"Right. There is a problem, though."

"A problem-"

"Well, several."

Yeah, several problems.

Patricia put on the full outfit this time-dry suit, re-breather, and the fully enclosed helmet with its built-in Gertrude so she could talk to Toni while she was outside.

She'd gone over the procedures with Toni several times before closing herself in the lockout chamber. She dropped out of the chamber clutching her two-pound sledge and a waterproof bag holding Toni's portable stereo."You read me?"

Toni's voice came back clearly in the headset. "Oh, yeah. You're really going to replace my stereo, right?"

"Cross my fingers-" hope not to die.

The stereo floated, buoyed by air trapped in the bag, and as Patricia pushed it clear of the hatch, it slithered up the side of the sub to bob at the water/air interface.

Patricia followed, venting a bit of nitrogen into her dry suit to counteract the tendency of the hand sledge to pull her toward the bottom.

"I'm moving to the back of the sub now." She let her helmet push the stereo along in front of her, bobbing along, while she slid her free hand along the side of SubLorraine and kicked her fins.

"Confirm fan locked out, please."

There was a pause and then Toni's voice came back. "Confirmed. The thruster display says 'disabled.' "

Patricia wedged the floating bag with the stereo into the shroud surrounding the thruster fan, then slipped off her fins and clipped them to a ring on her rebreather harness. She used the horizontal stabilizer as a step and hauled herself awkwardly up onto the sub, the weight of her re-breather, ballast belt, and suit becoming suddenly onerous as she lifted them above the supporting embrace of the water. The rear of SubLorraine settled noticeably lower in the water, eliciting a startled query over the Gertrude.

"It's okay, Toni. I've climbed on top, and it's just my weight. The snorkel is still above water."

Toni had not wanted to be left alone in the sub, but there was no way that the snorkel was going to open by itself. Not with the engine compartment being at surface pressure and the air bubble at two atmospheres gauge.

Patricia turned her attention to the snorkel, an integral part of the vertical stabilizer. Just behind the titanium pipe of the snorkel there was an ugly hole in the composite skin of the stabilizer. Patricia shuddered. If the bullet had hit the snorkel instead... She decided not to tell Toni about it.

The intake was covered by a solenoid-driven titanium flapper valve with a Teflon seal. A float and water-pressure-actuated arm would close it-had closed it-in the event of unexpected submersion. At depth, the solenoid was insufficient to open the valve against water pressure.

Unless it gets a little help. "Toni, on my mark, activate the intake valve." Patricia adjusted her grip on the sledge. "Three, two, one, mark!" She brought the sledge up to the overhanging lip of the flapper valve. It didn't budge. "Again, three, two, one, mark!" This time she felt it move slightly, but the pressure differential was still toogreat, sucking the titanium piece firmly down onto its seat. Patricia began to worry about cracking the valve. If she flooded the engine compartment on submersion, they wouldn't be going anywhere but down.

"One more time." Again, she counted to the mark, and this time she used both hands on the sledge, throwing her body back to increase the impact.

The cover flipped back, and Patricia could hear a shrieking whistle inside her helmet as the compartment equalized with the bubble, followed by a ka-chunnnng as the hull of the sub rang like a bell.

"Whoa. I heard that," Toni said on the Gertrude. "Hell, I felt that."

Patricia inspected the flapper valve, frowning. There was a hairline crack on the edge, but it didn't seem to extend as far as the seat seal. Fingers crossed. "It looks like we've got step one taken care of. Give me a minute to prepare for step two."

"Okay."

Patricia didn't want the stereo too close to the sub. The noise levels would be bad enough, but there was the possibility that the exhaust gases would raise temperatures in the bubble enough that the waterproof bag would melt. She retrieved it from the fan shroud and opened the bag while she was still perched on the sub.

They'd disabled the write protect on one of Toni's Grand Mal minidiscs while the stereo was still inside, but Patricia still had to turn on the record button.

"It's my favorite disc, you know," Toni said over the Gertrude.

"I'll download you another copy when we get home. Are you ready?"

"Snorkel and exhaust are green. Why shouldn't I be ready?"

Patricia bit her lip, then decided to tell her. "I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen, Toni. The partial pressure of oxygen at this pressure is three times what the engine is used to. It may burn hot, or the extra air mass may cool it more efficiently, or it... it might overheat really quick." Patricia pushed the record button on the stereo and sealed the bag before sliding off the sub into the water. "So watch your readouts. Hell, better yet, turn the display screen sideways and we'll both watch the readouts."

She shoved the floating bag toward the front of the sub, then put her fins back on and kicked after them. At the front of the sub, she shoved the bag farther away, then bled nitrogen from her dry suit until she was neutral, hovering just outside the seam between the acrylic nose and the titanium hull.

"Can you see it okay?"

Inside, Toni had rotated the plasma display ninety degrees, and though slightly distorted, Patricia could read it fine.

