Chapter 407

... Arlene motioned to their forward screen and the rippling, wavering, blurry image there. “I can’t see worth a shit because of the burning atmosphere, and the sensors have packed up from the heat. But I think I’ll go to full shields right about...”

A geyser shot hundreds of feet into the air as the craft hit the water with a sound that could be heard many, many miles away.

Even at full shields, some of the shock bled through and, had it not been for the gravity field of their seats, their necks would have snapped. Fortunately, Arlene had activated the inertialess drive at practically the same time she had increased their shields to max, otherwise, with their tremendous velocity they would have plowed into the sea bottom a mile down. Nonetheless, by the time the drive came on, they were very deep before she managed to change their path, orient herself and start toward land.

Arlene’s eyes swept her instruments, noting that her board was slowly coming back, but she still had a number of red and amber lights, and their AI continued to be non-responsive. “I hope the enemy thought we were toast coming in or we’re going to have company soon, and if we do, we’re nowhere near fighting trim. What do you have?”

“Rear turret is out as well as the port one. Repair shows another thirty minutes on the rear turret and an hour or more on the port one. Our tactical sensors are out and I’m beginning the cold startup procedure for Icky. Once he’s online – if I can get him online – he should be able to greatly increase the effectiveness of our repair efforts.”

“In other words, we’re fucked if the enemy comes calling right now,” Arlene almost snarled.

“Well, we did hit the water at something like Mach fifteen,” Ann pointed out, “and we had taken several hits before that. Count us lucky to even be alive.”

“If I had gone to full shields much before we hit, the enemy would have known...” Arlene started to defend her strategy.

“ ... and we would be dead now,” Ann finished. “We’re still on the same page, Partner. But we have to hope these guys don’t come to check before we have all our systems and weapons back online.”

“I have us in full stealth mode, but I’ve never tried it underwater. And come to think of it, I think I’ll try to find us a nice little overhang and settle under it until we’re ready to take on the rest of our mission – if I can figure out some way to see down here.”

“I’m all for that,” Ann agreed.

A few minutes later as the young women continued to try to get their systems working again, “Hey, our forward scans just came online,” Arlene chortled as she tried various frequencies until she had a wavering picture in false color.

“How deep are we?” Ann absently asked as she continued with her boards.

“You don’t want to know,” Arlene replied in a flat voice. “But our shields will hold at many times this pressure. It just seems ... eerie. I never thought I would be flying an interceptor under an ocean.”

Fifteen minutes later, “Oh, shit,” Ann mumbled as she pointed to a dot on her screen. “That wasn’t there before and it’s near the place where we hit the water.”

Arlene had seen a channel/canyon and changed their direction of travel toward it. Finally, after almost giving up, she maneuvered toward a huge protruding rock face and stopped with them partially under it.

“Ten to one that’s the enemy. Think we got here in time?” Ann quietly asked.

“Looks like they’re circling,” Arlene responded. “Crap. I thought surely they would think we were destroyed when we hit the water, not to mention being a molten chunk of burning metal as we came down.”

“Maybe they’re just curious,” Ann optimistically hoped.

“And if they don’t find wreckage?” Arlene worried.

Ann looked over at her partner. “So, we wait them out?”

“Shut down all our repair procedures. We don’t want to do anything that their sensors might pick up.”

After a slight pause, “Affirmative. Repairs shut down. But our shields are still up. Do you suppose...”

Arlene let out a soft sigh. “Theoretically, the shields project nothing, and I sure hope that is still true underwater. Otherwise, we’re in for a world of hurt.” Then changing the subject, “What about Icky?”

“Cold restart, remember? It takes about fifteen minutes – if his core isn’t damaged.” Then after a moment, “I’ve double-checked all our systems. We’re as quiet as we can possibly be.”

They said nothing for a time as they watched their passive screens. “Too bad we don’t have something we could release that would look like wreckage,” Ann said, more or less just to break the silence.

Arlene chuckled. “Not a bad idea. But just how would we release anything against all the water pressure outside?”

“We would have had to do it just after we hit the water, or else go back to the surface,” Ann returned, defending her idea.

Arlene let out a chuckle as she watched the tiny blip on her screen. “I guess we could suggest Command put in a package to release when we hit water – if we survive, but I doubt they will be impressed. As far as I know, this is the first time something like this has ever happened.” Then a little sarcastically, “In case you haven’t noticed, we usually do our fighting in space.”

Ann hissed in a breath. “Oh, shit. They’ve stopped circling and are headed this way.”

“ ... Which is also generally the direction of the nearest land,” Arlene pointed out, but she was very intently watching her screens, too. “And there’s still just one of them. If they really thought we had survived, surely there would be several of them. And they’re not very deep. Hmmm. I wonder if their shields are strong enough to allow them to reach our depth.”

