After a long while, the scent of oatmeal-raisin cookies wafts from the kitchen. How is Jupiter making cookies right now? And why can’t I have one?

I make a mental note that in the future, cookies will be distributed before punching to cav-drive. Then I start thinking about ways to install drink holders for glasses of milk….

Finally, Halimah gives me the news I’ve been waiting for: “Five minutes to termination.”

“Can we please not call it that?” Ester asks. She’s sitting at the back of the bridge next to Top, who wears a special harness in his doggy bed.

“Destination?” Lee-Ann suggests.

“Good,” Ester says. “Destinations are good.”

Top sighs heavily. He seems to agree that a destination would be great, because cav-drive is worse than being stuck in a kennel.

I open the comm. “All hands, battle stations.”

As if I need to tell them that. They’ve been stuck at their battle stations for hours. I just hope we don’t have an immediate line for the bathrooms as soon as we drop out of cav-drive.

“One minute to—uh, destination,” Halimah says.

I drum my fingers against the armrest controls. I imagine us overshooting our goal and slamming into the Hawaiian coast like an alt-tech bug against a windshield.

“Five, four…” Halimah grips her controls. “One.”

The blizzard of air disappears from the windows, and I’m looking at blue ocean.

The LOCUS holospheres flicker to life.

“Weapons online,” Gem says. “Scanning for targets.”

“Evasive course,” I say. “Activate camouflage. Thirty degrees starboard. Make depth—”

The ship shudders as if we’ve passed over a speed bump.

“That was our payload deploying.” Lee-Ann sounds relieved.

“Is the payload okay?” Ester asks.

I understand her concern. That was a long time at a lot of g’s, but I can see the large blip on Lee-Ann’s LOCUS, descending at a diagonal under his own power. I have to hope our large hitchhiker isn’t carsick now as well as lovesick.

If we’re lucky, the Aronnax will be moored in the lagoon or even the cavern. That will give us time to get away from our payload and the exit point of our cav-shot—using camouflage to obscure our position.

If we’re unlucky…

“Contact!” yells Virgil. “One kilometer, twelve o’clock, depth ten meters. It’s the Aronnax. They’re right between us and Lincoln Base.”

I curse. I didn’t really expect Dev to let his guard down, even after a week. Still, the sight of that awful purple arrowhead on Gem’s tactical display makes me hesitate a millisecond too long. The second smaller blip comes out of nowhere—right in front of our prow.

“Torpedo in the water!” Gem shouts.

I start to yell, “Leidenfrost—!”

The Nautilus lurches forward, almost jolting my head from my neck.

“Power is down!” Halimah yells. “EMP blast!”

I blink spots from my eyes. The bridge is dark.

Dev’s voice comes over our loudspeaker: “Welcome back, Nautilus. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”