Great, thought Katya, now he thinks I’m a coward and just want to grab a pod. “I was thinking of reconnaissance vehicles. Flying reconnaissance vehicles.”
The captain was confused now. “Two CG craft, but we have to be surfaced to launch them. I don’t…” His eyes lit up. “Great gods! Yes, I do! Tokarov!”
Lieutenant Tokarov had already seen what Katya was getting at. “On my way, captain!”
As he left the bridge at a dogtrot, Zagadko said to Katya, “Go with him, please, Ms Kuriakova. Take a flyer each.” Katya didn’t need a second bidding.
She caught up with Tokarov raiding a storeroom. “Here,” he said, tossing her a spool of metal tape. “You’ll need a crimping gun too. Ever used this stuff before?” She shook her head. “It’s very easy. The trick is to keep the stuff taut. Loaded up? Let’s go!”
He led the way through bulkhead door after bulkhead door until they found themselves in the section directly behind the salvage maw. She’d remembered the dark shapes up in their cradles when Kane and she had been taken from the maw to the sickbay. She was glad she’d been right about what they were.
Tokarov climbed up onto the hull of the starboard contra-gravity craft. It looked like a long surface boat with heavy outriders, which she guessed contained the forward drives. They wouldn’t be needing those; only the powerful lift units. Tokarov fed a length of tape around the craft and its cradle and crimped it shut. Katya climbed onto the port craft and started doing the same.
“These cradles have clamps on them. Won’t those be enough?”
The lieutenant shook his head as he laid a second length of tape further down his craft’s hull. “They’re just to stop the flyer falling out of the cradle in harsh conditions or during extreme manoeuvres. What we’re doing is something else again. How are you doing?”
Katya had just managed her first binding and didn’t think the crimp sealing the tape into a continuous loop looked very secure. “I’m doing okay,” she replied, promising herself that the next one would be better.
Tokarov had the benefit of experience and longer arms and had his craft almost cocooned in the silvery tape before Katya was even a quarter done. He came over and helped and soon both craft were fastened to their cradles as thoroughly as was possible without getting out welding gear. Tokarov went to the intercom had hailed the bridge. “We’re ready when you are, captain.”
“Do it now, lieutenant,” snapped Zagadko’s voice in reply. “Time is wasting.”
The lieutenant clambered quickly up into the cockpit of the starboard craft, Katya doing likewise for the port flyer. “Ever flown one of these, Ms? It’s simple. Power is just like a minisub’s.” Katya sought and found a bank of switches like those she’d used to fire up the Baby just a few hours before. It seemed impossible that things could have changed so dramatically and so awfully in so little time. “That’s good. Lift controls are the ones under your left hand, the slide control. On my mark, move it forward slowly. Ready? Three, two, one, mark!”
Katya gently slid the control forward. As it moved, the status screen showed the amount of mass the contra-gravity units were now ignoring. “Approaching parity,” she reported. It was a phase she’d heard some pilot use in a drama about the war once. She guessed it meant that the craft now effectively weighed nothing. It sounded calm and professional and, if she’d got it wrong, at least Tokarov had the decency not to laugh at her.
“Check,” he replied. “Keep going. Watch the tolerance meter. You want that to go through yellow into a deep orange. Not red or this has all been for nothing.”
Katya pushed the control slowly further still. Now her craft weighed less than nothing. She noticed the tapes running across the flyer’s predatory nose growing taut as it tried to lift from the cradle. The tolerance meter was changing colour so achingly slowly that she wasn’t sure what it was from moment to moment. What if it changed so subtly that what she thought was a very deep orange was actually red? What if she fried the flyer’s CG units because she couldn’t tell?
“I’m pulling four gravities and that’s as far as I dare take it. What are you up to?” asked Tokarov.
Ah, blessed numbers, Katya sighed with relief. Numbers were nice and reliable and unambiguous. “Three point seven, eight, nine… four gees!” She locked off the controls without being told to and climbed out. Tokarov jumped from his craft’s cockpit and landed in front of her. “Will it be enough?” she asked him.
“Only one way to find out,” he said. “Come on.”
The bridge was still quiet and Zagadko was grim. “Good work,” he said. “Good idea, Ms Kuriakova. Effectively cancelling out the reconnaissance flyer’s weight and giving us more buoyancy to boot has reduced the rate of descent significantly.”
“But we’re still sinking, sir?” asked Tokarov, his disappointment evident.
“We’re still sinking. You’ve bought us some more time, though, and that’s bought us more range.” He pointed to the screen and the new larger red circle showing how far the Novgorod could go before hitting the bottom. “At least we’ll clear that Soup lake. No chance of making Lemuria, still.”
“Captain, if I might make a suggestion?” said Kane. He was still standing at the hatchway. He wouldn’t enter the bridge without being invited and the captain seemed adamant that he wouldn’t get such an invitation. Katya fumed inwardly; grown men behaving like children. She wished Uncle Lukyan were here. He’d have banged their heads and made them work together.
The captain clearly didn’t want to hear it, but under the circumstances had little choice. “What is it, Mr Kane?” he asked in a tone of deep disinterest.
“Over there on that mountain,” he pointed vaguely.
Zagadko glared at him. “Get on the bridge, man, and point it out properly.”
“Thank you so much,” said Kane with politeness so perfect, it was deeply insulting. He walked over to the screen. “This mountain, there’s a mining base in it.”
Zagadko shot a glance at his navigator who was already checking his files again. “There’s no base listed, sir,” he said finally.
“You won’t find it on the active base lists,” explained Kane. “It was decommissioned five years ago. The miners have long since gone.”
“With no crew there, how are we supposed to negotiate the locks? Blast our way in?”
“You can if it makes you happy, captain, but it really isn’t necessary. It has a moon pool.”
Katya could see the captain considering. A moon pool was a harbour inside a base, the water kept at bay by air pressure. A boat need only swim along a short submerged tunnel and surface at the quayside. No locks needed to keep the ocean out, no crew needed to man the locks.
“How big?” asked Zagadko.
“Big enough. It used to handle ore carriers at least as large as this boat.”
“Good enough. Navigation, set a course for the abandoned mining station.” He turned back to Kane. “Thank you, Mr Kane,” he said with evident distaste.
“Always pleased to help the FMA in its little troubles,” said Kane, and smiled back with at least as much feeling.
With her course set, her engines running at full power and the contra-gravity units of the two reconnaissance craft holding up well, there was little to do but wait and think.
Petty Officer Deliav had finally got to hand over the data he’d removed from the Baby’s distress buoy; the little boat’s last half an hour of instrumentation readings and control settings. Captain Zagadko and lieutenants Petrov and Tokarov watched the recreation of the events on the Novgorod’s computer while Katya talked them through it.