The Lotus Eaters

S806 Diamant, Shimmering Sea, Terra Nova

"What the fuck do you mean, 'there's only one sub down there'?" Diamant's captain demanded on the helicopter that had dropped the sonobuoy. "I can hear the bastard . . . Oh, you see us doing a three-sixty under the layer, but you can't see them cruising straight above the layer. Oh, you can hear the clicking from the defective water jet? But no active return signal? That's bizarre."

"Could be the material," the deck officer ventured. "The plastic we know makes up the hull might give a poor return signal."

"But that poor?" the captain questioned.

"Maybe the sonobuoy's defective," the deck officer offered, reasonably.

"No . . . no, they see us well enough." The captain went back to tapping his lips. He ceased his tapping and put the underwater telephone transceiver back to his head. "Relay to Charlemagne," he said. "I want a line of passive sonobuoys dropped in front of that sub. If he doesn't turn back from those it will establish a pretty good case that he intends to intercept the battle group with hostile intent. I also need permission from the admiral to fire if they do pass that line. Tell the admiral I am loading tubes."