by JE Gurley
He sighed to break the depressive mood that had settled over him of late. He attributed his melancholy to the strange weather and the odd reports of ship sinkings. Since the American drillship had mysteriously gone down with all hands last fall, eleven ships had joined it. Odds like that were unnatural even in the harsh seas of the Arctic Ocean.
He sighed again, aloud this time. “I’m going below for a glass of vodka. Would you join me, Evgeni?”
Aleyev smiled. “If you insist, sir.”
“I do not wish to drink alone.”
As if sensing his friend’s mood, his first mate offered, “Perhaps I could ask Kalek and Alexi to join us for a game of Vint.”
Usually, a brisk game of Vint, similar to Whist or Bridge, was an enjoyable way to pass the time; however, today he was not in the mood for as much company, nor could his mind concentrate on the cards.
“Not this morning I think,” he replied.
Aleyev looked perplexed but shrugged his shoulders.
The wardroom was empty, which pleased Anastasiy. The steward immediately stepped from the side door with two cups of coffee. Anastasiy waved him away. “Bring my bottle.” He removed his hat and laid it on the table beside him. He ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair and stroked his salt-and-pepper beard.
The steward said nothing but returned a moment later with two glasses and a bottle of Zelyonya Marka vodka, his favorite brand. He poured two liberal amounts into each glass and left. Anastasiy lifted his glass and said, “Vashe zdrovie!”
“Cheers,” Aleyev replied in heavily accented English in keeping with his fascination of all things Western.
Anastasiy downed his vodka in one gulp, allowing the familiar burn to trickle down his throat. Aleyev took only a token sip. Anastasiy arched one eyebrow over his sea blue eye and looked at him.
“You’re not drinking, Evgeni?”
“I am on duty, and I am not the captain with a captain’s privileges.”
Anastasiy nodded. “You are right. I will drink enough for both of us. This run is boring. I need ice.” He slammed his fist on the table, startling Aleyev and the steward, who peeked around the corner ready to provide the requested ice. Anastasiy shook his head. “No, I need to feel the ship shudder as it rams ice, crushes it out of the way, as a bull through a crowd.” He set his empty glass on the table. “What is wrong with me, Evgeni? I was never bored before.”
Aleyev’s face became serious. “A sailor should be buried at sea, not in the dirt. Do not retire, Anas. They cannot take your ship from you.”
“But my wife …” The excuse sounded trite even to him. Raisa would not care. Even on his two-week furloughs, he restlessly stalked the floors of their home like the deck of a ship after only a week. She understood and encouraged his love of the sea. Perhaps she enjoyed her time alone as much as he did his time at sea.
“Men of the sea, such as you and I, belong here. The sea is our mistress, one we can share without jealousy because she is so big, like a fat, rosy-cheeked, babushka-wearing Ukrainian whore.”
The image brought a chuckle to Anastasiy’s lips. He splashed a finger of vodka in his glass and raised it in the air. “To fat Ukrainian whores.”
This time, Aleyev poured vodka in his glass and joined him in his toast.
The intercom crackled to life. “Captain, sonar has detected an object two kilometers astern. It is closing rapidly with our position.”
Anastasiy frowned. A submarine? Ours or American? Or Chinese? The Chinese were growing bolder lately, exerting their dominance on the seas. He exchanged glances with Aleyev and saw his concern mirrored in his first mate’s eyes. “I’ll be there in a moment. Change our heading five degrees north. See if it follows.”
“The Americans?” Aleyev asked.
“Unlikely. They know we constantly monitor these waters. Besides, what of interest would bring them here?” He rose from his seat. “We will soon see.”
On the bridge, he went directly to the sonar room. He saw immediately that the object had changed course to follow them. “What is its speed and size?” he asked the sonarman.
“Twenty knots. I estimate the object at just over forty-two meters in length. The image is blurry, difficult to hold a fix on.”
“Some kind of stealth technology?”
The sonarman shook his head. “No, sir. It’s more likely it is not metal. Organic perhaps.”
Anastasiy relaxed. Whales swam the waters of the Arctic this time of year hunting walruses. He was getting jumpy over nothing.
