by Tony Daniel
When they got within a couple of clicks of the anomaly, Kolorov called Ramos back to the bridge. Absently he wondered what she did in her cabin all day. Maybe she slept with Kish. Maybe she just runs a goddamned sex toy all day long, he thought.
The radiation suits were hellish. So much padding that they made you sweat like a pig on what was already an overheated and cramped bridge. Kolorov smelled bad, even to himself. He contemplated using one of his shower credits when this ride was over.
Ramos came on the bridge in her full radiation suit and faced her first mate. “Status?” she demanded.
“Radiation levels are within acceptable levels, Captain,” said Kolorov. “Can we take these damn sweat suits off now?” Ramos said nothing but responded by calling Mischa Carr to the bridge. When Carr arrived Ramos conferred with her, then allowed everyone to take off the radiation suits.
“Thank Christ,” said Kolorov. He and Massif exchanged glances of disgust as they quickly peeled out of the silver suits and Kolorov lit up the bridge cooling fans. Ramos gave him an irritated look but said nothing, then motioned the two men over to her station. She turned to Carr.
“So in your opinion, technician, what are we dealing with here?” Ramos asked.
“Based on the recorded levels of radiation I’d say this was some sort of marker, designed to attract our attention. It’s higher than background radiation but not high enough to be considered a weapon,” Carr said.
“So we wore those damn suits for nothing,” said Kolorov.
“I’m letting you run the cooling fans off company power, first mate. Just be thankful for that, and hydrate. You should be fine. Unless you need a break in your bunk to recover?” said Ramos. Kolorov raised up in defiance of his captain.
“Not needed, ma’am,” he said.
“Good. Ivan,” she said, turning to Massif, “take us in at one-quarter speed, then hold our position at five hundred meters. I want to know what this thing is.”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Massif, then he smiled at Mischa and went toward his station. She smiled back.
A few minutes later and Massif reported in. “Positioned at five hundred meters, ma’am,” he said.
“Good,” said Ramos, then turned to her allscope. “First mate, please monitor from your station.” Kolorov switched on his plasma monitor and Mischa Carr came to join him. Kolorov allowed her to sit at his station while he stood behind her. He winked at Massif, who flipped him off in return.
Ramos looked through her allscope, pushing in the view repeatedly until she spotted the object, floating in the brine and projecting a glowing yellow light into the darkness. She kept refining the view until she got a clear view of the object.
“Those look like Chinese characters on the side,” said Carr.
“Anyone read Chinese?” asked Ramos.
“Not if I can help it. It’s all gook to me,” cut in Kolorov. Ramos ignored him. Then a monitor alarm started to beep.
“What’s that?” asked Ramos, concern in her voice.
“A telemetry packet,” said Massif. “The thing is broadcasting in over seventy languages. I’ll try and isolate English.” He shuffled around for a few seconds, then brought up the message on the monitors. It was in all-block letters.
“to all passing ships and surveyors. this area and its resources are claimed in totality by the free republic of china. any incursion into the area defined in this packet will be considered an act of war and will be met with total and complete annihilation of any ship in violation of this claim.”
“Well, they talk tough,” said Kolorov.
“What’s the extent of the area they’re claiming?” asked Ramos.
“It’s about three hundred thousand kilometers square, centered on this claim marker,” said Massif.
“That engulfs our entire claim,” said Ramos.
“But we were here first,” said Carr.
“It doesn’t matter if they have more muscle in these waters than we do,” said Ramos. She turned to Kolorov.
“How much armament are we carrying?”
“Standard composition. Six eleven-kiloton torpedoes. Just enough for blasting out rock, not enough for fighting anything big,” he said. Ramos turned to Massif.
“What’s the ID of the ship that left this marker?”
“Just a second,” said Massif as he scrambled through the data. “It says ‘FRCN-9960’.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Kolorov, turning to Ramos. “that’s the fucking Mao Zedong!”
