Daughter of the Deep(81)

Dev’s voice comes over our loudspeaker: ‘Welcome back, Nautilus. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.’

I hate how smug he sounds. He’s been waiting to pull exactly this trick: disable us, then take us without a fight. The fact that I anticipated the scenario doesn’t make it any better. I was hoping to have a few more seconds for evasive manoeuvres. Now I have to pray for Plan C to work.

‘Come on, Nautilus,’ I murmur. ‘Engine room, how is Plan C?’

‘Little busy down here, Captain!’ Nelinha says. ‘I managed to hit the kill switch before impact. Reactor is down, but hopefully our circuits aren’t fried. If we can just – Aha!’

The engines hum. The bridge lights flicker back to life. LOCUS spheres reform over the control consoles.

‘Yes, querida!’ Nelinha laughs. ‘We have auxiliary power! Eat coal, Aronnax!’

The bridge crew whoops and hollers. Plan C is for coal. Our Victorian backup generator won’t give us nearly as much power as cold fusion, but it’s better than nothing.

‘Da Silva,’ I say, ‘you are one brilliant Cephalopod!’

‘Well, I’m a Cephalopod, so brilliant is redundant, but thanks, Captain. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have coal to shovel!’

In the background, Robbie Barr sneezes. ‘I’m the one shovelling, and I think I’m allergic!’

Gem’s hands fly across his controls. ‘Captain, Aronnax is stationary, still one klick dead ahead. But I have secondary contact – a small submersible. Boarding party, probably. Five hundred metres and closing.’

‘As expected,’ I say. ‘Let’s send them a message. Make ready torpedo one.’

‘Torpedo one ready.’

‘Target the Aronnax amidships. Fire!’

Our hull shudders as the antique missile speeds into the deep.

‘Helm, hard to port, ahead full!’ I grip my armrests as the ship tilts. ‘Dive, make depth thirty metres!’

The Nautilus seems to execute my commands before Lee-Ann and Halimah even touch their controls. We plunge and veer towards Lincoln Base, keeping the enemy skiff between us and the Aronnax. On Gem’s LOCUS, our torpedo explodes off the Aronnax’s port side in a beautiful purple starburst.

‘They weren’t expecting that!’ Virgil says. ‘I’m getting enemy chatter on the comm.’

He puts it on loudspeaker: Dev shouting orders, six or seven other voices replying all at once. I hear enough to understand that Dev is on the skiff, demanding status reports from the Aronnax’s bridge. Then someone on their end cuts the transmission.

I allow myself a grim smile. Dev got overconfident. He figured he would just putter over on his skiff and take command of our dead ship. Now he’s caught between the Aronnax and us, and we’re very much alive.

I love their confusion, but I know it won’t last.

‘Make ready torpedo two.’

‘That’s our last one,’ Gem reminds me.

‘Yes, but they don’t know that. Helm, thirty degrees port, full ahead. Keep that skiff between us and the Aronnax.’

‘Trying, Captain,’ Halimah says. ‘They’re taking evasive action.’

‘The skiff is within cannon range,’ Gem offers.

‘No.’ As much as I hate my brother right now, I don’t relish the idea of possibly cooking him alive in a tin can. ‘Stay focused on the Aronnax. If we can target their propulsion –’

A CLUNK echoes through the corridors. The bridge lights suddenly dim.

‘Hey, Captain,’ Nelinha breaks in. ‘We’re stressing the old choo-choo engine. Maybe take it easy on the fancy manoeuvres?’

‘Just a little longer,’ I tell her, hoping it’s true.

Our octopus-in-the-hole gamble has not paid off yet. Romeo is nowhere to be seen. I’m disappointed, but not surprised. I knew I was playing with things I didn’t understand.

On Halimah’s LOCUS, the enemy skiff is pulling away from us. The Aronnax turns her prow in our direction, trying to keep us in her sights. She seems to be moving sluggishly – or maybe that’s just my wishful thinking.

‘Captain, torpedo in the water!’ Gem yells.

‘Fire second tube! Rig for depth charge!’

The floor shudders as our last working missile leaves the tube. This time, out of the bridge windows, I can actually see the white wake line cutting through the blue. I hold my breath. I watch Gem’s LOCUS as two purple blips – our torpedo and theirs – hurtle towards each other. I don’t need the LOCUS to tell me when they collide. The explosion rolls the Nautilus on her starboard side, her hull groaning like she’s got intestinal distress. Only my newfangled seat belt keeps me from flying into the pipe organ.

Gem glances back, his eyes wide. ‘That was a seismic charge. If it had hit us …’

He doesn’t need to spell it out. Somebody on the bridge of the Aronnax is getting angry – or possibly panicked. With or without Dev’s permission, they are shooting to kill.

I make a fist. This time, the military maxim that comes to mind isn’t from Eisenhower – it’s from the Chinese general Sun Tzu: Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

‘Helm, turn us about,’ I say. ‘Take us directly towards the Aronnax.’