To make matters worse, he had no idea where Colonel Testarossa was. If she was in the fore, she was in danger. And there were so many things he wanted to discuss with her right now... Clouseau caught himself looking for a way to defer responsibility, and shook his head. Stop it, he lectured himself. You’re the one in charge right now. It’s your job to be strong for the men.
“Buy us time,” he told Roger. “Pull back slowly.”
“Roger that.”
Just then, Clouseau got a transmission. It was from Sousuke. “What is it?”
“I have a proposal.” Sousuke explained Kaname’s idea in brief, and offered up a few plans.
“Make her a decoy? It’s risky,” Clouseau said with a frown. “And they’re scattered all over the ship. How are you going to round them all up?”
“She says it’s likely that they have a data link function,” Sousuke told him. “If we bait them carefully enough, the enemy machines will all contact each other and gather in the same area.”
“The girl said that?” Clouseau blinked in surprise.
“You might only know her from my reports, but she’s extremely reliable at times like these,” Sousuke replied. “Please consider—” His plea was interrupted.
“What’s taking so long?!” came the voice of a young woman. It was Clouseau’s first time hearing the voice of Chidori Kaname, who must have snatched Sousuke’s radio away from him. “Grant permission or give an order or whatever! Right now! If something happens to anyone from my school, you’ll pay for it, you balding old jerk!”
What is she talking about? She can’t even see me... Clouseau wondered. Then he said, placatingly, “Okay, I’ll do it. Put him back on.”
“Are you sure you’ll do it?” Kaname demanded to know. “You better not be lying!”
“Just do it!” Clouseau bellowed back at her.
Sousuke returned. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. It’s one of her worst faults—”
“I don’t care. I shouldn’t have let my conscience distract me. We’ll do it her way,” Clouseau acknowledged, with a faint sense that he was grasping at straws. He and Sousuke shouted over the sounds of gunfire to work out the details of their plan.
Once the discussion was over and the transceiver was off, Clouseau whispered, too low to be heard, “Ugh. ‘Angel,’ my ass.”24 December, 2324 Hours (Japan Standard Time)One kilometer south of Pacific Chrysalis, Tuatha de Danaan
“Con, sonar. Towed array’s got a new contact on bearing 0-8-3,” Sergeant Dejirani said to Lieutenant Colonel Richard Mardukas from the sonar shack. “Ah, spherical array’s got it, too. Designate contact number Mike-13. Distance... what? Oh, huh, weird...”
Mardukas was in the control room, dishing out commands from a standing position next to the empty captain’s chair. He was worried about the cruise ship enough as it was. He’d been told that the captain had gone missing, that a mysterious enemy had attacked, and that things were looking grim. He was further concerned about a set of Japanese patrol boats passing just four miles away. And now, here was the sonar technician with more bad news.
“Make your reports clear and concise,” Mardukas ordered with a frown. “You—”
“Quiet! You’re distracting me!” Dejirani snapped. “There’s more than one. Underwater, over the thermal layer. And... moving fast. Over 50 knots?!”
“A torpedo?” Mardukas said with alarm. “Battle stations!” A shot of fear ran through the control room. The officer of the deck hit the alarm, and the order was broadcast shipwide. A yellow marker displaying the contact appeared on the nautical map on the front screen.
“No! I’d have noticed a torpedo way sooner! The shape’s all wrong!” Dejirani objected. “They’re submarines! Damn, now two more! Designate Mike-14 and Mike-15! All about ten miles away and closing!”
Impossible, Mardukas thought. The de Danaan was the only submarine in the world capable of speeds faster than 50 knots. But he’d never known Dejirani’s analyses to be wrong, and so he believed it. Enemies? he wondered. A foolish question; of course they’re enemies.
Mardukas took a deep breath. “Contact the ground team,” he ordered. “Sever the communications cable. Helm, course 1-0-5, speed to 30 knots! Twenty degrees down bubble; make your depth 300! Prepare for anti-submarine warfare!”24 December, 2325 Hours (Japan Standard Time)Underwater, 16 Kilometers East of Tuatha de Danaan
The sound of superconductive drives and rushing water rang out as three Leviathans cruised forward, piercing through the black ocean. Their speed was far beyond what any conventional vessel could hope to match.
“Shark-1 to all. The TDD seems to have noticed us. It’s stopped running parallel with the Pacific Chrysalis and changed to course 1-0-5,” announced the pilot of one of the Leviathans, Shark-1.
Most submarines, when moving at top speed, would find it impossible to scan for enemies due to the noise they were producing themselves, but their machines were different. They were pulling information from the sonobuoys they’d dispersed in advance, which could tell them precisely where the enemy was, regardless of their own speeds.
“Shark-2, roger. Textbook navigation there, eh?”
“Shark-3, roger. What a mediocre captain. They don’t seem to realize how outmatched they are.”
The responses came from Shark-1’s “wingmen” as they trailed a few hundred yards behind. Their machines, revolutionized takes on the concept of the submarine, used fighter pilot jargon to describe their maneuvers. In fact, the concept of “Plan 0601,” the Leviathan, was that of “undersea fighter jet.”
With a crew of two each, these brand new weapons platforms made use of arm slave control technology, which allowed them to approach a target swiftly and execute strikes that couldn’t be dodged. They were capable of close-combat tactics, too, and their general purpose was to use their exceptional maneuverability to quickly dispose of slow-moving vessels carrying crews of several hundred.
Their bodies were streamlined, like throwing knives, and somewhat resembled scaled-down Tuatha de Danaans. Each was affixed with a pair of arms for close-range combat, which enabled the Leviathans to grapple a target and breach its hull with their monomolecular cutters.
These machines, which applied the
