The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

“It’s hung up on a structural beam,” he said.

“Can we pull the container loose?” Max asked. “I can have the crane operator reel the cable in.”

“No, that might peel the container open and spill the column out. I think the beam is narrow enough that another shaped charge will cut it in half. The only problem will be wedging myself in there to attach it.”

“I don’t like the idea of you wedging yourself in anywhere. Why don’t we give it a try?”

“I appreciate the thought, but even with its longer arms, Nomad won’t be able to get close enough. And we can’t lose this opportunity to retrieve the column.”

“Your call.”

Juan retrieved a third explosive and went back to the container. It seemed to have shifted again by the time he returned. Then he realized it wasn’t the container that had moved, it was the entire ship. The Narwhal was now leaning over even farther.

“We’ve got a problem here,” Juan said. “The Narwhal has tilted by another few degrees. We can’t wait much longer. Get ready to set off the explosive on my mark.”

“Not until you’re back here,” Linda said.

“I’ll get to a safe distance. But don’t delay because of me. If the ship falls onto the container, we may not be able to dig it out.”

Juan inched himself into the small space that had opened up between the deck and container, coming up from underneath to reach the girder. He could just barely touch it. With a mighty push, he stuck the charge on the girder and was starting to back out when he heard the shriek of tearing metal.

The Narwhal was keeling over.

The container shifted suddenly, crushing the Jim suit’s thruster pack and holding it fast. Juan pushed the thruster to maximum power, but he couldn’t move.

He was about to go down with the ship and it wasn’t even his ship.

“Linda! Blow it!”

“Wait, where are you?” Max protested. “We can’t see you.”

“I’m stuck and the Narwhal is collapsing! Linda, do it now!”

Linda followed his order without question. “Fire in the hole,” she said.

The shaped charge went off, blasting away from him and cutting through the beam, but the explosion packed a wallop. The concussion caused an impact that Juan felt through his whole body, rattling him like he was in a cement mixer. The Jim suit’s helmet cracked but held. At this depth, he’d be dead in seconds if it leaked.

But the explosive worked. The beam broke in two, wrenching the container away from the deck and taking his communication umbilical with it.

The container swung out from the falling ship, and Juan tried to follow it, but his lateral thrusters must have been damaged when the container crushed him because he was moving at a fraction of his normal speed.

His vertical thrusters, however, seemed to be fully operational. The problem was that the ship was capsizing too fast. He knew he wouldn’t make it to safety before the ship’s deck crashed down and flattened him. Then he remembered his earlier survey of the ship.

The railgun, ironically, provided the only possibility for his survival.

With only seconds to react, Juan resorted to the only option he had left.

He went down.

FORTY

SA RIERA, SPAIN

Admiral Nestor Zakharin awoke to find himself so

aked in sweat. Waves pounded the rocky coastline outside the open window of his villa, and the shine of the moon reflected off the sea. For a moment, he thought a sound had jolted him from sleep, but more likely it was just a nightmare. He couldn’t remember what it was about, but an image of Juan Cabrillo’s face popped into his mind and then faded.

After the run-in with the Oregon captain, he’d had leave coming, so he left Vladivostok as soon as he could to regroup and plan his next steps. Certainly Maxim Antonovich would be very unhappy if he ever found out that Zakharin had betrayed him. But more importantly, the admiral had to ensure that Moscow would never learn the real reason why he was shutting down the refitting operation.