“How does he know so much about it?” murmured Tokarov to Petrov. Petrov only nodded slightly in agreement.
“With the Novgorod operational and reparable, we might have been able to bluff it. Now we’ve got just one boat. We’ll be working on a plan to try and get past it, to get us all past it. In the meantime, it would be appreciated if you would curtail any attempts to escape. We really don’t need the distraction. If you, however, feel obliged to try, be warned that all your guards have been ordered to fire first and not bother asking questions afterwards. I’m not in the mood for FMA heroics; you either stay in line or you die. Just remember, we’re trying to save your lives too.” They left to a chorus of catcalls and swearing.
“You know what I don’t like?” said Lukyan. “What I really don’t like is the way he kept calling whatever’s out there it. You saw it on camera, didn’t you, Katya? You said it looked like a submarine?”
She nodded. “Yes, but I’ve never seen a boat so featureless. And it’s size…” She shook her head in disbelief. “Colossal.”
“That’s what I don’t like. Kane may be a Grubber by birth but he’s a submariner by adoption. He would never call a boat it. A boat is always a lady. All the way through that little speech, though, he kept saying it’s this and it’s that. Never once she’s this, she’s that. Perhaps it is a monster after all.”
Lieutenant Petrov was listening. “It’s a sub. We all saw it. Besides, it launched torpedoes.”
“That’s as may be,” replied Uncle Lukyan, his frown heavy and dark, “but even a submarine can be a monster.”
Katya looked closely at him, wondering why he’d become so abstruse all of a sudden. Then she understood and coldness curled around her guts; he was frightened. Nothing frightened Uncle Lukyan. At least, nothing had. What, she thought, do you do when the man who has always been there, always met every emergency, always been the anchor of your life, what do you do when he is afraid? Except grow afraid yourself?
“He knows what it is,” said Tokarov.
“What?” blurted Katya, startled by the intrusion into her own thoughts.
“Kane. He knows what that thing is. How, I don’t know.” He pursed his lips. “Hold on, he’s a Grubber, isn’t he?”
“My own suspicion exactly,” agreed Petrov, cutting straight to the conclusion. “This Leviathan is some sort of Terran weapon. It must have malfunctioned during the war so it was never used against us.”
“Thank God,” said Lukyan.
“Yes. It’s highly formidable. Perhaps it lost the ability to tell friend from foe and was deactivated. That would explain Kane’s comment about us all being at risk.”
“And it’s been sitting there at the bottom of the Weft ever since,” finished Tokarov excitedly. He paused. “I wonder what reactivated it.”
“It came under fire,” said Katya wearily. It all made a sort of sense now and the worst of it was that they were indirectly responsible.
The others were looking at her. Lukyan’s widening eyes showed he was reaching the same conclusion. “What do you mean, it came under fire?” asked Petrov.
“We detected it on the seabed and thought it was a metal deposit. We were probably the first boat to have gone through there since the war. Nobody’s stupid enough to go through the Weft unless some dimwit Fed orders them. We detected what looked like enough high quality metal ore for us all to retire on, even me.”
“We fired a probe at it,” said Lukyan in a ghastly voice, disbelief at their staggeringly bad luck etched in every syllable.
It all made horrible but perfectly logical sense, Katya found, as she reran the events through her mind. The Leviathan had probably heard them coming — they’d made no attempt to be stealthy — and gone to a low level of alert. Then they’d pinged it hard with sonar and as good as told it that they were looking right at it, taking it to still higher states of alert. The probe torpedo was the last straw, the moment when it believed it had been located and attacked by hostile forces, and its old wartime programs took over.
“There was never anything wrong with the Baby’s sensors,” said Lukyan. “That thing must have some sort of stealth gear well beyond anything we have. Even active sonar didn’t show it up.”
“It came for us,” said Katya. “It launched torpedoes. That was the cavitation I heard, wasn’t it, uncle? The sound of the launch tubes opening.”
“Torpedoes,” Lukyan echoed. “Strangest damn torpedoes I’ve ever come across. No motor sound, no active sonar pulses, and no explosion.”
“It was the same with the Novgorod,” agreed Petrov. “Just holes punched through. What kind of warhead could do that?”
Katya was thinking back to something Kane had said. “Kane said the Novgorod was deliberately damaged just enough to force her back to port.”
“Rubbish,” scoffed Lukyan. “No torpedo is that accurate.”
“Yes,” said Petrov quietly. “No torpedo is that accurate. So what exactly was used against our boats, Captain Pushkin?”
The men fell silent, unable to make anything but vague guesses.
Katya couldn’t guess what form these mysterious weapons might take, but, then, she didn’t need to guess, not when Kane definitely knew.
“I need to talk to Havilland Kane,” she said standing.
“Kane certainly has some answers,” agreed Petrov, “but why would he talk to you?”
To be honest, Katya wasn’t entirely sure, but she knew he would. “I think he feels obligated somehow, responsible for dragging me into this. He won’t talk to any of you; you’re the enemy. You were taking him to be delivered to Secor. He’ll talk to me.”
“He’ll talk to us,” said Lukyan, joining her. “I’m not letting you wander off in the company of a bunch of pirates.”
Katya didn’t argue. It would be pointless and, anyway, she would be very glad of his company.
They walked to the door and opened it as far as the chain would allow. The pirate on the other side stepped away and raised his gun. “You should pay attention, girl. The captain’s orders are to kill anybody who even looks like they’re thinking about escaping.”
“I’m not escaping,” she said, trying to look waif-like and unthreatening with her face framed between the door and jamb. She was glad that Lukyan was out of sight behind the door. It would be hard to stir sympathy with his glowering face visible above hers. “We need to talk to Captain Kane.”
“Yeah, of course you do,” said the pirate in a bored tone. “Now get back in there before I give you a maser burn.”
“I’m serious. Tell him Katya Kuriakova wants to talk to him urgently.”
“And I’m serious. Get your head back in there before I kill you! I’m not joking, girl.”
“Please…”
The pirate made a show of releasing his gun’s safety catch and levelling it at her face. Katya decided that she’d rather back down than be shot down and moved away. Lukyan’s expression indicated that he might be about to attempt punching through the door and strangling the guard, which probably would not work out well for him or any of the prisoners. As soon as the pirate closed the door, she shot her uncle a “Don’t you dare” face. He shrugged and stepped away from it with surly grace.