Up From the Depths: Book 4 Movement to Contact

by J. R. Jackson

  “Senior, you in there?” a voice called from the passageway. A young man stuck his head into the sauna like maintenance crawl space.

  “What the fuck you want, Bernie?” Thomas grumbled.

  “Eddington is looking for you. The toilets in the bunk room are acting up again,” the younger man announced.

  “Fuckity, fuck, fuck,” Thomas muttered to himself. When was this crew going to learn the proper terminology?

  “Berthing spaces, you fucking dimwit skimmer,” Thomas muttered. “And they’re called berths and heads not bunks and toilets.”

  “Senior, you hear me in there?” Bernie asked a little louder knowing the retired Senior Chief Boatswain’s Mate used hearing aids.

  “Yeah, I fucking heard you, asswipe,” Thomas called back. Bernie was one of the ‘newer’ sailors. He had been assigned to some administrative position at Pearl Harbor and had never been onboard a ship. Imagine a sailor that had never stepped foot on a ship. What had his Navy become? Thomas thought. This was Bernie’s first time afloat and for all intents and purposes, he was enjoying the hell out of it.

  Thomas gathered his tools, wiped down the valve and then the deck before stuffing the rag into his back pocket. He paused and looked at the cramped space he had been working in then placed a palm against the sweating steel bulkhead.

  “I’m sorry, Mo. I tried but some of your parts are so old that I’m afraid they just don’t work like they used to. Hell, a lot of us onboard are old and don’t work like we used to.” His hand rubbed the hard steel affectionately before he stepped outside into the passageway and sealed the hatch behind him.

  BB-63, Missouri had been renovated, retrofitted and upgraded over the years before becoming a floating museum. But for all those upgrades, the majority of her core mechanical systems, with exception to the steam turbines that replaced the old boilers, were from the 1940s, 50s, and late 1970s. The only people that were intimately familiar with her older systems were retired veterans like Thomas and the handful of old men that had taken refuge onboard her when the outbreak hit the Hawaiian Islands. They had gone to the only place they had felt safe and if they were to die, then they would die in a location of their choosing and one that held fond memories. Not some retirement home that smelled of antiseptic, stale urine, and death. The Missouri’s turbines were computer controlled technology that didn’t exist when her keel had been laid so many decades ago. The upgraded electronic systems were all monitored by several computers that had been installed in the CIC and Engineering spaces. To Thomas, the computers were science fiction that, for some unknown reason, really worked. He had assigned a couple of the newbs to watch those screens and for the most part, the computers were running the engineering spaces without a glitch. Still, he missed being in the engine room and watching with fascination the machinery that made something so large move. It didn’t seem right to not have a crew down there monitoring the engines.

  Thomas and the others, the old farts as he knew they were referred to behind their backs, were Pacific sailors. Fleet sailors from a time when carriers were not the core element of a fleet. They had seen action as young men in places these land lubbers had never even heard of. The youngest of their group had seen action in the First Gulf War when Missouri and her sister ship, New Jersey, had launched Tomahawks. Now, well into their late 70s, early 80s and a couple touching 90, the old farts were tasked with keeping the aged battleship’s infrastructure running. The newbies knew about the computers but it took the old salts to keep the core mechanical systems running.

  Thomas was sure that they could get Mo to the west coast. And if they could get there without anything major breaking down and if the mothball fleet was still anchored at Bremerton, they had a good chance of locating spare parts. Thomas had read that there had been a program to rejuvenate three of the old Iowa class battleships to replace some tin can new class of command ship that had less than two inches of armor. The Mo was a true battlewagon and averaged between six and seventeen inches of armor. Her citadel had seventeen inch thick armor protecting the bridge. Who in their right mind would deploy a naval combat vessel with two inches of armor? If they could find one of Mo’s sister ships, there was a good possibility there would be parts available. Bremerton was one of the shipyards that had been chosen for the project. The other shipyard was somewhere on the East Coast and a third somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Bremerton was the one they were closest too. Hell, if they couldn’t find the west coast of the American continent, what kind of sailors were they? Thomas thought. If they could make it all the way to Bremerton. If the ship didn’t have a major mechanical issue that couldn’t be fixed from the stores onboard. If they knew what was going on in the states. If they had the communications equipment to talk to someone. If pigs could fly and if the moon was made of bleu cheese. If he didn’t develop incontinence issues and if the food stores didn’t run out.

  Too many ifs as far as he was concerned.

  ***

  Chapter 26

  DARPA Facility, Nevada Desert

  Ronald Chambers ran his calculations through the computer again to verify the results. As he waited, he leaned back, stretched and rubbed his eyes. Since the drones had returned from Las Vegas with numerous samples, he had been categorizing and analyzing them. The workstation beeped in front of him indicating it was finished. He tapped a key then used the mouse to scroll down the page.

  Fascinating.

