Black Wind (Dirk Pitt 18)

"Uprange and away from shore isn't exactly the direction I'd like to be going at this altitude," he added, eyeing the Koguryo warily out the window to port. "I radioed Deep Endeavor to get out of the way of the rocket's flight path, so they should be cutting a wide swath around to the north. We ought to keep them in sight in case we have to ditch."

Dirk scanned the horizon, keeping one eye locked on the launch platform. Far to the southwest, he spotted the distant mass of San Nicolas Island. Peering to the northeast, he saw a tiny blue dot, which he knew to be the Deep Endeavor. Then, just to the north of the NUMA ship, he noticed a small brown mass rising from the sea.

"That landmass up ahead. I recall from the navigation charts that it's a small channel island called "Santa Barbara." Why don't we head that way? We can drop the crew there and have Deep Endeavor pick them up before we get into any more trouble."

"And get back to find your dad," Giordino said, finishing Dirk's thought. Dirk looked back at the platform with hesitation.

"Can't be much time left," he muttered.

"About ten minutes," Giordino replied, wondering like Dirk what Pitt could possibly pull off in such little time.

Physically surviving A launch on board the Odyssey was not impossible. When a rocket was fired, the main thrust was directed beneath the platform at ignition. The Odyssey had been constructed as a reusable launch platform, and, in fact, had already withstood more than a dozen launches. The deck, hangar, crew compartment, and pilothouse were all built to withstand the fiery heat and exhaust generated from a powerful rocket launch. What a human inhabitant was not likely to survive, however, was the noxious fumes that engulfed the platform at blastoff. A massive billow of exhaust from the spent kerosene and liquid oxygen fuel all but buried the Odyssey in a thick cloud of smoke for several minutes after liftoff, smothering the breathable air in the vicinity of the platform.

But that was of little concern to Pitt as he jumped off the elevator and raced out a back door of the hangar. He had no interest in hanging around the platform when the Zenit was lit off. Instead, he was hell-bent on making it to the bright red submersible he saw bobbing

in the water from the pilothouse window. Like a contestant running a timed obstacle course, Pitt ran, jumped, and hurdled his way across the platform to the corner column support and sprinted down the steps to the water's edge. In their haste to evacuate the platform, Tongju and his men had not thought it necessary to let adrift the NUMA sub. Pitt was thankful to find her still tied to the column steps as he exhaustedly reached the water's edge.

Untying the line, he jumped aboard and scrambled down the Badger's top hatch, sealing it closed behind him. In seconds, he had activated the submersible's power systems and opened the ballast tank for submersion. Engaging the throttles, he quickly maneuvered away from the Odyssey's forward column and proceeded down the interior length of the platform before positioning the submersible for the task at hand. Holding the submersible steady, Pitt activated the controls to the bow-mounted coring device and, with just minutes to spare, prayed that his cockamamie plan would work.

The Korean launch team aboard the Koguryo watched the video screen with curiosity as the silver blimp touched down on the Odyssey's helipad and the crew of the platform jammed into the gondola. Kim grimaced with anger but noted that Tongju remained calm.

"We should have killed the crew and destroyed that airship when we had the opportunity," Kim hissed as they watched the Icarus lurch off the platform. An alternate camera was turned toward the blimp, showing the airship fight for altitude before turning out to sea. Tongju nodded toward the video image with assurance.

"She is overloaded and unable to make speed. We shall easily catch and destroy her after the launch," he said quietly to Kim.

His eyes returned to the launch countdown and the noisy jabber of the engineers within the control center. The room was a flurry of activity and pressure as the final minutes drew to a close. Ling stood

nearby, reviewing the output from a series of launch vehicle assessments. Beads of sweat rolled from his forehead in tense anticipation despite the cool temperature of the air-conditioned bay.

For Ling, there was every reason to be nervous. In the world of space vehicle delivery, there was an astounding rate of mortality. He knew all too well that roughly one in ten satellite launches ended in failure, and that the fault could come from a thousand and one sources. Failure of the rocket at launch was still not an uncommon occurrence, though most satellite losses were due to deploying the payload in an incorrect orbit. The short, suborbital flight of the mission at hand eliminated a great deal of the problematic issues associated with most rocket flights, but the risk of a catastrophic launch failure never went away.

Ling breathed easier as he digested the latest status updates. All critical systems appeared operational. There was nothing to indicate that the trustworthy Zenit rocket would not fire off in its usual dependable manner. With less than five minutes to go, he turned to Tongju and spoke with a glimmer of confidence.

"There will be no launch holds. The countdown will proceed unimpeded."

Their attention turned to the image of the rocket on the video screen in its last minutes before takeoff. Despite the multitude of studious eyes converged on the image of the rocket and platform, no one in the room noticed the tiny movement at the periphery of the picture. Only the camera saw as a dark-haired man ran to the edge of the platform and scrambled out of sight down the corner column stairwell.

