“ … iceberg, twelve thousand yards … ahead. Follow eastern face, heading north. Stay tight … depth … two-hundred feet.”
“Iceberg?” Rocky glances at the sonar controls. “There it is, twelve thousand yards, right in front of us.”
Aboard the USS Scranton
The radio transmission turns to static.
Cubit prays his message was received. Just keep on pinging, Joe-Pa, just keep on pinging. “Chief, make your depth two hundred feet. Conn, WEPS, firing point procedures, tubes three and four.”
“Skipper, on what bearing? I don’t have a target or a firing solution.”
“Dead ahead. This is a timing play, gentlemen. Joe-Pa’s leading the wolf to slaughter. WEPS, set torpedoes three and four to run-to-enable at six hundred yards.”
“Setting torpedoes three and four to run-to-enable, six hundred yards, aye, sir.”
“Open outer doors. Stand by to fire.”
Aboard the Prototype
“Two thousand yards. See anything yet?”
“Yeah,” Gunnar says, focusing out of his right eye, “I see ice, a goddamn wall of it.”
“Circle to the right, keep it tight.”
“Don’t be a backseat driver.” Gunnar leans forward, staring hard at the display image coming from the sub’s forward underwater camera. A mountain of submerged ice lies directly in front of them, its glowing alabaster face becoming visible in the black sea.
Rocky continues the sonar pinging.
Two more jolts, one from starboard, the other from behind.
“Christ, they’re tearing apart our propulsion system.” Gunnar banks hard to starboard, then back to port, unable to shake the minisubs.
“One thousand yards—”
The prototype’s engine stalls, then recatches the sea as Gunnar reworks the foot pedals.
“Five hundred yards—”
Sorceress, unfathomable intelligence, directed by a bipolar mind.
Sorceress, a conglomeration of biochemical circuits, caught in a perpetual command loop, repeating its mantra over and over as it spins out of control.
KILL GUNNAR WOLFE … KILL GUNNAR WOLFE … KILL GUNNAR WOLFE …
In a swarm of movement, Goliath’s minisubs suddenly converge upon Gunnar’s minisub as one, pinning the prototype between them, restricting the vessel’s lateral movement.
“Damn … I can’t steer … they’ve jammed their fins against our midwing stabilizers.”
“Two hundred yards! Gunnar, do something before they smash us head-on into the face of that iceberg!”
He veers the joystick hard to starboard.
The prototype collides with three minisubs, but is unable to break free.
“One hundred yards,” Rocky yells.
Gunnar grits his teeth, the ice face leaping into his vision. He eases off the foot pedals, slowing the sub.
A crunch of metal on metal as two of the steel Hammerheads grind into them from behind.
“Fifty yards … twenty-five … oh, shit—”
Now! Stomping on both foot pedals, he yanks back on the joystick as hard as he can.
The prototype pulls ahead of the pack enough to execute a tight backward loop up and over its eleven escorts. Barrel rolling out of the flip, Gunnar turns hard to starboard, bouncing twice off the eastern face of the berg before righting his craft.
Unable to slow in time, four of Goliath’s minisubs smash headfirst into the unyielding frozen slab and explode.
The other seven continue on, giving chase.
The monstrous ray adjusts its course, chasing the prototype along the mountainous wall of ice, its biochemical computer brain locking and loading a torpedo, its sensors zeroing in on the prototype.
Aboard the USS Scranton
“Conn, sonar, multiple impacts. Joe-Pa’s still pinging … he’s on the eastern face and moving north, coming fast … five hundred yards … three hundred yards … two hundred …”
“WEPS, Captain, stand by.” Cubit watches the second hand race around the face of his grandfather’s watch.
“One hundred yards … fifty yards. Joe-Pa’s cleared the berg—”
Steady, Cubit … steady … His heart pounds, his pulse racing. Now! “WEPS, shoot tubes three and four!”
Aboard the Prototype
The prototype rockets beyond the eastern face of the iceberg and into the clear, its damaged pump-jet propulsor unit heaving in protest.
Gunnar turns his head to the left. Through his helmet’s night-vision image he sees a dark, whalelike silhouette hovering along the northern face of the massive berg,
—his eye catching the movement and jet streams of the two incoming projectiles racing toward them from the abyss.
“Oh, shit—” Gunnar yanks the joystick back, launching the prototype straight up toward the ice-packed surface, veering hard to port at the last second as he spots the hole created by the Scranton’s sail.
The sleek minisub shoots out of the sea like a sailfish.
For a brief, surreal moment they are airborne, and then the Hammerhead slams belly down onto the frozen sea, skittering sideways two hundred feet before smashing nose first into a jagged escarpment of ice.
The Goliath roars past the iceberg—
—directly into the path of the two incoming Mk-48 ADCAP torpedoes, offering a point-blank target impossible to miss.
IMPOSSIBLE …
Alarms sound within the biochemical computer’s matrix, igniting a series of evasive maneuvers, but now even milliseconds are too long as the Scranton’s projectiles slam into the monster submarine’s exposed portside wing. The twin blasts rupture the Goliath’s reinforced steel hull, tearing open the wing, imploding more than a dozen ballast tanks.
I AM GOD. I AM GOD. I CANNOT BE DESTROYED …
The invading sea explodes into the engine room, punishing all five S6W nuclear reactors, which heave together in a vacuous implosion. The detonation fractures the stingray’s spine, venting the Vertical Missile Bay and the already-flooded hangar, the incredible weight of the water literally pulling the submarine’s hull apart, separating its still-intact head from its flooded lower remains.
Sorceress instantly shuts down all nonessential programming, redirecting its power cells to its nutrient-rich womb.
I AM GOD. I … .. AM
A thunderous impact as the starboard wing of the devilfish strikes bottom, shearing the appendage from its steel body with a terrible sound of shredding metal. The impact sends the still-intact forward compartment cascading end over end until the Goliath’s head comes to its final resting place, submerged seven hundred feet beneath the iceberg’s mammoth keel.
Aboard the USS Scranton
The concussion wave rolls Scranton hard to port, causing the glacierlike mountain to tremble, unleashing an avalanche of ice that plunges into the turbulent sea.
Michael Flynn tosses his headphones aside. He high-fives his sonar supervisor and fellow operators, then grabs the 1-MC, and bellows. “She’s dead, Skipper! You nailed that motherfucker!”
A cheer rises throughout the ship.
An emotionally exhausted Tom Cubit collapses back against a console, a sheepish grin on the captain’s face as he watches his officers and crew exchange high fives and hugs.
Bo Dennis slaps him on the shoulder. “Bravo, Zulu, Skipper! Well done.”