Within an hour, Shakes’s voice lit up the ship-to-ship radio in the control room. “Break. Break. This is the mighty Gnat. Were those fuckin’ ear-splitting pings coming from the folks I’m looking for?”
Hemi climbed the ladder to the control room and took the mic from the overhead radio. “Indeed, Gnat. This is the Prospect and we are glad to know now that we were not pinging an Authority battleship.”
“Ah,” said Shakes, “so my subterfugal modifications were effective? Wait till you see what I fuckin’ did, Hemi. You’re going to love it.”
Hemi smiled into the mic. “Sounds good, Captain Shakes. You did not break off your mating collar while making those modifications, did you?”
“Nope. It’s still riding with fucking pride atop the Gnat’s sail. Mating with the Prospect should be at least as smooth as last time.”
“I hope it does not go that badly,” said Hemi. “OK, we will put the Prospect in gear, and drive forward slowly. Just like last time, you can come up underneath, and put the Gnat on the mating collar.”
“Roger that. But…you’re going to have to come up shallower. I might have more confidence than I used to, but I still don’t want to push the Gnat as deep as you are now if I don’t fuckin’ hafta.”
Percy had been listening to the conversation from below at the navigation station. Now she climbed up to the control room to sort out the details of this maneuver with Hemi.
Hemi caught her eye while she was still on the ladder. “Shakes needs us to come shallow.”
“How shallow? I’d prefer to keep her as deep as possible.”
“I believe the Gnat’s maximum depth was around thirty meters — according to Shakes’ estimate, which was unchallenged by anything like an engineering background.”
“Can we do it with the Prospect at twenty meters?” she asked.
“I suspect so, that’s about how deep we had it at the depot.” Hemi thumbed the mic on the ship-to-ship. “Captain Shakes, what if we make the Prospect’s keel twenty meters down. Can you do the mating at that depth?”
“Surely,” Shakes voice crackled in reply. “But remember that while the Gnat is attached, you can not go any fucking deeper. Beyond 30 meters or so and you’ll crush the Gnat and, you know, probably flood the fuckin’ Prospect as well — not that I’ll be giving two shits about your ugly barge after you beer-canned my baby.”
“I got you, Captain Shakes. Twenty meters maximum depth it is.”
They carried out the maneuver without incident. Shakes brought the Gnat up under the Prospect and connected to the mating collar. When he popped the hatch, Chips was there waiting for him, just like last time.
“Ah, fuck-ya, Captain Shakes. At least I didn’t have to weld your fuckin’ boat back together to get ya on board this fuckin’ time.”
“Good to see you again too, Chips. I’ll have you know my boat has been adjusted and tuned to an absolute precision-meister’s peak of fuckin’ performance. The Gnat is now faster, more maneuverable, and louder than any other boat of its size and displacement.”
“Ah, yer the first fucker I’ve ever fucking met who is proud to have a loud fucking submarine, Captain Shakes.”
They made their way up to the galley, where Chips parted with Shakes to continue working on the efficiencies of her own engines in the engine room. Shakes poured some stale coffee from the pot into a mug and sat down.
Hemi and Percy joined Shakes in the galley as soon as they had the Prospect settled back on course, leaving Gregory and Bastian at the controls. The boat would spend the remaining hours of daylight running underwater. Hemi did not neglect to warn Gregory to keep a close eye on the depth and ballast control panel and not let the boat dive any deeper than they already were while the Gnat was attached.
“So, Captain Shakes,” said Percy, settling next to him with her own stale cup of coffee, “you made it out of the depot without causing a problem?”
“Well… there was in fact a little fuckin’… drama. I’m sure you heard some of it.”
“We got a tip to leave before anything very dramatic happened,” said Hemi.
“So I gathered from your note, Captain Percy. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of some work on the Gnat when I got that note, otherwise I would have left right then myself. The Gnat’s engine was in fuckin’ pieces — I was putting a new exhaust in that I got in a deal in one of the parts shops on the exchange floor after I had got my cargo transshipped. So I was stuck on the dock when that fuckin’ Authority sub arrived.”