"Drop your knee and it's perfect. Okay, do it."The jet engine whined up to speed, then coughed suddenly before catching.

Patricia held on to a recessed mounting bolt with one hand and crossed her fingers on the other. The temperature readouts climbed steadily, reaching normal operating temperatures more quickly than usual. The noise level was tremendous, even through the rubber helmet and headphones.

Here kitty, kitty, kitty. You hear that, Syco Witch?

"No explosions," said Toni. "That's good."

Not yet. "Always a plus," Patricia said loudly, to be heard over the sound of the turbine.

The exhaust temperature readout passed 550 degrees Fahrenheit. Patricia lifted her hand and cautiously poked her bare fingers above the water's surface. The air temperature was rising rapidly as exhaust gases swirled into the enclosed chamber.

On the readout screen, the temperature readout on the recuperator housing was in the yellow and heading for orange. The storage flywheels were up to sixty-five percent, but Patricia expected the turbine to fail catastrophically at any time.

She looked at her watch. It's not worth the risk. "Okay, shut her down. We'll see if that will do it." The relief from the noise was palpable. "God, that's better. Time to see what we got on the recorder."

She swam over to the recorder under the surface. When she reached her hand up to take it, the plastic surface of the upper bag was hot and slightly sticky.

She rolled it over to cool it. She'd been planning on taking it back up into the air pocket to check the recording, but the air was so warm that she decided against it, returning instead to the lockout chamber and muscling the buoyant bag back under the surface, to pop up through the hatch.

Perched inside, legs down in the water, she pulled off her helmet and wiped down the bag closure before opening it.

She put it in play mode and specified track one. Even at low volume, the sound of the turbogenerator was perfect. When she boosted the bass and increased the volume, it was scary.

"Okay. Let's see what we can do."

Timing is everything.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Toni asked.

Patricia laughed. "Hell, no."

"It's not going to work?"Patricia laughed again. "No. I'm just not sure it's going to work."

The sub was perched on the truncated gantry, a mere fifty feet below the surface.

The water around them was dimming as the sun neared the horizon and Patricia was no longer worried about being picked up visually by aircraft, especially profiled by the dark mass of the rig.

Patricia was back outside again, perched on the top of SubLorraine right behind the acrylic nose, feeling like a bull rider right down to gripping a cinch strap. She'd tied a heavy mooring rope to the forward lifting eye, and had the coiled excess tucked under her butt as she gripped the rope close to the hull. They had the settings on the Gertrude turned all the way down, but even so, they intended to stop using it when the Sycorax closed on the rig. The acoustic telephone translated voice frequencies up into the kilohertz range to broadcast through the water and passive sonar could certainly detect it. An operator could even drop the frequency back to hear what was being said.

"She's still coming strong and her bearing hasn't changed a bit."

Patricia closed her eyes. "Yeah. I can hear her now. Get ready. Remember-no more than five percent thrust and watch my hand signals."

"Aye, aye."

Patricia checked her chronograph. They were pushing it. They had less than two minutes until their diversion happened and if Sycorax wasn't in place, the diversion would be useless.

Come on, you overpriced heap of scrap.

The stereo, still down in the air pocket below the rig platform, started up precisely on time, full volume. Patricia could hear it clearly through the water, unaided.

Hopefully the very expensive sonar equipment on the Sycorax could, too.

She'd programmed it to repeat the first track on the disk five times, which, with a slight stutter every time it repeated, should give them ten minutes of turbogenerator noise.

"No more Gertrude, Toni."

Toni answered by holding her thumb up where Patricia could see it.

The noise from Sycorax was growing, threatening to overwhelm the sound from the stereo. Their signal processors probably filter it out. She kept twisting around, her eyes to the southeast, looking for the dark shadow of the Sycorax's hull.

The sound of the Sycorax grew and grew, to the point where she was feeling the pressure waves on her skin, an oppressive, ominous force. Where are you, dammit?

Five minutes into the diversion, she saw it, more southerly than she'd expected, longand narrow and big. Even as she acquired the visual, the Sycorax throttled back completely, surprising her by how tiny and tinny the stereo reproduction of her own turbogenerator sounded by comparison.

The Sycorax still made noise even with her jets shut off. She'd been doing over forty knots and she didn't exactly stop on a dime. The hull wash sounded like distant surf and she coasted past faster than SubLorraine's top speed.

Stop already or come back.

Almost as if her captain had heard her, Sycorax dropped her deflector plates over her jet nozzles, and kicked her jets back in. The reversed thrust dropped the forward motion quickly, bringing Sycorax to a stop at the far edge of visual range.

Patricia stuck her hand forward where Toni could see it and pointed her finger forward. Come on, girl. Let's see what you can do.

In less than three minutes, they'd run out of diversion.

