Under the lifeboat the Ensign noticed an odd smell. He sniffed, then crumpled onto the ground.
“God, another one.” The man in the dark-out suit cuffed the Ensign, and gave him a shot of Chloral Hydrate using a hypospray. While he was doing this, he was communicating with Security Central over his implant, reporting his location, the location that the bomb had been placed on the AVRO unit’s container, and the area where the Ensign had existed the water.
Quietly security moved through the dockyard, so as not to disturb the workers. The ensign was stripped naked, scanned for implants, and loaded into a padded, locked, life support container for transport to the cells.
The bomb was another issue. They couldn’t tell whether it had been armed or not. It couldn’t damage the AVRO.
It could panic or injure the workers, and that was a major problem. Timmy and Everett spent over an hour working out the details. In the North end of the dockyard was a scrap metal crushing unit that was large enough to take the entire container. The bomb wasn’t placed to interfere with opening the container, so the roof of the container was opened, and the crane lifted the AVRO unit carefully out of the container, and lowered it into the engine room.
This caused a fair bit of excitement. The dockyard workers had never seen anything like the AVRO unit. The gleaming housing looked chromed, but why would anyone chrome an engine for a Great Lakes Freighter? They didn’t know that from that point they wouldn’t be leaving the shipyard until after the ship was launched. In the background a set of jammers went into action, covering cell phone, citizen’s band radio, and other common frequencies. A series of trucks arrived at the main gate, and the pace of work hit a higher pace.
Meanwhile security was searching the harbor underwater. Divers using low frequency sonar looked for anything out of place. Further out into Georgian Bay a couple of small mercenary submarines probed. The Ensign had been identified. They knew when he was last seen, and how long he had been missing. This limited the range he could have traveled.
Finding the Protei 5 narrowed the range down further. Five submarines and three helicopters patrolled outside of the furthest he could have traveled, while another two searched the bottom. The subs used a Merrill power system to supply power to their electric motors. Almost totally silent they cruised no more than five kilometers an hour across the floor of the bay.
On the American base Vice Admiral Byron was cursing the worst part of his job. Paperwork. It might now be electronic, that just meant that there was even more of it, and it seemed to be taking over his working life totally. He was relieved when his communicator buzzed. “Yes,” he said and the screen lit.
“Sir, our listening gear is picking up some odd noises,” reported the lieutenant. “We have no idea of what they are. They don’t match anything in the database.”
The Vice Admiral thought for a second. “Are they between us and the open bay?”
“Yes sir, at least one of them is. If anything, I’d say they sound like a whale, but there are no whales in Georgian Bay.” He paused. “I think someone knows we are here, and are searching for us. This may sound paranoid...”
The Vice Admiral cut him off. “It isn’t paranoid if they really are out to get you. Prepare...”
At that moment a series of shaped charge explosions punched holes into locations low on the hull of the base in a dozen places. Water rushed in, and the air pressure climbed rapidly causing men to fall to the floor holding their heads as their eardrums burst. The emergency hatches slammed shut, but there were too many holes in too many places. Not one watertight section was undamaged.
Water caused short circuits in the electrical systems. The crab mechanisms which were holding the base to the floor of the bay lost power, and released. The base slowly started to rise towards the surface, where the helicopters had been joined by what appeared to be a Coast Guard cutter.
When the base hit the surface, a crew from the cutter quickly boarded it, and forced the top hatch open, releasing the pressure inside. The base didn’t sink because as it rose patches had been placed over the holes. The stunned crew, except for the Admiral who had somehow suffered a gunshot wound to the forehead were hustled into the brig of the cutter, and it took the now floating base under tow towards Manitoulin Island.
Meanwhile, the container with the bomb still attached, went into the crusher. The crusher cycled, and out of the other end came a huge cube of metal, with a small amount of C4 embedded in the centre. C4 is an amazingly stable explosive.
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