One of the hatches on the deck of the Nautilus sprang open. Lucas jumped and ran across the beach, sprinting toward the tender. Andre laid down covering fire for him as he ran with all the speed he had, screaming to get the adrenaline rush going. As he ran across the dock, leaping from it to the tender, a shower of flame and splinters erupted behind him and lie felt the heat wash from the pulser blast as it destroyed the dock. Without breaking stride, he tucked the disruptor into his jumpsuit and leaped for the sub. He just barely made the deck and he scrambled for a hold, then was almost trampled by the men who came running out of the hatch to dive into the water. They didn’t pay any attention to him. All they wanted was to get off the sub, which was in flames and taking on water.
Several more pulser blasts struck the submarine as Lucas dove through the hatch, sliding down on the handrails. His feet hit water at the bottom. It was up to his knees and rising fast. Smoke was everywhere. Several of the oil lines had ruptured and were spraying scalding hot, pressurized oil across the companionway. The watertight hatch before him was closed. He didn’t waste time trying to open it. He took out his disruptor, set it on spray, and fired.
“Captain, we must abandon ship!” cried Sasha, leaving his station at the helm.
“Sit back down!” said Drakov.
Unable to resist the conditioning, the Russian sailor returned to his post, looking around at the control room helplessly. Smoke was seeping in.
“Sir, we don’t dare submerge,” said one of the other crewmen. “We’re taking on too much water. We’ve been badly damaged. I’m shutting the reactor down.”
“Switch to diesel engines,” Drakov said.
“No!” shouted one of the other men. “It’s useless, don’t you see? We’ll die!”
He grabbed Drakov, but Shiro tossed him aside as if he weighed nothing. Water was now coming into the control room. Despite the immense strength of the submarine’s titanium double hulls, a pinpoint warp grenade explosion had caused a rupture and a spray had burst into the room, soaking down three of the men at the controls. They jumped at once and ran for the stairs leading to the hatch. Shiro turned to stop them, but Drakov called out, “Let them go! They’re useless now.”
At the words “Let them go,” the rest of the control room crew bolted.
“The key, Shiro!” Drakov said.
As they fought to get up the stairs, the Soviet sailors were caught in a blast of neutrons and ceased to exist.
Drakov inserted his key into the box containing the arming and firing mechanisms.
Lucas came sliding down the hatch, into the rapidly accumulating water on the control room floor.
With a snarl of rage and frustration, Drakov hit his warp disc and clocked out. Shiro had just inserted his key into the box.
“Don’t do it, Shiro,” Lucas said softly, aiming the disruptor at him.
Two coal-black eyes stared at him with loathing.
“It’s over,” Lucas said. “He’s deserted you. There’s no point in-”
Moving with dazzling swiftness, Shiro turned the key and flipped open the box. Lucas fired. Shiro’s atoms were scattered just as he was reaching for the buttons.
Lucas sloshed forward through the knee-deep water and gently closed the box, then took the keys out. He let his breath out slowly.
A glance at the indicators told him the reactor had been shut down. None of the missiles had been armed and all the silo hatches were still closed. But the attack was still continuing. He felt the sub shudder and roll and he was thrown into the water on the floor. For fear of exploding the missiles, they were using only the lowest setting on the warp grenades, using them as depth charges thrown into the water close to the sub, to rupture its hull. It was working very well. Blasts of water were coming in everywhere now and he had to fight his way through it to the ladder leading up to the hatch.
He tucked his disruptor inside his suit and climbed up, his feet slipping off the rungs. As he opened the hatch, he heard footsteps on the deck and before he could cry out a warning, a warp grenade came dropping down through the opening. He caught it, lunged through the hatchway and threw it as hard as he could out into the lake. The pinpoint blast went off, sending a gout of water up into the air. He looked up at Lieutenant Bryant, standing on the deck of the submarine, holding an auto-pulser pointed at him. Bryant lowered the weapon and without a flicker of expression, shrugged.
Lucas simply glared at him.
It was over. The remainder of Drakov’s force had surrendered and they were being gathered together to be clocked back to Plus Time for conditioning and return to their own time periods. The stolen warp discs were found in one of the supply rooms in the main building.
Forrester landed on the beach by Andre, after taking to the air briefly to survey the scene. Finn was kneeling in the sand beside Martingale, his hands badly burned from putting out the flames. Martingale was unrecognizable. His entire body had been severely burned and he lay on his back in the sand, a charred lump of flesh, barely breathing.
“He’s had it,” said Forrester.
Finn shook his head. “No. No, he’s in a real bad way, but we’ve got to try to pull him through. We have to.”
“Who is he?” said Forrester.
“The guy who saved our asses,” Finn said.
Forrester nodded, grimly. “Then I guess we’d best try to save his.” He beckoned one of the other men forward, then he unstrapped his warp disc, quickly reprogrammed it, then bent down and gently put it around Martingale’s wrist. Martingale’s own warp disc was burned into uselessness, melded into the crisped flesh of his hand. “Hardesty, give me your disc,” said Forrester.