Verron_Birth of a Nation

by Douglas Varnell

  The location put them right between Great Britain and France in the International waters that handled the majority of the shipping traffic. Based on the ships speed and departure time from the port at Pionersk it was estimated to be at this location; Lucy rarely missed a guess. They decided to enter directly into Earth’s atmosphere rather than be seen flying either by radar or a commercial airline. Hunter had timed it perfect for the cloud cover. When they exited the gateway they were instantly in a thick cloud with zero visibility, for anyone but them. Tala had the ships navigation computer switch to thermal navigational mode and for miles in front of them they could see the distinct images of ships travelling north and south through the shipping lanes; now to find the right ship.

  It was a miserable night; former Captain 1st Rank Boris Abarnikov could barely see the light on the bow of the 600 foot long freighter. It had been raining like this ever since he hit the North Sea and headed south along the coast of Great Britain. He was glad to be out of the English Channel and once again in open waters. At 70 years of age, the former Russian Navy officer had made this trip and thousands of others as commanding officer of a Kirov-Class Heavy Missile Cruiser, one of the finest ships to ever fly the Russian flag, but that was many years ago and the Navy no longer needed him and he found it difficult to live on the meager pension he received from the Russian government. He had been supplementing his income for the past five years by smuggling anything the Russian Mafia wanted smuggled. His ex-KGB and military connections made him a perfect candidate for the job. They all knew they could trust him to get the job done and knew where to find him if he didn’t. He had been laying away his money in a Swiss Bank account and after this run he was calling it quits. His back hurt, his arthritis in his knees and hands were unbearable, especially in this kind of cold damp weather. He wasn’t proud of what he did, but he knew if he and the Russian Mafia didn’t supply weapons to the third world armies and terrorist groups then somebody else would. But he felt extremely uncomfortable about this shipment, not so much for what was on his freighter but for the missiles loaded in the port of Baitiysk on the ship approximately ten miles in front of him. He tried not to think about it; another week and he would be a very rich man. It wasn’t an honest living, and if his wife were still alive she would have never allowed him to do what he’s doing, but it was a very profitable business. Based on what he was being paid, he wondered how much his bosses back in Moscow would be making off this deal.

  He was just pouring another hot cup of coffee when his 1st Mate entered the bridge to relieve him. Viktor Belochkin was a young man of only 30 and like a son to him. He had only begun his Navy career when the cutbacks came, so he became an unemployed junior navy officer with no pension and few opportunities for a job. Boris immediately contacted him five years ago when he was approached by his former Navy Commander Admiral Artur Golubov with a proposition he could not refuse, his own ship and a percentage of the profits from what he carried, regardless of what that cargo may be. Since then he had made shipments to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Somalia and many other countries around the world that no one wanted to do business with but none had bothered him as much as this one. Before he left the bridge he made radio contact with the Armenian registered freighter ahead of him. He didn’t much care for the crew commanded by one of his former colleagues, but with a shipment like these they made certain of their positions and status on a regular basis.

  Lucy was scanning the frequencies to catch any signal from the ship they were pursuing. When Boris radioed Artur’s freighter she immediately got a location on the target. An alert went out for everyone to get ready. All onboard the R4, except the people on the bridge, suited up in their body armor. Once again Chase and Daniel would be responsible for operating the tractor beam. Vlad and Hunter would be boarding the ship below. Tala, 99 and Amber were on the bridge, Katelyn, Justice, Cali, Camil and Hon IV were responsible for making certain the crew of the captured ship didn’t cause any trouble once on board. The cloud cover was still holding as they positioned themselves directly above Esmeralda. The retrieval doors were opened and lowered Vlad and Hunter to within 100 feet of the ship’s deck below. The rain was blinding, but fortunately the seas where only a choppy 6 feet. It was so dark below that Hunter and Vlad switched to Night-Vision and leaped for the freighter’s deck. Hunter assumed at 2:00 AM on a night like this, 200 miles from shore, that the entire crew would be enjoying the shelter of their cabins. He had never considered the security required when smuggling a shipment like this. Visibility was horrible and dark-gray body armor isn’t easy to see, but evidently the four men on deck had Night-Vision goggles as well and soon saw the two intruders. Hunter and Vlad were unarmed; the four men guarding the ship’s deck were not. Automatic weapons fire filled the night and no doubt carried for miles across the open sea, muffled only by the heavy downpour. As soon as one sentry opened fire on Hunter another spotted Vlad and began to fire on him. The security team on the other side of the ship quickly joined them and a half dozen armed crew members came pouring out of the crew quarters to see what was going on.

