by JE Gurley
“No. Their signal is very weak. I do not think anyone can hear it but us.”
Anastasiy rubbed his chin as he thought. “Hmm. What vessel is it?”
“The USS Sunfish.”
“Sunfish? I am not familiar with that vessel.”
“I can Google it?”
Anastasiy shook his head. It amazed him that one could learn both the number and classification of military ships from the internet. The old KGB would be rolling over in its grave. He wondered if anyone was looking up the Usiliya on their computer at that very moment.
A few minutes later, Antonov replied, “It is a Mark VI fast attack patrol boat with a crew of eight.”
A patrol boat in the Arctic Ocean? That seemed ludicrous. “Very well. Whoever it is, we cannot allow them to drown. How far away are they?”
Antonov frowned. “That is odd as well. The coordinates they give are just over a hundred miles away, but the signal seems to be coming from a source much closer.”
“Is it a trick?” Why the Americans would attempt to lure an icebreaker into a trap defied logic, but he must err on the side of caution.
“Perhaps they are using a buoy or radio beacon on the ice floe as a relay. That might explain the low signal strength.”
“Very well. Give Dimi the coordinates. We will investigate.” He turned to Dimi. “The helm is yours. I must consider our options.”
Aleyev entered the bridge. “Lookouts report nothing but ice.”
Anastasiy nodded. “Very good. Mr. Aleyev, please accompany me to my quarters.”
“Captain, should I respond to their distress call?”
Normally, he would have said yes. Men on a sinking ship needed hope, but these were trying times. “No, it is best if we slip in unannounced, just in case.”
“What distress call?” Aleyev asked, his gaze moving between the two men.
“I will explain in my cabin.”
* * * *
“I do not like it,” Aleyev complained as he sipped his glass of vodka. He leaned on the tabletop across from Anastasiy, staring intently in his captain’s eyes.
A slight sneer played on Anastasiy’s lips, as he replied, “Nor do I, but what choices have I. I will not ignore a distress call, even from an American Naval vessel.”
“Of course not,” Aleyev snapped, slamming his glass on the table. “That would be …” he searched for the proper word, “barbaric. But we must be cautious.”
“We will not go in blindly. Have Guryev arm the crew with the SKS 7.62mm carbines and the Bizon 9mm machineguns. They will be no match for an armed military vessel, but we will go in as tigers, not as sheep.” He downed his glass of vodka in one gulp. “I do not think the Americans would send a distress call if they were not in trouble. They are very near the location of the undersea cavern. Perhaps they have encountered the giant sharks.”
Aleyev shuddered. “I do not wish to meet them again.” He rose from his seat. “I will inform Kalek Guryev to arm everyone. I will also uncrate more of the RAMs just in case.”
Anastasiy nodded. The one-kilo C4 packages for ice floe demolition had worked once before on a megalodon. It increased their odds of survival. “Do so.”
As Anastasiy sat in his chair, the full weight of his responsibility seemed to press him down into the fabric of the cushion. He was no military captain. He did not wish to lead men into battle. He wanted no one to die, especially his crew. Fate, however, had placed him in the middle of a crisis, and he could not shirk his duty, both to his crew and to Mother Russia.
He glanced at the bottle of vodka longingly, but replaced the cap. He must keep a clear head. Sleep deprivation was taking its toll on him. Adding alcohol to the mix would be dangerous.
He sighed heavily. I am too old for such intrigues.
19
December 28, 2018, 9:00 p.m. USS Sunfish, Chukchi Sea–
At night on the ocean on a moonless night, the darkness becomes an ebony shroud enveloping you, muffling sounds, and tricking the ear. The ocean is a fuliginous, undulating carpet. You feel the effects of the waves, as the boat rides them up and down, but you cannot see it. From horizon to horizon, darkness prevails.
Will sat on the bow of the Sunfish, letting the night enfold him in its cool embrace. A breeze carried off the worst of the sulfur stench rising from the dark water. With just a little imagination, he could imagine he was anywhere in the world instead of in the Arctic on a sinking ship. So far, they had heard no reply to their Mayday. The drones, powered by solar cells, would soon lose power and drop into the ocean, ending their last chance at rescue. The Utah had not made an appearance, nor had the Arctic Fleet. They were alone.
