Drone Command

FORTY-EIGHT

The big fish flapped lethargically in the bottom of the net as Yamada spilled him out onto the deck. He reached down and pressed his finger against the smooth rubbery skin and flipped a switch. The robo-fish stopped flapping. Yamada and his team used a wide variety of sensors to detect, measure, and, in some cases, retrieve radioactive elements in the water, including the autonomous robo-fish. His research mission was to determine the range and extent of contamination resulting from the Fukushima disaster. So far, the tip that had sent him and his crew out here hadn’t panned out, which was strange, because his anonymous sources had proven utterly reliable before.

Yamada lifted the four-foot-long robo-fish and hauled it belowdecks for processing in their miniature lab. Its software was programmed for autonomous swimming, diving to specific depths at regular intervals, and recording data as it went. The young woman running his onboard IT department would handle the data download and analysis. Part of the robo-fish’s skin provided data collection — a kind of flypaper for chemical elements, including cesium-137. Samples would be drawn and analyzed by another grad student when they got back to the mainland. But for now, Yamada would subject it to a simple scan to see if any radioactivity could be detected. He wanded the robo-fish’s entire body with a handheld Geiger counter. Nothing. He began to think the whole trip out this way was a wild-goose chase. Maybe the bad guys had fed him a false lead to get him away from the real evidence he had been gathering earlier.

“Kenji, report to the bridge.” The voice on the loudspeaker was urgent — one of his grad students was piloting the boat today.

Yamada dashed up the ladder and made his way to the enclosed cabin above the main deck.

“What’s wrong?”

The bearded young man pointed to the northeast. A fishing trawler. “Been tracking him on our radar scope. Getting awfully close.”

The rusted trawler ran a parallel course. Looked like it would pass by, but with little room to spare. Their research ship was dead in the water, waiting to retrieve several other submersible sensors, including two more robo-fish.

“Did you raise him on the radio? Try to waive him off?”

“He’s not doing anything illegal, technically. I thought I’d call you first.”

Yamada grabbed a pair of high-powered binoculars. Adjusted the furled focus ring. He scanned the vessel. Booms, drums, winches. “Definitely a fishing trawler.” His glass stopped on the big red flag with the five golden stars on the fantail.

Yamada lowered the binoculars, frowning. They were out of the shipping lanes. Hadn’t seen much of any traffic the last few days.

“It’s a Chinese vessel, isn’t it?” the pilot asked.

Yamada nodded.

“You think we’re in any danger?” They had all heard about the Chinese trawler attack on the Japanese dive boat several days earlier. Yamada made sure to keep his American flag flying at all times.

“Has he altered course at all?”

“Not since I’ve been tracking him.”

Yamada scratched his head, an old nervous habit. If they moved too far off their current location, it would take them a lot more time to retrieve the other submersibles, even with their autonomous homing capabilities. If they held their position, they would be all packed up and heading back to Nagasaki for the night in less than an hour. “We’ll stay put. We aren’t in any danger unless that trawler changes course.”

Twenty minutes later, it did.