It took most of that three minutes to close on Sycorax. Patricia clung to the rope and streamlined her body with SubLorraine, trying to minimize drag. The closer they got to the INS Fastship, the less sure she was about the plan.

Can they hear us? Are they still listening to the decoy? They must've heard us when we were really running the generator. Can they tell the difference?

Toni headed SubLorraine straight for the stern of Sycorax, keeping at fifty feet.

When they passed into its shadow, Patricia waved her hand and pointed up. Toni didn't waste time acknowledging but pulled the stick back.

Too fast, too fast.

Toni must've felt the same because she kicked the thrusters into reverse.

SubLorraine drifted to a stop ten feet below the intake grates of Sycorax's massive water jets.

Down below, the tinny sound of the recorded turbojets stopped, and after a few seconds of silence she heard the bass and drum intro of Grand Mal's "I Don't Like the Clothes You Wear."

Too soon! Patricia kicked hard off SubLorraine, uncoiling the rope as she went.

She approached the water intakes with dread. The grating was stainless steel with six-inch spacing and the constant flow of water and small debris had polished the leading edges to knife thinness. If the Sycorax were to start up its jets right now, she suspected she'd be pulled through the grid like cheese though a grater.

She threaded the rope through the aft edge of the grate, tied a bowline then tucked, rolled, and kicked off the Sycorax's hull.

Almost immediately she heard the turbines above whining as they increased in rpm's.They must've figured out it's a decoy and they think we ran for the Strand. Oh god, oh god, oh god!

She got as far as the nose of SubLorraine when the rope suddenly went rigid tight and SubLorraine jerked forward, knocking into her shoulder. As she slid underneath the sub's nose, she saw Toni looking down through the acrylic with a horrified expression on her face.

The ventral fin struck Patricia in the knee, and she nearly passed out from the pain, but flailed around to grab it. The water was moving by very fast now, tugging at her helmet, her equipment. The lockout chamber hatch was right behind her, but it was closed, and unless they stopped, there was no way she'd be able to open it against the rush of the water. Hell, even if she could open the hatch, to do so she would have to let go of the ventral fin.

This was such a stupid idea!

She wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. She felt one of her fins flutter as the streaming water caught the edge of the foot pocket, and then it was gone, torn off like tissue in the wind.

She shifted her grip on the fin and freed one hand to flip the Gertrude power switch as high as it could go. Hope Toni doesn't answer. She used her thickest Central American accent, half Nicaraguan guttural, half Belize singsong. "Yo, Beenan. Look at them run! They bought it!" Then, cranking the control down to the halfway mark, she answered, using her own voice, "Can it, you idiot! They can still hear us!"

With a little bit of luck, the sonar operator on Sycorax might think the second signal came from a different source, because of the difference in amplitude. In any case, Patricia hoped they would think they were cruising away from their quarry.

The drag was increasing and even with both hands on the ventral fin, the water pulled at Patricia's helmet, rebreather, and limbs like some relentless giant. Her other swim fin tore away and she wondered, abstractly, if she would be swept clear or break her back on SubLorraine's fan shroud.

She could feel the space between the finger joints increasing and her fingers slowly unbending. Sorry, Dad.

Then the noise slowed-the massive overwhelming drone of the water jets and turbines wound down to a mild droning-and the pressure eased, slowly at first, then more. She risked one hand to reach back to the hatch, and pulled the purge lever, venting the excess pressure in the lockout chamber into the water. It sounded like someone farting loudly in a bathtub and Patricia wondered what the sonar operator would make of it.

She freed the hatch and it dropped slightly open, but as she suspected, the water was still holding it mostly closed. She pulled on it, but the best she could do waspull it down forty-five degrees. Come on! The Sycorax was still slowing, but her captain could speed up again at any moment, either to turn back to look for the source of the Gertrude transmission, or to return to their original course.

The Sycorax slowed even more and the hatch came down further. Now or never, girl. She let go of the ventral fin and clung to the hatch latch, streaming downcurrent before she transferred her grip to the trailing edge of the hatch opening. Here she found she could wedge her body between the hatch and the hatchway, forcing it open by worming through, twisting to get the rebreather through. She'd gotten her helmet and torso up into the chamber when that sound started again, turbines and water jets revving up. The pressure on the hatch increased sharply, pinching her thighs between the hatch and the hatchway. She used her weight to push down on the hatch and pulled one leg through, then the other. The act of pulling her right foot through before the water forced the hatch shut tore her dry-suit boot open, abrading the skin raw on her instep. Blood mixed with salt water splattered drops on the acrylic.

Shit! Just what she needed. Her suit was patched in a dozen places already.

It took longer for Patricia to squirm out of her equipment than it took the pumps to bring the lockout chamber back down to surface pressure.

Toni was incoherent. "But-you-. How-?"

"Shhhhhh," Patricia whispered when the hatch was opened. "They're listening.