The propellers made a terrible noise as they came to life and slowly pushed the Beacon across the path of the deepship. Pine and his team lowered the long net over the port rail, letting it slip carefully into the water. When the last buoy dropped, he called up to the bridge, and Caledonia directed the ship away from the net.

It was eerily quiet. The only sounds were the slow splashes of propellers against the water and the soft roar of the engine. Caledonia watched the line of orange buoys shrink in their wake, and the second they were far enough, she ordered the engines to full. The propellers shrieked, but the Beacon rushed forward.

The crew stood, waiting with harpoons aimed at their invisible assailant. Minutes passed, and the line of buoys didn’t move. Had the deepship seen the trap? Had they cut beneath, in pursuit once more? Panic, insidious and uncomfortable, wormed its way up Caledonia’s throat. She couldn’t fight what she couldn’t see. And she couldn’t protect her crew if she couldn’t fight.

An order to drop every cable mine they had was ready on her tongue when all at once, the buoys moved. They snapped together like wings and hissed along the top of the water in a violent line.

“Those buoys won’t last long!” Pine shouted from his position on deck.

Almost before he’d finished, a single buoy broke away from the net, bouncing once over the surface of the ocean to settle far behind them.

“Cut the engines!” Caledonia returned the wheel to her bridge crew and raced to the deck. They needed to be fast. And they needed to hit their targets. “Harpoons ready!”

Sledge, Triple, and their small team stood at even intervals along aft deck, each of them tracking the approaching ship. One by one, the buoys were losing their grip, flying away from the net as though shocked. With each missing buoy, the shape of the ship became less and less clear. They didn’t need clarity, Caledonia reminded herself, they just needed direction.

The deepship drew closer, buoys popping off at an alarming rate.

“Fire!” Caledonia called.

But just then, the Beacon rocked under a fresh explosion, knocking the crew off their marks. Three harpoons flew wildly through the air, plopping harmlessly into the water nowhere near the deepship.

The Beacon sputtered, one of the propellers spinning out of sync with the other and arching them directly into the path of the deepship. Sledge and Triple regained their feet and brought their weapons back to their shoulders.

And just as the last buoy flew from the netting, they fired.

The harpoons hit their mark. Their tethers snapped tight against the Beacon’s rail. Then, just as quickly, the harpoons burst out of the water, dragging steel and netting with them and crashing against their hull.