“Is that the same ship, Sylvia?” Linda asked.
Sylvia nodded. She was amazed at how calmly Linda responded, especially since it was just her and Hali on the bridge with Sylvia and Murph.
“Cutting anchor loose,” Linda said, tapping on her armrest.
“Missiles in the air,” Hali said.
Two rockets launched from the trimaran. One detonated moments later over the Thai Navigator. The second was on its way toward the Oregon.
“Activate the laser,” she said.
“Locking on,” Hali replied.
“Fire.”
Sylvia and Murph could only watch as the missile streaked toward them. Suddenly it erupted in a flash of light, white gas thrown into the air halfway between them and the trimaran.
“Engines coming online, activating exterior camouflage,” Linda said. “Hali, uncover the Kashtans and prepare to fire.”
Sylvia knew those were the Oregon’s twin Gatling guns. She also knew that the trimaran was at the edge of those guns’ effective range.
On the other hand, the Oregon was well within the effective range of the plasma cannon that was emerging from its protective shell on the deck of the trimaran, its wicked barrel swinging toward them.
* * *
—
Jin was shocked to see the rocket explode before it reached the target. She was even more surprised when she lost sight of the Norego for a moment.
“Where did it go?” she blurted.
She squinted, then made out the profile of the cargo ship. It had seemingly turned from blue to brown, blending into the sandstone cliffs behind it.
“It’s still there,” she said. “Use your last target lock and fire the plasma cannon.”
“Firing.”
The Marauder shuddered as the plasma cannon charged, building up enough power to release its superheated ammunition. The whole ship was enveloped in a hum of energy, and then a crack like a bolt of lightning ripped the air.
In the distance, a fiery explosion atop the Norego meant they’d hit the target. Smoke marked their new bull’s-eye.
“Power up for another shot,” she said. She preferred survivors that she could question, but if she had to completely destroy the ship and kill everyone on board, so be it.
* * *
—
Damage report,” Linda called out.
“The Kashtan command module is out,” Hali said. “We can’t fire them.”
“What about the rail gun?”
“Coming online, but our stern is to the trimaran. By the time we turn to get a bow shot, it might be too late.”
As if to punctuate his statement, another explosion rocked the Oregon.
“That one took out the bridge,” Hali said.
“Aim the laser at their bridge,” Linda said. “It might buy us some time.”
“Firing.”
They couldn’t see what effect the laser was having, but the firing of the plasma cannon stopped for a moment.
“Squall,” Murph said.
“What?” Sylvia asked.
“Aim for the squall.” He was looking at the screen.
She followed his gaze and saw what he meant. The dark clouds were only a few hundred yards away directly ahead of the Oregon, and a curtain of rain was gushing from the sky.
She turned to Linda and pointed at the screen. “The plasma cannon is a fair-weather weapon. If we can get into those heavy showers, they will attenuate its effectiveness.”
Another ball of plasma shot by, scorching a line along the Oregon’s deck.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Linda said. “Brace yourself.”
Sylvia gripped the nearby control panel just in time to keep herself from falling. The Oregon surged forward and raced for shelter before they were all blown apart.
FORTY-FIVE
At the same time that the call came in from Raven that a croc was coming their way, Linc found the last remaining amphora containing the nuts they were looking for. He brought it over and handed it to Juan. The mark on the wax seal was worn down, but it clearly said “N V L.”
“Let’s get back to Nomad,” Juan said, cradling the ceramic container in his hands as he grabbed on to Little Geek for the short ride back.
Halfway to the sub, its cylindrical form came into focus in the sonar image displayed on the inside of his glasses. Then another more ominous figure appeared beside it.
The shape resolved quickly into the body of a huge crocodile, its powerful tail swinging back and forth behind it.
He and Linc weren’t going to make it back to the airlock in time. Juan drew his Wasp injection knife, ready to stab the croc as it raced toward them.
It opened its jaws wide but seemed to aim right between them. To Juan’s surprise, the croc clamped down on Little Geek, and he realized that its sonar signal must have attracted the animal.
The croc quickly realized its mistake and let go of the inedible meal. But it now sensed a more tasty alternative nearby.
It lunged for Juan, who twisted out of the way, just missing the snapping teeth. Unfortunately, the motion brought the amphora he was holding into its path.
The croc’s jaws crushed the heavy ceramic like it was made of fine crystal, shattering the container. Juan could make out a swirl of objects that scattered into the water along with the pottery shards. He reached out and snagged one. The rest were lost in the swirl of water.
The croc, still unhappy about not finding a meal, lunged for Juan, who jabbed his prosthetic leg into the reptile’s massive maw. The croc’s jaws snapped shut, and it began shaking its head viciously, tossing him around like a rag doll in an attempt to drown its prey.
Linc appeared out of the murk with his own knife and thrust it into the croc’s head. But with the animal twisting so quickly, the blade glanced off, its load of deadly compressed air wasted as bubbles in the water. The knife itself was knocked out of his hand and went spinning into the gloom.
