Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

“She is a lot farther south than the other ships, but the solar activity has backed off considerably. We should be getting a signal. Have you received any radio calls?”

“They’re on a ‘run silent’ protocol,” the specialist reminded her.

“Who’s on board?”

“Austin and Zavala.”

Ms. Conry sighed. “Those two are bad enough about reporting in to begin with. Who put the run silent order on?”

“Came from Dirk Pitt himself.”

The vast majority of NUMA’s work went off without any type of conflict, at least nothing greater than the usual bureaucratic rigmarole found throughout the world. But right from the beginning, the organization had been willing to tangle with those who were up to no good in one way or another. If a “no contact,” “run silent,” or “monitor and track only” order was in place, it usually meant that a delicate or outright-secret assignment was in the works. That ship or team was not to be disturbed or contacted in any way that might risk alerting other parties to its presence.

Satellite communications gave them a way around that. The bursts could be coded and then sent and received without giving a ship’s position away like radio broadcasts could if they were intercepted. But if the satellites were being interfered with by a solar storm, it left the distant ships, and the supervisors who were supposed to keep track of them, in the dark.

“Anything unusual in their last transmission?”

The specialist shook his head. “All data was normal when the link was broken. There was no sign of trouble. Nor has Orion’s emergency beacon been activated.”

The emergency beacons were automatic, designed to go off when a ship sank even if there was no one around to activate them. But Bernadette Conry recalled at least one instance of a ship going down so fast that the beacon never had a chance to send out a message.

“What’s the weather report?”

“Nothing to write home about,” he said. “Westerly swell, five to six feet. Moderate-sized storm forming about five hundred miles from their last-known position.”

Not bad weather at all, she thought. And it was Austin and Zavala. “Keep an eye out for any change,” she said. “I’m going to let the Director know we’ve lost their telemetry.”

* * *

Dirk Pitt nodded at the report. He had a sense that something was wrong. That feeling was reinforced by the next call, which came in from Hiram Yaeger.

“The NSA just sent me a new batch of data,” Yaeger explained. “They picked up a large neutrino burst just over an hour ago. It was detected in the Orion’s general vicinity.”

“That’s not good,” Pitt said.

“Why?”

“She’s gone dark,” Pitt replied. “We lost contact with her an hour ago, just as they were about to activate the zero-point detector. Either she’s suffered a massive failure or worse. Either way, our only hope of finding Thero is that the other ships can get their detectors online in a hurry.”

Yaeger was silent for a moment. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he said finally.

“Why?”

“None of us really under

stand how the sensor works,” Yaeger said. “And this zero-point energy is like a genie in a bottle, a moody genie at that. The simulations I’ve run do not yield consistent results. Considering that fact, it’s slightly possible, however unlikely, that the sensor itself interacted with the zero-point field and either shut all systems on the Orion down or caused a more catastrophic event.”

Pitt considered the possibility before responding. “That’s not what you’re really concerned with, is it?”

“No,” Yaeger replied. “More likely, the sensor gave away their position somehow. And if Thero knew he was being monitored…”

“He would respond,” Pitt said.

“Precisely,” Yaeger said. “And if he has the power to split a continent in half, attacking a small ship would be like swatting a fly.”

Pitt thought of the Orion’s crew, there were thirty-nine men and women aboard that ship, including some of his closest friends. “Why wouldn’t she warn us?” he wondered aloud. “If there was a possibility of this, why wouldn’t Ms. Anderson make us aware of it?”

“No idea,” Yaeger said. “But I’d say we have to leave those sensors off.”