The Swede nodded grimly. “If your purpose was to catch up with the Ebba Maersk, why didn’t you use your own helicopter?”
“Because the Ebba Maersk is infested with thousands of combat drones that will destroy anything that gets within twenty miles of it.”
The Tonsberg was already completing its turn and leveling out.
The captain threw up his hands. “What you’re saying is madness.”
Odin traced his finger along the map, passing two red pins. “Those distress signals. Look, you marked their location on your own map. It’s the same course the Ebba Maersk took.” Odin lifted a handset from the console and passed it to the captain. “Here. Try to raise them on the radio. You won’t be able to. The crew is either dead or in hiding.”
The captain grabbed the radio and eyed Odin before keying the mic. “Tonsberg to container ship Ebba Maersk. Tonsberg to container ship Ebba Maersk. Do you copy?”
As the captain continued transmitting, Odin started making calculations on the relative movements of the two ships while McKinney watched closely. From his pencil markings she could see they weren’t going to close the distance for a while.
“Will we catch it in time?”
He started to rerun his calculations. “I think we can.”
In a few minutes Foxy, Mooch, Ripper, and Smokey entered, their pistols holstered. Foxy shrugged. “What’s the plan?”
Everyone on the bridge gathered around, including the dour-looking captain, who had given up trying to raise the Ebba Maersk.
Odin gestured to the navigational chart as he spoke. “At twenty-six knots it will take us roughly three hours and fifty minutes to close with the Ebba Maersk. During that time she will travel another eighty-one and a half miles closer to Carrier Strike Group Five. That puts them within the radius of their CAP and picket ships—but only just.”
Foxy nodded. “Hawkeye flights should spot the drones on radar.”
Odin gestured to the nearby console. “Look at the swarm around the Maersk on the radar screen, Foxy. What’s it look like to you?”
Foxy and the others turned to look at a nearby radar screen. “It looks like rain.”
“Right. There are so many of them hovering around the ship, so close together, it looks like a squall line—like no aircraft any radar operator’s seen before.”
Foxy nodded. “Tricky bastards . . .”
“I estimate we’ll be within the colony’s attack radius for almost two hours before we catch up with the hive ship.”
McKinney sucked in a breath. “Two hours?”
Foxy whistled. “That’s a lot of time for them to go to town on us.”
Odin nodded to McKinney. “The professor thinks there will be various morphologies of drones—and we saw that as we flew in. We can take some of this ship’s firefighting gear—the oxygen masks, for instance—to conceal our chemical signature and faces. As for the ship . . . we’ll just need to defend it as best we can until we reach our target.”
No one looked particularly enthused about this plan.
The captain frowned. “But if what you’re saying is true—that there are thousands of combat drones—what do you plan on doing when you catch up to the Ebba Maersk?”
Odin looked him straight in the eye. “We’re going to ram it.”
The look of horror on the man’s face broke new ground. “This is insanity! Do you realize that the Ebba Maersk is one of the largest ships in the world? The environmental damage—not to mention . . . that’s over a billion dollars’ worth of shipping not including my cargo—not to mention the cargo on the Ebba Maersk.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty certain they’re insured, Captain.”
Foxy was shaking his head. “This is one shitty plan, boss.”
Ripper nodded agreement. “He’s right.”
The Swedish captain nodded vigorous agreement, his accent thicker than usual. “I am in agreement that this iz a shitty plan.”
Foxy stabbed at the map. “How do we get clear? We sent the only damn lifeboat off with the crew. What happens when we ram this thing—we just hope we haven’t sustained enough damage to sink ourselves? And what about the swarms of drones still flying around?”
McKinney was staring at her backpack, also shaking her head slowly. “You’ll never get away even if this ship doesn’t sink from the collision.”
Odin stared at the navigation chart, obviously considering her words.
McKinney sighed. “But I have a better idea.”
Everyone turned to her—Odin looking most relieved of all. “Good. Let’s hear it, Professor.”