Goliath

A watertight door beckons at the end of the path, the vermilion pupil of the computer’s eyeball-shaped sensor glowing above the passageway as prominent as an EXIT sign. The door swings open automatically as Covah approaches, sealing again after he enters the Primary Loading Chamber.

Unlike the engine room, the PLC is open and brightly lit, resembling a small steel gymnasium, three stories high. Mounted at the very center of its decking is an enormous robotic arm, identical to the two appendages mounted in the hangar bay. These crane-size devices were designed by the same Canadian firm that constructed the robotic arm aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle, and are nearly identical in its dimensions. The mechanical limb remains bent at the elbow, the joint resting just below a sealed twenty-footsquare hatch in the ceiling.

Located next to the base of the arm is an open hydraulic elevator lift. Balanced upright on the lift’s steel platform, held in place by the thumb and two fingerlike prongs attached to the wrist of the robotic arm, is a ten-foot-high, lamp-shade-shaped device made of a bronze alloy. The assembly, which attaches to the sub’s propulsor unit, is designed to direct the flow field generated by Goliath’s nuclear-driven pump-jets in the same manner the deflectors direct the jets on an F-22 Raptor.

For a long moment Covah just stares at Goliath’s three-fingered mechanical hand, a bizarre anatomical reflection of his own physical deformity.

The seven members of Covah’s crew are leaning against a massive generator. All wear cumbersome dry suits, weighted rubber boots, and orange flotation vests. Mutinous expressions tell him all he needs to know.

Thomas Chau, spokesman for the group, steps forward, perspiration heavy across his gaunt, oily face. “Simon, the men and I … we’ve been talking.”

“Have you?”

“Yes, sir, and to a man we feel that replacing the propulsor unit in these conditions is too risky.”

“I see. Then you’d prefer to wait until the seas are calm and the sun shines brightly overhead while a squadron of American P-3 Orion sub hunters closes in upon us?”

“No, sir—”

“Or perhaps we should just ignore the problem and face the thirty NATO warships and submarines gathering at the mouth of the Mediterranean, without our full stealth capabilities?” Covah pauses to sip from the water bottle. “There is risk in all things great, Mr. Chau. Or did you think the world would simply meet our demands without a fight?”

“Simon, there is not a man among us unwilling to die for our cause, but to serve this … this inhuman taskmaster is—”

“Sorceress is not a taskmaster. She—”

“She?”

“It is merely a computer, a machine designed to make our jobs easier.”

“In my opinion,” Chau spits, “your machine does not require us on board any more than a dog requires a flea. It is my recommendation that we disconnect the Sorceress programming and—”

COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.

They turn like scolded children to the source of the female voice—a mechanical eyeball-and-speaker assembly mounted to the wrist of the hydraulic arm.

COMMENCE REPLACEMENT OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.

“We heard you the first time, bitch,” yells Taur Araujo, an exiled guerrilla leader from East Timor.

And now Covah understands. It is not the computer that riles his crew. It is the voice—soothing, yet unfeeling, devoid of emotion—the voice of a cold, calculating woman giving orders.

“Mr. Chau, organize the crew into two teams, one group in the water at a time. The first will remove the damaged propulsion hood, the second will install its replacement. Make certain each man is properly secured to the lifting platform by cable. Include me in the second group.”

“But sir—”

“No buts. We will do what must be done to complete our mission. Those are my orders, Mr. Chau, not the computer’s. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

The storm’s fury has increased by the time the first team of scuba divers makes its way down Goliath’s sloped back and disappears beneath the waves.

Covah and three others watch from the hydraulic lift, now poking up through the open hatch of the PLC. The open elevated platform extends five feet above the ship’s deck. A cold rain whips their dry suits, pelting their exposed faces. Dark, menacing swells roll across the tail end of the sub, concealing the rubberized graphite coating sealing Goliath’s metallic skin.

Attached to the guardrail of the lift are four small winches supporting four steel cables, the taut lines running thirty feet to stern before disappearing into the raging sea.