The Steel Shark

Chapter 50

Vivian wrapped an arm around Nahal’s waist and helped her forward. Nahal was too weak to move quickly, and they needed to hurry.

“Thank you,” Nahal said through lips gone pale with pain.

“I’ve exited a submarine in an emergency suit once before.” Vivian still had nightmares. “It’s a pretty violent and intense experience. Are you sure you’re up for that?”

Nahal took a memory stick out of her pocket and handed it to Vivian. “Here’s a copy of everything for you. If we get separated or… if I don’t make it to the surface, give it to Tesla. It will take some expertise to unpack it and post it where it needs to go, but he can do it.”

Vivian stuffed the stick inside her bra. She didn’t have any pockets. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Live or die, I want off this submarine.” Nahal started walking again. “I’ve seen the price for disagreeing with Laila.”

Vivian didn’t figure now was the time to get into it. She dragged Nahal forward.

“She does not need them as she needs me. She will let them go when she is done.” Nahal seemed pretty confident she knew what Laila was thinking, but Vivian wondered if she was right. But she wasn’t going to argue with anything that got her away from this giant metal coffin.

They went a few steps more, and Vivian started to think they’d get through this. At the end of the corridor, women rushed back and forth, but they took no notice of her and Nahal. She looked like someone helping a companion to sick bay. In the current climate, not that unusual.

Then the sub lurched violently. Vivian’s head slammed against a metal pipe. It hurt like hell, but she held on to Nahal. Short screams echoed down the corridor. Nobody had liked that moment.

“You OK?” Vivian asked Nahal.

“We were hit.” Nahal looked dazed. “The Roc has torpedoes.”

“Makes sense.” Vivian touched her head. A lump the size of a duck egg was already forming. But her vision seemed fine, and she hadn’t lost consciousness. Nothing to worry about.

“Torpedoes,” Nahal said again.

“You stole his submarine. You came after him with it and killed his bodyguard. Prince Timgad seems like someone who knows how to take care of himself. Why wouldn’t he have torpedoes?” Vivian started moving forward again, faster than before.

“How did he have time?” Nahal let herself be towed along, but she wasn’t helping much.

“Money makes things happen quickly.” Vivian was losing faith in Nahal’s confident grasp of the situation. This was a shame because she was going to get into the escape trunk no matter what. She wasn’t going to die in here.

A woman pushed by running full tilt. Blood streamed from her temple. Probably not a good sign.

Vivian dragged Nahal forward double time. It probably hurt, but Nahal didn’t say anything. Vivian thought she smelled burnt plastic, but it was hard to tell over the ammonia smell the sub had all the time. Hopefully, nothing important was on fire. Although, realistically, probably every damn part of this submarine was important.

“Left,” Nahal said between clenched teeth. She pointed to the left.

Vivian opened a door and stepped into a small metal room. A ladder led up to a round hatch. “Is that it?”

“The escape trunk is on the other side of that hatch.”

Vivian ran through the plans of the submarine she’d studied back in her Spartan cabin on the Voyager. This seemed right.

She looked around for emergency suits, but the signs were in Arabic and Chinese and her limited Arabic knowledge didn’t include submarine terminology. They had to be stowed in here someplace.

“Suits?” Vivian asked Nahal. “Where are the suits?”

“Never mind,” said a voice from the doorway.

The voice belonged to a small woman holding a QBS-06 assault rifle like the one Vivian had retrieved from the wreckage of Tesla’s sub. She’d researched it, and depressing statistics scrolled through her mind. The gun held twenty-five fléchettes. Those were needlelike projectiles designed to move through the water on a stable trajectory. But they fired just fine through air. One probably wouldn’t kill her right away, unless it hit her in the heart or the head. The barrel was aimed straight at Vivian’s heart. The guns were supposed to be hard to aim at a distance of over fifty yards, but since the woman was standing about ten feet away, that wasn’t really going to be a problem.

“Step away from Nahal,” the woman said.

Vivian looked at Nahal. She nodded, and Vivian stepped away. Maybe she could rush her, but the stranger looked like she meant business.

The gun barrel followed Vivian’s movements. It was very steady. The woman didn’t seem at all conflicted about using it.

“Are you trying to steal away our Nahal, Miss Torres?” she asked.

“I have to go with her, Meri,” Nahal said. “I have to publish information about the prince’s plan so he can’t try it again if he survives, or if his allies survive. Sinking the Roc isn’t enough.”

Meri didn’t seem to be impressed. “Leave after the battle is won. As planned.”

“If I wait, Laila will kill this woman, and me for helping her, and the word might never get out.”

“Win the battle, but lose the war.” Vivian wished Meri would stop pointing that gun at her. If the submarine was hit again and tilted to the side, the gun would likely go off.

“You don’t speak.” Meri stiffened. “You’re not one of us.”

