The Emperor's Revenge

THIRTY-NINE

As Juan glided along the sunken 300-foot-long ship, the awesome power of the railgun was evident in the catastrophic holes that had been torn in the Narwhal’s hull and deck. No wonder the ship had gone down so quickly. Some of the chasms were twenty feet across, with jagged metal protruding from the edges like the serrated teeth of a buzz saw. When he saw the extensive damage, he felt even more relieved that the Oregon had come out of the battle with the Achilles relatively unscathed.

“I have a better appreciation for your boat-driving skills, Max,” he said.

“It was all Eric,” Max said. “He was at the helm, dodging and weaving. I was just making lucky guesses about where to go.”

Juan knew better. It was his crew’s training and teamwork that saved them.

“Hold on. There it is.”

Nomad’s lights focused on the only container attached to the deck. The forty-foot-long blue box was tied down amidships, halfway between the port and starboard sides.

Juan activated the pedals so that he did a circumnavigation of the container. The doors were closed, and there were no holes in the corrugated metal.

“It’s intact,” Juan said. “I assume the column is still in there.”

That didn’t mean it remained secured inside the container. The column may have come loose from the chains tying it down. That could make the container very unwieldy if the thirty-ton granite column shifted while they were moving it. It could even slam through the doors and fall to the seabed below, making it more difficult to recover.

Juan took the Jim suit in for a closer look at the fasteners holding the container to the deck. Modern containers were secured with a relatively simple mechanism called a twistlock. Three of the twistlock couplings were undamaged, but the fourth, which was now at the upper corner of the rotated container, had been severed during the attack. That corner leaned out noticeably from the deck.

“I think this might work,” Juan said.

“You always think everything might work,” Max replied.

“I told you. Of the two of us, I’m the optimist.”

The plan was simple in conception, difficult in execution. Juan would connect four lines from the main cable to the four corner castings on the container’s normal top side. Then he would free the container from the deck and, when it swung loose, the Oregon’s crane would reel it in.

The water provided enough drag that the container would sink slowly, if at all, buoyed by balloons that he would attach to the four top corners, the ones farthest from the Narwhal’s deck.

Juan took uninflated balloons from Nomad’s tool tray, which was situated under its nose. One at a time, he tied the balloons to the container. Each was equipped with a light so that the container would be visible in the darkness. When the balloons were all secured, he backed away and radioed Max.

“They’re ready to go. Give them some air.”

“Inflating now.”

Max keyed the signal that ordered the air cartridges to inflate the balloons. The yellow rubber spheres expanded until each was the size of an SUV.

The next step was attaching the crane cables. While Linda held the main cable with Nomad’s manipulator, Juan latched each of the four ends to the same corners where the balloons were connected. Once they were secure, Linda released the cable, and Juan radioed the crane operator to take up the slack.

Juan tried manually disengaging the twistlocks to free the container, but two of them were jammed.

“They aren’t budging,” he radioed Max.

“Looks like it’s time to break out the fireworks,” Max said.

They’d anticipated this problem. The Nomad’s tool tray held four shaped charges to blow the locks.

Juan motored over to Nomad and took one of the charges from the tray. He then carefully attached it to the stuck joint, making sure that the explosive force would be focused toward the lock and away from the container. He repeated the task with the second explosive. After triple-checking the setup, he pulled back to a safe distance.

“Fire in the hole,” Linda said calmly.

Two bright flashes lit up the entire ship like a strobe, followed by muffled thumps a moment later. They waited expectantly for the container to swing away.

For a second, it seemed to separate from the deck, then nothing. It remained lodged in place. They waited another minute to see if the container would work itself free, but it remained stubbornly attached.

“I’ll check it out,” Juan said.

“Be careful,” Max said. “Stay on top of it in case it decides to break loose.”

Juan used his thrusters to get a close look at the problem. He checked both twistlocks and saw that the explosives had worked perfectly. The locks were sliced away without damaging the container.

What Juan hadn’t been able to see before was the damage to the ship under the container, which had pulled away enough to expose the underside.

An explosion from one of the railgun rounds had driven a metal girder into the container, possibly destroying part of the column.

“It’s hung up on a structural beam,” he said.

“Can we pull the container loose?” Max asked. “I can have the crane operator reel the cable in.”

“No, that might peel the container open and spill the column out. I think the beam is narrow enough that another shaped charge will cut it in half. The only problem will be wedging myself in there to attach it.”

“I don’t like the idea of you wedging yourself in anywhere. Why don’t we give it a try?”

“I appreciate the thought, but even with its longer arms, Nomad won’t be able to get close enough. And we can’t lose this opportunity to retrieve the column.”

“Your call.”

Juan retrieved a third explosive and went back to the container. It seemed to have shifted again by the time he returned. Then he realized it wasn’t the container that had moved, it was the entire ship. The Narwhal was now leaning over even farther.

“We’ve got a problem here,” Juan said. “The Narwhal has tilted by another few degrees. We can’t wait much longer. Get ready to set off the explosive on my mark.”

“Not until you’re back here,” Linda said.

“I’ll get to a safe distance. But don’t delay because of me. If the ship falls onto the container, we may not be able to dig it out.”

Juan inched himself into the small space that had opened up between the deck and container, coming up from underneath to reach the girder. He could just barely touch it. With a mighty push, he stuck the charge on the girder and was starting to back out when he heard the shriek of tearing metal.

The Narwhal was keeling over.

The container shifted suddenly, crushing the Jim suit’s thruster pack and holding it fast. Juan pushed the thruster to maximum power, but he couldn’t move.

He was about to go down with the ship and it wasn’t even his ship.

“Linda! Blow it!”

“Wait, where are you?” Max protested. “We can’t see you.”

“I’m stuck and the Narwhal is collapsing! Linda, do it now!”

Linda followed his order without question. “Fire in the hole,” she said.

The shaped charge went off, blasting away from him and cutting through the beam, but the explosion packed a wallop. The concussion caused an impact that Juan felt through his whole body, rattling him like he was in a cement mixer. The Jim suit’s helmet cracked but held. At this depth, he’d be dead in seconds if it leaked.

But the explosive worked. The beam broke in two, wrenching the container away from the deck and taking his communication umbilical with it.

The container swung out from the falling ship, and Juan tried to follow it, but his lateral thrusters must have been damaged when the container crushed him because he was moving at a fraction of his normal speed.

His vertical thrusters, however, seemed to be fully operational. The problem was that the ship was capsizing too fast. He knew he wouldn’t make it to safety before the ship’s deck crashed down and flattened him. Then he remembered his earlier survey of the ship.

The railgun, ironically, provided the only possibility for his survival.

With only seconds to react, Juan resorted to the only option he had left.

He went down.