“It’s not a ship.” She looked up, the color gone from her face. “It’s an entire fleet. And they’re right on our tail.”
CHAPTER 6
Jonah didn’t need updates from the hydrophone station; the sounds of churning, knife-like blades filled the command compartment, becoming louder every moment. The frozen ice off North Korea’s coastline had made for a claustrophobic, precarious ceiling, but now the Scorpion was dangerously exposed without it. The fleet of ships behind them — how many exactly, Jonah did not know — matched their speed and heading, slowly closing in on their quarry. The fleet would be within striking distance in minutes. And then what? Depth charges, like the ones they’d barely survived off Somalia? Or would their pursuers simply chase the Scorpion until the last of their straining batteries ran dry and their air turned foul?
Shit, Jonah thought. He couldn’t believe he was about to get blown out of the water in front of his ex-girlfriend. Worse, he wouldn’t even know who’d sunk him — just a high-pitched wail of an incoming torpedo before the big pop. The lucky ones among his crew and refugees would die in the pressure wave of the initial blast. The rest would drown as their ear drums burst and lungs filled with choking seawater, the Scorpion collapsing compartment by compartment as she plunged into the depths for the final time.
Dalmar stood watch on deck, waiting for orders as Vitaly maintained his able control of the helm. Alexis worked capably through her fear, her hands shaking ever so slightly as she optimized engine output to compensate for their heavy human payload. Even Marissa was at attention, ready to follow his lead. Jonah forced down a wave of bitter pride, burying the emotion. He just wished Hassan could be by his side; the doctor’s calm presence and steady mind was an asset in every circumstance. Not that the doctor would have any tricks up his sleeve for an entirely one-sided underwater gunfight.
Jonah glanced at the navigation screen. Good—they’d already made it further out to sea than he’d anticipated, the increase in the Scorpion’s top speed a credit to Alexis’ recent engine retrofit. But he knew full well they couldn’t run forever.
“Vitaly — make our depth five hundred feet,” Jonah ordered.
“Five-zero-zero depth, aye,” said Vitaly as he pushed the control yoke downwards. The deck abruptly shifted, leaving Jonah to press his palm on the low ceiling for balance. The hull creaked, adjusting not only to the increasing pressure, but the presence of a colder thermocline water layer. Jonah allowed himself a wry smile — the invisible barrier between water temperatures would refract and partially mask the acoustic signature of their propellers, maybe even give the Scorpion the chance to slip away undetected.
“Follow our backup escape course. Keep it unpredictable; I want to skirt the edge of Russian waters. Let’s see if they’re willing to cause an international incident over us.”
“I think we’ve already caused the international incident,” muttered Alexis, rapidly flipping through a series of engine diagnostic readouts. The battery banks were finicky at best; staying one step ahead of breakdowns was a constant battle.
“How’s our trim? I’m feeling some yaw up here.”
“Very difficult to maintain,” said the helmsmen. “New weight balance, much movement. Maybe everyone sit down, please?”
Jonah turned to Dalmar. “Go aft and get our guests situated. Tell ’em to keep their hands and feet inside the ride at all times.”
The big pirate nodded in acknowledgement and left the command compartment. Jonah tried not to think about how he’d carry out the order. Dalmar was just as likely to wave a gun around as to ask nicely.
“Steady on,” said Jonah, reassuring himself just as much as anyone else within earshot. “They haven’t pinged us, and they haven’t fired on us. They could just be investigating some unusual acoustics. We’ll lose them in the main shipping lanes, turn east and slip into Japanese waters underneath a cargo freighter. They’ll never even know where they lost track of us.”
“Captain!” interrupted Alexis, waving him over to the communications station. “I think we’re getting a message!”
“What? I thought we were too deep for radio.”
“It’s not radio,” said Alexis. “I almost didn’t see it at first — its telemetry on the Extremely Low Frequency band. I’ve never seen ours so much as beep before.”
The message slowly materialized as Jonah watched with increasing concern.
// SURFACE AND SURRENDER //
Shit. The fact that the orders were in English wasn’t a good sign. It was one thing if their pursuers thought they were chasing a DPRK submarine. Sinking one might set off the whole touchy, semi-nuclearized Korean peninsula. But going after the Scorpion was quite another. As an unflagged outlaw vessel on an illegal smuggling mission, she was fair game.
“How did they find us? Did we miss another spy? Or a transmitter?”
“Running an internal electromagnetic scan,” said Alexis, her fingers jumping across her console. “No EMF signals detected — and we’re not broadcasting on any frequency. The fleet must be following us by propeller noise alone.”
“Vitaly?”
“We already rigged for silent running and beneath thermocline. Submarine as quiet as submarine get!”
“Can we—” began Jonah before he was cut off.
“Getting another transmission!” Alexis called out. She swiveled her terminal towards Jonah as telemetry crawled again across the screen, one character at a time.
// SUBMARINE SCORPION //
// SURFACE AND SURRENDER //
// COMPLY OR BE DESTROYED //
“They’re calling us out by name,” Jonah muttered. “Vitaly — who the hell are these guys? US Navy? Russians? Chinese?”
“I do not know, Captain. Could also be Korean, Japanese, DPRK. Many navy in Sea of Japan.”
“Are we responding?” asked Alexis, looking up at him with concern.
“You bet your ass we’re responding,” said Jonah, pointing at Marissa. She stood behind the conning tower ladder on the other side of the command compartment wearing a shocked Who, me? expression. “Go aft and find a North Korean passenger who speaks English. Good English.”
Marissa didn’t answer, just turned to sprint back towards the crew compartment.
“Vitaly — make our depth six-zero feet and deploy the radio antenna. I want clear and unencumbered voice transmission capability.”
“Captain!” protested Vitaly. “I must advise against! Twenty meters? It very easy to sink Scorpion at this depth!”
“Angles and dangles ain’t working, Vitaly. Whoever is following us won’t be snookered by the usual tricks— confirm depth six-zero.”
“Aye Captain. I bring Scorpion to suicide depth.” He pulled back on the yoke, the bow of the submarine rising sharply.
Marissa marched back into the command compartment, dragging a short, wide-eyed refugee by the hand. The young North Korean woman in tow was all of four foot ten inches in height, round-faced, and topped with an unfortunate government-sanctioned bowl cut that only further cemented her tragic resemblance to a mushroom.
“You speak English?” asked Jonah.
The small Korean woman nodded, too mesmerized by Jonah to answer out loud. She instead reached up with one tiny hand and pinched at his beard with irrepressible curiosity. He couldn’t help but suspect it was the first one she’d ever seen in person.