“Deride’s a stubborn man,” Dokey said.
“There is something definitely wrong with that woman,” Thomas said.
“That’s jealousy talking,” Dokey told her.
“Go to hell, Okey.”
Brande was reminded of family gatherings when he would get into arguments with a female cousin he couldn’t stand.
“Now, children, as my Grandma Bridgette would say, let’s stop the bickering.”
Dokey and Brande had brought DepthFinder and Gargantua to a standstill as soon as Glenn had contacted them. When he checked the sonar, he saw that they were still nine hundred yards from the station. The movement that Thomas had noted was still taking place; a sub had detached itself from the station. Another sub was moving toward them, but slowly. It was barely making five knots. The three floor crawlers were sidling away from the station in three different directions, protecting all of the flanks.
Dokey looked over the image on the screen.
“Any idea, Chief, how we go about fighting another submersible?”
“None, Okey.”
“We don’t ram it,” Thomas said.
“The veteran,” Dokey said, “knows something we don’t.”
“Judging by the one we saw up north,” Brande said, “I think we can outrun it.”
“But we don’t want to run.”
“Not just yet.”
“Both of you listen up,” Thomas said. “Let’s not start adlibbing right off the bat. We developed a strategy before we left the surface; stick to it.”
“You’re right, Rae,” Brande told her.
“Communications first, then,” Dokey said.
“Let me get a mine,” Brande told him.
“Keep the nomenclature pure, please,” Dokey said. “That’s a Marine Visions Unlimited Mark One, mod one, deep submergence mine.”
“I thought that’s what I said,” Brande told him as he worked Gargantua back toward them, into their lighted field of view.
It only took a couple minutes to pick a mine out of the basket and determine its number.
“Number fourteen,” Brande said.
“Fourteen,” Dokey echoed, setting the rotary dial on his detonator. “That’s in his left hand.”
“Remember that, if you don’t mind,” Brande said, switching to the right manipulator controls and picking out a second grenade.
“Number Three,” he said.
“I wish you could pick up these things in sequence,” Dokey said.
“Somebody could have packed them in sequence,” Brande said.
“Picky, picky.”
He eased in the rotational stick, spun the robot on its axis, and then drove forward, bringing the ROV’s bow down as he added power. That was one thing Gargantua could really boast. He had power to spare.
The center screen, with the ROV’s view, showed a heavily tracked and yet relatively smooth seabed. Brande dove almost to touchdown, and then leveled off, keeping the robot barely five feet above earth level. He extended both arms until they showed in the video eye.
“That’s the heading you want?” Dokey asked.
“For the time being.”
“Then I’ll go three points port.”
“Fine.”
Dokey moved the power switch forward, and the submersible eased ahead, and then left the track of the robot, moving divergently away to the left. They could only go so far with the tactic, until they reached the limit of the 250-foot tether.
The idea, of course, was to present the AquaGeo defenders with a major sonar target that would catch their attention and perhaps raise their adrenaline levels. If by chance, they happened to miss the significance of the smaller sonar target, the robot, so much the better.
Thomas called out the range. “Eight hundred yards to target.”
Brande saw the opposing sub picking up speed. “I’m going to call that first sub ‘Alpha,’“ he said.
“How military,” Dokey said.
“Alpha’s making nine knots, heading directly toward us.”
“Five-fifty yards to Alpha,” Thomas said.
Brande was a little surprised at how calmly Thomas was taking this. It may have been a residual effect of her harrowing experience after the collision, or it may have been her deep-seated anger over Svetlana’s death, or it may have been the result of her resolve, once the vote had been taken by the MVU employees. Whatever it was, he was proud of her, and he loved her all the more.
He even felt twinges of guilt at even considering a dalliance with Penny Glenn. Though he had just spoken to her, he now found it difficult to remember the details of what she looked like, or why he had found her so attractive.
He divided his attention between the robotic view and the smaller sonar shadow of Gargantua on the sonar. When the spread between them reached two hundred feet, he turned the ROV to parallel the course of the submersible, staying far out to the right.
He kept the robot as close to the seafloor as he dared. With any luck, the opposing sonars wouldn’t pick it up, or at least notice it, until it was too late.
“Making twelve knots,” Dokey said.
“Range to target, six hundred yards,” Thomas said. “Alpha is three-twenty out. The other sub, Beta, I guess you want to call it, is coming on strong, now. A bit over five hundred to Beta.”
On the sonar screen, the Alpha target closed on them quickly. Time seemed to go into hyper warp.
“Two-fifty,” Thomas said.
“You ready for this, Okey?”
“Better than ballroom dancing, Chief.”
When the Alpha sub passed under a hundred yards until closure, Dokey slammed the motors into reverse, bringing DepthFinder to a halt.
Brande abandoned the robot’s view and switched to the sonar. With the joysticks, he banked the ROV into a left turn and headed for the track of the Alpha sub, leading its forward progress by a wide margin. On the screen the intersection tracks looked perfect.
The pilot of the AquaGeo sub seemed surprised by their abrupt halt. After a few seconds, he reduced power to his own propellers.
Brande corrected the flight path of Gargantua to account for the now slower-moving sub.
Then the pilot became aware that he was being attacked from his left side.
He tried for altitude.
But Brande had him visually now, in the glaring eye of Gargantua.
And in the lower quadrant of that eye, the ROV’s arms were extended, reaching out for the alien submersible.
Brande quickly tried to determine a target, and just as quickly settled on the same one Dokey had used with the earlier sub.
He aimed the robot’s arm toward the portside propeller housing, and just before it touched, released the grip on the mine, then aimed Gargantua upward, sailing high over the submersible.
The sub was out of the camera view too soon. Brande didn’t see where the mine went, or if its magnet had been attracted to the housing.
“Nearing the end of my tether,” he called out.
“Going,” Dokey said, applying power so that the tether wouldn’t go taut on them.
“Turning starboard,” Brande said.
“Ditto,” Dokey said.
On the sonar, the ROV’s signal pulled away from the Alpha sub to the right, and DepthFinder followed.
The hostile pilot, not yet figuring out what had happened, seemed confused. He had slowed yet more, and he had turned to the left in his eagerness to dodge the robot.
“I think now,” Thomas said.
Dokey flipped the arming switch and hit the detonation button.
A couple seconds later, the dull thud reached the hull of the submersible.
“Worked,” Dokey said.
“But did we get him?”
“Look at the sonar,” Thomas said, “He’s going in a circle… now he’s stopped. We got something vital.”
“Damned sure he’s telling his pals about it,” Dokey said. “I’ll give you a million to one odds that these good old boys didn’t expect to run into boxes that go boom in the dark.”