Ramos contemplated that. The Mao was the most powerful interplanetary warship the FRCN had. She was loaded with enough tactical nukes and conventional torpedoes that she could shred the Morant in seconds. There was no way they could survive an encounter with that monster.
“What’s the Mao Zedong?” asked Carr.
“The fucking devil in the dark,” said Kolorov. “A boomer.”
“What’s a boomer?”
“A nuclear powered and equipped submersible warship. We’re just an icebreaker. Absolutely no match for her. She destroyed half of the ERT fleet on Ganymede,” said Ramos, “and now she’s here on Europa.”
“So do we give up our claim and turn back?” asked Massif.
“That would be the sane thing to do,” said Kolorov.
Ramos turned to her bridge crew. “We go on,” she said. “Our claim takes precedence.”
“That doesn’t do us any good if we’re dead at the bottom of the ocean,” said Kolorov.
“I’m not going to lose my job over what could be nothing more than an intimidation tactic. We go on. Those are my orders,” Ramos said, then she started to walk away. Kolorov cut off her path, towering over her.
“You’re fucking nuts if you think we can challenge the Mao,” he said.
“I hope it won’t come to that,” she said, then brushed passed him roughly, followed by Carr. Kolorov went to his station, then opened a drawer. He pulled out his sidearm in full view of Massif, loaded in a cartridge, then primed a round before putting it in his holster. He looked right at Massif.
“For her sake, I hope it doesn’t,” he said.
Captain Ramos lay on her bed, staring at the blank ceiling. The thoughts going through her head were old ones. It had taken her seven years to get a field command in the North American Navy during the Fourth War. She captained a guided-missile sub-destroyer named the Agamemnon, a real bitch of boat with caterpillar drives, surface-to-air missiles, nuclear armed, no less, and both air- and sea-based cruise missile/torpedoes. And she was so damned fast. But that was over twelve years ago.
She’d been a rising star in the Navy then. In line for a full battlecruiser command. But the fortunes of war could often be unkind. The Agamemnon had detected a Chinese supercruiser hunting in the South China Sea east of Palawan Island. She’d tracked her, undetected, she thought, into a tight pass through an undersea mountain range eighteen hundred meters down. The supercruiser made it into the pass and Ramos ordered Agamemnon to follow. There was a turn in the pass, and for forty-five seconds she’d be running blind, unable to keep a photo-sonar lock on the supercruiser. When Agamemnon made the turn, instead of having a direct shot at the supercruiser’s stern, she was facing her torpedoes instead. The torpedoes hit an outcropping on the undersea mountain range, and the rocks fell on her boat, just as they fell on her command. Agamemnon spent eight days under those rocks. She lost forty percent of her crew before she was rescued, then had to be scuttled. Dizzy Ramos’s rising star fell faster than a meteor. She spent the rest of the war commanding a variety of auxiliary ships: repair scows, minesweepers, even a sonar detector sub. But she never got to see the bridge of a battlecruiser, and after twenty years she retired from the Navy and signed up for the merchant marine.
She got up from her bunk, restless, and pulled up the topographic maps of the gas field. There was precious little cover on the shelf, and very few places to hide. But the Mao didn’t need to hide, she was bigger, faster, and stronger than anything on Europa, even if
technically it was a combat-free world. She had no doubt the Mao would take out the Morant at the drop of a hat. She had to have a different strategy than traditional submarine warfare. She had to find a way to make the Mao chase her, all the way back to her landing hole.
She hit the comm. “Mister Kish, how much more speed can you give me?”
“We’re at full now, Captain,” said Kish.
“That’s not what I asked you. How much more?” There was a pause, then:
“Fifteen knots, sir. But it will put a terrible strain on Berta, and she’s already due for an overhaul when we get back to Ceres,” he said.
“Do it,” she demanded, and cut the comm. Then she opened up her desk drawer and pulled out her sidearm, loaded it, slipped it under her tunic, and lay back down on her bunk.
Fuck Ceres, she thought. And fuck the Mao.
