by Captain Sammitch
Elsewhere in the caverns:
The insistent beeping of his watch finally got to him. Phil Smith's eyes opened, and he looked around. The first thing he noticed was that for the fourth or fifth time in forty-eight hours, everything hurt. The second thing he noticed was that the tunnel they had entered through was completely blocked off. The third thing he noticed was that his remaining five minutes had passed at least twenty minutes before, and yet his oxygen bottle wasn't yet empty.
Phil slowly got to his feet, causing several small rocks to slide off his back and tumble to the cavern floor.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to come to." Leslie Kline had been standing behind him the whole time.
Phil looked at her. "How did you...? Well, at least we're both in one piece." He eyed his oxygen bottle curiously. "And why am I not out of oxygen?"
Leslie smiled. "That's my oxygen bottle." She turned around, showing Phil the larger silver tank on her own back. "I got more."
"Where did you find that?" Phil asked.
Leslie crossed her arms. "I figured that if someone were really trying to make this cave into some kind of underground fortress like you said, then they'd have to have some sort of stockpile of weapons or equipment or something. So I went looking around, and I didn't even have to go very far."
Leslie pointed to a wooden door on the cave wall about fifty feet away. It had been painted the same pale color as the rock surrounding it, and in the artificial light of the cavern, it all but disappeared into the wall. "I found that and went inside."
"And you found that oxygen tank?"
"I found this tank in there," Leslie confirmed. "But that wasn't all."
Phil looked at her intently. "I'm listening."
"The additions and alterations to this cave were -- or maybe still are -- under construction," Leslie explained. "That room is full of construction equipment. Everything from jackhammers on up to bulldozers is in there. And it looks like the vehicles are all modified to handle the air in here. They're all gas-electric hybrids. They run around in normal air on a regular diesel engine, and when they get in here they switch over to some kind of electric motor."
Phil's eyebrows went up. "Who would -- who could build an electric motor powerful enough to run heavy construction equipment?"
Leslie shrugged. "I dunno. But it's all in there. There's even a Hummer in there for some reason."
Phil thought a moment. Then a big grin formed on his face.
"What?" Leslie eyed him curiously.
"There's a Hummer in there," Phil said, "because there's a road leading into and out of this place." He headed over toward the door. "Come on."
"But what about the carbon dioxide bubble?" Leslie asked. "The readings are still off the scale!"
Phil scooped up the analyzer Jack Pyle had lent him. "Those rocks blocked off the tunnel we came in through. You'd find that there's almost no CO2 flow down that tunnel, if you could get on the other side of those rocks."
"So then there's nowhere for the CO2 to escape to?" Leslie asked.
Phil frowned. "Not that I know of. If there's another way out of here, it must be sealed pretty tight." He looked at the readouts on the air analyzer. "The pressure in here keeps going up. If we don't think of a way to let all this carbon dioxide out, then we're going to have a problem, because sooner or later it's getting out once the pressure is sufficient. And I sure don't wanna be around when that happens."
"So what do we do?" Leslie asked.
Phil eyed the ceiling of the cavern. "I don't think there'll be a lot of rock between the roof of this cave and the outside world. If we find something that might pack enough punch, we could make an opening up there and let this stuff out."
"But I thought you said it would drift along the ground and kill lots of people!"
Phil shook his head. "There's a hurricane blowing around out there. Those winds would take the carbon dioxide away quicker than anything."
"Fine," Leslie replied, "what do we use to make a hole in the roof?"
Phil looked around. "There's gotta be a weapons stash somewhere down here." He headed through the wooden door. "I doubt anyone ballsy enough to try and turn this entire cave into a fortress would come down here without bringing some serious heavy weaponry."
He returned about a minute later with a fresh oxygen tank, a LAWS antitank rocket launcher, and a big grin. "Told ya."
Leslie's eyes widened. "And where were you planning on shooting that to? That's a LAWS! The backblast from those things can kill you!"