  The virus mutated if it couldn’t find a host after 30 minutes. In fact, after 10 minutes it started to fracture and divide until it reached its ‘final’ mutation at the 30 minute mark using the host’s ribosomes and enzymes. He had been able to separate most of the numerous parts of the virus using the sophisticated equipment at the DARPA facility but still had no real knowledge about combating it. The computer took cross sections of the virus then accessed all known pathogens until it found a match. He had been correct when he had identified the initial core element as a filovirus but further in-depth analysis revealed proteins for prions present. With the prions combined with the filovirus that would explain why the normal prions in his samples from Harold had changed shape.

  Whoever did the rest of the work, grafting other viral and bacterial cells to it had been someone with incredible resources and talent. The list of all the contents spit out of the printer at the end of the table. Chambers stood, walked over and picked up the paper. Reading what was on the page sent a chill down his spine. It was like a shopping list for the ingredients to kill all human life. Stepping over to the large LCD screen monitor, he picked up the remote and scanned through the digital images taken and compiled from the drone cameras. He paused at several of the pictures that showed corpses. He enlarged the photos as best he could without losing clarity.

  None of the bodies showed scavenger marks. There was no evidence of rat, cat, or dog bites on any of the bodies. None of the few external shots of the corpses outside showed any airborne scavenger marks. This was extremely odd as carrion birds were known to feast on remains. He cocked his head to one side as if in thought, then quickly scanned through all the pictures. In none of the frames were there any sign of domestic animals that had gone feral. In fact, there hadn’t been a sighting of any kind of domestic animal roaming anywhere. Given the speed and circumstances of the outbreak, there should have been dogs and cats outside. The animals in the houses would have all died by now but the animals that were kept outside or had free roam weren’t present at all.

  Where were they?

  From all his research and projections, the virus was thus far incapable of jumping species. The design of the virus was blatantly obvious as it was tailor made to destroy humans and not affect animals. That being the case, where were the outdoor pets and the wildlife?

  What bothered him more than all the mutations and missing animals was the high white blood cell count in the samples. They appeared to be hyper-developed meaning that they could cope with wound healing very quickly. Essentially, each infected was a heali
ng machine on steroids. His thoughts were interrupted when the computer chirped indicating that it has finished the latest test. Chambers looked at the screen and then did a double take. The monitor showed the chemical breakdown of the blood and cell tissues. There was an anomalous reading that didn’t make sense. Some chemical similar to arylcyclohexylamine was present. Chambers looked at it again to verify that he hadn’t somehow contaminated the test. No, everything checked out. Arylcyclohexylamine was similar to the causative agent in PCP. With it being present in the infected’s blood in a remarkable high concentration; it acted as both a stimulant and an anesthetic. This meant that the infected were not really impervious to pain or bullets or other injuries that weren’t to the head. They simply didn’t feel them. It also potentially explained how the infected kept moving long after they should have dropped due to their condition and injuries. This supported his theory that Harold wasn't reanimated just animated by the virus. He looked at the cell structure and compared the numbers to the test sample. The bacterium present was way off the chart. That didn't make sense. That amount of bacteria was deadly. Something came to mind. Chambers sat back and looked up at the ceiling. He remembered a symposium he had attended. It was about parasites and fungus and afterwards he had attended a party where there was discussion of venom transference through saliva. He couldn't quite remember how that connected to this issue but it was possible that the infected were full of bacteria and through their saliva, transferred the virus. There was no real way to prove this unless someone volunteered to be bitten and then were immediately monitored. The concept of doing something like that was absurd. Chambers made notes regarding the potential for viral transference via saliva before he returned to studying his samples. The blood cells of an infected looked like a grenade had gone off inside them. That alone made Chambers wonder how the virus maintained enough integrity to spread. Maybe it was the stimulant in their blood created by the virus that made it highly resistant to extreme trauma. That might explain how it was still viable enough to be contagious. If only this methodology had been used for other illnesses instead of an eradication virus, Chambers thought.

  Dark Winter. No, it couldn’t be. He racked his brain trying to think years back to all those locations where he had attended conferences on Virgin Field Epidemics. This couldn’t possibly be something like that.

  ***

  Chapter 27

  Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska

  “Are we ever going to get this show on the fucking road?” Sands asked from where he was lounging on the hood of the team Hummer. “We were supposed to be out of here by now.”

  The rest of ODA-141 and Shark Platoon were lounging around the hangar as they had been since just after breakfast. The scheduled departure time of 0600 had long passed. The sky was already turning a dark gray signaling the approaching storm.

  “You think the weather boys know anything?” Gillette asked, indicating towards the small, three man team of Air Force Special Operations Weather that sat by themselves away from the others.

  “Don’t think so,” Gorman commented. “None of their gear is out; they’re in the same boat as we are.”

  A loud thrumming sound from outside made everyone look towards the large open doors. A squat, four-engine, high-wing propeller plane with a bulbous nose cone taxied into view then rotated so that the rear cargo ramp faced the open hangar and shut down it’s engines. O’Toole and Willis entered the main hangar from the pilot’s briefing room where they had been reviewing mission parameters and objectives.

  “That’s our ride. Saddle up boys and girls,” O’Toole announced. “Make sure you hit the facilities before we load up. Don’t want any accidents in flight,” he added.

