Oh, sure, cursed the captain, we went out in high style. looking for the best prize we'd heard of lately. Quite a show, the bow cutting the waves and the men waving their rifles and RPGs like they meant business. And then the fucking infidel engine decided to go asthmatic on us. Even a stinking fat merchantman can outpace the miserable seven or eight knots we can do.
The captain looked behind him and down and spit at the engine. That wasn't satisfying enough. He turned the wheel over to another and walked to the housing, delivering it a solid kick. Bastard.
"Captain," the helm called out, "we've got something coming up out of the water."
Simmons had timed it pretty well, he thought, raising the small sail within two minutes of when he'd been supposed to. Setting the engine to idle, he backed off to all fours then pedaled back to where he could sit and then nearly stand. He took a quick glance out of the sail's forward, wrap-around, view port-which was also the direction any threat was most likely to come from-and saw nothing to worry him. Then he reached overhead and turned the wheel to open the hatch. It opened with only minimal sound and with little salt water dripping in. With the hatch out of the way he was able to stand up fully to scan for his two mates. As soon as he stood, he heard the asthmatic coughing of a marine engine in truly sorry shape, coming from close behind him. He barely had time to register the sound and turn when something close by struck the sub, right on the tower.
Nothing cracked, Namu was small and slight enough to give readily in the water. But the angle of the strike pushed it over, rotating the sub about its long axis. The boat-Simmons realized it was a boat-began to ride up on the sub, forcing the turn to continue. And then water began pouring into the open hatch.
"What the hell was that?" the pirate skipper asked.
"I don't know," the helm answered, "but we hit it and it went under."
The captain considered this for a few moments, before ordering, "Engines, all stop. And some of you ferret-faced weasels break out a half dozen or so grenades. Maybe we can force whatever is down there up again."
"By the way, did you see it?" he asked.
The helmsman shrugged. "Yeah, maybe, kinda, sorta."
"What did it look like?"
"Well . . . I didn't see much, but I thought it looked a little like a killer whale. You know, like those ones in the movies."
Struggling against the push of the in-rushing water, Simmons managed to get one hand on the hatch's wheel. He pulled for all he was worth, the water resisting even his prodigious strength. He managed to close the hatch, and to dog it, too, but not before the minisub was more than half full of water and sinking. The lights stayed on, which was some comfort. Life support, however, choked and died. Simmons doubted he'd be able to get the thing off the bottom once it settled down.
With water above his thighs, and the sub slowly sinking, he said, "I'm so fucked."
***
"Come on," Morales insisted, "we've got to go get Simmons out."
Eeyore put a restraining hand on his team mate and answered, "Yes, but not yet."
"Why?"
The answer came in the form of a small flash on the boat, followed within a few seconds by a wallop that came through the water and that felt highly analogous to being kicked in the testicles.
After half an hour, and the expenditure of a dozen grenades, the captain decided that if there were anything down there, it wasn't coming up for anything he could do. Shaking his head again, and spitting once more at the engine, he said, "It was probably nothing. You said it looked a bit like a killer whale?"
Again, the helmsman shrugged. "Yeah. They're rare around here, I know, but they're here. Seemed kind of small, too."
"Hmmm. Small, you say. Well . . . let's get to harbor and get this fucking engine in the queue to be fixed before its mother shows up."
"Oh, man, that hurt," Morales moaned.
He and Antoniewicz had swum off as fast as possible once the first explosion had gone off. At the range they'd stopped at, the eleven explosions that had followed had still been unpleasant, but not at quite the kicked-in-the-balls level of pain the first one had been.
"Yeah," Eeyore agreed. "Hey, look, they're moving off. Let's give them a few minutes and we'll see what we can do, if anything, about Simmons and the sub."
Namu hadn't been all that impressed by the explosions, even though they could be felt. Simmons, on the other hand, had been.
If whoever it was hit me had taken off, I'd have hyperventilated, cracked the hatch, let the sub fill, and then swum out. But I can't swim in an area being depth charged. Shit.
Already the air was noticeably stale.
This is not how I intended to die, Simmons thought. Not at all. Shit.
"This is about where Simmons surfaced," Eeyore said. "He's not going to stop short of the bottom, so head straight down and then north, then east. I'll do the same and head south then west."
"What do we do if we find him?" Morales asked.
"Assuming he's alive but that the sub is fucked, one of us can share a tank until we get him to the surface."
"Yeah."
"Okay, then. Monoculars on. We'll come up every twenty minutes to coordinate."
"Roger," Morales agreed, then headed for the bottom. Antoniewicz followed.
It took three more dives and as many different search patterns before Eeyore's monocular caught the faint glow emanating from the viewport of the Namu. He swam over to investigate. Namu was lying upright. He could see by the dim glow that the lights inside were still on. Through the viewport he saw Simmons slumped against one side of the tower. He thought, but couldn't be sure, that the sub driver was still breathing.
A series on knocks on the viewport failed to rouse the man. Antoniewicz thought, Well, he's in for a sudden, unexpected shower.
Eeyore swam upward a bit, then put his legs to either side of the tower to brace himself. For a few moments he hyperventilated to ensure he'd have enough oxygen when his put his mouthpiece into Simmons's mouth. Satisfied with that, he put his hands in different positions on the smaller, exterior wheel for the sub's hatch, being careful to take positions that wouldn't break his wrists when the hatch shot open, as he expected it to. He twisted, or tried to. Nothing. Again, he sucked air, then put everything he had into twisting the wheel.
Come on, you son of a bitch.
He was rewarded with the sudden springing open of the hatch, followed by a massive air bubble that shot to the surface. He waited a couple of seconds for the bubble to clear, then lunged to a point above the now open hatch. Simmons' head was there, clear of the hatch. He wasn't moving.
Eeyore reached down and grabbed his teammate by the nearest things he could get a grip on, the ears. Again he pulled, this time putting his back into it. Simmons' torso cleared the hatch. Now Antoniewicz could reposition to get a one-armed grip under the arms. With that grip secured, he used his other hand to remove his own mouthpiece and force it into Simmons' mouth. He squeezed once, and then again, to get Simmons' lungs to pump air. Then, legs kicking for all he was worth, Eeyore shot the two of them upward. It wasn't really deep enough to have to worry about the bends.
Simmons was still out of it once they reached the surface. Antoniewicz took some comfort that he was still breathing. He held the unconscious man's head above water while waiting for Morales to show up to spell him.
"Thank God," were Morales's first words once his head broke the surface. "Now what?"
"Remember those few fishing boats that were floating away from the dock in the outer harbor?" Eeyore asked.
"Yeah. So?"
"Well, we're going to take him there. Then we're going to steal a boat."
"You mean a rowboat? I don't think that will work."
"No," Eeyore shook his head. "We're going to rest a bit then steal a power boat."
"But they're all mined, bubba," Morales objected.
"Nope," Antoniewicz countered. "One of them isn't."