The Lotus Eaters

SdL Orca, Shimmering Sea, Terra Nova

Yermo had had enough warning to remove the headphones from over his ears before the Orca's torpedo exploded. He replaced them immediately after the shudder that ran through sea and ship told him it was safe to do so. Thus, he heard the death of Diamant clearly.

"Poor bastards," he muttered, voicing the thoughts of every man of Orca's crew.

Sympathy however was short-lived, mainly because the Gallic sub had gotten off four torpedoes before Orca had fired. With their main guidance platform—Diamant, with its greater computational power and better sonar—now gone, the torpedoes were on their own.

"One," said Yermo, "two . . . three . . . four fish in the water, skipper. Marking them one through four. They're pinging and hunting independently." The sonar man forced a degree of calm into his voice he in no way felt.

"Deceptive countermeasures," ordered Quijana.

The defense station pressed a button to release a small pod from the hull. It began to rise like a cork. Once it was about three hundred feet above the still passively diving sub, the pod let in a minor quantity of sea water, which reacted with a chemical inside to release a massive cloud of bubbles. The pod also generated a major magnetic and electronic signature on the chance that a pursuing torpedo might be MAENAD (Magnetic And ElectroNic Anomaly Detector) equipped and proximity fused.

"Two of the fish have locked onto the pod, skipper," Yermo announced. "I make them as one and four. Two—two and three—are still hunting, and . . ." Again, Yermo pulled his headphones away from his ears as twin explosions rocked the water and the sub. "I guess they are MAENAD equipped."

Yes, Quijana mentally agreed, since the pod's too small to hit and the bubble cloud too insubstantial. Proximity fused, based off the MAENAD or sonar return. Think clearly, Miguel, think clearly if ever you did.

Quijana's eyes searched again over the screen mounted forward.

"Right side screen, vertical display," he ordered. After a brief pause for the operations man to enter the command, the right third of the screen changed color from light blue to green. The green also showed the thermal layer the sub had passed through, in a still darker green. Possible thermal layers, caused by volcanism and the cold current that ran through the Shimmering Sea were marked in a green so light it was almost white. Both screens showed the explosions from the two torpedoes, in red, as well as the known tracks of the two still hunting, in dotted red lines preceded by torpedo icons. The icons radiated the active sonar pulsing of the hunting torpedoes.

Release another deception pod? Quijana wondered. On a delay? We only had the two. And what about those surface frigates? They've got to know we took out their Amethyst Class.