The croc wasn’t deterred and kept its death grip on Juan’s leg. In another situation, Juan would be wearing his combat leg, which—along with its hidden compartment holding a .45 ACP Colt Defender, ceramic knife, and C-4 packet—contained a shotgun slug that could be fired from the heel. But for the dive, he had on his normal, unarmed artificial leg.
Linc grabbed the croc’s skull in a bear hug to keep it from opening its jaws to take another bite. Juan remembered what Parsons had said about how easy it was to keep a croc’s mouth closed. Linc must have known that fact, too, and continued to ride him like a bucking bronco.
Still holding his own knife, Juan contorted himself so that he could reach the croc’s upper jaw. He timed his strike to match the angle of the crocodile’s next head twist and slammed the Wasp between its teeth.
The Wasp’s blade didn’t sink far into its soft palate, but it went deep enough. Juan pressed the button on the hilt, and air blasted out of the hole in the steel into the croc’s lower jaw. At the same moment, Linc’s grip gave out. He was flung out of sight.
The croc released its hold on the prosthesis, taking the knife and Juan’s flipper with it. The wound didn’t seem fatal, but blood spewed into the water. The crocodile must have had enough of his prey fighting back because it turned to swim away.
However, as it did so, its massive tail swung around, catching Juan’s buoyancy vest and air hose. The sharp edge of its hide tore through both, filling Juan’s mask with water and evacuating the air from his vest.
Without the buoyancy, the chain mail weighed him down so much that he couldn’t rise to the surface. His lungs were soon screaming for air.
With one hand, he used the quick release to unclip his vest and shed his tank to free up some weight, but the exertion from fighting the croc had used up all his oxygen. It would be a close race to see if he could get light enough to get up to the surf
ace before he drowned.
Still, he had to try. He got the shredded buoyancy vest off, but he had an overwhelming urge to suck in water. His chest was burning with the need for air.
Juan felt a pair of strong hands grab his shoulders and propel him upward. Together, he and Linc broke the surface, and Juan gulped in fresh air. He looked up to see a hand reaching down to him, and he took it.
With a mighty heave, MacD and Raven yanked him up onto Nomad’s deck. They turned to pull Linc up beside him.
He sat next to Juan panting.
“Thanks, Linc,” Juan said. “I wasn’t going to make it another second.”
Linc nodded. “I didn’t think you could wait for the airlock to cycle. After that, I think I’m qualified to join the rodeo.”
“It’s good you got out when you did,” Raven said, pointing at a flotilla of crocodiles heading toward Nomad. “All that blood and thrashing has attracted attention.”
“What’s that?” MacD said, nodding at the gold relic on Juan’s hip.
“I don’t know. I found it among some broken amphorae.”
“Speaking of that,” Linc said, throwing the broken lid of the container onto the deck in disgust. “I saw the croc chomp through the container. We lost our chance to find out what the antidote’s secret ingredient is.”
“No, we didn’t,” Juan said.
Throughout that ordeal, he had never let go of what was in his hand. He held out his clenched fist and opened it. In his palm was a single green nut the size of a golf ball. It had a pattern on it that looked like the iris of a human eye.
Juan didn’t have time to savor his victory.
Eric poked his head out of the hatch with an anxious look on his face and said, “We need to leave right now. Hali says the Oregon is under attack.”
FORTY-SIX
The Norego had escaped into the narrow channel east of Adolphus Island, protected by a curtain of heavy rain, so Jin ceased firing the plasma cannon. The weapon was rendered ineffective by the showers, but it also meant that the spy ship’s laser had stopped painting her bridge with its blinding light.
“Captain,” her XO said, “the Thai Navigator is on a collision course with us.”
“Move us out of the way,” Jin said, “but don’t get any closer to the Norego. What’s the Thai Navigator’s heading?” The ore carrier wouldn’t be stopping, not with her crew incapacitated by the Enervum gas.
“Looks like she’ll hit the rocks on the west side of Adolphus Island.”
“Good. Then she won’t be in our way when she sinks.”
It would only be a few minutes before the squall passed, allowing her to press her attack and finish off the ship. But she still wanted survivors to question.
“Hail the Norego. Tell them to call our encrypted satellite number so we won’t have anyone listening in on our conversation.”
A few moments later, the XO said, “They’re calling us.”
“Put it on speaker.”
“This is the captain of the Marauder,” Jin said. “Who am I speaking to?”
“This is the acting captain of the Norego,” a woman replied in an American accent. “You must be April Jin.”
Jin controlled her surprise. “Why would you say that?”
“Because we know who you are and we have witnesses who identified you and Angus Polk as the people responsible for a series of poison gas attacks. We know about your production facility in Nhulunbuy. It’s only a matter of time before we shut down the rest of your operation.”
“And who is ‘we’?”
“I’m Linda. That’s all you need to know.”
“Actually, I need to know more. That’s why I’ll make you this one-time offer. Surrender now, and I won’t destroy your ship.”
“That is a tempting proposal. We’ll have to think about it and get back to you.”
“Don’t think too long,” Jin said. “It expires as soon as those rain clouds go by.”
