The Infinity Affliction

by Evan Currie

  The only way things can get this fucked up is if we’re missing one hell of a key piece of intel, He concluded.

  Kinney just hoped to the high heavens that someone, somewhere, found that damn piece before too much more time passed, otherwise he had a bad feeling about being able to fix this.

  Whatever this was.

  “Captain.”

  “What is it, XO?”

  “Tophatters report on station, no sign of the enemy from the air.”

  Kinney nodded, “How are the Argonauts doing for fuel?”

  “Still combat ready, but they’re watching their tanks.”

  “Good. Make sure we’re ready to clear them back on the deck when they’re BINGO.”

  The Dory’s XO nodded firmly. “Decks have already been prioritized.”

  Well, Kinney thought with some satisfaction, At least something is going right today.

  *****

  Admiral Morrow stood silently as he watched over the flurry of activities on the flight deck.

  The crew of the Dory were in a rightfully furious mood. He could feel it, even from the admiralty deck, and knew that he would be the same if he were still on the flight deck himself.

  There was blood in the water, proverbially speaking, and every member of the military were circling like sharks… seeking prey.

  The only problem was, the prey wasn’t all that easy to find for the most part.

  He was one of the few on board who had a decent overview of the situation, worldwide. Morrow had been briefed on the available intelligence out of California, Florida, and China. Reams of information, almost none of it useful in the slightest degree.

  “Admiral, we’re tracking the bandit target, it’s moving.”

  Morrow looked over, frowning, “Moving where?”

  Alarms began to sound across the ship, and he had a sinking sensation in his guts even before his assistant could respond.

  “Here, Sir. It’s moving here.”

  Morrow suppressed a curse, unwilling to lose his cool in front of his staff, but he certainly went through enough of them in the privacy of his own mind.

  The task force was already in motion, the deck shifting under his feet as the Dory keeled hard over to starboard. The Captain was taking evasive action, moving to put as much distance between the carrier and the threat as possible while the Destroyer screen moved to put themselves into harm’s way.

  *****

  Captain Kinney looked over the data coming in from multiple sources, unhappy with what he was seeing.

  Not that there was anything to be happy about, of course. They had an unknown bandit that had already engaged their fighters, now heading on an intercept course with the Dory itself.

  “Bandit has increased speed. They’re moving at fifty knots now Sir!”

  Fifty knots, and still submerged. Jesus.

  “Sixty! Still accelerating!”

  “Jesus, how fast is it?”

  “Seventy-five knots! Explosions in the water! I think the Colorado’s torpedoes just struck!”

  Kinney ignored the announcements, filing the information for later, he had more important things to worry about.

  “I want every ASW asset we have, in the air, now!” He ordered. “Get everything off the deck, I want every bird in the sky, I want every destroyer to put their Helos up, get it all moving!”

  He didn’t wait for acknowledgement, instead focusing on the next task as the deck shifted under his feet. The Dory was moving up to flank speed, however as fast as they could get the carrier up to… and the Dory was no slowpoke, they were still going to be moving a lot slower than the inbound bandit.

  “Twenty knots and accelerating, Captain!”

  “Flight operations suspended temporarily! We’re holding for another three minutes! Say again, flight operations suspended for three additional minutes. All crews standby to resume flight operations!”

  Kinney ignored the announcements, knowing that operations would resume as soon as the deck was level again.

  He heard the turbines and rotors beat as a pair of Seahawks off the John Finn DDG-113 roared by overhead, heading for the combat zone at full speed.

  “Do we have any contact after the explosion?” Kinney demanded. “Does anyone have contact!?”

  “Colorado is still closing, no new contact reported!”

  Maybe the Colorado got it, He thought, a grim look on his face, but I doubt we’re that lucky.

  *****

  SSN-788 Colorado

  Captain Woods braced himself as the boat tilted, coming around to intercept the last known location of the contact while coming up to a shallower depth.

  “Report,” He snapped out.

  “We’ve got nothing yet, skipper,” The Sonarman responded instantly. “Still have echoes from the detonations bouncing off the air-water interface and the upper thermocline. It’s taking time to settle, Sir.”

  “Keep on it.”

  They needed to know what happened to that contact, especially now that he had made a direct motion toward the task group. It was no longer some random hostile contact - it was a direct threat to The Boat.

  He turned back to the weapons control station. “Are we ready to fire?”

  “Locked and loaded, Skipper,” The lieutenant responded instantly. “If they’re still out there, we’re ready to hammer them again.”

  Woods breathed out softly, eyes roving around the inside of the Colorado’s control room as he just listened for a moment.

  The bustle of the crew was there, of course, but he could also hear the distinct background of the sea beyond the pressure hull. Normally it was a comforting sound, something he found soothing.

  Today, however, it was an ominous source of threat.

  *****

  Argo Lead

  The sea below was calm, the churning that had been left over from the water spout generated by the torpedoes detonating had settled, leaving only the heaving waves and scattered whitecaps below the squadron as they wheeled through the skies in search of their prey.