He saw a flicker of light as a cigarette butt arced from amidships and disappeared into the water. He glanced back and saw Asa standing by the open door. His face, bathed by the dim emergency light inside the cabin, bore a dour expression.
“It’s been six hours and nothing,” he said. “I don’t think anyone heard us.”
Will sighed. His moment of solitude was gone, and the immediate problems of the real world were reasserting themselves. “It was worth a shot.”
“Maybe, but without the pumps, we’re doomed.” He glanced back at the cabin as the emergency light flickered. “We’re almost out of battery power. When it’s gone …”
He did not need to complete his thought. Will knew they would sink. The Sunfish already rode eight inches lower in the water than when they had arrived at the subsea cavern. The Zodiac was gone, destroyed in the shark attack. When the boat sank, they would be adrift in small rubber rafts. He did not want to consider that possibility.
“Don’t give up hope,” he advised, though hope was running thin for him as well.
“Oh, I still have hope,” Asa said. “I hope I freeze to death in the water rather than end up in the belly of that megalodon.”
He had not forgotten the giant shark, but Asa’s remark brought it back clearly. They had seen no sign of it since the battle at the Vanguard. Had the Utah caught up with it and killed it? Where was the sub? He rose from his seat. Before they lost power entirely, he would make one last broadcast, a dying effort.
“Grayson, crank up the radio. See what’s out there.”
Grayson roused himself from his seat and yawned. “Juice is almost gone,” he warned.
“Just do it.”
The crackle of the radio sounded weak to him. He hoped the drones were still up there. After positioning them, Grayson had set them on autopilot and switched off the remote controls to conserve battery. A faint hiss, and then a series of taps erupted from the speaker. Grayson almost slid from his seat in his excitement.
“I’ve got something! I’ve got something!”
Will’s heart pounded. He hoped Grayson had managed to contact someone with clear orders, relieve him of his responsibility. “Who is it?”
A wide grin creased Grayson’s tired face. “It’s the Utah. No voice, just Morse. The signal is very weak.” He glanced down. “They must be directly below us.”
Will grabbed the mic from Grayson’s hand and in Morse, code typed out, “Utah. This is the USS Sunfish. What is your situation?” using the mic’s talk button.
He listened to the faint reply, also in Morse using short sentences for clarity in case of signal loss. “Sunfish, this is Commander Prescott. Boat crippled after encountering giant megalodon. Seven-hundred-fifty feet down inside the cavern resting on a ledge. Engine room flooded. Reactor losing coolant. Sixty-six dead, twenty injured. Sixty-nine survivors. Can you relay a message to Fleet for a DSRV?”
Will swore off-mic, and then tapped, “Negative, Commander. We have no long-distance communication capability and zero contact with the fleet.”
After a pause, Prescott replied, “Copy, Sunfish.”
“Roger, Utah. Did you contact the fleet before following the megalodon?”
The reply faded in and out. Will had to strain to separate the dits and dashes from the static. “Negative. No communication wi
th fleet. Repeat, negative on communication with fleet.”
The cabin spun around Will. He gripped the console to stay on his feet, as he fought back the dark, dizzying fog threatening to consume him. He needed sleep, and the news from the Utah was the last thing he expected, the last thing his crew needed to hear. The fleet was not coming. They had no idea where the Sunfish, the Utah, or the last remaining megalodon were. A sunken sub and a crippled and sinking fast attack boat: hardly the armada he had hoped for to engage the megalodon.
“We’ll be standing by, Utah. If we receive any word, I’ll relay. Sunfish out.”
He gripped the silent mic hard enough to imprint the grooves of the microphone body into his flesh. Both he and the sub’s captain knew that was all he could do, stand by over the dying sub to shoo the flies away. He felt it served no purpose to inform the sub’s commander that the Sunfish might soon join them in the briny deep.
“I don’t know if they received that last, Skipper. The thermals are wreaking havoc with the signal.”
