33
The lights on my helmet illuminated the way. I carried a small handheld flashlight with me, dwarfed by the Leviathan as I walked along its hull toward the stern.
The umbilical fed warm water and the heliox mix, keeping the suit toasty in the 50° water. My heart thumped by the time I reached the quantum array after lugging the gear and fighting the current. The knobby pyramid-shaped tiles surrounded the propulsion systems.
When I got up close, I took more pictures.
I moved close, reached out, and touched one of the pyramids. It had a soft, rubbery covering. I pulled a pry tool from the satchel, wedged it between the tiles, and peeled up the covering. Underneath was one of the quantum nodes. There were dozens of them on the ship. I was hoping they were removable, like Conroy had said. It was common to have hot-swappable components for easy repair. It made sense for something as technologically advanced as this.
With my flashlight, I spotlit the seams that butted against the neighboring tile. A small flange was big enough to get a finger underneath. With a hefty tug, I was able to pry it apart from its connector. The node was about 10 by 12 inches. I slipped it into the satchel, then went through the process and pried off another node. I figured two for redundancy would be good enough. They were heavy. The guys in the CIA could reverse engineer the nodes. If I could get inside the control room and grab the core processing module, I’d call the mission a success.
JD’s voice crackled through the speaker in my helmet, "How's it going out there?"
"Good. I’ve got two in the bag."
"I see that.”
"How's everything on your end?”
"Looking good. At this rate, we’ll be back to the habitat well ahead of schedule.”
I moved back along the hull to the fracture, then climbed inside. The lights on my helmet slashed the darkness.
I wasn't exactly sure where I was in the sub, but I figured I could find my way up to the control room. "Flynn, how long is my umbilical?"
"You’ve got a hundred feet.”
I wasn't sure it would be enough.
It didn't take long to realize that I was inside the missile compartment—24 launch tubes, ready to rain down fury. I wore a dosimeter. The radiation level wasn't above background, around .2 microsieverts per hour. At that level, I wasconfident there wasn’t a reactor leak. I breathed a little easier.
I shone my flashlight across the compartment, raking the beam across several tubes.
Everything looked intact.
These things were designed to remain safe until armed and deployed. But who knew how well these warheads were put together?
A few bodies of crew members floated through the compartment, their skin pale and sloughing. Drained of color, and not yet ravaged by the critters of the deep, they were like ghosts.
I wasn't sure how long the sub had been down here. Probably around 24 to 48 hours.
I made my way forward through several compartments, passing more bodies. I moved through the galley, then climbed a ladder up to another deck, then moved forward through the sonar room, to the main control room.
More bodies floated.
I swept my flashlight beam across the darkness, looking at control panels, displays, and gauges.
This was a state-of-the-art, advanced nuclear attack submarine. Conroy’s intel about the sub was reasonably accurate. He had given me a basic idea of where to look for the CPM, but I was on my own.
I said through comms, "I've reached the control room."
There was no response.
"Triton, do you copy?”
My beam spotlit control panels, screens, gauges, and modules. Everything was in Mandarin. I scanned the characters, looking for something that matched what Conroy had sent me.
A wall of racks held various modules. My beam swept across the control units until I found the right Mandarin characters.