  “Argo Four, Lead.”

  “Go for Four.”

  Elise looked out over the sea, “Drop to FL15, come around to course four one niner.”

  “FL15, Four One Niner, Aye.”

  The F35 slipped down a few thousand feet, getting closer to the deck as Elise watched for any sign of the enemy. There was nothing, however, and that was worrying her more than anything else.

  “Any sign of flotsam, Four?”

  “Negative, Lead. Ocean is clear as best I can tell.”

  That seemed like bad news to Elise, but what else was to be expected from this entire day?

  “Argo Lead, Seascout One Nine.”

  Elise paused, glancing at her RADAR to get an idea of the location of the new speaker.

  “Go for Argo, Seascout”

  “Dory has dispatched all available ASW assets, provide a secure sky, we’ll locate this son of a bitch.”

  “Roger that Seascout. You’ve got your CAP, good hunting.” Elise responded, before she switched over to the squadron channel. “Alright Argonauts, the Boat sent out their Anti-Submarine units, let’s give them some cover.”

  *****

  USS Rafael Peralta DDG-115

  “Speak to me, people!”

  Brody Kirk, Captain of the Peralta, was stalking the bridge of the Burke Class destroyer as the alarms blazed in the background. No one had much of an idea as to what exactly was going on, so at the moment he would take what he could get in terms of intel.

  “No contact since the detonations of the Colorado’s torpedoes, Captain. They might have got him…”

  “Might have isn’t enough,” Brody responded. “Until we confirm that bandit is down we assume the worst.”

  “Aye Sir.”

  Brody made his way over to the SONAR station, eyes flicking over the shoulder of the lieutenant on duty, reading off the instrumentation himself. There was nothing in the water but echoes of the explosions, at least as far as
they could see.

  That might be a good sign, but it was also a problem.

  There should be something there, even if the torpedoes had taken out the contact there should be signs of debris in the water somewhere.

  He didn’t like it.

  Brody walked across the bridge, walking up to the front as he reached for a pair of field glasses.

  “Anything on the surface?” He asked softly.

  “Negative, Sir,” His XO, Sean McKenzie said with a simple shake of his head. “All quiet out there.”

  “I really don’t like this.”

  Sean snorted softly, “What’s to like?”

  Brody didn’t respond, but he couldn’t deny the truth in that. There was damn little about the current situation to like. The night started with what happened to San Francisco, and it seemed intent on going downhill from there.

  “Captain, we’ve got something in the water!”

  Brody turned, glancing over to the SONAR operator.

  “Something?” He demanded sharply, “Give me more than that!”

  “Not sure what more I’ve got, it’s just… there’s an echo or…” The young man shook his head, “I don’t know, Captain. Never heard anything quite like it. It’s almost like something is cavitating, but the pitch is all wrong.”

  The pitch…

  Brody frowned, turning back to the sea briefly, before glancing back, “Vector to the unknown contact?”

  “I don’t know if it’s a contact, Sir, but somewhere off the port bow. It’s fuzzy,” The SONAR operator said apologetically.

  Brody didn’t listen to the apology. He just lifted the glasses to his eyes and looked out ahead and to the left. His mind was still running over that description as he searched the seas.

  Something clicked.

  “The pitch…”

  “Sir?” Sean looked over.

  “The pitch,” He blinked. “It’s not cavitating… It’s super…”

  He jerked up right, “Hard to starboard! Flank speed! Signal collision!”

  “Hard to starboard, Aye!”

  The bell rang as the Destroyer’s engines whirred to full military power, causing the ship to surge through the pacific chop.

  “Skipper, what’s…!?”

  Sean’s question was cut off as a sound unlike any of them had ever heard became audible over the alarms and ruckus on board. He looked around, confused until a call went out.

  “Shadow in the water! Collision! Collision! Collision!”

  Brody had a particularly vile epithet on the tip of his tongue, but he saved his breath as he dove across the bridge and grabbed the weapon’s officer.

  “Torpedoes! Fire them! Fire them all!”

  *****

  Doris Miller

  A fireball erupted in the morning light, smoke following soon after as the shout went up from the crew on the deck of the Dory.

  “Captain, it was the Peralta… they’re gone, no response.”

  Kinney grimaced. “Put search and rescue in the air. Continue on course.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  The Dory was running, as much as it grated on all of them. She was a carrier. Her power was best utilized from as far away as possible. They didn’t want to take on anyone in close if they could help it.

  Kinney looked out over the nearly bare deck of the Carrier. He didn’t think he could remember a time it was quite that bare, at least not when she was as empty below decks as above.

  “Get me the Admiral,” He said.

  “Aye Captain.”

  *****

  Morrow nodded absently as he listened to the man on the phone.

  “Yes, Captain. I concur. Make for Pearl, if the task group can’t handle this, we need to get it in range of some heavier firepower. I’ll make the call.”

  The admiral hung up the old phone handset, then turned to his computer and opened up a channel to the Joint Chiefs.

  What in the hell are we dealing with?

