns for thirty knots. She's heading away from the station!"
Thirty? Dammit, that's five knots above specification. Somebody's been tweaking the turbines again...
Nathan's head turned immediately to the forward screens, but nothing showed there yet. Ford stepped up beside him. "Give me eyes, Mr. Ortiz..."
It took a second. Then the screens came alive with the three separate views of the WSKR probes, annotated with bright telltales showing direction, distances and depths. In all of them, the renegade sub loomed, just clearing the outer perimeter lights of the power station, and heading slightly upward, in a leisurely fashion, for open water and the big rift beyond. A blunt-nosed cylinder of a hull, with an ominous hump where a fish's dorsal fin would be, running two-thirds of the craft's length. It was a Delta-IV, that much was certain. Even under its refit—and where the hell did they get that done? Nathan asked himself grimly—the brute was unmistakable. At least the seaQuest was bigger—but other matters remained to be proven ...
Ford stepped away from the center seat, leaving Nathan standing there wondering what the man was doing. Is he just going to leave us sitting here while that thing dances around us? If it gets an advantage—"Helm," Nathan muttered under his breath, "bring 'er around..."
Ford looked up then, though there was no sign that he had heard Bridger. "Helm... bring her around, two-zero-seven, intercept course."
"Coming around to intercept course," the helmsman came in like an echo.
Ford's just a touch slow, Nathan thought, starting to get concerned. No more than that. But at a time like this, it's enough to get us killed. Hé shook his head, watching Hitchcock move to take Ford's position at the ex-o's station. That's the way, Nathan thought. For pity's sake, call battle stations, don't just stand there. He tried to catch Hitchcock's eye, and enthusiastically mimed hitting one of the console controls. She didn't see him.
"Sound battle stations!" Ford said at last. Hitchcock did it, and the alarms went off, an eerie insistent noise that would have demanded instant attention even of a crew that wasn't already strung tight as the fifth string of a Strad. Elsewhere in the boat, Nathan could hear the sound of water-tights thumping shut between sections, one after another: the bridge's own doors shut themselves and sealed automatically.
Targeting profile up!" Ford said. On the forward screens, the targeting grids came on, overlaying themselves on the Whisker's-eye views of the renegade sub and adjusting themselves to scale.
"Targeting grid locked!" Ortiz said.
"All ahead full," Ford said. "I want this one."
No, no, no! Nathan thought, unable to stand it anymore. He stepped over to Ford, leaned over confidentially close to him and said, "Commander, a moment, please?"
"I'm a little busy—" Too much going on, I don't have time for this, said the exec's expression.
Bridger took Ford by the arm. "Now," he said, and pulled him a little off to one side.
Bridger bent his head close to Ford's. "I think there's a couple of things you want to consider here."
"Such as...?"
"Such as the lives and safety of all those people at that power station."
Ford shook his head. "I'm aware of that, but if that sub gets loose, it'll be free to attack somewhere else..."
Nathan breathed out in exasperation that someone could have a situation so obvious in front of him and not see the key to it. "If! You're talking hypotheticals! I'm talking reality!" He glanced around with an awkward realization of just how loudly that had come out, and saw heads turn back to their duties. Or at least, seem to...
"Look, you can take out the raider after you help those people." He waved an arm around him. "This boat's a thousand-foot-long Swiss army knife. Use your options. Have one of your Whiskers tag the bad guys. We"—he caught himself with a slightly sardonic look—"uh, you—can always go after them later."
Ford looked at Bridger, thinking. Nathan didn't so much as blink, afraid to disturb the man's train of thought while he weighed the options, because the only alternative was the unacceptable one of simply taking over command. Just the way Bill Noyce wanted him to do. A suspicion flickered at the back of his mind, then faded as a second later Ford nodded, opened his mouth. "But the manual says—"
"Oh, forget the damn manual! Use your instincts. Your gut!" Nathan just barely restrained himself from catching Ford a good solid poke in the area under discussion. "That's what separates the good from the great."
Ford thought about it.
"Hey," Crocker said, "if anybody cares . .. that boomer is makin' a turn . . ."
