Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

ship’s master and any combatants you find aboard. Last time I looked, using a commercial ship to launch an unprovoked attack like that is considered an act of piracy. Meantime, I’ll call back home and see what we can do about getting some more shooters out here. I’ve lost my patience with these sons of bitches.”

Ψ

The crust of planet Earth was showing its own impatience with the status quo. Ten miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the Tonga Plate was still active, shrugging its massive shoulders. It yet again shifted the Pacific Plate down several more meters. The displacement of a colossal amount of rock, compressed by millions of tons more material and seawater above it, caused the earth to violently shake. The seismographs in Sydney and Wellington this time registered a seven-point-three tremor centered at sixteen degrees, twenty-six minutes south latitude and one-seventy-two degrees, fifty-four minutes east longitude.

Incredibly hot magma oozed up through the widening cracks in the rock, moving toward the seawater above. By the time it spewed out from the ocean floor and emerged as lava, the molten rock had cooled considerably, but only to a thousand degrees centigrade. This was still well above the boiling temperature of seawater at that depth. Massive amounts of water instantly flashed to steam, cooling the lava. The steam clouds produced by this process promptly collapsed in the ice-cold waters away from the lava. That caused loud explosions, like thunder, heard for thousands of miles through the water.

The lava began building a towering cone. In some places, it reached a height of more than five hundred feet above the sea floor in only a couple of hours. Even so, there was still over twenty-five thousand feet—almost five miles—for it to pile up before a new island popped up in the daylight at the surface.

The disruption was powerful enough to cause a massive ledge to break off the trench wall and begin a slide down into the abyss. Millions of tons of rock rolled down and fanned out over the abyssal deep. Mud and rock churned across the bottom, raising a thick cloud of silt that slowly sank back to the bottom and created an entirely new sea floor, burying the old one.

And that included covering the mounds of pure gold under hundreds of feet of mud and rock.

Ψ

The men on the DSV heard and felt the tremors and the rockslide. The wall of debris pushed the little submarine along its leading edge as the pilot tried desperately to lift the craft up and away from the roiling destruction on the sea bottom. He reached for the emergency disconnect from the MRV and its heavy load of gold dust, but Yon Hun Glo slapped his hand away from the switch. The admiral was not about to leave a billion dollars’ worth of gold down here just because of a little earthquake and some mud. Even if this turned out to be their only trip down here, it would still be worthwhile.

“Take us up, now. Surface! Surface!” Yon shouted.

But then the heavily burdened MRV got caught up in the rockslide and tugged the Fendouji down toward what would certainly be its destruction. There was no driving away from this unbelievably powerful natural force. The men inside the little submersible braced themselves, but they were still thrown painfully against each other, against the bulkheads and instrument panels.

The wall of debris rolled on past, leaving the MRV and its glittery cargo covered by mud and boulders. The DSV lay on its side, partially buried. Rocks and debris jammed the disconnect link. The two craft remained permanently connected, stuck forever on the ocean bottom, ten kilometers below sunlight and salt air.

The Fendouji’s emergency distress pinger still managed to activate. That, at least and for what good it was, marked the location where the DSV lay on its side, miles below the surface of the ocean.

Ψ

The pair of Osprey aircraft arrived just as the sun was peeking over the eastern horizon, announcing a beautiful day in the tropics. The first odd-looking bird flew straight to the Canberra, where it unloaded twenty combat-ready Marines, a Navy doctor from the Portland, and a load of extra ammunition, supplies, and some of the parts needed to help get the ship underway again. Once unloaded, the plane was reloaded with wounded personnel. That included Louise Gadliano, who had argued forcefully, but unsuccessfully, with the doctor to be allowed to remain on her ship and help take her back to port.

As that Osprey lifted up and roared away from the LCS, headed back to Pago Pago, the second one came around to land. It delivered more stores and parts but also a couple of technicians from the Chesty Puller, there to help get the LCS back underway as quickly as possible. Before somebody else showed up to start another fight over this seemingly innocuous bit of deep ocean.

Colonel Readly had another mission for this bird once it was unloaded. Sergeant Major Ramirez and his team were already firmly in control of the Pearl Moon after only some minor skirmishing. But the other ship was still an unknown entity. For all Readly knew, there could be a whole boatload of shooters over there, waiting for their chance. He loaded up an assault team and promptly headed over to the Zhang Jian, the Chinese research vessel.

Since there had not yet been any hostile action from her, no one had paid a visit to the research ship. At least the vessel that was purported to be a research ship. The Pearl Moon had, after all, pretended to be a freighter before suddenly becoming something far different and more deadly. At any rate, Readly now had the team and the transportation to go over and take a look.

The Osprey did not even bother to transition to level flight on the short hop over after it took off from the LCS helo deck. It merely played helicopter for the thousand yards to the Zhang