The colonel exhaled through his nostrils. “I don’t care how you do it. But I trust you two are smart enough to raise the alarm before the motor would burn itself into liquid.”
Beads glistening on his forehead, the stocky engineer perspired enough for two men. “None of us knows the limits of this motor. It’s a custom design. So we’re making this up as we go.”
“You’ll understand this plant soon. But only if you get it up and running. Take me to the control station.”
Waddling, the engineer turned and departed.
The colonel trailed him to the propulsion control panel where sprawling gauges and lights dizzied him. “Do you understand all of this?”
“It’s all quite simple in theory. Battery bus voltage, battery discharge current, propulsion motor current, generator voltage for each MESMA plant—”
“I get it. Just get the damned ship moving.”
A stubby finger depressed a green button, and pixelized images of dials indicated an electric field forming in the propulsion motor. A fleshy hand then rotated a knob, and colored needles jumped from their leftmost stops as current flowed. “Making turns for one knot.”
“Faster.”
“I need to watch the systems respond.”
“For God’s sake, this ship’s a battle-tested juggernaut. Push the accursed limits.”
Fat fingers advanced the knob, and a whir rose behind the colonel as dials danced, but the stocky man remained silent.
“Well?”
“Making turns for seven knots.”
“How is it?”
“It’s fine. The MESMA unit’s bearing the load at ninety-eight percent capacity, and the battery bus voltage dipped a bit, which is normal. Propulsion temperatures are fine, but they’ll rise as friction heat builds up.”
“How fast are we moving?”
“Just under five knots, but we’ll reach just over five.”
“That’s all?”
“It’s due to drag when we use the rudder to compensate for single-propeller operations.”
“So be it. At least we’re moving. Get familiar with this plant and be ready to support faster speeds when the other MESMA systems are brought online.” The colonel marched forward, and passing through a watertight door brought him into the hiss and humidity of the aftermost starboard MESMA plant.
The oxygen and hydrogen tanks fed fuel into the controlled bomb of a heat exchanger, turning water into steam that rose into a turbine to turn an electric generator. Seeing his lone MESMA system expert, the colonel leaned into his ear. “Where’s your apprentice?”
The man pointed. “Over there. I sent him below to check for leaks.”
A head appeared through the floor as a frogman climbed a ladder from the lower deck.
“Keep this plant operational at all costs. Delay starting the other plants until this one proves it can bear the strain.”
Perspiring, the man yelled his response over the steam piping’s hiss. “It’s holding, but barely. Don’t put any more strain on it. Flow rates are at the red line for the fuels and steam.”
“I need to check what’s going on around us. When I know more, I’ll let you bring up another plant.”
The ship’s impressive length became evident as the colonel hurried forward.
In the silence of the starboard hull’s middle MESMA plant, he heard his heels hitting hard deck plates. Eight meters later, he entered another unused air-independent electric plant and kept marching. Then the lengthy crew’s compartments tested his patience while he passed the mess deck, the galley, and the sleeping bunks.
Having achieved the control room, he found his team’s two undersea warfare brains. Studying the console of the ship’s Subtics combat system, his submarine commander leaned over the shoulder of the sonar technician.
The duo became animated as he entered the compartment, and the commander stood, revealing a lean frame the colonel considered tall for an inhabitant of submerged confines. “Colonel?”
“What’s going on?”
The submarine commander referred to his colleague, who listened to the sea. “He just heard a torpedo launch. From the Specter.”
Fear stung the colonel’s stomach as Renard’s rapid response surprised him. He’d expected the submarines to make defensive moves, but not a torpedo. Not this fast.
He inhaled and reminded himself that Renard’s fleet’s tactics qualified the risk. “This is expected. The weapon should be non-lethal. They’re probably noisemakers.”
The lean submarine commander shrugged. “Probably. But our lives depend upon your assessment being correct.”
“He won’t sink this ship unless he has no other choice. It would ruin everything he’s worked for.”
“If you’re wrong, we’re dead.”
“You’re the expert. Is there anything to be done if I’m indeed wrong?”
The commander aimed his index finger towards an invisible distance. “The port hull’s bow is a temporary fix to the damage the proper crew incurred by sacrificing the original bow to a torpedo. I suggest you let me do the same and turn the port bow towards the incoming weapon as a sacrificial limb.”
“How would you turn us?”
“With the outboard motors.”
“Have you found their controls yet?”
“I think so. The controls for most major systems are set up in a menu directory and are accessible from any linked console. I found the top menu for the outboards.”
“Would this slow our escape?”
The commander’s face darkened as he frowned. “It would halt it outright since we’d have to turn around and point at the Specter.”
“Forget it. If the Specter or the Wraith mean to sink us, they’ll sink us. We can’t do combat with either of them, much less both of them.”
“You want me to stay on course?”
The colonel fell into retrospective thought about his decision to forego neutralizing the submarines. When he’d considered tripling his number of commandos to silence the Specter and the Wraith, he’d given up recruiting such a large force to the clandestine mission.
Expecting to outrun the submarine crews’ responses, he’d planned to escape their retaliation.
Down two men and with two unwanted submarines in pursuit, he relied upon his major advantage — his adversary’s refusal to sink his flagship. “Yes. Stay on course and get us to open water.”
“I need speed. We just reached five point one knots.”
“I have only one MESMA system expert, and I’ll get incrementally less speed from each plant I bring up. Dare I risk losing the first plant while bringing up the second?”
“You could light up a gas turbine and get more than twenty knots on just the single propeller.”
“But then I wouldn’t be ready to submerge. Something airborne will come for us soon, and the best defense will be submerging.”
“This ship submerges rapidly as a matter of normal operations with its proper crew.”
The colonel considered his words. He needed the submarine commander’s loyalty as much as he needed his obedience. “Calling the prior crew the ‘proper crew’ implies that we’re an improper crew.”
“But we are improper. We’re thinly staffed and illegitimate.”
The colonel clenched his jaw and then answered. “True, but use a term that’s less… demoralizing.”
“I can call them the ‘old crew’.”
“That’s much better. What might the old crew have done to allow rapid submergence with a gas turbine running?”
“With the expected automation of this ship, I would hope it’s no more than pressing the right sequence of buttons.”
“Do you know the right sequence?”
“Not yet, but I should before it becomes necessary.”