George put the impeller throttle full forward, and SF-1 began to strain against the latch, trying in vain to move the sub-fighter at fifty knots while the Louisiana accelerated through twenty-five. But George knew this would not be enough — this was the same setup they had used to silently propel the powerless Louisiana around Cape Horn, right under the noses of the world’s premier attack boats. If the sub-fighter hadn’t broken free then, there was not much reason to think it would now.
“SQID drive charged… Engaged!”
The squid drive roared to life, and almost immediately there was the sound of wrenching metal as SF-1 lurched forward, stopped momentarily, and then finally broke free of the Louisiana with a violent jerk.
“Hooray! Thank God!” MacKenzie shouted. “We did it — we’re free!”
The sub-fighter soared away from the Louisiana as the lumbering giant disappeared into the murky depths below. They celebrated as George turned west toward Kermandec Number Nine and started to climb back toward the surface.
Their elation, however, was short-lived.
“We have a problem here, Captain.”
“What’s that?”
“Flooding! We’ve got water rising through the deck plates!”
“Holy cow! We must have ruptured the hull when we broke loose. We have to get to the surface NOW! That water will short out the batteries, and without juice we have no propulsion. And in a sub-fighter, you know what that means…”
“Yes, sir. No propulsion means ‘Hello Davy Jones’!”
As the cockpit continued to fill with water, George pulled up the nose of SF-1 and hit the SQID drive again, rapidly propelling SF-1 toward the surface. Just then, the rising water inside the fighter shorted out the batteries. Luckily for the two occupants, the fighter’s momentum carried them to the surface, and George was able to hold it there because of their forward velocity… at least momentarily.
“Get that topside hatch open, Mac. We’ve got to bail out!”
“I’ve got it, sir. She’s swinging open!”
Water began splashing in the open hatch as waves broke over the top of SF-1. They had to hurry. When SF-1 slowed to less than five knots, George would no longer be able to hold her on the surface.
“Get your ass out, Mac. I’m right behind you!”
“Sir, you should go first. I’m just a lowly petty officer…”
“There’s no time for arguing — Go! That’s an order!”
MacKenzie unlatched his harness, reached up, and placed both hands on the lip of the open hatch. He pulled himself up so that both feet were in his seat. In one swift movement, he jumped through the opening while guiding himself out with his hands. He rolled off of the top of the sub-fighter into the sea.
Just then, SF-1 slid below the waterline and a torrent of water plunged though the hatch into the cockpit. There was no way George could fight his way out through that torrent. As the cockpit rapidly filled with water, George took a deep breath and waited, knowing that the torrent would stop once the cockpit was full. When he felt the current subside, he repeated MacKenzie’s actions and propelled himself through the hatch, approximately twenty feet under the surface of the water. George swam to the surface, arriving only ten feet away from where MacKenzie treaded water, dazed and shocked.
“Captain!” MacKenzie shouted as George surfaced, facing the opposite direction. “Over here! Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” George coughed. “I just need to catch my breath and get my bearings.” It was late afternoon, so the sun was starting to set in the western sky.
They were alone in the shark-infested waters of the South Pacific, dressed only in their submariner’s blue poopie suit uniforms and sneakers. They had no floatation gear and were treading water twenty miles from the nearest land. Even worse, an international armada was about to descend on their location and start an exhaustive search for survivors of the Louisiana. George and MacKenzie knew very well the dire consequences that awaited them if they were captured. Public humiliation… a sham trial for treason… a media circus… and probable execution. And they floated at the mercy of the South Pacific current.
“I figure we’re about twenty miles east of Kermandec Number Nine, sir. That’s the closest land. How are we going to get there?”
“We’ll get there slowly but surely. The current is in our favor. It’s pretty strong, and it flows east to west in this area. So it should help carry us back toward the island. Even if we just float, we should get there in eighteen hours or so.”
“Eighteen hours! I don’t think I can swim that long, Captain.”
“We need to conserve our strength.”
“In water survival school, they taught us a drown-proofing technique where you take a breath and just relax face down in the water until you need another breath. Then with just a gentle kick, you raise your head and take another breath. It’s supposed to minimize your energy usage. Do you remember that class, Captain?”
“Yes I do, but that technique is really designed for a situation in which you’re shipwrecked and waiting for rescue forces to pick you up. We’re not in that situation. We don’t want to be found, so we need to put as much distance between this location and ourselves as quickly as we can. Which means we need to do some swimming.”
“Well, we’ll get tired pretty quickly if we try to do the crawl, Captain.”
“Yes I know. I recommend doing the backstroke with a frog kick. Take your sneakers off and put them inside your poopie suit. That will make it easier to swim, and we’ll need those shoes when we get to the island.”
“Yeah, if we get there.”
“Positive thinking, Mac — it works wonders.”
“Yes, sir — I meant when we get there.”
“We want to move toward that setting sun as quickly as possible, but without a lot of splashing around.”
MacKenzie chuckled. “Captain, I don’t think those subs out there are going to hear a couple guys splashing on the surface.”
“It’s not the subs I’m concerned about — it’s the sharks.”
“Sharks! Holy crap!”
“Now don’t get too excited. We shouldn’t have a problem if we don’t attract their attention. People have this false image that sharks are always swimming around on the surface with their dorsal fins sticking out of the water. But in reality, sharks in the open ocean rarely come to the surface. They’re usually swimming around a couple of hundred feet down. That’s where their normal food supply is. They only come to the surface when one of their prey is wounded and is bleeding or splashing around up here.”
“Okay, Captain. You won’t hear a single splash from me!”
George and MacKenzie swam and rested and swam some more throughout the evening, using the setting sun to guide them westward. Once darkness came, it was more difficult to tell from the southern hemisphere sky which direction was west. So they floated with the current throughout the long night, which seemed like it would never end. Off and on through the night, MacKenzie used the drown-proofing technique they had learned in water survival school, but George had never been comfortable with his face in the water. So he floated on his back where he could breathe freely. At first light the next morning, they began to swim away from the rising sun. By midmorning, Kermandec Number Nine was in sight, and they wearily let the surf wash them ashore.
Chapter 47
The Nuku’alofa had stayed at the rendezvous point for an hour beyond the appointed time, but could not stay in the area any longer due to the expected arrival of forces searching for the Louisiana. By the time George and MacKenzie washed ashore, the Nuku had long ago moved to its normal cargo route west of the island and proceeded back to Auckland.