“I have also analyzed the images of the Gemini, and I think—”
“If you don’t mind,” Dad interjected. “For days. Gabriel has been to the bottom of the world. Oh, and you two”—here he indicated Misty and Peter—“you two are amazing for putting up with all of this, but I can tell you’ve barely slept yourselves. All of you have done amazing work. But now we have three options, and we have to think clearly. From now on there will be no more fighting.”
“So let’s decide—”
“I’ll decide,” Dad said. For a moment, his eyes watered, and he wiped them. “Whatever we do, it has to be on me.”
They all stared at one another, and Dad said, “Okay?”
Nerissa and Gabriel nodded. “Yes. Okay.”
Dad sat down, the Eye on his right and the fake on his left. “When I set out to make a fake, it was a desperate measure. I didn’t think in a million years that we’d have the real thing. It was desperate because, let’s be honest, if we assume they’re smart, they will be able to spot the fake. So giving them the fake is the riskiest move in the short term.” He gestured to the box. “But giving them the real thing—something that could possibly power a whole pirate navy, or do who knows what to a city … Gabriel, you have to admit that that’s even riskier, long term.”
Gabriel and Nerissa eyed each other.
Dad went on, “The least risky move is the rescue.”
“And…” Gabriel gulped. “If that fails?”
“Then if we have any chance at all, we have to hand over the real thing.”
Gabriel let it sink in. This was the way it was done on every ship. You argue your side. And then the leader chooses a course. And you commit.
“So,” Dad said.
“So,” Gabriel answered. “We’re going for a rescue. Who’s going to do it?”
“I have a strike team I can call up,” Nerissa said.
“I don’t think so.” Dad steepled his hands. “When I look at these two crews, only one of them makes it their regular business to go around rescuing people. It’s your plan—but it needs to be Gabriel and his team.”
Nerissa breathed. “Are you sure?”
Dad looked up at her and nodded. Nerissa kissed the top of his head and then turned to Gabriel and hugged him again. Gabriel felt certain she was going to whisper something. Don’t screw this up, maybe. But she didn’t.
Nerissa let him go. “Done, then.” She touched her headset and called, “Nebula, anything on the Bubo?” Nerissa’s ship deployed numerous long-range flying drones she had named Bubo after the mechanical owl in a movie she had loved when she and Gabriel were together back at Nemolab. She pulled off the headset and laid it on the table.
A voice came back, “Yes. Infrared is picking up the twin sub about ninety miles north of our position.”
“Thank you, Nemo out,” she said. “They’re coming.”
“How are you gonna sneak up on the Gemini?” Peter asked. “Sonar will pick you up. They’re gonna be looking for the Eclipse alone.”
“We used whales to sneak up on the Alaska,” Misty offered. “But we caught a migrating herd.”
“Well, that’s pretty cool. Who came up with that?” Nerissa scanned the crew.
“That was all her,” Gabriel said.
Nerissa tapped her lip. “Do you think they would be okay with the trade coming from you on the Nebula?” she asked Dad.
He opened his hands. Who knows? “They never specified the ship.”
“They know we wouldn’t risk torpedoing them with Mom onboard,” Nerissa said. “So it’s not shocking that I would pick you up and escort you in the Nebula.”
“Right,” Gabriel said.
“So the Nebula doesn’t have to sneak; she just rides up, like they’re expecting.”
Gabriel understood. “We’re underneath.”
“What?” Peter asked.
“He’s got it,” Nerissa said.
“We move into position below the Nebula so that they see one sonar blip and not two. And then when we’re still far enough away … we dive…”
“Below the cold line,” Misty said. “Below where sonar will catch us.”
“And we try the rescue then,” Gabriel said.
“You don’t try,” Dad said. “If you’re doing a rescue, you have to succeed. All this talk about what happens next is wishful thinking.”
“Sonar only reads about thirty miles. But when they’re fifty miles away, we should be able to radio them,” Nerissa said. “I want to do that first.”
“Why?” Dad said.
