Page 98 of Tides of Fire

Just a little farther...

“Contact made!” Byrd shouted and cut the thrusters.

The tier drifted farther under its own momentum, but the thrum of the engines went silent. The hunters closed in, only thirty yards away.

Jazz held her breath. Everyone cringed, expecting the worst.

Then a huge explosion blasted the incoming boat, sending it upwardin a flume of water and fire. It shattered in half and flew high. Several pieces rattled over the tier as a huge wave shoved them farther out.

This had been Kowalski’s plan.

To sic the attack dogs on their own masters.

Their group had needed to lure the enemy away from the station—out into the waters patrolled by the hidden UUVs. As before, the cavitations of the tier’s thrusters had triggered an automated attack. According to Kowalski, once a smart torpedo was deployed, it would constantly watch its target, reengaging as needed if it lost contact. With their thrusters silenced, the incoming torpedo had done just that—retargeting on the only remaining cavitation in the water.

Pieces of the boat and bodies rained out of the sky.

Byrd kept them dead in the water, using the hunters below to protect them. Another amphibious craft was still moored at the lower level of the burning station, likely the support boat for a demolition team that was planting another round of charges to sink the stubborn station. The enemy had surely witnessed the explosion, recognized the threat hidden in the depths. They would be leery to come out here.

But the boat wasn’t the only danger.

Jazz spotted a lone helicopter off in the distance, lit by its lights. It was headed east, running low under the ash cloud. She prayed it didn’t turn back. The UUVs below could not defend them against a missile attack from the air.

Knowing there was nothing to be done about it, she turned her gaze to the wreck ofTitan Station Up. The middle level, the crew quarters, remained mostly intact. She prayed some of the researchers and staff were still alive in there.

She glanced back across the empty floor of Tethys Tier—toward the airlock on the other side.

She prayed Kowalski and Jarrah reached the station in time.

7:44A.M.

Kowalski swam the last of the distance to a shattered section of the lower decking. It was overshadowed by one of the floating pylons thatslanted half out of the water due to the station’s tilt. He grabbed hold of a strut and reached back to pull Jarrah to him.

He gave the man a hard, questioning look.

You okay?

Jarrah panted heavily but nodded.

Kowalski looked past the man’s shoulder. Tethys Tier floated a hundred yards away, barely discernible in the midnight gloom. Its location was marked by burning pieces of the attack boat and a flaming pool of diesel fuel.

So far, so good.

With the others momentarily out of harm’s way, Kowalski clambered up. He had stripped down to his skivvies for the swim. Jarrah had done the same. While the tier had been rising, they had exited out its flooded airlock when it was ten meters down. They had surfaced into an apocalyptic hellscape. The two of them had used the floating debris to help cover their fifty-yard swim to the station. As they crossed the distance, they had watched Tethys Tier surge up and lure one of the two amphibious boats to its doom.

Now it’s our turn.

Kowalski crouched atop the decking and removed his Desert Eagle from a waterproof pouch that was tied around his waist. He quickly inspected it, while Jarrah snapped his steel baton to its full extension.

“Ready?” Kowalski whispered.

Jarrah nodded. “Let’s go.”

They set off across the ruins of the lower level, wading and hopping over the wreckage, circumnavigating its edge to reach the moored boat on the other side. The darkness hid their approach. The craft was under minimal guard as the enemy assumed they had the place fully locked down. The two soldiers left aboard weren’t even watching the station. Their gazes were out toward the shadowy Tethys Tiers, likely still baffled as to what had happened.

Across the breadth of the ruins, voices reached them, echoing from above as the various demolition teams finished setting up their second set of charges. The eight or nine sites were easily spotted and avoided in the darkness due to the flashlights the enemy used to illuminate their work.

Kowalski concentrated on the target at hand. He eyed the boat’s wheelhouse that rose midship. It was lit from within and showed no movement inside. Satisfied, he leveled his Eagle at one of the two guards, the one closest to the huge gun that was mounted at the pontoon’s bow. The other soldier stood a couple yards off.