Ghost Ship

TWENTY-SIX

Paul Trout stood on the deck and watched as the Condor’s captain was airlifted in the ship’s helicopter. The same one that Kurt and Joe had been in when they’d discovered the Ethernet sinking three months before.

The captain objected to leaving, but the ship’s doctor confirmed that a major artery had been nicked in his leg. He was lucky not to have bled out and he needed surgery quickly.

Having lost so much blood, the captain was too weak to argue. “Take care of my ship,” he’d said to Paul as they’d loaded him on board.

As the helicopter disappeared toward the west, the Condor’s chief came up to Paul. “I guess you’re in command now.”

“Lucky me,” Paul said. “What’s our condition?”

“All systems are off-line,” he said. “We’re dead in the water.”

“At least we’re not going anywhere,” Paul muttered.

“What do you want to do about the subs?”

Paul glanced at his watch. “It’s been forty-five minutes. Standard NUMA protocol requires underwater operations to be aborted if communications with the surface vessel are lost and not reestablished within thirty.”

“I’ve had men on watch,” the chief said. “No sign of them yet.”

Paul nodded, silently worried. “Can you get our systems back up and running?”

The chief took off his cap and scratched at his scalp. “Starboard engine survived the emergency shutdown. We could restart it — but only if we bring the propulsion control unit and the main computer back online.”

Paul shook his head. “Find another way,” he said. “No computers.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “How does Mr. Scott always get the Enterprise restarted when the dilithium crystals fail?” The chief exhaled sharply and headed back to the engine room, grumbling something about the Condor not being a spaceship, but Paul was confident he’d figure something out. In the meantime, Paul turned his attention to the sea. He made his way to the rail, brought a set of binoculars to his eyes, and scanned the water himself. There was no sign of the submersibles.

The Scarabs should have been on the surface by now, firing off location flares. The fact that they weren’t suggested a problem. He brought up a handheld radio, the only form of electronic communication left on the ship.

“Marcus, this is Paul,” he said, calling the engineer in charge of the Condor’s submersibles.

“Go ahead, Paul.”

“The Scarabs are overdue. I want to go look for them. What else do we have on board?”

“A small ROV and the ADS.”

ADS stood for atmospheric diving suit, made of hard-plated metal, and used for taking a single diver to great depths. They were often worn by divers working on pipelines and oceanic cables.

The most famous of the various ADS designs were the bulky JIM suits of the eighties and nineties. NUMA’s ADS was a more modern design, still bulky and robotic-looking, but it came with its own thruster pack like a NASA suit designed for walking in space.

“Does the ADS have any kind of computer interface?” Paul asked.

“No,” Marcus replied. “Why?”

“No reason,” Paul said. “Get it ready. I’m going down.”