  Captain Abarnikov was just having a sip of good Russian Vodka before he turned in for the night when he heard the familiar sound of an AK-47 being fired just below his cabin window. He quickly threw on his pants and shoes and grabbed his 9mm Makarov, heading out the cabin door. He called the bridge and commanded that the deck lights be turned on to help in the search for the intruders. Hunter and Vlad’s Night-Vision adjusted immediately to the change in light. The Russian manufactured units being used by the crew almost blinded their wearers. Hunter and Vlad easily walked directly into the gunfire and snatched the weapons from each man as they continued the attempted defense of the ship. One by one AK-47’s were thrown overboard or broken in half by the two intruders. A few of the brave, or at least drunk and foolish, attacked the men in body armor with knives, only to have them taken from them and thrown away. When Boris arrived on the deck he was already soaking wet and cold from the relentless rain. The two men onboard had easily subdued his crew and rendered them unconscious on the deck around them. The taller of the two men approached Boris and stood in front of him to stare a moment. Boris had already decided that his Makarov was useless. He lowered it to his side to indicate his peaceful surrender. The big man walked to within a few feet of the Captain and held out his hand. Boris handed him the 9mm and sighed in resignation. The headgear of the body armor retracted into the shoulders of the suit and he thought he recognized the man standing before him, but it couldn’t be. The man he saw should be the same age as him or even older. He knew he was wrong as soon as he heard the voice saying, “Boris my friend; is this what all Russian Captains are doing in their retirement years?” Boris did a double take and replied, “Vladimir Zhdanov never had a son that I know of; so who are you?” Vlad smiled and extended his hand, saying, “It’s a long story and hard to explain. I’ll tell you more after we get your ship loaded. Now you have a choice. You may jump overboard with your crew, you may take your lifeboats and pray someone rescues you before the storm front to the north moves in or you can stay with your ship and come with me. But I won’t promise you that you’ll ever return. But I imagine it will be safer for you and your crew to come with me than to face the people who are about to lose a very large and, I might add, expensive shipment of weapons.”

  Hunter approached the reunion of the two old Russians and told Vlad, “We need to get out of here. We’re wasting time. Tell your friend to dump his bilge, shut down his engines and prepare to be transported.” Captain Abarnikov used his handheld radio to tell Vicktor to have the engine-room shut it down and dump the bilge immediately. Within minutes 4,500 gallons of bilge began to be pumped from the ship. Hunter hated to do this but he didn’t want to have it dumped in the pristine waters of Darsai. As the unconscious crew members began to wake, Boris began to explain that the ship was being taken. About the time he finished explaining that they had no choice, he felt the ship begin to move upward. He loo
ked above him and saw the lights from the open hatch of the R4. The chatter in Russian along with a lot of cursing was heard all over the deck as the entire crew was looking at the mammoth opening above. One of the crew took a look over the edge of the ship and threw-up as he looked at the choppy ocean hundreds of feet below. Realizing that there was no longer any rain falling from above and that he no longer had control of the ship, Viktor left the bridge and stood alongside the side railing staring up. He wasn’t a religious man, but he found himself actually praying. He clambered down the steps to his friend and mentor, Boris Abarnikov and asked, “Who are these people and where are we going? What’s going to happen to us?” A very depressed Captain simply replied, “Somewhere besides Turkey or Russia, but I know we will soon find out.” Boris and Viktor walked over to Hunter and Vlad, constantly looking at his new surroundings and asked, “Why are you taking this ship. It is obvious you have one much better?” Hunter spoke to the Captain in Russian and informed him, “I have need of what is on this ship.” Viktor said, “What do you need with tractors and machinery parts.” Vlad laughed and proceeded to quote from memory the manifest he had intercepted while decrypting communications of the Russian Army Command. “5000 AKM 7.62x39mm Assault Rifles, 1000 AN-94 5.45x39mm Assault Rifles, 100 Dragunov SUD 7.62x54mm Sniper Rifles, 10 KSVK 12.7x108mm Sniper Rifles, 100 PKM 7.62x54mm Machine Guns, 50 Kord 12.7x108mm Heavy Machine Guns, 40 AGS-30 Automatic Grenade Launcher, 1500 MON-50 Anti-Personnel Mines … do I need to go on or should I mention you also have several million rounds of ammo for the weapons mentioned.”

  The 600 foot freighter looked tiny inside the now closed retrieval bay. There were a dozen Russians hanging over the rail looking down at the floor below and at the five armed guards in body armor with some kind of weapon they had never seen. Boris looked at Vladimir and asked, “Don’t you want the Kahana; her cargo is much more valuable than ours?” Vlad looked to Hunter and told him, “We can’t very well allow a ship full of Russian missiles to make it to their final destination. They could end up doing more damage than all these conventional weapons combined.” Hunter thought a moment and responded, “Captain raise Kahana on the radio and tell them you have been detained and that they have 20 minutes to abandon ship or go down with it. Those missiles will do no one any harm sitting on the bottom of a 6000 foot deep ocean blown to bits.” Captain Boris radioed the Kahana and was told by Artur they were going to their destination whether he did or not. Hunter grabbed the radio and informed them, “Kahana if you will look behind you at 11 o’clock you may change your mind. Once again, you have 20 minutes before I destroy your ship.” Hunter asked Tala to keep an eye on the ship below and inform him if there was any activity. In a few minutes she replied that two 35 foot cigarette boats were speeding away from the ship, evidently seeing a 4000 foot long ship above them was enough to convince them they should listen to what he said. The abandoned 500 foot freighter was dead in the water and the 16 man crew was speeding away toward the tip of Brittany France. Hunter did in fact give them the full twenty minutes in order to allow them enough time to clear the blast zone; moving at over 70 mph, they were increasing the distance from the ship quickly. Hunter commanded Tala to have the targeting system fire one 50mm plasma round dead center of the ship. He figured by blowing it in half it would sink very quickly.