“Continue to keep an eye on it. Report to me if it gets too close. We will send it scurrying away with a sonic blast.”
“Yes, sir.”
Anastasiy caught Aleyev smiling at him. “What?”
“For a moment there, you looked like the old Anastasiy, eager to do battle. Still bored?”
Anastasiy returned Aleyev’s smile. “Perhaps not so much now.”
“The sea. The sea is where we belong.”
His good mood evaporated like the morning mist when the sonar operator reported, “Two more objects have joined the first, sir, slightly smaller than the first. Their speed has increased to thirty-two knots.”
With a frown, he turned to Aleyev. “Reduce speed to ten knots. I must take a look at these jet-propelled whales.”
Blue whales reached lengths of over thirty meters and could reach speeds of fifty kilometers per hour for short bursts, but these creatures, if creatures they were, were maintaining a speed of fifty-six kilometers per hour. He could not outrun them. His duty was to observe them and report them to the Navy’s Northern Fleet at Murmansk.
As the strangely behaving pod of whales drew nearer, he decided to err on the side of caution. “Mr. Aleyev, please sound general quarters.”
Aleyev nodded to the bridge watch supervisor, who keyed the ship’s intercom and announced, “Obshchiye pomeshcheniya! Obshchiye pomeshcheniya! All hands to their stations!”
Seconds later, eighty men burst from cargo hatches and hatches. Some carried axes and water buckets for fire fighting. Most simply assumed ready positions around the deck, but four men designated as ship’s security held either SKS 7.62mm carbines or Bizon 9mm machineguns, ready to repel borders if necessary. Aleyev went to the bridge arms locker and returned with Anastasiy’s old Nagant M1895 seven-shot revolver. He wore his Tokareu semiautomatic pistol in a holster around his waist. Both were 7.62mm. Aleyev was an excellent marksman, shooting at old wine bottles tossed over the side for practice. Anastasiy had not fired his weapon in over a year. He now regretted being so remiss in his duty. As captain, he should set a better example for his men.
The lookouts scanned the sea with due diligence, but saw no apparent threats. They turned to look up at their captain as he stood on the bridge. He understood their confusion. He felt he owed them an explanation. Taking the intercom microphone, he said, “Gentlemen, we are whale watching, but these are very large whales moving quickly toward us. If they nuzzle our Usiliya too closely like a love-sick suitor, we must dissuade them from harming her. Shoot them only if they pose a threat. We do not want the United Nations to accuse us of illegal whale harvesting.”
This drew a few chuckles from the crew and lightened the mood on deck.
“The whales are one thousand meters dead astern,” the sonarman called out, “closing quickly.”
If his duty required him to destroy the whales, he would do so, but he did not take pleasure in the killing of defenseless creatures. With a sinking feeling deep in his stomach, Anastasiy worried that perhaps these creatures were not as defenseless as he imagined. If the mysterious pod were responsible for the sinking of so many ships, they would pose a threat to his. The water-filled double-hull was thick near the bow, but the stern was more vulnerable. A heightened sense of excitement mixed with dread coursed through his body, dispelling the chill of the air. His hands gripped the rail more tightly, as he leaned out for a closer view of the approaching creatures.
As a civilian vess
el, the Usiliya carried no deck gun or weapons more powerful than the handful of rifles, pistols, and machineguns, but she did possess explosives in her arsenal for use against larger ice floes or icebergs posing a threat to shipping. Because of the danger they posed to the ship, he would use explosives only as a last resort.
“I see them!” one of the lookouts called out.
So did Anastasiy, about three hundred meters away. As soon as the pale gray dorsal fins broke the surface like the sails of a regatta of racing yachts, he knew these were not blue whales or any other kind of whale with which he was familiar after over forty years at sea. Three fins, each over five meters in height, marked the positions of three massive sharks cutting the water just below the surface and closing steadily with his ship. Their sleek form reminded him of Great Whites except for their remarkable size. The longest of the sharks measured over twenty meters from nose to tip of its caudal fin tail. The pair flanking it were slightly smaller, but giants in their own right.
This explains the poor fishing season.
“You men with the Bizons,” he called down. “Go aft and stand ready.” He could not believe even creatures as large as these would attack a ship seven times their size, but his mother did not raise a fool. Better to be safe than sorry.
