Donlan started to nod but then grabbed his sonar headset and pulled it more tightly to his ears. “Got the beacon. Real weak.” He slewed the cursor around to read the bearing. “Hector, Toledo bears zero-three-one! She’s still here but not where she’s supposed to be.”

Gonzales turned the wheel. The mini-sub came around until it was pointed right at Toledo. He looked up at Beaman. “Bill, we need you to get ready for docking. We ain’t got time to waste. Those Grishas might not see us yet, but Toledo is a whole lot bigger fish.”

Gonzales pulled back on the control yoke to bring the mini-sub up to the mother sub’s depth. He pushed a button up in the overhead and spoke into the little boom microphone he was wearing. “Mama, this is Baby. Hold your signal. Ready to dock. Depth eight-zero-zero.”

The little speaker sounded tinny as the reply came back to them.

“Roger, Baby. Mama at eight-four-five. Course two-one-zero. Speed two. Ready for docking.”

“Roger, ready for docking,” Gonzales answered. “Coming around now. Suggest we don’t dally.”

“Agreed…in spades!”

Gonzales spun the mini-sub around to match Toledo’s course and nudged the throttles so that the ASDV was swimming just a little faster than the big submarine. The homing pulse changed modes so that it fed a constant range, bearing, and glide angle to him, just like the instrument landing system on an aircraft carrier.

Gonzales locked his attention on the navigation screen. He hit a button on his touch screen. The picture changed to show a path sloping down to the landing point. Numbers and symbols aided Gonzales as he steered the mini-sub home. A green ball on the screen represented the ASDV. The optimum approach path was shown as a white box. As long as Gonzales kept the ball inside the box, they were heading safely home. If he drifted out of the box, the ball flashed red, warning him of the danger. The graphics fed by the mini-sub’s computers and the homing beacon were all he had to work with.

“Boss…uh…you’re comin’ in a little hot, aren’t you?” Donlan asked. The ball was flashing yellow and bouncing against the top of the box. The speed showed at six knots. The maximum safe landing speed, by the book, was four knots.

“Yep. We ain’t got time to lollygag around out here,” Gonzales answered with a quick grin. “Help me get this little pig home.”

“TV comin’ on!” Donlan called out. He flipped a couple of switches. The central display screen flashed and then steadied out to show nothing but murky gray and flickers of brightness. The low-light TV wouldn’t be good for much until they were close to Toledo. In these pitch-black waters, there wasn’t much else to look at.