All heads came quickly up to watch the screen. Sure enough, the heavy dark shape of the Delta was banking slowly around to starboard. Ortiz was watching his console with a worried frown; now he looked up. "Target sub is coming around!" He looked over at Ford, alarmed. "She's moving into an attack posture!"
Ford swallowed and stepped over into position by the command chair. His shoulders actually looked a little bowed: Nathan looked at him with concern and some sympathy, knowing that crushed feeling, the very literal weight of command—the way it felt when it came down on you and you tried to make yourself equal to it—or to shrink down where it couldn't see you. Ford hit the in-ship comms button on the command chair. "Weapons room," he said. "Flood forward tubes! Prepare E-plasma torpedoes! Uh .. . sixty percent charge." Why not a hundred? Nathan thought irritably. Who knows what kind of armor that thing had put in when they did the retrofit? Think, son—! "Helm—reverse engines, one-quarter, six degree down angle—"
"Reverse one-quarter, down six degrees . . ."
Bridger stood there watching the other vessel in the front screens, and shook his head slightly. Too shallow. "Eight degrees," he said behind his own clenched teeth. Then he compressed his lips in a grim smile: this kind of backseat driving was as bad for the passengers as for the driver. Shut up and let him do it, Nathan. If you think you can do it better, you should have accepted his offer when you had the chance—
Hitchcock was watching her board like an eagle. "Her forward tubes are flooded, bow caps coming open—all of 'em!"
Ford's dark skin was as close to ashen as it could get. Not cowardice, Nathan thought, almost with pity. Just... the first time... when he had hopes that things would go so differently. He kept silent and stood there, watching that grim shape on the screens . . .
* * *
Inside the Delta-IV all was silent, except for the soft chirps and mutters of the various ranging and weapons systems reporting themselves ready, and the faraway rush of water, now diminishing, as the forward trim tanks countered the effect of the flooded torpedo tubes. Marilyn Stark leaned over two of her crewmen, intently watching the readings on their panels, watching the seaQuest, waiting to see what would happen.
The crewman to her right, the sensor chief, like his partner on the left, was covered with sweat at the sight of what was coming after them. "Captain!" he said, his voice almost breaking—from the sound of it, he was as frightened of speaking as of what looked to be about to happen. "That—'thing' is getting ready to fire! Shouldn't— shouldn't we take evasive action?"
Stark stood there and watched the readings, eyed the screen that gave her visuals. "Impressive, isn't she...?" Stark said, admiring the sleek dark shape gliding through the water.
Normally that
shape would have inspired more than mere aesthetic pleasure, of course. Normally, an informed commander's thoughts would have turned immediatey to her more important attributes: propulsion and weaponry... especially the latter.
Stark smiled to herself. She had already given that last considerable thought, with the result that no more need now be given.
"Captain—!" the sensor chief said desperately.
Stark only kept smiling, and said nothing.
* * *
On seaQuest's bridge, Ford was still an unwholesome color, but this time Nathan thought there was better reason. They were staring at the helm station, and at readouts that were no longer making sense. "What do you mean ‘not responding’?" Ford demanded.
"Helm control is frozen, sir!" The helm officer was another big man, from the same mold as Chief Crocker, but for all that, his hands were leaping about over his controls with surprising speed and delicacy, the deft, sure motions of a specialist who knew the console forward, backward and in the dark. "She's not lettin' me take the reins!"
Ford swallowed. Nathan began to sweat. He's not ready for this, he thought. Come on, son, think. You can find your way around this one. Get Hitchcock onto this. If she can't figure out what the problem is, then you do have trouble—
But there shouldn't be this kind of trouble in the first place! This boat is new!
"Lieutenant," Ford said to Hitchcock.
"On it, sir," she said, and headed for the helm to check out the problem.
"Distance to target?" Ford said to Ortiz.
"Eight hundred meters and closing!"
Ford nodded. "Open forward tubes! Prepare to fire!"
For some reason, Bridger found himself holding his breath. A moment later, he found out why.
"We can't, sir!" said Phillips, the weapons officer, sounding more angry at the failure of equipment than scared by its consequences. "Weapons control isn't accepting our commands!"