“I want to make sure that Mom is still okay.”
“And if she’s not?”
Nerissa scowled. “If she’s not, if they can’t prove she’s okay—this whole mission changes.”
* * *
Within the hour, with the ships still surfaced, they gathered on the bridge, and Nerissa asked Misty to tune to the frequency that the Maelstrom had broadcast on when contacting them to deliver their ransom demand.
“This is Nemoship Nebula calling Maelstrom Gemini,” Nerissa said.
“Nebula?” Gabriel mumbled.
“They don’t know where any of us are,” Nerissa whispered. “And we only want them to know about the Nebula.”
“Nerissa Nemo.” A male voice came on. It was slightly reedy, casual. It sounded like a trustworthy voice. “Your father is getting close to his deadline time.”
“We will be escorting him, and I can assure you that you will not be fired upon. But I want assurance that Dr. Nemo is still alive and healthy.” Nerissa continued, folding her arms and looking down. “Can you provide that?”
“She is healthy.”
“Put her on. I want to talk to her.”
There was a pause. “No. Do you have the Dakkar’s Eye?”
Nerissa shook her head. “I need proof. I need to know that she’s alive, or we can’t make any trade.”
Now the Maelstrom captain started to say something and then cut off. After a moment he said, “Hold for transmission.”
“Say again?” Nerissa snapped.
“I’m sending you an image,” came the response from the Gemini.
Nerissa tapped off the intercom and spoke into her headset. “Nebula, this is the captain. Whatever you get on the multimedia feed, I want you to forward it instantly to us at the Obscure.” Then she nodded and snapped her fingers at the view screen, and Misty brought up a blank box that began to fill in.
The Maelstrom was sending them video. Black and white. Clearly a security camera. There was a subtitle below it that said STBD—DET. But no sound.
On the screen, Mom was a seated on a cot, her legs crossed as she leaned on her elbows. There was a tablet near her on the wall, blankets, and even some books and papers.
Gabriel felt his heart tighten as he saw his mom. She was right there. She looked … unhurt. But his blood boiled at the idea that someone would take her away from her loved ones and keep her in a small room just to get something they wanted. He had been haunted by images of her for the last four days, but now those fears began to curdle into something else, an anxiety mixed with rage that made him shake. Nerissa was talking, and he had to consciously tune her in.
“There’s no proof that’s a live image,” Nerissa said. “Gemini?”
“As you can see, she is unhurt.” The captain of the Maelstrom ship Gemini sounded tired. Like he was putting up with about as much as he could, and soon he would lay down the law.
“Who do you think you’re playing with?” Nerissa said. “That image could be from anytime in the last hundred hours. How do I know this is live? How do I know?”
The Maelstrom captain sighed. They heard him turn away and mumble something. Shortly after, Mom looked up at the camera, as though a sudden sound had interrupted her. She stood up.
“You see?” the captain said.
“No,” Nerissa said. “If I were you, I would have anticipated that. That’s nothing.”
“Do you have the Dakka
r’s Eye?” the captain asked. “You have very little to bargain with if you don’t.”
Nerissa answered with another demand. “Ask Dr. Nemo…” Nerissa looked around. “Ask…”
Gabriel whispered, “Anything random. Ask her the first letter of the trench near Nemobase.”
“Captain, I need proof. I want you to ask Mom—ask the prisoner the first letter of the trench near home.”
Another sigh. A long pause. Mom was pacing on the camera, looking up and shouting. And then she stopped to listen. And then she spoke at the same time she held up an international hand signal.
D.
Nerissa closed her eyes and put out her arm, and Gabriel hugged her. “She’s alive,” Nerissa whispered.
“Are you satisfied?”
Nerissa cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes. Now I am.”
“Do you have…”
“You don’t want it,” Nerissa said. “We have the Dakkar’s Eye, but it is very volatile. Look, fellas, it’s hazardous. There’s a good chance it will blow up if we hand it to you.”
“Why don’t you let us worry about that?”
