Counterattack Aboard the Goya and Delta Team Members Subdued

The counterattack aboard the Goya reverses the Delta team’s armed advantage by turning the ship’s specialized equipment into improvised defenses. Michael Tolland disables Delta-Three with a shark-control device, then uses the Triton submersible’s manipulator claws to trap Delta-Two. The reversal is physical and tactical, but not yet a clean escape: Rachel Sexton must still persuade the force directing the attack that the investigators can expose the meteorite deception.

Delta-Three Is Disarmed

Delta-Three advances down the stairs expecting an easy shot at Rachel, who stands near an open equipment locker. He assumes she might reach for a speargun or shark rifle, but trusts his machine gun to outweigh either possibility. The confidence makes him miss the danger beneath the stairs: Tolland thrusts an aluminum pole toward his feet, and its tip strikes his heel with an explosive impact. Delta-Three falls down the stairs; his machine gun clatters away over the catwalk’s edge and into the ocean, while the blast has destroyed his right foot.

Tolland stands over him holding the smoking pole, a five-foot Powerhead Shark-Control Device meant for defense against sharks. Its pressure-sensitive tip carries a twelve-gauge shotgun shell. Tolland has reloaded it, and holds its jagged, smoldering point against Delta-Three’s throat. Rachel runs up the catwalk; the plan had been for her to take the machine gun, but it has gone overboard. The weapon is lost, yet Delta-Three is left injured and under Tolland’s control.

The attacker’s belt communications unit crackles with a robotic voice asking him to respond after hearing a shot. Delta-Three makes no move to answer. His silence leaves the outcome of the encounter conspicuous to the other members of the assault team, even as the immediate confrontation has been won.

The Triton Turns the Trap

The counterattack continues on the Goya’s stern deck, where Delta-Two follows a smear toward the submersible and finds his partner bound and gagged in front of it. Delta-Three’s right foot is badly mutilated, but the sharply bent position of his bound knees has slowed the bleeding. The arrangement is both evidence of Tolland’s resistance and a grim accident of restraint: the injury has not been reversed, but its immediate danger is partly checked.

Delta-Two approaches warily, using the Triton’s rounded cockpit dome to watch the deck behind him. The reflection gives him a view of the whole space, but not protection from what lies within the sub. A manipulator claw suddenly shoots out and clamps around his left thigh, breaking a bone as he struggles to pull free. Through the dome, he sees Tolland at the controls. Delta-Two fires repeatedly into the cockpit, emptying his machine gun against the thick shell; the rounds leave pockmarks but do not penetrate.

A second manipulator arm catches Delta-Two’s right arm as he reaches for his CrypTalk, dropping the communications device onto the deck. Tolland then emerges through the Triton’s topside portal, unscathed despite the gunfire, and inspects the cratered dome. He explains its resistance by citing a pressure rating of ten thousand pounds per square inch and taunts the attacker that he needs a bigger gun. The attempted shooting has instead left Delta-Two pinned, injured, and unable to use either his weapon or his communicator.

The machinery that had carried Tolland and the investigators through their dangerous underwater work now functions as a weapon of restraint. Unlike the bang-stick’s single explosive blow, the sub’s claws hold Delta-Two in place while Tolland remains protected inside the pressure-resistant cockpit. The ship’s equipment has changed the balance of force, but the trapped soldier and the armed team’s controller still make the struggle unresolved.

Leverage and the Threat of Retaliation

By the time the confrontation reaches its final turn, Delta-Three is bound and gagged on deck. When Rachel pulls out his gag, he spits bloody saliva at her and threatens that she will die while he watches. Tolland lifts Rachel away from the soldier, steadies her, and takes her machine gun. His trembling touch signals that something in him has snapped; he then moves to a control panel and fixes his gaze on the captive. Tolland’s response is not simply to disarm the threat but to make the ship itself enforce a consequence.

Tolland pulls a lever, opening the large trapdoor beneath the Triton. The bound soldier gives a short howl and plunges thirty feet through the deck into the ocean. Sharks converge immediately, and the water turns crimson. The suddenness of the action transforms the earlier contest of improvised weapons and machinery into a lethal demonstration: the Goya’s equipment is now a means of deciding whether a captive lives or dies.

From the Kiowa, the controller sees the bloody water and Delta-Three’s body drifting away beneath the boat. Delta-Two remains caught in the Triton’s manipulator claws, suspended over the open trapdoor, his feet dangling above the drop. The controller recognizes that Tolland could release the claws and send him after Delta-Three. He abandons the attack’s confidence long enough to bark into the CrypTalk for everyone to hold on.

Rachel uses that pause to press the advantage beyond the ship’s deck. Looking up at the Kiowa, she tells the controller to call the National Reconnaissance Office switchboard and ask for Jim Samiljan, a night-shift employee in P&A. She says she has already told him everything about the meteorite and that he can confirm it. The counterattack therefore becomes more than a physical defeat of two attackers: Rachel presents a means of independently verifying the investigators’ account, making the threat of exposure part of the confrontation’s leverage. The scene closes with the controller facing both the immediate danger to Delta-Two and Rachel’s claim that the meteorite deception can be corroborated.

The Controller’s Retreat

The controller’s view from the Kiowa makes the reversal unmistakable: Delta-Three’s body drifts beneath the boat in pink, illuminated water, while fish fight over what appears to be an arm. Below, Delta-Two remains caught in the Triton’s claws above the open trapdoor. His feet hang over the void, and the controller understands that Tolland can release the claws and send him down after his partner. The attackers’ weapons and communications have failed to restore their advantage; now the controller’s own team members are the hostages whose peril constrains him.

He barks into the CrypTalk for the others to hold on. Rachel, standing on deck, looks up at the Kiowa and raises her own communicator. She challenges the controller to call the National Reconnaissance Office’s main switchboard and ask for Jim Samiljan, a night-shift employee in P&A. Rachel says she has already told him everything about the meteorite and that he can confirm her account. Her appeal shifts the confrontation from a contest of force to a test of verifiable evidence: the controller must weigh the danger to Delta-Two against the prospect that the deception can be exposed through someone outside the ship.

The counterattack thus leaves the Delta team’s assault disrupted on two fronts. Tolland has physically subdued both men through the Goya’s equipment, killing Delta-Three and holding Delta-Two over the open hatch; Rachel adds the threat of corroboration at the National Reconnaissance Office. The scene ends not with a confirmed escape or the attackers’ surrender, but with the controller being forced to confront the investigators’ leverage and the immediate consequences of continuing the attack.