Chapter 57 - DEAD WATER CONTACT
The two autonomous patrol boats split up, executing a textbook pincer maneuver around our starboard and port flanks.
"They're hailing us," Kowalski said, tapping the VHF receiver.
A flat, synthesized voice crackled through the speaker: *UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL AT COORDINATES 36.8 NORTH, 75.2 WEST. YOU ARE ENTERING A RESTRICTED MARITIME ZONE. CUT YOUR ENGINES AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL BE MET WITH LETHAL ENGAGEMENT.*
"Lethal engagement in international water?" Kowalski growled. "Who the hell gave these bastards the authority?"
"They gave it to themselves," I said. "Frank, kill the running lights. Keep us steady into the trough of the waves."
"Grant, their turrets are powering up!" Sarah warned, tracking the infrared thermal signatures on her portable display. "Remote .50 cal mounts on both bows!"
"Let them come close," I told her, picking up a heavy Winchester Model 70 hunting rifle Kowalski kept clipped beneath the chart bench. It was chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum—a round built to take down grizzly bears at six hundred yards. "They're machines, Sarah. They don't dodge. They follow predictive math."
The lead drone boat surged forward, closing the distance to two hundred yards. Its high-intensity searchlight suddenly ignited, painting *The Iron Maiden* in blinding white illumination. The twin barrels of its remote machine gun tilted downward, locking onto our wheelhouse.
"Kowalski, hard port right now!" I yelled.
Frank spun the heavy wooden wheel with everything he had. The steel trawler lurched violently into the swell, dropping into the trough of a six-foot wave.
*RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!*
A hail of heavy armor-piercing rounds ripped through the empty air where our wheelhouse had been a half-second before, splintering the wooden gunwales and shattering the starboard searchlight.
I kicked open the wheelhouse door, leaned out into the biting spray, and rested the heavy rifle barrel on the steel handrail. Through the iron sights, I ignored the blinding searchlight and focused entirely on the small, glowing blue junction box mounted directly below the gun turret’s elevation servo.
I squeezed the trigger.
The magnum cartridge kicked hard into my shoulder. Across the dark water, a brilliant shower of sparks erupted from the drone's turret base. The machine gun froze mid-traverse, its digital actuators dead.
"One!" I yelled, cycling the heavy bolt with a sharp metallic clack.
The second drone skiff attempted to flank our stern, but Kowalski didn't wait. He threw the starboard engine into full reverse and slammed the port diesel to the wall. The heavy steel stern of the sixty-ton crabbing vessel swung around like a battering ram, colliding violently with the lightweight carbon-fiber hull of the drone.
The composite hull of the interceptor folded like cardboard under the sheer tonnage of the steel trawler, exploding into a shower of fiberglass shards and twisted aluminum. The engine block sank beneath the dark water with a hiss of steam.
The first drone, now blind and weaponless, turned sharply to break away and report the contact.
"Don't let it broadcast!" Sarah cried.
I leveled the rifle, took a half-breath, and put a single .300 Magnum slug through its center satellite dome. The dish shattered, the red LED died, and the drone drifted dead in the water, caught in the Atlantic swell.
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"That bought us twenty minutes before the mothership notices their telemetry dropped," I said, lowering the rifle. "Frank, push the engines until they glow. We're going in."
***