“April, I have to tell you, I’m not a big fan of the hard sell.”
“I’ve disabled your Kashtan control system, and your anti-aircraft laser is nothing more than an annoyance. Face it, you’ve already lost.”
“You know what?” Linda said. “You’re right. Come on over, and we’ll bring you on board for tea and cookies.”
“Very inviting, but I’ll give you something else to think about. If I don’t see your crew up on deck with their hands in the air by the time the rain stops, I’ll light up your ship like a Roman candle. Got that?”
Before Linda could respond, Jin drew her finger across her throat, and the connection was cut.
Based on what she’d heard, Jin didn’t actually think they would give up. A shame, really. She was quite curious about who she was going to kill.
* * *
—
Linda was hoping that her dialogue with April Jin had bought enough time for Sylvia to get comfortable with the stern Kashtan Gatling gun’s manual targeting system. Without the automated targeting, the guns were tricky to aim. Although she was a weapons expert like her brother, Murph had to give her a crash course on its operation.
If Linda had been able to turn the ship around, she could have brought the bow’s powerful rail gun to bear. But the channel was so narrow, she was afraid they’d run aground and become a sitting duck.
On the screen, she could make out the trimaran through the haze of the downpour. The Thai Navigator was now past, giving the Marauder a clear shot at them.
“Not to hurry you guys,” Linda said, “but the rain is starting to let up.”
“I’m ready,” Sylvia said.
“What’s the range to target?”
“Two miles,” Hali replied.
“That’s at the edge of the Kashtan’s range,” Linda said. “The counter says we’re down to four hundred rounds on that gun. We’ll only get one or two salvos out of it before it’s dry.”
At the Kashtan’s ten-thousand-round-per-minute firing rate, it was barely enough ammunition for two seconds of shooting.
“She can do it,” Murph said.
Sylvia nodded in agreement, her gaze focused on her control panel.
“Then target that cannon and take it out before it blows us out of the water,” Linda ordered.
Sylvia activated a burst, and a second of tracer fire poured from the double barrels of the Kashtan. They missed to port.
“This is tricky,” Sylvia said, re-aiming the weapon.
Then as if a knob on a shower had been turned off, the downpour ended abruptly.
Sylvia fired again. This time the rounds made a direct hit on the Marauder, causing the deck to spark and smoke.
At the same instant, the Marauder’s plasma cannon spit out another blast. The superheated gas hit the Kashtan, knocking out its targeting camera.
“Weapon is down and ammo is gone,” Sylvia said.
If the plasma cannon was still functioning, their only play now was to back out of the channel and try to turn before they were blown apart. She reversed course and brought the engines to full power, bracing herself for the next impact.
It never came.
“The Marauder is turning tail and running,” Hali said. “Sylvia must have disabled the plasma cannon with her shot.”
On-screen, the trimaran swung around and shot forward, rising onto hydrofoils as it sped away at a velocity even the Oregon couldn’t match.
“The rail gun,” Murph said. “Before she is out of range.”
The rail gun could fire much farther than the Kashtans, but the fleeing trimaran was no longer Linda’s priority.
She switched the camera view to the Thai Navigator, which was closing on Adolphus Island.
“That cargo ship won’t stop before she hits something,” Linda said. “Not when her crew is suffering the effects of that gas.
”
“They won’t be able to evacuate if she starts sinking,” Hali said.
As the Oregon cleared the channel, Linda turned the ship toward the Thai Navigator and set them on a rendezvous course at top speed.
“Hali,” she said, “call Eddie and tell him to get ready to jump ship.”
FORTY-SEVEN
A minute after getting the urgent call from Hali, Eddie rushed up to the starboard side of the Oregon, where a gangway was emerging straight up out of the deck. When they were beside the Thai Navigator, the gangway would rotate to a horizontal position and extend out over the ore carrier. Eddie would then traverse over. That was the plan anyway.
The problem was that the gangway was intended to be used for boarding a ship that was stationary, not one traveling at ten knots in an increasingly narrow gulf. The Oregon would have to get within fifteen feet to make it work, overcoming the wakes both ships were producing.
Adolphus Island loomed ahead. Eddie could make out the rocky shoals that would tear the hull wide open. There would be no time to evacuate all the paralyzed crew before it sank.
Eddie had no experience operating a large cargo ship, but he was the only person available for this mission. The Chairman and his team were still in Nomad on the Ord River. The ore carrier would be at the bottom of the gulf long before they could return. Eric Stone, who was a skilled sailor, would talk him through the procedure for stopping the ship. He put in his earpiece.
“I’m topside,” he said. “You there, Eric?”
“I’m online,” Eric said. “Let me know when you’re on the bridge.”
“Roger that. Linda, I’m ready to go over.”
“Not yet. We’ve done a quick calculation here. You’ll have to wait.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s too late for the ship to avoid a collision, even at full reverse.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Eddie asked.
“We’ll get between the island and the Thai Navigator and give her a little nudge,” Linda said. “Brace yourself. This is going to get rough.”
Marauder Page 21
