Page 15 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

The dots suddenly disappeared.

“You sure about that diagnostic?” Max asked.

“No question.”

Hali touched his earpiece, a loud squelch pinching his face. “Chairman, I’m getting comms interference.”

“The navigational radar is glitching, too,” Eric Stone said from his station.

“We’ve got tangos,” Cabrillo said.

“Drones?” Max asked.

“Or very angry pelicans with jammers,” Juan said. “Wepps, activate the EMP cannons. Low-divergence beams. Target and prioritize the interference wave sources.”

“Aye, Chairman.”

Juan took a measured breath. TheOregon’s two electromagnetic pulse (EMP) cannons fired high-powered, broad-spectrum bursts of microwave energy, disabling any electronic component in its path. This would be the first test of the EMP cannons since theOregon’s recent overhaul at a Malaysian dry dock.

“Hali, sound battle stations.”

Max bolted for his engineering station as the Klaxon began alarming overhead.

Juan glanced at the camera display atop theOregon’s superstructure some sixty feet above the freeboard. Each EMP cannon was stationed inside of a domed turret with three-hundred-sixty-degree radial capacity, one on the port side, one on the starboard. The turrets twisted like R2-D2’s head as they sought out targets in the distance. Massive new banks of supercapacitors thrummed belowdecks, pulsing energy to the cannons.

“EMPs firing,” Murph reported. “Ten, twenty…forty shots fired.”

“Nav radar clear,” Eric said.

“Comms clear,” Kasim echoed.

Cabrillo grinned. “Good shooting, Wepps—”

“New targets!” Murph shouted. Five drones rocketed sky-high in all directions as six others split up in two groups of three. One group sped northeast and the other southwest, seemingly away from theOregon. Both assumed a low-altitude attack formation.

“Wepps, activate the laser-point defense system,” Cabrillo commanded. “And stow the EMPs.”

“On it,” Murph said as he punched toggles. The new fifty-kilowatt fiber-optic laser defense system was mounted in a larger circular turret stationed between the two smaller EMP domes. An improvement on the British DragonFire system, the laser’s AI-powered software pickedits own targets at will faster and with more precision than any human eye—even Murphy’s. Stabilizing algorithms adjusted for wave action at sea, and a camera mounted inside the turret gave the op center a “gun’s-eye” view of the action.

The laser dome spun on its gimbals as it began tracking targets.

“There,” Max said, pointing at one of the big screens. “You can see them.”

Hanley was right. The drones were finally if only barely in sight. They were small, moving fast, and obscured by the sunlight glinting on the water.

“Here they come,” Stoney said, pointing at three drones approaching the bow. The drones dropped low—and suddenly beneath the cameras.

Juan glanced up. One of the high-flying drones plummeted directly at them.

“They’re astern, too,” Hali said, staring at the rearmost wall panel.

“Laser firing,” Murph said. Silent flashes of invisible light erupted in staccato three-shot bursts.

Juan’s eyes were fixed on the drone above. It suddenly exploded.

Where are the others?

“Got ’em!” Murph called out just after the drone erupted.