Page 90 of Daughter of the Deep

‘Evasive course,’ I say. ‘Activate camouflage. Thirty degrees starboard. Make depth –’

The ship shudders as if we’ve passed over a speed bump.

‘That was our payload deploying.’ Lee-Ann sounds relieved.

‘Is the payload okay?’ Ester asks.

I understand her concern. That was a long time at a lot of Gs, but I can see the large blip on Lee-Ann’s LOCUS, descending at a diagonal under his own power. I have to hope our large hitch-hiker isn’t carsick now as well as lovesick.

If we’re lucky, theAronnaxwill be moored in the lagoon oreven the cavern. That will give us time to get away from our payload and the exit point of our cav-shot – using camouflage to obscure our position.

If we’re unlucky …

‘Contact!’ yells Virgil. ‘One kilometre, twelve o’clock, depth ten metres. It’s theAronnax. They’re right between us and Lincoln Base.’

I curse. I didn’t really expect Dev to let his guard down, even after a week. Still, the sight of that awful purple arrowhead on Gem’s tactical display makes me hesitate a millisecond too long. The second smaller blip comes out of nowhere – right in front of our prow.

‘Torpedo in the water!’ Gem shouts.

I start to yell, ‘Leidenfrost –!’

TheNautiluslurches forward, almost jolting my head from my neck.

‘Power is down!’ Halimah yells. ‘EMP blast!’

I blink spots from my eyes. The bridge is dark.

Dev’s voice comes over our loudspeaker: ‘Welcome back,Nautilus. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.’

I hate how smug he sounds. He’s been waiting to pull exactly this trick: disable us, then take us without a fight. The fact that I anticipated the scenario doesn’t make it any better. I was hoping to have a few more seconds for evasive manoeuvres. Now I have to pray for Plan C to work.

‘Come on,Nautilus,’ I murmur. ‘Engine room, how is Plan C?’

‘Little busy down here, Captain!’ Nelinha says. ‘I managed to hit the kill switch before impact. Reactor is down, but hopefully our circuits aren’t fried. If we can just – Aha!’

The engines hum. The bridge lights flicker back to life. LOCUS spheres reform over the control consoles.

‘Yes, querida!’ Nelinha laughs. ‘We have auxiliary power! Eat coal,Aronnax!’

The bridge crew whoops and hollers. Plan C is forcoal. Our Victorian backup generator won’t give us nearly as much power as cold fusion, but it’s better than nothing.

‘Da Silva,’ I say, ‘you are one brilliant Cephalopod!’

‘Well, I’m a Cephalopod, sobrilliantis redundant, but thanks, Captain. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have coal to shovel!’

In the background, Robbie Barr sneezes. ‘I’m the one shovelling, and I think I’m allergic!’

Gem’s hands fly across his controls. ‘Captain,Aronnaxis stationary, still one klick dead ahead. But I have secondary contact – a small submersible. Boarding party, probably. Five hundred metres and closing.’

‘As expected,’ I say. ‘Let’s send them a message. Make ready torpedo one.’

‘Torpedo one ready.’

‘Target theAronnaxamidships. Fire!’

Our hull shudders as the antique missile speeds into the deep.

‘Helm, hard to port, ahead full!’ I grip my armrests as the ship tilts. ‘Dive, make depth thirty metres!’

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