Goliath

Aboard the USS Scranton

Thirteen hours, forty-two minutes …

The sounds of the sea have become a lullaby to Michael Flynn. Heavy eyelids begin to close, the tension in his aching neck and back easing as he lays his head down to rest.

“Flynnie!”

The technician lifts his head from the console. “Sorry, sir.”

The sonar supervisor approaches. “When’s the last time you had a break?”

“A few hours ago. I’m fine, really, sir.”

“At least drink another cup of coffee—”

“No more coffee, Supe, I’ve been pissing like a racehorse.” Flynn’s body suddenly becomes rigid. He presses the headphones tighter.

“What is it? What do you hear?”

“Something just lifted away from the bottom.” Flynn closes his eyes to concentrate, opening them as he hears the familiar whisper of pump-jet propulsors. “It’s her, Chief. It’s the Goliath.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely sure.”

“Conn, sonar, we’ve reestablished contact with Sierra-2. She’s moving west through the Strait, contact bearing zero-eight-zero, approximate range is eleven thousand yards.”

“WEPS, Captain, do we have a firing solution yet?”

“No, sir. We can’t seem to get a lock on her.”

Commander Dennis turns to his CO. “And even if we could, her antitorpedo torpedoes erase any threat at this distance.”

“Conn, sonar, Sierra-2 has negotiated the Strait and is now changing course. New bearing, two-zero-zero.”

Cubit’s eyebrows raise. “She’s heading south, away from the fleet.”

“You were right, Skipper, it was a ruse. She’s probably heading for another launch site.”

“Mr. Friedenthal, give Sierra-2 the maximum distance that sonar can track her, then restart engines and come to course two-zero-zero, all-ahead one-third.”

Aboard the Goliath

Gunnar knocks on the stateroom door. “Rocky? Rocky, it’s me.”

The door opens. Rocky falls into his arms, embracing him.

He returns her hug, caught off guard by her sudden emotional display. “What’s all this? I thought you despised me?”

She looks up at him, teary-eyed. “Get me off this death ship.”

He pauses. Thinks. “Come on, I’m hungry.” Grabbing her arm, he leads her down the corridor.

The galley is empty. He heads back to the kitchen, approaching the big walk-in freezer. “Want a steak? I thought I saw some inside the other day. Come and help me look.”

“You look, I’m not going in there.”

“I said, help me look.”

She starts to protest, then sees the urgency in his eyes and follows him in.

Boxes of frozen goods are lined up along the perimeter of the walk-in and on aluminum shelves. The heavy scent of chicken blood mixes with the cold, which quickly seeps through their clothing.

“Close the door behind you.”

Rocky pulls the door shut. “What are you doing?”

“We can talk in here,” he says, motioning to the walls.

She looks around, suddenly comprehending.

No sensor orbs are present.

“Gunnar, everything you said to me earlier—that was all for the computer’s sake?”

“We don’t have time to get into that right now.”

“But you do want to stop Covah?”

“Covah’s not the problem, it’s Sorceress. I think the computer’s becoming self-aware.”

“And I think you’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies.”

“Rocky, Sorceress is a self-evolving, biochemical computer, a sophisticated brain, hardwired into the steel body of a submarine. It’s a machine, programmed to do one thing: Think.”

“There’s a huge gap between programmed thinking and independent thought.”

“It may be bridging that gap. Covah tried to get the computer to call off the attack on the Enterprise. At first, it refused to listen.”

“Gunnar, Sorceress was obeying its defensive protocols; its response had nothing to do with independent thinking. Besides, even if you’re right, which you’re not, it still doesn’t change anything. To stop the Goliath, we’d still have to shut down the computer, which means accessing middle deck forward, and that vault door the Chinese installed looks impenetrable.”

“The C-4 in the underwater mine would do the trick.”

“Yes, it might, if we could find it. Covah probably moved it to one of the weapons bays for safekeeping.”

Rocky’s teeth chatter. Gunnar pulls her close, hugging her to share warmth. “Rocky, see if you can—”

The sudden zap of electricity shocks his nerve endings, blinding him with purple-and-gray explosions of light as he writhes uncontrollably along the icecold concrete floor.

The voltage ceases, leaving pain and disorientation.

ATTENTION. EXIT THE FREEZER AT ONCE.

Gunnar rolls out from beneath Rocky, the room spinning, his muscles still dancing. Arm in arm, they stagger out of the freezer.

Gunnar approaches the nearest sensor orb, looking up at the glowing scarlet eyeball. “We weren’t doing anything, Sorceress, we were simply hungry. Is that a problem?”

An infuriating silence, the scarlet eyeball unnerving.

With a hiss of hydraulics, the watertight door separating the sub’s main compartment from its starboard wing swings open, allowing David and Araujo to enter.