“They made it!” gasped Katya, her face filling up with a grin.
“Maybe,” said Lukyan doubtfully. “Look. They’re trailing smoke.”
“And there should be two thruster flares visible,” said Kane. “Tasya must have hit them with that rocket.”
Katya’s joy evaporated. “Can they fly on one engine?”
“I’ve no idea. Given it’s Suhkalev in the pilot’s seat, I’m astonished they can fly with two.” He saw Katya’s face. “I’m sorry, that was flippant. I don’t know if they can fly on one engine.”
Lukyan had gone to the shattered window and was cautiously looking down at the hanger deck. “Firing their engines in here has caused a lot of damage. Casualties too. There’ll be medics up here soon. Hmm, your friend the Chertovka has survived yet again, I’m sorry to say.”
“My friend?” Kane and Katya chorused. They looked at one another.
“You shared a command with her, didn’t you?” said Lukyan turning to Kane.
“Not really my choice. She was a condition of getting operational support for the Vodyanoi from the Conclaves. Oh,” he nodded. “I see. You’re trying to needle me. Sorry for not picking up on that immediately.”
“Can we save the cat fight for later?” said Katya. “The area’s full of troopers and they’re bound to check on this room before long. Shouldn’t we be leaving?”
“Too late,” said Lukyan, looking out of the jagged frame of the observation window, “there are a couple of them coming this way now.”
The troopers entered the control room to find a couple of administrators, one a huge man, the other a young woman. The woman lay amidst a dune of fragments from the destroyed observation window, the other administrator kneeling over her checking her pulse. One of the Terran mercenaries, the one who sailed with Colonel Morevna, was standing over them with an expression of great concern. When he saw the troopers, he implored them, “Please! She was caught in the blast when those Federals fired the engines! She needs a stretcher team immediately!”
The troopers gave the room a quick look over to make sure that none of the Federals had been left behind and left, assuring the mercenary they’d send one of the many medical teams that were now entering the hangar to deal with the injured from the gun battle and the obviously coldly calculated use of the transport’s drives as weapons.
One of the teams was currently treating Colonel Tasya “The Chertovka” Morevna, who was submitting to their ministrations with very poor grace. “Damn them! Damn their eyes! Where did those cold fish learn to fly like that? Their pilots were supposed to be dead! Careful, you idiot!” The medic putting her broken arm in a temporary field cast muttered something nervous and respectful. Tasya turned her white hot attention to Major Moltsyn. “What’s the situation with the Leviathan?”
“The torpedoes all detonated prematurely. They were intercepted somehow.”
“It launched combat drones. That’s obvious. Is it responding to hails?”
“No, colonel. We’ve lost it from sonar too.”
Tasya’s lips thinned. “It’s activated its stealth systems.” She shook her head. “Put all non-essential personnel on transports out of here, enact full evacuation protocols. That thing’s going to attack and I don’t know if we can beat it.” She looked up at Moltsyn narrowly, daring him to ruin her day further. “Any good news, major?”
“A little, I think. Air radar followed the stolen transport for about twenty kilometres. Its path was erratic. Then it lost altitude, tried to climb and ending up pitching into the sea. It looks like you shot it down after all, colonel.”
“Search units have been dispatched?”
“Of course. The ocean’s very angry today, but their air search radar did not detect anything and one reported seeing something in the water that looked like a downed aircraft. It sank before they had a chance to relay pictures.”
“I’d have preferred more solid evidence. Like Petrov’s head on a spike.” She unconsciously touched the closely grouped pock marks on her armour left by Petrov’s maser bolts. “It will have to do for the moment. We have a larger and more immediate problem.”
Across the hangar warning sirens suddenly wailed and red strobe lights flared into life. Moltsyn snapped his head to look. “What’s that?”
Tasya followed his glance, curiosity hardening into suspicion. “An emergency launch from one of the… That’s the Vodyanoi’s bay! Moltsyn! Who authorised that launch?”
“Colonel!” A trooper ran up, very conscious that he was the bearer of bad news. “The control room! We… there was an injured woman in there. We sent a medical team and…”
Tasya reared up onto her feet and turned on the trooper. “Spit it out, man! What’s happened?”
The trooper looked at her as if he was expecting her to shoot him at any moment. “We went back to check on them and… They were tied up.”
Tasya frowned. “The injured woman was tied up? What are you blathering about?”
“No, colonel! The medical team were tied with suture tape from their own supplies! The woman, the other administrator and one of the Terrans, they had gone. They had stolen the stretcher!”
Tasya’s fury suddenly cooled, which only served to make her more threatening. “What Terran?” But she already knew. With all the medical teams around, two men carrying an “injured” woman on a stretcher would go unremarked, even if they were heading towards the boat bays rather than the exits. “Out of my sight,” she said quietly and the trooper obeyed as quickly as he humanly could. She turned to Moltsyn. “Kane’s turned. The Vodyanoi is no longer to be considered a friendly vessel. It is to be destroyed on detection.”
“Shall we launch pursuit boats, colonel?”
“Launch all available warboats, but they’re not going after Kane. He’s tomorrow’s problem. We have to live through whatever the Leviathan has for us first.”
Kane leaned back in the Vodyanoi’s captain’s seat like a king returned to his throne. “Take us out to about two klicks at one third and bring us about. Slow and steady, duck us under a good thermal layer. We’re going to wait and watch developments.”
“Kane.” Lukyan looked at Katya and then back at Kane. “Kane?”
Kane looked up at him. “What will become of you? I don’t know, Lukyan Pushkin. Not at the moment. We’ll just have to see what develops, won’t we?”
“Two thousand metres out from FP-1,” reported the helmsman. “Bringing us about.”
“I can hear launches,” reported the sensors operator. “Boat launches.” She paused listening intently. “Lots of them. Somewhere about forty.”
“Forty boats?” Katya was aghast. “Warboats?”
Kane leaned forward in his seat. “Probably. Mostly copies of this one, I should think. Not quite as good, but numbers count for a lot. Can you track them?” he asked the sensors officer.
She shook her head. “Sorry, sir. They’re running silent as quickly as they can. Everybody’s playing hide and seek.”
It was only to be expected; if the Leviathan saw them, it would kill them. A submarine battle is a strange mixture of tedium, terror and bewilderment, even more so than battles in other environments. It is perhaps the only battlefield where fortune always favours the cautious and firing first may be the worst thing to do. As a result, the best submarine commanders are cool, sanguine men and women who not only think clearly under pressure, but — just as importantly — think clearly when nothing is apparently happening. Still, Kane may have been pushing the stereotype of the unflappable submarine commander when he produced a yo-yo. Katya had never seen one before and watched in fascination as it descended and rose on its string with little apparent effort on Kane’s part. “What is that?” she asked finally.