“You’re not listening. If we dock the Nebula next to the Gemini and try to move it, it might explode.”
“Our instructions are clear. We are going to meet you in one hour. And you will deliver the item.” The line went dead.
Nerissa turned to Dad and the crew. “Is the Eclipse on autopilot?”
“Yes,” Dad said. “If I’m not back in two hours, it’ll dive deep and wait for instructions.”
“Okay. Let’s get going. Dad, you’re with me on the Nebula.”
Gabriel nodded to Misty and Peter. “As soon as they’re off, prepare to dive, mark the Nebula’s position and bearing, and set a course right under them—close. Less than a hundred feet.”
Peter nodded. He looked a little unsure. “That’s close.”
“Fair winds, everyone,” Nerissa said. “Gabriel. Bring her back.”
Once they’d disappeared up the ladder and out, Peter took his station. Gabriel was walking to his chair, and Misty tapped his shoulder. She turned her tablet toward him. She was pointing to the video of the Gemini, the one sent as part of the ransom message. Nerissa had sent a version covered in notations. “I think I know how to get in.”
29
00:16:45
THEY TRAVELED FOR nearly an hour below the long shadow of the Nebula.
“Nerissa?” Gabriel said into the intercom. “We’re going deep and silent.”
“Go,” Nerissa said.
Gabriel nodded to Peter, and the ship tilted at an angle. In silence they dove to five hundred feet. “Below sonar depth, Captain,” Peter said.
“Level off and head for the position of the Gemini.” On the sonar, a position marker—not live, but a good estimate of where the twin sub was likely to be—moved slowly.
When they were within half a mile of the spot, Gabriel said, “Okay, stay down here until we reach their position, then head straight up underneath them.”
They started to rise as sharply as they’d dived, and soon the twin sub was visible on the cameras as a distant shape. “How deep are we?”
Peter said, “One hundred and fifty feet.”
“Good. That means Mom will be able to get out with a rebreather. Hold again when you’re fifty feet below them and match their bearing. As soon as we’re gone, dive again and head back to the Nebula.”
Gabriel looked at the countdown. “Nerissa? You have…”
“I have to call them in fifteen minutes,” Nerissa said. “And that will trigger the exchange to start. So that’s how much time you have.”
“As soon as they move your mom, she’s gonna have a whole party escorting her,” Misty observed. “So we absolutely have to get to her before.”
“Yeah.” Gabriel breathed. He turned to Misty. “Let’s go.”
As they ran down the corridor to the lockers, Gabriel asked, “We’re sure Mom is on the right-side sub?”
“The caption read stbd—det.” She sounded these letters out. “That’s gotta stand for Starboard detention.” Misty grabbed a hard case and filled it with the items they had ticked off en route. Smoke canisters. Pincer rifles. And a canister of liquid nitrogen.
The ship shook for a second. Gabriel looked up. “What was that?” he spoke into his mic.
“I don’t know, I’ll look into it. It sounds like the engine. We’re holding it together with chewing gum, you know,” Peter said. “Go, you need to go.”
Hold together, Gabriel thought, looking around. Hold together.
“Dive and head for the Nebula,” Gabriel said again. “Soon as we’re clear.” Gabriel opened the dive room and started flooding it as soon as Misty was inside. They took pincer rifles from the locker.
Misty shuddered as she held the pincer. “Gabriel, we haven’t talked about what we’re going to do with these.” He saw what she meant. They’d never used them on people before, even kidnappers.
“We keep them on low power,” Gabriel said. “And only use them if we have to.”
He pulled his mask over his head as the water filled the room, gave Misty the thumbs-up, and opened the dive iris.
Warm Pacific water surrounded Gabriel’s body, and he was thankful that he could travel in a lightweight diving suit. He stretched his limbs, respecting once again the flexibility when he didn’t have to be in a thick arctic suit.
He and Misty dropped below the ship and untethered their Katanas. The engines shuddered to life, and they hopped on, aiming for the vast metal latticework that ran between the twin subs of the Gemini. Soon the corridors of the Gemini’s connector bridge were zooming up in Gabriel’s view.
