When Thomas reported the proximity of the other submersible, though, Brande came out of the chair, scattering the people standing behind him. He paced in front of the console, watching for non-existent data on the screen, the headset’s cord trailing after him.
“It’s right alongside you, Rae?” he asked.
Kaylene Thomas’s voice echoed on the receiver. “Not precisely, Dane. Hold on a second… it looks to be about six hundred feet below us and about twelve hundred feet to the north.”
“Shut down your sonar, wait ten minutes, then take another reading,” Brande said.
“Wilco.”
The wait was interminable. Otsuka finished the last of her diagnostic checks without finding one fault in the ship’s computer hardware or software.
After the designated time lapse, Thomas reported, “They’ve closed on us by about fifteen feet, Dane. They are using active sonar to track us.”
“I don’t like that a damned bit, Chief,” Dokey said, though not on the acoustic telephone. He had a headset in place, but had shut off the mike.
“Tell me why,” Brande said.
“The ramming had to be deliberate; with all of the space available down there, an accidental collision just doesn’t happen.”
“You think,” Mayberry put it, “that they want to eliminate evidence? Sink the DepthFinder?”
“It’s a damned good possibility,” Dokey said.
“It’s one we won’t take a gamble on,” Brande said. “Bob, what kind of energy can we spare?”
Mayberry leaned forward to peer at the numbers crowding his screen. “Not much, Chief. Hmmm. Go ahead and have her hit a five-minute burst at top speed. Then, I’ll do some more calculations.”
Larry Emry came on. “Svetlana is coming around.”
“How is she?” Brande asked.
“Groggy. Give her some time.”
Otsuka felt a mild sense of relief, but it was tempered by everything else that was taking place.
She tried to visualize the scene fifteen thousand feet down. The damaged DepthFinder rising at 100 feet per minute, struggling to reach the surface before her electrical and oxygen reserves were depleted. And below and behind her, the unknown sub attempting to close and finish the destruction. She wanted to cry.
“Dane,” Otsuka said, “I want to know what the vertical closure was.”
Brande nodded at her, and then turned on the boom mike of his headset. “Rae, do you know if the other sub is gaining on you vertically?”
“It was about seven feet, Dane, but we’ve lost some rate of ascent.”
“How much?”
Emry reported, “We’re now at nine-six feet per, Dane.”
“Okay, that’s still all right. What’s your present heading?”
Otsuka keyed in the command for a spreadsheet program, and when it appeared on the screen, began entering calculations, depths, and closure rates.
“Heading one-nine-eight currently,” Thomas reported. “We’ve been coming up in a spiral.”
“Forward velocity?”
“No reading on the instruments, Dane. I judge it at about five knots.”
“Go to one-eight-zero. Full power for four minutes, then change course to one-five-five for one minute, then cut the power.”
“Wilco.”
“Get that, Bob?” Brande asked.
“I’m mapping it. We won’t lose track of her.”
Brande leaned forward and tapped the intercom button for the bridge.
“Bridge,” Alvarez-Sorenson said.
“Connie, we want a heading of one-eight-zero at ten knots.”
“You’ll get some buffeting,” the first mate replied. “We’ll be taking the seas broadside.”
“Just do it, please.”
“Immediately.”
Dokey leaned over and looked at Otsuka’s screen. “I was doing that, too, but you’re faster.”
“What have you got, Kim?” Brande asked.
“There’s a lot of variables, Dane,” she said, “plus we don’t know the condition of the other sub. But I think they’ll catch up with Kaylene between seven and five thousand feet of depth. And that’s if Bob allows two more five-minute runs at full-speed.”
“I can give you three,” Mayberry said. “More than that, we don’t get her to the surface with any power left.”
“Let’s all re-run the numbers,” Brande said. “Double-check it. We don’t want mistakes made under pressure.”
They took their time on the recalculations, but both Mayberry and Otsuka came up with the same dismal results. Dokey ran his own set, but it agreed with what they already had estimated.
“Maybe,” Mayberry said, perhaps to be optimistic, “the other sub is also damaged and merely trying to reach the surface as fast as possible.”
Brande went back to his microphone. “Rae, take another sonar reading.”
Three minutes later, Thomas said, “He’s not gaining on us right now, and in fact, I widened the gap by ten yards. However, he turned to follow us when I hit him with the sonar.”
Otsuka thought she detected a much higher degree of anxiety in Thomas’s voice.
Brande said, “Goddamn it!” On the acoustic, he said, “Rae, jettison your tow.”
“I really don’t want to do that, Dane. Find me another option.”
Otsuka thought about it and said, “What we have, Dane, is Sneaky Pete.”
Brande considered the implications for thirty seconds. “Go, Kim.”
“I’m flying him,” Dokey said.
“Whatever,” Otsuka told him.
Brande keyed his mike. “All right, Rae, hold on to Sarscan for a few more minutes. We’re coming up with a possible alternative.”
Otsuka moved to the fifth computer console and set it up, hooking in the joystick control board, while Dokey and half-a-dozen willing deckhands retrieved one of the Sneaky Petes from its cushioned shelf on the port side.
The small robot was about five feet long, and its three angled propellers made it highly maneuverable. Strictly a search vehicle, it mounted only video and still cameras, and it was controlled and powered by a thin tethered cable from the host vehicle.
“I want two reels,” Dokey said.
Each reel contained five thousand feet of cable, and after one reel was emptied, operation had to be suspended while the cable from the other reel was connected.
Two people attacked the reels, which were on their own castered platforms, released their tiedowns, and started pushing them toward the big doors.
When the doors were opened, mist and spray filtered in. The sea was much louder than Otsuka had realized, and the Orion was pitching more now that she had changed course.
It was probably the fastest deployment the MVU crews had ever made, especially in hostile seas. Sneaky Pete was in the water, descending, within fifteen minutes.
She activated his video, and the screen filled with a greenish vista containing a school of bonito. She angled the translation stick forward, and Sneaky began his dive. She added full power, to pull cable off the reel, and turned him to the south.
Bob Mayberry had brought up the ship’s sonar, and he now had a waterfall display showing on his screen. “Got Sneaky,” he said.
“How about the subs?” Brande asked.
“Still way too deep, Dane.”
Dokey came back in from the stern deck and stood behind her. He was soaking wet.
“I’ll take him now, Kim.”
“And die from cold. Go change clothes.”
“Kim….”
“There’s plenty of time.”
She hoped that was true.
Dokey turned and headed for their cabin.
An hour and twenty minutes later, with Dokey seated at the controls, Brande was talking him into position using the Orion’s sonar, which was picking up vague and intermittent contacts with both subs, and oral reports from the submersible. DepthFinder had lost her ability to calculate longitude, but Thomas was giving them latitude and depth.