“What sub? Was it the sub with the ram?” Hemi asked.
“Well, I couldn’t very well see whether it had a ram from inside the docking bay, could I? But I heard the name of the boat was the Grackle, that mean anything to y’all?”
“From the Northern Points Authority?” asked Percy.
“That’s what the dock workers told me. How did you know that?”
“Miss Mai, who gave us this job, suggested that might be the identity of the sub with the ram.”
“What did you do to the Northern Points that would send them after you?”
“Nothing! Fuckin’ nothing. I’ve never been there. Miss Mai suggests larger shifts happening in the world that could affect our innocent little business here, and the Grackle may be a symptom of those global-scale changes,” said Percy.
“Well then. That boat docked and unloaded a bunch of big fucking goons. Bigger even than those who worked at the depot. Or, better fuckin’ armed and armored at least. The goons tore through the whole fuckin’ depot checking papers at every slip with a sub docked, questioning every person they saw in the docking bay.”
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“Including you?” Percy asked.
“Including me. That was no trouble, I’ve got quality fucking papers and stories to put off any Authority inspection long enough for me to tiptoe away. But here’s a thing: they was specifically asking about your boat.”
“They asked about the Prospect — by name?” Percy was horrified that any Authority would know the name of her boat at all, never mind go around asking about it.
“Indeed. A couple of those goons stood over the slip to the Gnat and asked me if I knew anything about a boat named the Prospect: small lady captain, big fuckin’ first mate.”
“I assume you did not have any further information for them?” Hemi asked.
“Of course fuckin’ not. But that didn’t matter. By the time they got far enough down the dock to talk to me it was just perfunctory-like questioning. They had already found out from other sub crews that you had definitely been there… And that you left with a load of magnetic warheads.”
“They asked you about our fucking cargo too, eh?” said Percy.
“Ya. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to know anything about me coming in with you. I guess the other sub crews were afraid enough of Authority goons with guns to give up someone who isn’t around, but aren’t such cowards as to go so far as pointing at someone they can actually fuckin’ see in the same space.”
Hemi picked up a spoon and stirred his coffee.
Percy lit a cheroot. “Shit,” she said, “if they know we’ve got what-could-be-considered-by-certain-parties-as weapons parts on board, seems like they could take that as a fuckin’ license to shoot to sink if they find us, rather than merely demanding we surface for an inspection.”
“Oh,” said Shakes after a pause, “I didn’t tell you the best fuckin’ part yet… So, after they finish questioning me, I discreetly — and as quickly as I could — started prepping the Gnat to leave. And as I’m on the dock getting some cans of food to load into the hold, I see the commander of the Authority sub climb up out of their sub at the slip they had commandeered — the commander is a real round guy, he wears an Authority uniform with all the trimmings — it looks as if he wears his full fucking dress uniform every day on board the sub! He takes a squad of goons — maybe twenty of the fuckers — and they go up the dock and out towards the exchange floor.
“Here’s the good fucking part: while he’s up there on the exchange floor, the watertight bulkhead between the docking bay and the upper levels goes into an emergency-close procedure. You know, the whole shebang — the klaxon is blaring, the red lights are spinning. The fucking Authority goons start running around in a panic, probably most of them think the docking bay is flooding. Hell, I thought that myself for a minute.”
“Fuckin’ wow,” said Percy, half-grinning as she exhaled smoke.
“Fuck yeah. But it doesn’t take long for the goons to figure out that the docking bay isn’t flooding — someone had just triggered the big watertight bulkhead to close just to fuck with all these Authority toughs. The meat shields weren’t much less panicked at that though — because half their fuckin’ muscle and their fuckin’ commander were now separated from them by half a meter of air-tight steel doors!
“So I wasn’t going to miss this wonderful opportunity of confusion — I dumped whatever I could find laying around on the dock down into the Gnat, buttoned the boat up, and took the fuck off right then. Ran on battery as far as I could, then put the rest of the exhaust back together. Fortunately the diesel fired up no fucking problem and I made my way here.”