  With some grumbling the men gathered their gear and walked towards the open ramp of the MC-130 Combat Talon. A second MC-130 could be seen on the apron a short distance away as it was being loaded with air pallets and snowmobiles. Captain Harris’ Rangers marched into view from between the buildings heading for the same aircraft as ODA-141.

  “What’s up with this?” Rogers asked Willis, jerking his head towards the approaching Rangers.

  “They’re riding with us,” Willis commented. “Command changed the aircraft due to weather then changed who was riding with whom.” Rogers shot his OIC a raised eyebrow. “Don’t look at me,” Willis said shrugging his shoulders. The plan called for the Rangers to have left already so that they would be in position to secure the forward deployed equipment and supplies.

  The SOF group pushed their pallets onto the rear cargo ramp of the MC-130 where the load master took over. Following the Rangers was a 1078 LMTV and a HEMTT with several pallets of equipment in their cargo beds. No one mentioned that this equipment was supposed to have already been airborne and ahead of them by several hours.

  The Rangers entered the MC-130 from the side door while the cargo was being loaded from the rear. Shark Platoon and ODA-141 had already claimed the seats closest to the flight deck and latrine. Once all the cargo was loaded and strapped down, O’Toole saw the load master speaking with the pilots. It looked like a serious conversation and not just relating to the mission. The little conference broke up with the pilots making their way forward through the troops and cargo tie downs as the load master shut the rear ramp.

  “Major,” O’Toole said saluting the Air Force officer.

  “Captain,” the major replied returning the salute.

  “Is there a problem?” O’Toole asked.

  “Not a serious one. We’re a little overloaded and the storm is moving a bit faster then they forecasted. Once we get airborne and burn off some fuel, we’ll be able to climb above it and make up some time,” the major replied before he headed up to the flight deck. O’Toole returned to his seat.

  Sands shot him a questioning look that O’Toole replied with a shake of his head. The converted cargo plane started its engines then slowly rolled towards the runway following its sister ship.

  The MC-130 rolled to a stop as the pilots readied for takeoff. The plane vibrated and shook a little as the engines were run up to maximum RPMs before the brakes were released. The ungainly looking plane rolled down the runway fighting to lift off with all the weight onboard. Finally getting airborne just a few hundred feet from the abort marker, the pilots retracted the gear to decrease drag. A sudden crosswind brought on by the leading edge of the encroaching high pressure system combined with a severe downdraft, forced the right wing into the trees at the end of the runway with the outboard propeller shearing off several branches before the pilots corrected and climbed.

  “Sir, I’m getting a fluctuation in the RPMs. Could be we unbalanced the prop,” the flight engineer notified the pilot.

  “Keep an eye on it. If it gets any worse we’ll feather it or shut it down,” the major replied as he worked the flaps to check for damage. He had felt the vibration through the control yoke when the wing had dipped into the trees. Testing the controls, he was satisfied that the plane was mechanically sound to continue the mission. The MC-130 was a durable aircraft with redundant systems; it would take more than a tree strike to cause serious damage.

  The flight engineer watched his gauges, the RPMs had returned to normal so maybe it was just the tree trimming that had caused the fluctuation.

  ***

  Chapter 28

  Brooks Mountain Range, Alaska

  General Artemis Baumel sat at his desk. It wasn’t an imposing desk but it fit him and the room that was his office. Situated in one of the upper levels of Conley’s retreat, Baumel’s office allowed him a nice view of the snow peaked mountain range. Unlike other general officer’s there was no ‘I Love Me’ wall. Instead, there was only a bookcase containing some of Baumel’s favorite adult books, DVDs, and magazines. Baumel wasn’t really a general. He had only made it as far as major before the Army had discovered some of his unique accounting methods as a result of his obsession with pornography. The Criminal Investigative Division that the Army relied on to take care of intern
al criminal matters had stumbled onto a small thread that with their dogged determination, had unraveled straight back to him. He was summarily relieved of command and placed under house arrest while CID continued their search for more evidence.

  In Baumel’s mind he had done nothing wrong. He had only performed his duty like he was supposed to and found a way to feed his habit. Of course CID and the Army didn’t see it that way. Misappropriating almost a million dollars of their budget wasn’t something that the Department of Defense took lightly. During his court martial, Baumel had presented evidence that accounted for each and every expenditure down to the last penny. While those documents were taken into consideration, there was still the matter of locating the actual items allegedly purchased and the soldiers who had been named on the travel vouchers. As the case was drawn out, the news media somehow caught on that a decorated officer was facing a court martial.

  Baumel had to suppress a smile several times when he had encountered a reporter wanting a statement. He knew that all the evidence against him was pretty solid. The documents were falsified as was the material allegedly purchased. The soldiers who had filed per diem vouchers had named hotels and other establishments that physically existed so it was just a matter of time locating the registration records which would confirm that those soldiers had never stayed there. If CID ever stumbled upon those facts, he would surely be facing a long prison sentence. It was putting all the pieces together and his world would come crashing down. Desperate to find some way to remain out of prison, he searched for a means out of the predicament he was now in.