Phil shook his head. "Not if we mount it on something else." He went back inside. Leslie heard an electric motor whir to life, and a moment later a big and well-camouflaged garage-type door to the left of the first wooden door swung open. Leslie stepped back as Phil emerged in the Hummer. The LAWS launcher was attached to a gun mount on the Hummer's roof. "Need a ride?" Phil asked Leslie with a grin.
Leslie couldn't help but smile. "You're crazy, you know that?"
"It's one of my more endearing qualities," Phil replied.
"So what do you plan on doing with this thing?"
Phil looked at the ceiling of the cavern. "Opening this chamber up to the outside will cause all the CO2 to rush out, causing a big drop in air pressure. I don't think it'll bring the place down on our heads, but I sure don't want to be around to find out. At the very least, there'll be a partial vacuum in here, and that isn't something I plan on being exposed to. So, I figure we shoot the LAWS into the ceiling from the back of this, once we're already on the move. Then, we hurry out whatever exit we can fit this thing through, and we'll see what happens from there."
Leslie shook her head. "There's no way. First off, you haven't even found any other exits. Second, even if you do, you have no idea where it leads. This is crazy."
Phil looked at her. "You have a better idea?"
Leslie couldn't think of one.
"Maybe you should take one of the other vehicles that's in there and find the other exit," Phil suggested.
"What are you gonna do?" Leslie demanded, her hands on her hips.
Phil smiled. "You think I'm gonna let that stash of goods back there go to waste?"
Leslie rolled her eyes. "You're impossible, Phil. You really are."
"What can I say?" Phil jumped out of the Hummer and headed back inside.
Leslie found a little electric Jeep and headed off in search of an exit. She had no idea if this crazy plan of Phil's would work or not, but if she wanted to get off this island and back to the submarine, she would just have to trust him for now.
The Korystnyj:
"Special systems online!" the tactical officer announced.
Tsulygin nodded. "Arm the repulsor."
The officer entered several commands on his console. Two small doors slid open on the underside of the Korystnyj, exposing two ordinary-looking rectangular grids made from rubber-encased steel bars. "Repulsor system armed."
"What are you attempting to do?" Kozlov asked from the helm.
"There is a human signature in the water, surrounded by sharks," Tsulygin replied. "Or at least that is what the sonar tells us. What would you do in such a situation?"
Kozlov shrugged. "I suppose you are correct."
"Prepare to initiate repulsor," Tsulygin ordered.
The tactical officer pushed a slider on his console forward. "Charging now."
The steel grids beneath the water hummed quietly as they were gradually charged with electricity. Once the slits in the rubber covering were opened, that electricity would be released into the water in the form of a single low-frequency pulse. While this pulse was non-lethal and would only produce minor uncomfortable muscle cramps in any human in the water, it assaulted sharks' delicate ampullae of Lorenzini -- their extremely sensitive electrosensory apparatus -- in a decidedly unpleasant way. Tsulygin was certain that would remove the sharks from around the human contact in the water, at least long enough for that human to get to safety.
It was time to put that theory to the test.
The cavern:
"I found it!" Leslie spun the electric Jeep around and rushed back over to the Hummer, which Phil was still loading up with a ridiculous number of guns. She hopped out and jumped in the passenger's side. "Let's go!" she called.
Phil stopped halfway to the garage door. "You in a hurry or something?"
Leslie rolled her eyes. "Drop the guns and get in. You're worse than a little kid with a bucket of water balloons."
Phil grinned at her. "Just doin' my level best to annoy you." He climbed into the driver's seat. "I suppose," he said after a moment, "since we're about to shoot off some serious heavy ordnance and risk bringing this whole thing down on our heads, that I should thank you for saving my life."
Leslie smiled. "Just returning a favor."
Phil shook his head. "I doubt it, seeing as you both know my name and are trying to lure me off this island, but the point is that, if it weren't for you, I'd probably be dead right now." He patted Leslie on the shoulder. "You know, you're kinda cute when you're not yelling at me or hatching some wacky plan of yours."
