by Nick Cook
Leon chuckled. ‘As generous an offer as that is, do I look like I need any more wealth? No, I will happily do it for free. All I ask is that you make a real difference with the money you make from it.’
‘I will, my friend. Thank you so much.’
I was pretty sure that if we hadn’t been in the confined space of the Neptune, the old man would have given Leon a very big hug, something that even I felt like doing despite my initial reservation towards the Frenchman.
‘For a billionaire, you’ve got a very good heart, Leon,’ I said.
‘Hey, not all of us are just in it for ourselves,’ he replied, smiling. ‘Maybe there’s still a chance for me to be admitted through the pearly gates after all.’
I snorted at him. Flickers of light from the surface lit up the ocean around us and I peered through the window to see countless expanding ripples, hinting at heavy rain pouring down from the now present storm. We could hear the muffled booms of thunderclaps through the water.
Leon glanced at his chart. ‘Okay, we’re a couple of kilometres out from Venus, but this is going to be a tricky manoeuvre getting Neptune back aboard. However, if anyone can pull it off, my crew can. The alternative is that we wait out the storm on the surface, which won’t be pleasant, but at least it will be safer.’
‘No, that’s not an option. Whoever planted that listening device is bound to send somebody out to check out what it picked up,’ I replied. ‘Trust me, the further we are away from this location, the better it will be for all of us.’
‘In that case, we’ll go for it,’ Leon said. ‘We need to surface briefly so we can make radio contact with my ship.’
He pulled the yoke back and Neptune rose rapidly through the last ten metres of the sea. Then with a torrent of water over our blister windows, we broke the surface, straight into the full-blown fury of the storm.
The large swell of towering mountains and valleys of water immediately began to lift and drop Neptune, as the wind howled around us.
In the distance we caught glimpses of Venus between the rolling landscape of waves, lit up like a Christmas tree.
‘Okay, let’s make contact with them,’ Leon said, unclipping a radio set.
Suddenly my earbud burst into life with a crackle.
‘Lauren, are you reading me? This is urgent, over,’ Ruby’s voice said.
‘Yes, loud and clear! We’re about to radio Venus to come and recover us.’
‘Don’t! They’ve been boarded,’ she responded.
‘What?’ I said, a sense of dread building inside me.
‘You heard me. Whatever you do, you must maintain radio silence with them and don’t give away your presence.’
Leon was pulling on his headset, his hand reaching for the button to activate the radio.
’Hey, stop!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t try contacting Venus.’
His hand froze. ‘Why not?’
‘Because your ship has been boarded by those people that I mentioned...’
I pulled my Sky Wire from my pack and turned on its speaker mode.
‘First of all, how the hell did you allow Venus to be boarded without doing anything about it, Ruby?’ I said, unable to suppress my panic as I imagined the worst case scenario of dead bodies littering the ship.
‘Because,’ she said, just as briskly, ‘a damned attack helicopter came in low over the water at high speed from the opposite side of the ship. That shielded it from my radar, so I only saw them when they popped up over the rear deck. Then six soldiers in full combat gear rappelled down and started taking hostages before I could do anything about it. If I try to intervene now, a lot of innocent people are going to get caught in the crossfire. The only good news I can give you is that so far no one seems to have been hurt. The bad news is that I’ve lost contact with our guys because the assault team deployed some sort of comms jamming system when they boarded.’
‘Oh my God, we have to save my crew,’ Leon said. He stared at me. ‘This is because of what we found down there isn’t it?’
I gave him a helpless look. ‘I’m so bloody sorry.’
‘Sorry isn’t going to fucking save my people, is it?’ Leon snapped, almost spitting the words at me.
Carlos raised his hands. ‘My friends, please calm down. If they have hijacked your ship, these soldiers must be after something if they haven’t just started executing people.’
My stomach churned as I thought of the others. ‘I’m afraid it’s probably only a matter of time,’ I said. ‘Someone out there is desperate to suppress the truth and will interrogate anyone onboard Venus who can tell them what we’re up to down here. Then they will almost certainly kill all remaining witnesses to silence them.’