“That tears it,” Asa growled. “We’re royally screwed now.”
Simon had been listening from the galley table. “Those poor men,” he said.
“Poor us,” Asa replied.
Will needed to maintain contact with the Utah, if for no other reason than to keep them company. “Grayson, break out the SeaFox.”
The SeaFox Mk-II was an unmanned underwater mine detection and disposal tool, a mini-ROV controlled by a fiber optic cable from a mobile modular console. After locating the sunken sub and positioning it near the sub’s photonic mast, he could use the lights on the ROV as a signal lamp.
“Aye, sir,” Grayson replied. “Haig, can you lend a hand?”
The DSV pilot nodded and joined Grayson. Fifteen minutes later, they came on deck bearing a four-foot-long cylinder with four smaller tubes attached. Each tube bore a thruster on the rear for propulsion. A fifth thruster at the nose controlled vertical movement. The entire device weighed less than ninety pounds. They also carried a reel containing three-thousand feet of fiber optic cable and a small laptop control unit. Haig set up the control panel, while Grayson attached one end of the thin fiber-optic the cable to the rear of the laptop and the other end into an input at the rear of the SeaFox. While they did this, Will removed the small explosive device used to detonate mines and replaced it with underwater lights and a High-Definition CCTV camera.
“Won’t the sonar attract the megalodon?” Simon asked.
“We’ll use it sparingly. Once we locate the sub, we’ll fly by wire. If all the creatures down there are blind, the lights shouldn’t attract them.”
“Can we do anything for them?”
Will swallowed the lump in his throat to keep his emotions from his voice. “No. We’re just keeping them company. If anyone arrives in time, we’ll know where they are; however,” he paused, “it’s unlikely any ships that arrive will carry a DSRV. There’s very little hope of saving them.”
“That sucks,” Simon said.
“Yes, it does,” Will agreed. “Big time.”
Will, Asa, Levitt, and Grayson lowered the ROV over the side, while Haig controlled it from the mobile unit sitting cross-legged on the rear deck. They all crowded around to watch the small screen on the laptop. At first, they saw nothing in the murky water; then, at the edge of the light field, they saw clouds of pastel gray plankton and small ribbon snails undulating like rippling leaves. Fish with bony plates on their heads darted in and out of the plankton cloud with open mouths.
Asa jerked back when a large gray shape passed by the ROV only a dozen yards away.
“It’s okay,” Simon told him. “It’s not a megalodon. It’s a cetotheium, an early whale. Watch.” The twenty-foot long cetacean opened its mouth and glide along the edge of the plankton. “It’s a plankton eater. It has baleen instead of teeth.”
“How do you know so much about whales?” Asa asked.
“When I learned about the megalodon, I studied the Miocene Epoch.”
Asa shook his head. “Wait. Aren’t whales air breathers? Why haven’t we seen any on the surface?”
“There must be air pockets down there produced by the kelp. Maybe the air on the surface tastes different to them. Or maybe they’re afraid of the megalodon.”
The ROV entered an area of empty darkness. Haig watched a small screen in the lower right corner of the main screen, the sonar screen. He pinged the sonar every so often. Finally, he located the sunken sub. He entered the coordinates into the computers and let the ROV follow the course. Fifteen minutes later, the dark hulk of the Utah appeared from the surrounding darkness, resting on a ledge just barely large enough to hold it.
Haig whistled. “If it hadn’t found that ledge, the bottom is below the sub’s crush depth. They got lucky.”
“In a relative manner of speaking,” Asa said. Haig shot him a dirty look.
Haig took the ROV on a tour of the submarine’s exterior, at least the accessible port side. The sub had been through a battle. Streams of bubbles leaked from several ruptured seams just forward of the engine room. The crushed bow protruded at an odd angle. Several of the masts on the sail had sheared away.
“She’s going nowhere,” he whispered. He moved the ROV to the two photonic masts. One was a broken stub. He nudged the intact one several times with the ROV, producing a loud metallic clang. A few moments later, an exterior light flashed on, indicating the camera was operational. “They know we’re here.” He turned to Will. “Okay. What do you want me to tell them?”
