Noah's Ark: Encounters by Harry Dayle

Author:Harry Dayle [Dayle, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Shelfless
Published: 2014-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

JAKE DIDN’T REACT immediately. Nobody on the bridge did. Everyone was trying to process the words they had just heard, and the implications of those words.

Vardy was the first to move. Instinct, training, or both, propelled him from his position near the bridge door all the way to the port windows from which, under normal circumstances, it was possible to see at least the conning tower of the Ambush as she rode alongside, and very often a large part of the top section. He gasped loudly. Jake sprinted to join the doctor.

The Ambush had gone.

There was a tell-tale trail of bubbles and wash showing where she had dived whilst at the same time accelerating away. The umbilical cord that connected the Royal Navy nuclear submarine to the cruise liner, supplying power and enabling communications and shared navigation, dangled uselessly from the side of the ship.

None of this was, in itself, of grave concern. What struck fear into the heart of the two men was what they saw approaching at high speed. Below the surface of the sea, just about visible with the naked eye, something dark was streaking towards them.

“Torpedo,” Vardy whispered. He was transfixed by the shadow, staring open-mouthed at it.

Unlike Vardy, Lucya, and McNair, Jake had no experience of the military. He hadn’t undertaken war-game exercises, nor had he ever been sent into any theatre of war. His only experience of sea battles came from what he had seen in the movies. The few films he had watched that featured torpedo attacks had all been accompanied by impressive, pounding, menacing orchestral scores. The bass line of the music, and the discordant, incessant percussion had always rammed home the intensity and the despair of the situation. So watching this real underwater missile hurtling towards them in complete silence seemed quite unreal. It was less menacing, and somehow that made it all the more terrifying.

“What do we do?” Jake whispered.

Lucya and McNair had joined them now. All four stared at the shadow.

“Nothing,” Vardy said, his voice hoarse. “There’s nothing…”

“No.” It was McNair who spoke. “There’s time. If the Ambush deploys counter measures—”

“She’s too close!” Vardy pounded the window with a fist.

“She can make it! She can draw it away!”

As McNair spoke, the torpedo did seem to be changing direction, though barely.

Lucya and Jake’s hands found each other. Jake pulled her towards him, and held her tightly. He’d lost count of how many times he had thought he was about to die since the asteroid. On some of those occasions he’d been ready, prepared for the end. This time was different. He thought of Erica, happily making a scrapbook down in the classroom. She would feel the brunt of the inevitable explosion. She and the other children would almost certainly drown before there was any chance of getting them out. He thought of Coote under sedation. He thought of the thousands of people, of the survivors on the ship, who had come this far. They had no lifeboats, and only a handful of rafts.

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