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

As the systems came online, Mitch O’Donnell ran through a quick diagnostic checklist to make sure the UUV was functional. All appeared nominal. All but one reading.

“Hey, Doc,” the Irish roustabout yelled over to McDougal. “We only got twenty percent on the battery charge. We ain’t got time for no lollygaggin’ about, you know.”

McDougal checked her watch. They had less than three hours.

“Well, we sure as hell don’t have time to bring her up for a battery charge,” she noted. “Reckon we go with what we have and not what we wish we had.” She pointed at a Chinese screen monitoring the emergency pinger from the trapped submersible. “Feed those coordinates into the UUV. We need to tell the Raptor where to look.”

It took almost half an hour for the well-rested UUV to travel from its former nesting place over to the coordinates coming from the emergency pinger. Once the Sea Raptor was in the area, it took another twenty minutes for it to dive deeper and locate the bottomed DSV.

Smith and O’Donnell huddled around McDougal’s monitor. Sun Ryn stood off to one side. This was now Smith’s show. Along with his crew and the American military. He would stand by to do whatever he needed to.

The compressed video being sent up from the Sea Raptor was noisy and barely in focus after traveling over six miles through saltwater. Still, they could make out the orange and white DSV, and could tell it was canted over onto its port side. As best they could determine, it appeared that at least two of the propulsors were badly mangled and the sub’s steel outer hull had a number of scrapes and deep dents.

Something had slapped the vessel around pretty good. And that did not bode well for the condition of the three men aboard.

McDougal carefully maneuvered the UUV around to the bow of the DSV and nudged her a bit closer. They could all then see a dim light shining out from the front viewing port. The video was terribly fuzzy, making it almost impossible to see anything through the thick transparent material of the viewing port.

“I see movement!” McDougal yelled excitedly. “Somebody’s still alive in there!”

O’Donnell, ever the contrarian where McDougal was concerned, piped up with, “Nothing but a bad picture. You’re just seeing what you want to see. That’s shifting silt is what that is.”

“Shifting silt my ass! That’s…”

Rex Smith interrupted her hot retort. “Children, we can duke this out later. Right now, we got an hour to get that thing sprung loose and on the way to the surface.” The researcher squinted at the monitor. “And for what it’s worth, I thought I saw movement, too. Maybe even somebody waving.”

The little UUV slowly circumnavigated the downed DSV, looking from all angles. Sun Ryn finally stepped in closer so that he could see his trapped charge. The grainy video made it difficult, but to his eye, the damage looked minimal. That is, except for the lost propulsors.

Then Sun spied the tow link to the MRV, the attachment that had been hauling the load of gold. The shackle was badly mangled. The tow cable disappeared into the mound of debris.

Sun touched the screen, pointing to a spot on the video image. “Right there. That is at least one of the problems. The mineral recovery unit will be on the other end of that cable. It is almost certainly buried under all that rock and mud. And likely weighed down with a load of gold.”

O’Donnell called out, “We got another problem, Doc. We’re down to ten percent charge. Don’t forget, at five percent, the emergency power protocols kick in and she’ll start to shut down to preserve essential power.”

Everyone in the room looked at O’Donnell. The Irishman had a deep frown on his face. “At that low power level, there would only be enough juice to get the Sea Raptor herself to the surface. Not a hitchhiker. And all the other sensors and auxiliary systems, like the video and the manipulator arms, would have automatically shut down to shunt every available amp to the propulsion system.”

Despite O’Donnell’s update, McDougal continued to maneuver the little UUV around until she could deploy an arm to reach out and grab the tow cable shackle. Then she could at least attempt to pull it free.

No. It was quickly apparent that the shackle was jammed shut and would not open.

“Hey, remember the lower port manipulator has a cable cutter attachment,” O’Donnell reminded her. “In fact, you’re the one who insisted it be added. Maybe you can finally get some use of that waste of time and money.”

“Not a waste. That was added to be able to cut cable. Fishing line. Anything we might get snagged on,” McDougal said. “I don’t know if…”

Sun Ryn interrupted her. “Please be aware that is three-centimeter high-tensile-strength steel in that cable. Made to pull heavy loads. I am sorry. I do not believe you will be able to cut it.”

McDougal grimaced but continued to manipulate the joystick controls on the console.

“Don’t happen to have a cutting torch on me right now,” she offered.

Then she swapped controls on manipulator arms and swung the lower port arm into position. Delicately, she began closing the grip of the cable cutter, biting down on the cable. The teeth of the device had just come into contact with the cable when a loud alarm bleated, startling them all as they quietly watched McDougal doing her delicate maneuvering.

The five-percent-power warning. Sensor screens went to their “failed system” outputs. The video screen went dark.

McDougal yelled, “Manual override the protocol!”

But O’Donnell was already flipping through control pull-down menus on the computer terminal. He clicked the mouse and the screech of the alarm stopped.

“Manual override in place,” he reported. “Sandy, hurry up or we’ll lose everything. I don’t know how long we have before the battery cells go below minimum voltage. We’ve never abused her this way