Leon hissed, ‘Merde!’ – which I didn’t need my earbud to translate to shit. ‘We have to save them!’ he continued in English.
‘And we will, Leon, but we need to come up with a plan and fast,’ I replied. ‘Ruby, have you got a live feed of what’s happening onboard Venus that you can relay to my Sky Wire?’
‘Sure, hang on…sending you the video from my infrared camera now.’
Immediately a false colour video of Venus pitching up and down in the storm appeared on my screen. On the rear deck were the heat signatures of a large group people lying face down, their hands tied behind their backs. Two people stood over them, with stick shapes in their hands that I was sure were machine guns.
I angled the Sky Wire’s screen so the others could see it.
Leon hissed. ‘The bastards!’
‘I promise you that we’re going to do everything we can to save your crew,’ I said.
He glared at me. ‘You’re damn right you are. It was your people who dragged us into this shit show.’
Carlos shook his head. ‘No, if you want to be angry at anyone, be angry at me for wanting to know what happened to my children, Leon. Don’t forget that was a big part of the reason that we were down there.’
Leon blinked. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…’ His words trailed away as the fire disappeared from his eyes.
The old man smiled at him. ‘I know you didn’t, but I’m sure that it was these same people who murdered my Raúl and Maricela. They are the monsters you should be angry with.’
‘Yes, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, Lauren, I’m just worried sick about my people.’
‘And I would be worried sick in your position too.’ I said. I resisted adding and how do you think I feel about my friends?
‘So what are we going to do?’ Leon asked.
‘Leave that to us,’ I replied. ‘Okay, Ruby, let’s get this plan put together. Do you know where our team is on that ship?’
‘Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea,’ Ruby said.
The thermal camera view pivoted forward towards the bridge. We could see four soldiers at the base of the stairs on either side of the bridge, the muzzles of their weapons occasionally flashing as they fired up towards it. Then my heart leapt as I saw two rounds of return fire coming from the bridge’s windows.
‘Looks like they’re holding their own for now,’ Ruby said.
‘But for how much longer? They are severely outnumbered. We need to mount this rescue mission and fast.’ I looked out through the window at Venus in the distance. ‘Leon, could you submerge us again and get me close enough so I can climb aboard?’
He stared at me. ‘Are you mad? In this storm you wouldn’t stand a chance; you would be swept away in seconds. Besides, if anyone should try something so reckless and stupid, it should be me.’
‘Absolutely no way. You’re a civilian and I’m a trained soldier.’
Both men stared at me.
‘You are?’ Carlos said.
‘She is and she kicks ass, so get over it already,’ Ruby said over the radio link.
Leon blew his cheeks out. ‘It sounds like you’ve got the job then, whoever you really are, Lauren.’
‘Maybe one day I can tell you all about that, but this so isn’t that moment. Just know that
we’re the good guys and we’re going to sort this out, whatever it takes.’
‘Please do. Those people on that ship are my family,’ Leon said quietly.
‘You’ve got it,’ I replied, my determination hardening. ‘Ruby, how about launching your WASPs and swarming those bloody soldiers?’
‘I would if I could but that storm is blowing way too strongly now; they’ll be as good as useless in this weather. Alternatively, I could try to pick them off with my miniguns, but there is a real danger I could hit some of the hostages if I try that.’
‘No, that’s not an option. We need feet on the ground, which basically means me,’ I said.
‘Not liking those odds, Lauren,’ Ruby replied.
‘It’s the only play we have, so we’re going to do it my way.’
Leon shook his head. ‘If you’re still talking about trying to sneak Neptune up so you can try to board the ship…like I just said, it will be impossible in this storm unless someone winches you aboard.’
‘Winches me aboard…’ I repeated as an idea popped into my head. ‘Ruby, can we borrow a page out of the hijackers’ book? Can you airlift me in on a line?’
