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Chapter 313 Intercept Course

It didn\'t take long for the tech companies\' secret coalition to be formed. They had already come to a surface-level agreement and had begun spending money for their plan, but on the outside it seemed like different companies just coincidentally had the same idea. They had all gone to different lobbying firms with different complaints, but the money they were spending was ten times the usual amount. And that was just the beginning.

Tim Cook was feeling very satisfied and putting his wholehearted effort into lobbying. He was infuriated that GAIA had ignored his threatening email, leaving him with no other option than to go all out. For the sake of his career and his company, he had to ensure that GAIA was removed from competition and their tech in his hands.

...

Just like that, three days passed and the tankers full of oil undocked and headed out toward China on the shortest route. Their escort ships, two destroyers and six frigates, remained for twelve hours, then followed them at a sedate speed. Though, that was only considering the normal cruising speed of the advanced naval vessels; the two-thirds speed they were sailing at would be comparable to flank speed in any other navy\'s vessel.

A week passed and the supertankers slowed further as they approached the pirate-infested waters of Indonesia. With over 17,000 islands in the Indonesian archipelago, stamping out the plague of pirates had been a headache for centuries, and the current day was no exception. If there was going to be an attack, it would happen that day.

"Captain, our radar is picking up some weird movements on approach at zero six zero knots bearing two four zero relative to our heading, zero five four nautical miles and closing. Ten pings on the doppler, and sonar\'s picking up what sounds like outboard motors. I suspect they\'re pirates, sir," said the comms officer on the bridge of the lead tanker in the convoy.

"Comms, confidence?" the captain snapped. The shorthand communication between him and his crew and the ease with which they worked together showed the effectiveness of their Athena-designed VR training program.

"90%, sir. We should have visual confirmation in approximately ten minutes, and they\'ll overtake us in thirty-seven minutes assuming our course remains steady," the comms officer reported"I don\'t remember us having any scheduled inspections along our route," the captain said. He knew there was a possibility that the radar signatures may be local patrol boats engaged in a search for pirates or smugglers, but if that was the case, they wouldn\'t be on an intercept heading with his convoy.

"From the pattern and their number, it\'s impossible for them to be a patrol. Patrols don\'t come in waves of a hundred speedboats..." the comms officer mused.

"Pirates!" the captain exclaimed. Based on the details, that was the only possible conclusion. He turned to his comms officer and ordered, "Report it to our escort.".

The comms officer picked up his radio and began his report. "Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the EV Pacific Voyager. We are currently located at 3°07\'55.5"N 124°59\'35.2"E, bearing three four niner. Radar indicates high probability of a pirate threat, intercept estimated in three seven minutes. Message repeats." He set the radio back in its cradle and flipped a switch to cause their distress signal to repeat. The announcement was repeated for a second, then a third time as they waited for a response.

But even after waiting for a minute, no response was received and the atmosphere in the bridge of the supertanker grew slightly tense.

The captain had a suspicion of what was happening. He took the radio from his hip and said, "This is the EV Pacific Voyager. We suspect we have pirates on an intercept course and will have visual confirmation in about six minutes. Our distress signal received no response and I suspect signal jamming is at play. Please respond."

His short-ranged radio signal was met with silence from the other tankers in the convoy.

"Comms, signal flash \'change heading zero two zero flank speed\'. Helm, in three zero seconds, hard astarboard, come about to new heading zero two zero and all ahead flank. Let\'s buy our boys some time to peel these barnacles." The captain sat back in his chair and muttered to himself, "It\'s time to phone home."

The comms officer ordered a radioman to use the \'flasher\'—a high-intensity floodlight—to signal the second ship in the convoy with the new heading and orders. The signal would be repeated down the line, and the evasive maneuver would be simultaneously carried out by all seven tankers in the convoy.

Twenty seconds later, the helmsman took control of the 1MC and announced, "Ten seconds to maneuver. Brace, brace, brace!" Exactly ten seconds after that, he said, "Coming about."

(Ed note: 1MC, or One Main Circuit, is an internal announcement system that\'s used for the bridge of a vessel to pass critical instructions to the entire ship at once, both belowdecks and topside. If you\'ve ever been on a ship when a 1MC announcement comes on, you\'ll know how impossible they are to miss.)

The massive supertanker heeled over to port as it made an almost impossibly sharp turn toward its starboard beam and the engine spun up to emergency levels, pushing the insanely huge ship to its flank speed, roughly 125 knots.

"Although this will buy us some time, the speedboats are probably still going to catch up, eventually. If they can\'t, then slow us to three quarters in ten minutes. Let\'s bait the fox to catch the hunter. Comms, continue the mayday on frequency cycling, maybe there\'s a frequency they missed jamming. XO, you have the conn." The captain left the bridge and headed to his ready room.

After closing and locking the door, he took his special edition Zeus One out of his desk drawer and said, "Phone home."

The phone\'s assistant immediately connected to the Q-comms satellite that had been tasked with tracking the convoy and connected directly to Naval Command in Elysium. That wasn\'t a feature available to the commercial edition of the phone, which were limited to a Q-com connection range of 250 meters in order to prevent the batteries from being immediately drained.

The moment the call connected, he said, "We\'re being intercepted by what we believe are pirates. Radio is jammed and I\'ve taken evasive action. We\'re baiting them out, so there are a few hours, but—"

He was interrupted by the phone powering down. Even in the military version of the phone, pushing a quantum signal into low Earth orbit was beyond what its battery could bear after a few short seconds.

But despite being cut off in the middle of his report, he wasn\'t worried at all anymore. He left his ready room and returned to the bridge to continue his work as captain of the lead ship in the convoy.