Before returning to the bridge, Captain Ramos stopped by Mischa Carr’s station on deck three. “Mischa,” she said, surprising the young tech.
“Ma’am,” said Carr.
“I need you to do some calculations for me.”
“That’s part of my job, ma’am.”
“I want you to keep these calculations to yourself for now. It involves the Mao,” said Ramos.
“Understood, ma’am. What do you want from me?”
“First, I need the atomic yield that would result if Berta were to go critical. And second, what would be the yield if we attached one of the torpedo warheads to her.”
“As a detonator?”
“Yes.” A look of concern crossed Carr’s face.
“I can probably have that for you in an hour, ma’am,” said Carr.
“Faster, if you can, technician. We may have trouble sooner than that.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
“Carry on, technician,” and with that Ramos was off to the bridge.
The run into the gas field was tense on the bridge. Kolorov was being even more of an asshole than usual. Massif stayed quiet and out of the conflict, while Ramos was simply firm and to the point. Engineer Kish came through with the extra speed he had promised, and within the hour they were poised over the field at the prime mark the surveyors had identified for starting the drilling. On Ramos’s orders, Kolorov dropped the automated drill on a tethered line and the device started doing its magic, grinding through meters of rock on the shelf to reach the gas. A plume of vapor shot up out of the drill vent when they hit the gas field, confirming the find. Kolorov hit the cut-off valve and meticulously extended the extruded tubing the Morant had been trailing from the drop hole down to the drill, then used robotic arms to secure and seal the tubing.
“We have a positive connection, Captain,” said Kolorov.
“Good. Open the valves,” replied Ramos.
“That will start the liquefaction process and fill the tubing with the gas, Captain. What’s the point if we don’t have tankers coming for four days?”
“I have my reasons, first mate. Now do as you’re ordered.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Kolorov said as he hit a sequence of relays. The gas started flowing into the drill processor, where it was compressed and liquefied, then started pumping through the tubing and toward Morant’s drop hole, where it would be secured by the valve on the other end.
“Gas is compressed and pumping,” reported Kolorov.
“Good,” said Ramos. “Mister Massif, take us back the way we came.” Massif looked to Kolorov.
“Same course, ma’am? Don’t we want to avoid the Mao’s marker?”
“Exactly the same course, Mister Massif. Those are my orders.” Then Ramos was off the bridge again. Massif looked to Kolorov, who shook his head.
“Crazy bitch.”
As the Morant approached the Mao’s warning marker, Ramos demanded Mischa Carr’s calculations on the nuclear yield of Berta.
“What have you got for me, technician?” asked Ramos over her room comm.
“Well, the U-235 that Berta runs off of is too diffuse to ignite on its own. But my calculations indicate that if we added two of the torpedo warheads to Berta as detonators, we could generate a point five megaton blast wave, with an approximate kill range of four kilometers. But obviously, if we did so, we would lose our main means of propulsion and be stranded here until we could be rescued,” said Carr. Ramos thought about that for a moment.
“Take five of the warheads and link them to Berta. Leave one torpedo armed. And don’t tell anyone about this,” ordered Ramos.
“Y-yes, ma’am,” said Carr.
“Do you have a problem with my orders, technician?” asked Ramos after noting the slight hesitation in her voice.
“That’s a lot of yield, ma’am.”
“It is,” agreed Ramos. “And we may need all of it to get out of this alive,” she said. With that she shut off the comm. The big fish wasn’t going to elude Dizzy Ramos again.
Not this time, she thought.
Ramos was on the bridge with Kolorov and Massif as they approached the Mao’s claim marker.
“Three kilometers to the claim marker,” reported Kolorov.
“Distance to the gas line?”
“Ten kilometers,” said Kolorov.
“Any sign of the Mao, Mister Massif?”
“Negative, Captain,” said Massif. Ramos got on the comm.
“Engineer Kish, please load torpedo six into the launch tube,” she said. Kish acknowledged her order through the comm.
“Mister Kolorov, target the claim marker and prepare to launch on my signal,” said Ramos.
