“Turning, aye!”
“Full speed! I want everything we’ve got out of the engines.”
The Achilles slewed around and raced away in the opposite direction.
Golov slammed his palms on the wood console in frustration. Despite a worthy adversary, certain victory had been at hand. But instead of savoring the taste of winning a hard-fought battle, he was fleeing with his tail between his legs and readying himself for the announcement of another incoming missile, one that he would have no way to shoot down this time.
He loathed being on the other side of the crosshairs.
—
It worked!” Murph cried out as they watched the Achilles come about. “The weapons must be off-line. She’s making a run for it.”
“Not so fast,” Max said. “They’re not slinking away that easily. Murph, can you get the missile launcher back up?”
“No can do. It’ll need some serious attention from welders.”
“What about our guns?”
“Ready to go, but we’re way out of range.”
“Then let’s get closer. Eric, full speed ahead. We’re not letting him get away.”
“Power at one hundred percent,” Eric replied.
Max felt himself pushed back in his chair as the Oregon leaped forward. Soon the ship was pushing forty-five knots.
The stern of the Achilles was solidly in their sights. All they needed was to close the gap.
After a few minutes, the Achilles didn’t seem any closer. In fact, it looked like it was getting smaller on the screen.
“My eyesight must finally be going on me,” Max said. “Linda, what’s our distance to target?”
“I don’t believe it,” she blurted. “Distance is fourteen miles—and increasing. She’s outpacing us by at least ten knots, maybe fifteen.”
Max couldn’t contain his shock. “That’s impossible!” He took pride in the Oregon’s speed. No other ship her size could even come close to her pace. Yet here was the exception receding into the distance on-screen.
“Think she’s got magnetohydrodynamic engines like we do?” Murph said.
“No,” Linda said with a headset pressed to her ear. “I can hear screws on the sonar. But they seem to be muffled somehow.”
Eric looked at her. “Muffled?”
“Like they’re covered in Styrofoam.”
He thought for a moment, then turned to Max. “Remember the Shkval torpedoes we stole from the Iranians? Could the Achilles have that kind of propulsion?”
Max shook his head. “Those were rocket torpedoes. Incredibly high-speed, but short-range.”
“Right, but they also pumped out air bubbles for supercavitation to reduce drag in the water. We could be seeing the same thing here, but with screws doing the job instead of rockets.”
“I’ve heard of it in experimental ships, but nothing of that size. The bubbles would have to encase the entire hull.”
“Well, they’re getting away from us somehow,” Murph said. “Eric may have pegged it.”
“I’m reading a pressure loss in our cooling system,” Eric said. “We’ll have to check it, but it’s likely that one of the pipes was punctured when they took out our missile launcher.”
“How bad?” Max asked.