“Look out for security cameras on that bridge,” Nerissa’s voice spoke in his earpiece. “It’s probably swarming with them.”
A large conduit of steel was closing in, and Misty and Gabriel both dove hundreds of feet, coming around under it. The conduit was about ten feet wide and ran all the way between the two subs.
They floated there under the metal for a few seconds looking for their planned way in, then Misty pointed farther along the underside. There were multiple small craft very like their own, fastened to a docking station on the corridor’s hull. From the distance they were at, this looked like a mess of dangling equipment, which struck Gabriel as unwise because it increased drag and caused noise in the water. It should make them easier to see on sonar. Then again, the Gemini had snuck up on the Institute, so they obviously were handling it pretty well.
As they got closer, Gabriel saw that the equipment was a lot like their own—personal water propulsion devices, Katanalike craft, and a plethora of oxygen tanks secured to the bottom. Misty started looking around once they were under the equipment. “If they fasten their personal craft here, that means that somewhere very near here there has to be a way in.”
She turned over, swimming on her back underneath the corridor of metal as Gabriel followed. Finally, she found a handhold and an iris-shaped entrance. “This has to be a Maelstrom dive room.” Misty turned the handle, and the iris opened, and Gabriel followed her inside.
Sure enough, they were in a flooded compartment attached to the corridor. The compartment was about eight feet square, with several large glass portholes looking out into the corridor itself.
A pair of sailors in Maelstrom uniforms came walking from down the corridor on the other side of the glass. If we could get one mission where we’re not avoiding crew members. He swam out of the way of the porthole as Misty looked around for the controls. Finally, she found the flood/drain controls, and shortly the water receded. They dropped their rebreathers and let them dangle at their chests.
Misty dropped a hard plastic case at Gabriel’s feet, and he opened it. There was an extra rebreather for Mom, which he stuck in a pouch on his belt. Next, he picked up one of the two pincer rifles and handed the other one to Misty.
Gabriel felt his chest tighten. This wasn’t like the Alaska. If they failed there
, the worst that would have happened was they didn’t get a journal. If they failed here, they could lose his mother. Part of him wished his dad had put less faith in him. But no. If Dad believed in him, didn’t he owe it to him to try to meet that?
“Fifteen minutes are up,” Misty said.
Gabriel slid the door open as Nerissa spoke in their earpieces, calling to the kidnappers. “Nebula to Gemini—are you there?”
The inside of the Gemini was mostly steel, silvery and polished. They were trailing water all over the floor, and Gabriel wondered if they should look for some way to towel off. The water could be anyone coming out of a dive room, but it would still leave a trail. He wished he had some way to mop it up as they had on the Alaska, but no. Keep moving.
Misty’s eyes grew wide, and Gabriel spun around. A sailor was coming toward them, just emerging from around the corner. Misty leveled her pincer rifle and fired.
An arc of energy curled through the air and caught the guy on the shoulder, sending reverberations all over his body. He fell instantly.
“I’m sorry!” Misty whispered. “I just didn’t want him to call out, or, you know, blow a whistle.”
“It’s okay,” Gabriel said. “It’s the way we have to play it.” He ran over to the crew member and crouched, touching his neck. For a moment, he panicked—it was his call to use the rifles and maybe he was wrong about low power, and then what? They were murderers now?
But no. He felt a pulse. Alive but stunned. Gabriel let out his breath. They dragged the guy into the dive room, shut him in, and hurried along the corridor. At the end, an iris opened, and they were aboard the starboard twin.
“How long do we have until that guy wakes up?” Misty asked.
“Minutes,” Gabriel said. “And as soon as he wakes up, he’s gonna let everyone know, so we do this now or we don’t do it at all.”
“Gemini, we’re ready to transfer the Dakkar’s Eye,” Nerissa said in their ears. “Tell us where to meet you.”
Quest for the Nautilus Page 17