“Are you insane?” said Kolorov, angry. “You want to bring the Mao down on us? Send them an invite to fight us? They’ll crush us!”
“I don’t think so, Mister Kolorov. Now follow my orders,” Ramos said, icy cold. Kolorov stood to attention but refused to move an inch. Ramos flinched, almost pulling out her hidden sidearm, but deciding against it at the last moment. She got on the comm again.
“Mister Kish, load firing control into my console,” she said, all the while staring down Kolorov, who was wearing his sidearm openly. Kish acknowledged, and presently she had targeting and firing control on the nuclear-tipped torpedo on her overhead console. She calibrated the targeting on the claim marker, then released the launch control.
“Captain,” said Kolorov. “Don’t make me stop you.” She looked at him. He had his sidearm drawn on her. She didn’t hesitate. She fired the torpedo.
Kolorov held his fire.
The torpedo launched out of the firing tube and quickly closed the distance to the Mao’s claim marker. The explosion set off alarms throughout the Morant, and she shook considerably as the shock wave swept past her. The crew held on to any support they could find. A few seconds later, all was calm again.
“Resume course, Mister Massif,” ordered Ramos. Then she once again brushed past Kolorov on her way to her cabin. This time she stopped at the top of the stairs and turned back.
“And Mister Kolorov, if you draw your weapon on my bridge again, I expect you to use it, because it will be the last chance you’ll ever get.” And then she was gone. Behind her, the bridge was deathly quiet.
The Mao Zedong was on the Morant’s trail an hour later.
“How long to the drop hole, Mister Massif?” asked Ramos.
“One hour, nineteen minutes,” replied Massif. Ramos turned to Kolorov.
“Closing rate of the Mao?”
“She’ll catch us nine minutes before we reach the hole, but we’ll be vulnerable to her torpedoes fourteen minutes out,” said Kolorov.
“Steady as she goes, Mister Massif,” said Ramos.
“Aye, Captain,” said Massif, giving Kolorov a concerned look across the cramped bridge. Kolorov stepped out of his station to approach Ramos.
“Captain, if we get Mister Kish to push the engines to overdrive we can probably escape before the Mao can catch us,” said Kolorov evenly. Ramos looked at him.
“I want the Mao to catch us, first mate,” she said. Kolorov frown
ed.
“Captain, that doesn’t make any sense. The Mao is a battlecruiser. We have no chance against her. If you persist on this course, I can relieve you under maritime law for endangering your own crew,” Kolorov said.
“Return to your station, first mate,” said Ramos. Kolorov didn’t back down, didn’t move.
“This is my last warning, Captain. If you don’t change tactics, I will relieve you under maritime law.” His hand went to his sidearm. Ramos eyed him directly, with barely contained fury on her face. She reached up and hit her comm. “Technician Carr, to the bridge please,” she said, then changed the channel. “Mister Kish, to your bridge station please.” At that Kolorov turned and started back to his station.
Ramos pulled her gun and shot him twice in the back.
Massif froze at his station. The sound of Kish and Carr running up the gangplank to the bridge filled the now deathly quiet room.
“What the fuck!” Kish said as he saw Kolorov’s fallen body. Carr stayed behind him, scared. Ramos still held her gun, arm extended in a threatening manner.
“Mister Kish, you and technician Carr will remove the body, then return to the bridge immediately,” Ramos said. Kish stared her down, but said nothing. Then he and Carr started moving Kolorov’s body.
“Mister Massif,” said Ramos, “Steady as she goes.” Massif swallowed hard.
“Understood, Captain,” he said in a shaky voice, “steady as she goes.”
The first sign that the Mao had arrived was a conventional torpedo fired across the Morant’s bow. They were fourteen minutes out from the drop hole. Kish had replaced Kolorov at the first mate’s station and Mischa Carr was at engineering. Ramos was determined this was the crew she would achieve her greatest victory with, but she wouldn’t hesitate to take out anyone who disobeyed her orders.