"Don't get used to it," Leslie said with a smile. "If we get out of this," she said as she looked around her, "I think we've both got some explaining to do."
Phil smiled. "I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know. But," he said, "it'll cost you."
"Name your price," Leslie replied.
"I like the way you think." Phil looked out across the cavern. "So where's this exit of yours?"
"I don't know if it's an exit," Leslie said, "but I found another big garage door." She pointed to a flickering light across the cavern. "I dropped a flare in front of it."
"But you don't know how it opens?"
"Not sure," Leslie said, "but I'm not worried." She rested a hand on the rocket launcher mounted above her.
"Fair enough." Phil backed the Hummer up a bit and lined it up with the distant doorway. "You a decent shot with that thing?" he asked, pointing to the LAWS unit.
"You'd be surprised," Leslie replied.
Phil shrugged. "Okay then. I'll tell you when to shoot, and we'll get rolling on my mark. Ready?"
The ocean:
Grimm pummeled another shark on its streamlined snout. It backed away, but the biker knew it would soon return. Had Grimm not lacked the anatomy for forming facial expressions, his would doubtless have been a fairly unpleasant one. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold out, but he wasn't going without a fight.
The Korystnyj:
"Repulsor grids are at nominal power," the tactical officer announced quietly.
Although there were no enemy vessels in the area, the charging of the repulsor system had automatically sent the Korystnyj to red alert. To conserve power for the sub's extensive array of top-secret special systems, the bridge lights dimmed and were replaced by harsh red flood lamps, which made the instrument panels that weren't backlit easier to read without interfering with the sailors' dark-adapted vision on the darkened bridge. The red lamps played malevolently off men's faces and uniforms, creating a relatively silent and serious atmosphere among the officers, even though this wasn't technically a combat situation.
Tsulygin stepped forward, the harsh red light casting an eerie glow over the captain's face. "Prepare to activate repulsor," he ordered. The tactical officer lifted a safety cover from over a red button surrounded by black and yellow-striped tape. Tsulygin stared at the sonar screen intently. "Fire repulsor on my mark."
A few moments passed.
"Fire!" Tsulgyin grabbed the rail as the lieutenant punched the red button that fired the repulsor. The crew waited for the characteristic buzz of the repulsor systems, but even though all the lights on the Korystnyj flickered, the repulsor didn't release its charge into the water, at least not in the proper fashion.
What Tsulygin and Kozlov later found out from the repair crew was that the facings of the slits in the rubber sheath surrounding the repulsor grids had absorbed significant amounts of the cobalt oxides suspended in the shallow Caribbean seawater. This cobalt residue had built up around the steel grids in alarming amounts, forming not only an electrical conductor but a reflector. This reflective surface diverted the substantial energy of the repulsors back into the metal of the sub's metal hull. The rampant energies were checked by the thick layer of insulation surrounding the hull, but not before they began shorting out subsystems buried in the Korystnyj's hull.
On the bridge, alarms began to sound, and the lights continued to flicker and sputter. The diagnostics panel lit up like a Christmas tree with a cloud of amber and red lights. Every pair of eyes on the bridge flew to a different set of instruments.
"Report!" Tsulygin crossed the bridge to the subsystems analysis console.
Kozlov listened intently as the ensign read off the list of systems malfunctions. "No damage to major systems. Reactor, engines, and life support all nominal. Targeting sonar offline, navigational sonar intermittent. Surveillance arrays shut down automatically to avoid damage, as did fire control and special sensors. Repulsors offline, no diagnostic information."
Tsulygin frowned. "Cut power to repulsors," he ordered. "Down periscopes and take us out to two hundred feet." He turned to Kozlov. "Until we determine the extent of the damage, we have no way of knowing how long it will take this boat to be operational again."
Kozlov sighed. "We will have to leave."
Tsulygin nodded. "Take us out," he ordered to the helmsman.