Pitt had wasted no time in engaging the full set of thrusters that powered the Badger. Though he knew it was the worst possible place to be, he quickly guided the submersible down the underbelly length

of the platform and maneuvered the vehicle to a stop alongside the rear starboard support column. Directly above him was the recessed launchpad flame deflector, which would route the titanic blast of the Zenit's thrust toward the sea at liftoff.

Pitt turned the nose of the submersible until it was aimed at the column, then backed away from the rotund support leg as he submerged the vessel to a depth of fifteen feet. Using a set of manipulator controls, he lowered the huge coring probe until it stretched perfectly horizontal in front of the submarine's prow, protruding like a medieval jousting lance. Pitt braced his feet against the metal deck plate and muttered, "Okay, Badger, let's see your bite," as he jammed the throttles to full forward.

The shiny red submersible clawed its way through the water, quickly gaining speed over the short distance to the column. Pushed by the full weight and force of the submersible, the coring probe slammed into the side of the massive steel column with a bang. Pitt held his breath as he was jolted forward and continued to slide ahead until the nose of the submersible slapped against the column. Rammed to a halt, he quickly threw the thrusters in reverse and peered through the surging bubbles as the submersible backed away from the column. A metallic grating sound echoed back at him as the probe was drawn roughly off the column. Through the murky and turbulent water, he caught a glimpse of the coring probe jutting intact off the bow and he exhaled in relief. As Pitt had hoped, the momentum of the speedy submersible had driven the tip of the coring probe cleanly through the side of the support column, opening an eight-inch-diameter hole.

Pitt felt a little like Ezra Lee on the Turtle. The Revolutionary War v

olunteer had attempted to sink a British warship in David Bushnell's small wooden submarine by drilling a hole in the side and attaching a mine. Though the attempt failed, the Turtle would be remembered in history as the first submarine ever used in combat. With the benefit of propulsion, Pitt backed the Badger away twenty feet and adjusted his depth slightly, then reversed the thrusters and charged into the column

again. Once more, the probe tore through the outer wall of the column, leaving a neat round hole for the seawater to pour into.

Though abjectly crude, Pitt's mad ploy had an element of simple genius to it. He calculated that if there was no way to stop the rocket from lifting off, then, perhaps, there was a way to change its intended destination. By creating an imbalance in the platform, he might at least angle the rocket off its intended flight path. On such a short flight, the rocket's guidance system would not have sufficient time to fully correct the deviation and could miss its intended target by miles. And there was no doubt that the Achilles' heel of the platform at launch were the rear support columns. With the rocket standing vertically at the extreme rear edge of the platform, the Odyssey had to maintain a careful balance to handle the uneven weight distribution across the entire platform. An active trim-and-heel system utilized ballast tanks in the columns and pontoons to maintain stability, managed by six large ballast pumps. By flooding the rear support columns, there was a chance of destabilizing the launch deck. For Pitt, it would be a desperate race against the ballast pumps to create a material imbalance.

Like a passenger on a carnival ride gone amok, Pitt was violently thrown about the submersible as he rammed into the column time and time again. Electronic equipment was jarred from its mounts, crashing and flying about his feet with each impact. The nose section of the submersible soon became battered after repeated collisions with the column wall and small rivulets of salt water began streaming into the interior through the damaged seams. But none of this mattered to Pitt. The risk to himself and the submersible was the last concern on his mind as the seconds to launch ticked down. One more time, he flung the force of the submersible against the support column, poking a hole in its surface like a rampant mosquito, the jab not drawing blood but letting in a flood of water.

After more than a dozen strikes at the starboard column, Pitt spun the leaking Badger around and raced toward the rear port support. Glancing at his Doxa watch, he calculated there was less than two minutes before liftoff. With a towering crash, he slammed into the other support column, driving the probe to its base and further crumbling the nose of the submersible. More water began leaking into the interior but Pitt ignored it. With salt water sloshing around his feet, he calmly reversed thrust and backed away for another stab at the column. As he lined up for another assault, he wondered if his actions were the futile gesture of an underwater Don Quixote charging at an errant windmill.

Unknown to Pitt, his very first blow on the starboard support column had activated one of the ballast pumps. As the number of holes and the amount of inrushing water increased, additional pumps were activated, until all six pumps were engaged. The pumps operated at the base of the columns, which were already submerged some forty feet under the water. While the automated ballast system easily kept each pontoon level with one another side by side, there was only limited means of maintaining balance fore and aft. With the water level rising rapidly in the stern support columns, it didn't take long before Pitt's drilling overwhelmed the rear ballast pumps. The sinking stern of the platform created a programming dilemma for the automated stabilization system. Under normal conditions, the trim-and-heel system would compensate the aft list by flooding the forward compartments and lowering the overall platform depth. But the platform was in launch position and had already been flooded to launching depth. Ballasting the platform lower, the computer knew, risked damaging the low-hanging thrust deflectors. In a handful of nanoseconds, the computer program reviewed its software logic for priority actions. The results came back unambiguous. During a designated launch countdown, the stabilization system was to maintain launch depth as its first priority. The sinking aft columns would be ignored.