‘Fuck, you really are batshit crazy. Are you sure you want to do this, Captain?’
‘Captain?’ Carlos asked. Then he waved a hand. ‘Yeah, I know, you’ll tell us all about it another day.’
I gave him a grateful nod. ‘To answer your question, Ruby, yes I am sure. Can you lower a line with a bag on the end of it, with full combat gear? Oh, and an MP5 with lots of extra magazines? Throw in a bunch of flashbangs for good measure too. Then I’ll clip myself to that same line and you can lower me onto the forward deck, well away from where those soldiers are trying to storm the bridge.’
‘Sounds like a plan, but it needs a bit of tweaking,’ Ruby replied. The guys were looking at me as though I’d turned into Bruce Willis in Die Hard. ‘Looking at the firefight down there, even if our ship is fully stealthed, they will spot you if I try to drop you straight down onto the deck. If you’re determined to do this, I’m going to need to bring you in low over the water. Then at the last moment I can jink up and drop you onto the prow. But you do realise there’s still a massive risk that someone might spot you? If that happens, you’ll lose any element of surprise.’
‘Then maybe you need to come up with a way to have everyone look the other way when you try this mad plan of yours,’ Leon said.
‘A distraction…’ Ruby said. Then we heard her snap her fingers together. ‘Damn, I know just the thing. Their attack helicopter is holding off about a mile to Venus’s port side. If I bring that chopper down it will be the perfect distraction to make everyone look the other way.’
‘Good grief, have you got your own military helicopter up there too?’ Carlos asked.
‘Something much, much better,’ Ruby said, chuckling over the radio. ‘Anyway, get ready. I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Captain.’
‘Understood. We’ll be ready,’ I said. I absolutely knew that it could all go so badly wrong in a dozen ways, but that wasn’t going to stop me from trying, even if it cost me my life.
Chapter Fourteen
I stood on top of Neptune’s hatch, kitted out in a black combat uniform with Kevlar body armour and a helmet with a flip-down HUD. I was going to need every edge I could get heading into this fight.
The submersible rocked violently under my feet in the huge swell, knocking my balance all over the place, but I managed to clip myself onto the line.
Leon stood on top of the sub next to me, staring wildly up at the sky directly over our heads, where the invisible X103 was leaving a circular-shaped hole in the hammering rain.
‘What the hell is that thing?’ Leon shouted over the roar of the storm.
‘Just add it to that growing list of things I can’t tell you about,’ I replied, as Carlos’s head emerged from the open hatch. He handed me the MP5 with the suppressor already screwed onto its barrel.
‘Why am I not surprised to hear you say that?’ Leon said, shaking his head.
‘Yes, same old, I’m afraid,’ I shrugged.
A wave crashed over the sub, sending some of the water washing down through the open hatch over Carlos.
‘Get that hatch shut before Neptune gets flooded,’ I called out. ‘Hopefully I’ll live to see you on the other side of this.’
‘I’ll look forward to that, but how will we know how you got on?’ Carlos asked.
‘I suspect it will be pretty obvious, but I’ve left my Sky Wire in the cockpit just in case. Wait for our signal when it’s all over.’
‘We will,’ Leon said.
Carlos reached up from the hatch and squeezed my hand. ‘Good luck, Lauren. Make those bastards pay for what they have done.’
‘I will. And Leon? Just know I’m going to do whatever it takes to save everyone.’
Much to my surprise, Leon leant forward and hugged me. ‘I know you will.’ He pulled away. ‘Good hunting, Captain.’
I nodded to him and a moment later he had disappeared back into Neptune with Carlos, closing the hatch behind them.
‘Okay, Ruby, let’s do this,’ I said into my helmet’s mic.
‘Roger that. Get ready to be lifted, Captain,’ Ruby replied. There was none of the slight mockery she had once used when she called me that. At some point during our journey together, our mutual respect had grown into a real thing.
