Undersea by Geoffrey Morrison Page B

pressed a button that closed the door.
    Thom stood outside the door for a moment, stunned. Not till he was running back to the Bunker did his brain register that the floor had been made of wood.
     
     
     
    The Universalis lit up its active sensors, sending out ultrasonic pulses that bounced off the sea floor and any ships nearby, and returned to be picked up by microphones spread all over the hull. The turbulence the ship created at maximum speed affected the resolution, and by extension, the range. So the results were less than optimal. Worse, the massive wake created a cone-shaped deadzone behind them.
    What was clear, to the crewmen manning the sensor stations, to the navigator, and to the Captain, though, was that the seafloor was rising. They were running out of maneuvering room. They tried deviating from their current course, and each time the sensors would pick up a handful of subs of varying sizes either on a parallel or converging course, just out of weapons range.
    “Proctor Jills. I’m afraid we have no choice but to engage,” the Captain said, after his countless checks of the navigational charts.
    “With what, Captain? Have you been secretly building up a fleet that I don’t know about?”
    “We still have ammo for the defense batteries. That will have to be enough. I wish we had had the time you and Councilman Gattley had requested to get an attack fleet up and running, but we don’t. Hopefully we’ll have enough firepower to get us on a different course. If we don’t...” he looked down, and slid the chart displayed on the glass table in front of him across the console to be displayed in front of Jills. “We’ll either run aground, or be forced to surface. Personally I don’t like the choice of defenseless destruction or being irradiated. We’ll need to go on the offensive, such as it is.”
    Jills stroked his narrow jaw as he stared at the navigation chart. Thom, who had been standing silently near the wall, stood on the tips of his toes to see the chart. Out of the corner of his eye, Jills saw him and waved him over.
    “If you’re going to be Gattley’s eyes, then put them on this.”
    Thom studied the chart, and nodded knowingly, knowing that he had no idea what the chart meant. To his credit, Jills moved on.
    “How well are your men trained, Captain?” Jills asked.
    “They’re trained, but on simulators. Since we sounded General Quarters, there have been teams on the guns getting them loaded. Most are in working order. It’s the best we can hope for right now.”
    “How big are these other subs?” Thom asked. There was a pause as all eyes went in his direction.
    “Big. Bigger than anything we’ve got,” the Captain responded. “They look corvette size mostly, with what we think may me some frigates.”
    Thom’s eyes went wide.
    “Did we ever have anything that big?”
    Larr’s face flashed a momentary burst of annoyance, and then back to his usual stoic expression.
    “Not since the war,” Larr mumbled. “Proctor, Captain, I would like to recommend we launch the few attack subs we have; perhaps they can buy us some time.”
    The Captain shook his head.
    “A dozen single seat subs wouldn’t even bother a corvette, never mind four. It would be a waste of men and equipment. No, we need to do this now. All agreed?”
    Jills nodded immediately. Larr and the other Council members followed suit.
    “Chief of Arms, notify all batteries to be ready to fire. If a craft comes within range, they are to destroy it.”
    A man standing near a pair of terminals acknowledged and started talking to the two crewmen at his station. The Captain stood upright and pressed a button on the edge of the table.
    “New heading. Come to starboard six-zero.”
    “Starboard six-zero, aye,” came a voice from over the speakers imbedded in the ceiling.
    At speed, a ship the size of the Uni changed direction at an agonizing rate. But when passenger comfort wasn’t a concern, as now, it could turn much