Unnerved, the Chinese exile pulls Covah aside. “Simon, that American sub is still somewhere in the vicinity. This vessel has five engines. With all due respect, I suggest we order the sub to shut down its number four propulsor and let us get on with our business.”
THE DAMAGED PROPULSOR ASSEMBLY IS CREATING TURBULENCE DURING FLANK SPEED MANEUVERS. COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY. BYPASSING PUMP-JET PROPULSOR NUMBER FOUR WILL NOT RESOLVE THE SITUATION.
“I wasn’t speaking to you, I was speaking to the captain.” Chau turns to face Covah. “That is, assuming you are still in command.”
Covah registers the backhanded remark in his gut as he stares out the viewport. Sleet punishes the thick tinted glass. A burst of lightning flashes silently in the distance. “Sorceress, weather conditions are not optimal for replacement of propeller number four at this time. Override safety parameters and resume Covah objective Utopia-One.”
NATO WARSHIPS AND ANTISUBMARINE HELICOPTERS ARE NOW DEPLOYING SONAR BUOYS ACROSS STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR. PUMP-JET PROPULSOR ASSEMBLY NUMBER FOUR MUST BE REPLACED TO MAINTAIN OPTIMUM STEALTH AND FLANK SPEED IN ORDER TO COMPLETE COVAH OBJECTIVE UTOPIA-ONE. CURRENT STATUS YIELDS AN INCREASED RISK OF DETECTION BY HOSTILE FORCES BY A COEFFICIENT OF 3.796. PRESENT WEATHER CONDITIONS OPTIMAL TO PREVENT FURTHER DETECTION BY HOSTILE FORCES AND SATELLITE RECONNAISSANCE. COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
Covah palpates the soft, whiskerless flesh transplanted along the corner of his scalded mouth. “Sorceress is, of course, correct.” He turns to the engineer. “Alert the rest of the crew. I want everyone in the PLC in dry suits in fifteen minutes.”
Two bays aboard the Goliath permit access to the sub’s exterior hull. The first is the hangar deck, a floodable chamber, located along the sub’s undercarriage and originally designed for covert Navy SEAL operations while submerged. The second is the Primary Loading Chamber (PLC), a compartment located in the stern, just aft of the vessel’s reactor and engine room. With its topside access, the PLC is used for the loading and unloading of the crew’s supplies, as well as the ship’s weapons.
Heading aft, Covah passes through the immense centrally located hangar, the compartment’s two mechanical arms resting on their Volkswagen-size shoulder girdles. Entering the engine room, he climbs a steep stairwell, continuing along one of the four elevated walkways situated between the submarine’s five nuclear power plants. Below the grated steel platform lies an expanse of equipment resembling the latest autorobotics factory. Situated within this city-block-long chamber are Goliath’s five nuclear reactors, two backup generators, batteries, seawater distillation plants, and, in the rear of the compartment, the driveshaft extensions of the sub’s five propulsion units.
Positioned at intervals along the avenues separating the nuclear reactors are eight-foot-high shiny steel arms supporting carbon-fiber pincers. These robotic appendages, mounted along the decking like bizarre swiveling lampposts, represent Goliath’s workforce—twenty-four-hour-a-day drones, designed to allow the computer to physically complete the tasks of a 140-man crew.
Scarlet beams emanating from forty optical sensory lasers illuminate the darkened walkway, crisscrossing the chamber like bursts of tracer fire. No one can enter any section of the ship without Sorceress’s knowledge.
A watertight door beckons at the end of the path, the vermilion pupil of the computer’s eyeball-shaped sensor glowing above the passageway as prominent as an EXIT sign. The door swings open automatically as Covah approaches, sealing again after he enters the Primary Loading Chamber.
Unlike the engine room, the PLC is open and brightly lit, resembling a small steel gymnasium, three stories high. Mounted at the very center of its decking is an enormous robotic arm, identical to the two appendages mounted in the hangar bay. These crane-size devices were designed by the same Canadian firm that constructed the robotic arm aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle, and are nearly identical in its dimensions. The mechanical limb remains bent at the elbow, the joint resting just below a sealed twenty-footsquare hatch in the ceiling.
Located next to the base of the arm is an open hydraulic elevator lift. Balanced upright on the lift’s steel platform, held in place by the thumb and two fingerlike prongs attached to the wrist of the robotic arm, is a ten-foot-high, lamp-shade-shaped device made of a bronze alloy. The assembly, which attaches to the sub’s propulsor unit, is designed to direct the flow field generated by Goliath’s nuclear-driven pump-jets in the same manner the deflectors direct the jets on an F-22 Raptor.
For a long moment Covah just stares at Goliath’s three-fingered mechanical hand, a bizarre anatomical reflection of his own physical deformity.
The seven members of Covah’s crew are leaning against a massive generator. All wear cumbersome dry suits, weighted rubber boots, and orange flotation vests. Mutinous expressions tell him all he needs to know.
Thomas Chau, spokesman for the group, steps forward, perspiration heavy across his gaunt, oily face. “Simon, the men and I … we’ve been talking.”
“Have you?”
“Yes, sir, and to a man we feel that replacing the propulsor unit in these conditions is too risky.”
“I see. Then you’d prefer to wait until the seas are calm and the sun shines brightly overhead while a squadron of American P-3 Orion sub hunters closes in upon us?”
“No, sir—”
“Or perhaps we should just ignore the problem and face the thirty NATO warships and submarines gathering at the mouth of the Mediterranean, without our full stealth capabilities?” Covah pauses to sip from the water bottle. “There is risk in all things great, Mr. Chau. Or did you think the world would simply meet our demands without a fight?”
“Simon, there is not a man among us unwilling to die for our cause, but to serve this … this inhuman taskmaster is—”
“Sorceress is not a taskmaster. She—”
“She?”
“It is merely a computer, a machine designed to make our jobs easier.”
“In my opinion,” Chau spits, “your machine does not require us on board any more than a dog requires a flea. It is my recommendation that we disconnect the Sorceress programming and—”
COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
They turn like scolded children to the source of the female voice—a mechanical eyeball-and-speaker assembly mounted to the wrist of the hydraulic arm.
COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.
“We heard you the first time, bitch,” yells Taur Araujo, an exiled guerrilla leader from East Timor.
And now Covah understands. It is not the computer that riles his crew. It is the voice—soothing, yet unfeeling, devoid of emotion—the voice of a cold, calculating woman giving orders.
“Mr. Chau, organize the crew into two teams, one group in the water at a time. The first will remove the damaged propulsion hood, the second will install its replacement. Make certain each man is properly secured to the lifting platform by cable. Include me in the second group.”
“But sir—”
“No buts. We will do what must be done to complete our mission. Those are my orders, Mr. Chau, not the computer’s. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
The storm’s fury has increased by the time the first team of scuba divers makes its way down Goliath’s sloped back and disappears beneath the waves.