There was frantic activity on the deck of the submarine.
“Dive!” shouted Saint Dane. “Get us below!”
A raider shouted, “Sir, we can’t!” He pointed to the control tower and sure enough, the first few missiles from Yenza’s aquaneers had blown a hole in the skin of the tower. If they tried to dive, they’d sink. Saint Dane looked at the damage, then spun to look back at the approaching fleet. He looked angry. I liked that. When he got angry, it meant things weren’t going his way, and that didn’t happen too often.
“The guns!” he commanded. “We’ll fight them off.”
He then ran along the deck and disappeared into the control tower. Spader and I were left flat out on the deck. Saint Dane no longer cared about us. And why should he? We were targets too.
“Time to go, mate,” said Spader. “Let’s slip over the side and we’ll swim for it.”
Three more missiles struck near the sub, sending up waves of water that splashed over us. The raiders were now on the guns and firing back. This was going to be a fierce battle — a natty-do, as Spader would put it — and I didn’t want to be floating in the water in the middle of it.
“I have a better idea,” I said. I got up and ran back toward the control tower. Two more shots hit the hull, rocking the sub and nearly knocking me off. But Spader caught me and kept me going.
“No place to run, Pendragon,” he said.
“Sure there is,” I answered.
I ran inside the control tower. Spader was right after me.
We had to push past a bunch of raiders who were scrambling to get to their battle stations. They didn’t care about us anymore. Remember, they were raiders. They knew nothing of Saint Dane’s grand plan to conquer all the territories and control Halla. All they knew was that they were being attacked.
Even Saint Dane wanted a fight. He stood at his station, barking orders, turning the submarine so it wouldn’t be such a wide target. If there were ever a time to get out of there, it was now.
I led Spader back the way we came, down the ladder into the hull of the ship and back toward the water tank we arrived in. I figured there was only one way we could get off this sub and survive in open water. We had to get to the hijacked hauler.
As we ran through the submarine we kept getting knocked around by the force of the missiles that were hitting the hull. Yenza was really pouring it on. That was cool, as long as Spader and I were off by the time she sent it to the bottom the same way she had the battle cruiser.
Luckily it’s kind of hard to get lost in a submarine, so we found the tank chamber pretty easily. When I threw the door open and we saw the hauler, Spader smiled.
“Why didn’t I think of this?” he laughed with surprise.
“You know how it works?” I asked.
“Pendragon, if it moves in the water, I can drive it.”
“Okay,” I said. “But can you get it out of here?” Spader gave me a “don’t ask dumb questions” look, and ran for the hauler.
“Get our gear, then go over to those levers,” he instructed as he climbed up onto the bubble.
As Spader lowered himself into the bubble, I ran to get our air globes and water sleds. I grabbed them all, then threw each up to Spader, who stood with half of his body out of the top of the bubble.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Four levers,” he said. “One floods the chamber, another empties it, third opens the hatch, fourth closes the hatch. We don’t have to flood the chamber because we’re already on top of water. The pressure keeps the water out. All we have to do is open the hatch, and we’re gone.”
“Okay, which lever opens the hatch?”
“Hobey, Pendragon. I don’t knoweverything!’
He then slipped into the bubble and started powering up. This was the old Spader, the one I knew before his father was killed. It felt good.
I went to the four levers. None of them were marked. There was only one way to figure out which was the right one. I had to call upon all my Traveler experience and special powers to figure it out. It’s called…
“Eenie, meenie, miney…mo\I pulled on “mo” and with a grinding screech, the floor began to move. The hatch door was sliding open! Go, mo! Unfortunately, as soon as the hatch began to open, it set off an alarm. A shrill, blaring horn blew, which said only one thing: “Someone is trying to escape in the hauler.” My guess was at least one of the raiders would come to find out who it was.
“Better hop in,” Spader shouted.
I ran across the moving floor and leaped on to the bubble craft. I dangled my legs down into the cockpit and was just about to drop in when Spader said, “Hold on, mate. We gotta release first.”
He was right. The floor hatch was now all the way open, but the hauler wasn’t free. The craft was suspended from two hooks that kept us dangling over the water below.
“So how do we release?” I asked.
“I’d say you should swing that lever right there.”
Sure enough, there was a lever right over my head. I grabbed it, pulled it toward me and — whoa! The hauler fell free and splashed down in the water. I lost my balance and fell into the globe, right in Spader’s lap.
“Thanks for droppin’ in, mate,” Spader said. “Close ‘er up, please.”
I stood up and pulled the bubble closed over us. With Spader in the left pilot’s seat and me in the right, we were ready to go.
That’s when the door to the chamber flew open and two raiders jumped in with guns.
“Dive, please,” I said.
“Right!”
Spader hit four toggle switches, air bubbles hissed through the water around us and we began to sink. The raiders shouldered their rifles and took aim. All I could hope was that the bubble on this hauler was strong enough to take a direct shot from a water rifle. I didn’t have long to wonder. The raiders opened fire on us. I ducked, expecting the bubble to shatter to pieces. But it didn’t. Their water bullets splattered against the clear shield without leaving so much as a scratch. Score another one for the genius of the people from Faar.
We were now almost submerged. The raiders had stopped firing and watched us helplessly as we sank below the surface. Then, just before the water closed over us, someone else entered the tank room. It was Saint Dane. For an instant I actually thought I saw a look of worry on his face. That’s the last image I saw of him, then we slipped underwater.
Spader took control of the vehicle like he had been a hauler pilot his whole life. We descended well below the submarine, then he hit the throttle and we left the dark shadow behind.
“What about the big guns?” I asked. “The ones they used on Faar. They can blow Yenza’s boats out of the water.”
“They can, but they won’t,” Spader answered. “They only fire when it’s submerged. Yenza knows what she’s doing, all right. She nailed that control tower so they can’t submerge again. Saint Dane made a big mistake. On the surface, he’s no match for my mates. There’s only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s going to be over too fast. I want to join up with them and take a couple of shots at Saint Dane myself before the natty-do’s all done!”
I looked back at the dark submarine. If Spader was right, the battle above was as good as over. Yenza would handle the raiders, and with a little luck, Saint Dane would go down with his ship. I was no longer worried about what was happening up there. My thoughts were elsewhere entirely. So I reached forward and killed the engines.
“Hobey, mate, what’re you doing?”
“You really know how to pilot this thing?” I asked seriously. “Don’t get all macho aquaneer on me. I want the truth.”
“This is a fine piece of machinery,” he said, looking around. “It’s way more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen. But that just makes it easier. All modesty aside, I can move this little beauty through a mile of kelp and not break a single leaf.” My mind was working hard, figuring the possibilities.