by Nick Cook
‘There are more experienced pilots back at Eden we could bring in,’ he replied.
Jack shook his head. ‘Maybe, but none I’d trust my life with quite as much as you, Tom.’
A smile filled Tom’s face. ‘Then I’d be delighted. However, there is one other matter that we should clarify up front for this next phase of our mission. A squadron needs a commander and my vote goes to Lauren to take on that role.’
‘But surely you’re more experienced in something like this?’ I said.
‘No, you really are the ideal candidate, even if you don’t realise it yet. You’ve already proved yourself in the role of captain and shown that you’re ready to step up to the role of squadron commander.’
‘Are you sure?’
Tom folded his arms. ‘I am, but maybe you want to run this past the rest of your team?’
I looked at Jack and Mike. ‘Are the rest of you happy with this?’
‘Do you really need to ask?’ Jack said, smiling at me as Mike nodded.
‘Yep, that goes for me too and I’m certain the rest of the squadron would agree,’ Ruby said over the Sky Wire. ‘Whether you realise it or not, Lauren, you’ve developed quite the reputation in Eden. Just as you trust Tom to pilot us, a lot of people would trust you with their lives too.’
I immediately felt the weight of responsibility pressing down on my shoulders as well as feeling incredibly humbled. When had people started believing in me like this when often I barely did?
I lifted my chin up and met the expectant gazes of the others. ‘Okay. If you all insist, I’ll do it. So with my new hat on we’d better start putting a mission plan together. To start with, Lucy, how long until Jodie can get Ariel to us along with the rest of the squadron?’
‘First thing tomorrow, after the final bits of equipment are fitted.’
‘That could work out well. We should be back in dock by then,’ Tom said.
‘In that case I suggest we all grab what rest whilst we can, because I for one am bloody knackered,’ I said, and I meant it.
We stood on the quayside next to Venus under the burnished sky of a new dawn, no hint of the previous night’s storm in sight. It was time to say our goodbyes to Leon and Carlos.
I hugged Carlos. ‘Now you take good care of yourself, do you hear me?’
‘I’ll do my best, although it seems I’m going to be pretty busy between that wreck and setting up a charity.’
‘Don’t you worry, I’ll be helping you every step of the way,’ Leon said.
‘And you’ll both do a great job. Carlos, I think if Raúl and Maricela could see you now, they’d be very proud of their dad.’
‘I hope so,’ he smiled.
‘I know so,’ I said, smiling back and giving him another hug.
Tom stepped forward. ‘The only thing I ask of you both is that you please wait for the all-clear from us that it’s okay to go back to the wreck site. We have to deal with the people behind the hijack, but once we’ve done that it should be safe for you to return to recover the wreck. I’ve also made steps to ensure that you’re protected from any further hostile action.’
‘What sort of protection are we talking about here?’ Leon asked.
Tom tapped the side of his nose. ‘Once again, much better for you not to know.
‘Are you absolutely sure there is nothing more you can tell us about what’s really going on?’ Carlos asked. ‘Don’t you think we have a right to know?’
I took his hands in mine and gazed at him. ‘Yes you do, and as much as I would love to tell you everything, as Tom said, it’s honestly better that you don’t know.’
The old man sighed. ‘Maybe we’ll find out one day.’
‘The moment that day comes, I promise that you’ll be the first to know.’
Leon cleared his throat. ‘And you really will deal with the bastards who attempted to hijack Venus?’
‘Oh, you can count on it,’ Jack said.
‘Be sure to send them my love.’ Leon said grimly.
I laughed. ‘I’ll make sure I do that with extra kisses.’ I held out my hand to shake his. But Leon ignored that and drew me into a hug as Jack raised his eyebrows at me over the other man’s shoulders.
I gave him a guilty smile. ‘What can I say? We all got very close on that voyage onboard Neptune.’
‘So it would seem,’ Jack replied, unable to suppress a smile.
Leon glanced at him as he pulled away from me. ‘Lauren is one in a million.’
‘Yeah, she certainly is,’ Jack said.
