Typhoon Fury

57

From the supply drone’s camera feed, Juan could see that it flew mere feet above the whitecaps lapping at it from below. Gomez Adams, now at his remote flight station in the op center, was doing a remarkable job keeping it from being swamped while Murph picked off the last few Kuyog stragglers that preceded the final wave of twenty-four that were nearing the ferry’s stern.

“You’ve got to keep it right above the water,” Murph said to Gomez. “Otherwise, the sensors might not pick up the supply drone’s beacon.”

“Easier said than done,” Gomez said without breaking his concentration on the controls. “How close do I have to get to these Kuyog things?”

“I’d say less than a hundred yards. More than that and they might not break the lock they have on the Oregon. Think of it like the countermeasure flare a fighter jet uses to fool a heat-seeking missile into diverting from the jet’s hot engine exhaust.”

Gomez shook his head. “Except this fighter jet weighs over eleven thousand tons and is towing a huge ferry.”

Murph shrugged. “I didn’t say the analogy was perfect.”

“How long until we are in danger of beaching ourselves, Stoney?” Juan asked. He was happy to see that Raven Malloy was watching everything in silence, letting them do their work without interrupting.

“We’re less than a mile away,” Eric said. “Then we’ll have to disengage from the ferry.”

Juan looked at the ferry they were dragging. Its gunwales were perilously close to the water. They’d have to time this perfectly to have a chance of succeeding.

“Once the Kuyogs have locked onto the beacon,” Murph said to Gomez, “no jerking movements or they’ll break away and head back for the Oregon. Right now, they’re all grouped together, so this is our best shot at having them all follow the supply drone together.”

“If this works,” Gomez said, “just remember what happened when they didn’t pay the piper.”

“If this doesn’t work,” Juan said, “I have a feeling the annual bonus will be sharply reduced this year.”

“Living is better than dying,” Gomez said with a sly chuckle. “Got it.”

When the Kuyogs were less than a football field’s length from the supply drone, the ones at the outer edges turned toward it. Gomez matched their speed and began flying backward in the direction of the ferry.

“It looks like they have a lock on the beacon,” Murph said. “They’re following you past the starboard side of the ferry. Now you’re going to have to fly the supply drone right past the Oregon. Otherwise, their sensors might detect they’re being redirected away from the real target.”

“How close?”

“Close enough to give it a high five as it goes by.”

Gomez said nothing further, keeping his entire focus on the drone’s flight path. With the breeze picking up, Juan could tell that Gomez was having to use all of his flying skills to keep the supply drone in front of the Kuyogs without hitting either the water or the Oregon.

Everyone in the op center sat in silence as the Kuyogs approached the stern. If the sensor lock was lost, two dozen high-explosive warheads would impact the Oregon before they could do anything about it.

The rusty hull of the Oregon dominated the supply drone’s camera feed as it flew by. Juan breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the first Kuyog skim past the ship in pursuit of the drone. Then the second and the third followed. Within seconds, all twenty-four had whizzed by.

Murph jumped up and fist-bumped Eric before returning to the weapons station.

“Now what?” Gomez asked.

“We need to get rid of them,” Murph replied.

“There,” Eric said, pointing at the screen showing the view in front of the Oregon. “Five hundred yards off the starboard bow. See those waves breaking on the rocks?”

“That must be a barrier reef,” Juan said. “You have your destination, Gomez.”

“That I do, Chairman,” Gomez said with a smile and gently arced the supply drone toward it. The Kuyogs raced after it.

When the supply drone reached the rocks, Gomez brought it to a halt a hundred yards beyond them, hovering like a tempting piece of bait on a hook.

The first Kuyog didn’t even slow as it hit the rocks. It detonated in an impressive fireball. The other Kuyogs followed suit, dashing themselves on the rocks in a futile attempt to reach their target. The combined explosions sent a huge black mushroom cloud into the sky that would be visible for miles. If Locsin still had eyes focused in this direction, he might see it rising above the peninsula between them and conclude that the Oregon was destroyed.

Gomez and Murph both slumped back in their chairs for a moment, spent from the adrenaline surge. Then Gomez went back to the controls and began flying the supply drone back to the Oregon.

“I’ll buy you two a beer later,” Juan said, “but we’re not out of the woods yet.” The beach was approaching rapidly. “Hali, tell the deck crew to prepare to cut the tow lines.”

“Aye, Chairman.”

“Stoney, what do the depth charts say?”

“We can get within two hundred yards of the beach without grounding ourselves. If they’re accurate, that is.”

“Let’s give ourselves some maneuvering room,” Juan said. “Tell me when we’re within three boat lengths of the beach.” Getting the 560-foot-long Oregon stuck in the sand wouldn’t help the ferry passengers.

Juan leaned forward as the jungle beyond the beach became unnervingly close. A minute later, Eric called out, “Three boat lengths.”

“Cut the ropes to the ferry,” Juan ordered.

