Vanguard | Post-Apocalyptic YA

Part 28: Stay the Course

"Naval mines?" I ask, repeating Nelly's last two words as a million thoughts race through my brain, one of which is an all-caps: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! But instead of externally freaking out, I continue with the blabbering rhetoricals. "Like mine-mines? The ones with pressure sensitive spikes floating precariously that'll blow you to pieces if you run into them?"

"Yup," Nelly answers with a loud sigh.

"Awesome," I say with an excessive dose of sarcasm, even for me. I hate to resort to this emotional crutch, but it's been a really long day and every new turn comes with another obstacle. And this latest revelation can kill us. Easily.

"We can handle mines," Ray says, and I turn to look at him. His expression is cool, possibly even confident.

Holy shit, I think he means it! I manage to keep the exclamation in my head, but the widening of my eyes betrays me.

"Trust me . . . sir," Ray says with even more affirmation, and I nod.

"Roger that, Lieutenant. The helm is yours," I say before disengaging the auto-pilot. Redirecting my attention to the radar, I not only see that Lamer is still in pursuit, but that there's an upcoming change in the seabed's rise, along with a new flashing dot, this one ahead of us. It's maintaining a static, vertical position at two hundred feet so it can only be one thing: a mine.

"As long as we stay our course, we should have clear sailing underneath them," Ray says, seeing the same thing I see and obviously thinking along the same lines.

"Uhm . . .," Nelly hums her uncertainty from right behind me.

"What 'uhm'?" I ask, glancing back at her.

She bites her lip. "I don't know how true it is, but these may not be regular mines."

"Say what?" Ray asks, but the question barely leaves his mouth before he adds, "Oh, shit."

He'd been slowly increasing our traveling altitude to conform with the anticipated rise in the sea floor, but the obstacle turns out to be unlike any were expecting. Because instead of a sandbar or coral, it's a sunken ship.

Ray's surprise is fleeting, and he presses a few extra buttons to safely guide us over the wreck. Our vantage point gives a great view of what appears to be a forty-or so foot long sail boat lying on its port side. The exact size of the vessel is a little hard to confirm since the whole bow has been lost. No, not lost. The jagged tears in the fiberglass hull make it pretty clear that the damage is from an explosion. And the most likely culprit was a mine like those still floating around us.

"Daaaamn," I whisper as we pass over the silt-covered debris. "I guess the captain of this one wasn't careful enough."

"Caution had nothing to do with it," Nelly says. "That's what I was getting at. These are supposedly 'smart mines.'" She makes air quotes with her fingers.

"Smart? How so?" Ray asks, and I'm just as anxious to find out as he sounds.

During our maritime training, we—along with all other Skipper pilots—learned about the general purpose and classification of these insidious weapons. Normal naval mines can come in many, increasingly efficient forms. Some of the most basic contact variety can be left to just free-float on the water's surface, although these drifting mines are better suited for closed-system environments like lakes where they can't float off unchecked. These are the most dangerous types in the open ocean for this exact reason, and thankfully, their use was outlawed over a hundred years ago.

Anchoring mines to the seabed is the easiest way to keep them in place, ensuring that the side placing these moored weapons knows of their location and can therefore avoid them. The length of the tether used can also be a strategic move: a long slack can place the explosive device on or very near the water's surface to target ships, while a short slack can put the mine in the path of submarines. Finally, some mines can be fitted with ammunition, which—when triggered by something like a change in water pressure indicated by a sensor monitoring the presence of a vessel—would shoot a torpedo-like discharge into the target that was hundreds of feet away. With the increasing refinements in technology, the sensors could be programmed to be more and more selective, targeting specific types of vessels.

These all have been used historically with varying levels of effectiveness to both defend allied locations or routes from an enemy or, inversely, to lock adversaries into a harbor. But one thing all of them have in common is their ability for destruction. And if Nelly's 'smart mines' top that, then we're screwed.

"What I heard from my dad was that these mines were placed by the government after Vanguard was populated to keep people from the mainland who may have known or found out about the project from trying to get to it on their own. They're supposed to be effective against any type of marine craft: ship, submarine, sailboat," she says, gesturing backwards at the wreck we left behind. "I don't know how they work exactly, but it was top-level military grade technology of the day."

Ray laughs. "Surely whatever made them run twenty years ago can't still be opera—"

A shrill alarm cuts him off just as the previously static dot on the radar suddenly begins to move toward us. And it's coming fast.

"Negative. Still operational and hella mad, sir," I yell, taking up a ready position to co-pilot our ferry as soon as Ray needs me to pitch in. But he's already taking evasive maneuvers.

Banking at a sharp angle, he turns starboard and accelerates. The force pushes us into our chairs, and Nelly lets out a faint oof from her jump seat. With my attention redirected to the radar, I'm shocked to see the mine's course almost immediately change to match ours.

Smart tech. Fuck.

"Homing capabilities all, but confirmed, sir," I say to Ray, glancing at him. "You still sure you can manage?"

He briefly meets my gaze. "Your call, commander."

Ray and my sister Ellen are the only two people I'd trust with my life, so I nod. "Do it."