Nahal held out her hands in a pacifying gesture. “That’s right. She’s not one of us. She’s not part of this, and she doesn’t deserve to die. Why not let her go?”

“Collateral damage happens in war.” Meri raised the gun slightly. She was ready to shoot.

Vivian shifted slightly.

“Like Rasha?” Nahal asked.

“Rasha was necessary!” Meri looked at Nahal. “You don’t—”

Vivian dove past Nahal toward Meri. This was her one chance.

She was too close to shoot. Meri swung the gun like a club. Vivian ducked, and the butt of the rifle clanged against the metal rungs of the ladder.

Nahal cried out.

Vivian kicked low, trying to sweep Meri’s knees, but the woman danced back, quick as a snake. Vivian lunged in close. She had to stay in close. Meri moved back another step and crashed into the wall.

It was like fighting inside a closet — no room to move, no room to run, no room to swing.

Meri brought the rifle up to shoot. Vivian slammed Meri’s arm between the metal wall and her cast. The barrel glanced off the wall, leaving a black streak in the paint. The metal rang like a bell.

In spite of the pain, Meri didn’t let go of her gun. Before she could move, Vivian grabbed the barrel with her other hand and twisted the gun. Meri’s fingers bent in an unnatural way. She gasped and lost her grip. The sub pitched to the side.

Vivian yanked the gun free. She swiveled it around and punched Meri in the stomach with the stock. She wanted to smack her in the head, but kept her temper. She didn’t want to kill her if she could help it.

Instead, she swept her feet out from under her.

Meri crashed to the floor with a scream.

Vivian put her foot on the back of Meri’s exposed neck. “Stay down.”

The sub reeled, and Vivian grabbed hold of one of the ladder’s rungs to hold herself in place.

Meri writhed, and Vivian swung the rifle down and pressed the barrel against the base of her spine. “One shot here and you won’t be moving so much. Maybe you won’t ever move again.”

Meri froze.

“Don’t hurt her!” Nahal came at Vivian with fists flailing.

Vivian elbowed the tiny woman in the chest. She collapsed into the ladder.

“So long as everyone behaves, this will go fine.” Vivian took the handcuffs out of her cast and slapped one on Meri’s wrist. The other one she locked around the ladder’s bottom rung. She eased her foot off Meri’s neck.

From this position, Meri couldn’t reach the corridor or the escape trunk. She might scream, but with all the screaming and excitement in the sub right now, Vivian wasn’t sure anyone would notice. Best she could do.

“Suits?” Vivian kept her gun on Meri’s back. No point in letting up until the last second. “The emergency suits?”

Nahal opened a locker to reveal neon yellow emergency suits. She handed one to Vivian and put on one herself. “I’m sorry, Meri.”

Meri grunted. It sounded like a curse, but Vivian didn’t understand it. Apparently, Nahal did, because her face hardened and she put her foot on the first rung of the ladder.

Vivian slipped into the suit on one side, then moved the gun to her other hand and put on the other side. If was a tight fit over her cast, but she was motivated. Barrel still pressed against Meri’s spine, Vivian yanked up the suit’s zipper.

The sub’s movements had stabilized.

“Do you think the sub dove after it was hit?” Vivian asked. Seemed like a logical choice.

“No order was given.” Nahal clambered up the ladder like a monkey.

Vivian was willing to chance it.

“Stay still,” Vivian told Meri. “And safe journeys.”

Which was more than Meri would ever wish for her.

She followed Nahal up the ladder. Her rubber boot slipped, and she caught herself with her broken arm. She stifled a curse and climbed again. She’d have to get the arm x-rayed again if she ever got back to civilization. She hadn’t been following doctor’s orders very much since he’d put the cast on.

Nahal was on the top rung of the ladder, struggling to open the hatch. Vivian squeezed past and opened it one-handed, glad for all her time rock-climbing. Upper-body strength was a handy thing to have.

Nahal climbed in first, Vivian after. They were jammed in so tightly it was tough to move around. As soon as Vivian was inside, she closed and sealed the hatch. She had to hope that Nahal was right about being able to work the escape trunk from this side.

She pulled on her hood and gave Nahal a thumbs-up. From now on, she’d be breathing the air in the suit. Nahal closed her hood and gave the thumbs-up signal, too. The suits were working. Nahal reached across and pressed a giant red button.

Cold water rushed into the enclosed space. Vivian gritted her teeth. Nahal buckled straps on her suit to connect to Vivian’s. Whatever happened, they were going up together.

The sub bobbed, and Vivian wondered if they’d been hit again.

She turned Nahal’s face toward her.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Vivian yelled.

Nahal pursed her lips and mimed blowing out air in a continuous stream. Apparently, she’d had the same briefing.

Great. Now the only dangers were getting trapped in this tube, running out of air before they hit the surface, being hit by a torpedo, or being pulverized by a shock wave.

All of them would be better than dying inside the submarine.

Or at least Vivian hoped so.