They scanned their new surroundings, heads on swivels as they looked for signs of crew other than the herd pounding up after them from below. They could hear them over the spraying of fire extinguishers, even louder now, and knew it would be only a matter of seconds before they caught up with them.
“Which way?” Jayden asked. They stood in the center of a veritable maze of catwalks, passageways and overhead platforms. Jayden’s answer was the sharp ping of a bullet ricocheting off the stairway railing and hitting something else above them and to their right.
“Any way but here, come on.” Carter took off to their left, now able to move unencumbered, down a mesh catwalk that opened up into a wider platform about fifty feet later.
“I see sky, that way.“ Jayden pointed ahead, to where another stairway led up.
“That goes to the aft deck,” Carter said, already moving toward it.
As they ran, Jayden eyeballed the radio and recognized it as a standard marine VHF unit. He changed the channel to the common maritime emergency frequency, knowing it would be monitored by their ship, floating only a hundred yards away.
He keyed the transmit button and yelled into the radio as they sprinted across the vessel toward the stairs. “Research Vessel Deep Pioneer, this is Jayden and Carter from Deep Voyager. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! We surfaced safely in the sub but were taken hostage on the surface by the crew of the Transoceanic. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday…” He repeated the message three or four times as they ran. When they reached the stairs, he released the transmitter to listen for incoming transmissions.
More gunfire sounded behind them and they hauled themselves up the stairs by the railing. No one came from the opposite direction, but they could hear radio chatter on deck up above. Jayden considered changing channels back to the one it was on before he made the distress call, so that he could monitor the enemy crew, but the radio blared before he could change it.
“Copy, Jayden. We’re sending a boat crew now, over.”
But Carter tapped Jayden’s shoulder before he could reply and pointed to a tender vessel — a small inflatable boat with outboard motor — suspended by a crane. “Must be a second one because the other one they picked us up in is back there by the moon pool. Tell ‘em to forget the tender — they’ll just get shot at, anyway. We’ll take that one. Meanwhile, have them call for our chopper.”
Jayden spoke into the radio and relayed the information while they continued running.
“Your chopper isn’t scheduled to be here until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Buzz will come out early for us. He knows we take care of him and that if we’re asking for a major change in plans it’s critical, not on a whim. Just let him know that he needs to leave right now, out!”
“Copy that.” The radioman from the Deep Voyager’s bridge signed off and the pair of ex-Navy men continued negotiating the ship’s challenging obstacles at high speed. Down a short flight of metal grated steps here, along a solid deck for a stretch where they caught a crewman unaware on watch duty. He paid the price with an unscheduled nap on the deck after a swift blow to the back of the head with Jayden’s newfound Mag-light.
More gunfire erupted behind them at the same time they heard a walkie-talkie blare from somewhere up ahead. Carter grabbed Jayden by the shoulder. “Let’s split up and meet at the boat. It’ll make us harder to track.” Well aware of this fact, Jayden agreed. “Last one there’s a rotten egg,” he said, before leapfrogging over a metal railing and dropping down to a catwalk, parkour style.
Carter chose to sprint straight ahead, knowing he was heading toward a direct confrontation with at least one unknown crewman. Better to face an opponent who might not know he was coming than one already shooting at him. He winced in pain as his left shoulder slammed into a stairway railing when he reached the landing and tried to make the turn too sharply. It was good he did, though, since a bullet pinged off of a metal bar mere feet away. Carter took the bottom half-flight of stairs in one leap, hit the landing with a loud clang, and then bolted across a short catwalk until it opened up onto the expansive deck.
He could see the tender vessel suspended over the side of the ship about a hundred feet away. Although tempted to rush straight for it, he curbed the instinct. Being out in the open increased the likelihood of being spotted and shot. Also on his mind was Jayden. He pivoted in place, looking for him, but saw no one except for a single crewperson, handheld radio raised to his mouth but apparently weaponless.
Good as it’s going to get, Carter thought. He knew this unarmed individual was no threat to him, no match for his military training and high level of physical prowess. Still, the old adage about not being able to outrun a radio flashed through his mind as he crept toward the adversary while sticking to the shadows. Carter ducked behind a stack of life rafts and observed the crewman. This was as close as he could get to the man without walking straight out onto the wide open deck.
Suddenly the individual turned his head sharply toward the other side of the deck, where the boat was hanging. A noise was heard from that direction, and the man’s head turned, tracking it. Jayden tossing something, Carter thought, glad for the distraction. Not wanting his friend’s good thinking to go to waste, Carter silently dashed across the deck and took the crewman down with a flying tackle, cupping a hand over his mouth while simultaneously knocking the radio away. A measured knee to the throat ensured the treasure-looting thug wouldn’t be calling for help in the next minute or so, but without being fatal.
Carter left him there writhing and sputtering to join Jayden beneath the tender vessel. The boat was uncovered but still needed to be lowered into the water. Carter pointed into the boat. “You get in and get ready to start it while I get the winch.”
Jayden jumped and hauled himself into the boat, a twelve-foot inflatable with an outboard motor controlled from a steering console. “Where’s all the empty beer cans and bait wrappers? Doesn’t anybody have any fun on this thing?” Jayden wondered aloud. Carter shook his head as he moved toward the winch control station while keeping an eye out for the oncoming pursuers. His friend’s capacity for levity never ceased to amaze him.
“Something tells me these guys don’t have all that much fun,” Carter said, pressing a green button on a metal pole at the same time as a shower of orange sparks erupted six inches over his head, the result of a near-miss 9mm round. He ducked down to the deck, arms over his head, as the boat began to lower toward the water, accompanied by a mechanical hum.
“I’ll unhitch us, you just get in here without getting shot!” Jayden yelled from his hunkering position behind the boat’s steering console. But although it was the gunmen Carter worried most about, he heard pounding feet and turned in time to see a bear of a man barreling toward him with a large dive knife held out at the ready in his right hand. Stealth not being his mode of operation, the combatant uttered a hoarse war cry he lumbered toward Carter and the tender. Carter quickly looked left and right, searching for anything that might be used as a weapon of opportunity — something to throw, a loose piece of metal or cable to trip him up with, anything — but he could find nothing in the two seconds he had available before his opponent reached him.
Carter was about to stand and fight when his ears locked onto the sound of the boat lowering on the winch, and a new idea occurred to him. A split second before the fighter got to him, he turned and ran toward the tender, now out of sight below the ship’s rail, having been lowered nearly to the waterline.