Europa Strike Read Free

cigar shape eight meters long melded smoothly with rounded wings that gave it an elongated saucer look. Her hull was jet-black carbon-boron-Bucky fiber weave, or CB 2 F, a process back-engineered from ET finds on the Moon, and stronger by a factor of five than anything based on purely terrestrial materials processing. The boat was driven by a magnetohydrodynamic jet, an MHD drive that compressed water drawn through intakes forward and expelled it aft like a rocket’s exhaust; the craft’s flattened shape, complete with upswept stabilizer tips on the ends of the circular “wings,” was that of a lifting body designed to literally fly through water as an aircraft flew through the air. Originally developed by the U.S. Navy for abyssal trench research and exploration, the Manta could dive to depths in excess of ten kilometers, enduring hull pressures of well over a ton over each square centimeter of its hull. Mark Garroway had been asked to earn his consultant’s pay this month by evaluating the Manta for use as an undersea transport for Marine raiding parties. And Jeff was here because of Project Icebreaker.
    As the sub’s pilot pulled back on the joystick controlling the vessel’s attitude and increased thrust with a shrill, whining hum, the Manta began rising through the darkness. Something like a golden, shell-less snail flew past on undulating wings, leaving in its wake a faintly phosphorescent trail. The life here, Jeff thought, just a few hundred meters beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, was as alien as anything that humankind might one day encounter among the stars.
    â€œThis is why you retired here, isn’t it, sir?” he asked. “To be able to play with the Navy’s high-tech toys? Maybe keep doing a bit of exploring…new worlds, and all that?”
    â€œOh, in part, I guess. Though I never did much in the way of exploring, even during my deployment with the MMEF. When I got out of the Corps, mostly what I wanted was to run my own marina. Oceanus and the rest just sort of happened.” He grinned. “But I’m damned glad it did.”
    â€œHey, Mr. Garroway?” the pilot said. “We’ve got company.”
    Mark frowned, rolling sideways on his couch to look up at the pilot. “What is it?’
    The helmeted man touched a control on the arm of his chair, and a monitor on a console beneath the forward port lit up with a rotating, computer-drawn view of a small, twin-outrigger submarine with a large, high-pressure viewing bubble.
    â€œReads as a commercial teleoperated job. Looks like one of the Atlantis remotes.”
    â€œAnyone ever tell those jokers these are restricted waters?” Mark growled.
    â€œIt looks like a commercial job,” the pilot repeated. “But it could be our friends again.”
    â€œWhat friends?” Jeff asked.
    â€œSomeone’s been very interested in our activities down here,” Mark explained. “Now, Carver here is a Navy SEAL and suspicious by nature. But sometimes it pays to be paranoid. We think it might be the Guojia Anquan Bu , keeping tabs on our deep-submersible work.”
    Jeff frowned. “China’s overseas intelligence bureau? Why would they be using a commercial teleop drone?”
    â€œProbably because Atlantis is close by, with remote drones that can innocently stray into government-restricted waters ‘by mistake.’ And they can link in from anywhere, remember.”
    Atlantis was another seaquarium resort, much like Oceanus but located in Florida, just south of West Palm Beach. Three hundred kilometers wasn’t exactly “close by,” but it was close enough that teleop drones could operate comfortably for extended periods.
    â€œRange?” Mark asked Carver.
    â€œSeventy meters.” The whine of the Manta’s jet drive increased as the SEAL sub driver boosted the power. “Sixty. We’re closing.”
    Outside, all was still in