The trio of sharks continued to close with his ship. As the largest lifted its head from the water, Anastasiy saw that its eyes were the same pale white as the ice. Could it be blind? He knew sharks hunted by smell and vibrations in the water, but how could they locate his ship among the ice floes?
“They’re submerging!” the lookout shouted.
Sure enough, all three fins disappeared beneath the water. He tensed, wondering what was to follow. Would they be so bold as to attack his ship, or were they merely curious? His answer came a few moments later, when the deck canted forward, as the stern lifted from the water. The sound of the impact rang the hull like the bells of St. Ambrose Cathedral in Tsilik.
“Report any damage,” he yelled; then, waited breathlessly for the damage report.
“Minor damage to outer hull near the engine room,” Aleyev reported.
Anastasiy shook his head. What would drive sharks to attack a moving vessel? Where had such monsters come from? He remembered the reports floating about after the American drillship disaster. The solitary survivor had reported an undersea cavern collapsing. He, too, had seen a large gray fin, but later recanted his story. Anastasiy suspected the authorities had silenced him. For all their boasts of freedom, the Americans were as quick to drop a veil of secrecy over something they wished to remain unknown, as was his government.
The barking sound of a Bizon drew his attention to the stern. One of the crew was firing into the water. The outline of the shark was visible just below the surface. Anastasiy knew the bullets would not penetrate the water very deeply and would do little damage to a creature so large if they did. They would need something more powerful than the Bizon to stop these creatures.
“Evgeni, please bring the package of RAMS.”
The remotely activated munitions system, pre-packed one-kilo blocks of C4 plastique equipped with an attached radio-activated detonation device, allowed a person to position the necessary amount of explosives at the weakest point of a small iceberg or ice sheet and detonate it from a safe distance. Under normal circumstances, he would never use a RAM so close to his ship, but something in the determined manner in which the sharks cooperated in the attack overcame his caution.
While Aleyev was gone, the sharks attacked again, this time as a team, slamming the stern from both sides. The ship shuddered, knocking several men to the deck. One crewman toppled from his duty station near the starboard lifeboat into the water. Before anyone could shout ‘Man Overboard,’ the sharks were upon him. The largest swallowed him completely in one bite.
This time, damage control reported several leaks in the engine room and starboard hold. If the engine room flooded, they would be adrift and at the mercy of the creatures and the sea. If he did nothing, the creatures would shake his ship apart around him and more men would die.
He called Antonov Dreski to the bridge. The native Siberian had hunted seals, walrus, and whales before joining the merchant marines. If anyone could place a harpoon into one of the creatures, it would be he.
“Antonov,” he said when the tall, broad-shouldered Yuit-Eskimo stood before him. “Do you think you could hit one of the sharks with the harpoon and norsaq adorning the wall of the wardroom?”
The Yuit smiled. “If it is a true harpoon and throwing stick and not some cheap trade trinket sold as trade goods.”
“It is real, given to me by a Chukchi chief. I have need of your skill.”
Aleyev arrived with the neoprene case containing the explosives. Anastasiy showed Dreski one of the RAMs. “How far can you throw the harpoon with one of these attached?”
Dreski picked up one of the RAMs and hefted it in his hand. The one-kilo RAM weighed as much as the harpoon. He nodded his confidence. “Easily twenty meters.”
The stern lifted again as the sharks rammed the keel. He wondered how they knew the steel was thinner there. The damage alarm sounded.
The damage crew chief reported, “Engineering reports a substantial breach in one of the welds. We can slow the flow of water, but we cannot sustain many such hits.”
“Helmsman, tell the engine room to be ready for flank speed at my command.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aleyev looked at him and nodded his approval. They could not outrun the sharks, but a bloody corpse in the water might draw their attention from the ship long enough for them to get away.
“Come, Antonov. It is time to test your skill. Aleyev, remain on the bridge. As soon as Antonov kills one of the creatures, you will order full speed.”
“Da, Captain.”