“Hmm,” said Hemi. “Who do you suppose was willing to anger them further by closing the watertight bulkhead?”
“My guess,” said Shakes, “is that it was that dock boss lady. She was the first one the Authority goons questioned, of course, and she didn’t look very fuckin’ happy about it afterwards.”
“Tough as she looks, I guess,” said Percy.
“That watertight bulkhead did not seem like the kind of thing that was opened and closed at the drop of a fuckin’ hat,” said Shakes. “I suspect it delayed that Authority sub leaving by a couple of hours, all told. I’m not sure I could have gotten the Gnat away — presumably unnoticed — without that bit of fuckin’ luck.”
“Which brings up another thing I wanted to ask you about, Captain Shakes,” said Hemi. “That boat of yours is now certainly…loud.”
“Fuck yeah! I told you I put in a new exhaust. Straight pipe. Wedged it right up against the hull so the sound goes direct out into the fuckin’ water. I also tuned it for power and made some adjustments to the gearbox. The Gnat’s diesel now puts out far more torque than just about any other boat of its fuckin’ size, I’d say. And that torque is converted to unbelievably fast prop speeds.”
“And a fast prop and new exhaust mean exceptional noise,” said Hemi.
“I’d say just about the loudest sub in the fuckin’ water!” said Shakes proudly. “‘Cept maybe some of those old coastal tug subs. That was the fuckin’ plan, right Captain Percy? The Gnat runs loud and fast interference for the Prospect.”
“Yes,” said Percy, “though I was sort of expecting we could make the Gnat sound like another big submarine, not an ocean liner.”
“The fuckin’ louder, the fuckin’ better, I fuckin’ figured,” said Shakes, popping a wad of dried green leaves into his cheek. “Oh! I almost forgot: the other modification I made to the Gnat — I got a fuckin’ pigeon.”
“A pigeon?” asked Hemi. “I have never heard of that. Some new kind of sonar unit?”
“No, no, like an actual fuckin’ pigeon-bird. A homing pigeon. Goes by the name of Herschel.”
“Oh, so you got a pet…” said Percy, “to keep you company during those long hours alone aboard the Gnat. To keep you from going crazy…er?”
“Naw, Herschel’s not a pet, I told ya — he’s a fuckin’ upgrade to the Gnat! See I got him from a guy on the dock. He’s specially trained to look for his home roost on a submarine on the surface of the ocean. His roost is on the Gnat now, and I’ve been taking care of him. Soon he’ll realize the Gnat is his home. Then I just give him to you guys, and when you need me, you can send Herschel out to find the Gnat with a message tied to his leg.”
“Umm. Why would we use a pigeon instead of, say, the radio?”
“Well, I realized that with the modifications I was making to the engine, the Gnat is now so loud inside that I can’t hear the radio while the diesel is running. I needed another way to communicate with you guys, and Herschel seemed perfect. Messages by pigeon are also more secure than radio.”
“A pigeon…” said Percy. “Seems fuckin’ ridiculous to me.”
“Sylvia, this pigeon goes a long way towards addressing the problem we had with communicating with Shakes. You asked me to talk with him about that, and here is an answer…maybe not a great answer, but I think Herschel could work. If we could just figure out how we could launch him from the Prospect while we are submerged, he would be a perfect communication medium…” Hemi trailed off, envisioning some kind of pigeon buoy they could release at depth.
Percy rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Don’t ever say I’m a captain who isn’t willing to give new technology a fucking try. We’ll take the pigeon aboard as our eighth crew member on a trial basis. Captain Shakes: how about a meal?”
“Sounds good. But I need to take a shit first. Where’s the head on this boat?”
“You haven’t used the Prospect’s head yet?”
“Naw. I prefer to waft my bum in the fortifying fresh air of the surface, if that’s an option. But seeing as we’re under right now…”
“It’s on the middle deck, aft of the crew quarters. Be careful. Make sure you read all the instructions. It’s fucking complicated.”
“Aye, it’s been a while since I used the fuckin’ head on a sub. I sank the last sub I took a shit on.”
Percy decided to assume he was joking.