After a moment, she continued, “I’m going to move us farther under the overhang to lessen their chances of detecting us, but ... that will block our passive sensors and we won’t be able to see them, either.”

“Just don’t disturb anything,” Ann warned. “Remember, sound carries better in water.”

Finally, her craft was as far under the obstruction as she could get it, Arlene set her controls to hover as both young women nervously waited.

“What happened,” the AI suddenly asked in a voice that seemed way too loud under the circumstances.

“Sssshhh,” both girls hissed out. Then in a whisper, Ann continued, “Do you want to get us killed?”

“What’s going on?” the AI demanded, but at a much-reduced volume.

“We’re at the bottom of an ocean waiting for the enemy to leave.”

“Ocean? But that’s preposterous. We are in the middle of a battle in sector...” And its voice trailed away. “I am malfunctioning. My sensors show us on the planet and in ... water,” it said as its voice seemed to wind down. Then, resigned, “I have malfunctioned. I will have to be shut down.”

“You have not malfunctioned,” Ann hissed out. “One of the particle beam pulses took you out. We had to restart your core, and we are definitely underwater.”

It responded with a quiet, “Oh.” After another couple of seconds, “I show several systems off line or not functioning properly. I shall begin...” it said before Arlene snapped out.

“Shut up.” she hissed out. “Don’t do anything. The enemy might hear our bots going about the heavier repairs. We’ve even shut down our nanotechs. And don’t bother to tell me the enemy is too far away to hear my voice. I’m perfectly aware of that, but we want to be quiet, anyway. I guess you could say it’s a human thing. So we will be as quiet as we can. Got that?”

“Affirmative,” Icky responded, sounding as if his feelings were hurt.

“Good. Now just let us worry in peace – and quiet.”

They waited an hour, debated, then waited for two more.

“How long are we going to sit here?” Ann asked.

Arlene looked at her and shrugged. “How long will they look for us?”

“I have no idea.”

“Neither do I, but we know what our objective is and I seriously doubt they will expect an attack from the sea. For all we know, we’re the only crew that made it this far. Command would have called off the attack by now. We all knew we didn’t have a large enough force to take back the planet. Our forces are stretched way too thin. But if the other two teams made it down, we should be able to screw up some of their power and maybe shut down or at least delay some of their manufacturing systems. Every little bit helps. And we managed to come down fairly close to the major power station that’s our main objective. If we manage to take ours out, maybe the other crews will get the other two.”

“If anybody made it through that wall of fighters. But some of our guys got the other space station. So, even if we don’t manage to take out a power station, let alone all three, we still have a victory of sorts.”

“True,” Arlene said, reluctantly, “but taking out their power grid would hurt their war capabilities a whole lot more, but we’ll take what we can get,” she finished with a sigh. Then after glancing at her co-pilot, “Screw it, we’ve waited long enough.” Turning her attention to the AI’s pickup, “Icky, restart our repairs, but keep them as quiet as you can.”

Two hours later, they crept along near the bottom. It was night above, but as deep as they were, there would be no light, anyway.

On her screen, Ann was checking the map that showed the nearest power station. The team that had run the scans as they orbited the planet had spent days in their scout fully cloaked, all the while wondering if they would be blasted to atoms at any moment. Two teams before them had not returned, but they managed to record detailed scans of the whole planet.

The power stations were well camouflaged, but there is just so much you can do to hide something that big. No matter how well concealed, the generators stood out on a scan. And ... so did the numerous gun emplacements and missile batteries surrounding each of the stations. The only thing the humans had going for their side was that shields interfered with the massive power generators. The two of them could not function properly in close proximity, which left the stations vulnerable – theoretically. But no one had ever gotten a missile past the cordon of space stations and fighters ringing the planet, at least one that was not intercepted before it could damage a power station, but they hoped their approach would work. Escape afterward, should they manage their objective, would be another iffy proposition. One space station was down, though, and many of the weapon platforms had been destroyed in the battle. The mission was a slight success even before the attempt at the power stations.

If they had brought in several of the big capital ships, their guns could have penetrated the defenses and taken out the power stations, but this was a minor conflict compared to other areas of the war, and the big ships were needed more elsewhere, also there would be massive loss of life to the original inhabitants of the planet, for the Throme tended to keep large numbers of slaves around, both for labor and as a shield for just such an attempt by the Federation.

“So ... all we have to do is sneak in and put a bomb where it will do the most good, huh? Piece of cake – not,” Ann snarled. “So how are we supposed to do that and only kill Throme?”

“Well, according to our intel...”

Ann snorted.

Arlene chuckled before going on, “According to our illustrious intelligence division, slaves are not used inside any of the power generation plants. They do have large groups of them living in huts nearby. Something big enough to take out the plant from orbit or even farther out, would also kill a large number of hostages, but...”