  *****

  Chapter 16

  Florida

  It circled.

  The prey were clustered nearby, and so it was testing the boundaries of their power. They appeared insufficient.

  How did such as these kill one of it?

  Caution.

  No. Fortune. The universe was such that even that which was weak could succeed on occasion. That was the truth.

  Anger.

  The usurpers would be taken and converted. The weak might be able to succeed on occasion, but they were insufficient to the task in the true test of time.

  It moved.

  *****

  Ben was edging around the shadows of the trees when the blur of motion caused him to flinch. The black form erupted from the trees and he heard the aborted scream, the motion gone before he could even finish his turn to observe the direction.

  “Shit!”

  Kirth was swearing, knuckles white as he clenched his 1911, the barrel sweeping the tree line as he sought a target.

  “It got Jace!”

  Ben blinked, doing a quick headcount. They were indeed down one of the Marine privates. He hadn’t even heard the kid’s name spoken up to this point, but he could remember the fresh-faced Marine he’d pulled out of the water.

  Damn it.

  “Sergeant,” He said. “Highly suggest tightening the formation, bring in the perimeter.”

  Kirth spared him a glance, but to the NCO’s credit he didn’t hesitate to nod and pull his squad in. They circled up, covering all corners as best they could. Ben unconsciously pushed Sandra into the middle of the group without a thought.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  He wasn’t entirely sure anyone could answer that, he certainly couldn’t without a lot more intelligence on the local opposition they were dealing with, but for the moment it was a moot point. He focused beyond the clearing, looking for the assault that he knew was coming.

  “Here they come,” He found himself saying as he pushed his sidearm forward.

  The shadows were visible in the woods, approaching fast from unpredictable paths.

  The weapons roared with authority, a phased plasma burst lancing out at just a few points under the speed of light in the air medium. The target didn’t have a chance to yelp, bodily fluids going super critical almost instantly as the burst contacted, a red mist splattering the trees closest to it.

  Ben knew it was futile. They were in a bad way, there was no other way to describe things while being remotely honest. They were screwed.

  Should have just gotten the hell out of here when I had the chance.

  The problem was that he hadn’t exactly been trained that way, and it was a hard thing to go against the culture he’d been brought up in.

  “Tighten up,” Kirth ordered sharply, “Cover your arcs!”

  The makeshift weapons they’d brought with them from the lodge, along with the Marines’ sidearms and Gwen’s lever action rifle, roared into operation as more of the enemy made themselves known between the trees.

  Ben recognized instantly that they were coming in fast, almost with dogged determination to achieve their objective. That was indicative of one of two types of scourge.

  The first was the lesser intelligence type, almost animalistic by comparison to human level intellect. They tended to get territorial and aggressive when challenged.

  In that case, Ben figured they might be in half decent shape. Not in good shape by any means, but certainly better than if it were the second option.

  Smarter, more devious examples of the scourge were likely to offer up sacrifices to the enemy’s guns if it bought them an opening around the back.

  They had the swamp behind them, which didn’t entirely rule out an assault from that direction, but it made it more difficult to be sure.

  “Sarge,” Ben called, “Advise we watch for flankers.”

  Kirth looked over briefly, but just nodded, “You heard him boys! Eyes peeled just in case these fucks try something funny.”

&nbs
p; “Ain’t nothing funny about these things, Sarge!”

  Ben didn’t check to see who’d said that, he didn’t have time and couldn’t be bothered to dredge up any inclination to disagree anyway.

  The scourge was no joke.

  A shadow flitted through the trees and he quickly fired off another shot but was pretty sure all he hit was the local flora.

  “Eight o’clock!”

  Ben resisted the urge to turn, keeping his arc covered and hoping that the locals could handle the threat. Gun fire peppered from near him, but he was more distracted by an odd impact sound that he didn’t recognize.

  “Got the bastard!”

  “Nice shot, Robin. Do it again,” Kirth congratulated the speaker, causing Ben to risk a quick glance as he heard a screaming sound that send shivers down his spine.

  One of the infected, it looked like a pig or hog, or it used to be at least, was squealing and twisting on the ground with an arrow through it.

  Damn, Ben thought, surprised. The bow had pinned the thing to the ground with enough force to keep even an infected in place.

  That was… surprising, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He spared a brief second to put a shot into it, killing the beasty just to be sure, then refocused forward.

  “Shit!” Korth swore, “There’s more of them!”

  That, Ben decided a second later, was an understatement.

  “Someone’s been busy,” He growled under his breath.

  *****

  They killed another!

  The prey would pay for that, the being determined with animalistic fervor. Its others belonged only to itself.

  With a thought self sent the others into motion, converging on the targets. They were grouped together, with stingers but only one true threat.

  Self slowed the motion of one of its others as it passed the clearing, giving the prey a good few seconds to spot it and react. It was necessary, drawing out the threat with careful planning.

  The burst of death came flashing out, frying the connection to the other with finality. Self noted the source with satisfaction.

  Now, it would die.