Final Option (Oregon Files 14)

“When did I text you?” he asked.

“A few minutes ago.”

Max raised his eyebrows. “I

could have sworn it was a half hour ago.”

“That must mean you have something interesting.”

“I do indeed. The Portland.”

“What about it?” Juan asked.

“You said it’s identical to the Oregon, right?”

“From what I saw of it, it looks like an exact copy. Of course, Tate doesn’t have our taste in décor, but functionally I’d guess it’s the same. Same op center, same moon pool, same armory, same weapons. Except for the Metal Storm gun, that is. Remember, we added that later.”

“Which means the engines are probably identical, too,” Max said.

Juan shrugged. “I can’t see Tate improving on what you designed. He doesn’t have that kind of engineering know-how or creativity. What are you getting at?”

“The engines on the Oregon are unique. Or they used to be. Now, there’s one other ship in the world that has the same magnetohydrodynamic engines that we do. Listen to this.”

Max played a file that sounded like a laser battle from a science fiction movie, with zaps at different pitches pinging back and forth in rapid succession.

“Is that from the trailer of the latest Star Wars movie?” Juan asked.

Max shook his head. “What you heard was recorded from sensors orbiting earth inside the Van Allen belt. Lightning bolts generate electromagnetic pulses in the atmosphere that travel from the North Pole to the South Pole and back. The sound is what you get when you convert the light signals to auditory signals. They’re called whistler waves. They’re also found in the electromagnetic containment chambers of nuclear reactors.”

He played another recording. This one sounded similar to the first one, but the sounds were less rapid and lower in pitch.

“More whistler waves,” Juan said. “So?”

“Those came from our own engines. The supercooled electromagnetic coils that are strong enough to propel water through the ship’s venturi tubes are also generating those waves as a by-product, and they interact with the atmosphere.”

Juan finally understood where Max was going with this.

“You’re saying that the Portland creates these waves as well? Can we detect them?”

Max smiled. “Yes. In fact, we’re the only ship in the world that can detect them.”

“Why?”

“The waves are far too faint to observe at long distances without very sensitive specialized equipment that requires far more stability than you could get on a ship. But since our engines are the same as the Portland’s, they resonate with each other due to the atmospheric effect of the whistler waves. It’s very faint, but I tuned the engine instrumentation to approximate the distance to the Portland. It won’t show us the direction, but it’ll tell us if we’re getting hotter or colder.”

“I can work with that,” Juan said with a grin. “Wait, you said you ‘tuned’ the engine, past tense. You mean you’ve done it?”

“I figured you would be okay with it. Besides, I wanted to see if it would work before I called you in. And guess what. It does.”

Juan clapped him on the shoulder and laughed.

“You like surprising me, don’t you?”

“I do get a certain pleasure out of it. It doesn’t happen very often.”

“So, where is Tate?” Juan asked.

Max pulled up a map of the South Atlantic. “I’ve been tracking him for several hours now. From what I can tell, he’s heading west at twenty-five knots.”