With a beep of a horn, Glenn swept into the dock in his Skyliner and pulled up next to us.
‘Hey, my friends, what have I missed?’ he said with a wide smile.
‘Okay, time to go,’ Tom said.
With a final wave to Carlos and Glenn we climbed into the car.
Jack cast a wistful glance back towards Venus. ‘What I’d give to be part of the exploration team heading down to that wreck.’
‘True, but think about where we’re heading now, Jack,’ Mike said, patting him on the back. ‘This Cuban underwater formation sounds right up your alley.’
‘It does, apart from the fact that it also sounds as though its likely to be crawling with damned Overseers by now.’
I shrugged. ‘Then I pity them when we show up to spoil their party.’
‘You make it sound so easy,’ Jack said.
If only, I thought to myself. With the Overseers already on high alert, I strongly suspected we were about to head into the trickiest battle of our lives. The fact that that was going to turn out to be something of a considerable understatement was truly saying something.
Chapter Sixteen
The following morning, we grabbed a lift with Glenn in his Ford Skyliner under the light of a golden dawn and headed out towards the sugar cane field where we’d first landed. I cranked the car window down, breathing in the moist air, thick with the scent of rich earth, thanks to the heavy rainfall from the night before.
Glenn was leaning over his steering wheel, looking up into the sky. ‘Any idea when your ride will get here?’ he asked.
I glanced at my Sky Wire and the GPS marker on the large scale map. Three blips were heading towards our location at incredible speed. There was already a static one just ahead of us – Ruby, already touched down in the X103.
‘They are about fifty miles out, but it looks like Ruby’s already here and waiting,’ I replied.
Glenn looked straight ahead at the field that we were heading towards, where absolutely nothing was visible except for the crops. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it, Lauren.’
We pulled up in the corner of the field and began to unload our kit from the vehicle.
As Mike grabbed his bag he glanced along the coast. ‘Glenn, you’ll need to ask Antonio to recover all those probes that we buried across the island. If someone stumbles across them it will raise too many questions.’
‘No problem. I’ll wake him when I get back to the house and send him out to round them up,’ Glenn said.
I heard a rustling sound approaching and turned to see Ruby emerging from the sugar cane crop.
‘Good, you’re all here at last. Niki just radioed in to say he’s coming in to land,’ she said.
‘Wow, they’re here already?’ Jack asked.
‘Yes, those mark two REV engines can really shift some butt when they need to,’ Ruby grinned.
‘That’s good news because the sooner we get to the structure site, the happier I’ll be,’ I said.
I looked up, trying to spot the telltale sign of the shifting Chameleon camouflage that would give any hint of the two X-craft presence as they arrived. But it was impossible to spot them in the early morning light. Also, the fact that the new drive was basically silent meant that the first we knew of their landing was when the sound of sugarcane crops being squashed flat reached our ears from the middle of the field.
‘That will never get old,’ Jack said, shaking his head as we bega
n to walk between the stalks towards the sound.
Within moments we were standing by the edge of four large circles. The three smaller ones had the distinct shapes and dimensions of X103s. I figured they were Ruby’s X103, Ariel – fresh from her underwater refit, and Ariel’s escorting craft, which was apparently called Artemis. According to Tom, the Artemis’s pilot had taken over Ariel’s systems to fly her to us like a new car delivery service. The fourth compressed circular imprint was easily four times the size of the others and had to be Niki’s Pangolin.
‘When we’re gone you’ll be able to charge the tourists to see your crop circle collection, Glenn,’ Jack said, smiling.
Glenn chuckled. ‘Now there’s a great idea.’
A shimmer passed through the air and then the three new arrivals suddenly appeared before us as they uncloaked. The Pangolin in particular looked built for war, with its thick slabs of armour and weapons pod bulges on the top and underside of the craft. But it was Ariel that I was most interested in. I was keen to see Jodie’s modifications to her for underwater flight.
Glenn stared slack-jawed at the craft. ‘Seeing these with my own eyes I can tell Sky Dreamer Corp has been seriously busy.’