Will took a deep breath. The captain of the Utah would know he was lying if he said help was on the way. He would not build their hopes that way. “Ask him his condition.”
Haig toggled the control for the ROV lights and waited for an answer. “Stern section abandoned. C-and-C and crews quarters sealed off. Scrubbers nearing maximum. Batteries low.”
Will shook his head. Once the carbon dioxide scrubbers went, the gas would build up to a lethal level. The future looked dark for the trapped crew. “Ask them if they know where the megalodon is.”
“It disappeared after damaging them, but the captain thinks it went back into the next chamber.”
“Can they use their rescue suits to buy some time?” he asked Haig. The Navy diver was more familiar with submarine rescue than he was.
Each submarine carried Mk11 Submarine Escape Immersion Ensemble suits, a full body garment designed to inflate and allow the wearer to reach the surface from a depth of six hundred feet, well above the Utah’s current depth, but they had been tested, unmanned, to eight-hundred feet. Once on the surface, the thermal suit inflated into a small raft. Theoretically, they could reach the surface, but he had no room on the Sunfish for more than a dozen. In the frigid water, they would not survive long.
Haig shook his head. “Each SEIE suit only supplies a few minutes of air, enough to reach the surface. They could replenish them with air from divers’ tanks, but I doubt he has enough suits.”
“Ask anyway. Maybe the captain can come up with a solution.”
The reply came, “Saving SEIEs for emergency. Divers’ compartment flooded. Cannot reach rubber rafts.”
“See if … see if any of his crew would like to relay any messages to family.”
Given their own situation, he couldn’t guarantee they would ever reach their destinations, but it might offer the doomed crew some solace.
Haig looked up with a tear in his eye. He brushed it away. “He says thanks. He will relay to crew.”
Will slammed his fist into the cabin bulkhead; then, rubbed his bloody knuckles. The pain helped him focus his thoughts on solutions rather than succumb to despair. “Damn it to hell! There has to be something we can do.”
“Easy, Captain,” Haig said. “He’s trained for this situation. You’re not. I’m sure he’s aware of the odds. It’s part of the job. He knows that if you could help, you would. All we can do is wait.”
Will nodded. “If someone heard our distress cal
l, they might stand a chance.”
“If they arrive soon enough,” Haig reminded him. “We don’t know how badly damaged the Utah is. It sounds as if the damage is extensive. The pressure at that depth is over 325 PSI. Any weak seams will expand. If the reactor is leaking …” He shrugged. “Any help will have to show up soon.”
Haig closed the lid on the laptop to conserve power. They all sat on the rear deck. The yellowish glow of the emergency lights in the cabin enhanced the looks of gloom and concern marking their faces. Each one knew their fate might soon be the same as that of the men trapped below them. Will knew it was his job to keep up their morale, convince them things weren’t as dark as they seemed, but try as he might, sitting in the dark, he could not find the kind of courage it took in his despondent heart.
Slowly, one by one, they rose and drifted off, leaving him alone on the deck to contemplate his future.
* * * *
December 29, 2018, 1:45 a.m. USS Utah, Chukchi Sea–
Captain Prescott appreciated the contact with the Sunfish. Trapped beneath the ocean, the presence of another human being, even one a tantalizing seven-hundred-fifty feet away made the waiting less daunting. He had come to terms with his mortality, but he regretted his actions had endangered his crew. Many were dead. All faced death.
He could save a few. The crew knew that, although no one had yet mentioned it. The SEIE suits would allow them to reach the surface, but only fifteen suits were accessible. The rest were stored in the aft cargo escape trunk, an impossible one-hundred-ten feet away through a flooded boat. Who could he choose to save—the officers, the injured, hold a lottery for the lucky few, charge for them, and die a rich man? That time had not yet arrived. He would not give up hope until he was gasping on his last breath of stale air.
Around him, the expressions on the crews’ young faces ranged from pallid with fear to stoic acceptance. They were submariners. They knew the risks every time they left port. Odds were that one time they would not return. This was that time.