The arm creaked and strained, but held. In a swirl of sand, the conjoined vessels slowly rose …
A new alarm sounded, a mournful, pulsing honk. “Oh God, what now?” moaned Nina.
“We’re on emergency power,” said Matt. “If you hear that, it means if you’re not on the surface in five minutes, you’re not getting there at all!”
“You built this bloody thing,” said Eddie. “Couldn’t you have used a less annoying alarm noise?”
Matt huffed and switched it off. “Next one I build’ll have songbirds and heavenly choirs, just for you. If I get the chance.” He looked down through the viewport. They were now about twenty feet above the ground. “Okay, that’ll have to do.”
Eddie released the arm, and Matt took the sub back down, inching it sideways to move beneath the Mako as it hung motionless in the water. The spotlights picked out its ventral docking port. “Okay, here we go.” He switched one of the monitors to show a view looking directly upward from their own hatch. “Just got to line it up properly …”
“Can we do anything to help?” asked Nina.
“Yeah—wait by the hatch, and when I tell you, pull the yellow lever down as far as it’ll go. That’ll lock the docking clamps. Soon as they’re secure, I can drain the collar and we should be able to open the other sub’s hatch.”
There was an edge to his voice that suggested he was far more worried about the operation than he was letting on. “Matt, is something wrong?”
“There’s a lot of things wrong!” On the screen, the Mako’s hatch came in sight. He slowed to line up with it. “You just get ready on that lever.”
Eddie and Nina exchanged concerned looks but moved to the hatch as requested. The Sharkdozer stopped beneath the other vessel. “Okay, it’s lined up. Here we go …”
A brief blip of the throttle, and the Sharkdozer wobbled upward. A shrill of metal against metal was overpowered by a louder thunk that reverberated through the hull. More power, then: “Pull it!”
Eddie and Nina grabbed the lever and hauled on it with all their combined weight. It moved a few inches—then jammed. “Matt!” Nina shouted. “It’s stuck!”
Matt didn’t reply, eyes fixed on the monitor. He turned the sub a few degrees before sharply bringing it upward. The vessel shook with another impact. “Now!”
This time, the lever moved all the way. A dull clunk came from above the hatch as the clamps locked into place, holding both submersibles tightly together. Matt gasped. “Ah, Christ! I wasn’t sure that was going to work.”
“Now he tells us!” said Nina, releasing her own sigh of relief.
A loud hiss of compressed air as the water was forced out told them that the docking collar was clear. Matt double-checked a gauge to make sure the seal was holding, then cautiously unlocked the hatch and pushed it open. Nina jumped as seawater gushed over the edge of the opening, but it was merely the last undrained dregs. Matt raised the hatch higher. The ASM-DT clattered down into the crew compartment, Eddie catching the rifle before it hit the deck.
The Mako’s belly hatch was visible at the top of the docking collar, cold drips falling from the white-painted steel. “Can we get in?” Nina asked. “Is it locked?”
Matt climbed the ladder and pulled the other hatch’s release latch before turning the wheel to unseal it. “Submarine theft’s not exactly an everyday problem, so no.”
“Just because you saved our lives, that doesn’t give you the right to be a smart-ass.” But she managed to smile at him.
He opened the hatch. There was a rush of air as the two vessels equalized their internal pressures. Matt was about to ascend the second ladder when Eddie stopped him. “Better let me go first,” he said, holding up the gun. “Just in case.”
He clambered up, stopping below the top of the shaft and peering warily into the cabin. No movement. Gun ready, he climbed the rest of the way.
The only sound was the low hum of the ventilation system. The cabin was almost infinitely more luxuriously appointed than the Sharkdozer’s pure utilitarianism, leather loungers arranged to give each passenger a view through a personal porthole. But Eddie’s eyes were fixed on one seat in particular: the pilot’s.
Its back was to him, but he could see an arm hanging limply over one side. Fixing the gun on the chair, he advanced to find the pilot alive, but out cold,