‘You can say that again’, Ruby said. She was already examining the new circular intakes around Ariel’s hull, which were currently covered with closed hatches. ‘This must be the new impeller system that Jodie fitted.’
‘Apparently she has programmed Delphi with a briefing package about how to use them,’ Tom said. ‘It also covers the new underwater weapon systems that we’re both going to have to familiarise ourselves with, Ruby.’
‘Never been one for instruction booklets, so hopefully there’s a quick start guide,’ Ruby replied with a grin. She disappeared up the ramp into Ariel with a definite spring in her step, obviously itching to get her hands on the updated craft and its controls.
With a slight hiss, the ramp in the Pangolin lowered and Niki appeared. He walked down it towards us.
‘I hear you’ve been having an interesting time out here,’ Niki said as he reached us.
‘Yeah, the same old rollercoaster ride,’ Mike shrugged.
From the other X103, Erin and Daryl, the recently qualified flight crew that we’d been introduced to back at the 16 Psyche landing party, emerged together.
They made straight for me, came to a halt, and then both snapped me a salute.
‘Reporting for duty, Commander,’ Daryl said. Erin stood to attention with a ramrod straight stance.
I caught the smile on Jack’s face before he quickly hid it.
‘So it will be you two joining us on this mission then?’ I replied.
‘Absolutely. We both volunteered for the chance to work with you and your team,’ Erin said with far too much enthusiasm.
‘And I just wanted to say what an honour it is to join you. I promise that we won’t let you down,’ Daryl added.
‘I’m sure you won’t,’ I replied with a smile. I gestured towards the Pangolin. ‘Your new craft certainly looks the business, Niki.’
‘You mean Thor, as we’ve christened him. We’re looking forward to putting our new ship through its paces in a combat mission.’
‘Talking of which, we need to discuss tactics,’ I said. ‘To start with, seeing how Erin remotely piloted Ariel from her craft gives me an idea. Could we do the same with the X103 we arrived in? That way you take control of it from Thor, effectively using it in the battle as one massive drone?’
Niki nodded. ‘I like it. That way we can have a second craft at our disposal above the surface if things get interesting whilst you guys head underwater.’
‘Talking of getting ready for combat, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Overseers had some TR-3Bs patrolling the area just to make life difficult,’ Jack said.
Niki grinned. ‘And won’t they get a surprise when then run into Thor, armed to the teeth with missiles, a railgun and six miniguns? And even if they do get a lucky shot in that manages to breach the gravity shielding, Jodie promises that the ablative armour-plating fitted to the X104 can soak up a lot of damage.’
‘Ablative armour?’ Mike asked.
‘It’s designed to dissipate any weapon damage, including the Overseer’s new laser turret that you ran into at Atlantis.’
‘It certainly looks the business,’ Jack said, giving the craft an admiring glance.
At that moment, a sliding metal sound came from behind us and we turned to see the weapons pods on Ariel opening to reveal the silver noses of two missiles. At the same time, a whoop came from the interior of Ariel’s cockpit.
’That will be Ruby discovering her new toys then,’ Niki said, shaking his head. ‘Ariel and Artemis have been equipped with an arsenal of Spearfish heavy torpedoes.’
‘Permission to speak to explain about our new weapon systems, Commander,’ Daryl said.
For a moment I didn’t realise that he was talking to me, but then I got it. ‘Oh yes, sorry, please go ahead. But in future, you don’t need my permission to speak up.’
‘Understood, Commander, and noted,’ Daryl replied. ‘So, starting with the Spearfish missiles. They can be guided by wire or use their own autonomous sonar to take out other enemy subs or ships up to fifty-four klicks out. Additionally, the flechette munitions loaded in the modified miniguns are effective up to about three hundred metres, but really are for close range combat only. There are also twenty brand new WASP drones loaded onto Ariel that your tactical officer requested. They have been adapted for underwater use and are also equipped with flechette dart rounds.’
Jack chuckled. ‘So in other words, Ruby’s birthday and Christmas presents have all been rolled into one.’