The three sharks circled a short distance off the ship’s starboard beam, churning the water in a frenzied dance, as if they could sense the breech in the hull; tasted the spoor of man in the water and anticipated a forthcoming feast. The largest animal remained too far away for a harpoon strike, but the two smaller creatures brushed the ship as if familiarizing themselves with it.
After taping the RAM to the harpoon a short distance from the iron tip, Dreski shed his heavy coat and stripped to his long-sleeved shirt. Paying no attention to the bitter cold, he placed the deadly harpoon into the wooden norsaq and cocked his arm for throwing, waiting silent and motionless. Like a part of the ship, he stood watching the sharks. One of the sharks surfaced less than ten meters from the ship moving away from the ship presenting its broad back. Dreski took several running steps, and using the full weight of his body to propel the harpoon, released it. The harpoon arced high into the air, wobbling in its flight. Anastasiy feared the harpoon would fall short, but it found its mark in the shark’s body two meters behind the dorsal fin.
Anastasiy pressed the button on the detonator, and the RAM exploded. It produced no bright flash, just a muffled thud, as the shaped charge sent its full force into the shark’s body. A geyser of flesh and blood spewed into the air amid cheers from the crew.
Anastasiy pumped his fist into the air. “Yes!” He slapped Dreski on the back. “I will double your vodka ration for this feat, Antonov.”
Dreski smiled. “Too bad I cannot mount a trophy.”
Anastasiy took his cell phone from his pocket and snapped several photos of the dead shark floating in the water. “Perhaps this will do,” he said.
The large shark attacked the dead animal, removing chunks of flesh the size of small motor launch. Blood filled the water. The remaining smaller shark warily circled the larger, trying to snatch morsels of the prize.
He waved at Aleyev. “Full speed, Evengi!”
The ship shuddered as the engines churned up the water behind them. As the icebreaker pulled away from the scene of the slaughter, Anastasiy knew they had been lucky. He had lost one crewman and his ship had suffered damage in the bizarre encounter between machine
and monster, but they could make port. If more of the creatures swam the waters of the Arctic Ocean, shipping could come to a standstill.
Aleyev was right. The thrill of the hunt still burned deep within him. He felt more alive than he had in many years. He could not retire as long as creatures such as these remained at large. Raisa would understand. She had married a sailor, a Russian sailor.
3
October 15, 2018 Fools Luck, Bering Sea, Alaska–
Daryl Ottman scanned the horizon, searching for the bright orange buoys marking his string of crab pots. The crab pots would mean financial life or death for his crew. The low-lying sun cast a ruddy blush across the gently undulating water, making spotting the buoys more difficult than usual. The last two strings had produced less than five-hundred pounds of red king crab, Paralithodes camtschaticus. The short four-week crabbing season would soon end. If this last string proved as disappointing as had the others, they would all go home broke; not what he wanted for his first season as captain of his own boat.
Technically, the aptly named Fool’s Luck, a seventy-eight-foot, one-hundred-thirty-ton steel-hulled multiuse boat out of Homer, Alaska, had belonged to his father Horace Ottman, but an accident the previous salmon season had left his father crippled, barely able to walk with a walker. Now, the boat and the bank lien were Daryl’s, and he had hoped to carry on his father’s tradition of leading the fleet in king crab tonnage each season. Unfortunately, there seemed little chance of that.
He was not alone in his crabbing woes. From chatter over the radio, Straight Shooter, Cutty Sark, Demon Rum, and Sundowner were having no better luck. No one had heard from Casey’s Chariot in a couple of days. Either she had given up already and gone back to port, or her radio was dead. That did not make him feel any better. He had a family to feed, new wife and child, and a mortgage on a house. His crew worked on a percentage basis. They expected him to take them to the mother lode of crabs, as his father always had, and make them rich. He would be lucky to pay for fuel.
In the 80s, the crab fleet harvest was two-hundred-million pounds. Last season, it had been less than twenty-million pounds. This year, half as many boats were in the water as the previous season. He had barely broken even on the opilio tanner snow crab catch a month earlier. Chirinoecetis opilio had been his mainstay, as steady as any marine creature could be. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council imposed a short season and strictly enforced restrictions on crab size, but the plan was not working. If things did not improve, the crabbing fleet would go the way of the tuna fleet.