  When the Kahana was loaded in Baitiysk on the Baltic Sea there was no ships manifest available for it. Even the confidential reports obtained for Vlad by Lucy simply stated 500 missiles. When the crew loaded their ship, the crates being loaded all looked the same; two of them were not. Both of the crates contained one Novator 3M14E Sizzler Cruise missile with a 150kt Nuclear Warhead. No one on board the R4 knew it was there and neither did Tala as she gave the firing order for the plasma round. It was a perfect shot and immediately vaporized over 200 feet of the ships center. It completely incinerated one of the Novator missiles and everything around it, however, the intense heat detonated the other, releasing 150 kilotons of nuclear destruction no more than 1000 yards from the R4. From the moment of detonation the R4’s emergency containment system activated and all ship functions were immediately under the control of the AI operating system. The crew of the R4 were about to witness the incredible abilities of an R4 Rescue, Recovery, Resupply and Repair Ship.

  Before the intense blinding light flared through the front windshield of the ship, it instantly turned darker than a welder’s shield then gradually returned back to normal as the light dissipated. Travelling faster than the speed of light, thousands of containment drones were launched from the R4 and began to encircle the blast zone. As the combination mushroom cloud and pillar of water climbed to reach its complete height and the spherical fireball began to spread the blast wave of destruction, the drones were creating a counter-acting vacuum of wind as they flew around the radiation zone absorbing gamma radiation before it could spread; the fact that the nuclear missile was several feet below the surface of the ocean when it went off helped to reduce the spread of the radioactive wave and actually served to dissipate some the warheads power. Hunter was in the hanger bay when the warhead exploded; as the ship shook and the noise outside became almost deafening, he made a jump to the bridge to see what was going on. Hunter, Tala, 99 and Amber all looked in amazement as the circling drones created a whirlwind of a wall around the explosion and was quickly pulling it into an ever tightening circle. As the drones moved faster and faster the sky overhead opened to form something that scared those on the bridge even more than the nuclear explosion. Every radioactive particle in the atmosphere or in the water and even on the surface of the R4 was all being pulled upward into space through the swirling vacuum of a black-hole. The surrounding clouds and radioactive rains were traveling at unbelievable speeds into a vortex that would send everything into another realm; actually ceasing to exist. This decontamination process continued for another 5 minutes, then one by one the drones began to return to the R4 and the black-hole, only a few miles above them, began to gradually close and they were once again looking out over 6 foot seas in the dark of night, but all the cloud cover had been pulled into the whirling hole above. Hunter could see lights from ships in the distance and immediately asked, “Ship, can we leave now?” The response from the ship AI was, “All nuclear contamination is eradicated, resume normal ship operation.” Immediately control of the ship was returned to the ships pilot. Tala and Amber proceeded to leave Earth’s atmosphere as quickly as possible. By the time General Vlad and General Hall arrived to see what had just happened, it was already over. Hunter asked, “Lucy will you please give me a complete report and visuals on what just happened, no doubt we will be explaining this one to King Verron.” Amber looked at her father and her brother as she commented, “Well, we now know that an R4 can take a nuclear hit and not even be affected and we know how it can clean up contamination from nukes and no doubt antimatter as well. But damned if I ever want to see it do this again up close and personal.”

  When Vlad, Hunter and Justice made their way downstairs, Tala decided to join them and get those on the bridge something to eat. She kept blaming herself for the incident, in spite of constant reassurance from Vlad and Hunter that it was not her fault. Hunter then reminded her, “You probably just saved millions of lives.” She gave him a questioning stare. He continued, “Those people who bought these nukes were going to use them. I have no idea where, but a lot of people would have been killed. Blowing that ship stopped that from happening.” She smiled and replied, “Thanks, but I know that if I was old enough to drink, I’d probably want one right now. I almost wet myself when that thing went off. I’ll bet we’re the first people to ever be that up close and personal for a nuclear blast, or at least who lived to tell about it.” When they got downstairs again none of the crew was on the freighter. Hearing the noise from the chow-hall, the four of them headed that way. They stood and observed a dozen Russians eating BBQ and drinking sodas as each took turns trying to defeat Hon at arm wrestling and making requests of who
Camil should look like next. Chase, Katelyn and Daniel were being gracious hosts and talking about Verron to the men. Captain Boris Abarnikov approached Vlad and asked, “What do you plan to do with us. We can’t go home or we will all be killed and all any of us knows how to do is fight and operate ship, except for Pyotr my engineer, he can fix anything, he’ll always find work.” Vlad looked at the crew and observed several exposed arms with Spetsnaz tattoos proudly displayed, telling him, “This doesn’t look like a typical ship’s crew.” Boris then confessed, “When we deliver weapons we train buyer on how to use weapons; sometimes we make extra money as mercenaries. With no more wars to fight, we had to find other ways to make living.”