The steel cable that had been flapping in the gusting wind suddenly grew taut. I shot up into the sky and came to a stop less than ten metres above the waves. For some reason my mind served up the totally appropriate soundtrack, Ride of the Valkyries. And with that now playing in my imagination, the X103 surged forward, towing the line with me on it. We sped over the sea towards the hijacked ship, its lights twinkling in the squalling rain.
The swelled peaks reached up towards me as Venus rapidly grew larger. The X103 shone with the faintest blue aura, just visible in the pitch black. But thanks to the whisper-quiet REV drive, all I could hear was the crash of the waves below and the distant boom of thunder.
Flying through the air in a wild sea storm was a deeply surreal experience, especially as it really did make me feel exactly like a Valkyrie straight out of Norse mythology, getting ready to smite their enemy.
‘Okay, we need to create that distraction about now,’ Ruby said through my helmet’s speakers. ‘I’m boosting the signal feed to your helmet to get past their jamming field. I’m also relaying an image of the helicopter I’m tracking on the far side of the ship.’
A small video window popped up on the top left of my HUD. It showed a helicopter battling to stay in a level hover as the storm raged around it.
‘Permission to open fire on it, Captain.’
I didn’t even hesitate. ‘Permission granted,’ I said.
I spotted a port open briefly in the invisible ship above and one of the X103’s JASSM-ER missiles burst from it. A second later its rocket ignited and streaked towards its target.
The video in my HUD switched to a missile nose camera view as it sped over the Venus, straight towards the helicopter. The pilot’s instincts were sharp - they’d obviously already spotted it, as they were trying to bank away, firing off clouds of chaff.
But it was too little, too late.
The missile sped towards the body of the helicopter, its cockpit windows filling the view in the last hundredths of a second. I tensed instinctively as the missile struck, then I exhaled as the video blinked out at exactly the same moment that a distant fireball lit up the far side of Venus.
I briefly registered the helicopter plummeting down towards the sea, as the ship’s hull came racing towards us. My heart clenched; I was convinced that Ruby was about to smear me into a bloody pulp on the side of Venus.
But at the very last moment, when I could literally count the individual rivets in the hull’s panels, we started to slow. My line began to swing forward just as Ruby raised the X103 the last few metres necessary for me to c
lear the railing. As the X103 came to a dead stop and I reached the end of my pendulum swing, I hit my harness release and dropped onto the deck.
I resisted the urge to whoop that we’d managed to pull off so crazy a manoeuvre. Instead, breathing hard, adrenaline making my blood sing, I whipped my MP5 out, ready to take down any soldier who might have seen me land.
But exactly as we’d hoped, the two that I could see from my vantage point – behind a pile of crates on the pitching deck – had their attention locked onto the helicopter slowly sinking beneath the waves.
‘Are you okay, Captain?’ Ruby said.
‘Yes, I’ve made it down in one piece thanks to some extraordinary flying on your part.’
’No problemo. I’ll be holding position next to the ship, so just call if everything goes south and I’ll rip with the X103’s weapons.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ I said.
I found a useful bit of cover behind a crate on a pallet lashed to the front deck and began to study the thermal video of the boat that Ruby was already piping into my helmet’s HUD.
The two soldiers at the rear of the boat, where the crew were being held, had already moved away from the railing back towards their hostages.
‘One bad guy helicopter dusted and I’m playing them at their own game and blocking all communications so they can’t radio for backup,’ Ruby said over the link. ‘Go and do your stuff, Captain.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry, I intend to,’ I replied.
With the rain lashing down on the deck, I started to make my way forward, but cautiously.
I’d only taken two steps when the cracking sound of machine gun fire came from some stairs ahead. I froze, bringing the MP5’s sight up to my visor, ready to return fire. But the rounds hadn’t been intended for me. Instead, bullets sparked off the metalwork of the darkened bridge above.
My gut tightened. Jack, Tom and Mike had to be up there, but the question was – were they still alive?
Trying to ignore the sudden sense of panic threatening to take hold of me, I turned on the image intensifier system built into my helmet.