When Hali got confirmation from the deck crew that they were disconnected, he said, “Tow lines cut, Chairman.”

“Hard aport, Stoney.” The Oregon was so agile that she could stop and turn on a dime, but the same couldn’t be said for the ferry behind them. It would keep plowing forward on inertia alone and would hit their stern if they didn’t get out of the way.

The Oregon heeled to port, her heavy ballast tanks and damaged engines keeping her from moving as quickly as usual. In a few more seconds, she was parallel to the beach and still turning.

The ferry kept coming, though it was slowing rapidly now that it was no longer being dragged forward. Max reported that it missed the Oregon’s stern by mere feet.

The Oregon made a wide circle until she was directly behind the ferry.

“Get our bow right up against the ferry,” Juan told Eric. “We need to give it one final push.”

“Tugboat maneuver, aye,” Eric replied. He nudged the Oregon forward until she touched the wide stern of the ferry. When he was sure he had good contact, Eric revved the engines, and the Oregon shoved the ferry forward until it ran up onto the sand, lurching to a stop with a grinding noise audible in the op center. The ferry’s metal stern was slightly crushed in by the Oregon’s armored bow, but Eric had timed it so that he threw the engines into reverse at the last second to minimize the damage.

The passengers watching at the stern railing were thrown off their feet by the sudden grounding. When they picked themselves up off the deck, they began cheering wildly.

“Are we stuck as well, Mr. Stone?” Juan asked.

“We may be touching bottom at the bow, but I think I can get us free.”

“Then please do so.”

Eric pushed the engines to maximum reverse power. The Oregon resisted at first, but the remaining operational Venturi tubes must have acted like enormous dredges and scoured the sand out from under them. The Oregon moved away from the beach until Juan felt they were in safe waters. He ordered Eric to maintain position. Everyone relaxed and waited for Corporation crew members in the RHIB to retrieve Max and the others from the ferry.

By the time the RHIB returned to the boat garage, passengers were already scrambling down makeshift ladders from the bow into the surf and wading ashore, grateful to be on dry land again.

When Max got back to the op center, he began assessing the damage to his engineering systems. He looked at Juan and shook his head in disgust.

“Not good?” Juan asked.

“You’ve done a number on my ship while I was gone.”

“Yes, a lot has happened since you left us twenty minutes ago. Now, can we get out of here before the Coast Guard arrives?”

“Yes, but we can’t go far.”

“What do you mean?”

Max held up his fingers as he ticked off the problems one by one. “We’ve got a rupture in the starboard hull that we can’t repair until we get to a service dock. Our starboard Venturi tube is damaged and will need a refit. And the magnets have overheated, which means that they’ll have to be completely overhauled and recalibrated. I can do the last part myself, but it’ll take time, and, until then, we’ll risk a full system shutdown if we travel any appreciable distance.”

Juan had Eric put up the weather map tracking Typhoon Hidalgo. “You see the problem, right? Hidalgo is heading straight for us. According to the latest projections, it will pass directly over Negros Island.”

“And I would love to get out of its way,” Max said. “But if we try to outrun it, we could be stuck in the middle of the open ocean without operational engines during a Category Five storm. Doesn’t sound very appealing to me.”

“I hope you have an alternative.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Max replaced the weather map on the screen with a detailed coastal map of Negros Island. He zoomed in on a bay only twenty miles away.

“That’s not a shipping harbor because the area around it is marshy,” Max said, “but it should provide us some protection from the storm surge. By the time the full brunt of the typhoon arrives, I’ll have the engines in good enough shape to ride it out.”

Juan didn’t like the idea of sitting in a bay during a storm like Hidalgo, but the notion of being stranded at sea in mountainous waves was even worse.

“Stoney, set course for that bay,” he said. “Top speed that Max allows.”

“Aye, Chairman,” Eric replied, and the Oregon began moving away from the beached ferry. Since the passengers had been moved away from the bow during the firefight between the Kuyogs and the Gatling guns, all they’d be able to report was that a mysterious ship and its crew had saved them from certain death amid dozens of explosions from unknown watercraft. Juan would have his people reconfigure the Oregon while it was idling so that even if the Coast Guard did subsequently come across them, they would look like a completely different ship.

“Congratulations, Mr. Cabrillo,” Raven said now that they were out of harm’s way. “I’ve never seen such a remarkable display of teamwork.”

“We only bring on the best. Every corporation says that, but we really mean it.”

“I can see that. But Locsin is still out there, and so is Beth.”

“I know. We’ll have to wait out the storm and plan our next step once it’s passed.”

Raven held up the temporary phone they’d loaned her to replace the one taken by Locsin. “I don’t think we have to wait that long. While we were recovering from the battle, I was finally able to check my email and found a message from an account that I’ve never seen before. It says, ‘Raven, this is Beth. In a huge cavern but don’t know where. Track this cell number to find me.’ I checked the number in the message, and it has a Philippines prefix based on Negros Island. If this is legit, Beth might have found a way to lead us right to Locsin.”