Chapter 297: I Returned the Delivery at Speed

The first torpedo changed direction when I crossed its path, which felt flattering until I remembered that being wanted wasn't always a compliment.

Its guidance light followed the controller aboard Lukas's sub. I was merely between it and the expensive thing it wanted to kill, a position I recognized from several family gatherings.

Lukas turned behind the rock shelf while I swam toward the approaching pair. The second weapon drew level with the first as they corrected around the same obstruction, putting both centers inside six meters when I activated Red Light.

They stopped for two seconds. Water kept moving, my body kept moving and Old Mate used the first half of that miracle to explain that I should stop admiring it.

[System: Oi, dickhead, the pause button isn't a relationship. Get in, do something useful and leave before it remembers what it was doing.]

I was trying, but the useful options all involved touching something with the word live attached to it.

Galaxy Brain matched the visible guidance fin to the controller diagram I had studied. The fin was an external detachable assembly, close enough to select without pretending I could steal a hidden part through the casing.

I moved it into the clear water touching my tail with Mine Now. It arrived full-sized and far heavier than I wanted, turning my graceful maneuver into a brief struggle with a piece of weaponized patio furniture.

The halted torpedo lost the fin that had been holding its curve toward the sub. I shoved the loose assembly away, pulled my body beneath the pair and watched their motion resume while I was still much closer than felt sensible.

One continued toward the controller signal. The damaged one drifted wide, its ruined steering unable to hold the same turn, and struck the empty rock face between us and the rig.

The explosion punched through the water. I had already put the thick shelf between my body and the impact, but the pressure still shoved me into stone hard enough to make my side light up with pain.

Red Light didn't stop a blast already happening. Galaxy Brain didn't soften rock, and the absence of Nuh-Uh became a deeply personal loss for several unpleasant seconds.

[System: Still alive, mate. Bit tenderized, but you're a long way from requiring a lemon wedge and a side of chips.]

I would appreciate encouragement that didn't make me sound like the lunch special.

The surviving torpedo rounded the shelf. Lukas had cut the sub's turn tighter than I expected, using the narrow gap behind the rock to put the controller on the opposite side of a stone pillar.

The weapon couldn't fit through the same gap at its current angle. It clipped the rock, burst against the outer wall and left us with a violent wash that rattled the sub without opening its cabin.

Lukas called me several things through the external speaker. I accepted most of them, then told him to keep the shelf between the sub and the rig while I found a way aboard.

The rig moved closer under its own power. It looked like somebody had attached a machine shop to an angry metal fish, with pressure pipes running along its sides and a dry control dome perched above the main hull.

A service opening near the front hung crooked after the nearby blast. The damaged door wasn't an invitation from the manufacturer, but it was large enough for a snake who had finally stopped pretending dignity belonged on the equipment list.

I swam beneath the hull, kept my fins tucked through the narrower gap and used my smoke body to ease around the bent frame. Turning partly diffuse didn't remove the pressure or guarantee that machinery couldn't hurt me, so I waited for each moving section before crossing it.

The access lock inside had ordinary controls. I closed the outer hatch, ran the drain cycle and entered a dry service passage smelling of hot metal and somebody's deeply regrettable lunch.

Two guards heard the door. I stayed low beneath the pipe rack while they argued over whether the noise came from damaged machinery or the stupid snake their boss had warned them about.

I considered correcting the adjective, then noticed a maintenance trolley between us and the control stairs. It carried a bucket, cleaning fluid and a folded sign warning about slippery floors.

Old Mate suggested the obvious joke. I told him I had standards, then used a tendril to tip the bucket anyway because my standards remained flexible under armed supervision.

The first guard stepped into the water, slid against the rack and dragged his companion down by the shoulder. Neither transformed into a harmless cartoon idiot; both tried to recover and reach their weapons while I used the brief opening to shoot past them along the wall.

I caught the stairwell door with my tail, slammed it behind me and wedged the cleaning sign through its handles. The plastic wouldn't hold long, but it bought more time than explaining myself would have done.

The upper landing overlooked the main pressure chamber. A huge natural sea creature lay inside a water-filled harness, its broad body connected to mechanical paddles that moved whenever it struggled against the restraints.

The machine wasn't powered entirely by an engine. Somebody had built a pressure pump around an animal and apparently expected it to remain cooperative while armed strangers shouted nearby.

I had adopted a fence-eating nightmare this morning, and somehow other people's animal management still looked worse.

A handler crossed the chamber below, carrying a control rod and wearing a clear breathing mask. Extra muscle bulged along one arm beneath a surgical brace, with the same kind of graft label I had seen on the club's enforcer.

The animal struck its harness, the chamber shook and the handler looked straight up at my landing just as the guards behind me broke the cleaning sign.

Then he hit the alarm, and every light over the pressure chamber changed from warning amber to a very unfriendly red.