"Look! There she is!"
"God. Thank you God. I was afraid that she didn't make it... but what's she doing with the Leviathan along?"
"Perhaps..."
Antoine was about to suggest that Sharon defected, but a glance at Jim's face told him that even if it so, it wasn't the moment. On the IR screens hey observed the redhaired mermaid move in their direction with the broken course of a butterfly. Noticing that her breastplate had been replaced with one sporting an emblazoned Hammer and Sickle, Antoine reached for the voltaic discharge lever. Jim gently put his hand on Antoine's wrist, with a look of understanding.
"She knows better than that. I'm sure she has a plan."
"All right but how do we talk to her? We can't make any noise or we're kaputt!" Greta said, turning from an instrument panel.
"Tovarish kapitan, our guide has stopped. Shall we dispatch her?"
"Nyet. Ensign Asimov, is the beacon still operational?"
"Affirmative sir. She is not removing it. She just seems to have stopped."
"Helm, turbines at 25% and stick to the current course until her last recorded position on it. I think she needs to eat." Captain Tupolev ordered. An old-school sailor raised on the banks of the North Sea, he could accept the reality of the situation. His materialist education did not obscure all the stories his grandfather told him as a child... and while he used to scoff them as pre-Communist superstition, he could accept that neither Marx nor Lenin ever bothered to go check. Perhaps, before this final mission was over, he could even had a chance to...
Sharon had found the infrared cameras on the windowless minisub. She was beginning to recognize UNA style in that the hull was bolted together with very visible rivets and it looked as if three people started to paint it but got bored after fifteen minutes. Hoping that they could understand, she pointed to the Leviathan and made a mock Nazi salute, then slipped a "Leviathan... Nazi... bomb... don't have." Jim translated aloud. "Wow, you win a free ride. Hmm, did the Nazis have nuclear capabilities in your reality?" Greta commented. "Nope. Must be RK62 or 64. Too bad Hans couldn't come along." Jim replied matter-of-factly... as it wasn't already cramped enough for three people. "Fair... so she needs another plasma bomb." Antoine replied. As Jim emptied the launch tube, Greta set the timer of one of the bombs to ten minutes, then deactivated the fuse and tossed it to Jim.
Sat Jan 8 21:09:41 2000