“How many drones?!” shouted Moody.
“Three so far,” said Pete, just as the second bomb hit.
It landed right next to the sail. The scope jerked so hard from the force that Pete felt like he’d been punched in the face. The scope started to drift downward, but Pete fought to hold it up so he could keep looking.
“External hydraulics is damaged,” said Moody, cutting out an alarm. “Pressure dropping fast.” Pete watched as the third drone swerved to avoid its comrade. As a result, it dropped its bomb slightly off target, and it landed harmlessly in the ocean off their port side.
He barely had time to feel any relief before he looked up and saw at least a dozen drones heading directly toward them from the island.
“More on the way,” he said.
“How many?”
“Too many.”
They both looked at speed.
“How far do we need to go?” she said. “How far to this safety radius?”
“Maybe a mile left,” he said. Speed had dropped to fifteen knots. Pete did the math: four minutes until they reached safety.
The Polaris kept churning through the water. Pete knew they couldn’t survive a coordinated attack by that many drones, especially in their already damaged condition. One more hit might rip open the hull, ignite a fire in the missile compartment, and spread radioactive debris from the warheads. They were pointed directly at each other, the Polaris and the incoming swarm of drones. The island was clearly in sight now; he could see the control tower on the north side. More drones were taking off, sweeping up into the sky, ready to finish them off. The ESM alarms throughout the control room screeched.
Moody fought her way to the command console. “We’re five and a half miles from the island!”
Pete kept his eye on the scope. “We have to make that five-mile line.” The drones were screaming toward them.
“Four hundred yards,” she said. “Three hundred… two hundred… one hundred.”
“Brace yourself!” said Pete as the drones reached directly overhead. The lead drone dropped its bomb, which landed on the aftmost exposed part of the deck, tearing a new hole in it.
But then the rest of the drones pulled up, and circled them. They had made it, slipped across the five-mile line.
“Yes!” shouted Pete.
“All back full!” said Moody. It took Pete a second to realize what she was doing. While they were now safe from the drones, they were speeding at fifteen knots toward the jagged coral shore of the island. The big ship reluctantly slowed, then stopped.
The big engines changed directions, and the ship started to slow. Pete watched as the island loomed in front of them, the magnification of the scope making it seem like collision was inevitable. But the ship slowly ground to a halt, the speed dropping to zero.
“Are we good?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. Through the scope, he felt like he could almost reach out and touch land. “Somehow.”
Pete rotated and searched behind them — no sign of the Typhon boat. He knew now precisely where the five-mile line was, having seen the drones relent. But Carlson was out there somewhere. He had an idea.
“Keep backing up,” he said.
“Why?” said Moody.
“We want to get close to that five-mile line,” he said. “As close as possible.”
“Without going over.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“All back one-third,” she said.
He watched through the scope, trying to fix in memory the exact point where the drones had relented. “Here!” he said as they approached.
“All stop!”
The ship slowly drifted to a halt, dead in the water. Only the nose of the ship, and the tower, was above the surface, the aft end of Polaris weighed down by the flooding. Pete knew they were inside the five-mile radius — because the curious drones swooping above them weren’t dropping their bombs. But he hoped they were very close to that line.
“They’re out there somewhere,” said Pete. “Watching us. They could kill us now if they wanted.”
Moody shook her head grimly. “Those shoals might protect us — not sure how well their torpedoes would navigate over them. And they may not want to shoot us now. They could have done it long before. They may want to board us — seize us. Save their man McCallister. Find out what we know. Dissect every piece of technology onboard. There’s no way I’m going to let that happen.”
“We’ll fight?”
“Not in this condition,” she said. “But I’ll scuttle the ship before I let those bastards have us.” She started heading aft, and Pete yelled after her.
“We might not have to. We’re safe here. But they’re not safe where they are.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’re right on the line. Maybe we can lure them to the surface, let the drones attack them.”
“Well,” Moody said as a new flooding alarm shrieked and the Polaris continued to take on water. “I don’t have any better ideas.”
They hurried to the forward hatch, walking up a steep angle to get to it. As they left the control room, they could hear the rushing of water behind them as it flooded into the ship. They didn’t have much time. Moody spun open the hatch, and together they muscled it open and climbed topside.
The sun blinded Hamlin at first; he hadn’t realized how dark it was inside the ship. The equatorial heat, as well — the humidity, the sea breeze — it was almost too much to bear. He found himself gasping, his body starved for good air. As he breathed it in, he could feel himself getting stronger. Seagulls swooped overhead, their shadows crisscrossing the battered deck of the submarine.
But they weren’t gulls; they were the drones. Agitated, like bees, and the Polaris had approached too close to the hive. They swooped overhead, buzzing Pete and Moody so closely that they ducked. Each one clutched a bomb in its talons, but obedient to their coding, they didn’t drop them. Hamlin noticed that they looked old, their wings battered in some cases and frayed, their bodies no longer shiny. But they still flew with deadly, precise alacrity.
“Out there,” said Pete, pointing. “The Typhon boat is out there somewhere.”
“They won’t surface. They know better, with all these drones out.”
“When they see the drones are avoiding us… maybe they’ll think they’re safe. Maybe they’ll think the shoal line is the safety barrier. If we’re right on the line and they surface out there—”
“The drones will get them.”
“That’s my plan,” said Pete.
“So what are they waiting for?”
“Our surrender,” said Pete. He quickly stripped off his uniform shirt, and then his white T-shirt. He waved it in the air. He did it for five minutes, hoping someone on the Typhon boat was observing him through their periscope. The sun pounded on his shoulders, and soon he was sweaty with exertion.
“There!” said Moody, pointing. Pete stopped waving his shirt momentarily, and looked in the direction Moody was pointing.
It was a periscope.
But instead of driving straight at them, the submarine adjusted course, and drove to the south.
“What are they doing?” said Moody.
“Not sure,” said Pete. He could see them driving south a few hundred yards before turning back toward them.
“Which way is north?” Pete asked Moody, the realization dawning on him. She pointed forward.
If the direction north was twelve o’clock, the Typhon boat had driven itself to seven o’clock. Precisely the location of the break in the shoals.