‘It certainly sounds like it to me,’ I said.
Tom tapped his watch. ‘Time to get into the air I think.’
I nodded. I turned to Glenn, who’d been standing at the edge of our group, quietly listening to our exchange with ever widening eyes.
‘It looks like it’s time to say our goodbyes,’ I said. ‘I just want to thank you for everything and to ask you to maybe keep an eye on Carlos for us? He could probably do with a friend right now after what he discovered happened to his children.’
‘I was already planning to do exactly that and regularly pop over to see how he’s doing,’ Glenn replied. ‘Anyway, it’s been a real pleasure to meet you and the others.’ He drew me in and kissed me on the cheeks. Then he proceeded to shake everyone else’s hands, before taking a wooden box from a bag he’d retrieved from the boot of his car. He handed it to Tom. ‘Please give this to Ruby for me, my old friend. Tell her these are some of my finest cigars and I hope she likes them.’
‘If I know Ruby, she’ll adore them,’ Tom said.
Glenn nodded and looked up into the clear sky. ‘Whatever you’re heading into, at least you’re going to have better weather for it than you did last night. But please take care, especially if your undersea encounter was a taste of what you’ll be up against.’
I tapped Ariel’s hull. ‘Oh, I think we can look after ourselves pretty well this time round.’
‘I hope so, my friends, I hope so…’
On the virtual cockpit, the contrast to the stormy weather of the previous night couldn’t have been more stark. The ocean shone as soft twinkling sunlight danced across its surface. In any other situation it would have been an uplifting view, but not today, in light of the potential confrontation that we were heading straight towards.
Displayed either side of us, even though the other X-craft were in stealth mode, were their rendered 3D representations on the virtual cockpit that encircled the flight deck. Thor, under Niki’s command, and the X103 that we’d flown out on, were flying off to our port side. Meanwhile, Erin and Daryl onboard Artemis were off to our starboard. It wasn’t lost on me that the combined firepower of our four craft was substantial. Despite it all, the one thing I knew for certain was that I would have felt far more relaxed if Lucy had been flying with us as part of our squa
dron.
‘We’re about ten miles out,’ Tom said, looking at his nav screen.
‘Any hint of that Zumwalt destroyer yet?’ I asked.
‘No, but we’ve got at least one of those Russian spy fishing boats,’ Ruby replied. She pressed an icon on her CIC screen and in a pop-up window on the virtual display, the squat outline of a ship was shown in the ocean. The people on the deck were barely visible, just specks moving around the deck, but more noticeable was a white blob dangling from a crane at the rear of the vessel.
‘That looks like another submersible to me,’ Mike said.
‘And bang over the mystery site at the bottom of the ocean by the looks of it,’ Ruby replied.
‘I think that more than confirms that they are actively investigating that site,’ I said. ‘Is there any chance you could get a clearer image so we could get a better idea of what’s going on, Ruby?’
‘Sorry, Ariel’s imaging system is already at maximum magnification as it is.’
‘Then allow me,’ Lucy said as her face appeared in another pop-up window, making me jump in the process and causing Jack to spill the water he’d been drinking.
‘Damn it, can you at least warn us when you make a house call?’ he said, wiping the water from his combat uniform.
‘Sorry, my bad,’ Lucy said, grinning at him. ‘Anyway, welcome to another mod that I managed to get Jodie to fit before the squadron left Eden. Your craft have been fitted with the new QEC – quantum entangled communication – radios. Thanks to that, not only will you be able to keep in contact with Niki when you’re submerged, but I also fitted a dedicated channel so I can tag along in virtual form using my avatar. If I can’t be there in person, at least I can be there in spirit.’
‘So you mean there is basically no way that we can get away from you now?’ Jack said, grinning.
‘As if you’d want to. Anyway, you were asking about a clearer look at that image. You know that bit in the movies where someone asks the expert to enhance the image and they press a few buttons and hey presto, the thing that was a vague blob suddenly becomes a pin sharp image?’
