APTAIN PERRY hit the intercom. “Prepare for attack! This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill! We are at DEFCON one! Arm the torpedoes, and plot evasive action!”

There was a scurry of activity as men rushed to their battle stations.

The first M-Geeks hit the sides of the sub, and we all grabbed on to something. I happened to grab on to Fang. We couldn’t just go out into the water and fight them, not at this depth, with its crushing pressure. So if I was about to die a horrible watery deathagain, this time I didn’t want to go out alone. I wanted to be with Fang and the rest of the flock.

Alarms were sounding, people were shouting, and we heard the first clanging, grinding noises of the M-Geeks trying to breach the sub’s hull. (That’s fancy sailor talk for them trying to punch a hole in the boat’s side, so we would all drown.) This seems to be a glaringly obvious weakness of the whole submarine concept. I’m just saying.

“You kids stay here!” commanded Captain Perry, starting to head up to the control room.

“Um—if I might make a suggestion,” said Gazzy.

“No time, kid,” said the captain, half out the door.

“You should listen to this,” said Iggy firmly, and there was something determined about his face and sightless blue eyes that made the captain pause.

“What?” he asked tensely.

“This one time, when we were surrounded by M-Geeks, there was a storm coming, and we rigged a delayed-timer electricity booster,” Gazzy explained. “When lightning hit the rod, it was amplified, and we aimed it at the M-Geeks. They all, like, turned inside out, and fried. It was excellent.” He beamed at the memory, and he and Iggy slapped high fives.

“That was good thinking, son,” said the captain, “but I don’t see how that helps us now.”

“You’ve gottorpedoes, ” said Iggy, as if this made it all perfectly clear.

“Torpedoes are good at hitting a particular target,” said the captain. “These things are many smaller targets, and they’re in direct contact with our ship. We can’t do anything to them without harming ourselves.”

I groaned to myself as I recognized the exaggerated patience of a grown-up who can’t comprehend the fact that eight-year-old Gazzy and fourteen-year-old Iggy probably knew more about demolitions, detonators, and explosive devices than almost anyone else on earth.

“No, no,” said Iggy. “You take the detonator out, then wire it directly to the sub’s hull.”

“If you want to give it extra oomph, take the actual explosive stuff, like the ammonium nitrate stuff, and diffuse it throughout the water,” suggested Gazzy. “Then, when you electrify the metal hull, it’ll ignite and spread the damage out into the water, but not too far, and you’ll take out mostly M-Geeks, since I bet they probably scared off most fish in the area.”

Captain Perry just looked at Gazzy, and then at Iggy, and blinked a couple times.

“They’re really good at this,” I said, as the grinding and clanging got louder. “They like to… blow up things.”

“We know how to do it lots of different ways,” Gazzy said eagerly.

Captain Perry paused for a moment, then got on the intercom. “Lieutenant Youngville, report to the map room!” He turned back to us. “She’s our demolitions master.”

A moment later, a harried-looking young woman with short brown hair came in and saluted.

“At ease,” said Captain Perry. “Young man, explain your theory to Lieutenant Youngville. Fast.”

Gazzy did.

It took the lieutenant a minute to digest what Gazzy and Iggy said. Then she nodded slowly. “You’re a diabolical little pyro, aren’t you?” she asked Gazzy.

He blushed modestly.

“Let’s do this thing!” the lieutenant yelled, running out of the room.

It was barely three minutes later when a hugeflash! from outside lit our small room like lightning. It had seemed much longer—listening to the grinding, scraping sounds, wondering how quickly the M-Geeks would punch through. Then tiny, crackling lights skittered through the water. We waited anxiously.

Seconds later, there was a larger series of popping explosions as the torpedo’s powdered explosive drifted out into the water, where it was detonated by the electrical sparks still dancing around the metal hull of the sub. Gazzy crowed and held up his hand to slap high fives with the captain, who just looked at him.

“It’s like M-Geek popcorn,” Iggy said, as we heard a fast string of small booms, one after another, each accompanied by a flash of light.

“Yeah,” Gazzy chimed in excitedly. “It’s like anignart! “

I was about to say that this was no time for fart jokes when the grinding metal sounds stopped abruptly.

“It seems to be working, sir,” reported Lieutenant Young-ville, poking her head into the map room. “The technique—“

“The Gaz-Ig-Nart technique!” Iggy corrected.

“Yes, the Gaz-Ig-Nart technique seems to be neutralizing the enemy,” the lieutenant finished.

The captain tried. We all tried. But there was no way. When the ensign came to report, he found us all laughing so hard we had tears coming out of our eyes.