“Okay,” said Katya. Both men visibly relaxed. Then she boarded the Baby. She was already strapping herself into the co-pilot’s seat when Kane stuck his head around the open hatch, his expression perplexed.
“I’m sorry, did we just miss something then? I thought I heard you agree to stay behind.”
“No. I was just agreeing that you’d done the decent thing and tried to talk me into staying behind. I’ve no intention of letting you two go off without me.”
“Katya…”
She turned in her seat, her face tight with anger. “Do I look like I’m going to let you leave me behind? Do I?”
Lukyan pushed past Kane and went to take the pilot’s seat. “You’re wasting your time, Kane. I’ve seen that face before and you won’t talk your way around it.” He started strapping in. “Exactly like my sister. It’s uncanny sometimes.”
Kane accepted defeat philosophically. He climbed aboard and settled into the same passenger seat he’d taken the first time he’d been bought aboard the Baby as a prisoner. “It’s the blood. Thicker than water. Blood will always out.”
Strapped in, he slapped the hatch control and watched the door close and seal. The maw started to flood. Five minutes later they were clear of the Vodyanoi, moving slowly in the direction of the invisible battle being fought between the Yagizban warboats and the Leviathan.
CHAPTER 18
Getting Up
The Baby’s sensors were nowhere near as sensitive as the Vodyanoi’s, nor was her computing power sufficient to create sonar maps of the same sophistication Katya had seen of the battle while they were still aboard the Terran boat. None of that mattered when you were actually travelling through the battleground, Katya thought. Her displays were full of explosions, cavitation noise, imploding compartments.
“I don’t think they’ve managed to lay a finger on the Leviathan,” she reported. “It’s like fighting a shadow.” Another flash on a display board, sound converted into light for easy viewing. “That was the FP-1. She’s taking a real beating. She’ll sink if the Leviathan doesn’t cease fire.”
Lukyan didn’t comment on it. Instead he flicked the switch that activated the IFF unit.
Katya watched the green light on the Judas box cycle on and off, sending out an electronic lie to the Leviathan, that the Baby was its long lost #6 combat drone. “If it sees through this, Kane, what will it do?”
Kane considered. “If it was just the Leviathan, it would ignore it. If it detected us, it would kill us without hesitation, now its list of enemies is so extensive. But it’s not just the Leviathan. Its behaviour is moderated by Tokarov and I didn’t know Tokarov well enough to be able to make any guesses.”
“None of us did.” Lukyan’s voice was cold. “None of us. I still can’t understand how a man could… do that. It’s worse than suicide.”
“No.” Kane was quiet. “No, it’s a lot like suicide. If Zagadko was still alive - or Petrov - they might have been able to predict his behaviour. Especially Petrov. He’d have made captain soon enough. Good judge of character.”
They sat in silence. Katya had been trying not to think about the message the Vodyanoi had intercepted from the aircraft sent to hunt Petrov’s stolen transporter. So Tasya had shot them down. They were all dead, Petrov, Suhkalev and all the others. She thought back to how it had been Petrov who’d tried to comfort her in his own distant fashion when she’d thought her uncle was dead. “I liked him,” she said into the silence.
Another light flashed on her display, more insistent, brighter. At the same moment she realised what it was, the telltale pulsing tone started to sound through the hull.
“Torpedo!” called Lukyan. He was already pulling the steering yoke over and down. “Evading!”
Katya remembered the last time he’d done this, he’d trusted the Navcom to perform the evasion. Of course, on that occasion they were hit multiple times and almost died.
She felt the Baby pitch sharply and perform a corkscrew descent as Lukyan made for the next deepest thermal layer scattering noisemakers in their wake. Through the din in her headset, she could still plainly hear the fast pulses of the Yagizban torpedo’s sonar and the hiss of its impeller motor until, abruptly, it stopped. The pinging ceased altogether and the hum of the impeller turned to a dying shriek even as it diminished in amplitude.
“There’s something wrong with it,” she reported. “I think it’s sinking?” She checked for an IC resolution and it confirmed that the torpedo was tumbling into the depths. A moment later it exploded. She looked at the others. “I have no idea what happened there.”
Kane looked around as if he could see through the hull. “I can make a guess.”
Lukyan nodded and killed the Baby’s engines, neutralising their buoyancy so they coasted along for a few metres under no power. Katya suddenly understood.
“The Leviathan?”
Lukyan looked grim, and there was misery in his voice when he said, “Why didn’t I try harder to leave you behind, Katya?”
“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” said Kane. “They say that where I come from.” He coughed. “Of course, they say all sorts of rubbish, but I think that one’s true. While we live, nothing is certain. We walked out of the Leviathan once; perhaps we can do it again.”
Lukyan was unconvinced. “And what if it just sinks us?”
“You’re a cheerful soul, aren’t you? Think about it; if it had wanted us dead, it would hardly have bothered stopping that torpedo. It saved us for a reason.” They gripped the sides of their seats as the Baby was abruptly jerked upwards. “We’re about to find out why.”
“What exactly are those cables?” asked Lukyan as the Leviathan withdrew its grappling tentacles into the metallic hemisphere in the ceiling of the docking bay. A moment later, the chamber started to empty of water.
“Biomechanics. Biological principles applied to technology. I never liked it. I like my machines to look like machines.” Kane patted one of the Baby’s structural ribs almost fondly.
Inside a minute the chamber had been pumped so dry it was hard to believe it had been full of water anytime in the previous hour. Without discussion, they cracked the seal on the minisub’s aft hatch and clambered out. The exit door slid soundlessly open and they climbed the slight incline to reach it.
On the other side of the door, Kane stopped them and pointed at the floor by the hatch’s edge. “There. That’s been worrying me.” Katya followed his finger and saw a quantity of dark powder. She started to bend to touch it, but he stopped her. “I wouldn’t get it on you, if I were you. Too easy for some to get in your mouth and that wouldn’t do you any good.”
Katya stepped away from it, unsure. “What is it?”
“I had my suspicions when we were last here so I took enough for an analysis. It’s a very, very fine powder made up all sorts of metals and metallic salts, some of them very heavy and very toxic, that’s why it’s not a good idea to risk ingesting it. Some very rare minerals in it.”
“So what is it?”
“Soup,” said Lukyan. “Dried out Soup from the ocean bed. Is that right, Kane?”